But again you are comparing Standard cards to LCG cards. I'd be damned surprised to see Broken Arm as a straight reprint. If it was reprinted it would most likely be unique, and if the ability resurfaced I would expect it to be a limited response or have some other condition on it, if it was even a location.

I'm making to separate arguments, 1) Martells Icon control is not nearly as overpowered as some people are claiming, as a theoretical mechanic or as enacted in Standard. 2) That icon removal will annoy or please different people based on what they like about games and their prefered play style and while you obviously have a right to feel the way you do, your feelings do not translate into fact for everyone (and my statements really fall ino this catagory as often as anyone else's). 3) Icon control in the LCG environment needs to be handled in a cautious way, but that does not mean no inclusion of the mechanic.

I'd be happy with an entirely different mechanic or the elevation of a side mechanic to primary status, but it needs to put Mrtell on equal footing with th eother Houses... and the ideas I hear most about Martell don't do that, they invariably lead to a neutering of the House to a point where it becomes rather pointless in even having it. The handful of power cards get railed against, and always talked about being banned or neutered, and rarely if ever is a replacement card or mechanic put forward that allows Martell to stay in relatively the same position amongst the houses.

And that is the problem, Martell is not (in LCG or Standard), nor has it ever been, the dominant House. Usually it is ranked 2 or 3 though IIRC compettive play seems to most often place it 3 more often than not, removing or nerfing the cards most often named would drop the Houses only efficient and powerful cards which would cause it to slide down at least one rank. The reasoning behind it comes out not because the House is dominant, but because the mechanics are annoying or frustrating... though the same people saying so have been proponents of cards and mechanics that are just as meta defining, annoying and frustrtaing to other players, but happen to fit their own ideas about how they like to play the game (direct kill, abundant location destruction, burn, abundant rush, Ilyn Payne, First Snow, etc.).

Martell is a control House. Do we want it to remain one or give it some real power rush mechanics? IF we keep it a control House what kind of control do they get? How does it stack up against the other Houses?

Let's step away from the issue of what icon control reprints to give them, and discuss what mechnics we'd like to see them get and what kind of cards would best represent them both reprints and ideas for new cards. I think it may be more productive than this back and forth.

dormouse said:

Dormouse, I don't think accusing others of being overly "emotional" is fair or persuasive. People have voiced their opinions and reasons for them, and just because you disagree doesn't make them wrong, ignorant, or "emotional." I think you're right that Lannister is consistently strong and Martell is often not, though I wouldn't say Lannister is always #1. For example, Lannister is probably not the best house for multiplayer, and may be less competitive than others in classic/highlander. (Or were you referring only to the standard 1v1 format?) More to the point, just because a house is generally strong or weak, it doesn't mean that all mechanics associated with that house are strong or weak. In other words, cards like Broken Arm can be too strong as printed while the house as a whole can be weak. In such cases, everyone loses because Martell players must play the "strong" cards or else they are at a disadvantage--meaning they have fewer options when deckbuilding--and their opponents have to play against the same old, imbalanced cards. It would be much better to avoid making cards that are both too strong and too weak.

It is only my opinion that cards like the Broken Arm are too strong and/or unfun, especially in the LCG format. If you are to convince me otherwise, however, you'll probably have to spend a little more time talking about why repeatable, efficient icon removal is a good form of control for Martell to have (as opposed to the Infamy mechanic, War Scorpion, etc.) and that such cards would be fun/balanced in the current LCG environment. I think everyone on this forum can agree that Martell should be a viable, competitive house. Where we disagree is on how to achieve that objective.

On your point about Martell being a control house, I think Martell has historically been the strongest when it is played as a character-heavy house with supplemental control elements. Whereas Lannister may have more gold/draw to maintain long-term hand and board control, Martell seems to do well when it tears into a player's hand and cancels/copies effects to shutdown an opponent's chances of turning the tide. That seems to be the direction FFG is taking Martell with cards like Underhanded Assassin and that 2-cost viper. The nice thing is that cards like Game of Cyvasse, which is very efficient control (kneel your intrigue-icon character to kneel one of theirs AND return any character to the owner's hand if your knelt character was bigger), also allow for a more control-focused Martell deckbuild. There are plenty of directions FFG can take this house without making icon removal the dominent theme, and I expect to see more of this creativity in the upcoming chapter packs/expansions.

