Jeyne Poole (F81 x1)
Unique Stark character
Cost = 0
STR = 0
Icons = Int
Traits = Ally
Response: Discard Jeyne Poole from play to cancel the triggered effect of a card that just came out of Shadows.

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Cannot be Bribed, Cannot be Bought (F82 x3)
Event
Response: After a character is knelt by an opponent’s card effect, stand that character. Then, that character claims 1 power and you draw a card.

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Qyburn (F83 x1)
Unique Lannister character
Cost = s1
STR = 2
Icons = Int, Pow
Traits = Maester
Crest = Shadows
House Lannister only. Deadly.
Response: After Qyburn comes out of Shadowsm choose a non-Army character in an opponent’s dead pile. Put that character into play under your control. If that character is still in play at the end of the phase, return it to its owner’s dead pile.

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Littlefinger (F84 x1)
Unique Lannister/Stark character
Cost = 5
STR = 3
Icons = Int, Pow
Traits = Lord, Ally
Crest = Noble
Stealth. No Condition attachments.
Littlefinger does not kneel to attack.
Reduce the cost to play Littlefinger by 1 for each card in Shadows.

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Death by Payne (F85 x1)
Event
House Lannister only.
Response: After a character triggers its character ability, kneel Ser Ilyn Payne or a NOBLE to kill that character.

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Knight of Flowers (F86 x1)
Unique Baratheon character
Cost = 3
STR = 3
Icons = Mil, Pow
Traits = Lord, Knight, House Tyrell
Renown.
If there are no cards in Shadows, Knight of Flowers does not kneel to attack or defend.

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Small Council Chamber (F87 x1)
Unique Baratheon Location
Cost = s1
Traits = King’s Landing
Crest = Shadows
House Baratheon only.
After you win an (Intrigue) challenge, Small Council Chamber goes into Shadows.
Response: After Small Council Chamber comes out of Shadows, return a Small Council event from your discard pile to your hand.

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Ancient Mariner (F88 x3)
Greyjoy character
Cost = 2
STR = 4
Icons = Mil, Pow
Traits = Ironborn
Ancient Mariner gets -3 STR during (Military) challenges.

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Shore Leave (F89 x3)
Event
House Greyjoy only.
Challenges: Kneel 1 influence to choose and stand a kneeling character. Until the end of the phase, that character cannot be declared as an attacker or defender.

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King’s Landing Assassin (F90 x3)
Targaryen character
Cost = s2
STR = 2
Icons = Mil, Pow
Traits = Ally
Crest = Shadows
House Targaryen only
Response: After King’s Landing Assassin comes out of Shadows, choose a character with no attachments. Until the end of the phase, that character gets -2 STR and is killed if its STR is 0.

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Shadow Prophet (F91 x3)
Targaryen character
Cost = s0
STR = 3
Icons = Int
Traits = Asshai
Crest = Shadows
House Targaryen only
Response: After Shadow Prophet comes out of Shadows, you may look at 1 card in Shadows controlled by each opponent,

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Visenya’s Hill (F92 x3)
Unique Targaryen location
Cost = 1
Traits = King’s Landing
Any Phase: Kneel Visenya’s Hill to choose 1 character card in any discard pile and move that card to its owner’s dead pile.

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Aegon’s Legacy (F93 x3)
Event
House Targaryen only.
Dominance: Choose a character without attachments. Until the end of the phase, that character gets –X STR and is killed if its STR is 0. X is the number of cards currently in Shadows.

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Dornish Diplomat (F94 x3)
Martell character
Cost = 3
STR = 3
Icons = Pow
Traits = Ally
Response: After you win a (Power) challenge in which Dornish Diplomat participated, choose and stand a character controlled by an opponent. Then, choose and stand a character you control.

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The Broken Spear (F95 x3)
Martell attachment
Cost = 1
Traits = Weapon
Any Phase: Kneel The Broken Spear to choose attached character. Until the end of the phase, that character either gains or loses a (Military) icon.

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Backroom Bribery (F96 x3)
Event
Cost = s0
Crest = Shadows
House Martell only.
Response: After Backroom Bribery comes out of Shadows, choose an opponent. Move 1 gold from that player’s gold pool to yours.

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Varys (F97 x 1)
Unique neutral character
Cost = s1
STR = 3
Icons = Int, Pow
Traits = Lord, Ally
Crest = Shadows
Stealth. After Varys comes out of Shadows, choose and discard 1 Ally character from play.

