The scenario as it occurred today during play:

Mr. Fantastic (7 cost) was equipped with the Infinity Gauntlet. The Amazing Spider-Man wanted to exhaust him by discarding a card with cost equal to or greater. If the card was discarded, Mr. Fantastic could exhaust as a response and still stun someone with the Gauntlet.

BUT, if Mr. Fantastic announced that he was exhausting to use the Gauntlet FIRST, can Spider-Man discard to exhaust him in response? In other words, does exhausting the character go on the chain, or is it an instant and thus immediately puts the effect on the chain instead?

Yes you can. I'm not 100% on the other question you had but I'm pretty sure that you would still stun.

BTW? You got the Gauntlet to work? NICE!

Actually, I didn't get the Gauntlet, my friend did using his FF deck. By turn 7 the damn thing has literally drawn half the deck, so he can get the Gauntlet (and all the gems) fairly consistently.

My other question was, in brief, if you exhaust Mr. Fantastic to use the Gauntlet, can that be interrupted with an exhaust effect? I'm guessing no, but I'm not sure.

No. You cant negate his effects by exhausting his characters.

If I have Puppet MAster and my opponent has Terra and he activates I can't exhaust him and stop the stun I will still stun but if I activate he will still have to exhaust a ready character he controls if possible.
So the answer is no his effect wont be negated by your exhaust because the effect will still resolve.

The only way to stop the gauntlet would be to exhaust Mr. F before the gauntlet hits play. (As the recruit is on the chain)

Whoa, recruiting a character goes on the chain?

Oh, yeah, I remember, the same friend pissed me off by doing something that I didn't think was possible, simply because recruiting is an effect.

So what DOESN'T go on the chain?

ongoing plot twist effects on plot twists don't use the chain. Thats why betrayal and red hood don't work if a team-up is played at any part of a chain.

edit: there's no need for me to be a jerk

That would be me...as I mentioned earlier, I didn't know that recruiting a character went on the chain.

Something good...Not so good...But yes, Bac, he is correct. Sorta

In GA, I bet you could get the gauntlet on 4 100% of the time if you wanted. Too bad one universally played tech card kills your deck.

Ultimate Nullifier? I know, people suck...

Last I heard, there was like 7 ways to draw your deck by 4 in Golden? Might have only been 5, can't be positive. Everytime no one pays attention to Golden, an Infy combo appears. Maybe we should have like a Golden Age watch group to monitor this stuff? We'll call them, The Golden Age Police. GAP for short. Is that already patented?


Coolexplosion

Some day I'm going to have to read the rules, because the chain continues to be weird and nonsensical :D

You guys have helped a lot, thanks!

The complete-yet-simplistic answer is that every effect uses the chain; that's the only place effects can exist.

Things that don't use the chain form a (hopefully) easier list. Costs must be paid in order to place effects on the chain, but costs themselves don't wait on the chain; they are paid immediately, before either player can respond. Text which comes before the arrow on a payment power will be a cost, as will any text that begins with "As an additional cost to Blah." Starting with Marvel Team-Up, this has been shortened to just "To Blah," but it's still a cost.

Continuous powers don't use the chain, since they don't generate effects. This will obviously require some clarifying, though. Aside from plot twist text that doesn't follow an Ongoing symbol, everything written on a card will be some sort of power. Many are payment powers, which you can tell by the big arrow; costs on the left, effect on the right. Many others are triggered, which means they will start with one of the following phrases: "at the start of," "when," or "whenever."

Any power which doesn't fall into one of those two categories must be a continuous power, and continuous powers don't use the chain. The very moment that a card is flipped face-up in play, it's continuous powers come online. This applies to an ongoing plot twists continuous powers, but it also applies to continuous powers on a character, location, or equipment.

There are also simply game rules which don't use the chain; card-draw at the start of the turn does use the chain, but offhand, I think all the other events which happen at specific times manage to happen without the chain. Forming your characters, wrap-up at the end of the turn, attack conclusion, that sort of thing.

Only team ups that make you choose teams as an additional cost or name the teams (Common Enemy/World's Greatest Heroes) can foil a Betrayal effect every time. If you play a generic team up and someone responds with a betrayal effect on the chain, it WILL resolve and force a stun unless you place another team up on the chain that will resolve before the Betrayal.

-Mike