Princes of the South Article & Preview up on Main Page

By Stag Lord, in 1. AGoT General Discussion

Great article by longcalw and some pretty cool previews.

No release date yet - which is a little disappointing.

I like the slant they seem to be taking wiht the vengeful stuff - it looks storng enough to play, but not too powerful to dominate. I think R&D might finally have found the balance they were looking for.

I really like the attachment and the event.

I like the feel of the army and Darkstar. I have a little concern about drawing them they turn i need to play a character as their price in gold could be an issue.

I'm not 100% sure on Ellaria as she feels like a silver bullet but doesn't help you beat stag, just delay.

Lars said:

I'm not 100% sure on Ellaria as she feels like a silver bullet but doesn't help you beat stag, just delay.

Keep in mind that Ellaria is a (modified) reprint from WED. I don't know that she's a silver bullet so much as a Martell card that fits well into some situation of the current LCG play environment.

Thats why i said seh feels liek one. She doesn't bring a lot to the table against 5 of the 6 houses right now (especially for 3 gold) and unless renown is making a big comeback in the expansion and future CPs i think this will remain true.

Lars said:

Thats why i said seh feels liek one. She doesn't bring a lot to the table against 5 of the 6 houses right now (especially for 3 gold) and unless renown is making a big comeback in the expansion and future CPs i think this will remain true.

She didn't bring a lot to the WED environment, either. IMHO, of course.

But assuming part of the decision was the quest for recognizable Martell uniques, of the three versions of Ellaria available, this was probably the best choice.

Lars said:

Thats why i said seh feels liek one. She doesn't bring a lot to the table against 5 of the 6 houses right now (especially for 3 gold) and unless renown is making a big comeback in the expansion and future CPs i think this will remain true.

Well every faction seems to run their renown chars and it also helps against Infamy and the events that give power to characters. It can even be used against Head of a Dwarf

And she still has 3 str, vengefull and 2 icons(and a lady). Will have to see the rest of cards if I run her 1, 2 or 3 times.

Does Darkstar work with Open Market and Maester of the Sun? If so...

Yesss, he's tricky:)

Wow, great stuff! Any idea when this will be shipped...in time for Black Friday or not?! babeo.gif

Mig el Pig said:

Well every faction seems to run their renown chars and it also helps against Infamy and the events that give power to characters. It can even be used against Head of a Dwarf

And she still has 3 str, vengefull and 2 icons(and a lady). Will have to see the rest of cards if I run her 1, 2 or 3 times.

bara renown charcaters = 12 w/ 4 non-unique up to a total of 21 characters in a deck. plus the Queen of Thorns = 22

Stark RC's = 4, with a way to give 2 more renown, but 2 different versions of uniques so only up to 4 in a deck

Targ RC's = 3

GJ RC's = 3, with 1 different version of a unique, so only 2 in a deck. Add in Victirion who can in theory claim power in the plot phase = 3

Martell RC's (so far) = 1, in a house not know for renown. 1 w/ Infamy....

Nuetral RC's = 2. One that can't be saved and another that has an in house version of himself. (there are the Reins events, so maybe i buy her if they start showing back up....or if people keep putting so many nuetrals in their decks :P )

Lanni RC's/infamy = 2 RC (one doesn't always have it) and 2 Infamy, including new Joff = 7

Non-character ways to give renown = 3 and one is Bara, the others are 1 targ and 1 GJ

Non-character ways to give infamy = 2 and one is 'defensive'

Non-character non renown/infamy power = 4, one GJ, one Stark, one Nuetral (needs your opponent to do somethign to you first), and Lanni, which is usually used to kneel opponents characters.

So she hits up to 30 (counting neutrals, no reins) ways to have power on a character in a bara deck and anywhere from 7-14 (not counting Reins events again), which is less then half, in any other house. I've included Infamy, though we could argue the merits of doing that right now, but i'll just assume that a lanni/martell player will put power on a character instead of their house card against martell right now.

For 3 gold she is a bleh character against 5 out of 6 houses. her second best house matchup is probably GJ, and 3rd best is lanni. The problem is that her ability innately helps other players, especially the Bara/GJ rush (try bailing out a rowboat with a teacup...) as you have to lose a challenge to trigger her (you lose a power challenge against a bara deck and i'm sure they will gladly give you one power from their characters). She doesn't provide any help against what Lanni does; sure she can stand back up after a loss, but if a lanni player is smart they went second anyway and the stand won't help you win challenges as an attacker.

not sure what her trait brings to the table (bodyguard? rather have that on viper or Arianne or the new uller most likely). yes she has 2 icons and vengful, but not sure thats worth 3 Gold, and if it is its not worth 3 deck slots

I don't think she's all that bad. Vengeful is a great keyword, especially with Lost Oasis. And 3 STR intrigue allows her to work quite well with Game of Cyvasse...again, especially because she also has vengeful. Against Bara, her ability will be very good, which is very important considering the Bara Fury plot targets Martell. Against other houses, the ability will be less helpful, but it's a whole lot less situational than hoping random card X is discarded from your hand as claim for intrigue. Against non-Bara decks she likely won't be a game winner, but at 3 gold she still seems like a pretty solid card to me.

