I know the factions from the books so know about them that way but still not really seeing how they are in the card game.

I know that Greyjoy seems to be a mill/discard type of theme but what are the others themes when it comes to in the game ? Just curious as I am looking for a different house to play in addtion, I am going to play Stark because of the books.

greyjoy: unopposed challenges, mil (weak on intrigue)

Lannister: Kneel and cardraw ( abit weak on power)

Stark: Military might, direct kill, some search effects ( weak on intrigue)

Baratheon: Rush, renown, power.

Tarq: Depends but can go either way, lots of burn effects though.

What is a burn effect ?

Toqtamish said:

Generally, it is any effect that lowers character STR, and then kills or discards the character if its STR reaches 0. (Note that in this game, a character is not automatically removed from play if its STR becomes 0; you need a card effect that specifically does so; Targ has a lot.) The effects tend to be very powerful because there are not a lot of ways to save a character that has been "burned."

Sometimes, you will hear "burn" used to refer to any effect that lowers character STR, regardless of whether it kills at 0 or not. Usually it is both, though.

Mig el Pig said:

Some more words on the houses:

Greyjoy: Location control/destruction

Lannister: strong in intrigue and in shadow play, getting a lot gold

Stark: strong in defense

Targaryen: Attachment control

What about Martell ? I know they are just now finally getting real support but I also know they existed before in the ccg and do have cards in the LCG.

Martell is known for revenge, reveal and icon manipulation.

(Reveal means they tend to have a lot of pseudo-draw effects where you reveal a card and put it into your hand. Revenge means that they get to do a lot of pretty cool stuff after they lose a challenge. Icon manipulation is fairly self explanatory.)

They have sub-themes involving event recursion (because they have some great events), copy effects (duplicating effects just played by an opponent) and cancels.

Another way to look at a lot of this is as follows:

Stark - heavy concentration on the military challenge

Lannister - heavy concentration on the intrigue challenge

Baratheon - heavy concentration in the power challenge

Greyjoy - heavy concentration on location cards

Targaryen - heavy concentration on attachment cards

Martell - heavy concentration on event cards

Sounds interesting, might be a good backup House for me, I don't know a thing about them in the novels yet as I am still re-reading the first 2 and then reading the third and fourth for the first time.

since im a beginner this post was just what i was searching !!!

did i read right in the ffg articels that martell is also good at producing influence???

Heres a summary so far:

Lannister: Heavy Intrigue Challenge, Good at shadow play, gold production, kneel and carddraw Weak on Power

Stark: Heavy Military Challenge, Good at direct kill, strong in defense, some search effects Weak on Intrigue

Baratheon: Heavy Power Challenge, Good at Rush, Renown, Weak on ….???

Greyjoy: Heavy Location control/destruction, Good at unopposed challenges, military, Weak on Intrigue

Targayen: Heavy Attachment control, Good at burn effects, Weak on …???

Martell: Heavy Event control Good at reveal/draw, trait/icon manipulation, Influence production, Weak on ...???

keep it up!!!

is Targ maybe good at saves???? i

chrassos said:

In my opinion, yes while being resilient in general.

With Rhaegal who fecthes his own saves and Dance with the dragons which can use to search saves for your other dragons.

And they can save those 'saves' for resets with their military claim soaks like viserys and bones of a child(which they can return to their hand with Lady D's Chambers)

In combination with some characters who can return to your hand and can enter outside marshalling phase. (and To be a dragon) they can be quite resilient against resets.

They also have a very diversified personality pool with quite a few stealthers, Tri-cons, different themes and therefor quite a few possibilities but most of them require some setup(gold, influence and some specific chars or locations)

Being able to hit them in their hand (to get viserys, khal drogo, ...) can hurt them severly.

(95% of my games are Multiplayer so these observations might differ in 1vs1)

chrassos said:

Targ definitely has some staying power to them (recursive effects, jumpers, etc.), but typically Greyjoy has been the best at saves.

I think you all forgot that Baratheon also specializes in winning.

Well I did a practice game of Targaryen vs Baratheon core set decks and Baratheon won on turn 4. They got power very fast, especially Robert, I got him out early and the double renown gain was really good.

Yeah - you kind of have to deal with Core set Robert as soon as he hits the table or its likely to be quite a short game.

Yeah I noticed that but he had a card that gave him +2 STR, Shadow something, cant remember it right now. and he had an extra copy of himself underneath to allow extra protection. He won me the game.

What kind of ways could he have been dealt with ?

milk of the poppy, kneel effects, motley, targeted kill (need 2 or a reset after), in martell take his icons, and more kneel effects.

Toqtamish said:

Toqtamish said:

My favorite solution? Lannisport Brothel. Nothing like keeping Robert in the brothel turn after turn to make me smile. Or try the new Martell attachment Locked in the Tower, or a simple Milk of the Poppy. Not all solutions require killing him...