Note: Edited for clarity/grammar. Also added a bit.

Twn2dn said:

I didn't think dormouse's description of people's feelings on the matter as being emotionally motivated needed to be read as something of a negative connotation. I think its perfectly fair to take into consideration that noone playing this game is a robot (that I know of), and I'm sure based on what we each like to play or play against some sort of feeling is going to creep in and effect our judgment.

And I like limited icon removal/manipulation. Its a different twist on several different ways of essentially doing the same thing to control characters that we have in the game. And its hardly even the most permanent or punishing. Sure Broken Arm brought into LCG purely as is with the current cardpool would be a bit much, but I don't think that should really be the crux of the argument. Its too repeatable, and too hard to get rid of with what we have presently in LCG. In standard I think its fine. As a non-limited & non-unique location in "standard" there are plenty of ways to kill it and not very many to save it.

I really think To Be A Viper would be a great card if they just got rid of the 'after you lose a challenge qualification'. Just make it a Challenges phase action like all the others, and suddenly its completely great and usable. It's hardly really a "revenge" effect. Compared to the other To Be A... events, it just has too many play restrictions making it far too situational.

Anyway... I totally lost my train of thought here... I'm just biding my time 'til the Martell expansion. :-)

I'll have to disagree about the historical power fo Martell. During the Stanrad envrionment follwoing teh introduction of ITE - they were clearly the number one House, and they didn't relaly take much of a step back post 5K. The 2006-2007 season, they won four Regionals, ChiCon and were an integral part of Sam Tham's Treaty deck that took the world title.

Last year Martell decks took both ChiCon and Origins.

They have had about a two year run at the top of the game, and in Standard today they are probably no worse than three (although it is difficult to evaluate them in this format as OP has taken a big step back).

Nontheless, I agree with most of the rest of dormouse's arguments and assertions. i would be fine with a unique reprint of Broken ram, and Locked isn't nearly as much of a problem without ITE Arianne (who is an admitted design mistake). Even when Martell was dominant, they took a lot more skill to play and win with than some other House who also had their moments at the top.

You know, I really don't think that Martell was at the top during ITE and 5KE. At least not solely. Lannister was just as good, if not better. I think that Martell was such a cookie cutter house that you really only needed to pick about 5 cards for your deck and the other 55 cards were just chosen for you. This made it a pretty popular house that at points were over half of the field at tournies. So yeah, they won alot and were very prevalent, but I don't think it was due to them being the overwhelming top dog. You put five 1's on a d6 and you are going to roll alot of 1's.

Note I've always made the distinction between Standard and LCG. The Broken Arm should not be reprinted as is unless there is some other strong cards that the other Houses will be getting. Not because it is broken, not because it is more powerful an effect, but because it just doesn't make sense in the new environment.

And Martell was not the top House, at one point it may have been the most popular House, but that is a very different thing. At Chicon there were 8 Martell decks played, yet in the final eight there was only 1, and a treaty deck at that... Guess how many of the top 8 were Lannister? Half. At worlds 2 Martell decks made it to the top 8 (again one of them Treaty)... again how many were Lannister in the top 8? 5. And again th winning Martell deck was a Treaty.

Sorry man, but Lannister even in Martell's "broken" days was still racking up more wins in competitive events. When Martell did take top honors at Chicon and Worlds, it was not through icon manipulation (both of those decks contained ZERO icon manipulation cards) but the copy effects. The tourney reports seem to tell a very different story... one where MArtell wors best strengthening other Houses.

SoNice's ChiCon winning Martell deck in 2007 was NOT a Treaty. It was staright Martell, and Broken Arm was a big factor in it.

Not that I think it was icon manipulaiton that put Martell on top - we at least agree on that. The reveal nerf did more to drag Martell abck to the pack than anything else. But for about eight months there - they were on top, and it wasn't because they were easy to play (staton) because they weren't.

