@Arkdeniz: I am sorry that this makes you uncomfortable, but your interpretation is indeed wrong. It's even wrong for Academy, as far as I can see. I am less well versed on Academy rules, but as far as I can tell there is no rule like you imagine that limits defenses to only happening during the Avoid Attack step. Even if there was, the text on the card always overrides general rules and both Jade Gremlin and Symbiotic Orb say that they happen "when attacked". Which means at the end of the Declare Attack step in both Academy and in Arena. If it was meant to happen during the Avoid Attack step, then it would say that.

Zuberi, but you'd be surprised how often that's already taken. So I do use a few variations on different sites, including Zub3ri and Zuberii.

I do have a few other screen names, but those tend to be for secondary accounts when I have multiple. Zuberi is always my primary.

Also my real name is Ivan Kidd. I'm not shy.

You check mandatory actions any time you are able to take an action. So when you activate the creature, before you do anything else, you must check. In this case, you have a mandatory action to move "at least one zone closer" during your action phase. Can you do that? If so, you MUST move closer.

After moving closer, you still may take a quick action. So you check again for mandatory actions. You still have the Siren's Call and still have the mandatory action that you must move "at least one zone closer" during your action phase. Can you do that? YOU ALREADY HAVE! Mandate fulfilled, you can now do whatever you want with your action. Congratulations.

@DaveW the order matters in that you're not freed from the mandatory action until it has been fulfilled.

The problem is that the game uses the same text box for three different purposes and doesn't really have a way to delineate which is which. It can be used to:

1. Describe spell effects. This is the most common and intuitive use, describing what the spell actually does, and these effects don't apply until the spell resolves. Before then, this text basically doesn't exist.

2. Describes special rules on how to cast the spell. This text usually modifies the cost or targeting in some way, and applies during the steps prior to spell resolution.

3. Describes details that are always in effect, even when sitting in your spellbook or in the discard pile. This is apparently the category of Izimbila's ability.

I'm not convinced by your arguments:

the circle says you can summon the creature in it's zone, and the reanimated creature is summoned (whatever spell you use).
the only problem is that when you reanimate (whatever spell you use) it's not clearly YOU who summon (the creature "is summoned").

Note that, unless it says otherwise, the Mage who controls the effect which grants Reanimation is the object summoning the creature into play.

There's a lot here that seems unclear to people, but this shouldn't be. The mage is definitely the object doing the summoning when they reanimate a creature. I also recommend reading the Supplement regarding Reanimate as it has a little more detail on the whole process.

To the initial question, RAW I agree with Puddinhead. Precise wording matters. Summoning Circle says explicitly that your Mage may choose to summon the creature to Summoning Circle's zone INSTEAD OF their own zone. The card only says it's able to redirect from the Mage's zone, not from elsewhere, and we can't give it powers it doesn't have.

That does mean it has some weird wiggle room though, which I'm not really a fan of. Technically it then CAN work with Reanimate effects, so long as the zone that the creature is getting reanimated into is also where the controlling mage is at. I don't really understand why that should matter, but as written that is how it would work. It then fulfills all of the requirements of Summoning Circle. Your mage is summoning it. Check. It is a friendly creature. Check. It is being redirected from your mages zone to the Summoning Circle. Check. Summoning circle doesn't care about the restrictions that other spells have, or the fact that they could have been outside of the Mage's own zone. What matters is where they were actually going to be summoned to. I'm not sure why that matters, but RAW it does. We can argue RAI till we're blue in the face.

Hopefully this answer equally disappoints/upsets everyone, lol.

Your mage, your spellbook, your discard pile, your opponent, and your mana supply are all irrelevant in this discussion as they never change control, so specifying whether "your" refers to things you own or things you control would not have been necessary.  Same for your choice.

Your zone is interesting, as you CAN'T own a zone, but you can control it. However, that doesn't seem to be what it is referring to here. Instead, it just seems to be referring to where you happen to be. Similar thing with your challenged enemy. You definitely don't control a challenged enemy creature, because if you did they'd be friendly rather than an enemy, and normally you don't own it either. This again seems to be using the term in a different way to simply mean the creature that you have challenged.

It seems that they tend to just use "your" as plain English and have always made it clear in the past what it is referring to. I think Chant of Rage really might be the first time its meaning has been ambiguous.

There is a wide inconsistency in usage between "your mage" and just "your".

"Your Mage" has started falling a little out of favor, as it has been firmly established that your mage and you the player are synonymous. Therefore there's no difference between saying "your mage" and just saying "you". And the latter takes up less space. I think "your mage" is still the more common phrasing, but there definitely are more and more spells that just refer to "you" directly. There's no wacky connotations because the mage IS the player.

No, you can not use a defense against it as, like you said, you're not the target for the Avoid Attack step. You're only the target during the Roll Dice step and the Damage and Effects step.

A wall actually CAN prevent Chant of Rage from working. If you are one zone away from the hate token, and there is a wall (with the passage blocked trait) between you, then it is not possible for you to move towards the target. Moving to the side of the wall would mean you are now 2 zones from the target, meaning you've just moved away from it instead of towards it. I think we can all agree that moving AWAY does not satisfy the requirement of the spell to move TOWARDS the hate token.

Since you can't go through the wall, and every other direction would be moving away from the target, you therefore don't have to move at all and can choose whatever action you want. So yeah, you're correct Jeffman. If the wall's directly between you, you're free.

Regarding Drmambo23's statement, in addition to being wrong about necessarily having to move around the wall, it also seems to be under the impression that you must always choose the shortest path to the hate token. This is also wrong. If there are multiple paths towards the target, you can always choose which one to take regardless of which one is shorter. The only requirement is that each and every move you make must bring you closer towards the token. Because of this requirement though, if one path is longer than another, that kinda means that such a path eventually leads to a dead end that frees you from your requirement.

This is because the token is at a set distance away from you. Say, it's 4 zones from you. That means the required move must bring you within 3 zones from the target. Other moves don't satisfy its requirements. Then the move after that must bring you to within 2 zones. And then 1. And then the same zone. If any path was longer than this, the enchant could not force you to move along it. You can use this to your advantage by choosing such paths.

For example, if the hate token is 2 zones to the left of my enchanted creature and 1 zone above, then my first move could be either left or up. The zone above me though has a wall on it's left border. My opponent may have a problem with me choosing to move upwards then, as "going around the wall takes longer" but really what happens is that now I CAN'T move closer, because of the wall, and I'm freed of the obligation.

I think a lot of people don't realize all the ways there are to manipulate chant of rage and mitigate it's power, which is partly why it's so popular. That's why I felt compelled to mention some of the options here, even though it wasn't really part of the question.

Arkdeniz is correct though that if you can move through a wall, even if it has a passage attack, then you MUST move through it (assuming there aren't other paths towards the token).