Twn2dn said:

Vengeful is a great keyword, especially with Lost Oasis.

I don't see vengful as great. its ok, has some uses, but compared to vigilant or intimidate, or even ambush i don't think it is all that strong. Lost Oasis is good with any character.

Twn2dn said:

And 3 STR intrigue allows her to work quite well with Game of Cyvasse...again, especially because she also has vengeful.

My martell event slot is filling up quickly and I haven't even seen all of the events in the expansion. Viper's Rage, Red Vengeance, and evenTo be a viper all work better in my mind for martell right now. Plus i hoping/guessing there will be a copy event?!? Plus i need room for 'generic' events like Condemed by the Council, Hand's Judgment, Support of the Kingdom, confession, etc. So a character that might work well with an event that i might not use is not a huge selling point.

Twn2dn said:

Against Bara, her ability will be very good, which is very important considering the Bara Fury plot targets Martell.

so your saying losing a challenge to steal a power is good defense against a steal plot?

Twn2dn said:

Against other houses, the ability will be less helpful, but it's a whole lot less situational than hoping random card X is discarded from your hand as claim for intrigue. Against non-Bara decks she likely won't be a game winner, but at 3 gold she still seems like a pretty solid card to me.

I'm not saying the army is a great card, but its a lot more usable then she is against all houses. "Hey i played my hand, Valar is probably coming next...lets return this army to my hand, play the 2 cards i draw next turn and then don't care about, or hope to lose an, intrigue challenge."

Wow, Game of Cyvasse has been in every Martell (experimental) build I've made since it came out. For kneeling one character, the effect kneels another character and returns a character of your choice to hand. There isn't even an "after you win" requirement...that's about as efficient removal as it gets.

As far as vengeful goes, it's not as strong as vigilant, but I still think it's an excellent keyword. As you mentioned, Lost Oasis is good with any card. It is, however, much better with a vigilant card because that card suddenly cannot be stealthed, making it much more difficult for an opponent to win unopposed. Because control is about slowing an opponent's accumulation of power, this can help quite a bit. It may not actively help you win as vigilant does, but it does help you stall the game. (Vigilant isn't great for every deckbuild, but I've had better experiences with this keyword in control builds than I have with intimidate, infamy, and stalwart.) And if you give Ellaria stealth, there's also a good chance you'll still get to stealth your opponent's character after you've defended with Ellaria.

In that light, my comment about working well against Bara is that this helps balance the scales a bit. So Bara is going to steal a character, there's really no way around that unless you happen to have a Game of Cyvasse in hand. (The amount of power icons and STR Bara has is going to make it happen, and the Bara player can choose when to play the plot, so there's little a Martell player can do to prevent the steal, unless the plot is played wrong.) After a two-character swing, the Martell player is more likely to be at a character disadvantage, especially if they just lost their best character. So any character (aka Ellaria) that can slow Bara's accumulation of power is going to help. Think about it this way, Robert Baratheon is a monster because he claims 2 power each time he wins, right? Well, with Ellaria out, he now claims only one power (and Renly claims zero).

Again, I'm not saying she's going to win you many games, but I think she's a solid character considering her cost. And if you can find a way to give her a military icon, she will work a bit like a Bringers of Law, except that she claims a power each time you lose a challenge and she can attack. (If you have Lost Oasis out, she also can't be stealthed.)

1. I think vengeful is useful against kneel, so in some cases she's anti-lanny with it.

2. Then you have her ability, which is not always useful, but then it often was one of those things that can put the opponent in a situation where attacking you gives the win. I have rarely seen a game with no renown characters played at all, I think she has a chance. We don't know what other effects that can sync with her that are in the Set.

Red Vengeance... I'm in love. Wonderful effect.

Now I just need a friggin' release date pleeease!

Twn2dn said:

Wow, Game of Cyvasse has been in every Martell (experimental) build I've made since it came out. For kneeling one character, the effect kneels another character and returns a character of your choice to hand. There isn't even an "after you win" requirement...that's about as efficient removal as it gets.

Really you see it as that efficient? if you kneel Ellaira I can kneel Margery and now no one gets put back to hand, or i can kneel renly and put one of your characters back in to hand. I have just as much standing as you do if not more and used a character that still has a useful textbox while kneeling. Or if i'm lanni i can kneel Castellan of the rock, whose already done his job or gold producing Tywin who is essentially a location to put one of your characters back.

If you wait till you have a 4 or 5 STR int icon you might be holding that event for a long time.

She might be solid (i'd say border-line solid at most) but in my deck builds the 3 gold slot is so competative for choices that i need more then a character that 'might' be good 1/6th of the time and has situational use there after.

On a different not, did anyone else notce that Darkstar is 4 gold. He's always been 3 gold in the past. Renown that expensive these days in the Martell?

kpmccoy21 said:

On a different not, did anyone else notce that Darkstar is 4 gold. He's always been 3 gold in the past. Renown that expensive these days in the Martell?

