Farmer Maggot vs. Assassin

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zarathustra
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We should probably probably take another look at this topic: http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum/vi ... .php?t=448

There are three relevant rulings:
CoE 6 wrote:If an Assassin targets Bilbo at Bag-End and Farmer Maggot carts his butt off to the Old Forest, all attacks of the Assassin are effectively cancelled and the Assassin is discarded, even though the same Assassin is keyable to Old Forest (i.e. the Assassin is sort of "keyed" to Bag End when he attacks there) correct??

*** The remaining attacks of the assassin are not rekeyable to the border-hold of Old Forest. The remaining attacks are discarded without effect, but not cancelled. The attack is still considered faced.
CoE 19 wrote:If my company "teleports" using Farmer Maggot against an assassin's attack, what happens with the two remaining attacks ?

*** They fizzle.
CoE 58 wrote:So, Farmer Maggot vs. Unabated in Malice (card text below): Galdor is at the Barrow-downs on which an Unabated in Malice is played. Farmer Maggot is in play. Galdor goes in, faces the attack and instead of fighting it he lets Farmer Maggot take him to Old Forest. Farmer Maggot states the attack is now cancelled. Unabated in Malice states in return that the first attempt to cancel the attack instead cancel the Unabated. So ( In My Hysterical Opinion ) Galdor finds himself still facing the 1@8 Undead attack. Is this correct?

*** That is correct, though the movement effect of Farmer Maggot still resolves successfully. Consider it a parting shot by the Barrow-wights.


I think that we have an implicit contradiction between 6 & 19 on the one hand and 58 on the other. Either:
(1) you should have to face all attacks of the assassin and face the "parting blow" of the barrow wight, or
(2) you shouldn't have to face the 2nd and 3rd attacks of the assassin or the "parting blow".

My inclination is towards (1). Note that this ruling should extend to a few other cases: (a) 1 attack of a Nameless Thing has been faced and then Doors of Night is removed from play; (b) Slayer vs. Farmer Maggot; (c) Slayer/Assassin vs. Gloom's second effect; (d) Farmer Maggot vs. minion Bag End; etc.
Last edited by zarathustra on Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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miguel
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I actually think that all those rulings are correct. Regarding Assassin, you key the creature to X. This will subsequently cause all the attacks to be keyed to X (which is proven by cards like In the Name of Mordor). Now I believe each of these attacks, when declared, will check if they are still good to go. So using Maggot on an Assassin would cancel the 1st attack, and then make the following attacks fail due to lost keyability.

[OT]Interestingly the keyability seems to affect strikes as well (Shadow-cloak). However, I believe changing site/region type between strike sequences would not make the remaining strikes fizzle, since strikes aren't declared and therefore they don't check "playability".[/OT]

The automatic-attack, once declared, perhaps doesn't have this issue. Similarly to a Dragon ahunt, the attack will remain even when the card creating it has been removed from the table. So an Unabated Barrow-wight would still come after Maggot's posse. :lol:
zarathustra
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Take a look at this for the background.

The basic question is: can you fizzle the later attacks of a creature with multiple attacks by making the creature unkeyable after the first attack of that creature has been played?

According to CoE #6 & CoE #19, the answer is yes, at least in the case of Farmer Maggot vs. Assassin.

I fear both of these digests are wrong. The relevant rule is from the MELE insert, in the section on Creature Cards:

MELE wrote:You may use a creature card to directly attack one of your opponent’s companies. Such an attack can occur only if one of the following criteria is met:
• The company is at a specific site at which the creature’s card text says it can be played.
• The company’s site of origin or new site is in a region where the creature’s card text says it can be played.
• One of the site symbols on the creature’s card matches the site that the company moved to (i.e., the new site) or stayed at (i.e., if the company did not move).
• At least one of the region symbols on the creature’s card matches one of the region types the company moved through this turn (see below). If the creature’s card has two region symbols of the same type (i.e., a deep Wilderness creature), then the company must have moved through at least two regions of that same type.
I emphasized the words "creature card" because I think this rule is intended to apply to the cards that cause creature attacks, not to the attacks caused by those cards. In my view, once the creature card has resolved, its attacks cannot be fizzled by, for instance, changing the site type, removing Doors of Night from play (in the case of Nameless Thing), or using Farmer Maggot. The second (and third) attacks of the cards in question do not check whether they are appropriately keyed. Only the first attack needs to do that.
Proposed Ruling wrote:If the first attack from a creature with multiple attacks is faced (viz., Slayer, Assassin, Nameless Thing), the second (and third) attacks of that creature cannot be fizzled by making the creature card unkeyable.
Note that this ruling overturns the rulings in Digests 6 & 19.
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Konrad Klar
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Quoted MELE rule has character of rough, brief explanation.
It does not cover even such cases as creatures keyed to three or more region symbols.
"At least one of the region symbols on the creature’s card matches one of the region types the company moved through this turn (see below)" taken strictly would mean the creature with one wilderness symbol may be played during second M/H phase against company that does not move through wilderness if the company was moving through wilderness during its previous M/H phase this turn.

In whole chapter words "turn" and "m/h phase" are used interchangeably.
It may indicate the "creature card" and "attack" are used interchangeably too.
Roughly, imprecisely worded texts cannot be applicated strictly. That are just cases where rulings are necessary.
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zarathustra
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Fair enough. Do you agree with the proposed ruling, or do you have a counterproposal? (or do you just not care?... ;))
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Konrad Klar
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I agree with proposed ruling.
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miguel
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zarathustra wrote:Fair enough. Do you agree with the proposed ruling, or do you have a counterproposal? (or do you just not care?... ;))
Um, yes..? :roll:

Proposed Ruling wrote:If the first attack from a creature with multiple attacks is faced (viz., Slayer, Assassin, Nameless Thing), the second (and third) attacks of that creature cannot be fizzled by making the creature card unkeyable.
Note that this ruling overturns the rulings in Digests 6 & 19.
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I disagree with this ruling. Consider the card Riddling Talk
Riddling Talk
Riddling attempt. Playable on a character whose company is facing an attack of the type listed below. Character makes a roll (or draws a #) modified by: +2 for each sage and +1 for each Hobbit in his company. If the result is greater than: 8 against Dragons and Drakes, 10 against Men and Giants, 12 against Slayers, Awakened Plants, Orcs, Spiders, and Trolls; then name a card and opponent must reveal his hand. If the named card is in opponent's hand, the creature's card is discarded (all of its attacks are cancelled) and the hazard limit against the character's company is decreased by three.
Note that the effect of making the roll and guessing correctly is to discard the creature card. The card is still in play, even if you were to wait until the second assassin attack to play this card.

From the above rule quote
You may use a creature card to directly attack one of your opponent’s companies. Such an attack can occur only if one of the following criteria is met:

It seems to me that once played the creature card stays in play and generates an attack (or multiple attacks). These attacks can only go forward if the keyability conditions are met.

I think this is a logical reading of the rules and furthermore doesn't have the disadvantage of overturning 2 earlier rulings.
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Konrad Klar
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Whith respect to your disagreement:
This ruling does not negate validity of distinguishing between "creature" and "attack". It only assumes the appropriate MELE chapter does not make clearly such distinction (likewise it does not make distinction between "region types the company moved through this turn" and "region types the company is moving during its current M/H phase").
MELE chapter does not take into account possibility of multiple M/H phases and probably it also does not take into account possibility of having by creature multiple attacks.
In other words it does not scale well on such cases.
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Wacho
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I'm not really sure what your response has to do with my disagreement, Konrad. Your point that the language is somewhat rough seems to support my interpretation, rather than the proposed ruling. Can you explain further?
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Konrad Klar
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If someone says that "creature" and "attack" are separate things, he is completely right. Such distinction is valid for most rules and card's text.

However MELE chapter that says about attacking using creature card is mixing that two things.

Let's assume that I'm wrong on this and when this MELE chapter says "creature" or "creature card" then it mean only "creature", and when it says "attack" it mean only "attack". Now, reading this chapter, we know when attack can occur, but we don't know when creature/creature card can be played.
We are moved straight into situation when creature is already resolved and question is whether attack can occur or not.