If you're playing the Core Set deck lists, your only hope out of Targ is to burn Robert out with some combination of Forever Burning, Poisoned Wine, Flame-Kissed, Drogon, and Viserion, or get off Westeros Bleeds though that takes a while. At least you have Mad King's Legacy to get rid of his Shadow's Blessing attachment, without that attachment hopefully a couple of your big characters (like the dragons) can keep Robert from winning challenges.

i was wondering about the (genaral or overall) weaknesses of the houses?

Maybe..

Stark at Intrigue Challenges

Lannister at Power Challenges or gaining Power at all

Baratheon ??? (maybe the lack pool of low cost chars???)

Targaryen need both resources (gold and influence), relies on single cards

Greyjoy ???

Martell ???

what you think???

chrassos said:

My personal opinions:

Stark - Intrigue is indeed a difficulty/weakness for Stark. The cards are there to overcome it, but it is usually a fairly intensive build process. To a certain extent, Stark's relentless focus on military/kill/defense can be a weakness. They aren't left with a lot of flexibility for controlling the board and, well, let's just say that there is only so much military strength you need during a game - especially if your opponent can keep throwing weenies under the bus. Stark also has challenges drawing cards.

Lannister - Slow power gain is a general weakness, but one that Lannister can usually overcome by controlling the game position to such a point that they win a lot of unopposed challenges. The greatest weakness in Lanni (and it isn't much of one...) is that while their effects slow down or deny their opponent, they don't really do much to carry the Lannister player forward.

Baratheon - They actually have a fair number of low cost character, they just don't have a lot of military icons on those low cost characters. As such, managing the resource curve (and, to a lesser extent, the draw curve) can be tough for them. You can only get so far with military-light weenies, and the larger characters can be expensive.

Greyjoy - Many people will say they have an Intrigue weakness as well, but I don't see it - at least not to the same degree as Stark. Draw is a problem for Greyjoy, as is the fact that they usually have to play aggressively. That might not seem like much of a weakness, but often, Greyjoy finds itself without much of a defense.

Targ - Greatest weakness is all the 1- and 2-STR characters. Their average character STR tends to be low, so they need more characters - a hard position in a House that probably needs the tightest control over its resource curve and, as you pointed out, the most diverse resource curve.

Martell - Greatest weakness is power. They are slower to gain power than even Lanni. They also tend to be very card-intensive (they often center on events). The other big weakness in Martell is the "one step back, two steps forward" revenge strategy that, if you're not careful, becomes "one (or more) step back, one step forward."

ktom said:

I don´t think that´s true in the nowadays enviroment, just count the possible inhouse renown and neutral renown charachters. It´s so easy to reveal to the spears at the right time and have around 3-4 renown charachters with 2-3 icons each on table. Martells are in my book the house with second best rush ability after Baratheon.

Yeah, I would have to agree with power gain not really being that much of an issue for Martell in LCG, with plenty of renown and Taste for Blood. (In addition to the plot and Vengeful for making sure you can utilize that renown)

That said, I stil thinkl Greyjoy is one step ahead of them in the power rush department (easy to pull off unopposed challenges, Rise of the Kraken, power gain events triggering off unopposed challenges...), and they're a solid third. =)

Rush Houses in order -

Baratheon
Greyjoy
Martell

To the Spears and several renown uniques was instrumental in creating this opportunity, though they still tend to be much light on Power icons and little additional support for claiming power through card effects than the other two houses.

Martell seems to have a fair amount of Stealth though which can certainly help in a quick ramp-up of power, where as Baratheon and Greyjoy are both more likely to have a "Shock and Awe" approach to rush.

maybe it is possible to Rank the Houses by strenght in : Military, Intrigue and Power???

this would be cool/interesting!!!!

since im a beginner and couldnt figure it out all by myself.

maybe someone could help

to fill it up or to critisis it.

Military :

1. Stark

2. Greyjoy

3...

4...

5...

6...

Intrigue: (pretty clear i think)

1. Lannister

2. Martell

3. Targaryen

4. Baratheon

5. Greyjoy

6. Stark

Power:

1. Baratheon

2. Greyjoy

3. Martell ???

4...

5...

6. Lannister

PS: I´ve played some games against my friend (Martell) and i must say that i personally think martell in LCG is not as bad in gaining power as ktom described it. they did pretty good in gaining power. surely my opinion is not weightening since im a beginner and my experince is low on that.

I don't have very many issues gaining power out of Martell, but I love to fester the opinion that they are weak on power, as it creates a mental state I can take advantage of. Seriously, though, there are plenty of POW icons in a Martell build, and the "weak" areas can be pretty well supplemented with neutrals, if necessary. Even their high-gold characters can be played pretty easily using the Summer Sea and any number of reducers. And I want to investigate the potential of a Martell Char-lite deck revolvoing around the Red Viper and Arthur Dayne, the refugees for claim soak and the reinforcement character events, but knowing how rarely I actually build new decks from the ground up, I seriously doubt this will happen for me.