New Bara 0 cost reducer

By Stag Lord, in 1. AGoT General Discussion

ktom said:

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.

First this isn't king's hall. King's hall had 3 to 4 times the utility of this card as i could pay for neutrals and OOH. If this was King's hall i'd stick GTM's or Scouting Vessel's in the deck and gladly pay 1 gold for each of those non-limited locations w/ KH (as i could play KH and one of those on the same turn post flop). Second even with only 4 cards standard your resource pool after KH, to avoid limited, was much much stronger. 3x streets, 3x loyalty reducers, 2 x The Valyrian and 2-3x Courtyards gives you more sustainable and flexible resources, garantees you dominence and adds a simple standing mechinism to your deck verses 3x streets, 3x seas (not sustainable)and 2x chambers.

ktom said:

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.

summer port and blackwater bay require other cards to make them useful and those other cards aren't even synergystic with each other. Kingdom of Shadows is over paying for a mechnic that can and out of a bara rush deck most often would back fire on and benifit an opponent. Baratheon has the weakest (as highlighted above) 0-1 cost in house locations, making this non limited would have caught them up, but not put them over the top. GJ w/ a flop of 2x Iron Mines or Martell w/ a flop of 2x Orphan of the Greenblood or Lanni w/ a flop of 2x lion's gate, or even targ w/ 1x shivering sea and Xaro's home easily matches if not exceeds a flop of 2x Seat of Power.

I guess we'll find out.

If one of you guys with the new chapter pack gets a chance to post some more cards from it, I (and probably many others as well) would really appreciate it.

Just wnated to note that after several weeks of actually palying with this lcoation: it is MONEY for Baratehon. I am clearly seeing an acceleration of threats in the rush deck and (anecdotally) I have seen more players playing Baratheon than at any time since midway through 5K when Brothers decks and Jaquen/vigilant dekcs were the rage.

Seat of Power is the all star from the first CP - by far.

I just got it, and have to say it is amazing. I am starting to even play some some out-of-house cards since the gold curve went up so high to help w/ draw and more control of my own (Khal Drogo...).

The dupe guy is REALLY strong as well. A good pack from Bara to be sure.

Wow - that new Khal does work better OOH in Baratheon than he does in Targ, doesn't he? That is a GOOD idea.

I'm still not in the OOH mindset yet - Alliance still only one Plot, so you're covered once every seven turns and i don't think there's enough gold to let your hand get cluttered up with OOH stuff. Targ used to be really good at this - as recently as 5K, but I'd be nervous geting too crazy with it at the moment.

Again though - new Khal really does work out of Baratheon - but it makes my inner Ned sick to admit it.

Stag Lord said:

Wow - that new Khal does work better OOH in Baratheon than he does in Targ, doesn't he? That is a GOOD idea.

I'm still not in the OOH mindset yet - Alliance still only one Plot, so you're covered once every seven turns and i don't think there's enough gold to let your hand get cluttered up with OOH stuff. Targ used to be really good at this - as recently as 5K, but I'd be nervous geting too crazy with it at the moment.

Again though - new Khal really does work out of Baratheon - but it makes my inner Ned sick to admit it.

Yeah, I never really understood why Targ is associated with the power challenge. Honestly, I can't see the house associated with any challenge type, at least not to the degree that Stark is military, Bara is power, and Martell is intrigue. (This is the problem with cycle cards like the Fury plots...they try to match a house to a mechanic that sometimes doesn't fit at all.) I guess there's a fine line between printing cards like this that attempt to strengthen a house's affiliation with the mechanic and printing cards that end up wasted. I'm glad this one is playable, but I'm not sure I'd play it over ambush Drogo in most decks unless I have a deckbuild that can beat Bara and Stark in power challenges (at least every once in awhile when I really need it). If I can't do that, this is going to be a wasted card too often to make it work.

I don't know, as the only Great House other than Baratheon to have a sitting King of Westeros within living memory, I find power icons for Targaryen to be rather fitting.

***Possible Spoiler***

Kennon said:

I don't know, as the only Great House other than Baratheon to have a sitting King of Westeros within living memory, I find power icons for Targaryen to be rather fitting.

Yeah, I don't mean in terms of flavor; I mean more in terms of synergy with all the house's current cards. If we look at flavor though, there's probably an argument to be made that every house (except perhaps Martell) should have a strong power element. Certainly Lanni has more power in the books than dothraki/Targ, who have to buy or take everything they control. Stark has quite a bit of power in the books too...at least in the first book.

I think they had to fit Targ somewhere. And since they had an open spot for power, they decided to give it to them as one of their themes. gui%C3%B1o.gif

But it is definitely true that Targ doesn't really play like a house that is focused on the power challenge (definitely not to the extent Bara is).

Yeah this new location seems very powerful to me. I expect to see 3 of them in many competitive Baratheon decks.

I still primarily play standard format (ITE onwards) and in that format the fact that it reduces cards rather than characters is a big plus. Storm's End, Highgarden & Seduced by the Rose are all very nice cards that are usually difficult to fit in due to their cost.

Wow - Seat of Power is **** near broken in an ITE and up environment. Freaking Robert's Wine Cellar - those giant armies, plus access to the good Kingdom income producers.

ITE would have rotated by now - but this is what can happen when older sets are mingled with newer stuff. You get horribly broken effects - its kind of why as far as I am cioncerned, staright up, non Legacy Classic holds very little appeal.

Yes and No. Legacy Classic has access to all kinds of overpowered cards, but it's hard to get them all into one deck and and create synergy. Besides, your opponent has access to the same number of overpowered cards.

Figured that would get you out of the woodwork, kevin.

Yeah no - I was tlaking about staright Classsic - x of everyhting. i think that might well be pretty non enjoyable at this point - I think it wold eb all about getting teh msot broken combo in palce, adn i wouldn't wnat to screw around with that fomrat. plsu i don't even knwo if I still ahev all my Classic era cards anymore.