Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 31

The Raven’s Message
The Raven’s Message exclusively reveals and discusses an up-and-coming, either mechanically or rules-wise interesting, card. The cards are from future products, and have been obtained directly via raven from the Archmaesters at the (FFG) Citadel.



The upcoming Chapter Pack The Kingsguard does not only have new, Shadows-based versions of the Kingsguard characters, but also other new Shadows cards. One of these is the legendary Stark location Moat Cailin, which ties into the venerable Stark sub-theme of winning on defense. It combines a constant effect that lets you buff your defensive STR with a Response: that allows you to pull this off as a surprise. Note that it is not your characters that gain the STR buff; rather it is factored into your total STR at challenge resolution, provided you have at least one participating character - much like the STR bonuses for certain challenge types that some of the Melee titles give you. With a card like The Grand Melee (TGM), you can be sure to win every incoming challenge as defender since you are counting all of the shadow cards as additional strength. This also means that it allows you to count STR on defense, independent of whether any of your defending characters are allowed to count their strength… making it a thematic thorn in the side of GJ decks with Intimidate or cards like Scouting Vessel (KotS).

Also, it’s good to remember that the Response: that brings Moat Cailin out of Shadows happens not only after a challenge has been declared against you, but also after attacking characters are declared - these two events happen in the same Framework Action Window. An interesting part of the card is the obvious synergy with both the new Kingsguard characters and The White Book (TftRK) - the former tend to have a lot of responses to cards coming out of Shadows (stand, draw etc.), while the latter will either force your opponent to use their cards a bit uneconomically, or let you move faster towards the win condition.

Beware the Sphinx - Jaqen H’ghar
Beware the Sphinx is a series of articles concentrating on important cards with several peculiar, complex or unintuitive interactions. An emphasis is kept on both new and competitively relevant cards. Remember, the Sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler.

Jaqen H'ghar is both one of the most iconic and most mysterious characters in the ASoIaF books. Both of these qualities tend to be mirrored by the cardboard versions of him that exist in the A Game of Thrones LCG.

When designing Jaqen H'ghar for the LCG, the designers obviously were out to make a splash. It seems that, much like the Jaqen in the books, they wanted him to have unusual and strong abilities. Unfortunately, this led to some issues with both the balancing and the rules. There are currently two different versions of Jaqen in the LCG: Jaqen H'ghar (SB) and Jaqen H'ghar (FtC), with Jaqen H'ghar (SB) having received significant errata - so much so that it’s basically a whole new card. Today we’ll be looking at both of these cards, and the related rules and timing issues associated with them.

Jaqen H'ghar (Sacred Bonds)

Here's the original version of Jaqen H'ghar (SB):

Being from the A Clash of Arms cycle, this version was legal already in the CCG period and was very heavily played near it’s final moments. This powerhouse tends to be difficult to stop once it gets going, especially with the combination of Vigilant, Intimidate and the STR buffs. And if you ever manage to get rid of it, it’ll just bounce back to the top of your opponent’s deck and reappear next turn due to Stalwart! He already received an erratum during the more high-powered CCG Era, and with the reboot of the game and the advent of the LCG, he was simply deemed too powerful for the small LCG cardpool and its much reduced power level. Thus, it happens that he has spent pretty much the entire LCG era on the banned list.

The 2013 reprint of the A Clash of Arms cycle saw a new version of Jaqen H'ghar (SB), and he was un-banned after having received heavy errata. Here's the new version:

The STR buff is gone, and now you have to pay for giving him keywords with power from your house... and even then the keywords he gains are for the duration of the phase only, so he is undoubtedly toned down. On the other hand, he can now gain keywords he didn't have before, like Renown or Joust. But what probably serves to keep him down more than any nerfs is the fact that there's a lot of efficient Ally hate around these days.

Aside from adjusting the card's power level, the new wording also raised quite a few questions. The missing unique symbol wasn't that big a deal in the end - even though some imaginative fellows claimed it might be deliberate, it turned out to be a simple oversight. No, what led to heated discussions and quite profound confusion was another thing: what does and does not constitute a keyword? Well, you will say, that's easy: A keyword is what the core set rules list as a keyword. That's entirely correct, but unfortunately, it is not sufficient (apart from the fact that not everybody got even that far, but let's not go there now).

