Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 24

Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 24

The young scholar woke with a start, with not one, not two, but three Archmaesters standing above him.

"Your paper on the dominion of the House Targaryen, young Novice... is late. You better have a good excuse. My colleagues here have informed me that you're even missing on two other Essays... one of them being on the very important subject of Lysene tax reforms. Pray tell, where are they lad? Let's hear it then! At this rate, you'll be cleaning the rookeries for months!"

With trembling hands the young student opened the leather folder in front of him. His memory of the previous night was but a blur. It all started at the Quill & Tankard, and he remembered some of the regulars there promising to "help" him out, in exchange for beer. A copious amount of beer, now that he thought of it. And that's as far as his memory lasted.

Opening the folder he found three badly stained papers scribbled with small, but oddly fluent handwriting. That clearly, was not his own. From here, there was only one thing to do. Mumbling a prayer to the seven under his breathe he handed the papers to the Archmaesters one by one.

"Here they are."

Citadel Custom – Dominance, Taxation and Stand

Citadel Custom is a set of articles presenting game mechanics through illustrated gameplay examples. It is aimed at all players from initiates to self-proclaimed Archmaesters. Each article will consist of a short recap of the relevant rules, followed by a detailed example with a more or less complex starting situation.

Rules Recap

The Dominance, Standing and Taxation Phases are structured as a sequence of Action Windows: Framework Action Windows (FAW), which are dictated by the rules of the game, and Player Action Windows (PAW), in which players may take actions freely, as long as they control the appropriate cards. Any Phase: and <Current Phase>: effects can only be triggered during a PAW. In a FAW, only Responses can be triggered - if their Play Restrictions are met, and only then in the corresponding Response step.

For a refresher on how player actions and framework actions resolve exactly, see the rules recaps in our earlier Citadel Customs here and here. Here are the full phase structures for the three phases we are looking at today:

Dominance Phase

Framework Action
- Framework Event: Dominance Phase begins
- Shadows
Framework Action
- Framework Event: Reward Dominance
Player Actions
Framework Action*
- Framework Event: Dominance Phase Ends

* = No Responses can be played during the end of phase Framework Action.

Standing Phase

Framework Action
- Framework Event: Standing Phase begins
- Shadows
Framework Action
- Framework Event: All kneeling cards stand
Player Actions
Framework Action*
- Framework Event: Standing phase ends

* = No Responses can be played during the end of phase Framework Action.

Taxation Phase

Framework Action
- Framework Event: Taxation Phase begins
- Shadows
Framework Action
- Framework Event: Return unspent gold to Treasury
Player Actions
Framework Action*
- Framework Event: Taxation Phase ends

* = No Responses can be played during the end of phase Framework Action.

Starting Situation:

[lightbox='GJ_start_small24.jpg']tn_GJ_start_small24.jpg[/lightbox]

NOTE: There's actually a small error in this image, Murenmure should be standing, not knelt.

Greyjoy/The Maester’s Path (First Player):

Plot: Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD)
Gold / Power: 1 gold / 4 power on House

Table:
Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR) (knelt)
Moqorro (VD)
Maester Murenmure (CbtC)
Pale Steel Link (FtC) (Murenmure)
Bronze Link (FtC) (Murenmure)
Brass Link (HtS) (Murenmure)
Iron Link (MotA) (Murenmure)
Fishing Net (ASoS) (Pyat Pree)
Pulled Under (TWH) (Brazen Beasts)
White Raven (TWoW) (House Card)
The Inn of the Kneeling Man (FtC) (knelt)
The Isle of Ravens (TIoR) (knelt)
2x Gatehouse (KotS)

Hand:
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK)

Discard pile:
Apprentice Collar (GotC)
Steel Link (TIoR)
2x Maester Wendamyr (KotS)
2x Sunset Sea (Core)
Theon Greyjoy (KotS)
Citadel Law (MotA)

Dead pile:
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK)
Newly Made Lord (TftH)
Alannys Greyjoy (RoW)

Chains on Agenda:
Apprentice Collar (GotC)
Black Iron Link (MotA)
Valyrian Steel Link (HtS)

Targaryen/House of Dreams:

[lightbox='Targ_start_small24.jpg']tn_Targ_start_small24.jpg[/lightbox]

