We have a wording issue with this card in french, because do not know if it works while we have a Bay of Ice in play at the same time.

The card says:

House Greyjoy only.
While you control only characters and locations, you may play the top card of one opponent's discard pile as though it were in your hand (Limit once per round).

Kordovan said:

If you control Bay of Ice, then you control Stark location, so "while you control only Greyjoy locations" is not true. At least that's how I would read.

Agreed. Bay of Ice is a card of any other House as much as it is a Greyjoy card. Ten Towers requires that you control only Greyjoy characters and locations. If Ten Towers said, "All characters and locations you control must have the House Greyjoy affiliation," then you would be able to use it while controlling Bay of Ice.

ok guys, so that makes it far different from Bear island, for example, right?

Different wording from Bear Island, but same result (in this case, anyway).

You only need to ask one question: "Is Bay of Ice a Greyjoy location?" Once you get the answer to that ("yes"), you stop looking.

Or asked another way, can you count Bay of Ice as a non-Greyjoy location? No? Then the play restrictions for Ten Towers is met.

To say "Bay of Ice is as much Stark as it is Greyjoy" misses the point that it is as much Greyjoy as it is Stark, too. You cannot put more emphasis on one than the other, so you look for what the effect looks for. In this case (Ten Towers), it looks to see if your characters and locations are "Greyjoy." For a card to "pass" that check, it needs to be a Greyjoy card. It will only "fail" that check if it is a non-Greyjoy card - so Bay of Ice passes the test.

This is a very long-held ruling of multiple affiliations. So long as it has the Greyjoy affiliation, it is a "Greyjoy location," no matter how many other affiliations it may have.

So I have to ignore Fatmouse and Rogue 30's answers, right

ktom said:

Who said that it is not Greyjoy location?

If that's the ruling, then ok, but applying logic is not good explanation here. By logic you do not control only greyjoy locations. If you ask "do I control Stark location?", the answer is yes. So it's another bad worded card (if you are right). People will be always arguing, because both cards are from the same set and the wording is different.

You 're right Rogue30, if Ktom's answer is true I can't see how the use of the term "only" makes sense (except for neutral chars and locs)..

You're explanation Ktom is certainly right, but doesn't give much clarification though.

Rogue30 said:

It is ultimately the same game logic behind a dual-House card "matching" your House card. Brienne is as much Baratheon as she is Stark, so she "matches" both House cards (although from a strictly logical standpoint, she matches neither; red-and-white stripes does not "match" solid red or solid white).

Rogue30 said:

I asked Nate about this some time ago and this was his answer:

"Ten Towers only looks at characters or locations, then it looks to see if all of those characters or locations are Greyjoy or not. A card is Greyjoy if it has the Greyjoy affiliation (it can have other affiliations and still be Greyjoy)."

Ok the ruling seems to be clear enough. Thank you everybody.

Conceptors should avoid as much as possible to use different wordings on cards, that finally mean the same thing, though

ktom said:

Maybe you are right and we shouldn't use strict logic - I still don't understand how can you compare something that doesn't exist (Neutral Faction+MwnK).

~But if not logic, then designers intent? Isn't it making up rules? Shouldn't we treat text literally?

ktom said:

I don't have a problem with this, but how can people know about it if it's not in FAQ? Nobody has problem with Bear Island, right?

I guess that makes sense. If "only" were as strict as Rogue30 and I suggested it was, then Bodyguard would arguably fall off any character that wasn't only a Lord or only a Lady.

Rogue30 said:

Oi. The point was that strictly speaking, a card that is "green and white" is neither "just green" nor "just white," but the ruling tells us to treat it as such. Card text is treated literally, except when you have a ruling that that tells you do otherwise.

Not sure what you're getting at with the Neutral Faction+MwnK thing. Can't MwnK take control of neutral cards when you're playing Neutral Faction? Because the cards do not have the owner's affiliation (because the owner doesn't have an affiliation)?

I think Rogue30's point is that because you don't have a House affiliation MwnK shouldn't work against the Neutral Faction. There is no affiliation to make a comparison to if your House is neutral; therefore, creating no legal target for MwnK. It has less to do with the cards, specifically characters and locations, being neutral and more so with the House card being neutral. it's akin to something like Dragon Fire. You can't trigger the effect if there is no Dragon in play. So you can't trigger MwnK if there is no House affiliation to make a comparison to. How does no Dragons differ from no House affiliation? No House affiliation should mean no House affiliation, not a pseudo-House affiliation of "none." At least that's how I interpret the argument.

Sorry to disagree with everything, but I don't think Ten Towers works if the player controls Bay of Ice.

ktom, I understand what your saying - Bay of Ice is indeed a HG location, and a Stark location, and so on and so forth. What I think your missing is that just because "Bay of Ice, the Greyjoy Location" and "Bay of Ice, the Stark Location" cannot be separated physically, mechanically, or spiritually, does not mean that the card restriction for "only Greyjoy" is met. Now leads us into what "Only X" means. To me it means that each character and location is Greyjoy, and no other House. Personally, I think any other interpretation is foolishness, based on your explanation. If it is both Greyjoy and Stark at the same time, then it is self-evident proof of it not being only Greyjoy, it is Greyjoy and Stark. Greyjoy and Stark is not the same thing as only Greyjoy. From this perspective, we can compare Bear Island and Ten Towers (for whoever brought up that comparison).

