Ok. Well, I'm giddy like Sansa before a tourney for the Martell expansion to release. And as some consolation, every once in a while my gaming compatriots have been allowing me to build decks using the cards thus far spoiled in the set and the "gimme" locations. (Water Gardens, Dornish Fiefdom.)

So those are:

-The Red Viper (Valyrian w/ Noble crest)
-Arianne Martell (ACoS... Noble crest? Seen at GenCon)
-Dornish Reserves (New card)
-Dorne (New card)
-Taste for Blood (ASoN)

I'd just like to drum up some possible future discussion on the fun combos/strategies already emerging for me. Some may be gimmicks now and forever, but hey... I like weird convolution and complicated decks. :-P

1) Westeros Bleeds. With The Red Keep now providing incredibly reliable big influence, I've been having fun with this one. The Red Viper is immune to it, and if I stack a couple power on Vendor of Venoms he's immune too. Not to mention tacking on a Taste for Blood on Vendors and losing a couple challenges as the defender gets them power quickly and they stand from Vengeful.

2) The Red Viper, Seafarer's Bow, and Lost Oasis. He's a one man wrecking crew if they have more characters than you. Kneel the bow/oasis, STR 5 stealth renown that doesn't kneel and kneel each character you stealth. On the last challenge you can kneel him after committing to make him STR 7. Har har.

3) Dorne. There are a ton of great keywords to really take advantage of. Creature gets you free Carrion Birds, Black Ravens, and 1G Pit Vipers. Merchant and Ally are also nicely spread on strong choices. Just the fact that its any card, not just characters, rules.

One of the only things I've really missed is any sort of attachment control whatsoever. All it takes is one Milk or Targ burn to really ruin the Viper's day. What I wouldn't give for Grand Maester's Chain! Especially with all those Martell maesters.

Oh... and just because I really don't think the Valyrian artwork is all that exciting and I like playing around in Photoshop, I've made a few alternate takes that I used as my printout proxies. I really wanted to track down a good copy of the ACoS artwork by John Matson, but it was nowhere to be found. (Any help?)

RJM said:

I would like to see the return of global attachment control in PotS, like Where Winters Last a Lifetime or Weapons at the Door.

Great ideas, I'm really excited for the release too! I've been experimenting with the following ideas, with mixed success:

• High-initiative Overzealous Scout and Bay of Ice add draw and help to ensure you can play first to get the full effect of Lost Oasis. (Note: Overzealous Scout's icons conveniently jive with Martel's, so you can use the same neutral streets to reduce their marshalling cost.)
• Bannerman I'm not a huge fan of bannerman outside of Baratheon, but these guys can be pretty helpful when attached to Queen Myrcella (if playing lots of Knights), Bastard of Godsgrace, and a select few other characters. To be sure, the value of these bannerman are pretty situational, but the vengeful keyword is one of the strongest house-specific keywords, so it's worth experimenting with. (As more Kingsguard are printed, I think Queen Marycella's ability will get stronger and the Martell bannerman will consequently become a bit more playable.)
• Retreat and Regroup Martell sends more of its own characters to the discard pile than any other house. Refugees, Pit Vipers, and (MOST IMPORTANTLY) Dornish Paramours all have effects that discard themselves. (Bannerman also end up there when the character dies, and if you play summer you can discard characters from hand with the Maester of Summer and bring them back with Retreat and Regroup.) With the introduction of Westeros Bleeds, which seems more playable in Martell than most other houses, there will likely be more cards in discard pile. Retreat and Regroup is a great way to get all these characters back, or at least will ensure you do not lose more than one challenge that round.

Twn2dn said:

Ah yes! I didn't mention this one because it actually doesn't specifically involve any "unreleased cards from the future" that I mentioned. But I've got 2 in my normal Martell deck and its great. Pretty much exactly for the reasons you mentioned.

I like Overzealous Scouts as well, but I just can't ever seem to squeeze them in when I finalize a decklist. If they just had a bit more utility. Mil/Int characters are some of my favorites.

And finally, I really think it might be nice having a card like Put to the Question back in the environment. Now that we have some generic event cancel, location destruction, etc. I play this game for the named characters from the story, and it's just too incredibly easy to kill one off and never see it in the game for more than a turn. And I'm someone who tries to run lots of dupes/bodyguard/saves for them and it's still a challenge in LCG.

