BRC

[TheHobbit13]

Can BRC discard shadow conditions protected from discard by an opponent?

[Tbiesty]

Yes, because BRC makes the Shadow player choose the cards and actually do the discarding.  Any card that says something like "may not be discarded by an opponent" is not protected if the owner of that card is the one that actually does the discarding.

[TheJord]

Sorry to firebomb this topic, but this has come up several times and I personally feel that this rule is counter intuitive to the game.

BRC cannot be blocked by Siege Engine because BRC is making the Shadow player discard. - This is the most current CRD ruling on the issue.

Frodo, Courteous Halfling comes up against Orc Inquisitor, Tower of Barad-dur, Desperate Measures and Band of the Eye, all major discard cards and is pointless as they all say "make the Free Peoples". As far as I can tell this means Desperate Defense of the Ring is now an auto burden each time.

I can only assume Frodo, CH was designed to help tackle discard, but in fact does bugger all against it, due to this ruling on BRC and Siege Engine. Maybe this is because discard became less prevalent and thus, no one cared about Courteous Halfling.

I just feel Decipher messed this ruling up, by muddying the source ruling with its wording.

[Elessar's Socks]

Frodo CH and Siege Engine are checking for different things. If CH had said "opponents may not discard cards from your hand or from the top of your draw deck" (Siege Engine style), then he wouldn't be able to stop Tower of Barad-dur. Similarly, if Siege Engine had said "...are about to be discarded by a Free Peoples card" (CH style), then it would be able to stop BRC.

Desperate Defense of the Ring gives the FP player a choice, so the FP player can choose to discard even with CH there. I actually find this counterintuitive because his text doesn't seem to reflect this, but the CRD says "This card only prevents Shadow cards that make you discard from hand or draw deck." So as far as I'm concerned, he's supposed to read like Old Noakes ("makes you").

[hrcho]

Here is where you can see the discussion about that particular question.

Frodo, CH prevents all those cards you mentioned from discarding or making the FP discard anything. Also, the specific example of Frodo, CH and DDotR is mentioned in the rules, but I can't find it at this moment. In short, when a card gives you a choice to discard cards, you can choose to do it. The same goes for Dunlending Rampager.
 

[TheJord]

I've read it all and it still doesn't sit well with me. Opponents and cards are being differentiated as sources, which I find perplexing.

I know what the rules are, but they feel out of sorts to me.