With the spoiling of The Red Viper from The Princes of the Sun I have been thinking that ways to get around immunity will be that much more valuable, if not valid. This brought my attention to Den of the Wolf and reminded me of the minor uproar from when it was first available. If you check tzumainn's site, all but one rating is either a 1 or a 5 which is only really a good indication of first impressions, probably without ever seeing it in play. Even with the hype, I have still yet to see decks, that I have played against or posted here that use it. Is it possible that it is now an underrated card?

I don't want this to be too narrow of a discussion so I am willing to throw Cat o' the Canals into the mix as well as I recall that the initial hype was pretty big too.

How have you seen these cards being used and what would you rate them out of 5 currently?

**I am purposely leaving MwnK out of the mix because it has its own topic(s)**

Its funny, but MwNK actually hurt Den of the wolf, but i'll leave it at that.

to answer your actual question i think the cardpool limited Den of the wolf (not a whole lot of immunity to blank) and i think that most players who didn't comment on Den of the wolf would have rated it as a 2.5 based on its other ability. It is a nice card, but really needs the right combo to go off (someone mentioned it in a vigiliant bara deck in the deck construction thread and i don't even think thats the place for it at 2 gold). Den of the wolf slides into one of our meta's legacy lanni kneel deck (where immunity is more prevalent as is gold).

I was one of those people underwhelmed by Cat o' the Canals. She doesn't do anything by herself. Yeah she can stay around for a long time and can't be killed or knelt....but at the end of the day she is a 1 STR character w/out any native keywords that might help when attacking (and stark has enough defense oriented cards)

I´m with Lars about Cat of the canals, in the end she´s just another Arya struggling with 2 other versions of her for one deck slot. And she´s not my favorite Arya, if i play standard i prefer 5KE Arya, in LCG shadow Arya. So Cat hardly sees play in my decks.

Den of the wolf is a different thing. Most people seem to play LCG format these days and this format had too few influence cards (at least till the release of kings of the sea) to trigger the "repeat the current phase effect". While i haven´t played the card in every deck i still believe that the card could be devastating in the right situations. I already used the card in some of my games to repeat a challenge phase with vigilant charachters on my side + claim two + initiative and against a Bara deck that revealed good god´s own kiss in the plot phase, which really safed the game for me.

Are the Trait manipulation decks using the Carrion Bird still around? That became a pretty big topic for, what, two days? Sure, they aren't alot of ways to add traits to cards, but it was a nice combo that could work well in the right situation.

I also still don't see MwnK played much in our meta. And I never seem to be able to draw into it.

Cat is a nusinance around here, and she doesn't see as much play as she used to. I agree with Old Ben -- Stark just has better Aryas. I think Cat works best after Arya is killed, which is hard to accomplish wit Shadow Arya.

In multiplayer... she's good since she sort of sticks around through multiple resets.

Slots nicely in a you can't do **** to me deck with KLE Eddard and KLE Catelyn.

By herself she is not that great no, just can be used for any challenge. Also with that bound by duty, you can use it on her and defend any challenge and they won't get unopposed challenges. Also, if you throw an Aegon's Blade on her, makes her pretty sweet, but that is adding cards to her. But in my Stark deck for a while, that is exactly what I did is try to get the Cat with a Blade on it.

The only two cards that currently concern me from the Raven cycle are Wintertime Marauders and Alannys Greyjoy. They both are balanced by themselves, but when either one is combined with Support of Harlaw, they become absolutely brutal. In one game at Gencon I got Support on Alannys, and 3 unopposed challenges later (with other characters), I had removed 4 cards from his hand. And anyone who has seen a Wintertime Marauders with Support on them while it is Winter knows the carnage they create.

I think both cards would still be powerful but more balanced with the following errata:

Change Marauders to Limited Response

Change Alannys from Any Phase to Marshalling

Feel free to disagree. Its just my opinion

I'm not necessarily in disagrement, but i'm also curious how many people got caught with their pants down by your deck Greg.

We have a very similar deck in our meta and most of the time it is easily containable (you can't let a deck let that get started). If you know what the goal of the deck is you can usually find a way to contain it. In fact i run the plot the makes it not be a season more so to keep it from being winter on the turn that there are two winter marauders out and i don't have enough characters out. Also i run Queen selyse to be able to turn off other queens and of those that turn off Mrs greyjoy is by far the best. Yes both are strong effects, yes both can be brutal, but they aren't garuanteed and both require a bit of effort to 'break'. I believe ktom was also running a similar deck to yours greg and had drastically different results, in fact alec was able to beat ktom's version and not your version.

So i thik in a long winded way i'm saying you played very well and took advantage of some things that may not have been widely seen.

I'd hate to see the Marauders become self-limiting in regard to copy number (so that having one out "invalidates" the use of another). I think "Wintertime Marauders," as an Army, might simply be better as "No attachments." On it's own, it's not really a problem. It only gets crazy when you add to it.

I'd prefer to see Alannys as "limit 1 per phase" or "limit 1 per round." I like that she has combo potential in other phases, so limiting her to one makes her a less interesting card IMHO. A limit would keep her versatility while helping to reduce the potential for "abuse."

