Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Player A presents Leah, Weary Eyed and does her bouncing thing, and then her ability "May band to Jacob" brings him in.  Player B blocks with Herod the Great.Hegets to "return all but one Hero in battle to territory, and chooses to push Jacob back home. (first question--if he had returned Leah, wouldn't that have ended the battle unless Player A had been able to play a card that negated or undid the return to territory?).  But I digress... Herod also "prevents good banding abilities" and "Cannot be prevented by a hero."   Leah then plays Answer to Prayer so she goes fishing through her deck  for a good Genesis card (or add to battle), and THIS cannot be negated if used by a Genesis Hero, which Leah is.   PLayer A pulls the enhancement/artifact Covenant with Noah, uses it as an enhancement and adds it to battle, per instructions on Answer to Prayer.  She can "Negate the last evil card played.  Discard an evil enhancement."  Well, Herod the great was the last evil card played, so I would think his abilities would be undone/negated, from searching for Herod's Temple (which was already on the board, so that one didn't matter), but he returned Jacob to territory, so doesn't Jacob get to come back to the battle?  And the "prevent good banding abilities" is now negated as well, right?  But Herod has that troublesome "cannot be prevented by a Hero.  On the other hand, Leah's Answer to Prayer enhancement reads "cannot be negated if used by a Genesis hero", and she used it to dig Covenant with Noah.  NOw, did the Covenant negate Herod's abilities?  Or did Leah, the Hero since she "used" the card that allowed her to play the Covenant?   

If this isn't a Negate vs. Negate )paper/paper?) situation, I still am not sure how that would work.  So if there was a hypothetical case where a card in PLayer 1's territory that protects all Syrians from shuffle and capture unless Elisha is in play,- and he has a couple of Syrian characters and a Greek/Syrian character as well.   Player 2 plays a card that says (hypothetically--I don't think there is one) "capture 2 Syrian and/or Babylonian Evil Characters.  Cannot be prevented if a King is in play." If Herod is in play, and Elisha is nowhere to be seen,  what is the outcome?

Thank you for your help--I'm printing and adding all these replies to a 3-ring binder!

Thanks TheJaylor.  That's the 2nd time Ive confused protect and prevent.  Your first sentence has me confused.  Does this mean that if two heroes are banded, and Herod gets to send all but one hero back to territory, if he'd sent Leah, the battle would go on because banding makes Jacob able to carry on the fight?  You mentioned the band wasn't broken, so for Herod to "send all but one hero back to territory", does he have to break the band first in order to send either of them back?   I thought I understood banding really well, but looks like I still have a ways to go. 

I was trying to think of a situation where both sides had negate an ability, with the modifier  "cannot be prevented if (_______whatever_________________), where both sides met the qualifications :whatever they might be.  Which "negate" would take precedence.  I use the 4th ed. rule book most of the time, but there were some things more clearly written in the 3rd edition book, so I go to it sometimes.  Of course, I've learned some rules and optional rules have changed since then.  But under "Resolve Special Ability Combinations" there's 3-4pages on "complex combinations" in which they have a scissors/paper/rock/other method.  And Negate is listed as being "paper"  And it was very clear on the Paper vs. Paper ruling:  A NEGATE ABILITY always works unless it is NEGATED by another ABILITY."   Was this deleted from future rulebooks and changed to another rule for complex combinations?  Or does that sentence about negate ability alwys working uless negated by another ability still valid?