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[Warfreak2]

Premise: when a Reaction card says "when ____", the reaction actually resolves before the ____ resolves. Therefore, isn't it technically within the rules to trash a Market Square from my hand, react to that trashing by discarding it and gaining a Gold, and then not being able to resolve the trashing because whatever card tried to trash it has Lost Track of it (it's now in my discard pile, rather than my hand)? This seems like it's definitely not the intention of the card, as it would be even better than Fortress' invulnerability (keep the card AND get a Gold), but I'm struggling to work out why it's not within the rules.

[Awaclus]

No, the reaction actually resolves after the ____ resolves. When you trash Market Square from your hand, it's not in your hand anymore and you can't discard it.

[Qvist]

Also, I guess, whenever a card references "a card" it's always implicit "a card other than this copy". Trader and Watchtower also don't trigger when you buy them on their own reaction.

[Davio]

Also, I guess, whenever a card references "a card" it's always implicit "a card other than this copy". Trader and Watchtower also don't trigger when you buy them on their own reaction.

Because you don't have them in hand when you buy them?

I don't think reactions trigger if the cards aren't in your hand.
I'm talking about the "blue" reactions here, not the on-card reactions.

[Qvist]

Also, I guess, whenever a card references "a card" it's always implicit "a card other than this copy". Trader and Watchtower also don't trigger when you buy them on their own reaction.

Because you don't have them in hand when you buy them?

I don't think reactions trigger if the cards aren't in your hand.
I'm talking about the "blue" reactions here, not the on-card reactions.

Right. I forgot that they say explicitly "in your hand", but Davio's explanation is much easier formulated what I tried to say. Reaction card have to be in your hand to trigger.

[RTT]

Also, I guess, whenever a card references "a card" it's always implicit "a card other than this copy". Trader and Watchtower also don't trigger when you buy them on their own reaction.

Because you don't have them in hand when you buy them?

I don't think reactions trigger if the cards aren't in your hand.
I'm talking about the "blue" reactions here, not the on-card reactions.

Right. I forgot that they say explicitly "in your hand", but Davio's explanation is much easier formulated what I tried to say. Reaction card have to be in your hand to trigger.

exept for tunnel which can be discarded from your draw pile and still react.

[Warfreak2]

Blue cards like Secret Chamber and Horse Traders definitely resolve before the attack resolves. Moat has no meaning if you resolve it after you already discarded two cards or got a Curse, and you can't reveal a Moat (or anything else) after you draw a new set of four cards from Minion, which is after the attack resolves. You play Minion, I reveal Horse Traders before you even decide whether to attack or take money, set it aside for next turn, and if you choose to attack, I'm not affected because my hand now has only four cards. Trash a Cultist, discard Market Square, gain a Gold, and then draw three cards, possibly drawing your new Gold. Cellar discarding a Tunnel, you reveal the Tunnel before it gets discarded, then gain a Gold before drawing your new card. Talisman doesn't get you a second copy of a card when you buy it; rather, it resolves before the buy resolves, gives you a first copy of the card, and then the buy gets resolved, gaining you the second copy (or possibly nothing!). Beggar topdecks a Silver before Sea Hag discards it and replaces it with a Curse.

Border Village and Haggler, at least in online implementations, gain you another card after you gain them, but that's the only exception I can think of. That would matter when you gain an Inn, because you could shuffle the Border Village into your deck too. But I'm not sure "that's the way Isotropic works" trumps what the rules actually say, and by my understanding it should work the other way round.

I'm not convinced by the idea that when a card refers to "a card", it implicitly doesn't include itself. When scoring Gardens and Silk Road, each includes themselves in the count of your deck, and Secret Chamber can put itself back on your deck as one of the "two cards" it refers to. I'm not sure there's a strong argument that "a card" is semantically different to "cards" in any other way than one is singular and the other is plural.

Trader and Watchtower have to be revealed from your hand, but they aren't there when you gain them, so no problem there. If you had some way to gain a Watchtower in your hand, I am pretty sure you wouldn't then be allowed to reveal and topdeck it - not because it can't refer to itself, but rather because the gain has already happened, and reactions have to resolve first. If you could gain a Trader in hand, you wouldn't be allowed to reveal it in response to gaining it because Trader reacts to would-gain, which happens strictly before when-gain, and may in fact prevent the gain that would have happened.

If Market Square is resolved before whatever trashed it, then it's still in your hand. I didn't see anything in the rulebook explaining whether, or why, when-trash happens after trashing but when-attacked happens before being attacked.

[Warfreak2]

Let me be clear - I don't think Market Square is supposed to behave this way, and I don't want to play it as if it does. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my understanding of the rules.

[SirPeebles]

Also, I guess, whenever a card references "a card" it's always implicit "a card other than this copy". Trader and Watchtower also don't trigger when you buy them on their own reaction.

Scheme is an example of one which references "a card" which may refer to itself.

[Warfreak2]

Nice one! Didn't think about that.

[Warfreak2]

And if I Throne Room an Urchin, I can't trash it because it reacts "when you play another Attack card".

