Draft of CoE Digest #205 Q3 - Playing ahunts in response - Open until June 26th

[Manuel]

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3) After the review period, the RC will carefully consider everyone's contributions, revise the draft as appropriate, and then the Digest will be published and official.

Can an “Ahunt” Dragon card by played in response to another action?

The primary rule regarding when cards-that-initiate-attacks can be played is Annotation 15 (which can be found in the CRF under Turn Sequence Rulings), and clarified by the CoE in 2002:

Annotation 15: An attack must be the first declared action in a chain of effects; i.e., a creature card may not be played in response to another card in the same chain of effects. Revealing an on-guard creature is an exception.

Any card that has the potential to immediately create an attack is considered an attack for purposes of interpreting Annotation 15. [CoE 2002]

Creatures and certain events, such as Tidings of Bold Spies, immediately initiate an attack when they resolve, meaning that you can’t play them in response to another action, per Annotation 15.

However, “Ahunt” Dragon cards are not normal creature cards, but rather long-events with passive conditions. As such, they don’t initiate an attack against a relevant moving company upon resolution, but rather create a passive condition that will initiate an attack against that company as the first action declared in the subsequent chain of effects, per Annotation 9:

Annotation 9: If a card specifies that an action is to occur as a result of some specific passive condition, this action becomes automatically the first action declared in the chain of effects to immediately follow the chain of effects producing the passive condition. The passive condition must exist when this resulting action is resolved in its own chain of effects, or the action is canceled. Note that actions in the strike sequence follow a different set of rules.

ICE Digest 56 confirms that Annotation 9 is the correct rule to apply to “Ahunt” Dragons rather than Annotation 15:

Query 4: Do the X “Roused” cards say that you face the attack at the beginning of the M/H phase? I thought they functioned like “Ahunt” Dragons, where the hazard player could choose when to apply the attack. Am I wrong here?

Yes. Both the “Roused” and “Ahunt” Dragon manifestations attack at the begining [sic] of the movement/hazard phase, their attack being the first declared effect in the first chain of effects after the new site has been revealed (with the right region in the site path). The only exception is the turn the “Ahunt” is played, where the attack will be the first declared effect in the first chain of effects after the “Ahunt” resolves.

The same is true for other events that initiate attacks via a passive condition after resolution, such as Mordor in Arms or Spider of the Morlat. These types of cards are playable in response to other actions because they don’t immediately initiate an attack when they resolve, thus not violating Annotation 15.

However, there is a unique problem with the “Ahunt” Dragons, which is that they contain the word “immediately” in their printed text. Take Agburanar Ahunt as an example:

LONG-EVENT
Unique. Any company moving in Withered Heath, Northern Rhovanion, Iron Hills, and/or Grey Mountain Narrows immediately faces one Dragon attack (considered a hazard creature attack) — 3 strikes at 13/8. If Doors of Night is in play, this attack also affects: Southern Rhovanion, Dorwinion, Heart of Mirkwood, and Woodland Realm.

Ostensibly, the use of the word “immediately” on the these cards, as opposed to other similar events that initiate attacks via a passive condition, implies that the attack initiates as soon as the card itself resolves (again, assuming the condition is met). This would cause many problems in terms of timing; to give just a couple of examples, an “Ahunt” Dragon card that is already in play would initiate an attack as soon as a new site card is revealed while other passive conditions paradoxically remain unresolved in the same chain of effects at the start of the movement/hazard phase, and/or an opponent wouldn’t be able to target and discard an “Ahunt” Dragon card with a resource like Marvels Told when it is first played. To this second point however, ICE’s NetRep Ichabod clarified that a player can Marvels Told an “Ahunt” Dragon card to prevent its attack in ICE Digest 94:

QUERY 2

1. If an “Ahunt” Dragon is played during the M/H phase and its attack is triggered by the company’s movement, will removing the “Ahunt” long-event with Marvels Told stop the attack?

Yes. When a long or permanent-event is discarded by another card, it immediately ceases to have an effect on play.

And this was reiterated by NetRep Van in ICE Digest 579:

QUERY 1

3. This last one is a timing question. Basically, when do the effects on a hazard/resource long/permanent-event take place? For example, if I go to play Long Winter, and my opponent doesn’t respond to it before it comes into play, once it’s in play, do it’s effects resolve BEFORE my opponent can play Marvels Told / Voices of Malice to get rid of it? Or do the effects on the card start off a chain of events that can be responded to? Does this work the same way that an “Ahunt” Dragon, after it comes into play, can be Marvels Told(ed) to get rid of the attack?

When a long or permanent-event is triggered, it begins a chain of effects that can be responded to.

