Hi there!

I recently bought the full Bortherhood Without Banners set as a gift for a friend. Now, I've got a bit of trouble since it should have gotten here by now but it hasn't, but while I'm waiting for it to get resolved, I was looking over at the cards that came with the pack and what seemed good.

Now, looking at them, we had a discussion with this friend over the rules regarding Hollow Hill, and it got us a bit confused. I asked over at CardGameDB, but they told me it would be better if I asked here.

So here it is: According to the FAQ, house affiliations are specifically the 6 Great Houses. That leaves out the Neutral Faction and neutral cards which have no house affiliation. Which is all and good, since the Neutral Faction card again says "You have no House Affiliation". Now, my question is, what happens if you play Hollow Hill (ASoSilence) on an all-neutral deck?
As I see it (and I could be all wrong about it), since neutral cards dont have an affiliation, they can't share an affiliation with any other neutral cards (including your house card which says that you have no affiliation). Does that mean that you draw a card every time you play a neutral character?

At first when I read it I was sure it couldn't be that way. But this friend got me wondering since the FAQ does specify that only the Great Houses are affiliations. It still sounds a bit fishy to me, and it sounds like that would make Hollow Hill a WAY too overpowered card. Am I wrong?

Thanks!

PD: Sorry f I went a bit too long there, I tend to overwrite

Here's why that doesn't work:

"After you play a character with an affiliation…"

Neutral characters do not have any affiliation, so don't qualify for this.

Huh! I totally missed that. Thanks a lot for answering so quickly!

I was sure that sounded like it was too overpowered. Now we'll just have to wait and see if those cards finally get here. I'm thinking an all brotherhood deck might be nice to try, but we'll have to see.

It goes further, too.

The "affiliation" of the card cannot match the "affiliation" of any other card. Since neutral cards have no affiliation, you cannot compare their affiliations to any other card's affiliation.

So you are doubly prevented from using Hollow Hill's Response when playing a neutral card.

well but assuming i play a mixed deck with only a few non-neutral cards.. can i compare a card with an affiliation to a neutral card?

Nope, you can't. A neutral card has no affiliation, so its affiliation cannot match or not match another card's affiliation.

Khudzlin said:

What? I'm not quite sure I follow. I'm not quite sure I understand what MrFixit's question is either, for that matter.

So let's do an example.

I run the neutral House card. I have only neutral cards in play. I marshal, say, Cersei Lannister. I can trigger Hollow Hill, because her affiliation does not match any other card I control, right? Nobody thinks differently, right?

You're both right.

Khudzlin has the general rule. You can never compare the House affiliation of a neutral card because there is no House affiliation. This is true for the "Neutral Faction" House card as well. Effectively, because you cannot compare to "nil," the comparison cannot happen.

However, Ratatoskr has the specific application to Hollow Hill. Hollow Hill's "doesn't match" is taken from the point of view of the card you play. As long as it has an affiliation for comparison, you can make the comparison. So playing a Lannister card into a field of neutral cards (including your House card) allows you to say "Lannister doesn't match anything I've got - because I've got nothing."

Just don't play any location like Myr if you are planning on using the draw function of HH later one, since it has every house affiliation.