Most keywords are unproblematic (see our Scribe’s Heart on them here). Stealth, Deadly, Renown, Vigilant, No Attachments etc. are straightforward, and Jaqen can get those without a problem. But what about "No Attachments except Siege", "No Condition Attachments", "No Attachments except a single Weapon" etc.? Can Jaqen get those? Or Immunities - Immunity is a keyword, so can Jaqen get "Immune to character abilities", "Immune to opponent's card effects" or "Immune to events and character abilities"? And what about keywords that follow the same template but do not actually exist on any printed card? Could you give him "No Attachments except Storyteller" or even "Immune to claim"?

Well, the design team decided to cut all discussions short and ruled that Jaqen can only get unqualified keywords, and no qualified keywords at all, whether they have been printed on cards before or not. That means he can get "No Attachments", but not "No Attachments except Weapon" and the like, and he can't gain immunities with his ability at all, because all immunity keywords have to be qualified.

Jaqen H’ghar (Forging the Chain)

This version of the character mimics how the Jaqen from the books takes on his victims’ identity after killing them. This card has a long and convoluted text, which seldom bodes well, and so it is not surprising that it needed to be clarified in the FAQ (page 26):

Do the self -referential abilities gained by Jaqen H'ghar (Forging the Chain F35) from the character attached to him refer to Jaqen H'ghar or the character attached to him?

Jaqen H'ghar gains the text box, without alteration, of the character attached to him. Any ability that specifically names that attached character does not reference Jaqen H'ghar.

Yeah, thanks, that’s nice - but what does it mean?

Let’s kick this off with an example. Let’s imagine that, say, Robert Baratheon (Core) was killed this phase. I have Jaqen H'ghar (FtC) in Shadows. I trigger his ability, pay two gold, bring him out of Shadows and attach Robert from my opponent’s dead pile to him as a dupe. Jaqen gains Robert’s text, and I have a duped char with that nifty double renown ability now, right?

Well, no. That’s the point of the FAQ entry quoted above. While Jaqen H'ghar (FtC) gains the printed text, base STR, icons, traits and crests of the card attached to him, he does not gain its title. So what I get in the example with Robert is a card with the title “Jaqen H’ghar” and the text “Renown. When Robert Baratheon claims power for renown, he claims an additional power.” Basically, Jaqen gains Renown, but the part of the ability that references Robert Baratheon is not applicable to him.

But wait, it gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). Let’s think about this for a second. I have a card with the title “Jaqen H’ghar” and a text that refers to Robert Baratheon. Hey, that is not a self-referential ability anymore, and that means… Holy Crap!

Yes. Exactly. That’s what it means. Jaqen doesn’t gain the additional-power-for-renown-ability - but every card named Robert Baratheon in play does! So, if I happened to have a copy of Robert Baratheon (TTotH) in play when I do the Jaqen thing, he could not only stand up as a player action, he would also claim extra power for renown. Or let’s say I use Jaqen H'ghar (FtC) together with Dragon Thief (AE) - that means I could choose and discard a non-unique attachment from play whenever a card named Dragon Thief (AE) comes into play, no matter who controls it. The possibilities seem endless. Sure, this is all much too unpredictable to be of any real use, but we think it’s still fun to ponder what could be possible.

So, tell us in the comments what the craziest combos are you can think of with Jaqen.

Addendum:

There’s another question regarding Jaqen H'ghar (FtC) that has been discussed at some length. If Jaqen gets burned (with Flame-Kissed (Core) for example) while he has a duplicate attached via his ability, can he save himself with the dupe and then return himself into shadows?

As you will remember, you cannot save from burn usually, since the terminal effect will just reassert itself after the save has resolved. You can only save from terminal effects like burn if the save removes the card from the terminal effect at the same time. Viserys Targaryen (Core) works that way, for example. Can Jaqen be used in a similar way? Unfortunately, no. With Viserys, the return to hand-part of his ability happens during the resolution of the save response, that is at the same time as the save. Jaqen’s return to Shadows ability OTOH is a lasting effect that happens passively after the save response from the dupe has fully resolved. It does not happen at the same time as the save, and does therefore not help against terminal effects.


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).