If MELE chapter actually treats "attack" and "creature (card)" as separate things, then it says nothing about playability of creature card.

If my assumption is correct then it mean that MELE chapter says about playing of creature, uses term "attack using creature card" and further "attack" as synonym of "creature".
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miguel
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I think we don't need to overturn any ruling here. The remaining attacks from Assassin fizzle because they check for keyability (and you can't re-key them) when declared. The Unabated AA sticks with the company because the attack was already declared when Maggot is used, cancelling only the effect of Unabated.

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Wacho
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Sorry to open a locked thread but I found some additional stuff in the digests on this issue, as well as another conflicting set of digests regarding another aspect of Farmer Maggot.
From COE 19
14. a) If my company "teleports" using Farmer Maggot against an assassin's attack, what happens with the two remaining attacks ?
• *** They fizzle.
b) What if you use a card such as Forewarned is Forearmed or Unabated in Malice to cancel the cancelling ability of Farmer Maggot? Does this cancel Farmer Maggot?
• *** Cancelling an attack is an additional after-effect of Farmer Maggot. Just because an attack can't be cancelled due to certain cards, doesn't mean that you can't teleport with Farmer Maggot. The attack won't be cancelled, as in the case of Forewarned at Ettenmoors and Unabated, but the company will have already teleported, thus they are no longer there to face the attack.
I'm not sure why the second portion was missed the first time we looked at the issue, but now it is clear that COE 19 and COE 58 contradict each other.

Also I found this contradiction concerning the Farmer Maggot teleport. From COE 6
9. Can I use Farmer Maggot to "move" w/o losing the Palantir (since bearer is not really moving)?
• *** Yes. There are currently no generic "teleportation" rules that would link the Great-Road movement rule to this use of Farmer Maggot.
But COE 64 states
Does using the farmer (like bill the pony) count as movement without a
movement hazard phase?
*** Yes.
I'm inclined to go with COE 19 over 58, but 64 over 6. Allowing Farmer Maggot to get around movement limitations for palantir, etc. would open up a lot of "tricks" that I think wouldn't be good, plus it would be an exception to an otherwise consistent rule of replacing a site being considered movement. Plus thematically Farmer Maggot doesn't have any magical teleportation powers, he just knows the lay of the land and can help one get from here to there without being found.

For the other issue I think COE 19 just makes more sense. I don't like the idea of being attacked by an attack at a site when you are no longer at that site.
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miguel
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Unlocked for further elaboration.

As far as "teleportation", yeah the ruling from digest #64 overturns the ruling from digest #6. So no maggot trickery with palantirs is allowed.

And regarding an unabated automatic-attack, the ruling from digest #58 partially overturns the ruling from digest #19. The problem with the original ruling is that the attack has already been declared, and it's not cancelled by maggot, therefore it needs to resolve. Just because the card that created the attack is no longer on the table, doesn't mean the attack fizzles once it has been declared (similarly with dragon ahunts).

An example of chain-o'-effects:

(i) an attack is declared, at this point you may MT the dragon ahunt and the attack will fizzledizzle as the attack's declaration has not resolved yet
(ii) the attack's declaration has resolved, now there is time for multiple chain of effects to do stuff that targets the attack, like cancel it
(iii) attack resolves

With an unabated automatic-attack, you can't use maggotman until (ii), and since the attack isn't cancelled, it sticks with the company.

Does this make sense? :)
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Konrad Klar
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Sometimes an attack is canceled just because it cannot be continued, not because action "cancel" was invoked.
This may happen if defender is removed from play (due to failed cc, for example) in middle of resolving attack.
It would be difficult (if not nonsense) to demand continuing of such attack only because it cannot be canceled (go back to play and fight! This attack cannot be canceled... ).
Attacks that cannot be canceled are immune to action "cancel", not immune to inability of proceding the attack.

And now (if above is correct) only thing that must be established is whether:
a) actions "replace site" and "cancel" are separate actions,
b) only one action created by FM is "replace site" (and absence of defender at site where attack was initiated is reason for interrupting attack, as valid as absence of defender in play).
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