Maybe it was something of a perfect storm - undercosted Doomed charatcers and effects, the ITE Arianne mistake, and too much reveal and reveal copy. But it was definitely there and we could go dig through the old TRs and what not to see the evidence. Lannister was good - Martell was better.

wasn't rick running the knights agenda? and didn't he take a big hit when knights and winter rotated out?

are you kidding me?! Martell played itself! OK, maybe it wasn't easy for EVERYONE, but at the high level competative scene, like ChiCon and GenCon, it was a walk in the **** park. Especially with Defenders. Good god. Not easy! Psh! I went to the Kentucky Regional and seriously. I played 5 out of the six martell decks there(I swear someone was inentionally doing it to me) and the decks were almost identical. and they were pretty much the same thing that I saw coming out of the East coast too. I mean when they were revealing and drawing that many cards, how could it possibly be hard to play?! or even to build! Especially on top of the fact that they had the Martell Iron Throne. The hardest decision the martell player had to make was to risk going to 4 doomed to try and stop the rush deck.

I was thinking of Adam's 2008 ChiCon deck on Tzuimann.

SoNice's was a Defender's Agenda and had Orphans of the Greenblod x2 and Scorpion's Sting x2... but what made this deck was easily the CBK and reveal/Agenda. I think that mix of cards could have been run out of any House with a few of their really solid cards and you'd have a winning deck at most tournaments.

But I'm going to have to say everything so far supports my statements that icon manipulation is not world breaking, over powered, or even particularly efficient.

Since no one else seems to want to start off with what Martell mechanics they'd like to see, I'll start. I want revenge effects. Not the weak, "Hey look I just lost a challenge and then played or discarded 1-2 cards to make you lose one also. I want revenge like Throne of Sunspear, Taste of Blood etc. Something that is a 1-on-1 exchange after put into play or if in the form of a event is close to a 2-to-1 as possible. Something that is stronger than just maybe making you rethink your plans after my effects, preferably something that has you rethinking your plans before you even attack... and if you really want to make Martell interesting let them use some of them when they lose on the attack as well.

I'd like more Sand Snakes... I mean there are 8 of them and we only get the same three. Now admittedly Obara, Nymeria, and Tyene are the only ones we actually hear from, but that has never really stopped FFG before, ~and with DwD due out in the next two or three years why not get the drop?

As far as new mechanics... I'd like to see cards like Underhanded Assassin that make your opponents deck strengths become exploitable weaknesses. Maybe a 3 STR character with an ability that is similar to Vainglorious.

*Ser Ulwyck Uller

4 Gold
3 STR

Lord. Knight.

Military
Intrigue

Renown

When Ser Ulwyck Uller is participating in a challenge, other
participating characters get -1 STR for each icon they have.

Now that would be a fun character to play with and an interesting one to play against.

dormouse said:

I've had this up before but the conversation never really started:

What i would like is to see some more summer, they have some summer synergy but nothing that really blows my mind and this from a house that has used the desert to remain Unbowed, Unbent, and Unbroken!

For control elements i wouldn't mind seeing The Scourge comeback (and NOT broken arm, maybe maybe if it was unique) I also wouldn't mind seeing Desert Stocks, but at a cheaper cost. Chronicler at the Tor would be a good one as well (especially to allow you to use A. Dayne/nuetrals/OOH).

As for a character base I think the following would be ok to pick from (*denotes should add, if summer to the text box):

Harmen Uller* A Song of Night

Darkstar 5kings (or Legacy Pack Reveal star w/ *)

Areo Hotah ITE (with as much win by 4STR as there is right now)

Arianne Martell [lower the cost by 1 w/ *]Crown of Suns

Champion of Starfall A Tourney of Swords

The Red Viper Valyrian Edition

Nymeria Sand Valyrian Edition

Ellaria Sand Valyrian Edition

Host of Sunspear Crown of Suns

House Dayne Knight Crown of Suns

Knight of Starfall Valyrian Edition

Oberyn's Spears Valyrian Edition

Septon of Dorne* Valyrion Edition

(Add Summer).... NONONNONONONO!

Under no circumstances should ANY of their unique characters that were not doomed be mde MORE difficult to trigger. Just don't reprint it if you are going to do that. If you want to power a reprint up and make it conditional as the cost of doing so that is an entirely different thing, but if Bara can get self standing Renly, No Lords Stanis, and Fat Bob all without conditions then there is absolutely no reason to weaken Martell chracters (and that is without going into the other Houses).

None of the cards you named is more powerful, unchanged, than the existing core set cards.