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First Tilt - Common Mistakes, Part 2

Small Council First Tilt doulos2k

We are back from a longer than usual delay (sorry about that). But, here we are back in from the cold and ready to regale you with more tips that we hope will be helpful as you continue to learn this great game.

This week, we're going to continue our series about common mistakes. Last time we took a look at the Plot, Draw, and Marshaling phases. Today, we're going to tackle Challenges, Dominance, Standing, and Taxation. The point of this series is to look at what are the most common errors new players make and maybe deal with some of the small timing issues that come up. We'll leave the bigger discussion of timing and rules lawyering to our friends at the Quill and Tankard.

Without further ado, let's jump in shall we?

The Challenges phase is where most of the meat and potatoes of the game happens. You battle, you win (hopefully), kill characters, get power, mill decks and hands and all that fun stuff. Due to this, there is much that happens in this phase that bears mentioning. So, I'm going to break this down a little bit into chunks.

Shadows

Why wait until now to discuss Shadows? Well, because in most cases, this is the first phase you'll actually be able to bring a card out of shadows since, most of the time, you've marshaled them into shadows during the Marshaling phase, you have to wait until at least this phase to bring them out.

So, the main rule is that you can only bring a single card out of Shadows at the very beginning of the phase, before anything else happens. First Player gets first opportunity for a Shadows action and it moves clockwise from there. If you decide to initiate a challenge, kneel a card for an effect, or play an event, it is now too late to bring a card out of shadows. Now, obviously, there are exceptions, but those exceptions will be spelled out on the relevant cards. If you don't have a card that gives you the ability to bring a card out of shadows at some other time than the start of the phase, it's the only time you can do this.

What does this mean? Once the phase begins, if someone has a card in shadows, they need to be given the opportunity to take that action if they desire. Whether you actually ask them or simply pause after saying something like, "Okay, starting the challenges phase..." wait a few beats and look at them. I always actually ask if they have a shadows action, but that's me. Honestly, if you don't give your opponent any time to take the shadows action and start barreling through and they stop you and inform you they have one, you don't have much license to complain about "revealing too much" if you didn't give them a chance. It's easier for everyone if you just pause. A few seconds will not make the difference, especially since being forced to rewind actually takes longer.


Keywords
Once important note about keywords - they are not character abilities. However, they are card effects. So, this means cards like The Red Viper or Renly Baratheon are not immune to these keywords - they can still die to Deadly. But, since they are card effects, Cat o' the Canals is immune to all keywords (she's even immune to Valar Morghulis, believe it or not... crazy).
  • Stealth - you cannot declare Stealth targets as the attacker until you've allowed your opponent the opportunity to take a player action. I recommend you say, "Do you have any actions before declaring defenders?" This doesn't give away that you might have a stealth action, but it does provide that pause before you declare stealth so that they can't suddenly say they have an action once you've declared stealth.
  • Deadly - people always forget about Deadly. It only works on the offense and it only works if the attacking player has more characters with the Deadly keyword participating in the challenge than the defending player.
  • Renown - this is a passive effect that must happen. You need to get into the habit of checking to see if you or your opponent has any Renown characters on the field and then helping each other remember to claim power if that character was participating in a challenge as the victor.
Mandatory Passives
A passive effect is a card that does not have Response or Any Phase (or Phase Name) in front of it. If the text reads as if the effect just "happens" when certain conditions are met and doesn't include things like "may choose" or some other verbiage that makes it clear it's a player's choice as to whether or not to perform the action, the passive is a mandatory passive. Ignoring a mandatory passive is technically against the rules. If both players allow a mandatory passive to be ignored, you've entered what is called an "illegal game state," That means that the game is not progressing the way it's intended to progress because a game effect has been completely ignored.

In casual games, this is usually easy to work out, if you can fire the passive without really affecting other elements in the game, then you just agree to do that. If too much time has passed or too much information has been revealed and rewinding is no longer an option - well, then the table will need to work that out. Most of the time, you'll just agree to let it pass and work to prevent the oversight going forward, but it's important.

In competitive play, this can get tense. It almost always requires a judge and every judge handles this differently. The safest thing is to pay attention to the cards and simply not let a passive go unnoticed.

Attacking and Defending
There is only one point in a challenge where you get to declare attackers and only one place where you can declare defenders. Once either window passes, there isn't another opportunity to do this (outside of any specific card ability like Greatjon Umber or the new Naval Enhancements). For example, once you've declared defenders, you can't use the Ambush keyword to put a character into play with the intention of using them as a defender if you've already declared defenders. While there are specific cards that can enter play from your hand as a participant after the challenge has begun (like Catelyn Stark or Horseback Archers), these are the exception.

