jmccarthy said:

Right, but you can revolve this example easily. If my opponent has Robb and the war host of the north in play i would prefer to have power of blood revealed instead of giving my opponent a military claim soak with stay of execution. So yes, there´s a difference, but you can´t exactly tell which plot if preferable because it depends to much on the given situation. Also it´s not like stay of execution is without a cost, if i take Robb back into my hand ´ll have to pay 4 gold again.

Of course you can spin that wheel further and talk about the pros and contras of having a card in hand e.g. Robb can be discarded by an intrigue challenge (probably stolen with scouting the pass), on the other hand this maybe good because you planned to reveal Valar or wildfire anyway next round and you are glad to have a good charachter back in your hand.

It all turns down to a risk element, you can´t build your plot deck for such special situations, so it shouldn´t be an issue for deckbuilding. Again i prefer power of blood because there are simply more nobles i can protect and i can build my deck for that situation easily.

the reason i'm fine w/ this being brought back and power of blood being around is that its still protection, its an additional turn of protection, and its more flexible then the second power of blood if i don't want 3 plots commited to protection. The turn i think the reset is coming i flip power of blood. If i miss then i have some more limited protection for the following turn (but an advantage that power of blood doesn't give me). I guess i could have 2 power of bloods, but i want the second power struggle and the gaining of an initative. Heck if i'm that worried about my nobles then i'd have all 3.

Also, i don't care about it being 'double sided' as i will control it when it advantages me most (if my opponent has as many nobles/royalty or more then me, then he is probably not playing a reset and i most likely won't be flipping either of these plots).

Lars said:

You're out of your mind. the minute Valar came back Outfox/Outmaneuver shoudl have been reprinted. That freaking minute.

Its yet ANOTHER reason why standard is superior to LCG still. At least i cna counter the every deck easy reset Plot in Standard.

I'll probably play those draw Kingdom locations. They will work well in Bara, and especially cause they make the attachment hate Asshai playable, as dobbler alluded to.

That and pumps in Bara rush are always nice.

I think Safe Within the Walls would be a cooler reprint... or a new plot that reads:

Every character you control gains: Plot: Discard a card at random from the opponent's hand to save this character from being killed.

:-P (I really do think there should be some plot out there that if revealed can copletely and utterly pwn the opponent if they reveal valar... but at the same time not be so awesome to be auto-include).

bloodycelt said:

Oooh, the templating problems on that make my head spin....

Interesting idea, but I think the wording you're going for would be something more like "Response: Before a kill effect resolves, discard a random card from an opponent's hand. Then, save a character you control from being killed. You may only trigger this effect in the Plot phase."

Sorry, everyone around me is right now into magic... and that would be the magic template (I think).

What traits do you think it should have? Something horrible like 1 1 1 or something ok like 3 1 2. Or borked like 5 7 1?

bloodycelt said:

~ You mean stats? Wow, you are surrounded by M:tG players, huh?

I don't like the ability enough to think about stats. No matter what the stats are, it's a bad card. In LCG, it only works against 2 plots - one of which is never played (certainly never in Joust). In Standard, there are only 2 more, one of which sees almost no play, either. So effectively, it's a silver bullet against Valar. I'd rather see something that wasn't pointless when revealed against something other than Valar.

Why not lobby for the reprint of Narrow Escape if you hate Valar that much. It is more versatile than a plot . And why all this hate for resets recently? Is Valar creating that much of an NPE in the current environment. ~Maybe its just a meta thing you guys need to work out on your own.

I like the new location too--mostly because it suggests other kingdom locations will be all-house rather than neutral. (Like Ktom, I expected the kingdom locations to be reprints. I'm happy to see that this isn't the case, though I still hope that there will be more +gold options.)

Outside Baratheon (and Greyjoy?) I don't think this card will see much play. It may see some play in decks that rely heavily on kingdom locations--there are a few cards that trigger off those--but I don't think they will be that strong. I'm hoping the other kingdom locations will be a little bit more well-rounded so that all the houses can enjoy them equally. (I could be underestimating the effectiveness of this card, but I'm pretty sure that by round 3 I'll be hoping to draw into more characters, not more 0-cost locations.)

