Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 19

Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 19

With the Winter cold rising outside, at least the hearths of the Quill & Tankard are still warm. However, the cold of Winter seems to have frozen the roads, and even the Ravens have been arriving seldom, if at all. With there being very little news from the outside, the folks here at the Inn have taken to telling old stories.

That, and playing Cyvasse of course. And my, that's a much trickier game than it seems.

Beware The Sphinx - A Game of Cyvasse

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.

Today in Beware The Sphinx we're going to be looking at a card most competetive players should be more than familiar with by now. You know, the one that makes you constantly count the strength of each standing character with an intrigue icon, like your life depended on it. And it usually does... since a well-timed Game of Cyvasse can quickly turn a charge into a rout.



So, why are we talking about this classic card today? This time, it has less to do with the card being exceedingly complicated, and more to do with it bringing to light some interesting nuances you might easily miss.

So, the text on Game of Cyvasse reads:

Challenges: Each player must choose and kneel a character with an intrigue icon he or she controls, if able. Then, the player who knelt the character with the highest STR may choose and return a character to it's owner's hand.

Sounds simple enough? Everybody kneels a character, then the player who knelt the highest STR character gets to return a character from play to it's owners hand, so what's the big deal?

Resolving the Effect

First of all, there's the order of the whole thing. In effects like Cyvasse, where several players have to do something, the player who played the card has to act first, then proceeding clockwise around the table. Thus, the other players can see what the Martell player is kneeling, and act accordingly.

Secondly, something that's often overlooked by new players, the card does not say ”standing character”, so you can in fact choose a kneeling character with an intrigue icon. If the Martell player just knelt a 6 STR Southron Mercenaries (TBoBB), it might be a prudent point to minimize your losses and just choose the kneeling Highgarden Refugee (RoW) instead of Melisandre (RoR). However, there's another twist to this - when the second portion of the effect (starting with ”Then, ...”) initiates, only characters who were succesfully knelt (went from standing to kneeling) can win the Game of Cyvasse and are counted for who knelt the largest strength character.

Okay, so what if we have something like Lyanna Stark (ODG) in play, when is the character's strength counted? The Then... effect checks the strengths of the characters afterwards, so if the Martell player knelt his Southron Mercenaries (TBoBB) and your Melisandre (RoR) in fact had a R'hllor's Blessing (AKitN), then you both 'knelt' a 5 STR character. Now, if there is a tie for the highest STR character knelt, then there is in fact no player who knelt the character with the highest STR, and nobody gets to return anything to hand.

Cancelling the Effect

Now, the really interesting part of AGoT rules that Game of Cyvasse brings to light arises from it's interaction with some very particular kinds of cancelling effects. If you're just using any old event or triggered effect cancel, then there's nothing very special with cancelling Cyvasse.

However, let's have a look at Starfall Advisor (TWH), a card that's only limited to cancelling events or character abilities targetting House Dayne characters. Most such cards (like Maester Vyman (TWoW) or Maester Kerwin (VM)) are immediately stymied by Cyvasse having several targets, but the Advisor is an exception to the rule. Now, cancelling of the event happens in Step 2 of the action window, and at that point the only known targets for the event are the ones that the players are going to kneel (the Then... portion is not yet resolved). So, if a player chooses to kneel a House Dayne character for the event, the event can be cancelled via Starfall Advisor (TWH). All fine so far. Now, what if no House Dayne character is knelt, but the player who gets to choose the character to return to hand chooses a House Dayne character?

Since saves/cancels can regularly only be played during Step 2, and the new target is only chosen in Step 3, there isn't a possibility for a cancel anymore. Wait... Wouldn't that mean that you couldn't even save from the bounce with Game of Cyvasse? Well, yes it would, if not for this handy portion in the FAQ:

(3.38) Saving from "Then" Effects
Any "Then" effect that would remove
a character from play creates a special
opportunity for players to play “save”
responses to the terminal “Then” effect. Only
save responses can be played during this
special opportunity.

Huh, looks like that particular point was put there for a reason. Because of this, there's actually a special opportunity for saving (and only saving) characters from Then... effects, and Cyvasse is at least a tiny fraction less powerful. However, there's something particularly interesting about this portion. Notice the use of the word character there? As the FAQ is currently worded, if the game were to recieve an effect that removed a location or attachment from play via a Then... -portion, no save opportunity would open up.

Dear Archmaester

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

Q: Dear Archmaester,
Jory Cassel (CtB)'s ability lets me attach a Stark character from my hand to him as a duplicate. He does not use the "put into play" wording, however - does this mean the atttached duplicate does not count against the limitation on Fear of Winter (BtW)?

A: Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), no. Any card that enters play and does not fulfill the definition for being "played" automatically counts as being "put into play", whether the wording is used to or not. For further discussion, see the thread here.

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 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.