Legacy Ruling 9

Status: Discussion (2025-05-09)

Playing Cards From Discard

In the Comprehensive Rules, there are a pair of entries relating to playing cards from the discard pile:

From the Comprehensive Rules:

Some cards allow you to play a card directly from your discard pile. You must still pay any costs and meet requirements necessary for playing that card.

- discard pile section

From the Comprehensive Rules:

If an action plays a card from your hand (or discard pile) as part of its effect, then that card must be in your hand (or discard pile) before you can begin to perform that action.

The Orc you play with They Are Coming (1C196) ("Shadow: Discard 3 cards from hand to play a Moria Orc from your discard pile.") cannot be one of the cards you discarded from your hand to pay the cost of that special ability.

- effect section

As currently implemented on Gemp, They Are Coming (1C196) does not permit itself to be used if there is insufficient twilight or any other game effect which would block the ability to play one of the Orcs currently in the discard pile. In contrast, Uruk Captain (2R46) is currently coded such that it can be activated if no valid Uruk-hai could be played (most commonly if there was sufficient twilight before activation, but then the removal of makes all potential targets ineligible).

Which of these implementations is correct?

The Question

For actions which play a card from discard as part of their effect:

• A: So long as the listed target is in the discard pile, that is sufficient to use that card action regardless of whether the target can be played.

or

• B: The listed target must both be in the discard pile and eligible for play (all twilight and other to-play costs must be payable, and no card effect must be in play that would prevent play from discard) before that card action can be used.

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