Tyxarglenak vs. Hamshanks w/ Mayfair Deck

Tyxarglenak Text:

“Other players cannot choose or affect your Hucksters at this location with action cards if they could legally choose to affect Tyxarglenak instead.”

Hamshanks Text:

“While Hamshanks is unbooted at a location you control, other players cannot choose or affect your dudes at this location with their abilities if they could legally choose to affect Hamshanks instead.”

Given that Mayfair deck would make Hamshanks a Huckster (whom I’ve endearingly dubbed Huckshanks), they invalidate each other as a target.

Who is a legal target for action cards at their location?

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Not part of the rules team, but I believe they cancel each other out.
The “if (your opponent) could legally choose to affect (this dude) instead” is what does you in.

Say I want to use Pistol Whip against any of your dudes. Huckshanks’ trait would then steps in and says “you cannot choose to target him. You have to target me instead (if you legally could have when you originally played pistol whip)”.
However, if I went to check that I could legally choose to target Huckshanks I would find Tyx saying “You cannot legally choose to target him. You have to target me instead (if you legally could have)”.
I would then check if I could have targeted Tyx when I originally played Pistol Whip and been stopped from legally choosing him by Huckshanks.

Since I could not choose to legally target either choice when originally playing Pistol Whip, both of their traits will stop and I should be free to target any opposing dude.

seen and under review by RT

I considered that, but I think the logic breaks down if any target would be a legal target because both targets who restrict targets to themselves (Huckshanks and Tyx) are not legal targets. It’s an unstable state of targeting legality, where Huckshanks and Tyx are both illegal and legal targets at the same time.

I discussed it on the Discord, and the comparison was made to if two Pinned Down were played, but I’m not sure the comparison is completely apt, as that situation puts you in a position where you have to resolve an impossible board state (taking casualties is a mandatory step), so the game has no better mechanism than to ignore the impossibility. With Huckshanks + Tyx, there is no forced impossibility; you have the choice to play an action card, and it is that choice which would introduce the impossibility of resolution… so I’m not sure taking that choice should be legal (speaking purely from a rules perspective; from a mechanical/balance perspective, having a board state that cannot be targeted seems broken).

Interesting situation! As there is no rules question posed here, RT will follow up in the Part 2 thread.