CoE weekly Rulings/Clarifications 17

1. My opponent wants to play Tookish Blood as a resource and prevent his hobbit from leaving play for any reason during my site phase when I'm attempting to influence his hobbit away. Is this allowed?

*** No. Your opponent can only play resources during his/her turn unless it's involving CVCC in which special rules apply

2. Can minion Agents in hero deck be recycled by following cards? Uvatha the Horseman An Unexpected Outpost Mouth of Sauron

*** No, yes, and yes because agents are considered hazards in a hero deck but are never creatures..

3. Does "play deck" means all the cards you are using?

*** "Play deck" does mean all of the cards you are using except for your site deck (ie. your sideboard, character draft pool, characters included in your deck regardless of draft, starting minor items, resource and hazard decks are all part of your "play deck").

4. a) I have thought that I should make Two HAZARD deck for General opponent format (one for vs hero and another for vs minion). I watched some decks and noticed that some people are making Two Resorce decks and Sidebords. Is this true?

*** The World Championships utilizes a 2-deck general opponent format. This means that you must designate two decks of the same alignment for play during that particular round (open, semi-final, or final). The alignments are: hero, fallen wizard, or minion (which includes The Balrog).

One of your decks must be designated to be played against a hero opponent and the other deck for a minion opponent. There may be no reversal of these designations once the tournament has begun. In other words, you may not decide to play your "versus minion" deck against a particular hero opponent because you think that that deck of yours will do better against this particular hero opponent.

Also, before the tournament has begun, you must determine which one of your two decks will be played against all Fallen Wizard opponents. This must be noted on your deck lists and may not be changed once the tournament has begun.

A "play deck" consists of your resources, hazards, sideboard, character draft pool, starting minon items/events, and the characters assigned to your play deck regardless of your draft outcome (ie. wizards and key characters).

You may play the same deck against all of your opponents if you wish or play the same resources against all opponents. It's up to you. You must have two separate deck lists written out before the start of the tournament that designate which alignment it's to be played against. If you need to do card swapping, then it's best to have a small note card/paper that will help you speed up your card swapping needs as your opponents' alignment changes. Just make sure you have two separate deck lists prepared to hand to the tournament coordinator before the start of the tournament. It's important to spend more time playing than waiting for people to write their deck lists out while the room rental time is ticking.

b) Special rules for movement to Gorgoroth is applied?

*** Yes.

5. If everyone in a company is killed, can your opponent still play hazards to finish using the hazard limit?

*** Yes.

6. Anduril and Barrow Blade - they give item marshalling points, but are not considered items for any other purpose. Is this correct? I.e. Greed doesn't trigger a corruption check, can't be searched for by Strider, etc.

*** This is correct.

7. Will the company be considered to have moved to their site of origin this turn if they are sent back to the site of origin with a roadblock hazard?

*** No.

8. Can you play river on moving company's site of origin?

*** No. CRF Turn Sequence Rulings: Playing Hazards - "Hazards may only be played on a company whose m/h phase is being resolved, or on the site they are moving to."

<Thanks to Wim Heemskerk for his help in answering questions 9 - 12>

9. Does Crack in the Wall apply to all new sites of a company that takes multiple m/h-phases in one turn?

*** Yes.

10. Can I reveal Fled into Darkness on-guard when the Balrog faces a strike of the auto-attack?

*** You could if the Balrog is tapped at that moment. It does mess with the auto attack (although in the attacked persons favour), so it is legal to reveal it at this point.

If the Balrog is untapped at that point you cannot reveal it, because it 'directly taps a character in the company'.

11. Can I actually play The Old Thrush on a 17-prowess Traitor?

*** Yes, I think your interpretation is correct. [Normal: 'as written on the card'; Card says: his+10; so you have an attack of 13+ prowess to play the Old Thrush on]

12. Does Lady of the Golden Wood prevent a Balrog from playing characters from his discard pile? This ability of a Balrog player is listed in the rules, and I would say that this constitutes 'normal sequence of play' and is therefore not affected by the Lady.

*** Correct.

13. a) Here's the situation: a character is facing a strike from an attack. My opponent wants to tap the character to play Marvels Told to get rid of Minions Stir. According to the CRF, a character facing a strike may only tap to play a resource if this directly affects the strike. I argued that it's not directly affecting it: the direct effect is on Minions Stir which was affecting the total number of strikes and prowess. My opponent felt it was legal because the prowess of the strike he was facing would be modified.

