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[rinkworks]

I have two questions:

(1) Suppose, for whatever reason, Player A has four cards in his hand at the time Player B plays Minion.  Player A is unaffected by this attack.  But can he still play reactions to the attack?

(2) Suppose Player A has five cards, including Horse Traders, at the time Player B plays Minion.  Player A sets Horse Traders aside.  Now he has four cards.  Does he have to discard his hand and draw four more, or does he keep the four he has?  (In other words, does the effect of the attack get determined before or after that Horse Traders is set aside?)

Thanks.

[tko]

1) Yes.  First step is Player B plays Minion which is an "Attack" card... now Player A may play reactions.  Next, Player B chooses which option ($2 or discard and draw 4).

2) No discarding is necessary... it's determined after Horse Traders is set aside.

[WanderingWinder]

1)Yup. No reason that you can't react to an attack just because it wouldn't affect him once it resolves. Reactions can be revealed whenever an opponent plays an attack, as a reaction to that, not to the attack resolving (so you can reveal a reaction even if defended by a lighthouse, too; also note what I said isn't exactly true, as Watchtower and probably yet-to-be-released reactions react to things other than attacks, but the gist is still the same).
2)He keeps the four cards he has. Think of it like this - the reactions interrupt the playing of the other cards, so their effects resolve before any of the attack's effects do.

[rinkworks]

All very clear and logical.  Thanks!

[guided]

First, I'll assume you're not talking about Watchtower when you mention reaction cards.

(1) is one of those questions that can be resolved by just reading the text on the card and doing what it says "When another player plays an Attack card" - no mention of what the attack card does or doesn't do after it is played.

(2) is a more subtle question of timing, but one that is well-covered by the rules and the card text. The attack card is played, and only after that do its effects begin to resolve (in order, one after the other, starting at the top and going to the bottom). The reaction occurs "When another player plays an attack card", not "Some time after another player plays an attack card, maybe after some of its effects begin to resolve, who knows?"

Don't worry though, these are common enough wonderings for new players taught by others using reasonable mental short cuts, rather than reading the rules and card texts and doing exactly what they say. After I was taught the game without reading the rulebook I definitely had some confusion about Minion effect vs. Reaction timing (especially for Secret Chamber). Heck, my group was still playing Thief wrong a year after I was introduced to the game (pulling the gained treasure from the Supply instead of the Trash).

[Kuildeous]

(1) is one of those questions that can be resolved by just reading the text on the card and doing what it says "When another player plays an Attack card" - no mention of what the attack card does or doesn't do after it is played.

I've been beaten to the punch here, but I'll give some specific examples of this. Say your opponent plays Minion for +$2. You can still play a Secret Chamber. You could technically play a Moat, but that does no good. The same thing for when a Pirate Ship is played for coins. In my circles, we announce the Pirate Ship "for attack" or "for coins," but that's really not accurate, as it's an attack in both cases. One of those just actually hurts the other players.

This could result in weird things. Say Opponent A plays Torturer on you. You play Secret Chamber to rearrange your hand. You decide that it's worth taking the Curse. Then, Opponent B plays Militia on you. You can play that Secret Chamber again (assuming you didn't remove it from your hand after Opponent A's Torturer) to rearrange your hand and discard that Curse plus some other card.

[guided]

It's worth noting that the Minion or Pirate Ship player does not choose which option to take until after Reactions are resolved. Indeed, if you as the attacker are interested to know about any potential reactions, you should be careful to ask whether any reactions will be revealed (and allow them to completely resolve) before you make your choice. This definitely matters at times:

1. Minion + Secret Chamber. Reacting to Minion with Secret Chamber will give you fits, because you may have no idea whether you will subsequently be forced to discard your hand.
2. Pirate Ship. Did every opponent reveal a Secret Chamber? Then it may not be worth the trouble of plundering since they have had an opportunity to put non-treasures on top of their deck. Did every opponent reveal a Moat? Then you definitely won't profit from attempting to plunder them.

[play2draw]

What you have to remember is that before you do what an action card says, you have to play the card. Playing the card, therefore, occurs before whatever the card is supposed to do. The same concept goes with gaining and buying. Before you add a new card to your deck you need to actually gain the card. You can gain the card by buying it, but before you actually gain the card you need to pay for it.

So when there's a reaction involving "when an opponent plays an attack card" the reaction occurs the instant a card is played.

[AJD]

So when there's a reaction involving "when an opponent plays an attack card" the reaction occurs the instant a card is played.

Although this is true, it seems to lead to an inconsistency in the rules, namely the reveal-Secret-Chamber/draw-Moat/reveal-Moat situation. If a reaction has to be revealed "when an opponent plays an attack card", i.e., the instant the attack is played, that would seem to imply that no reactions that weren't in the hand at the instant the attack was played can be revealed. In other words, in that scenario, the Moat isn't being revealed "when an opponent plays an attack card", but rather after some other operation that has taken place after the attack was played. I grant that the rules explicitly allow the drawn Moat to be revealed in this situation, but if the FAQ didn't say so specifically, I think the logical reading of the card text would imply that it wasn't allowed.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Maybe rephrase it to:

So when there's a reaction involving "when an opponent plays an attack card" the reaction occurs between the instant a card is played and the instant the card begins to be resolved.

