Was this necessary? Seriously?

Now I hope its a long, long time before Princes of the South hits.

(yeah, yeah - Milk of the Poppy, yeah, yeah dupes and saves) Its still ridiculous.

your just pissed becuase you know we're gonna have to deal wiht Kmac as a viable force again, and lord knows hes going to hold this over our heads every bloody turn. that and the new Martell event. god i hate them again already and their expac hasnt even come out yet heh heh. to be honest i welcome the challenge, its been getting alittle stale just you and paul as viable challenge here on Long Island since the city crew hasnt given a good date in a month or so.

That being said, god no. why something like this needs to exist is beyond me. and here i thought id just dealt with valar.....

Do you really think it's going to be a big deal? It kills everything, including all of the Martell player's characters, too. It's a "nothing to lose" ability at best, which means you're already going to be in a better overall position. I think it is more likely to be a delay than something that turns the game around very often.

Which martell event?

What precisely is the problem? That you have a mini-Valar staring you down? He doesn't have Stealth, Renown, Deadly, Vengeful, or anything else that makes him troublesome as a character... just this... so why even bother getting rid of him? His 4 STR tricon is nice, but not so awesome as an army with two icons and one of the above keywords.

Now in a melee game it is a rather nice deterrent to not attacking a Martell player with military. Sort of a very offensive defense, but still just a defense. Martell has the worst saves in the game, it will take a much better card to really allow Oberyn to be used as an offensive weapon.

I don´t think that this Red Viper version is a problem. I agree that he was unnecessary, but for another reason. Again, we see a main charachter being released twice within a very short time.

I agree with Old Ben, once Princes of the Sun drops, that Red Viper will be getting all my love. I'd gladly give up the one power and Valar response for Renown and Immune to most things.

We'll see how you guys feel when he sees time at tournaments in the fall. Basically you're not going to be able to bring military challenges against a Martell player except in some very specific circumstances. Tahnksfully i don't have to worry about it for a couple of months - just wanted to be on the record now.

Dormouse - i do concede it is a pretty cool effect for multiplayer. Its in Joust that he's going to be a problem.

Stag Lord said:

I totally get the possible problem, I just think that two of the "very specific circumstances" in which I will be able to bring military challenges against a Martell player will be "when they have 3 or more characters on the board" and "when they'd prefer to kill a weenie instead of a 4-STR tricon they spent 5 for." I just don't think it's going to be in the Martell player's best interests to kill the Viper and/or trigger his ability all that often. I think the circumstances are going to be far more specific for the Martell player to want to trigger the Response. The "I'm losing The Viper anyway, may as well kill everyone else we've both got" reasoning is not going to win many games, IMO.

And yeah, "yadda-yadda Milk," "yadda-yadda saves," "yadda-yadda cancels" and all that jazz.

If I've got four characters and they've got three - no way do I bring a MIl against them. A decent Martell player given their draw (has anyone ntoiced how many draw cards they have picked up over the CP cycle) shoudl be readily able to re-seed post haste. This is about the easiest mass reset to pull off I have ever seen.

Only YMHC was a nastier revenge effect.

I suppose we'll see. They have gotten a lot of draw, but they've also gotten a lot of low STR characters and a ton of events. Being able to reseed is one thing, having a viable strategy once you've reseeded is another.

I really think it's going to be a "time will tell" thing. It may also be regional variations in play style. He is highly unimpressive in the Chicago area.

(Another interesting way to deal with him - I'm running Power of Blood anyway; shuts down even the possibility.)

Ktom- Where do you play in the Chicago area?

XcentricX said:

Northern and western suburbs, primarily.

XcentricX: and I play west of that (DeKalb)!

Stag Lord said:

I'm afraid I'm with the majority as well - it's a powerful effect, but also one that is circumventable, telegraphed, and expensive. If you know the reset is coming, you can also work around it. The Princes version is much more beastly - not kneeling, heavy immunity, etc. Plus the ability to run an Agenda as well (a significant disadvantage to killer Viper). I think he's a pretty neat, certainly fun version that gives players a bit of pause.

