New wargs

[MR. Lurtzy]

My friend and I have a dispute with minions bearing the new wargs (Relentless Warg, Threatening Warg, Vicious Warg). Can minions like orkish flanker and orkish dreg who have strength 9, bear relentless warg? They have nine strength before bearing them and 11 during bearing them, so I really don't know. Anybody know?

[Elf_Lvr]

Yes, they can bear them even if their strength rises above that number after it's played.

I don't think bearer requirements ever matter once a character is already bearing a card. Unless you want to transfer it, or something.

[TheJord]

Technically speaking, the card should say "When you play this possession, bearer must be an Orc with strength 9 or less". This would be less confusing.

[Elf_Lvr]

Technically, every possession should say that. Say you play a Knight's Mount on a companion with Armor of the White City, then transfer off the Armor. Or make a minion lose race keywords while it bears possessions.

I think there's a ruling somewhere that says that bearer requirements only matter when a card is being played/transferred.

[HawkeyeSPF]

EL is correct - "Bearer must be..." requirements matter only at the moment of playing the card from hand or transferring. If the possession is transferred to a character that does not match the requirements, the possession is lost (you cannot choose to transfer a possession to your own ineligible character).

[Elessar's Socks]

Under the entry for bearer: "Most possessions and artifacts, and some conditions, tell you who or what their bearer can be, which is the sort of card you can play them on." So (since the rules don't say to keep checking for bearer eligibility after they hit play) the Warg gets to stick around. Just adding to the train.

Transfer rules confuse me, though: "An artifact or possession may be transferred only to a character who may bear it. (See bearer.)" IF Rabbit Stew was an artifact/possession, would a non-Shire fellowship companion be an eligible target for transfer (disregarding "Bearer must be a companion"), or would the two restrictions combine so you'd have to transfer to a fellowship companion?

[Elf_Lvr]

It's an Age's End card. LotR TCG rules in general don't have to apply to it if Decipher didn't want them to.

[SomeRandomDude]

Yeah, Age's End cards don't follow rules. You wing it.

[Elessar's Socks]

Ah, winging things is no problem after Star Trek. "Hey, does this card affect a cloaked ship?" / "Use your Trek sense to figure it out!"

I'm guessing Rabbit Stew was meant to be transferable to any fellowship companion, ignoring the precedent from artifacts/possessions. 'Cuz conditions are special.

[FM]

I'm not sure if this would apply to LotR anymore, but I believe every TCG has a "Golden Rule" that states that if a card contradicts a Rule, the card prevails (until proper errata is issued, at least ).
So, basically, you'd have a card's text first, yes, but bearer requirements are more tied with a Rule than with a gametext (basically, a Rule involving playing it), so the second ability SHOULD trump the first one (this also being an unwritten rule, but this time in a lot of card games, but not them all) and allow you to transfer it to ANY Fellowship companion BY MEANS of the ability itself.

[Elessar's Socks]

I get what you're saying, FM, but I'm pretty sure the Decipher folks mentioned several times that LotR doesn't have a Golden Rule of its own. For example if you look at the entry for O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! regarding its cancel ability, the justification it gives for the card not overriding the rule is actually the rule itself. If it weren't for errata killing kittens, that would've been a prime candidate.

But wait, you might say, why does Whisper in the Dark get to do its own thing? It's because (and you knew this was coming)... Whisper in the Dark is special.

[FM]

Ah, but that counts as an errata! Back in the day, O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! DID cancel RB skirmishes. The "no canceling RB skirmishes" Rule was made AFTER, so the cards didn't need to get proper errata for each one since the whole Rule counted as an errata to anything PREVIOUS to it.

[Elessar's Socks]

Heh, not official errata, though. If a dream card (or a Player Committee release) ever has the same ability, we'd have to explain why one card works and the other one doesn't. Or explain that O E! G! works again because somewhere out there a counterpart, which was created after the rule, exists. Requiring that we take into account when a rule was added, or requiring knowledge of the entire card universe to be assured of understanding a card, is just sloppy stuff.

Incidentally if LotR did implement the Golden Rule, would anything be turned on its head?

(And I know none of this really matters at the moment, but just having fun discussing. )

[FM]

Well, MtG HAD The Golden Rule, but after 6th Edition (we're currently in 10th), there was a HUGE Rules update. They DID errata each card's Oracle text, but stuff that were not on card texts, like general rules (for instance, the concept of the Stack), pretty much turned a bunch of cards useless for quite some time, until they FINALLY found a way to errata them to give them functionality again.

[MR. Lurtzy]

Blimey...

[FM]

But it worked out well enough in the end, though, so it's worth taking a shot.

[SomeRandomDude]

I will continue to play Rabbit Stew in the only way that makes it worth touching.

[FM]

Not if the rules state it otherwise, you won't. But combining rules and common sense CAN solve a lot of issues, like taking into consideration the actual goal of the designer, when creating the card (and do not say it's impossible to know, it IS quite possible, most of the time).

[SomeRandomDude]

But the rules don't state otherwise.

They set up two possibilities. One makes the card playable, the other makes it unplayable. There's no ruling on it.

[FM]

That's what I meant. If a ruling was issued to make the card work the other way, too bad for ya. As it is, combining rules, common sense and the intended purpose of the card's design will USUALLY guide you to play it properly.