Quick rules question from someone on Reddit that I wanted to confirm:

Can Braided Screamers be used when their cost to play is lower than 3?

I conclude no based on the wording of the cards and just wanted to post it here to see if anyone disagrees:

" Marshalling: Kneel Eastern Fiefdoms to lower the cost of the next House Targaryen card you play this phase by 1. "

" Response: After you play a Dothraki character of cost 3 or more, search the top 5 cards of your deck for a Dothraki character, reveal it, and add it to your hand. Then, shuffle your deck. "

Are you suggesting that if I play braided screamers by paying two gold from my gold pool and discarding a summer sea, I can't trigger the response because the cost has been lowered below 3 by summer sea's crd effect?

I suppose braided screamers doesn't say "printed cost…"

that would make the card significantly worse.

The character costs 5. You can trigger the response once you play it--the game doesn't check to see if you played it with gold or with reducers.

kr4ng said:

I actually poked around in CGDB's search engine and found a lot of cards use "Printed Cost", so I don't really think there's a question regarding this any more. Braided Screamers explicitly doesn't say "Printed Cost" (even though a card like City Besieged does and there is no reason for it to).

Using Vaapad's example, yup. I would say based on the the references currently available that paying 2 gold would not satisfy the response. Doesn't mean Damon wouldn't say otherwise, but then I'd be sending a rules question in every day. <.<

I submitted the question to Damon and will post when I get a response.

Vaapad said:

Yo brother Vaapaad, did Damon respond yet?

Sadly no. I'll post as soon as I get his response.

Cost always refers to printed cost, reducing the amount you pay for the card is irrelevant in this case. If FFG had intended for the Response to only trigger when you pay 3 or more gold it would have read: Response: After you pay 3 or more gold for a Dothraki…

I certainly want that to be true. Just to play devil's advocate, then, many other cards specify "printed cost" when refering to some interaction with the card's gold value. Why? Is this just sloppy templating?

What if I were playing Braided Screamers and Dothraki Handmaiden (printed cost 1) out of house; i get Braided Screamers onto the board and then pay 3 gold for the handmaiden (printed cost plus 2 OOH penatly); can I trigger the Screamers?

Edit: Double Post

Vaapad said:

I believe, as currently worded, yes. Because the handmaiden is now cost 3 (but still printed cost 1 for other effects), unless they errata this card, I can see no immediately apparent reason why this shouldn't work.

stormwolf27 said:

I agree. So if that's true, can MDC simulatenously be wrong about the reducers? If I play Jhogo by paying two gold and kneeling an Eastern Fiefdom, Jhogo's cost was two . . .

Vaapad said:

to be perfectly honest, I think if you use reducers it won't work, because each reducer I'm aware of (even the built in ones) say "reduce the cost… to play…"

so, when you use reducers to lower the cost of a character below 3, the cost is now 0, 1, or 2, and, therefore, too low to trigger the screamers. Good question for FFG, though.

Skowza said:

not necessarily. If you reduce the cost to play something, its cost is now the new amount, and not its printed value. Why include verbiage that uses "printed cost," if anything referring to cost was referring, by generalization, to printed cost.

Which would imply that, what, NML can't hit a location you paid 4 for, even if it's printed cost is 2? And can hit that cost 5 location whose cost you reduced by 2 with Refurbished hulk? Hugor Hill has to take into account out-of-house gold penalties for cards in the discard?

We have two options here; either the word printed is redundant on Braided Screamers or it specificlaly refers to the cost payed. There is a specific wording for the cost paid (see Hungry Mob) that isn't used, and several versions of cards that use the word "cost" without the word printed (but clearly referring to it), and there's no evidence of a single other card which clearly uses cost to refer to something other than printed.

Or, if you don't like that logic:

Braided Screamers is referring to the cost of the card (of cost 3 or more), not the cost you payed to play the card (that cost 3 or more).

Vaapad said:

You guys are overthinking this… yes, some cards do say "printed cost" but there are plenty of others that don't, the most obvious examples being Seas and other reducers. One could just as easily make an argument that since those cards don't use the term "gold cost" then they don't actually reduce the amount of gold you have to spend. Its not really sloppy templating to continue using language and terms that have been in use since the CCG.

stormwolf27 said:

An OOH penalty is not part of the cost, it is an OOH penalty. The difference is clearly defined; it is known Khaleesi.

Skowza said:

It is, when that language wasn't carefully templated. CCGs that stay around a while evolve more formal and less ambiguous templating. Compare M:tG wordings from Alpha to modern wordings or L5R Imperial wordings to modern wordings. AGoT is a bit younger than either of these, but it's still been around over 10 years. I'll admit it helps M:tG and L5R that in these games identically-named cards are considered updates of earlier ones (L5R uses experience levels to distinguish between versions of unique cards that are allowed to coexist).

My point is, careful templating (along with careful redaction of the rules) is possible in AGoT. CCG Compatibility might be a problem, but considering FFG doesn't (to my knowledge) support Legacy, not a big one (from FFG's point of view).

Skowza said:

Okay gonna take these separately:

Part 1: If a Sea or other reducer said " Printed Cost " then you would be unable to chain them together. 2 Godswoods used together would reduce the cost of something by 2, not 4. "Printed Cost", or the lack thereof, on Godswood and other reducers actually makes them function the way we have been playing them for the majority of the game's existence. If you added them today, everyone would be very confused as to why two reducers didn't work together I would imagine.

We may be calling it sloppy templating, but it could just be a missed edit. I doubt anyone here really wants knock the hard work the FFG guys put into the game, but I know I acknowledge that this is an example of "sloppy" assuming that the text as-is was intentional.

Part 2: Actually, OOH IS a part of the cost. You'll have to look it up as I don't remember when it was discussed, but a cost reducer can be used to reduce the cost of a card with a gold penalty, inclusive of its gold penalty. So Flea Bottom on an OOH Refugee would make it cost 0.

Assuming that my original question got lost in the shuffle, I re-submitted it today and promptly recieved this answer:

Thanks for clearing that up Dave!

Vaapad said:

And this ruling would make it so Fiefdoms don't chain:

"Marshalling: Kneel Dornish Fiefdoms to lower the cost of the next House Martell card you play this phase by 1."

I'm going to ignore the first part and go with the second part that they missed "printed cost" on Braided Screamers.

I just realized this and didn't feel like posting in that other thread again.

mdc273 said:

/openpalmtoforeheadmakingloudslappingsound

You can still kneel a Fiefdom to play the next one for free. However, it won't get any further, because they are Limited (but you can use the new Fiefdom immediately).

Bit of an aside but:

Hungy Mob (House Stark) - After you pay 3 or more gold for a card or effect, kneel Hungry Mob.

I've always played that if I reduce the cost to play a card to below 3 then I do not kneel Hungry Mob - so it is the actual gold paid and not the cost which is relevent (but I may have been playing this one wrong)

Yes, Hungry Mob cares about gold actually paid (otherwise it would be crap), while Braided Screamers cares about printed cost.