The three cards in question were all templated to have the same hazard-cancellation effect when originally printed in METW:
We will note three things up front:TOM BOMBADIL
Tap to cancel the effects of one hazard that targets any company …
LEAFLOCK
Tap to cancel the effects of one hazard that targets his company.
GREAT SHIP
… may tap to cancel the effects of one hazard that targets the company.
1. While the fact that these cards all use the same templating may not be hugely significant, it’s at least worth keeping in mind when one considers the breadth of the designers' templating generally. ICE/Ichabod also confirmed that the cards have an identical cancellation effect in the original METW FAQ (e.g. #7), and while the FAQ did evolve over time as ICE/Ichabod reconsidered their rulings for these cards, the similarity in functionality was ultimately reiterated in the CRF.
2. It has been clarified many times by various NetReps that either the company itself *or an entity associated with the company* may be targeted in order to cancel a specific hazard’s effects (see ICE Digests 10, 88, 529, etc.). We are considering this point as a given and not delving further, but will be adding appropriate clarification to the final card texts below.
3. Although the original templating doesn’t state this explicitly, effects that “cancel” can generally target declared cards/effects that have not yet resolved in their chain of effects (as well as cards/effects that have already resolved into play; noting that, specifically for attacks, the attack doesn’t actually ‘exist’ to target/cancel until the attack-creating effect resolves and the attack is actually initiated, at which point the ‘attack’ itself can THEN be cancelled). This was clarified in the METW FAQ (#7), as well as ICE Digest 118, etc. We are considering this point as a given and not delving further, and since this relates to the game rules more than these specific cards, we have opted to not clarify on the cards themselves (but we did want to at least mention for full disclosure here, and we shall aim to clarify what “cancel” means in the final game rules that we are working diligently to compile).
Nevertheless, there were many questions submitted to ICE about what exactly could and could not be cancelled with these cards during our game’s first few years. The rough philosophy espoused by resident NetReps Ichabod and Van Norton (and presumably ICE, though for clarity we’ll refer to this as the NetRep Approach) was to allow Tom and Co. to cancel pretty much any hazard effect that targeted the company (see ICE Digests 88, 564, etc.). This NetRep Approach was carried forward by various CoE reps over the years, who have largely conformed to the paradigm that if any hazard had any effect that targeted the relevant company or entity therein, that targeted effect could be validly cancelled.
When one considers the actual original templating, however, this approach presents two significant issues:
1. The word “effects” is plural, implying that not just the targeting effect is cancelled, but in fact *all* of the hazards effects are cancelled. This is particularly problematic for cards that have a sub-effect that might target a company once the card is already in play (like Baduila), since it’s unclear to most people whether the card should then be discarded (based on the cancellation templating) or just the specific effect is cancelled (based on what is actually targeting the company). This is not a massive problem in and of itself, but it does serve to highlight some of the initial oddities within the NetRep Approach.
2. More importantly, the conjugation of the word “targets” refers to a singular noun, meaning that it must refer to “hazard” (since “effects” is plural). In other words, it’s not the “effect(s)” that need to target the company, but rather the hazard itself that must target the company (presumably as an active condition of the hazard card itself)! This would be further underlined by the use of “that targets” instead of “that is currently targeting,” as the former would arguably suggest a quality of the entity itself rather than just a declared-but-currently-unresolved action.
At the very least, codifying the NetRep Approach would require clarifications and errata. Luckily for us, ICE *did* re-template Great Ship in the Challenge Decks (which we’ll refer to as the Challenge Deck Approach):
Some players have argued that this new amendment is a non-exhaustive list, and that hazard events and creature cards are just ‘examples’ of what could be cancelled, but in this committee’s opinion and based on the above issues with the NetRep Approach, writing “This may be:” rather than something like “This may include:” would make more sense if it was an exhaustive list, specifically listing the types of hazard cards that target companies as an active condition of playing the card itself. In any case, the Challenge Deck re-templating actually solves the aforementioned issues with the NetRep Approach, i.e. solving Issue 2 by making clear that the hazard itself must specifically target the company, which then solves Issue 1 (because it would make sense to cancel *all* of the hazard’s effects if the hazard is targeting the company as an active condition of the card itself rather than just through one of its in-play allowances).GREAT SHIP
Tap a character to play this card during your organization phase on his company. Any character in the company this turn may tap to cancel a hazard that targets the company. This may be: a hazard event that specifically targets the company or an entity in the company OR a creature card. To do this, the company’s site path must have a Coastal Sea and no consecutive non-Coastal Sea regions.
