When does a Joker assign it's Value?

Rules Questions: Doomtown
1

Joker
“This card is only used for draw hands and pulls. You choose its suit and value. Ace the joker after use.”

…

I’d like to assume that the Joker has it’s value declared upon revealing (or replacement event revealing). Like: “This is my draw hand, the Joker is an Ace of Spades.”

Which means you can’t use a Joker to force (errata’d) Henry Moran to replace your lowball hand.

(Edit: Yes Yet)

2

As this isn’t in the rules category (yet?) I’m going to sneak in an answer. :wink:

Jokers can’t make a hand illegal, so they won’t interact with Henry Moran.

“A joker never causes an otherwise legal draw hand to become a Cheatin’ draw hand, regardless of the suit and value chosen for the joker. However, if a card effect changes the suit and/or value of a non-joker card to a card suit and value that already exists in the hand, the draw hand is now considered Cheatin’.” p5 of Pinebox rulebook

Hope this helps!

3

This follows right from the rulebook, section 3.8 under Jokers:

When a joker is revealed for a pull or in a draw hand, its suit and value are chosen by its owner as soon as the joker is revealed. A joker by itself will never make a hand illegal; for example, if you have a legal four-of-a-kind draw hand with a joker, it becomes a legal fiveof-a-kind draw hand.

So in the case of Henry, if the hand isn’t revealed on the first pass because it would be cheatin, a value isn’t assigned for the Joker. However, please remember the other part of the Entry on a Joker. A joker by itself will never make a hand illegal. So if your lowball hand was 2club, 2spade, 3club, 3heart, you couldn’t say “I can pick a value (2club) of a joker that makes this hand illegal”. Including Henry Moran into the mix doesn’t change this aspect. Henry’s trait will fire only if the hand would be illegal to begin with (regardless of that Joker’s value, which doesn’t factor in at all, as it isn’t assigned).

There is one large exception to this, the Devil’s Joker. It makes your hand Illegal while the card is in the draw hand. So in the case in which your lowball hand included a Devil’s Joker, Henry’s Trait would fire off. Even though a value and suit for the Joker wasn’t assigned.

Hope that clarifies some!

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