CoE Rulings Digest #114

[zarathustra]

As a preface to this digest let me say a few words about the official rules. For a long time, the best electronic versions of the rules were located at the Dutch council's website. That, however, is no longer the case. The Council of Elrond, through the arm of the Judge Certification Project, has recently completed newly-edited electronic versions of all rules inserts. These documents are available at www.councilofelrond.org under the "Rules" tab. Please note that henceforth the documents currently available on the Dutch Council site are considered illegitimate. We at the CoE hope that soon they will choose either to make available our editions, or that they will simply cease to make claims to having the official rules. In any case, please do not reference the deficient copies currently available at the Dutch site.

Furthermore, due to the fact that Wim Heemskerk has banned me from meccg.net ("his" site), I will no longer be reading rules questions posted there or responding to private messages sent to my account at that site. If you have a rules question and would like an official answer, there are three ways you can receive one:
(a) Ask me via email,
(b) Ask on the rules forum of www.councilofelrond.org, or
(c) Ask over this email list.



And so, without any further ado, your digest:

(1) Marc Davies asked: "However when you are the non Hazard player in this situation, you MUST have the opportunity to negate an effect before it resolves and becomes a short event."
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I don't think this is a rule. You always get a chance to respond , but that does not mean that you always get a chance to negate.

(2) Marc Davies followed up: "However when you are the non Hazard player in this situation, you MUST have the opportunity to negate an effect before it resolves and becomes a short event. Am I correct in assuming when a card like this is played, there must be an opportunity to cancel it as a Perm event prior to opponent Tapping to become a short event? As with other parts of the game, you as a player ALWAYS have the opportunity to Cancel effects and are given that opportunity....
My question is this....at what stage does the timing come into effect. when the Nazgul is played as a Perm Event, doesn't the opponent have the opportunity to Remove with MT prior to 2nd part of Mov/Haz whereby they may tap it....?"
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The resource player always has the right to start the next chain of effects after the current one has unwound. In the case of a sneaky nazgul, however, there's some problems for the resource player. First of all, the play of adunaphel as a permanent event and the tapping of adunaphel to force a character cannot occur in the same chain of effects. She must resolve and be fully in play before she starts messing with people. But by the same token, she cannot be targeted by Marvels Told in the same chain of effects in which she is played: only once she is resolved and in play can Marvels Told target her. Then, either (a) the resource player initiates the chain of effects with MT, or (b) the hazard player initiates it by tapping adunaphel.

Here's how (a) works out:
Resource player taps a sage to play MT
Hazard player taps Adunaphel in response
-------end of chain-------> chain now unwinds in LIFO (last in, first out) order
Adunaphel forces a character to tap
MT fizzles, as its declared target no longer exists


And here's how (b) works:
Hazard player taps adunaphel to tap a character
Resource player wants to tap a sage to play MT. However, he cannot because the active condition for declaring adunaphel's effect is tapping her (it is the cost of declaring this effect). Hence, MT does not have a valid target. Of course, the character targetted by adunaphel can tap to play MT on a different perm or long event, but not on adunaphel.


This discussion ignores the other nazgul-cancelers (Wizard's River-Horses, in the Name of Mordor), as well as exceptions due to The Witch-King (who becomes a long event). Those topics been dealt with exhaustively in digest #110.

(3) Jaded pointed out an incorrect ruling from digest 77.
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According to the digest, the -5 MPs for a dead avatar only apply at council. But:

CoL Tournament Policy wrote:
End-of-Game MP Modifications-Players and the coordinator should make certain that, for standard rules games, all of the marshalling point modifications printed on page 39 of the Middle-earth: The Lidless Eye Companion are properly accounted for. The MELE Companion contains the most current version of the End-of-Game rules for all players. Interpret Audience with Sauron as End-of-Game for the general case. These modifications are to be interpreted in the order they are printed. Subtractions for eliminated characters are applied before these modifications, although subtractions for eliminated Wizards or Ringwraiths are applied after these modifications.


CoE Tournament Rulings wrote:
# Eliminating a Wizard or Ringwraith does not end the game. An eliminated Wizard or Ringwraith is placed in the out-of-play pile, and gives -5 MP to the final total. That player may not reveal another Wizard or Ringwraith. This includes Wizards who fail corruption checks.
# The -5 MPs apply immediately, and affect your MPs for calling the end of the game.


Jaded is right.

I think the reason the wrong ruling was made in digest 77 is that the -5 from a dead avatar is applied after all other modifications (else you might get more than 1/2 your MPs from two sources!).

(4) Bert Claessen raised some questions about the interpretation of the word 'normal' and its cognates in meccg-lingo.
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The ruling by term in the CRF on 'Normal' is infelicitously written. It says:
CRF wrote:
Normal means as written on the card, not considering other card's effects. Note that this definition only applies to effects refering to card texts.


We interpret it thus:
Interpretation of CRF on 'Normal' wrote:
"Normal" means "as written on the card, not considering other cards' effects". Note that this definition only applies to effects referring to card texts.


In applying this principle, we to distinguish between (1) the effects of other cards on a given card and (2) a given card's taking other cards into account. The CRF entry on 'Normal' rules out (1) in cases of normality, but not (2).

A clear case of (1) is this: Legacy of Smiths affects other cards, in particular, items. They do not take Legacy into account in any way. A clear case of (2), by contrast, is Sapling of the White Tree. It is worth only 1 MP if stored at a haven, but 2 MP if stored at Minas Tirith. That is to say, where it is stored (the site card of the company storing it) is taken into account in the text of Sapling itself.

To answer Bert's question ("What does it mean for a creature to be normally playable against a company?"), a creature is normally playable if and only if at least one of the playability conditions of the creature in the creature's own text is met. This includes its region-type keyability, its region-name keyability, its site-name keyability, its site-type keyability, and any special criteria in the creature's text. It does not include, for instance, tapping an agent at the company's current or new site to make a creature playable.

Note that this is an overruling of CoE Digest 11, item 7.


Best,

Mark Alfano
mark.alfano@gmail.com

Official Council of Elrond Netrep*
http://www.councilofelrond.org/, http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum/index.php,

*Prepared in collaboration with Mikko Vihtemäki and Nigel Buckle (NetRep Team), and Chad Martin, Wim Heemskerk, and Brian Min ( NetRep Advisors).