Beyond the Wall, Season 3 Episode 16

Wait, Jon knows things about rules? What is happening?
Nice one, as usual.
Oh, this 25th in Spain there's a regional in Zaragoza. I'll get those stats for you.
 

4 power from Benjen? You guys blew my mind again

4 power from Benjen? You guys blew my mind again

To expand on that for those interested, there was quite the thread on it here. We went a little astray because of some debate as to whether you could have aspects of an effect that are 'replacements', or whether that automatically made anything with a replacement in it a replacement effect, which caused us to reach out to Nate (and get the ruling confirmed).

Is there a link to the Gen Con prize support?

None, to my knowledge - only the confirmation that there'll be a card design on the line.

 

A continental Championship typically awards a prize to each entrant, as well as the Top 16, the Top 8, and the Top 4 players. The champion will also receive a commemorative prize and a first-round bye—removing that player from the pairings for the round and rewarding them with a win—at the game’s upcoming World Championship, where a seat will be reserved for them. In addition, the champion will receive travel and accommodations to the game’s upcoming World Championship, as well as a chance to work with the developers of the game to design a card that will appear in the game!

Source: Here

None, to my knowledge

That's what happens when you're listening to stuff with only half an ear. What I meant was: Is there a link to where the Origins prize support you're talking about in the beginning can be seen?

Commenting kinda on the fly here, roughly halfway through the episode. Just a couple quick observations.

- I'm fully siding with Hynes on the intuition thing. Intuition is too vague a term, and too subjective, to be the yardstick of anything. Basically, "Hey, that's unintuitive" usually means "Hey, that's not how I imagined it to work". And since we're all individuals, we often imagine different things from the next person, which leads to things like political strife, holy wars, and heated exchanges in the AGoT facebook group. It is instructive to survey how 1.0 vets tend to accuse different things of being "unintuitive" than other people. Their battle cry is usually "Hey, that's unintuitive! That's not how it worked in 1.0!". Come to think of it, maybe we'll need a third category - the very large group of former 1.0 players who have always made it a firm point of principle not to spend the slightest amount of effort on understanding how the game actually works - they'll be like "Hey, that's unintuitive! That's not how it worked in 1.0! Wait - you say it is? Doesn't matter! It's still unintuitive! That's not how I imagined it to work!"

Which brings me to the next point.

- Tokens don't kill people. Game mechanics and card abilities kill people (well, characters, that is). This is just the tired old "the card doesn't choose and kill a character, it makes the player choose and kill the character, and that's how it gets around immunity" trope in a modern hue. Discussed ad infinitum back when. Wasn't so then, isn't so now.

That's what happens when you're listening to stuff with only half an ear. What I meant was: Is there a link to where the Origins prize support you're talking about in the beginning can be seen?

I'm not sure these links will work if you're not a member of the facebook group, but the joust & melee prize support. The melee card backs were custom (added text).

Thank you. Links worked. Which facebook group?

How many copies of each of the items did they give out? And is that alt art card exclusive to Origins?

Doesn't look like impressive prize support, to be sure, but I tend to give FFG a pass on these things. First, from the way it sounds their presence at Origins was kind of a short notice thing (or did I just not listen closely enough, again?). Second, people always stress how it is not about the swag for them but about the camaraderie and the social experience, and I tend to mean that. Third, I remember the bad old days of 2011, when we had to walk a hundred miles just to get to a tournament, barefoot through a blizzard more often than not, and the prize support was some mouldy breadcrumbs if we made top 8, and a kick in the balls if we didn't, so playmats, alt art cards and a first player token that can double as a blanket if the weather turns bad on the way back, or as a shuriken to fend off wolves, isn't anything to sneeze at.

The alt art card was exclusive to Origins (well, so far, it might be in all nationals kits). While I'll not claim it's the worst prize support FFG has offered, in an attempt to kick-off origins it didn't do much to differentiate it from a regional (which have better tokens, the same trophy, their own alt-art card, etc).

The melee was particularly disappointing.

Also <accent=yorkshire> mouldy breadcrumbs? You were lucky! We used to dream of having mouldy breadcrumbs</accent>.

Caveat: I haven't finished listening yet.

- Alex implies the rules are all logical and consistent.

- Alex defends a challenge being determined unopposed only at the point of resolution, even if the only card(s) stopping a challenge being unopposed are no longer doing so by the time you get to the U step of DUCK.

- Alex defends the number of people attacking in a challenge only being the number still considered to be attacking at the point an effect is triggered, rather than at resolution.

That about the gist of it?

- Alex implies the rules are all logical and consistent.

I haven't finished listening either, plus I'm a notoriously unreliable listener in the first place, but that's not quite what I heard. I think Alex implied that he doesn't think that the examples his co-hosts quote as unintuitive or overly complex are quite that. I tend to agree. IIRC, at one point he wonders if they'll mention the points *he* thinks require written clarification.
 

- Alex defends a challenge being determined unopposed only at the point of resolution, even if the only card(s) stopping a challenge being unopposed are no longer doing so by the time you get to the U step of DUCK.
- Alex defends the number of people attacking in a challenge only being the number still considered to be attacking at the point an effect is triggered, rather than at resolution.

I don't get what you mean about the cards that would stop a challenge from being unopposed no longer working by the U step, but overall, these points sound logical to me. What is determined at the D step is who wins the challenge, and to do that, a STR count and a check for at least one participating character are needed. By how much the challenge was won, and whether it was unopposed, follows from these checks, so is seems obvious that any abilities that need to reference these data points will use the values that have just been determined.

The number of participating characters for each side, however, is not checked at the D step, because is is not needed to determine the winner of the challenge (only whether that number is >0 is), so any abilities that need to reference that value need to calculate it at the point of initiation of the ability in question, because the value has not been determined at an earlier step.

However, I did cringe somewhat when Darknoj (?) said that, in the Wildfire-Quentyn-Benjen situation, Benjen "was chosen for death twice", and Istaril just stood by, nodded, and smiled blithely. At least that's how I pictured it.

RULES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caveat: I haven't finished listening yet.
 
- Alex implies the rules are all logical and consistent.
- Alex defends a challenge being determined unopposed only at the point of resolution, even if the only card(s) stopping a challenge being unopposed are no longer doing so by the time you get to the U step of DUCK.
- Alex defends the number of people attacking in a challenge only being the number still considered to be attacking at the point an effect is triggered, rather than at resolution.
 
That about the gist of it?

In the upcoming tournaments roundup, I think you missed this saturday's regional in Rosenheim. A mighty affair, and we will have an American presence.