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Ownership and Control

A card’s owner is the player whose deck contained the card at the start of setup. The scenario is considered to be the owner of the encounter deck and each encounter card.

  • Identity cards are owned and controlled by the player playing as that identity.

  • Cards enter play under their owner’s control. Encounter cards are considered to be under the control of the scenario.

    • Upgrades attached to a card controlled by a player other than the upgrade’s owner are controlled by that other player.

    • When a player takes control of a campaign-specific or scenario-specific player card (such as an ally, support, or upgrade) with a player card back, that player becomes the owner of that card until the game ends or another player takes control of that card.

  • Control of a card remains constant unless an ability explicitly causes the card to change control.

  • A player controls the cards in their own out-of-play areas (such as the hand, the deck, and the discard pile).

  • If a character changes control while it is in play, it remains in the same state (i.e., readied or exhausted, damaged or not, etc.) and is moved to its new controller’s play area.

  • Upgrades on a card that changes control also change control to the same new controller.

  • A change in control of a card remains in effect until one of the following occurs:

    • The ability that changed control of that card ceases to be in effect (for instance, when an attachment or upgrade that changes control of the attached card is removed), that card reverts to its owner’s control.

    • That card leaves play, it is placed in its owner’s equivalent out-of-play area (hand, deck, or discard pile, or removed from the game if that player is no longer in the game).

    • That card is an event that was played, it is placed in its owner’s discard pile.

    • That card is discarded from a player’s hand, it is placed in its owner’s discard pile.
  • If a game step or card ability references a card that “you control” or a “player controls,” that game step or card ability only refers to cards in play currently under that player’s control.
See also