As far as the other cards go, I'm excited to see more location discard. For decks that have a decent number of war-crest characters and intrigue, there are six neutral events to attack locations (9 if you include Support of the Kingdom). All of these won't see play in any one deck, but the flexibility is nice and overall good for the environment. Robb is also decent, though I hate to see another 4-gold cost version...3 cost with 3 STR and a weaker ability would have been better I think. Though I like the combo potential/idea, I suspect that in most games this ability will limit the Stark player's choices rather than expand them. (Stark players will probably be pressured to use his ability as often as possible, effectively making Robb an expensive cost-reducer; otherwise, they'll run the risk of him dying during challenges/to card effects and their hand being clogged with high-cost armies for the rest of the game.)

kpmccoy21 said:

That's a pretty good idea. Reprint Narrow Escape, although maybe with a modification or two (like requiring a hand of at least 1 card to be discarded, or possibly making the return 1-sided).

Isn't safe behind the walls similar? It should be something that saves characters or it will just be put in every deck since it would work against wildfire.

I don't hate valar... it's more that it seems to be auto-include. It's why I did not suggest outfox since outfox would just be another auto-include. If outfox was reprinted... then winter storm should be as well to at least make it so outfox couldn't pwn all resets.

last night i found a situation where stay of execution was better then power of blood. In a melee my poor little kitten loving tommen got targeted to die, and he doesn't have a noble crest so power of blood would have done squat.

bloodycelt said:

I don't buy the direction this seems to be going that the only choices are "silver bullet" or "auto-include." There are obviously things in the middle. Outfox wasn't an auto-include, neither is Valar. Plenty of decks work fine without them. Narrow Escape isn't an auto-include, especially with a built-in cancel possibility.

The point to me is that the plot phase is about choosing the right thing at the right time. It involves understanding the board position enough to predict what your opponent needs to do - and getting into his/her head enough to predict what they will do. All the while, they are doing the same to you. You seem to want a one-to-one solution to a given situation: Plot X fixes Valar, but not Wildfire. To me, I prefer plot cards that are partial or imperfect solutions to a number of situations: Plot X minimizes the fallout from Valar and Wildfire, and even has some use against Condemned by the Realm, but I'll still get a bit singed by either one.

I vote for Narrow Escape and I have been petitioning Nate to bring it back for a long time now.

My perspective is that... building a plot deck should be difficult. You shouldn't have easy plots, and if you made a plot that could work against BOTH wildfire and valar (Since almost every deck has a reset... people build expecting them). Then that plot would be tossed in every deck.

ktom said:

It already exists in LCG....its called power of blood. And as a bonus its useful to you in situations other then valar/wildfire!

Outfox always bugged me, it might not have been an auto include, but it was pretty talentless. Plus with the amount of saves (i know we've had this 'discussion' before) avilable to you in lcg valar hasn't really been a problem. I've wanted to use valar in a number of decks, but often i find my self not as solid the next turn becuase of lack of claim.

bloodycelt said:

Ah, but if you have a plot that just works against Valar (and absolutely nothing else), it won't be tossed into any plot deck. Take a look at "Waste Their Time." It was essentially a silver bullet against Benjen's Cache (most other plot search had rotated by the time it was released). It saw very little play in Joust (despite Benjen's continuing to be played consistently). It saw a fair amount of play in Melee because of the "look at each opponent's hand," which gave it additional utility in a greater range of situations when you had more than one opponent.

To me, whether or not a plot deck is easy to build isn't the point. It's playing the plot deck that counts - and a plot that doesn't have any utility except when played against a single other plot is both easy to play and boring to me.

Lars said:

Exactly. That's why I prefer it to, and would play it over, the hypothetical plot bloodycelt suggested in most situations (assuming a number of prominent Nobles in the deck), regardless of the stats on said "dream plot." (See, the discussion does come full circle!)

About Bay of Ice, I've read that the card is not great because if you draw it later in the game it's a dead card. I agree but don't forget that you will draw 3 cards per round so it will be a dead card (if your opponent don't play Init. too) but it leaves you 2 other cards…

I think that a deck that always has Init. + draw 3 (or 4 with Summer) cards per round can be really efficent.

Re: Traited Plots, which Intrigue Gambit and Military Battle plots would you like to see reprinted? Does the introduction of the event Shadow Politics (additional INT challenge) make the chance of seeing Breaking of Oaths higher or lower? Does the "weak" nature of the spoiled Power Struggle plot mean that there will be parity in strength? I'll stop asking questions now. I am just looking forward to the chance to use the Limited Response Events from A Change of Seasons CP and the ... for your King events too. Fast plot cycling might become more prevalent as well.

[one more question, sorry] Am I correct in assuming there will be two of each plus a GJ only MB to make a total of seven?

Egg said:

Two of each, plus a "Greyjoy only" plot. 7 total plots. 6 total traited plots.