In competitive play, he's only going to be seen in decks without Agendas, so you know at the outset if there's a possibility or not (and given his high cost, I don't see him being used out-of-House too often).

He kind of reminds me of the promo Ilyn Payne. Looks scary, and changes the environment once he hits the table, but extremely vulnerable to everything.

Seriously, I think you're over-reacting. He's a 5G 4STR tricon with a conditional ability. I have to be behind in board position already to make it worth it, and you're going to see it coming from a mile away.

You can Milk him, be playing Power of Blood, blank him with the new Margaery Tyrell... Greyjoy has tons of saves and triggered effect cancels. And I'm still killing a character I already payed 5G for. Great. And unless I'm running Retreat to get him back from the dead pile, its only going to happen once a game.

The reprint Princes of the Sun version is already going to be much more playable without even knowing what else we're getting.

I'm actually struggling to find a place for this Viper. Give him Deadly or Renown, and then maybe we'd be talking.

Stag Lord said:

these were my thoughts when i first saw this thread:

yeah, i don't know -- i don't really have a problem with this version of the red viper, and i imagine i'll play around him to the same extent that i play around the threat of valar... not all that difficult to do, just another factor in the environment that a single house can include in a deck. mind you, the threat of something equivalent to a double valar will take extra care, but i'm definitely not dismayed that this guy was printed.

an additional thought, though: things will get very ugly in the situation where martell gets out 2 or 3 lost oasis, stocks its hand with a few characters, eats away at the opponent's hand with its strength at intrigue, and blows off either valar or this red viper to go on and create a more consistent form of a lannister-like playing board (more consistent because its kneel comes in the form of two cost locations rather than characters or events; and this is ignoring all martell's other forms of removal, e.g. game of cyvasse, which essentially kneels one martell character to knock out neutralize of the opponent's characters)

yeah yeah, i see where you all are coming from, but you all just dont understand. Stag and i, in our meta we've a martell player. and he's, for lack of a better word, batshit insane. his playstyle is just that insane, and hes still probably one of the best of us. now hes been sitting out the LCG time till martell showed up again in force, but when he gets back this bloody viper will be the bane of our existence. yeah, yeah say what you will. you have no idea lol.

Wulfen613 said:

...Ok?

finitesquarewell said:

yeah, i don't know -- i don't really have a problem with this version of the red viper, and i imagine i'll play around him to the same extent that i play around the threat of valar... not all that difficult to do, just another factor in the environment that a single house can include in a deck. mind you, the threat of something equivalent to a double valar will take extra care, but i'm definitely not dismayed that this guy was printed.

Agreed

finitesquarewell said:

Ya think?

I see this guy more as a deterrent to resets than I see him being used as one. Wildfire and the only good character they have on the board is the Viper, versus your three keyworded guys? They all go. Valar? I hope you double saves.

I just don't see him as a weapon to be concerned about. I do see the potential for coming out stronger than the opponent in the right deck, but that is a strategic gamble in the building of the deck.

dormouse said:

i'm in this camp.

plus we have a batshit insane martell player or 2 in our meta and i'm still not overly concerned about him. the good news is that martell can't abuse his reset the way they used to be able to with bleeds, so he is not creating an unfair board advantage.

Stag Lord said:

I've played a number of games against stark and greyjoy where i initiatted 0-2 military challenges. yeah it took a little longer, but i still won.

So I had this situation where I was playing with two others, Player 1 draws Valar Morghullus (sp?), I have the Viper w/o dupes. Player 1 has Renly w/ 1 dupe, player 3 has Robb Stark and Quoran 1/2hand w/ 1 dupe. So does:

A) Valar kills all characters simultaneously, they use dupes to save Robb, Q, and Renly, then Viper's text takes place and he kills Robb, Renly and Q.

or

B)Viper's text happens simultaneously with Valar and Renly, Robb and Q only need 1 save and survive?

We played it A after some discussion, I just wanted to see what the opinion out there was, thanks.

Whoah, thread necro! Reminds that there's some peeps that we haven't heard from in a long time that I wish were still around.

Anyway, you played it out correctly as option A.