[guided]

I think the logical reading of the card text would imply that it wasn't allowed.

Not at all. Unless you think in a multiplayer game only the very first person to quickly shout "Moat, Moat! I have a Moat!" gets to avoid the attack?

When somebody plays an attack card, any number of reactions can occur (and fully resolve), whether it's the same player or multiple players revealing their reaction cards. It's no different than any other timing issue in Dominion: a single event can trigger several other events that fully resolve before the original card or player activity continues to resolve.

Consider for example: I have a Quarry and Talisman and Royal Seal in play and buy a Mint. I choose to do Talisman's effect first, Gaining another Mint. Then in response to gaining the second Mint I put it on top of my deck with Royal Seal. Now that Talisman and Royal Seal have finished resolving, Mint's on-buy effect still occurs whether I want it to or not, trashing all my played Treasures. Just because some other triggered effects resolved in the meantime doesn't mean it's not "when you buy..." anymore.

[Donald X.]

When somebody plays an attack card, any number of reactions can occur (and fully resolve), whether it's the same player or multiple players revealing their reaction cards. It's no different than any other timing issue in Dominion: a single event can trigger several other events that fully resolve before the original card or player activity continues to resolve.

This is correct but I'm still going to clarify it.

There are two pieces here. First, what does "when another player plays an attack card" mean? It means, after they announce it, and before it does anything. Moat has to happen then in order to work at all. So you Moat before finding out which choice they are making for Pirate Ship, etc.

Second, how do we time things that want to happen at the same time? Two ways, one mentioned in the main rules and one in the Seaside rules. If two things are happening to the same player, that player orders them. If they are happening to different players, we go in turn order.

So. I play Militia. Now people can respond with "when another player plays an attack card" things.

We go in turn order. The first player responds all they want - using Secret Chamber, then Moat, then Secret Chamber again, or what have you. Then the next player responds, and so on. After the last player, we're done - the first player doesn't get another chance.

In practice we all just flash our Moats without waiting because it doesn't matter.

[Dominionaer]

...

Consider for example: I have a Quarry and Talisman and Royal Seal in play and buy a Mint. I choose to do Talisman's effect first, Gaining another Mint. Then in response to gaining the second Mint I put it on top of my deck with Royal Seal. ...

According to rules of prosperity thats not possible:

... if you buy a Mint with Royal Seal in play, the Royal Seal will be gone before you can use it to put Mint on your deck.

[Buggz]

Exactly. When you buy a card in the buy phase you subsequently gain it. Since Mint says "when you buy this", you're unable to use Royals Seals "when you gain"-ability.

EDIT: Oh my, I ignored that Talisman. 

[Thisisnotasmile]

Yes, you buy before you gain. When you buy the Mint, you have 2 "when you buy" effects waiting to take place. Mint wants to trash your treasures, and Talisman wants to gain another copy (because Quarry is in play so Mint costs less than $4). Since they both happen at the same time you can choose which to do first. Guided says he wants to activate his Talisman first, gaining another copy. Now he has GAINED a Mint, which he uses Royal Seal to put on his deck. Now that's done, the other "when you buy" effect takes place. This means Mint now trashes all treasures in play. Finally, he gains the Mint that he bought, but as the Royal Seal is no longer in play, this Mint goes straight into his discard.

[Donald X.]

...

Consider for example: I have a Quarry and Talisman and Royal Seal in play and buy a Mint. I choose to do Talisman's effect first, Gaining another Mint. Then in response to gaining the second Mint I put it on top of my deck with Royal Seal. ...

According to rules of prosperity thats not possible:

... if you buy a Mint with Royal Seal in play, the Royal Seal will be gone before you can use it to put Mint on your deck.

guided has it right and so does the rulebook!

If you want, append "except when some other card not mentioned makes things work differently" to every example in all of the rulebooks. The rulebooks cannot cover every configuration of cards in the examples. At the same time this particular example is an important one; it's a question people actually ask, and so there's the answer in the FAQ, Mint happens first.

If you buy Mint for $4 or less with Talisman out then you have two when-buy triggers and get to order them. If you resolve Talisman first then you will gain a Mint for that and get to resolve Royal Seal for that gained-but-not-bought Mint. The Mint that you bought though will still resolve before you can put it on your deck with Royal Seal.

[guided]

Quarry/Talisman/Royal Seal/Mint is my absolute favorite instructive Dominion example

Now that Cornucopia is out maybe I can find some other crazier combination of effects....

