In RYDKE #1, Ben commented to question why Drowned God’s Blessing and Fear Cuts Deeper than Swords didn’t prevent his favourite murder-hobo Stark’s from being the subject of a bit of old fashioned poisoning from Tears of Lys.
Never trust old men with long sleeves.
Well, Ben, your wish is our command!
And it all comes down to the difference between an action implied by natural language and what’s allowed by the templating of the rules of the game.
Basically, unless an effect instructs the player to “choose” a target, a card that prevents a target being “chosen” has no effect.
You’ll have to ignore that in the process of deciding which character is going to be affected by the Tears of Lys, many players would say that they’re ‘choosing’ the target (they could equally describe it as ‘picking’ or ‘selecting’ I guess) and focus on the technicality of what’s printed on the card.
This difference between natural language usage and a technical meaning isn’t entirely unusual, in either card games or other pursuits. It’s pretty much what underpins legal codes or technical lexicons and therefore has a place in a game with a fair degree of crunch, and there are plenty of examples in FFG’s LCGs where this is the case.
When evaluating whether a particular card can be used to counter the popular threats, it’s necessary to pay careful attention to the templating and how they interact and if heading to a tournament taking along some references that articulate how that plays could also help support your discussions with other players that might take a different view.
Summary
A card that prevents a target being “chosen” can only prevent an effect that has the words “choose” in its triggering condition.