Plot: Threat from the North (PotS)
Gold / Power: 5 gold / 3 power on House + 5 on Brazen Beasts, totaling 8 power

Table:
Pyat Pree (QoD)
Jhogo (OSaS) (knelt)
The Brazen Beasts (ARotD) (knelt)
3x Temple of the Graces (Core)
Summer Sea (QoD)
Khal Drogo's Tent (Core) (knelt)
Meereenese Brothel (BtW) (knelt)

Hand:
Incinerate (VM)
Khal Drogo (Core)

Dead Pile:
2x Shadow Prophet (SaS)
Forever Burning (Core)

Shadows:
3 cards (King's Landing (SaS), King's Landing Assassin (SaS), The Red Keep (TftRK))

Discard Pile:
Shadow Parasite (HtS)
Incinerate (VM)
The Dragonpit (TftRK)
Dragon Skull (CoS)

Gameplay Resolution

An epic struggle is being waged between the collared Krakens from House Greyjoy and the shadowy supporters of House Targaryen... who have long been lurking in King's Landing (SaS), gathering their forces near the old The Dragonpit (TftRK) and dreaming of the return of Dragons.

The Krakens began the battle with a brilliant master-stroke in removing the dreaded Dragonpit from the hands of Targaryen supporters. This was accomplished through an Attack from the Sea, which according to Citadel Law (MotA) led to the location being Snowed Under (Core), and subsequently being pillaged by a Newly Made Lord (TftH).

Alas, now the Threat from the North (PotS) (in the form of more Targaryen-loyalists, perhaps) is rising... and the Maesters will have to employ all their wiles, if they are to survive it.

Dominance Phase

Framework Action: As the dominance phase begins, there is first an opportunity for each player (starting with the First Player) to bring a card out of Shadows. While the Greyjoy player passes on the opportunity, the Targaryen player brings out a King’s Landing Assassin by paying 2 gold. She subsequently triggers the response from the Assassin, targeting Baelor Blacktyde. The Greyjoy player is not happy about this development, since Baelor is an invaluable tool for him, in stopping the continuous flood of burn-events. There are now two terminal effects trying to remove Baelor from play. Being the first player, our Greyjoy player decides that the terminal effect from King’s Landing Assassin happens first. Why, you ask? Since Threat from the North has that nasty “cannot be saved” clause in it!

Our Greyjoy player has Moqorro available, who is one of the few cards in the game who can save a character from being burned... since his save-ability both saves the character and removes the terminal effect by pumping the character’s strength. Thus, Baelor is saved from the effect, and simultaneously his strength is raised... Afterwards, the terminal from Threat from the North no longer initiates, since the character is no longer at 0 STR. He gets to live, at least a little while longer! No other effects happen during the beginning of the phase, so the game moves forward.

Framework Action: The players move onto the dominance count. To the dismay of the Greyjoy Player, he cannot execute any player actions before the count (as there is no player action window before the count), and thus he only counts 2 - one from the STR of Maester Murenmure that is lowered by Threat from the North, and one from the gold he has in his gold pool. The Targaryen player counts 4 - one from the Assassin, who also has it’s strength lowered, and three from the gold in her gold pool. Note that the Fishing Net is stopping Pyat Pree from counting his STR for dominance. The Targaryen player wins dominance, and adds one power to her House Card.

Player Actions: Knowing that the Targaryen player has a Forever Burning in her dead pile, the Greyjoy player quickly triggers the Brass Link on his Maester Murenmure, kneeling him to pay for the cost. Since the effect is not cancelled, three cards are milled from the top of the Targaryen player’s deck. The three cards are a King’s Landing Assassin, a The Hatchlings' Feast (ASitD) and a copy of Dragonpit. Our Targaryen player is not at all pleased to see the Hatchling’s Feast hit the discard pile, especially with Baelor still on play!

Afterwards, it is time to respond to the triggering of Brass Link. Our Targaryen player gets the first opportunity to respond, but indicates that she has nothing to respond with (and will subsequently start passing on Responses), while the Greyjoy player has a lot of things to do. He first triggers Bronze Link, moving the Apprentice Collar from the discard pile into his hand. Next, he triggers Pale Steel Link, and puts the Apprentice Collar into play... deciding that Baelor Blacktyde could use a bit of protection. Finally, he also triggers the Iron Link, and raises the strength of Murenmure by 2 until the end of the phase.

