Hello! My friends and I have been playing some GoT LCG for some time and so far we're having a blast! Some questions still arise while playing, I would appreciate it if someone could clarify this for us! Thank you!

1. Valar Morghulis specifically reads “kill all characters in play ”. Wildfire Assault only reads “each player chooses up to 3 of his or her characters . All characters not chosen are killed (cannot be saved).” and doesn’t say anything about characters being in play. Does that mean characters in hand count towards the three being saved when resolving Wildfire Assault? TL;DR: Does Wildfire Assault affect a player’s hand?
2. Is the Death Pile generally being used when a character is killed? Does a character need to be in play to be considered killed? Also: If I have to discard a character, for instance because a card reads “discard a character from play” or “[...] from hand”, does it go to the Discard Pile?
3. When I win a challenge with one of my participating characters having Ice attached to it and the opponent does not defend, do I have to trigger its effect and kill one of my own characters participating in this challenge or can I choose whether I want to trigger the effect?
4. When winning a simple military challenge and having a claim of one and the opponent having two characters in play, with one of those characters having a save effect like Ser Davos Seaworth for instance – can the opponent choose to pay one of his remaining gold coins to save Ser Davos and thus not kill any of his characters or does he have to kill of one his characters regardless, as long as it’s possible? TL;DR: Can military claim be avoided?
5. Just to confirm, the effect of Lannisport Brothel can be triggered every round because Responses in the Framework Action Window come after the Framework event resolves, meaning all cards are already standing (including LB) and LB’s Response can therefore be triggered again?

Thanks in advance! – Koji

1. Card effects only work on cards that are in play, unless they specifically say otherwise. Think of the "in play" on Valar as redundant text more than thinking of its absence on Wildfire as somehow significant.

2. When an effect says "discard," the card goes to the discard pile - no matter where it is starting from. When an effect says "kill," the card goes to the dead pile - no matter where it is starting from (although there aren't any effects that say to "kill" a character in your hand or deck). An effect may also say to "place" or "move" a card to either the dead or discard pile, but those will be pretty plain from the cards themselves.

3. Any effect that starts with a bold timing word (like "Any Phase," "Response" or "Challenges") is optional. The effect only triggers if the player chooses to use it. So heck, you could choose not to use Ice, even when your opponent does declare defenders.

4. Yes, a player may save against MIL claim, just like any other kill effect.

5. Correct.

3. You could also (I'm pretty sure) choose to kill yourself if you wanted. There are some characters that instantly get power tokens on their death. That could be just enough to win.

I do have a related question though...say the version of Ice that has 'prized' on it is used to wipe out all the defenders...is the challenge still opposed or unopposed? I would guess it's opposed since the defenders are 'moribund' is that correct? But their STR wouldn't count?

I do have a related question though...say the version of Ice that has 'prized' on it is used to wipe out all the defenders...is the challenge still opposed or unopposed? I would guess it's opposed since the defenders are 'moribund' is that correct? But their STR wouldn't count?

The challenge would be "unopposed." In order to opposed a challenge, the defender must have a participating character and count a challenge STR of 1 or more when the challenge resolves . It doesn't matter how many characters were declared as defenders if none of them make it to resolution.

Also, "moribund" is a very temporary state that never lasts more than a single action window. The characters killed by Ice would be physically removed from play before the next effect - or game process - begins. So there will never be a "moribund" defender when the challenge resolution process starts; they will have already been taken off the table.

If Ice is used to kill all defending characters, your opponent would still have the opportunity to bring another character into play - such as by using the Naval mechanic

Ice is triggered during player actions before the challenge gets to the resolution stage