This was a wizard travelling alone. Alternately, even though this character is definately going to be facing a strike, could my opponent have responded to my play of the creature by tapping to MT the Minions Stir before strikes were assigned, thus avoiding the above quandry? (He didn't mention MT until after I had calculated aloud how high the strike's prowess would be - to me that means we had advanced to the strike sequence.)

*** Your opponent could have easily MT'd your Minions Stir when the attack was declared but before facing the strike.

The fact that he asked you how big the strike would be if he had to face it does not mean that he has advanced to the strike sequence. Now, if he had more than one character in the company but less than the total number of strikes, the strikes were assigned, and then he asked you where the modifiers were going to, it would be too late to MT the Minions Stir.

b) Is getting rid of of prowess/strike booster affecting the actual strike?

*** Yes. It reduces the prowess and number of strikes and therefore affects the strike. The CRF makes no mention of requiring to "directly"affecting a strike, just affecting it.

[Additional detail from Wim Heemskerk]: Reducing the prowess does have an effect on the strike (and makes the MT legal at that point). However reducing the number of strikes does not have an effect on the strike.

14. During CVCC, only the defender is considered to be facing an attack, but all characters are considered to be facing strikes. So that means the following cards can be used to reduce the body on characters they are fighting in CvCC: Poison, Mechanical Bow, Morgul-Blade, The Fiery Blade. Right?

*** Right.

15. If the Plague roll for Orcs/Trolls meets their "discard' number, are they discarded - or not, since the Plague roll isn't a Body Check ...? Or is it? Does the Plague roll also get the +1 if the character is already wounded?

*** It's not a body check, no discarding and no +1.

16. Normally, company versus company combat only happens between heroes and minions, but there are some other possibilities. I was wondering about receiving kill points for eliminated characters in those situations. Do you get kill points in all CVCC situations?

*** If you can initiate CVCC, you can obtain kill points from it.

17. If you kill an ally in CvCC, do you get kill MPs? rules say you recieve that chartacter's kill marshalling points if you kill a character, and also that allies are characters for the purposes of combat.

*** Yes, you get "kill MPs" if you kill an ally in CVCC.

18. Is a company considered to be at a site at any point during the M/H phase? How about a company that didn't move?

*** CRF Turn Sequence Rulings: M/H Phase General, Annotation 25 - "A company is considered to be at the site given by its site card at all times except from the moment their new site card is revealed during their m/h phase until their old site card is descarded during the same m/h phase. During this period a company is considered to be en route between sites and not at any site.

Thus, a squatting company "is considered to be at the site given by its site card" during the m/h phase.

19. This happened - all the characters died. ok, that m/h phase resolves as described above. next turn, no characters or wizards have been drawn up yet, so there are no characters or companies. Is the m/h phase skipped entirely and it goes immediately to the end of turn phase? OR Is there still a m/h phase? it is important for the guy with no characters who needs to play gates and twilight or things out of his hand during the org phase, then would resolve hand size once at the end of the m/h phase, and resolve hand size again during the end of turn phase.

*** MELE Companion pg. 94: "Movement/Hazard Phase. Follow this procedure for each of your companies. Each company has a separate m/h phase."

The characterless player has no companies and thus has no movement/hazard phase. The opponent also cannot play any hazards since there must be a company for hazards to be played on, event or otherwise.

It is within the m/h hazard phase that one of the hand size issues is reconciled. Thus, this is skipped. The only time that any players will reconcile their hand sizes for a characterless player's turn is during the End-of-Turn phase.

20. A Balrog player uses Gangways Over the Fire for a second M/H phase, moving away from a site on which I have played an on-guard card. The card will go back to my hand (correct?), but at what point? At the end of the new M/H phase? At the end of ALL M/H phases? (How long does that stopover site with my on-guard card stay on the table?) And do I draw up to hand size before the card goes to my hand or after?

*** If I recall correctly, an on-guard card will hold a site in play until the end of the site phase when all unrevealed on-guard cards return to their owner's hand.

For multiple site movement of a single company, reconcile hand size after each of that company's movement/hazard phases.