Since we're having Plot Week here on the forums, I thought I'd add a second question to the discussion.

Question: Do you use plot manipulation? If so, in what kind of decks and for what purpose?

I started thinking about this after seeing some mention of Spanish Stark players using Master Malleon's Tome in the european tournament, to their advantage - I'm guessing the purpose there was to stop the opponent from ever getting to play Valar. Even though we have surprisingly many plot manipulation cards in the environment at the moment: Rookeries, Moon Boy, the Stark Tome, Bran Stark, Lords of the Narrow Sea, Dragonstone Port, Grand Maester Pycelle... I myself (at least) never seem to build them into any deck. Was wondering if anybody else has had better success with any of these?

the non shadows Varys in melee is fun. flip your own valar (save varys) change plot decks and have claim. Another example, change around 2 claim for 1 claim, etc. I never try to make a deck around those kinds of cards (rookeries have never been in any of my decks) but don't mind having one in the right melee deck.

Lars said:

Read Varys again. You switch plot decks and used piles - NOT the revealed plot card. If you did what you suggest, you're still going to be sitting there with your revealed Valar and 0-claim.

For the most part, I don't think there is enough "bang for the buck" in the challenge-based plot manipulation cards (Rookeries, etc.). Bran is about all I ever use. I may need to re-evaluate that now that the plot pool is increasing, but I find that in LCG, I'm not relying on my plots for in-game tech enough to feel the need to make the plot manipulation work. In the old CCG days (with Others plots, ORW, etc.), I would have been all over cards like the Rookeries. Now, not so much.

The rookeries were definitely part of the CCG days and their strength is definitely much reduced in the LCG. I've designed a deck or two based around plot acceleration, cycling through my plot deck as fast as possible. The biggest problem is the plots that I'd like to accelerate the most would be the various search plots and in joust in the LCG that is pretty useless if not down right dangerous. At this point I think some sort of deck that wants to recycle resets or the "Power of..." would make sense, but I can't quite wrap my head around a deck that would really make strong use of it.

No.

Too Shagga. I can certainly see Dormouse and ktom using this to dirve combos in CCG era - but too Sahgga for me.

~ I resent the implication that all combo players are Shaggas.

Hahaha. One of these days Greyjoy will have enough discard to be viable and I'll create a deck that is all discard, saves and resets and play Blockade, RBD, and Valar every three turns. I also disagree that plot acceleration or the Tome are necessarily combo dependent or that their use indicates one is Shagga.

~You will agree now or I will cut off your manhood and feed it to the goats.

ktom said:

Maybe the high synergy factor of the city plots makes plot manipulation a little more useful- a city of sins or soldiers plot at the right time could be a huge advantage.

Also the tides of war is in my opinion a little underestimated. It´s a nice suprise effect that´s easy to trigger.

Had a summer martell Maester/night watch deck that counted on getting valar out as much as possible.

(this was before PoTs and don't have the complete list anymore so i'm going by heart)

Summer Agenda

Plot:

Valar

Fury of the sun

A song of Summer

A time for Ravens

The Raven's song

Fleeing to the Wall

Snowed Under

Deck

3x Black Raven

3x Maester of the sun

3x Carrion Bird

3x Refugee of the Citadel

3x Vale Refugee

3x Maester of War

1x Gilly

3x Maester Aemon (coreset)

3x Jon snow

3x Ghost

3x Benjen Stark

1x Basterd of Godgrace

3x rookery of Sunspear

3x vale Rookery (works great with snowed under and you can valar without suffering the negative claim)

3x Summer Reserves

1x retreat and regroup

and 1 of each street, can't remember the rest at the moment.

I mainly played it in multiplayer where it wrecked face, being able to valar morghulis after your challenges or a Snowed under after your opponent has attacked can disrupt them.

ktom said:

when this turn is over, how to manipulate the changed plot cards? because of the switched card must return. if you mean change plot decks and used piles, so when plot card return, do we need return revealed plot card or this revealed card will still stay in the opponent side?

Depends on when you trigger him.

If you trigger Varys and then do not reveal a plot, there is no "problem" because your revealed plot is one you own.

If you trigger Varys and then reveal a plot, though, a plot card that you own (the one revealed when Varys was triggered) is now in your opponent's used pile - that is returned to him - and a plot that he owns is your revealed plot when the reversion takes place. So yeah, if you reveal a plot after Varys is triggered, there can be some exchange of plot cards for the rest of the game.

You can either play with that technical exchange in place or you can use your own House rule that all plots are returned to their owners at the end of Varys' duration.

I like to use the Vale Rookery to Valar in the Dominance phase, getting the kill effect off while not suffereing the low gold or claim. I want ot find a way to use Tides of War, but it seems to be far too limiting just lets my opponent know that I am planning something for later in the round. But I dont' run Plot Manipulation in all my decks.