Cactus Game Design Message Boards

So I had a question come up last time I played with my playgroup and I was reminded of it when I was going back through the cards and found Captive Priest.

Captive Priest: You may capture this Hero to opponent's Land of Bondage to take an idol and add your priest from hand, deck, territory or Reserve to battle.

The question: Do you choose which location for this added (to battle) character to come from and that is your only option. 

Meaning, I choose to have a priest come from my deck.  I realize upon searching I no longer have a character in my deck.  Does my add to battle fail or do I get to at least add a character from territory or hand?

Same question can be applied to Angel Under the Oak, Angel with a Secret Name, Ruth meets Boaz, etc.

My understanding has always been that if you choose to go to the deck, then that is where the character must go because it is not a "known" location. If there are no valid targets then the search (or in the case of AutO, the exchange) fizzles.

With the Reserve or discard pile, you are allowed to check those because they are "known."

OK, this is how I ruled it.  Just good to get verification!

Quote from: The Guardian on April 24, 2018, 02:57:53 PM

With the Reserve or discard pile, you are allowed to check those because they are "known."

In the hopes of preventing others having to learn this the hard way, make sure you check your known locations before you actually play the card since apparently you can't look at the cards in your Reserve or discard while an ability is resolving.

To clarify slightly and expand on Kevin's statement, both the discard pile and reserve are locations that a player is allowed to look at "at any time" per the REG. However, just as you cannot perform other "at any time" abilities such as Gates of Hell while other abilities are resolving, you can't look at a discard or reserve while an ability is resolving.