In the Hand of the King Variant what happens with a HotK character that has 0 gold cost such as Brown Ben Plumm or Walder Frey, and them leaving play. The rules state: "If a Hand of the King has fewer gold tokens than its printed cost, it is considered out of play, and does not interact with the game until it has the necessary number of gold tokens. Discard all power and attachments on any Hand of the King that is out of play." Since the character cannot be reduced to -1 gold tokens will it ever leave play once it has entered play?

Also can you run a character with the Shadows crest as your HotK and if you can I assume that their printed gold cost is equal to their Shadows cost plus 2.

Thanks

The variant rules sheet answers that question directly:

"A Hand of the King with a printed cost of 0 must have at least 1 gold token on it to be considered in play."

So if it goes below 1 gold token, it leaves play, the same as a cost-1 Hand would.

And yes, the printed cost of a Shadows card is 2 + the "non-s" part of the cost.

ktom said:

D'oh, don't know how I missed that. Thanks.