Khal Drogo

[klye 0]

Ok... so here is another rules question:

The text on Khal dorgo (core)  states:

Response: After you win a challenge, put Khal Drogo into play from your hand. At the end of the phase, return Khal Drogo to his owner's hand.

So we were wondering, what if he is already on the table and a challenge is won.  Could we trigger the response?  Sure, we cant put him into play, he's already in play.  But, could we return him to our hand at the end of the phase?

We are thinking of it in terms of a strange mechanic to eventually bring back attachments via a location card in play.
 

[Bomb 66]

You only have to follow the rest of that text if you choose to use the ability.  Anything that starts with "Phase:" or "Response:" is optional to the player who controls that card.  Therefore, the only way you need to bring Khal Drogo back into your hand is if you put him into play by using his ability.

[schrecklich 0]

 It is true that you do not have to trigger the response, but the question being asked here is can you if you want to.  I don't see any reason why you couldn't.  The card should say something like "trigger this effect only while Khal Drogo is in your hand" if it were not supposed to be actionable while Khal Drago was in play.  There is no "then" or "if you do" linking the two effects, so they should both work independently.

[klye 0]

Exactly.  I know it's my option to use the response.  We wondered if he HAD to be in hand in order to remove him from play later.  Again, it more about if he's already in play and we choose to use the response.  Does he go into our hand at the end of the phase?  I think so, as there is no "If so then..." bewteen the two conclusions of the response.

[Saturnine 47]

 We know that card abilities cannot be triggered from an out of play unless the ability specifically allows you to. I'm not sure that this implies such an ability can only be triggered while they are in that out-of-play area, but that's how I would play it. To me, the effect cannot only not resolve successfully, but it cannot even initiate successfully. But I'm curious to hear ktom on this.

 

While we are talking about Khal Drogo and out-of-play states, what happens if you put Khal Drogo into play from your hand using his ability, but he gets killed or discarded during the phase. Is the lasting effect created by his ability able to "find" him while he's in an out-of-play area, returning him to my hand from the dead or discard pile, or does the effect just fizzle out?

[schrecklich 0]

 Saturnine, that is good question.  Cards like The Wall and Mammoth Riders from the Defenders cycle have similar abilities to Khal Drogo but specify that the card must still be in play in order to be returned to hand.  It seems like it is implied that Khal Drogo should be returned to hand from play since he is put into play from hand, but I am not sure since the "if he is still in play" text is not present.

While we're discussing weird Khal Drogo corner cases, I'll quote another ruling from Rogue30's site:

You can use "put into play" effect to put a second copy of a unique card that you already have in play as a dupe on the first. At the end of the phase, the dupe would be discarded and the "original" would go back to your hand. The dupe would not go back to your hand because when it became a dupe, it stopped being "Khal Drogo" and became a traitless, titleless, textless dupe - so a second copy of "Khal Drogo" was not in play. And you could not use the dupe to save Khal Drogo from being returned to your hand at the end of the phase because you are not allowed to trigger any Response effects at the end of the phase.

[Saturnine 47]

schrecklich said:

 

You can use "put into play" effect to put a second copy of a unique card that you already have in play as a dupe on the first. At the end of the phase, the dupe would be discarded and the "original" would go back to your hand. The dupe would not go back to your hand because when it became a dupe, it stopped being "Khal Drogo" and became a traitless, titleless, textless dupe - so a second copy of "Khal Drogo" was not in play. And you could not use the dupe to save Khal Drogo from being returned to your hand at the end of the phase because you are not allowed to trigger any Response effects at the end of the phase.

 

 

That's odd, because I seem to remember a discussion on this with a different ruling, in which the Khal-Drogo-turned-dupe stays in play as well as the "original" copy of Khal Drogo. The reasoning was that the ability on Khal Drogo is self-referential and cannot apply to any other card (even with the same title). The dupe does not qualify for the lasting to return Khal Drogo to hand, because as you said, it is titleless. But that does not "transfer" the effect onto the proper Khal Drogo in play (otherwise, what would stop me from returning an opponent's Khal Drogo to hand, for example).

[Rogue30 60]

Note that above "ruling" is to answer typical question when you put both Khals using it's response (playing Drogo is rare thing).

Saturnine said:

I'm not sure that this implies such an ability can only be triggered while they are in that out-of-play area, but that's how I would play it.

Yes, I believe that's correct.

 

Saturnine said:

Is the lasting effect created by his ability able to "find" him while he's in an out-of-play area, returning him to my hand from the dead or discard pile, or does the effect just fizzle out?

