So I hear the new Chpater Pack is on the streest and I figured i'd get an early spoiler up.

Apparently Baratheon got a new 0 cost location that you can discard to reduce the next Bara character you play by -2. Nice.

Anything that helps Baratheon get deep into their deck on the flop and flatten that high gold curve is a good thing.

Just found out it is limited.

Still: free is always good.

It reduces the cost by 3, I believe.

Great. Look forward to the rest of the cards texts whenever someone has the chance!

Sounds like a Bara version of the old King's Hall....

if it is limited......well then its utlilty is cut in half. The problem bara has isn't that it lacks locations (great hall is...urm great) its that it can't play more then one a turn and more importantly it can't flop more then 2 (unless you draw more then one sea) and if they get incridibly lucky they might get 3 w/ a Street...but thats rare....

bah i was all exicited, but now i Have to still try to find ways around limited....

And it has the Westeros and King's Landing trait, which is very cool.

One thing to note it is Baratheon "card" not character. So it increases its utility some.

the discard hurts the whole 'card' thing. to discard it for somethign less then 3 is not very effective and there are exactly 3 non character cards for house bara that cost 3 or more, and only one may or may not be playable and that is The wall. the other two are Mustering Yard and True King's bannerman.

for all the 2 cost baratheon non character cards i'd rathe just use a Fiefdom, no hit on limited since they both are and the 1 extra godl is worth the flexibilty of the Inlfuence and keeping it around for more then one use....

Wow, this card is much needed for Baratheon with their high gold average. I'd much rather run this over Fiefdoms, and it's probably personal preference with regards to Great Hall vs. Aegon's Garden. This card will really speed up your early rounds, something that is way more important for Bara than it is for other houses. The limited keyword just keeps it from being overpowered.

A resource build of 3 Seat of Powers, 3 Narrow Seas, 2-3 Great Keeps (or Aegon's Garden here, if you prefer), 3 Streets, and a Chambers is going to be quite solid. Combined with the speed gained from Royal Entourage, Bara decks keep getting faster out of the gate.

longclaw said:

QFT. The Limited hting is more good than bad in fact.

for me, speed isn't the issue w/ bara right now. i can win by turn 2 w/ the curerent cards. the problem i have is sustainabilty and solid flops. If i get more then 3 card out on the flopp right now its a miracle, then i useually don't have either (and sometimes both) enough locations or enough draw after the reset.

these problems get worse when you play lanni. sure i discarded a location to play bobby for 1, but that doesn't help me when lanni kneels him, hits my hand, then resets....

they would be a better solution for bara's holes if not limited. or if one of the other 3 in house limiteds lost limited.

In other words they still keep bara in the realm of win in two turns or go home. as once you use them you've shot your load with them and have nothing to back them up with because half of you resources are limited. its why the seas don't really help them now.

So what you are saying is that in a game that it seems alot of us play control-style decks (as ktom noted in a different thread), if your deck doesn't win by turn 2, you're probably screwed? Isn't that the point of control decks to drag the game out long enough for us to win? To slow down power rush decks until we can get our forces on the board.

No, I think this is a really good card. I would rate it at a 4 at least, if not all the way to a five. If there is one of these cards for every house, they are almost,if not actually, better than the seas. In fact, I think this makes the seas better, because now the seas are more geared towards keeping that influence in play.

Sorry Lars, but I can't accept your bitter tears over this card. It is way too good to dismiss.

JJ - I hope there isn't an identical card for each house, as it's nice to keep some individual theme for them.

Gotta say, I am not seeing the "limitation of Limited" on this card, either.

This is exactly the same card as King's Hall from the old Ice&Fire set, except from Bara only. I can't remember anyone - ever - being sorry to see a King's Hall in their hand, setup or otherwise.

In classic with ITE Storm's End add 3 gold to your gold curve. Yeah, yeah you have to draw it, but it's classic so search.