Dominance
The most common error people make in Dominance has to do with strength modifiers and player actions: Strength for dominance is counted before any player actions can occur. What does this mean?
  • You cannot buff a character with a Warship or some other strength modifier to try and boost your ability to win dominance
  • Strength modified during the challenges phase might have expired once the Challenges phase ends (the exception are passive strength modifiers like King's Pavilion or Power of Arms)
  • You MAY bring a card out of Shadows, provided you can pay the cost, before Dominance strength is counted. If that card is a character, that characters strength WILL count for Dominance.
Standing and Taxation
Really, these phases happen quickly and rarely have any impact. That said, it's important to note that both of these phases do have Player Action windows. This means that something CAN happen. So, while you're in a rush to move to the next phase, don't forget to check your cards for something you might want to do during those phases.

Conclusion

There are a lot of places in this game where you can get tripped up. What I've tried to do in these past two articles is go over a few common mistakes that I encounter with new players. Heck, a lot of these are mistakes I made when I first started. I hope you find these little guides helpful. What motivates me to write them is remembering how I wished stuff like this existed when I started.

This is just a taste of phase-mongery. If you really want to understand the intricacies at a deeper level, make sure you pay attention to Quill and Tankard Regulars. There hasn't been a single article that I haven't found enlightening in some way.

Did I miss something? Is there some other mistake that you see constantly that frustrates you and wish n00bs knew better? Shout out in the forums and let us know!
  • Kennon, bigfomlof, FioFioFio and 2 others like this


23 Comments

good article and helpful for the newbs like me :)
I have one question on shadow.. If i'm the first person and i pass on shadow(so i can see if opponent gets shadow out) .. after he passes also can i reconsider and get shadow out ?
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emptyrepublic
Feb 26 2013 10:47 AM

good article and helpful for the newbs like me :)
I have one question on shadow.. If i'm the first person and i pass on shadow(so i can see if opponent gets shadow out) .. after he passes also can i reconsider and get shadow out ?


Unfortunately no, here's the details from the Shadow Rules...

Each player has one chance to bring a card out of Shadows each phase. If this opportunity is passed, it is lost until the beginning of the next phase.

It's also important to move in concert with your opponent, especially online. Last night I had one character out on the board, made a challenge, then as soon as it was over my opponent called dominance, took the power, knelt Meraxes, drew a card, stood all his cards and had his plot deck open before I could even say "player action."
    • PulseGlazer likes this
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ShadowcatX2000
Feb 26 2013 02:25 PM
I've ran into that before as well Grimwalker, but on the flip side I've also played against opponents who can make a 45 minute match draw into 3+ hours and sometimes it is just painful to wait on people like that. (Not saying that's why your opponent did it, just saying that there are 2 sides to every story.)

My suggestion is, if your opponent rushes ahead, just correct them and force them to back up to the point where you have an action.
    • PulseGlazer likes this
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erocklawell
Feb 26 2013 03:54 PM
Great article @doulos2k a very important thing you forgot to mention was "optional passives." Keywords such as Vigilant and Vengeful are activated with other keywords in the passive section after winning challenges. But, if a player forgets to stand the character, it says knelt.
One note about deadly. When declaring attackers you must declare deadly and how many. Some people attack , then you kneel defenders, then "by the way i have deadly . You have to kill a character". No, it doesn't work that way. Only way you can surprise with deadly is with cards that you can trigger after they kneel defenders like, I'm writ you're small, Dragonbone Bow, Guardian Wolf, Hall of Dragons, Longship Black Wind, Northern Steel, The Dragon Strikes, and now Fleet from Pyke, Fleet from the Arbor.
Deadly is a passive character ability. Passive abilities are triggered in step 4 of a framework window and player action window( i.e. when you kneel attackers)
    • Hurin likes this
@grimwalker - yeah, one of the hopes is that articles such as this will get us to a place where there can be somewhat of a baseline for courtesy. Rushing forward does nobody any good because if you have to rewind, you may have revealed something important, but if you didn't pause to allow your opponent to take actions, well, that's on you and you really have to allow the rewind.

@erocklawell - good point. It's important to see that the Core Set rules for Vigilant and Vengeful specifically use the words "may stand" - this means it's optional and you'll have to remember.

@snagga - this isn't true. Deadly does not have to be declared. It isn't resolved until well after characters are knelt. It's resolved in the passive step of the challenge resolution framework.

EDIT: I feel I should elaborate on my Deadly comment there. Here are the Core Set rules for Deadly:

During a challenge, if the attacking player controls the most participating characters with the
“Deadly” keyword, the defending player must choose and kill a defending participating character after the challenge resolves.


The key elements in that rule are the "most participating characters" and "challenge resolves." You cannot know the answer to how many characters with the Deadly keyword are participating on both sides of the challenge until you get to the Challenge Resolution Framework. At any given moment, characters can be added, taken away, have keywords stripped, any number of things can occur that would affect the outcome of the Deadly count.