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Ser Osmund Kettleblack (F98 x1)
Unique neutral character
Cost = 3
STR = 3
Icons = Mil
Traits = Knight, Kingsguard
Crests = War
No attachments except Weapon
Challenges: Kneel Ser Osmund Kettleblack to choose a defending character. Until the end of the phase, that character gets +2 STR (+4 STR instead if that character has the Kingsguard trait).

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King’s Landing (F99 x1)
Unique neutral location
Cost = s2
Traits = King’s Landing
Crest = Shadows
After a card comes out of Shadows, stand King’s Landing.
Any Phase: Kneel King’s Landing to draw a card. Use this ability only if you control more King’s Landing locations than each opponent.

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City of Spies (F100 x 1)
Plot
Gold = 4
Initiative = 3
Claim = 1
Traits = City
When revealed, look at the top X cards of any player’s deck, discard one of those cards, and put the rest on top of that deck in any order. X is the number of City plots in your used pile.

Thank you ktom!

Thanks for taking the time to put this up, ktom. Much appreciated.

And Lannister and Targaryen both got some seriously nice cards in this pack. Littlefinger is just ridiculous. I'll be playing him typically for 0-2 gold in my Lannister shadows deck by turn 2-3 in most games. Stupid good. And Qyburn, regardless of his effect is a nice addition to the multiple Deadly characters I've already got present.

Visenya's Hill continues the string of seriously cool Targ locations we've been getting too. Your characters aren't safe from the dragon anywhere it seems. And Aegon's Legacy is a great burn effect in a dedicated shadows deck. A decktype that is just about viable now with the other cards Targ got in this pack.

Wow, this chapter pack looks fantastic. I'll drum up some more thorough thoughts soon, but I think I see something interesting for every house here. I like it!

Think about Varys and Lion's Gate. Its very good combo:)

Kuba said:

The timing will never work. The "Any Phase" on Lion's Gate can never be triggered in a phase until after Varys is already out of Shadows, and will always wear off before he could be brought out in the next phase. There is no combo.

Now, Varys and Rhaegar's Harp on the other hand....

Ahhh, yes you've right (as usual;). That was first look combo:)

Kennon said:

Its funny. our meta kind of had the opposite reaction. To me everything is so conditional in this chapter pack that it just weakens all the cards in it.

as examples lets look at the the cards RJM pointed out (not picking on, just already brought up examples). I've expressed an opinion on littlefinger in another thread and it is much along the lines of RJMs praise. However, that praise has more to do with Littlefinger's condition being perfect for the house he is in. You still need the conditions to make him be 'abusable' in lanni.

Visynea's Hill has been dubbed seriously cool...we had one player that said 'whats the point of this card?' The only thing i could come up with (not that that is the measuring stick) is if you've discarded a Unique character before he has been played you can move i to the dead pile (a cool, but extremly conditional and limited avilabilty use). Other then that i see no utility other then to feed your own silent sisters (which is inefficient at best)....

Qyburn has been praised for his deadly (and his effect rightly passed over. again its just too conditional for 3 gold). but for just deadly he is a tad overpriced and in the wrong house imho as its not like lanni can handle a character who has deadly outside of challenges...

Ageon's legacy has the condition pointed out in the same breath as the praise of it. It needs a dedicated shadows deck. Even then what this event really says is pay 2 gold to give a character -1 STR, 4 gold for -2, 6 gold for -3, etc. AND forgo the use of the shadow effects of the cards you have in shadows...

Lets even look at two cards that have been very strong in the past and have current versions in this chapter pack with strong effects.

Varys - Ally hate that is so conditional that you have to be careful that he is not fullfilling the condition on himself....better hope your opponent plays an ally or he rots in shadows

Kings Landing - Draw 1 card for 4 gold (maybe a second for 2-4 more gold) and can be stopped by a 0 cost neutral location....

The card that i think is the best in the pack is probably best if you just ignore his text box other then renown. Knight of Flowers gives bara another solid renown charcater and if there is a card in shadows its not that hard to give him vigilant and essentially make him non-kneeling...

I'd even talk about Cannot be bribed, but someone already started a thread on that one.

King's Landing Assassin FTW!

Love the look of this chapter pack - absolutely love it. I'm really getting excited about a bunch of possible builds.

Really, even though he is not adding to targ burn (same limitations on who it targets), targ does not need another character w/ mil and pow icons, and he costs twice as much as dragon kissed, which he can't be combo-ed with?

Lars said:

Think about combining those 2 in a Targ Shadows deck. There could be some possibilities there (and this pack makes a Targ Shadows deck potentially more attractive, to me anyway).