Our Targaryen player grits her teeth... With both Murenmure and Baelor having 3 STR, it will be hard to burn them via her Forever Burning... and she has some better long-term uses for her gold. Well, she decides to use her first player action to return it to her hand anyway by kneeling one Summer Sea. The GJ player passes, expecting the life of Moqorro to be short-lived. Our Targaryen player promptly does as expected, and plays Forever Burning on Moqorro. Moqorro’s strength is now lowered to 0, which kicks in the terminal effect from Threat from the North, causing him to be discarded. The Targaryen player responds to this, using Brazen Beasts, adding one more power onto them. Our GJ player sighs in relief, at least it looks like Baelor and Murenmure might be safe... He passes again, and our Targaryen player returns Forever Burning again into her hand by kneeling the second Summer Sea. Looking at all of her influence locations being now knelt, she sighs. Both players then pass, and the phase ends without further action.

Framework Action: First, all until the end of phase effects end simultaneously. Then, the passive effect from Pulled Under is initiated. Both the attachment and Brazen Beasts go moribund:bottom_of_deck, and since there is no opportunity to save from this, due to it happening during the End of Phase Framework Action, the duplicate is discarded. Nothing else happens here, so the phase now simply ends, and the cards are placed in the bottoms of their player’s decks, with Targaryen suffering a huge loss in power.

[lightbox='GJ_pre_stand_small24.jpg']tn_GJ_pre_stand_small24.jpg[/lightbox]
[lightbox='Targ_pre_stand_small24.jpg']tn_Targ_pre_stand_small24.jpg[/lightbox]

Standing Phase

Framework Action: At the beginning of the Standing phase there is again the option for players to bring out a card from Shadows. As expected, our GJ player again declines, while the Targaryen player brings King’s Landing out of Shadows by paying 2 gold.

Framework Action: This time the one to be dismayed by the lack of a Player Action opportunity before the standing of cards is the Targaryen player, as she would gladly have taken an extra card from King’s Landing... All cards stand simultaneously, and since there are no passives initiated by this, and neither player has Response: effects to trigger, the game moves onwards.

Player Actions: Our Greyjoy player looks at Muremure’s 1 STR worriedly, and again triggers Brass Link. He kneels Murenmure, discarding a second Hatchling’s Feast, a Shivering Sea (KotS) and a Magister Illyrio (VM) from our Targaryen player’s deck! Our Targ player sighs in relief, as the discard did not put a Forever Burning in her discard pile... some good news at least.

Our Targaryen player again has no Response: effects to trigger, while our GJ player looks hungrily at his pile of Chains. He first triggers the Response: on Bronze Link, returning Steel Link from his discard pile to his hand. He follows this maneuver by triggering Pale Steel Link, and putting Steel Link on Maester Murenmure. She grits her teeth, as she realizes what is going to happen... He forges onwards by triggering the Inn of the Kneeling Man, and standing Murenmure, and then triggering Steel Link to stand Inn of the Kneeling Man back up again! Cunning devil... Finally, he triggers Iron Link, buffing Murenmure’s strength back up again to stop him from being burned.

Our Targaryen player looks at the situation for a bit. Her opponent now has a repeatable Mill-machinery, that can quickly make short work of her whole deck... and with Baelor in play, this will get ugly fast. Unless... She first triggers King’s Landing, hoping for something that would be useful... and draws into a second Forever Burning. Not bad at all.

Our GJ player gets a bit more worried with the Targaryen player smiling, but still passes on making further actions. Our Targaryen player plays one Forever Burning on Baelor, reducing his strength by one. Our GJ player is a bit puzzled, but is okay with the fact. Now, when it comes to her opportunity to respond, our Targaryen player triggers her Meerenese Brothel, and discards Brass Link, breaking the finely crafted combo! He looks at Isle of Ravens wistfully, but figures that he needs to have some insurance, just in case. At this point he is swearing aloud like a true Ironborn...

Both players now pass on making any further player actions.

Framework Action: Until end of phase effects stop simultaneously, and nothing else special happens here.