I'm not entirely sold that errata is necessary yet , though. The situations are certainly there, but I'm still waiting to be convinced of the consistency. I play a GJ deck very similar to yours, Greg, but I haven't been working with it long enough (in LCG) to make it consistent. It's powerful, but it's also hit-and-miss. I personally wouldn't call for errata until I'm sure it is more hit than miss, in more hands than yours.

I don't know, Lars, I'd have to agree with Greg. I have yeat to personally have Alannys destroy my hand, but I have seen the havoc that the Marauders can cause. In Melee I was running a Greyjoy powergrab deck that only ran the Marauders for the War crest to kneel for Assertion of Might. I wasn't even running White Ravens. But an opponent made it Winter and I decided to give Support of Harlaw a try on the Raiders. Along with some rahter lucky use of Assult of the Kraken, I cleared two players' boards that first turn from military and the Raider's ability. About 6 cards off the table if I recall.

I'm assuming Greyjoy still has tuns of saves but I'm guessing a card like Marauders gets more and more vulnerable as more character control becomes available. From what I hear some houses lack good targeted character control in LCG. But perhaps that's the way it's supposed to be right now...Another thing could be more cards that change seasons so the mechanic becomes even more similar to the night/day mechanic in Cthulhu.

Kennon said:

thats two other cards and seven total gold (more expensive then MwnK btw ) plus you still have to make the challenge unopposed to really take advantage of the combo.

Like i said, i don't 100% disagree. It is a really strong deck, however it is containable. I can turn winter off for a turn or more with a number of cards (and as easily as flipping a plot). I can shut alanys down with every house and more easily in stark (two cards), lanni, and targ (both have queens who don't turn off) and i can milk all of them. All i need to do is buy time to keep it from getting ahead of me where it can get nasty with support of harlaw. As long as i can control the challenges enough that i can keep them from being unopposed i can control the beastly repeatable nature of the combo. I was already teching for valar so i had a number of ways to minimize GJ's valar save board advantage (~even without out outfox) as i expected almost every lanni deck to be running valar (and i might have been the only deck in gencon not running valar, but i could be wrong).

I will admit, Greg's deck is beatable. With my Bara deck I played in Joust, I beat him playtesting twice the morning before joust. Although, he had beaten me with the same two decks playing 3 times the night before Joust. So yes, I agree, you cannot let the deck get started, but if it does, it is almost unstoppable, because even if you have unique characters, there are not many gold producing/reducers that are unique. They can crush your gold then kill your characters to where you are still basically screwed and can't play anything. The limited response would help that, because even if you defend the challenge so they could not stand with Support of Harlaw, they could still stand them with Distinct Mastery and just do it again.

Jeppedo said:

I have always expected to see Greyjoy, and especially Greyjoy Winter, start to see a lot of play once KotS hit. Looks like it is starting. Maester Cressen (even out of House) might be a good thing since Support of Harlaw is a Condition attachment. Distinct Mastery isn't as frightening with the Marauders because the event isn't as repeatable. And hey, at least there is a universal event cancel available now, too.

Throughout the years, I've always opposed errata, and truthfully, even in these cases I still do. Yes, I think they'd be more balanced with the errata I mentioned or the errata Ktom mentioned, but in truth, I'd rather not see it. I really hate teaching a new player the game and having to say "but this card doesn't work quite as its written". I understand in some cases it is absolutely necessary, but in these cases I haven't been convinced it is necessary. Both Alannys and Maruaders are brutal with Support of Harlaw, but part of the game is building decks that can handle these situations. Its what marks a good player, right?

They are powerful, but beatable. All I can say.

I'll agree with ktom here. its a very strong combo - and I have been playing with something similar since the spring or so (Hooked Trident was easily replaced by Support). I'm still finding it relatively easy to turn of fthe season when one has to - and like Lars -I am starting to see the Raven's Song Plot get quite a bit more populairty.

Its a really kick ass effect - but lets hold off on the errata for the moment. Greyjoy has been hamstrung in LCG since early rotation - lets give them some time to shine before we go changing cards. i'm not an errata fan either - for teh same reasons dobbler lists and for the many lucid critiques of teh rpocess jersualemjones has put forth.

Ways to beat it....

Stark, not sure out kill greyjoy save? I haven't played enough stark to really know. Though intimidate doesn't work on Cat.

Lanni, kneel em and kneel em and uh... kneel em. Then trait manip them to be ravens and reshuffle them back... it seems too easy. Oh and Compelled by the Rock works.

Bara, Maester Cressen... I think some of the new KL cards can toast them.

Targ... do they really worry about an attachment?

Greyjoy... wintertime marauders.

Martel... they do have a few nasty effects like the army that cancels the first triggered effect.

ways to beat the combo(s) continued (non house specific).

Milk of the poppy, milk of the poppy and uhm oh yeah milk of the poppy.

Having your own stealth (to stop unopposed)

out marshalling them in military and power icons

and having your own queen in play.