YEs but after nuking a weenie it can also be used as claim soak, which the attachment can't.

@Lars:

No offense taken, I don't feel picked on. :-) We've even managed to have some fun conversations when we've disagreed about play/card balance in the past.

And I don't think conditional card design is necessarily a negative thing. It's was can lead to clever and creative deck building, as opposed to taking the "cookie cutter" best 60 cards printed and throwing them in a deck. And none of the conditions, IMO, are too overly specific to make them useless. Sure, you have to build for them and there may be certain drawbacks... But I'd rather have to puzzle that out myself than be handed the exact same deck as the next guy. (ie most of the 'standard template' Lannister uber-kneel decks.)

And on the topic of cards staying in shadows being "wasted" on effects such as Aegon's Legacy, I'd highly disagree. It's much easier to pile some extra cards into shadows than it is to bring them all out the same turn regardless. With City of Lies, stack City of Spiders to copy it's effect, and Twilight Markets (yes I've made great use of this card)... I can find myself with 4-5 cards in shadows pretty quickly.

And you can only bring out 1 per phase, and likely don't have the gold to do it right away. That's where effects like Dragonpits, Aegon's Legacy, and Tunnels of the Red Keep really shine. I'm protecting my hand from intrigue challenges, Aegon's Hill, Confession, etc all at the same time too.

Not to mention there are a growing number of cards that either return your cards to shadows, or return themselves to shadows for you.

I will definitely agree with you on King's Landing though. I get that the present design theory is to keep draw from being "too easy". But for 4G, with a potentially crapshoot condition to even get the effect at all... It's just not worth it. Period. It can also be discarded, blanked, or sent back to shadows now pretty easily too.

On a different note, where's the love for House Stark in this set? So far, there isn't a single card for Stark that I feel significantly upgrades or changes the way I play Stark.

New Eddard is cool, so was the old one. New Arya is cool, so are the other two. Dontos Hollard, Sansa, Jeyne Pool, and Septa Mordane are fun flavor cards, but none of this helps with Stark massacre. Where's the kill? Where's the claim raise? Where's the love?

I agree that I don't see Stark Love in the whole KLE. In fact King's Landing is not in love with stark also in the book :-)

I play all houses except Lanni and now I think Targ and most of all Greyjoy are in love with the game.

jmccarthy said:

While I understand the sentiment, I don't entirely agree. Very true that the cycle is a little light on the typical Stark kill stuff, but with the cancels, the Tome, Catelyn and Bound by Duty, there is some additional depth to the Stark card pool. This set essentially says "Stark doesn't have to be a one-trick-kill-'em-up-dead pony." I like that.

So yeah, no love for Stark's traditional strategy - and the one they have been running with from the beginning of the LCG - but I would say there is some Stark love in the set, albeit with newer and higher expectations.

dormouse said:

Flame kissed and refugee and/or disgrunteled merc and/or Brown ben is half the cost, claim soak, and recurisible....i don't see the need for this guy as he doesn't add anything to what targ already does. You want burn out of Shadows....got it already. You want to be able to kill a 2 STR character without forever burning...got it already. You want to combo this with flame kissed or dragon skull...opps same problem you already run into. YOu can't combo them with themselfs to kill a 4 STR characer has you can only bring one out of shadows a phase....

As for comboing it...well since they don't tack on to the attachment burn your not really adding power to the effect (you still need help to get any worthwhile character) so instead of adding another card to the combo you are just relying on forever burning more and more.

I'm fine with conditional stuff....i just want conditional stuff that adds to my deck, not highlights somethign i'm already doing well. People keep talking about deck building opertunities with these cards...but the conditions force you into building your deck a certain way and/or reinforce what those house can already do and don't need replacements for.

Shadows burn guy: Are you going to take out 3-7 free characters and 3 flame kissed to squeeze 3 4 gold characters in? not only are you being unecessarly redundant your messing up some good flops/recovers from resets.

Shadows burn event: i think targ has enough resource managment issues right now that they shouldn't be adding even more resource managment choices to their decks. OYur gold and influence only goes so far....narrow your options instead of expanding them.

Littlefinger: well if i wasn't playing lanni sahdows before i probably am now....

Knight of Flowers: bara get a reenown charcater to essential not kneel on attack....hard to do.....

Greyjoy: an undercoasted charcater that reduces his own STR...didn;t we jsut see a less forced conditional version?