With all of that in mind, this committee identified three potential paths forward:
1) Rule that the three cards in question cancel differently (i.e. using the Challenge Deck Approach for Great Ship and the NetRep Approach for Tom and/or Leaflock). While this option would decrease the number of historical digests that would need to be overturned, it would fly in the face of the original METW templating similarities, as well as the fact that ICE and the NetReps repeatedly confirmed that the cards were supposed to cancel in the same way. Our committee therefore felt like this option was not ideal.
2) Adopt the NetRep Approach for all three cards, issuing fully re-written errata in order to solve the approach’s aforementioned templating issues. Since this option disregards the most recent Challenge Deck printing from ICE, and would still require a significant amount of errata/re-templating away from the original printed cards (not to mention any other cans of worms that might arise from doing so), our committee also felt like this option was not ideal.
3) Adopt the Challenge Deck Approach for all three cards. This option has many advantages over the other options:
Stays closest to the original METW templating as printed (and arguably maintaining it, with just a little clarity).
Also stays closest to ICE’s most recently printed text.
Maintains templating consistency between the three cards.
Generally makes the rules clearer rather than making them more confusing (if we have to go one way or the other).
Admittedly, this option does have the downside of conflicting with various NetRep (and, by extension, CoE) digests over the years, so our committee truly debated long and hard about the pros and cons of whichever option we opted to take. Ultimately, we have concluded that the advantages of the Challenge Deck Approach outweigh the identified disadvantage.
In conclusion, this committee’s ruling is to move forward with the following text for the cards in question:
TOM BOMBADIL
Unique. Playable at Old Forest.
Tap to cancel a hazard that targets (as an active condition of playing the card itself) a company, or an entity associated with a company, moving to a site in: Arthedain, Cardolan, Rhudaur, or The Shire.
Discard Tom Bombadil if his company moves to a site that is not in: Arthedain, Cardolan, Rhudaur, or The Shire.
LEAFLOCK
Unique. Playable at Wellinghall.
Tap to cancel a hazard that targets (as an active condition of playing the card itself) Leaflock’s company or an entity associated with his company.
May not be attacked by automatic-attacks or hazards keyed to his site. Discard Leaflock if his company moves to a site that is not in: Fangorn, Rohan, Gap of Isen, Wold & Foothills, Enedhwaith, Old Pukel-land, Brown Lands, Anduin Vales, or Redhorn Gate.
To provide some examples, this means that these three cards:GREAT SHIP
Tap a character in target company during the organization phase to play Great Ship on that company. Until the end of the turn, if the company’s current site path contains a Coastal Seas region and no consecutive non‐Coastal Seas regions, any character in the company may tap to cancel a hazard that targets (as an active condition of playing the card itself) the company or an entity associated with the company.
CAN cancel a hazard creature, since a creature targets the company that it is played on.
CAN cancel a corruption card played on a character in the company, since a corruption card targets the character that it is played on (and the character is an entity associated with the company).
CAN cancel Lost in _________s, Lost At Sea, Tidings of Bold Spies, and similar short-events that explicitly target the company (so long as the short-event has not yet resolved, since it goes to the discard pile when it resolves and then is no longer a valid target).
CAN cancel Pilfer Anything Unwatched, since it targets both the agent as well as a character in the company (according to the definition for targeting, which PAU’s effect of choosing an entity of specified number and type falls under, as well as e.g. see Annotations 8 and 27).
CAN’T cancel an Ahunt attack or other passive condition attacks (e.g. Spider of the Morlat, Trouble on All Borders, etc.), because passive conditions do not target (and the card itself doesn’t target the company as an active condition; noting that, although an Ahunt attack is
treated as coming from a creature hazard, it is not actually a declared hazard; see ICE Digest 73, 109, etc).
CAN’T cancel agent attacks or special agent actions like Baduila, because an agent card itself doesn’t target the company (but CAN cancel e.g. Seek Without Success since those types of short-events may target the company).