ktom said:
BTW: Stark can actually field as many in-House KL locations as Targ - 4 - for less than half the gold (Targ has 4 unique KL locations that cost a total of 11 gold; Stark has a unique that costs 2 and a non-unique that costs 1 for a total of 5 gold). If Stark wants to go toe-to-toe with Targ on the KL curve, they can - and probably come out on top.
I agree completely that a Lanni or Bara deck that is trying to stay ahead and utilize KL is going to have the edge over everyone else, but any of the Houses can make very good use of King's Landing if they plan and play correctly.
Sure, I agree with the last comment completely, but for the sake of fun, I am going to say that on paper your comment about Stark Shadows vs. Targ Shadows *might* sound viable but in reality I hardly see it likely among competitive Targ and Stark builds and hypothetically I see it very unlikely. First, I think most viable Targ Shadows decks are going to run more KL location cards than a typical Stark deck (using Katagena's 2nd place French Nationals deck as example). But if you want to play hypothetical on paper decks my Targ Shadows will not lose KL curve against your Stark hypothetical in most cases:
If Targ wants to win the Kings Landing curve against Stark, they probably will. Take your hypothetical KL Stark Shadows vs. my hypothetical Targ Shadows. We won't consider neutral cards since we can both run the same number in our hypothetical decks (remember Street of Steel is only KL street 
At most you can run:
3x Tower of the Hand
3x Hidden Chambers
I can run:
3x Aegon's Hill
3x Dragonpit
3x Visenya's Hill
3x Rhaeny's Hill
That means its twice as likely I'm going to have a KL location in hand to play. Granted Hidden Chambers is non-unique but dupes can provide location hate protection. Of course running 3 of all those locations might not be optimal for either deck but I certainly believe that a typical Targ build running KL is probably going to have enough KL to stay ahead of a typical Stark that runs KL. Maybe not depending on specific builds but with Aegon's Hill and Dragonpit both being viable cards and Visenya and Rheanys Hills could be useful in Melee I dont think Stark is as likely have as many KL locations.
ktom said:
Ah. This might be the difference i our assumptions. I don't think that anyone is saying that the Shadows mechanic is overpowered or even unbalanced. They are saying that the cost/risk threshold of most, if not all, Shadow cards worth playing is relatively low. Now, I will agree with you that much of what balances the Shadow mechanic is metagame related, and thus often difficult for people to verbalize - or even appreciate academically. But when playing a game, once I get the card into Shadows, I really have very few worries about it until I am ready to bring it out. Sure, I can misplay or mess up my timing (and am likely to), but I can do that with any card, Shadows or otherwise. Seems to me that the only drawback to Shadows cards that is not inherent in just about every other card is the "delayed gratification" aspect. I agree wholeheartedly that this balances the mechanic (and potentially slows your deck).
I think that in countering the argument (that I didn't see others making, but there you go) that Shadows cards are risk-free to the point of being overpowered, you came off as saying they are flawed to the point of being poor choices in a deck. This clarification that you are trying to argue a balanced mechanic where others have perceived an overpowered one makes a lot of this discussion come into focus.
"Delayed gratification" implies solely a psychological effect when actually there are many practical problems to cards having to go into shadows first and then can only come out at very start of a phase, 1 card at a time. Its not just delaying "gratification", its delaying what your cards can do and in some cases (say against the very fast Martell build that I believe will be making more appearances once every has the expansion) that can become a deadly loss. The fact is that Shadows decks are slow and not just slow but slow and need to be timed correctly to work. Synergy with City plots might be great on turns 5 and 6 like I mentioned but on turns 2 and 8 playing City plots + shadows is very tricky, it certainly is not easy as some of the objection posts make it seem. The timing is trickier to pull off than it might seem when it works against an opponent. Slow and methodical deployment of characters can be powerful but it is by no means all positive with no negative. Also, there are builds out there fast enough to take advantage of this and still win vs. other non-Shadows builds. Every shadows build Ive seen (Lanni, Targ, Bara, Stark) is relatively slow. The thing is that current LCG mechanics, I believe lend themselves to different types of deck building than a typical CCG model of rush, control and mill. Again I believe things are moving towards viable builds in all Houses than can potentially win fast or slow but not in the archetype "weenie rush" fashion. Maybe Syd can post an LCG article in how to utilize Martell this way. Now that we have the Icon/Bounce House back in full effect I believe Shadows is weakened by Martell's mechanics. Iconless and bouncing characters back to hand seem to hurt Shadows builds (irrespective of House) more than other builds. Before calling for cards specifically designed as Shadows Hate, why not start a discussion in how certain players can use the already existing cardpool to take counter Shadows which some players have already figured out?
Stag Lord said:
Laughing Tree - two of the Top Four at Black Friday were very heavy shadow theme decks: twn2Dn's Targ build (as KpmcCoy points out) and sithlords Lanni Tunnels build - which BTW went 4-0-1 in the Swiss round.
Not that it matters since no one is arguing that shadows (as a mechanic) is broken. What soem fo us feel si that it is unbalanced - which is somewhat different.
Stag Lord,
Yes I do understand this. But I am just presenting the other side since I do not feel Shadows are unbalanced or certainly not any more unbalanced than any number of other effects that GoT has had. I find nothing wrong if usual tournaments have say 2 'Shadows heavy' builds in top four and 2 non-Shadows. My point is while the Shadows cards are good, it is not a dominant mechanic that is overwhelming all other builds.
What I think is inaccurate is this idea that Shadows mechanic is all positive and no downside which just isn't true as I point out in several posts. There are certainly competitive non-Shadows builds that can be every bit as frustrating to play against and beat Shadows builds.
. Do you care more about the cards in shadows than the other cards? And if you don't have cards in your hand, you're in a pretty bad position most probably. Yes there are certain cards like the tunnels that benefit you from keeping cards in shadows, but I don't find it that scary. To keep those cards in shadows, you need to pay 2 gold. That gold could be spent on other cards.