Ok, so my group encountered this one last night, and it left us a little stumped and we would like to know if it was played correctly.
Card:
After you act, banish this barrier.
Situation: Alain, Adowyn, and Seoni are in open locations when Alain encounters the card. Seoni fails to defeat her cultist (no ally in hand to banish), then Adowyn defeats her cultist, and then Alain defeats his cultist.
We didn't defeat the barrier as Seoni failed her check against the summoned henchman, meaning the card should have been shuffled back into the location deck that it came from, but we banished it anyway due to the next part of the card (after Alain acted, as he was the one to encounter the barrier).
I couldn't find any errata to clarify what we should have done here, so what should have been done in this case?
You are correct, the barrier is banished whether or not you defeat it. In your particular case, that may not have mattered, but in the past we have seen effects like a location that require you to defeat a barrier to close it. In that case, failing to defeat the barrier would matter, even if you still banished it.
Ok brilliant, glad to know we're not misplaying these cards then. Always a good thing.
As a sub-question to cards like Crazed Cultists where all summoned creatures have to be defeated in order to defeat the barrier (e.g. Demonic Horde) or have Bad Stuff happen (e.g. Arboreal Blight), how do evaded cards work with them?
For example, if Adowyn uses her power to recharge a card in order to evade the summoned henchman, because the encounter is neither defeated or undefeate, the barrier gets to stick around or otherwise count towards Bad Stuff being done?
If someone evades their summoned encounter, then not every summoned creature is defeated and that particular barrier is not defeated.