[SirPeebles]

Moat, Horse Traders etc. react to an Attack card being played.  Roughly, it is the act of moving the Attack card from one's hand to one's in play area that Moat reacts to.  That's why you need to choose whether or not to react with Moat or Horse Traders immediately after Minion is put into play, before your opponent chooses the coin or the discard.

Fun fact, if Moat is Young Witch's bane, it's usually better not to reveal it as Moat when the Young Witch is put into play, but rather wait until after your opponent discard 2 cards, and then reveal Moat as the bane.  This way your opponent is less likely to discard her Attack cards.

[Warfreak2]

OK, that makes sense and is consistent; Market Square reacts when one of your cards has been moved to the trash, finishes resolving, and then the card which trashed it finishes resolving.

But does that mean that when I reveal a Tunnel, I'm actually revealing it from my discard pile, rather than revealing it before putting it into the discard pile? That has complications because per the rules, only the top card of your discard pile is visible. If I discard two Tunnels at once (atomically), do I have to reveal the top one from my discard pile, therefore making the one below it visible, in order to reveal the second one? Or does the first Tunnel finish resolving, go back on the discard pile, and then prevent me from revealing the second one which is no longer visible? It also seems odd that, were I to discard Tunnel and Estate, I would need to be careful to put the Tunnel on top.

[SirPeebles]

Haggler does not gain you a new card after you gain the first one (the card you bought).  You gain the freebies first, since that gain is reacting to buying a card.

For instance.  You have Haggler in play.  You buy a Border Village.  Haggler reacts to your buying (i.e. paying money; you don't have the Border Village yet), and you gain a Cache.  As soon as Cache lands in your discard pile, you gain two Coppers as part of Cache's on-gain.  But hey, you bought that Border Village, so now you gain the Border Village.  Once Border Village hits your discard pile, its on-gain effect triggers and you gain a Duchy.  Once the Duchy hits your discard pile you choose to gain a Duchess.

[SirPeebles]

Tunnel is weird.  I've never really accepted the explanations I've seen.

[Warfreak2]

So if I topdeck a gained card using Watchtower, it visits my discard pile on the way?

[GendoIkari]

So if I topdeck a gained card using Watchtower, it visits my discard pile on the way?

Yes. This is especially important for things like Inn. If you gain an Inn, and then reveal Watchtower, Inn IS in the discard pile for a moment, meaning you have the option to shuffle it into your draw pile (in which case Watchtower would lose track of it and do nothing).

[Davio]

Tunnel is weird.  I've never really accepted the explanations I've seen.

Tunnel is indeed weird.

I think it creates some sort of weird "mid-air" zone.

If you could pull Tunnel from any place in your discard, well, it's lose-track issues and what not.
If you can reveal Tunnel as you are discarding a single one, then Cellar's discarding is no longer an atomic operation.

[SirPeebles]

Those are all examples of plain old "gain".  If you do not specify where you gain from or to, then it is understood that you are gaining from the supply to your discard pile.  Nomad Camp is an example of a card which is always gained directly to the top of your deck.  Explorer and Mine gain treasure directly to your hand.  Beggar, between its action and its reaction is able to gain treasure to your discard, top of deck, or hand.

Where ever you gain a card to, you gain it to there first, and then Watchtower may have an opportunity to move it to the top of your deck. 

Warning though!  The lose track rule states that Watchtower will lose track of any card in your discard pile that gets covered up, even if it is only momentary.  This is actually where one of my favorite edge-casey wonky rules interactions comes in:

You have Watchtower in hand.  Your plan is to gain a Border Village.  The gain triggers the following two things, and you may choose the order in which you resolve them:  you may reveal your Watchtower to topdeck your new Border Village, and you may gain a Woodcutter.  You want to gain the Woodcutter first, topdecking it, and then topdeck your Border Village.  But that won't work.  While it is perfectly legit to reveal your Watchtower after dealing with Woodcutter in an attempt to put Border Village on top, you can't actually do it because Watchtower lost track of Border Village when Woodcutter momentarily sat on top of it.

However, if you had gained Nomad Camp rather than Woodcutter, then Nomad Camp would have gone directly on top of your deck, never covering your Border Village, so you could then Watchtower your Border Village on top.

I like how, even with Watchtower in hand, Nomad Camp's built-in topdecking can have an advantage over Woodcutter.  It's the same reason that I like the subtle difference in Moat and bane's timing, since most people think that if Moat is the bane, then it's moat-ness makes the bane moot, but really the bane-ness still shines.

[SirPeebles]

Tunnel is weird.  I've never really accepted the explanations I've seen.

Tunnel is indeed weird.

I think it creates some sort of weird "mid-air" zone.

If you could pull Tunnel from any place in your discard, well, it's lose-track issues and what not.
If you can reveal Tunnel as you are discarding a single one, then Cellar's discarding is no longer an atomic operation.

I still think that given a collection X of cards, "discard the cards in X" should mean "discard the cards in X one at a time, in the order of your choice".  That would resolve this issue nicely.

Edit:  So in other words, I don't think that Tunnel is weird.  Rather, I think that discarding huge stacks of cards all at once is too clunky to properly support a card reacting to itself being discarded.  That said, it's abundantly clear what the intention of Tunnel is, so I doubt it causes trouble for anyone who isn't already looking for trouble.  Or programmers.