[lightbox='GJ_pre_tax_small24.jpg']tn_GJ_pre_tax_small24.jpg[/lightbox]
[lightbox='Targ_pre_tax_small24.jpg']tn_Targ_pre_tax_small24.jpg[/lightbox]

Taxation Phase

Framework Action: The Taxation phase begins, and our Targaryen Player uses the last of her gold to also bring out Red Keep, her final shadow card. Since a card came out of Shadows, King' Landing stands back up again.

Framework Action: Taxation happens, and the one lone gold from our Greyjoy Player is returned to the Treasury. Nothing else happens here, and the game moves forwards.

Player Actions: Greyjoy no longer has a Chain that would allow him to kneel Maester Murenmure, so he passes on making a Player Action. Our Targaryen player flashes a grin, and plays the second copy of Forever Burning, targeting Murenmure. To his horror our Greyjoy player realizes that the previous Forever Burning is in the dead pile (due to being Deathbound), and there is nothing stopping this from happening. Murenmure’s strength is lowered to 0, and the passive from Threat from the North kicks in, putting him moribund:discard. Thankfully he at least has Isle of Ravens in play and is able to save the Bronze Link from being discarded from play and return it to hand instead. The GJ player takes a minute to consider the best order for the chain links to hit the discard pile, for future recursion with the Bronze Link. Both players then pass on making any more actions, and we proceed onward.

Framework Action: There is nothing special happening here, so the phase simply ends.

Final Situation:


[lightbox='GJ_end_small24.jpg']tn_GJ_end_small24.jpg[/lightbox]
[lightbox='Targ_end_small24.jpg']tn_Targ_end_small24.jpg[/lightbox]

So, the lone Baelor now stands across Jhogo and a Fishing Net’d Pyat Pree, with a lot of tight situations yet to come. Our Greyjoy player may well still have At the Gates handy in his deck, and his copies of Murenmure and Wendamyr are only discarded after all... But the Targaryen player has a huge amount of resources and consistent draw now available, and thinks that if she can only draw into some good control cards...

Dear Archmaester

Dear Archmaester collects interesting, unusual and unexpected rulings from the FFG Rules forum.

Q: Dear Archmaester,
If a Brothel Guard (LotR) is the target of a Lannisport Brothel (Core) and the Lannisport Brothel's response happens first, can the Brothel Guard still trigger its response?

A: Yes. Check reply #8 of this thread for details, but essentially a response doesn't care about the current state of a card, only whether the trigger happened at some point. Interestingly this would seem to overrule a previous decision on Son of the Mist (ASoSilence), in which it was interpreted that if the player playing their last card from hand drew a card through a response before Son of the Mist's response, Son of the Mist couldn't claim power. Whether this in fact does overrule that remains to be confirmed for certain, but stay tuned to Q&TR for details.

Antti Korventausta (WWDrakey) is a self-proclaimed Finnish AGoT philosopher and nitpicker, who also used to practice Quantum Mechanics, but found that it paled to AGoT in both interest and complexity. As a Stahleck regular and judge, he sometimes has oddly vivid dreams of understanding portions of the game. In AGoT, he'll play anything as long as it's suitably twisted... often ending up with something that has horns on it.

Helmut Hohberger (Ratatoskr) started playing AGoT in September 2010 and has never looked back (although his wife has, longingly). As a German, he loves rules - and I mean *loves* 'em. Try triggering a Response at the end of a phase on his watch, and he'll probably invade your country. He has actually read the FAQ, and was made a judge at Stahleck 2011 and at various other events. He sometimes answers rules questions on boardgamegeek and the FFG rules board. Some of his answers haven't even been contradicted, corrected or expanded upon by ktom - there is no higher accolade for a rules board morlock.

Every Maester needs a Raven on his shoulder. As a Finn, Iiro Jalonen (Ire) got pulled under the waves by Krakens years ago, and has never looked back. A self-inflicted Shagga and active member of the global AGoT community, he has always strived to know the rules of the game, in order to make them do ridiculous things.

James Waumsley (JCWamma) started playing Thrones in January 2012. Although he’s not got many links on his collar just yet, he’s a fiendishly competitive player who delights in making sure the rules are upheld, so that his opponents have no excuses (or in practice, so that he has no excuses himself).