I know this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find it using the search (or a FAQ entry), and I've never actually used this card before.

Text: "If it is not Winter, Lion's Gate gains: 'Any Phase: Kneel Lion's Gate to discard 1 power from a non-House card in play. Then, give that card a Trait of your choice until the end of the phase"

Question: Can I give traits to cards without first discarding power from them? The word "Then" is confusing. Does it refer back to the action of kneeling the Lion's Gate, ie, kneel for action, then give a trait? Or does it refer to the discarding of power, ie, discard a power, then give a trait?

By comparison, the newest Melisandre reads:

Text: "Response: After you win an Intrigue challenge in which Melisandre participated, move 1 power from any character controlled by the losing opponent to Melisandre. Then, if that was the last power on that character, kill it."

By comparison, Melisandre's text makes clear that the card has to have at least one power before she can start killing folks and taking names. Its just the word "Then" on Lion's Gate that confuses me.

See section 4.9 in the FAQ about the word "then".

It basically means that any preceeding part of on effect must resolve successfully before you can resolve the part that begins with the world "then". (I know I worded that horribly)

In the case of Lion's Gate, you must successfully kneel your house card and discard a power from a card before you can give it a trait of your choice.

Deathjester26 said:

DeathJester means you must kneel Lion's Gate and so forth...

Saturnine said:

lol.... yeah, that's what I meant. Thanks.