Or if we're talking Martell specifically, I'd kill for Viper's Bite to return.

A Game of Cyvasse... if anything bouncing a character discards any attachments.

Personally I like that there are no global attachment discards. Weapons at the Door was so easy to pull off that players didn't use attachments if they could help it. The limited attachment hate we have in the game makes attachments useful.

As for the alt-art Vipers, the best artwork was still on the Winter Edition one.

I'm with JJones, limited attachment hate is nice. As it is Lanni has some, Greyjoy has some, Bara has maybe the best now that Kings of the Sea brought back "kingdom" locations, and of course Targs have the most in a variety of function. That's 4 of 5 base set houses (if calling Kings Greyjoy base). I know I wouldn't mind seeing Grand maesters chain back... but really, maesters are limited enough it would basically be a Martell card, but again like any attchment hate outside of Targ if you want it you have to build for it, and that's fine. If not, then just kill the dang characters instead.

As for the art, I'll second Winter was the best, if they were gonna reuse art why not that one? They reprinted my favorite Asha with different art. Though the Pre Crown of Suns Realease Promo art I think is a very close second, and looks far less hmm.... "angsty" perhaps?

Part of the problem with knowing some of what is to come of course is that desire for more... just what are some of you hoping may return either reprinted or perhaps updated from the old days of house Martell? After Kings of the Sea and the Core set I have some pretty high hopes for Princes of the Sun, even if they don't reprint my favorites I expect to see some old friends.

My personal favorites I think were always the original Sand Snakes + Ellaria. The 3 single iconed lose by 4 and make your opponent cry characters.

Original Doran perhaps? Maybe updated with a noble crest? Or House of Talons. Anything but Tourney of Swords. I think Martell decks should want to play a copy of Doran.

Original Sunspear? Remember the face down attachments and the +1 str per effects? Does anyone else see the old Riders of the Boneway in Knights of the Sun? Perhaps an update: Each of your character (if it is summer maybe) gains +1 per gold coin on them. Any phase: Pay 1 gold to move 1 gold from your gold pool to a Martell character you control (That would fulfill the old Sunspear pay 2 gold get 1str via 1 facedown card while updating the concept to the current environment).

Freerider said:

are you referring to zealous collector? a 1 cost weenie that has to survive to dominance and requires you to have 3 other specific cards in play? if thats the best then you don't like limited you like not aviliable....

yes lanni has some, and the best/ most reliable (as with most things). Greyjoy has one card and it means you lose a character (that you have to have in play at the right time) to do it. Baratheon has at most 2 cards, and only one that is worth using and while not as bad as GJ still takes away the use of one of your characters. Stark has 0. a nuertal way of hitting mulitple attachments not only evens the field a bit on attachment control for 3 of the 5 currently playable houses, it also makes attachments actually costs what they are supposed to cost. 2 gold for flogged and chained in a lnni deck means you essentially have knelt that character for the rest of the game for what you can get back from a lannisport steward one turn. Milk is a no brainer at 1 gold right now (unless your playing against a lanni deck where they can just move it to one of your characters...). Some 4 cost characters don't have such a lasting impact on the game as attachments do right now.

I do see the the gold/face-down link. I have to say if you had made that connection before Viper was spoiled I would be leading the charge for Buzzsaw to come back in some fashion. Since that isn't happening now, I wonder what else the gold on a character mechanic is going to be used for in comparison to the old cards.

I would love to see some sort of resource denial, a la VED Sunspear. What about the claim raising locations, The Spear Tower, The Tower of the Sun, and The Old Palace. What about Inner Chambers? Gold on a character counts as a duplicate.

I'm just hoping for a new card or two we haven't seen before in the unique catagory, and some new and interesting takes on old themes (the gold/face-down card is a perfect example, well done Nate!).

Lars said:

Pretty much my feelings on the matter. Well put. And in agreement with JJ, I don't think we need anything quite so broad sweeping and easy as Weapons at the Door, etc but that's not exactly what I was asking for in the first place either of course.

Oh, Winter Viper's art is great too. And naturally, I have a version using it as such. :-)

(Didn't get around to editing the artist credit on this one though, so ignore that bit.)