Bear Island: "Dominance: Kneel Bear Island to choose and kill a non-HS character without attachments. Use this ability only if every card you control has the HS affiliation."

Bear Island is looking at each card you control as asking "Does X have the House Stark affiliation?" If every answer is "Yes." then the ability can be used. If there is a single "No." then the ability cannot be used.

Example: If a Stark player has Bear Island, Bay of Ice, Arya Stark (Core) and Theon Greyjoy (PotS) in play, he meets the restriction on Bear Island. Bear Island looks at each card you control in play to see if they have the HS affiliation. If every card you control does, then the ability can be used. This is easy, you look to see if each card has the Stark logo, which Bay of Ice and Theon Greyjoy (PotS) do, and since they all do you are good to go.

Ten Towers: "While you control only HG characters and locations, you may pay the top card of one opponent's discard pile as though it were in your hand (Limit once per round)."

Ten Towers is looking at two things on each character and location you control; (1) it is asking "Does X have the House Greyjoy affiliation?" If the answer is "Yes." for every character and location, then that check is passed. (2) Ten Towers is also looking at each character and location you control and asking "Is House Greyjoy the only House affiliation of X?" - which is broken down into "Does X have the House Lannister affiliation?", "Does X have the House Baratheon affiliation?", for every House affiliation. So it checks if the card is House Greyjoy, and it check is the card is any other House than Greyjoy. If both checks pass, then Ten Towers can be used. If both checks do not pass, then Ten Towers cannot be used.

Example: A Greyjoy player with Ten Towers, Balon Greyjoy (KotS), Bay of Ice, and Theon Greyjoy (PotS), shouldn't be able to use Ten Towers based on the card text, because the Greyjoy player doesn't control only HG characters and locations. The ability of Bear Island checked each card to see if it had the Stark affiliation, but Ten Towers is looking at the same thing and more. Ten Towers checks each character and location you control for every house affiliation - Stark, Greyjoy, Martell, Baratheon, Lannister, and Targaryen. All of them. If every character and location is Greyjoy, and the only affiliation that is present among all your characters and locations is Greyjoy, you can use the ability. Theon Greyjoy (PotS) and Bay of Ice both fail this second check.

Now, what about neutrals? Well, lets look at Crossroads. It does not possess a "House Shield" (Core Rules, Page 4) so we know it is neutral. According to the Core Rules "Cards with no shields and a tan-colored background are neutral cards and belong to no House" (pg. 4). The FAQ says "Some cards (such as neutrals) have no House affiliation." (FAQ 4.1). *This statement would not be true if the "Neutral House" was an affiliation* Continuing on. The "Neutral Faction" House Card says "You have no House affiliation." as the first line of text. So, using the Neural Faction house card does not make your House affiliation Neutral. The card even says it. From this it is pretty clear that Neutrals are not a "Neutral House" but are in fact a lack of a House affiliation, and the 'requirement' that when you play you have a House affiliation is bypassed by the Neutral Faction house card's ability. Yes, Robert's Loyalists do bring this into contention, but its one card's ability against the Core Rules, the FAQ, and the actual card that lets you play as the Neutral Faction. So I think it is pretty clear that Neutral cards are not a Neutral House, and that they in fact have an absence of a house alignment.

So, back to Ten Towers and Bear Island.

If the Stark player discussed above played Crossroads, then he would not be able to use Bear Island. Bear Island looks at all the cards you control for a HS affiliation. Crossroads is neutral, and lacks the Stark affiliation, so the "Does Crossroads have the House Stark affiliation?" check fails. No dice.

If the Greyjoy player discussed above got rid of Theon Greyjoy (PotS) and Bay of Ice, so that he only had Ten Towers and Balon Greyjoy (PotS) in play, then he could use Ten Towers ability. There is no other House affiliation than Greyjoy amongst the characters and location he controls, and all his characters and locations are Greyjoy. Now, if he plays Crossroads, the check made by Ten Towers will fail just like Bear Island did and for the same reason. Ten Towers looks to see if Crossroads has the Greyjoy affiliation, it does not, the same way Bear Island looked to see if Crossroads had the Stark affiliation, and it did not.

So here both Bear Island and Ten Towers looked at Crossroads and failed on the same check: "Does Crossroads have the House X affiliation?" Neither can use their ability because this check failed. In the first two scenarios both Ten Towers and Bear Island looked at each card and said "Does Y have the House X affiliation?" and every card that was checked passed this requirement. Ten Towers failed on a second check (which is made up of 6 simulataneous checks): "Is House X the only house affiliation?"

Asking for everything to be Greyjoy, or everything to be only Greyjoy just are not the same thing.

Compare an attachment requirement of “Lord only" and the requirement "attach to a character that is only a Lord" - Not the same thing.

Mathias Fricot said:

FATMOUSE said:

Yeah, because it's weird to say that you don't have something, while you have no idea what this "something" is. In Bay of Ice example: with MwnK + Neutral Faction, does my Bay of Ice vulnerable? It has all possible affiliations, right?