[Thisisnotasmile]

I can't imagine the Quarry/Talisman/Royal Seal/Mint example is ever useful in practice though. I'd be very impressed if anyone could give me an example of a situation in which they would like to gain 2 Mints, one of which on top of their deck, AND trash a minimum of 1 Quarry, 1 Talisman and 1 Royal Seal.

[WanderingWinder]

I can't imagine the Quarry/Talisman/Royal Seal/Mint example is ever useful in practice though. I'd be very impressed if anyone could give me an example of a situation in which they would like to gain 2 Mints, one of which on top of their deck, AND trash a minimum of 1 Quarry, 1 Talisman and 1 Royal Seal.

I'm losing pretty badly and I want to create mass confusion in my play group. Oh, you mean wanting to win? Well, maybe there's a deck with tactician in a colony game where your quarry and talisman have outlived their usefulness and you have a royal seal 'cause... yeah, it's a stretch.

[AJD]

I suppose the issue is in part with an ambiguity in the meaning of "if two things happen at the same time, the player orders them", as it applies to reactions. One possible interpretation (which isn't the correct one) is analogous to the case with, for instance, playing a Pawn. For instance, when you play a Pawn, you can't say "I'll take +1 card, now I draw my card; okay, and for the other half of the Pawn I'll take +1 action"; you have to decide which two effects of the Pawn to take before you resolve either of them. One might think that, with "two things happening at the same time", the player would have to choose the order in which to activate them before doing either: "Ah! You've played a Militia; I'll reveal Secret Chamber and Horse Traders, activate the Horse Traders first, and then the Secret Chamber." Under this scenario, if you draw another reaction from the Secret Chamber, it's too late to reveal it as well.

Again, I'm not arguing that this is the rule of the game; it's not. I'm just arguing that the printed rules (excluding card FAQs) and card texts don't clearly distinguish between the correct and incorrect interpretations.

[guided]

I suppose the issue is in part with an ambiguity in the meaning of "if two things happen at the same time, the player orders them", as it applies to reactions. One possible interpretation (which isn't the correct one) is analogous to the case with, for instance, playing a Pawn. For instance, when you play a Pawn, you can't say "I'll take +1 card, now I draw my card; okay, and for the other half of the Pawn I'll take +1 action"; you have to decide which two effects of the Pawn to take before you resolve either of them. One might think that, with "two things happening at the same time", the player would have to choose the order in which to activate them before doing either: "Ah! You've played a Militia; I'll reveal Secret Chamber and Horse Traders, activate the Horse Traders first, and then the Secret Chamber." Under this scenario, if you draw another reaction from the Secret Chamber, it's too late to reveal it as well.

The first thing that happens when Pawn begins to resolve is that you make a choice of two options. It doesn't say "choose one and resolve it, then choose another and resolve it"; it says "choose two". After you finish choosing, the effects that you chose begin to resolve. You might imagine some people could be confused and think the card's intent is for you to choose-resolve-choose-resolve (rather than choose-resolve-resolve), which is why the card FAQ is there to make it crystal clear. Of note, the FAQ says you can resolve them in either order, but order makes no difference for Pawn. Yes, the Pawn FAQ makes the opposite ruling from the Trusty Steed FAQ, which says the choices resolve in the order listed on the latter card. Donald has acknowledged that in hindsight the Pawn FAQ shouldn't have said you could choose the order. Basically Trusty Steed takes the stance that the card text resolves from beginning to end (which is usual for card text), i.e. the chosen options aren't simultaneous.

[guided]

I can't imagine the Quarry/Talisman/Royal Seal/Mint example is ever useful in practice though.

Is there some reason an instructive example (about relative effect timing in this case) needs to be useful in practice?

[AJD]

Guided, there's no confusion about what Pawn does, and perhaps it was a distraction for me to introduce it. My point is just this:

The rule is 'if two things happen "at the same time", the player they effect decides the order'. But that doesn't necessarily resolve this question: Does the player have to first determine that two things are happening at the same time, and then say 'I get to choose the order, so I'll execute X first and then Y'; or can the player carry out X, and then say 'oh, by the way, Y is happening at the same time, so I choose for it to happen second'? The answer is the latter, but I stand by my claim that it's not really obvious from the rule book and card text. (The rule book is really vague about how Reactions work in general, I think.)

[guided]

In both of your cases, X and Y are either simultaneous or they aren't. Realizing it later is immaterial. It's inventing a rule out of nowhere to imagine that all simultaneous events must be announced at once and recorded in the minutes, approved by a majority of shareholders, etc, before any of the events begin to resolve. This isn't the rule because there's no basis in the rulebooks for believing it's a rule.

[AJD]

There's also no real basis in the rulebooks (other than, of course, the FAQ for Secret Chamber) for believing that "you may reveal this from your hand when an opponent plays an attack card" allows you to reveal a card that isn't in your hand when an opponent plays an attack card, but that is the rule.