[Davio]

I proposed in another topic with Forge to just put all trashed cards aside for a second while you're resolving stuff, Rats, Cultists, who knows.

The same can be done with Tunnel.

This would be a problem with an example card like: If you discard this other than during clean-up: +1 Card.

[AJD]

But does that mean that when I reveal a Tunnel, I'm actually revealing it from my discard pile, rather than revealing it before putting it into the discard pile?

Yes.

...Alternatively, it might make more sense to interpret Tunnel's "when you discard this" as meaning "as you discard this", even though it says "when". (Similarly, Nomad Camp's "when you gain this" is definitely better interpreted as "as you gain this".)

That has complications because per the rules, only the top card of your discard pile is visible.

Yes.

If I discard two Tunnels at once (atomically), do I have to reveal the top one from my discard pile, therefore making the one below it visible, in order to reveal the second one? Or does the first Tunnel finish resolving, go back on the discard pile, and then prevent me from revealing the second one which is no longer visible? It also seems odd that, were I to discard Tunnel and Estate, I would need to be careful to put the Tunnel on top.

Neither of these. Oddly, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from digging into your discard pile in order to pull out a Tunnel you just discarded. So you can discard two Tunnels and and Estate, put the Estate on top, and then dig out the first Tunnel, reveal it, put it back where you got it from, gain a Gold, put that on top of your discard pile, and then dig back into your discard pile, pull out the other Tunnel, reveal it, put it back, and gain another Gold. There's nothing in the rules, not even the famous lose-track principle, preventing this from happening exactly as described. (You're just not allowed to look at any cards in your discard pile other than the Tunnels when you do this.)

...Alternatively, you can interpret the "when" on Tunnel as meaning "as".

[Warfreak2]

Regarding Watchtower and Border Village/Woodcutter, is that an official ruling? It seems to me I can do it in this order:
1) Buy Border Village
2) Gain Border Village
 [Border Village is now on my discard pile.]
3) Reveal Watchtower
 [Now we have two on-gain effects which are resolved in the order that I choose; I choose to resolve Border Village first:]
4) Gain a Woodcutter
 [Woodcutter is now on my discard pile.]
5) Reveal Watchtower
6) Topdeck Woodcutter
 [Now I have finished resolving Border Village, I'll finish resolving the first reveal of Watchtower:]
7) Check that Border Village is visible on top of my discard pile, where Watchtower expects it to be - it is indeed!
Topdeck Border Village.

There's a couple of ways I can think that this couldn't work - firstly, after the definition of the Lose Track rule (I'm going from my Dark Ages rulebook), there's some explanations or examples, the last sentence of which says that a card in the discard pile is lost track of if it "gets" covered up, rather than if it "is" covered up. Since Border Village "got" covered up, Watchtower lost track of it, even if it isn't covered up any more. Secondly, since Watchtower is already in the "reveal" zone (if there is such a thing) it might not be possible to reveal it - it's already there; in the same sense that you can't trash something that's already in the trash, because it can't be moved to somewhere it already is. Perhaps revealing a second Watchtower is necessary!

Lose Track is far too confusing. The first example from Dark Ages has Procession on a Madman, and it says that Procession can't move the Madman back to the Madman pile because it lost track of the Madman - but the instruction to return the Madman to the pile is not on the Procession card, it's on the Madman card itself. Shouldn't the Madman be moving itself to the pile, then, and isn't it always the case that a card can't lose track of itself? Why does the Procession have to do the moving? By my interpretation, the Madman can't be returned to the pile the second time simply because that's where it already is.

Looks like the forum turned my number 8 into a face with sunglasses, though maybe that's actually more appropriate. My interpretation of Procession->Madman is apparently the same as what the rulebook says, I should read it more carefully.

[Warfreak2]

Oddly, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from digging into your discard pile in order to pull out a Tunnel you just discarded.

Oh! So the Tunnel is covered up, but still, you did discard it, and it said when you discard it you can reveal it, so you can.

[GendoIkari]

Tunnel is weird.  I've never really accepted the explanations I've seen.

Tunnel is indeed weird.

I think it creates some sort of weird "mid-air" zone.

If you could pull Tunnel from any place in your discard, well, it's lose-track issues and what not.
If you can reveal Tunnel as you are discarding a single one, then Cellar's discarding is no longer an atomic operation.

Actually I don't think this is any different than Fortress. Other than the fact that Tunnel needs to "reveal" because it's in a hidden zone, whereas trashing Fortress is public. But both of them trigger after they're already in their final destination. With Fortress, you might Trash 3 Fortresses and a Curse all at the same time... all 4 go into the trash pile, in whatever order you choose, then they all trigger. Nothing has "lost track" there. You can magically dig through the trash pile now, to find all the Fortresses that you trashed, and put them back in your hand. Same with Discarding 3 Tunnels and a Curse... it is true that in real life, for accountability, you need to show the cards before they hit your discard pile, so that you don't reveal Tunnels that were already in there. But that's just an accountability issue.