Stark: more crap... Eddard was nice, but i'd rather have CS eddard in a STARK deck and new eddard in a BARATHEON deck. The Chapter pack sansa was a weaker version of CS Sansa. Bound by duty is nice, but why not use To be a wolf and distinct mastery instead? and Cately, as always, is a milk away from being pissed your limiting yourself by 1 gold eveyr turn.

Give me more options/effects instead of the same freaking ones with slightly different conditions placed upon them if you want to promote different deck-archtypes.

Lars said:

King's Landing Assassin has Mil, Intrique icons, not mil and pow.

I would have to double check when I get home but I am 99% sure Ktom posted the spoiler incorrectly.

LaughingTree said:

eh still doesn't really affect my opinion of the usefulness of the charcater. for 3 gold and summer targ can have a 2 str Tricon that goes and gets flame kissed. Also, its not really like targ is stark or Greyjoy where there is a lack of int icons in the rest of the house. I'd still rather have the 0 cost charcaters and flamekissed for the flop or aftr a reset. LDC just makes it even cheaper/more reliable.

Just on a quick side note... shouldn't it be possible to combo the assassin with flame-kissed? You're bringing the guy out of shadows at the beginning of the phase, and the char can't have an attachment THEN, but you can ambush flame-kissed onto him/her later in the phase. Or did I just miss something? =) (Plus characters having other attachments shouldn't be a problem for targ...)

Also, gotta agree with the conditional not being a totally bad thing, I feel it helps combat power-creep to some extent.

WWDrakey said:

Correct. Flame-Kissed, then the Assassin doesn't combo. Flip the order to Assassin, then Flame-Kissed and you can take out a 4-STR character. I was wondering if someone would pick that up, but felt awkward starting another timing clarification after the Varys thing....

LaughingTree said:

Yes. That's a typo. The Assassin's icons should be military and intrigue.

Wow, I gotta say I love the Targ cards. Like Lars pointed out, they at first glance seem somewhat redundant. Nevertheless, I think they serve very different purposes than what Targ already has and therefore add a lot more flexibility to the house. Targ previously relied on attachments for removal, making red warlocks (and therefore the summer mechanic) arguably necessary to ensure removal is consistent. Also, attachment-based burn relies on Dany's Chambers to keep it going.

In contrast, shadow burn is now more playable. This means that 3x burn event and 3x burn character can be combined with the -1 STR location and other burn. (For those counting, a Targ deck can now run six burn events [flame-kissed and the new event], six burn attachments, three burn characters, and--depending on the build--burn locations. Much of this is recyclable with Dany's Chambers and/or Street Waif.) In other words, Targ can now smooth out the burn among attachments, events, characters, and locations for greater consistency. Meanwhile, a shadow-Targ build--without the agenda but with lots of burn--will also benefit from the King's Landing shadow-draw mechanic. I don't mean to suggest that only Targ burn benefits from more options--all Targ decks can choose which types of removal they want to run rather than relying on attachments alone for removal.

In terms of other houses, Lanni obviously received some great cards, but I'm less impressed with the others. I don't even understand Greyjoy's cards--my only guess is that they'll receive support in the next chapter pack that combos with this one. Stark's cards could be helpful, but I don't think they are game changers. Most of all, I think the neutral cards will make a difference--King's Landing means 1+ extra card each turn, even if it's the only shadow card in your deck (assuming you have more King's Landing in play). And Varys is obviously a winner. In fact, cards like Varys and Syrio will make it much more difficult to take full advantage of the "do not kneel" Bara characters.

And one more thought I meant to include: Aegon's Legacy is still OK in non-shadow decks because (a) it works off of opponent's shadow characters, and more importantly (b) provides a lethal effect that can be combo'd with Forever Burning (which can be recycled infinitely during dominance) and other non-lethal burn effects--poison wine, Fury of the Dragon, etc. Both of these are obviously pretty contingent, and I'm not sure that I would play Aegon's Legacy in a non-shadow build, but it's worth pointing out that this card is more playable than it seems at first glance.

Dammit Dan - you're spoiling all the Targ tactics! LOL

Seriously - of COURSE that's why the Assasin is FTW. You never drop the Flame Kissed first - you set up the effect than finish him with the atatchment. That's why I wasn't crazy about the Dragon Skull - the timing on the kill was wirng. This guy is exactly what i needed. I've already been screwinga round with a DragonPit deck - the tech in this chapetr pack takes it to the next level.

And really good point on the Red Warlocks I was thinking of dropping them anyway, becuase the three gold for teh effect was taxing my reources. They aren't bad, but I may scale back on them now or drop them entirely. The control just got So much stronger.

Can't wait to field test these tonight.