Perhaps it's possible that both NetReps were wrong regarding the timing of “Ahunt” Dragons cards, but given the aforementioned issues with treating the word “immediately” as correct, as well as the fact that there are many other cards with passive conditions that don’t use the word “immediately” (in fact, seemingly all of them), it would appear that the most likely explanation is that ICE was originally trying to add clarity when templating the “Ahunt” passive condition attacks in METD but then realized the confusion and timing issues that doing so caused and scrapped the word from passive conditions in future expansions.

Given the inherent timing problems with keeping the word “immediately” on “Ahunt” Dragons, as well as the historical precedent of ICE’s NetReps on the subject, this committee will be issuing errata for the “Ahunt” Dragons to remove the word “immediately” (and thus confirming that they can be played in response to other actions), affecting the following cards:

Agburanar Ahunt
Bairanax Ahunt
Daelomin Ahunt
Earcaraxe Ahunt
Itangast Ahunt
Leucaruth Ahunt
Scatha Ahunt
Scorba Ahunt
Smaug Ahunt

Note that this overturns CoE Rulings Digest #72 Q4 and CoE Rulings Digest #120 Q11

[Theo]

I appreciate the consideration you've put into this.

I would like to disagree on a few points.

Starting from a basis that the "immediately" wasn't for nothing, it could mean that the attack is NOT declared in the next chain of effects, but combat begins when the condition is satisfied, before any other chains. This would mean that Annotation 9 wouldn't apply, and Annotation 15 would apply. An implication is that Ichabod was technically not quite right in ICE Digest 56. (My memory is that Ichabod amended his wording around this concept several times, but I do not have the time to reiterate through all of the history at this moment.)

Where I disagree is on these claims:

This would cause many problems in terms of timing; to give just a couple of examples, an “Ahunt” Dragon card that is already in play would initiate an attack as soon as a new site card is revealed while other passive conditions paradoxically remain unresolved in the same chain of effects at the start of the movement/hazard phase,

Under the above basis, there is no "same chain of effects." I would think combat would be initiated immediately, and other passives (all of those that aren't "immediately") would be declared in the first chain of effects after combat has initiated (before assigning strikes).

an opponent wouldn’t be able to target and discard an “Ahunt” Dragon card with a resource like Marvels Told when it is first played.

Again, because the combat would be initiated not in a chain, there is time for players to declare multiple chains prior to assigning strikes, which could include Marvels Told. I believe the ICE Digests 94 refers to this option. (Normal passive attacks like Mordor in Arms do NOT allow this timing.)

At first I thought there might be a problem if multiple Ahunts were satisfied at the start of a movement/hazard phase, since Annotation 10 wouldn't apply, but I think Annotation 26 would anyway.

So, I see no problems with the basis that I suggested above, and I prefer it for not needing to ignore ICE's "immediately."

[Konrad Klar]

With "immediately":

Dark Minions: Seek without Success
Rarity: Common, Precise: C2

Hazard: Short-event

Discard a ranger agent at target company's new site. Company must immediately return to its site of origin. "'...Together we sought for Gollum down the whole length of Wilderland, without hope. And without success."-LotRI

Without "immediately":

The Balrog: Beorning Skin-changers
Rarity: Rare, Precise: R

Hazard: Creature/Short-event

Animals. Men. Bears. Two strikes. As a creature, playable only against minion companies. May also be keyed to Anduin Vales, Western Mirkwood, Wold & Foothills, and to sites in these regions. Alternatively, playable as a short-event against a moving hero company. Unless the company contains Beorn or an untapped warrior with prowess greater than 4, it must return to its site of origin.

How different is a timing of returning action of the two cards?

I am not for ignoring ICE's "immediately."
But the word was often used honestly and carelessly.
Similarly I am not for an equalization of "removing from game" and "removing from play".
But the phrases was often used interchangeably by ICE.

Again, because the combat would be initiated not in a chain, there is time for players to declare multiple chains prior to assigning strikes, which could include Marvels Told. I believe the ICE Digests 94 refers to this option. (Normal passive attacks like Mordor in Arms do NOT allow this timing.)

Sometimes a defeating of an attack eliminates an event that create the attack, sometimes not.
But in both cases an attack is faced, not event.
If company faces Rock Falls from Earth-tremors, this means that the attack has been resolved and it is too late at this point to fizzle it by discarding of Earth-tremors.

Some cards say something like :
"all effects are automatically canceled which allow a player to search through or look at any portion of his play deck or discard pile outside of the normal sequence of play"
Underline mine.

I think that there are situations when play deck/discard pile is searched according to the normal sequence of play.
When Ahunt has been discarded while the attack that it created was faced and the attack has been defeated.
Or when a company must return to its site of origin but the site card is in discard pile.

[Manuel]

Thanks everyone for your contributions. The RC will study them carefully and come up with a final digest soon.