Greenleaf vs Enquea TOTO

[Thranduil]

However, to play devil's advocate, the text of the card says you have to heal all companions of a single culture.  Can i discard Athelas to heal a wounded companion that is not there?

No. Once you've discarded it, you must perform as much of the text as possible. If there is a wounded companion or a Shadow condition borne by a companion, you MUST do one of those things.

Citadel to Gate is different. You choose a culture which is not there, and then you perform as much of the effect as possible, which happens to be nothing.

Similarly, if a card said "Discard this card to heal Gandalf" and Gandalf was not on the table, you can of course discard it for no effect. But if Gandalf is on the table, you HAVE to heal him.

Thranduil

[legolas3333]

but you can discard athelas if there are no wounded companions

Citadel to Gate is special in the fact that it does not say "choose a free peoples culture you can spot" if it did then it would no work the way kralik uses it.

[Sam, Great Elf Warrior]

but you can discard athelas if there are no wounded companions

Citadel to Gate is special in the fact that it does not say "choose a free peoples culture you can spot" if it did then it would no work the way kralik uses it.

I'm not sure this distinction works, since Athelas doesn't say "choose a wounded companion you can spot" nor does Citadel to Gate say "choose a free peoples culture." Indeed, if Citadel to Gate said "heal a companion of a Free Peoples culture (except )," we could probably agree that it worked the same way as Athelas, that is, you could only heal a companion who was actually there.

The possible loophole with Citadel to Gate is that arguably, healing all 0 companions fully performs its effect of "heal all companions of one culture" (by that logic, you could even choose to heal all companions). In other words, if I have 0 companions, and I heal 0 companions, have I successfully performed the effect of healing all companions? Technically, it seems to work, but it just seems weird to have "successfully performed an action" when you haven't actually done anything. Then again, Elessar's Edict lets you successfully meet its cost by exhausting a wraith who is already exhausted, but at least there you have to spot an exhausted wraith. I'm leaning towards it working, but it is difficult.

[ket_the_jet]

Then again, Elessar's Edict lets you successfully meet its cost by exhausting a wraith who is already exhausted, but at least there you have to spot an exhausted wraith. I'm leaning towards it working, but it is difficult.

Paraphrasing from the CRD, you can exhaust an exhausted character infinite times.

Athelas is a different example. If there is a companion with a wound, or bearing a Shadow condition, you must do one of those things--fulfilling the most possible game text.

With Citadel to Gate, you can fulfill all of the game text by choosing to heal companions of one culture, even if that culture is not in play.
-wtk

[Elessar's Socks]

Personally I find where targeting ends and "perform as much as you can" begins to be confusing at times. For example, compare One of You Must Do This to Hard Choice. With OoYMDT, the FP player must choose companions who can exert as opposed to burning the effect on exhausted companions. Performing as much as you can here requires choosing targets who can exert.

For Hard Choice, it was argued in an earlier thread that the FP player is able to choose a companion who cannot heal as its target (e.g. a companion with Black Breath). So it seems the order here is to choose a target (I think understood to be a companion who has the Aragorn signet), and then perform as much as you can. Though on my end, I'm not sure why the case would be different here, if going by OoYMDT.

[ket_the_jet]

I still think that you need to spot someone who can be healed with Hard Choice unless there is no spot-table Aragorn signet character who can be healed. In short, if you have three characters with the Aragorn signet, and two of them have Black Breath, then you have to pick the one who does not have Black Breath. But if there are two Gorn signet companions and both have Black Breath, you can fizzle Hard Choice.

Anyways, I would like to direct wound this topic until it dies during the Archery phase.
-wtk