Lasting effects end when card leaves play. It is not necessary for a card to say "if it is in play".

[Saturnine 47]

Rogue30 said:

Note that above "ruling" is to answer typical question when you put both Khals using it's response (playing Drogo is rare thing).

Ah, I see. That bit of information was missing in the quote.

[ktom 598]

OK. You guys may be getting pretty far afield on some questions that actually have some pretty simple answers.

klye said:

So we were wondering, what if he is already on the table and a challenge is won. Could we trigger the response? Sure, we cant put him into play, he's already in play. But, could we return him to our hand at the end of the phase?

No. You cannot trigger the Response. You answer your own question here without realizing it, I think. Part of the play restrictions for putting Khal Drogo into play from your hand with this effect is that he must actually be in your hand. So if he is on the table (or more to the point, if he is not in your hand), you do not meet the play restrictions on the effect. If you do not meet the play restrictions, you cannot trigger the effect. End of story.

klye said:

We are thinking of it in terms of a strange mechanic to eventually bring back attachments via a location card in play.

Just to be sure, Dany's Chambers only lets you bring back attachments when you play a card from your hand. If you use Khal Drogo's "put into play" effect, you have not met the play restrictions on Dany's Chambers and thus cannot get an attachment back. So even if you could use Drogo's ability from the table, you'd have to play him by paying the 4 gold price tag in the Marshaling phase. There are probably better (or at least cheaper) ways to activate Dany's Chambers than playing the same 4-cost character each round.

schrecklich said:

The card should say something like "trigger this effect only while Khal Drogo is in your hand" if it were not supposed to be actionable while Khal Drago was in play. There is no "then" or "if you do" linking the two effects, so they should both work independently.

See above on play restrictions. It doesn't need to say "while Drogo is in your hand" because in order to "put him into play from your hand," he must be there. Even though the 2 are independent effects, they share the same trigger, which means the play restrictions for the trigger (the card being in your hand) must be true before you can ever activate the Response in the first place.

schrecklich said:

Saturnine, that is good question. Cards like The Wall and Mammoth Riders from the Defenders cycle have similar abilities to Khal Drogo but specify that the card must still be in play in order to be returned to hand. It seems like it is implied that Khal Drogo should be returned to hand from play since he is put into play from hand, but I am not sure since the "if he is still in play" text is not present.

The "if in play" text does not actually have to be there. The rules state that any lasting effect on a card ends when the card leaves play. So the "return to hand" effect that was attached to Khal Drogo when he entered play disappears when he leaves play before the end of the phase - the same as a "character gains Stealth until the end of the phase" or a "character gains an intrigue icon until the end of the phase" effect would disappear if the character leaves play before the end of the phase.

The "if still in play" text was added to those other cards as a clarifying text because so many people keep asking this question.

Saturnine said:

That's odd, because I seem to remember a discussion on this with a different ruling, in which the Khal-Drogo-turned-dupe stays in play as well as the "original" copy of Khal Drogo. 

This is completely true. The context that is missing from schrecklich's find is that both of those copies of Khal Drogo were dropped into play for winning the same challenge, so the "original" had its own "return to hand" effect on it.

 

[Saturnine 47]

 Thanks for clarifying, ktom

[schrecklich 0]

 So how do you distinguish between a play restriction and the effect of an ability?  The "after" clauses on most Response effects are pretty clearly play restrictions.  So is any explicit condition such as that on Trident Reinforcements ("Use this ability if there are at least 3 characters in your dead pile.") or an "if" clause like that on Varys ("If you have more than one opponent,") or a timing word like "Dominance." These are the kinds of things given as examples in the FAQ.  You could also call the existence of valid targets a play restriction since that is also mentioned in the FAQ as being necessary for an ability with a target to initiate.  I assume save/cancel responses must have a valid target even though they do not use the word choose.

The wording on Khal Drog is less clear to me:

"After you win a challenge, put Khal Drogo into play from your hand. At the end of the phase, return Khal Drogo to his owner's hand."

"After you win a challenge" is clearly a play restriction.  Why is "from your hand?" Is there a general rule that whenever something says "from X" where X is some zone other than in play that the card must be in that zone for the ability to be actionable?  That seems like the most plausible argument.  I could also see some sort of argument involving the effect needing to be able to resolve successfully in order for it to be initiated, but I don't think that that is a general principle since I think some effects with two parts can be initiated even if only one part can resolve successfully.