Anyway, this stirs my interest to start playing again. I sort of feel tainted that I played Lannister in my last tourney. Icky.

You should start playing again. The game is vary vibrant at this point, and the new cycle of packs looks to add more options. It been awhile since I was this excited about the game, but I really feel that the release of Princes of the Sun finally made the game feel whole again, and I like what I've been able to do with the cards.

Cool. So is this a 1x or a 3x card?

JerusalemJones said:

there are no bitter tears, only a consistent problem with a keyword. if bara could get a resource location w/out that keyword it would go a long way to helping. this one, while the strongest of the 4 in terms of early game, doesn't help the problem of limited.

W/ king hall you weren't upset because you usually had enough other non limited 0 cost locations (loyalty/doomed reducers, blockade runner, rose garden, seculded coast, seas, and streets [versus just seas and streets]) or 1 cost locations (tarth, chambers, hallowed ground, Shield islands, smuggler's cove, field command tent, the valyrian, and dragonstone courtyard) that seeing king's hall on the flip didn't crimp what you flopped. Yes this card is a good card, but it doesn't solve bara's slow resource/draw problems. i'm still not going to be able to flop enough resources to draw into the meat of my deck and i'm still going to be vulnerable to resets as i can't put a whole lot of locations down at once. baras biggest problem isn;t what happens the first two turns its that after that it has 0 draw and no real characters that do anything to other players. a way around that is to get into your deck quicker with a strong flop and 3 -4 cards isn't enough. One of the largest things holding the flop back is the proclivity of Limited locations.

I'd be estatic w/ an Aegon's Garden non limited or if they want to slap limited on 2/3's [four out of six w/ the other two being discards and a unique]] of bara's resources then make it a draw resource and let it help them get into their deck. Or give bara some of the 'flop tools' that other houses have access to: 0 costs useful characters (brown ben/orphan of greenblood); characters with income or draw steward/paramouror tommen/dornish paramour; reducer characters(tully recuiter/illyrio's man;) nonseason depended power location (brothel/LDC/Lost Oasis/Scouting Vessel/GTM/heck even winterfell castle [fuel win by 4+] or kennels [character search!!!]); or cheap useful locations (Iron Mines/lion's gate/xaro's home/ the X tower)

Wow, I for one, am rather intimidated by this card. It's looking to me like Baratheon has the potential to be crazy fast. If they get any more characters like Royal Entourage or House Tyrell Guard, then they may have enough alternate ways to get things into play to really keep it up. Draw to sustain the rush could still be an issue though.

Also, on the topic of non-limited locations for Baratheon, I'd very much be in favor of a Rainwood Keep reprint. One of my favorite cards, for some bizarre reason.

Lars said:

Yeah... not buying it.

King's Hall and the rest of I&F rotated out of Standard when WED was released. So of all the locations you mention, only the Streets, the Loyalty reducers, The Valyrian and Dragonstone Courtyard ever actually shared a Standard environment with King's Hall. And the Loyalty reducers were only in the same Standard environment for about 4 months.

When you consider Summer Port, the Chambers, Kingdom of Shadows and Blackwater Bay, the 0-1 cost location availability for Baratheon now, limited and otherwise, is not all that different from when King's Hall was Standard. I think the play history with King's Hall, which was in an fairly comparable Standard play environment, indicates that "Limited" on this location is not going to be much of a sticking point for most Bara players.

I can't remember for sure w/o looking at Tzu-Mainn's but I remember building an awful lot of decks that were 3x KH and 9 Streets (depending on icon balance... and maybe a couple good if I was running effects that needed it. I don't think you ever were trying to run more than 5 or 6 Limiteds commonly. But I'm sleepy and fading.................jouuuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Maester_LUke said:

And what did you do in the second year after Westeros rotated out and VED hit the scene? Could it be done with few limited locations? Sure. Was it? Not necessarily. 9x Streets in a deck was certainly not the norm around here.

JeffK said:

3x