4 gold for a 3-STR character with 2 icons, a crest and 2 keywords seems pretty typical. Look at Khal Drogo from the Core Set. Is this version really over-priced, or were previous versions of Darkstar perhaps under-priced?

And any way, it's not like people are going to actually pay the 4 gold most of the time.

Lars said:

Twn2dn said:

Wow, Game of Cyvasse has been in every Martell (experimental) build I've made since it came out. For kneeling one character, the effect kneels another character and returns a character of your choice to hand. There isn't even an "after you win" requirement...that's about as efficient removal as it gets.

Really you see it as that efficient? if you kneel Ellaira I can kneel Margery and now no one gets put back to hand, or i can kneel renly and put one of your characters back in to hand. I have just as much standing as you do if not more and used a character that still has a useful textbox while kneeling. Or if i'm lanni i can kneel Castellan of the rock, whose already done his job or gold producing Tywin who is essentially a location to put one of your characters back.

If you wait till you have a 4 or 5 STR int icon you might be holding that event for a long time.

I've never regretted playing 3x Game of Cyvasse, though I can see (in theory) how some decks would not run it. Still, it's a question of timing. You're right that if your opponent has Renly on the table you can't play Game of Cyvasse as a pre-challenge action, but once your opponent kneels this guy and Margery, you can play Game of Cyvasse before stealth is declared...after the opponent has already knelt their biggest characters. Also keep in mind that Martell has Bastard of Godsgrace to pump STR, and a Seafarer's Bow might be a nice addition to a deck that plays a lot of vengeful or other standing mechanics. Unless your opponent has so many characters that he/she doesn't need to attack with the biggest ones (can leave them standing), Game of Cyvasse is very useful.

This is just what I have found, but others could have had difference experiences.

Ah, I see. Its a good card once your opponent has knelt out and done what he wants to do.

I'm gonna have to back Twn2dn up on this one and say that Game of Cyvasse is a pretty nasty card. His illustration about timing is spot on, actually, because once your opponent has knelt out, Game of Cyvasse mid-challenge often leads to you being able to win that challenge. If not, you still get to Lock someone AND force another kneel if they have another intrigue icon standing. Sure, it's not as efficient as Locked in the Tower, but its effect can be even more damaging.

Ah, wow.... I can't believe I haven't been on here in a couple weeks it seems.

Anyway, into the Ellaria discussion. I used the WED one all the time and was extremely excited to see her return, and then I saw the addition of Vengeful... even better! Have any of you tried her in multiplayer? In Winter Edition days, Martell was actually more often my multiplayer deck than Greyjoy, and Ellaria is a bomb card in an environment where everyone is trying to win as quickly as possible (or at least power up slowly and then close ASAP). She was key in many of the games where I was able to put my opponents in the extremely enjoyable position of winning if they didn't not challenge me but also winning if they did challenge me. Vengeful only adds to her strategic use. Even in joust I see her as being a solid and valuable card.

Now Red Vengeance on the other hand.... am I the only one that remembers me begging for essentially this effect on a card title "Some Wars Are Won With Quills?" Still it looks fantastic. I'm excited to give Martell a try.

Has anyone heard whether there is going to be "Something for everyone", similar to the KotS ? Perhaps some more traited plots, Kingdom locations, Learned Crest support, or neutral attachment controll?

I don't know for sure but I can guess that it will be similar. Since "Locked away" has 19 number, that means no more characters for Martell. "Dorne" is 31, so beyond this number should be some other House cards and neutral and plots.

Mig el Pig said:

Lars said:

Thats why i said seh feels liek one. She doesn't bring a lot to the table against 5 of the 6 houses right now (especially for 3 gold) and unless renown is making a big comeback in the expansion and future CPs i think this will remain true.

Well every faction seems to run their renown chars and it also helps against Infamy and the events that give power to characters. It can even be used against Head of a Dwarf

Or even better she can be used with head of a dwarf. Play head of a dwarf on your opponents charachter, so every power from unopposed challenges will be placed on that charachter. Use Ellaria Sand to collect that power from the charachter that bears head of a dwarf. Both cards together make a nice little offensive shut down. I like that the vengeful keyword was added to Ellarias game text, the WED version was only somehow useful but far from good. I think the new Ellaria is more than playable.

Locked away seems to be solid, it´s also kind of nedly. - As long as you have influence, you have the power to arrest important charachers.

House Dayne reserves are good too, but yeah gold cost could become an issue if you really have to play them.

Darkstar artwork is just great and so is the card, it´s nic ethat you could use your very own rule by decree to put Darkstar into play for free. And Martell is happy about every renown charachter they could achieve.

Red Vengence is too strong imho, i think that the charchter from talons was so much fairer because you had more chances to deal with the card. Events are still hard to cancel in the enviroment and it can´t be picked by an intrigue challenge unless your opponent wants to take the risk of losing the event..