Also, nothing in the rules require Deadly to be declared because Deadly does not have a target. It's a passive count that just happens once the challenge is resolved. Stealth must be declared because it has to have declared targets, plus Stealth has its own Framework Event within the Declare Defenders Framework Action Window.
Yeah, snagga I'm afraid that's completely wrong - it's a polite thing to do, but you have no obligation within the rules to declare deadly. It occurs in the same portion of the framework that Renown occurs, so it can hardly happen when you declare attackers can it?
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emptyrepublic
Feb 26 2013 04:29 PM
Just to follow up a few points that others made. In general it's your responsibility to ask "does a character have deadly" or "what does that location do" if your opponent doesn't volunteer any information.
    • Kennon likes this
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scantrell24
Feb 26 2013 04:36 PM
@snagga - why would you have to "declare" deadly? It's right there on the card. If my opponent can't read and forgets about it, sucks for them. I might mention deadly as a courtesy but it's not required.
I don't even think mentioning deadly is a polite or courteous thing to do as if not mentioning it is impolite. Do I have to remind my opponent that I can use my frozen moat or tourney grounds?
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slothgodfather
Feb 26 2013 05:02 PM
@Snagga - "declaring Deadly" is sort of a competitive/ethics issue with some people. Deadly is simply a keyword similar to renown, vigilant, intimidate, vengeful, etc. Stealth is the only keyword that is specifically declared per the rules and framework window. When you challenge someone, you don't list every keyword you have, so a common thought is why would you do that with Deadly. Like Renown, deadly is simply a passive that happens when it's conditions are met. Unlike Stealth, which directly impacts the defending players capacity to declare defenders and must be "declared" in order to inform the opponent which characters have been bypassed.

I see most people will play 1 of 2 ways. Either they will always mention they have the deadly keyword out of courtesy, or they will only mention they have deadly when they are actually hoping the challenge will be unopposed.
It's not surprise deadly if your opponent didn't look at your cards, or ask you, if there are any deadly characters involved.

Most others in my meta, myself included, have just gotten into the habit of asking "any deadly?" during challenges because we know there is no rule to them declaring it.
thanks for the clarification guys!

Unfortunately no, here's the details from the Shadow Rules...



Just to clarify things in my head, both players have 1 window to bring a card out of shadows. P1 first, then after P1, P2. This happens before any challenges begin.

What I'm trying to make sure of, is that P1 doesn't bring a card out of shadows before his challenges, and the P2 brings a card out of shadows before her challenges, but after P1 finishes his challenges.
@TJglaser: There is only the one shadow opportunity at the beginning of the phase. If you pass, you pass. You don't get to do it later during an action window.

BUT: there are a few cards that allow you to bring them out of shadows differently as per the text on the card. Meera Reed (TftH) is the most common of these; Sorrowful Man (APS) being another.
    • Tjglaser likes this

@TJglaser: There is only the one shadow opportunity at the beginning of the phase. If you pass, you pass. You don't get to do it later during an action window.

BUT: there are a few cards that allow you to bring them out of shadows differently as per the text on the card. Meera Reed (TftH) is the most common of these; Sorrowful Man (APS) being another.


That is what I thought. Thank you for confirming for me.
I love you guys for writing all these articles.

A question I've had that seems appropriate to ask here - when a Targ player has Dragon Sight (ASoS) out (and it's Summer) and is attacking, does he/she lose the ability to use his/her characters' Stealth?

It seems to me that since Stealth can only be declared after attackers to prevent certain characters from defending, but the characters are already defending...

Thanks!
You are correct. Stealth opportunity is lost.
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Wolfbrother
Feb 28 2013 01:31 PM
Regarding the deadly "surprise" my play group and i find the best way to avoid accidently defending a deadly challenge is to simply ask "any deadly?" and as always read what cards your opponent is attacking with. BTW watch out for
Bronn (LotR) he will seriuosly give you a bad day if you are carless and attack an opponent with him on field
THis passive renown and having to remind your opponent of it is bollucks. I don't have to play the other guys hand or anything else for him, why renown? Anyone here play Cribbage? You score when ;you notice points your opponent missed. In thrones i'm supposed to hold ther hand and remind them. The forgetful rookie still gets rewarded? Deadly is a passive and i don't have to declare that. Some do it to be sportsman like. And now with the new Tourney rules if i miss some passive effect, i can't just say i forgot. Rediculous!
Wow. Thanks for that.

Funny thing about Cribbage - the scenario you describe is actually in the rules. That's why it's legit. It's not just because it's philosophically the better way to play the game. The rules in this game say that mandatory passives must fire whether the people remember them or not - ignoring them creates an illegal game state.

Handholding and forgetful rookies? Seriously?
    • Toqtamish likes this
Sorry - the reason for my incredulity is... this is First Tilt - an article series for NEW PLAYERS.
    • Toqtamish likes this

Sorry - the reason for my incredulity is... this is First Tilt - an article series for NEW PLAYERS.


110% in agreement with you. Not only is the whole part of this series for new players but having an attitude like that towards new players is not a great idea for helping the games growth.