Gylbert Farwind Clarification

By Kalentalis, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

Need some clarification.

  • Gylbert Farwind's text states "The cost to play non-noble cards cannot be reduced."
  • Narrow Sea's text reads "Discard Narrow Sea from play to reduce the cost of the next Stark or Baratheon character you play this phase by 2."
  • Godswood's text reads "Kneel Godswood to lower the cost of the next Stark character you play this phase by 2."

Narrow Sea is obviously shut down by Gylbert, but since Godswood says "lower" and not "reduce", could it still be used?

So…the question is whether "lower" and "reduce" are the same thing?

Effectively, for "lower" and "reduce" not to be the same thing, the "-2 cost" from the Sea must somehow be different from the "-2 cost" from Godswood. Both modify the cost to play the card. Both modify that cost by lessening the number of gold tokens you need to relinquish in order to play the card.

Under any practical application, treatment, or meaning, "lower" and "reduce" do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way with exactly the same timing. So it's pretty safe to say they are synonyms. Gylbert stops them both.

But you could still use either to reduce the cost of Noble Stark character, like the Blackfish.