I know this is all very basic stuff, and I'm pretty sure I got this down, but I wanted to confirm. Also, although some of these questions have been answered very recently, and I'm sure the answers to all of them can be found somewhere, I also wanted to collect them in one place for future reference. Maybe some of the newer players find this useful, or it can get referred to when these things come up in the future.

In effects with a cost ("do X to do Y"), the cost is paid during the initiation of the effect in step one of the Action Window, but the effect resolves in step three. So, if I play Bran the Builders's Legacy, and it gets cancelled, I'm out of the three gold, obviously, but as the effect part never happens, my opponent doesn't get to see what I would've brought into play, right?

If the cost of the effect has not been paid in full, the effect never even starts to resolve, but you still need to pay the cost as far as you can. Like, Threat from the East, second option chosen, if you have only two cards in hand, you've got to discard them, but you never draw any cards.

If, OTOH, the effect cannot fully resolve, it just resolves as far as it can. For example, if I play The Prince's Plans, and I have less than four cards in the discard pile, I just return to hand what I have.

However, the effect must have a legal target to be initiated in the first place. So, the effect of Ghaston Grey can't be triggered if your opponent doesn't control any characters, right? That's also why To Be a Stag and To Be a Dragon can't be used if there's no eligible characters to be brought back, right?

If the cost has been paid and the effect has not been cancelled, I have to resolve it, right? So, again with Ghaston Grey, I cannot just choose not to return my opponent's char back to hand after I returned mine, right?

All of that correct?

Ratatoskr said:

If you cannot pay the cost the whole ability cannot even initiate. You either pay the whole cost or none. Threat from the East has no cost, it's a two-part effect.

Saturnine said:

Dunno what I was thinking *shakes head*. Not a cost at all. Please strike that.

Are all costed effects optional? Are there any effects that force a player to pay a cost against his will? Don't think so. So, the TftE paragraph is irrelevant in this context. I apologize for the confusion.

Ratatoskr said:

It would have to be an effect that tells a player to "do X to do Y" without giving him any choice in the matter. I don't think I've ever seen such an effect, and it'd seem very odd indeed.

Costs can be part of an effect, but they are always optional, as far as I know (e.g. Narrow Escape).

Ratatoskr said:

Ratatoskr said: