heres the deck i was envisioning that gets around the 'slowdown effect' and valar, both mine and my opponents as its aggro to force an early valar, and or bounce back from a late valar and still be aggro late game. It now has two sources to be agro from, deck and established shadows (the four i got for free in the first two plots, plus all the others i was able to play while bumping my weenies STR). after turn four i start flipping my control shadows cards, and then save tyrion for the rush. there is no way to reset me (threat from the north? my characters are all disposible quickly replaceable and can be up to +4 STR if i hit a tunnels by turn 2 and greater every turn after that), and i'm now exploiting every exploitable thing of shadows to date.

shadows - Lannister

- Plots (7) avg income: 2.5 -
City of Soldiers x1 The Battle of Blackwater Bay F120
City of Spies x1 Secrets and Spies F100
City of Sin x1 A Time of Trials F40
City of Lies x1 City of Secrets F19
Fleeing to the Wall x1 Core Set B187
Blockade x1 Core Set L193
Valar Morghulis x1 Core Set S201

- Characters (32) avg cost: 0.6 -
Shadowcat x3 Kings of the Sea F43
Silent Sisters x3 Kings of the Sea F44
* Ser Mandon Moore x1 The Battle of Blackwater Bay F117
* Qyburn x1 Secrets and Spies F83
* Varys x1 Secrets and Spies F97
* Syrio Forel x1 Tales from the Red Keep F77
Gold Cloaks x3 A Time of Trials F25
* Tyrion Lannister x1 City of Secrets F5
* Tommen Baratheon x1 Scattered Armies F106
Mountain Refugee x3 Refugees of War F85
Vale Refugee x3 Refugees of War F97
* Gilly x1 Refugees of War F98
* Walder Frey x1 A Change of Seasons F51
Carrion Bird x3 The Winds of Winter F35
Cersei's Attendant x3 Core Set L50
Lannisport Weaponsmith x3 Core Set L53

- Locations (16) avg cost: 1 -
Kingdom of Shadows x3 Kings of the Sea F32
Alchemist's Guild Hall x3 The Battle of Blackwater Bay F103
Twilight Market x3 A Time of Trials F39
* Tunnels of the Red Keep x3 City of Secrets F6
* Queen Cersei's Chambers x1 Core Set L60
The Goldroad x3 Core Set L61

- Attachments (6) avg cost: 0.5 -
Summer Tax x3 A Song of Summer F3
Milk of the Poppy x3 Core Set B145

- Events (6) -
A Fistful of Coppers x3 A Time of Trials F26
Compelled by the Rock x3 Calling the Banners F106

I don't think people were calling for a reset in the Shadows, but rather some kind of real shadow hate. How often will Greyjoy or Stark get off that event against the other 4 houses, which are the houses that are probably running shadows. No other area of the game has so little counter.

Lars, how is that different from any Swarm deck?

I can run a Greyjoy deck that would absolutely own that. Multiple saves, the ability to flip 3-4 resets in 6-7 turns, plus my own recursion and UO mechanics. Not to mention that If I run resource denial in a regular Greyjoy deck you are going to have some problems with getting some of those cards out in the quantities needed to be anything more than a speed bump.

which brings me to - denying someone gold is not the same thing as emptying their gold pool.

And I'm not against a Shadows-Hate plot, I'm against a reset. I specifically mentioned a plot that set the card count in shadows to zero, would not let you put anything in or take anything out of shadows for a round.

Also I don't see every deck needing a gimmick to win, I see gimmick decks being powerful because people are not meta-ing against them. It is like any number of combo or theme decks from the CCG days where if you failed to take into account X, Y, or Z and you faced a deck based entirely around that you were screwed. The Septon deck is an excellent example. We can talk about the Defenders decks as well as Bara super Joust as well.

We've seen the entire KL cycle now, and while I'm sure the Shadow Crest will be making guest appearances in future cycles, I have doubts whether we are going to be seeing any new bomb cards that will utterly break the mechanic.At the end of the day Lanni kneel still won out, and I suspect GJ would have had a better showing if so many people hadn't specifically teched against it. We still have Martell ready to make a huge splash on the metagame again and we'll have a much better idea of where we sit. I can't help but feel that this is all sound and fury.

kpmccoy21 said:

Lars specifically asked for a Shadows reset and two others said they agreed with him.

And yes, the dead pile and discard pile have almost no counter at all. Targ and Bara recursion decks dumped stuff in there and cycled it back out knowing that it was perfectly safe. Worse than Shadows, getting rid of everyone of those cards would put it right back to where it could be pulled again, there are only three cards that I can think of that actively bounce in and out of Shadows.

I'm not against hate, I'd love to see some cards that ebenfited from your opponents choice, that is to say cards that buffed up on the number of cards your opponent had in Shadows, or gave a minus based on that, or a card that let you stand X characters X being equal to what your opponent had in Shadows, essentially polar opposities to Cersei, Tunnels etc. Sure you might not include a bunch of them in a deck, but just one in play could severely hamper your opponents deck for a turn or two while they rid you of that card. The very existence of them would help serve as a check, and if you put them on relatively utilitarian cards to begin with it becomes a bit easier to splash them in.

A reset though? I won't ever call for that unless Nate loses his mind and start printing Shadow versions of Things We Do for Love, Frey Hospitality, or You Murdered Her Children.

dormouse said:

as i stated in my post when i posted the deck, it now has two sources to swarm from. One can only be touched with mill events, and the other can't be touched at all in the shadows area. Its essentially taking a large chunck of the deck and saying haha you can't get me. resets the board to its advantage and then swarms all over again while replinishing its hand and probably the shadows area even more. Add on top of the the effects you have for shadows, tunnels to make the weenies strong, the Guild hall to kneel characters and/or locations, Gold cloaks to draw, and Tyrion to close.

I don't get why you are okay with shadow hate but not a shadow reset, there is a reset for every other area of the game. Heck barristion selmy and/or benjen stark can throw a monkey wrench into discard/dead pile recurission by removing the cards from those areas (flame kissed to be drawn is a lot harder to guarantee then flame kissed in the discard pile is to get back).

Its not even about decks/cards that expliot having your own cards in shadows. Games are too often coming down to who has more cards in shadows or who exploits the shadows area the most. I was able to exploit the shadows area out of baratheon as i put QoT in my deck even though i have the new Knight of flowers. Now my opponet has to keep his cards in shadows and once he starts getting a lot in there i'll flip QoT to exploit his pulling out of shadows. While i like certain things about shadows cards i don't think i should be forced into having to run them in every deck, which is where the environment feels like it is heading. Summer/Winter is controlable via a plot (even with utilitarian cards that provide hate for it) so that you can at least buy your self a turn to control the rest of the board, why can't a plot be done for shadows that makes there be an actual balancing to keeping cards in shadows instead of just sticking them until needed at a later time?

I think you misunderstood me, Lars. I wasn't saying that the board shouldn't be fragile to things like Valar but that in this current environment some houses, such as Greyjoy and Bara, can better withstand Valar through saves and Power of Blood. Shadows has, in addition to many other effects on the game, the ability to give the other houses some ability to bounce back from Valar with some ability. I think that's a good thing that each house can now bounce back from Valar, albeit some are still and will always be better than others.

A Shadows reset seems a little extreme to me. I'd much rather a plot that disallows cards coming out of Shadows that round or increases the cost to bring a card out of Shadows.

I missed Lars call for a reset.

Is there currently a Bara recursion deck in LCG that I am unaware of? Targ recursion does have counters in the Core Set that is simple and equally available to all houses.

On a Side Note, while I am aware that the LCG does have the CCG as its primary source, using past Dominant deck types and counters from the CCG seems disingenuous since the LCG really is a different animal. Certain key elements of the CCG have not translated over yet(if they ever will) and therefore make the comparisons difficult.

Lars said:

Yeah, that Targ deck is pretty exhausting, but I still very much enjoyed playing it on Black Friday. I prefer decks with a lot of moving parts, and this one had plenty. Of course, by round 3 I was definitely feeling the effects of the lack of sleep and 5 hours of sitting on a bus. (Actually, that's the real reason I was looking "pale.") The following four rounds after that were harder, but lucky for me AGOT is one of the few things I like to do more than sleep

Stag Lord said:

Lars said:

Eh, I played in the environment without Valar for quite some time. Honestly, I much prefer the type of choices offered and made when Valar is in the environment rather than when it is not.

As for Shadows, I can't say that I'm really understanding all the recent hate, particularly the reference to "gimmick" decks. What constitutes a gimmick? Is it use of an agenda, thus making Kings of Summer, Kings of Winter or City of Shadows all gimmick decks? Is it use of a strong theme, thus making Targaryen burn, Lannister kneel, and Greyjoy unopposed all gimmick decks? Is it just a handful of powerful cards so that anything using Fat Bob, Castellan of the Rock, or Valar Morghulis is a gimmick deck? There have to be some appropriate lines to be drawn here, and personally, I just don't see shadows themed decks as being a gimmick. I just see them as legitimately utilizing a new, powerful, and interesting mechanic in the game.

Is valar a card that you should be aware of in your thought process while deck building and while playing (i.e. don't over extend)? yes.

Is it a dominating force? no.

It doesn't win you the game when you flip it (its very well balanced the turn you play it) and unless your deck is built to exploit it it rarely wins you the game the turn after you flip it (and a lot of cards can have decks built around them to exploit it).

It is a plot that can help a control deck, but if you can't stop the control elements, valar is the least of your problems. It is useful to help when you fall way behind in characters, but you still have to be able to maintain the parity it might create.

There have been numerous games where i've flipped valar and still lost the game or where i've won facing back to back resets (wildfire and valar). Valar can also burn you as much as it can help you. If you have a lock on the game, but are not able to win before plot 7 that valar can be as brutal to you as it would be to an opponent.

Kennon, its interesting that you talk about an environment without valar, but then do not understand the critique (i like shadows in general, i just don't like where it is headed, definitly do not hate it). Lets look at it from a different point of view. Without valar you already said you don't like the envrinoment. Would you feel the same way about fleeing? Lets go back to when the first Character lite deck was built (i'm not sure if it was before or after fleeing was made, but i believe it was before). Was it a valid deck type, yep, was it a valid way to play the game, yup, did it in effect change the way the game was played, yup. Could you still target every card in it with cards already in the game, yup. where there location versions fo things i do for love, YMHC, etc, etc, nope. Did fleeing make the game better balanced in that you didn't have to pack your deck full of location hate and or build a very similar deck type, yup. Did fleeing absolutly prevent those who wished to from running character lite, nope. Did fleeing create a well balanced environment in which you had to have a thought process behind playing a certain amount of locations (as oppossed to just spewing them out with out any real costs/risk), yup.

Lets count the things we have plot based resets for. 3 for characters (one can be saved, one doesn't allow saves, and one targets 'swarm'). One for the hand. One for locations. Two for Gold (prevention is still a type of reset, especially rains which hits cards your opponent has paid to play). One for the seasons. House specific, but still one for Attachments, and there used to be (and i wouldn't be surprised if there is again) one for events (there is a semi-one now, but it just changes the costs, not prevents). Heck there even used to be Two plot based 'resets' (in the form of blanking and canceling) for plots. thats just about every area of the game and plots affect just about every phase in different ways from draw to taxation. We are only allowed 7 plots, its not liek printing a shadows based plot reset is giving every deck a plot to stop shadows it still has to be picked, still has to fit the deck it is picked for and oh yeah it still has to be used effectively during gameplay. In the same way that fleeing does not prevent character lite, a shadows reset would not prevent shadows from being played nor Decks like Dan's targ deck, it would just give a deck that chooses to not commit the same amount of shadows a reliable recourse.

Yes, the game definitely needs a plot "reset" for Shadows cards. We have one full reset for Characters, one Pseudo reset for characters (Wildfire), one pseudo reset for locations (Fleeing), a one-sided pseudo reset for cards in hand (RBD).

I'd much prefer a pseudo reset, something along the lines of a 2/0/1 plot that states that each player choose 1 card in shadows that they own, all others are discarded in play.

Well, I know all metas are differents especially when there’s an ocean between them. But I still think you’re overreacting when asking a shadow reset plot. There is many reason not to do so in my opinion.

First, some anti-shadow plots exist: Blockade, Rains of automn and fleeing to the wall. If you haven’t the gold to put your cards in shadow, they stay in your hand, vulnerable as the others. The shadow area is not a free zone and you have to pay the price to protect your cards. So all the plots that controls ressources are anti-shadows plots in my mind.

Second, shadows mechanic is not a mechanic you have to use to be competitive. If we look at the french nationals results (it’s the subject of the topic after all !), 6 of the top 8 decks are quasi shadows-free ! (4 cards or less, like pyromancer’s apprentice, Varys or Syrio). The two others are Lanni kneel running 13/14 shadows cards essentially to trigger the Alchemists guild hall. And the heavy shadows deck were in the second part of the results. What I mean is that there’s some ways to defeat shadows and there’s no need for some news and so specifics weapons.

Third, all the actual resets are doble-edged cards. Every reset can advantage your opponent if you have no choice but to play it at the wrong moment (the 7th plot for example), because you play characters, you play locations and you have cards in your hands, like your opponent. A shadow reset like Dobbler described doesn’t fullfill that condition. If you’re running no, or no many, shadows cards there’s no drawback, no backfire possibility. It would be like a reset: “kill all opponents characters except one”. There’s no reset so strong actually.

That was my two cents, just to support Dormouse. I’ve got strictly the same opinion.

Prevention and canceling are not resets. A reset resets something to a previous level, not stops a thing from happening.

How many cards are kept in Shadowsin a Shadows deck? Are we seeing more than three cards on a regular basis? Are you seriously saying that a plot reset is the best way of dealing with a Shadows deck? That without it Shadow decks are too strong to be beaten in any other way? I just don't believe that... more to the point nothing reported yet seems to bear that out. I alwaysprefer a play based solution or a build based solution than a plot based solution, and when it comes to plots, I will always prefer accelerators to detractors, retractors to soft resets, and soft resets to full resets.

Simply eliminating all cards from Shadows is unacceptable to me (of course it isn't up to me). A soft reset which drops the cards in Shadows to two on both sides is better, but I still think a round of respite which "blanks" the shadows area is better since again it isn't the Shadows area itself that wins gamesor even holding cards in the Shadows area, but the cards that factor off them that are in play and therefor already subject to all the various forms of hate.

Lars, I'm going to have to go back to the same thing I said back in the MWnK debate, take your deck and play it in a major tournament and see how it fares. I suspect it will do well as any swarm deck, but I doubt that the moving cards into and then out of Shadows is going to be the determining factor in its wins the majority of the time. I have yet to see what you have said, that the game has degenerated into who has the most cards in Shadows. Drawing the most cards and timely use of a reset seems to have a FAR greater impact on who wins a game.

I also wouldn´t support the statement that the player with the most cards in shadows wins the game. But a good build strongly profits by a good amount of shadow cards. The shadow mechanic lets you essentially split the gold cost of cards from round 1 to another future round x+1. Since the shadow cards aere as the moment as safe as the bank of England ;-) it´s usually a good idea to store cards in the shadows for later rounds. Actually that leads to reviving from an opponents reset more effectively or to use your own reset with better success. And i guess that was Lars about to express with his statement and i´m 100 % with him here. Having two - three cards in shadows like silent sisters, shadow cats, syrio, arya, an in-house 0- cost shadow card is a huge advantage.

I´ve now seen that same move so often: Plot phase : Valar, Draw phase: silent sisters, marshalling: Shadow cat, challenge: any other cards from the shadows.

However dormouse statement hat draw is another factor is also right. But collecting cards in the shadows is a kind of draw, it´s like saving accounts. It combines the factor of having cards at the right time and having the resources to pay for them (because they were actually paid in the past).

Also i think that "classic" draw and shadow mechanic are a cumulative factor for a greater success. It´s also interesting that a lot of shadow cards bring a good amount of the reliable LCG draw with them.

Besides that, i don´t think it´s a problem for a have way dedicated shadow deck to bring some cards in the shadows against a blockade. Since effectively two plots allow you to put cards in the shadows.

If we should see a shadow reset plot i would prefer something like "when revealed every player chooses a cards in the shadows and discards it from play".

The only thing me making a deck and bringing it to a tournament proves is how i play the game. Its one of the reasons net decking doesn't work well for this game. dobbler didn't have success w/ my MWnK and no one in our meta has success w/ his wourld champ GJ deck.

Its also not about a specific deck or deck build. there are multiple ways to get shadows into shadows (where they are untouchable). One plot solution (its funny no one asked for a complete wipe of shadows and there have been a number of interesting ideas brought up) to shadows would not be insane to ask for.

I think old ben not only reiteratie a lot of issues that many of us have pointed out and see and also added to them quite well.

The next CP cycle is set in the north. I can imagine a plot or even meaner a location that freezes cards in the shadows, preventing them from getting out of the shadow. Or a shadow tax reducing your income by one for every card you have in shadows. There are oh so many possibilities. And I think those cards will appear in the next cycle.

I don't think so. In the King's landing cycle, a very small part of cards is working with seasons, and nothing was a great change in the mechanic itself. Isuppose that the new cycle won't have many stuff working with shadows.

Missed this.

dormouse said:

I don't think the game has come down to this yet. Nor do i think i said this excatly. What i said was that i do not want the game to come down to this, but i can easily see it happening. And clearly i'm not the only one.

Just on a side note, the top 3 decks in our tournament last night were shadow heavy decks. 1st was a Lanni tunnels deck, 2nd was Tag burn loosely based on Dan's from Black Friday, and 3rd was another Lanni Tunnels deck. THe only other deck with a winning record was Greyjoy /Winter Agenda. I think a real part of the problem is City of Lies followed by City of Spiders. 4 free Shadow cards by the beginning of the 2nd draw phase is just ridiculous.

The military decks with high claim and killing/discarding effects defeat very often the heavy shadows deck on our side of the ocean. Those decks were strong two months ago, but now the Starks and the Grejoys have adaptated their decks and they win against this type of decks.

That's funny those differences between metas

All Thrones is local.

See the popularity of Stark in the european metas.

kpmccoy21 said:

I was playing a lannister heavy shadow deck at the french championship and I finished 9th with a 3:2 ratio loosing to 2 starks heavy claim 2 decks (fury of the wolf in opening doesn't help). Beginning with just 4 gold (3 then 1) on plots in your example to get out cards from shadow might be difficult when you are hard pressed by your opponent. IMHO you just lack starks decks aggressive decks in your meta to keep in check shadows decks (and they play winter in general). I did very well against greyjoy decks though (you know it is rock paper scissor, if noone is playing paper then rock seems very strong).

Everyone is "metagaming" valar, either shadows, save, or draws with lots of little characters to come back after the reset. I see no problem with shadows at the moment. All my tunnels were destroyed by price of war against stark or greyjoy decks, or even river bandit against lannisters.

elwe said:

gold, especially in lanni is not an issue. there are plenty of s0's that you can put into shadows for free and there is always the s0 event (or s1 w/ agenda) that gives you +2 gold. oh and one of the 'seed plots' is claim 2...

we don't lack an agreesive stark deck, we just routinely beat those kind of decks. plus stark claim 2 winter decks run into (w/ less ways around) the same issue you claim to be a difficulty in the shadows deck, low plot gold.

you mention metagaming for valar, so i'm assuming you are w/ the valar is the issue arguement. however, every non-shadows 'metagame' you mention has a way to be dealt with and almost all of them can be plot based.