Also, sorry about the confusion with the other quote.  I was just quoting from Rogue30's site.  He tends to save tricky rulings in the comments section of each card entry, so I usually look there first when trying to interpret a puzzling card interaction.

[Bomb 66]

schrecklich said:

 So how do you distinguish between a play restriction and the effect of an ability?  The "after" clauses on most Response effects are pretty clearly play restrictions.  So is any explicit condition such as that on Trident Reinforcements ("Use this ability if there are at least 3 characters in your dead pile.") or an "if" clause like that on Varys ("If you have more than one opponent,") or a timing word like "Dominance." These are the kinds of things given as examples in the FAQ.  You could also call the existence of valid targets a play restriction since that is also mentioned in the FAQ as being necessary for an ability with a target to initiate.  I assume save/cancel responses must have a valid target even though they do not use the word choose.

The wording on Khal Drog is less clear to me:

"After you win a challenge, put Khal Drogo into play from your hand. At the end of the phase, return Khal Drogo to his owner's hand."

"After you win a challenge" is clearly a play restriction.  Why is "from your hand?" Is there a general rule that whenever something says "from X" where X is some zone other than in play that the card must be in that zone for the ability to be actionable?  That seems like the most plausible argument.  I could also see some sort of argument involving the effect needing to be able to resolve successfully in order for it to be initiated, but I don't think that that is a general principle since I think some effects with two parts can be initiated even if only one part can resolve successfully.

Also, sorry about the confusion with the other quote.  I was just quoting from Rogue30's site.  He tends to save tricky rulings in the comments section of each card entry, so I usually look there first when trying to interpret a puzzling card interaction.

I think the best counter argument for this instance would be the fact that it's not split up into two different "Response:"'s.  You cannot split up the text of a response like that.  Some cards have two abilities that are independent of each other.

If you could choose which one to do, then the card would read:

"Response: After you win a challenge, put Khal Drogo into play from your hand."
"Response: At the end of the phase, return Khal Drogo to his owner's hand."

Each ability has a different trigger here. 
Ability 1 has "After you win a challenge... do something."
Ability 2 has "At the end of the phase... do something."

You could trigger ability 2 if it's reached "At the end of the phase."
 

There is currently only one trigger for the ability on the card for "Response: After you win a challenge, put Khal Drogo into play from your hand. At the end of the phase, return Khal Drogo to his owner's hand." and that is "After you win a challenge... do something.".  You can't trigger this ability without winning a challenge, but you also can't trigger this ability without having Khal Drogo in your hand and putting him into play.   You need to fulfill the conditions of that entire sentence in order for this entire ability to be triggered.

"Then, " is used as a "when" to act on the next part of the ability.  "At the end of the phase, " is the "when" for acting on this part of Khal Drogo's ability in particular.  That is why "Then, " is not used.  "Then, " means "do this next".  "At the end of the phase, " can't possibly be next, so it's telling you when to finish using this ability.

[ktom 598]

schrecklich said:

Why is "from your hand?" Is there a general rule that whenever something says "from X" where X is some zone other than in play that the card must be in that zone for the ability to be actionable?  That seems like the most plausible argument.

That is the reasoning and/or argument. FFG has never felt the need to write it down beyond the general "cards effects can only be triggered when the card is in play, unless otherwise specified" and letting the logical corollary (if an effect specifies that it is triggered from out of play, that is the only place it is triggered from - unless otherwise specified; consider the Bannermen) be made. However, the recent addition to the FAQ clearly specifying that the event effects of "events-made-attachments" like "You Writ Small" cannot be used while they are in play (because of the inherent need for an event to be triggered from hand) is an example of the applicability of the reasoning.

schrecklich said:

I could also see some sort of argument involving the effect needing to be able to resolve successfully in order for it to be initiated, but I don't think that that is a general principle since I think some effects with two parts can be initiated even if only one part can resolve successfully.

This one we actually know is not true. We are told specifically that so long as you can successfully initiate the effect (legally), you don't need any hope or assurance that the effect can resolve successfully. You are more than welcome to pay the costs with the intent that the effects fizzle - except under certain circumstances.

[Saturnine 47]

Bomb said:

You could trigger ability 2 if it's reached "At the end of the phase."

 

Small caveat: The end-of-the-phase framework action window does not allow for any responses to be triggered.

[Bomb 66]

Saturnine said:

Bomb said:

 

You could trigger ability 2 if it's reached "At the end of the phase."

 

 

 

Small caveat: The end-of-the-phase framework action window does not allow for any responses to be triggered.

No problem - I was simply trying to make a point.