Things seem a little quiet around here... too quiet. So I'll throw out another topic of conversation.

In general, people seem to be feeling that the LCG card pool has filled out over the last 12-18 months pretty nicely. There are more options for deckbuilding and some depth of one type or another to all the Houses. Enough that there has been some recent discussion on House personalities, strengths and weaknesses that have gone beyond the obvious. But there are some things that still come up frequently as "missing." For example:

- Attachment control (outside of Targ)

- Plot cancel

- Shadows control/reset

- Draw (still; there are more options, but people cite that it can be a serious effort to make them work - outside of Lanni)

- Key uniques

- Difficulty in building trait-themes decks

All of these, and others, seem to represent the various thorns in our sides. They can be mechanics, "answers" you wish you had, additional flavor from the books, one particular card, whatever.

So what is the one biggest thorn in your side when it comes to building and playing your decks? And what is your dream to "remove" it?

My biggest dream is to have more thems deck. FFG announcing Lords of Winter lets me hope cause I'm a Stark/Greyjoy player.

I plays all house at the moment except Lannister that in my opinion are very boring to play... when a themed Tyrion/clansman deck will be available I'll play also them :-)

I think each houses have a strengh... so I don't want that ALL houses can have attach control, all houses have easy draw... but I don't want also that only one house has all ;-)

I really have to say draw. Outside of Lanni, no other house has access to reliable draw without devoting a substantial chunk of the deck, and in many cases this also means lots of combos (using seasons, shadows, come into play effects, etc.).

More than anything, this is what ensures that Lanni remains tier-1, if not dominant, while other houses tend to struggle...other than perhaps one build for each house (GJ winter, Targ shadows, etc.).

EDIT: I'm still trying to figure out where Bara fits in. It feels like it almost has the pieces to make rush viable, but it lacks some late-game draw to make it work (I think), unless you count Renly. Bara control (especially shadow-based control) is coming together too but feels like it still isn't quite there.

I've always thought that every house should have a way of dealing with every type of card, but that the ease at which they are able to trigger those effects should vary in difficulty based upon the strengths and weaknesses of each house. There is nothing I hate more in this game than looking across the table at a card that is killing me, and knowing that even if I drew my entire deck in the next draw phase, there would still be nothing I could do about it. Of course, whether or not I have any actual skill in deck building is up for debate, and perhaps I need to look OOH for such options more often than I do now.

As for what I think the card pool most needs... I'm going to have to say more themes for each house. They add flavor to the game, and allow people to play certain houses without feeling like they have to play build X in order to compete.

I'm not greedy. I only wish Stark has something like Longship Iron Victory.

I'm pretty new to this game, but the main problem that I can see right now is the lack of draw for some houses.

Besides that, I'm glad that there is not much attachment control except in Targ - that differentiates the houses so they have different strengths and weaknesses - a very good thing IMO.

Draw however is very important to a game like this. If one house can consistently outdraw another house without much difficulty - they will have a big advantage. I think that is the main thing - drawing cards should be as easy or as difficult to obtain for all the houses.

So when a house like Lannister has many easily accessible draw sources (tooth mines, insidious, tommen, gold cloaks) - it becomes complicated .

Lack of neutral draw. Lannister will alwyas be on top until this is addressed. They won't use the neutral stuff becuase their In house solutions will be more efficient, but it will SO help the other Houses.

Plot cancel (and more event cancel) are close seconds and thirds in my mind - everything else is secondary. attachment control woudl be Ok, shadows control woudl be nice - but noether of those are really unbalanced at the moment.

I'm going to buck the trend here and say that I do not want easy and reliable card draw for every house. I've already watched theme after theme be stripped from my house of choice- I'm a little loathe give away another. That's not to say that I don't want there to be options for the other houses. I just don't feel that it should be as good or consistent. At the moment I feel the ravens/Samwell draw and shadows/King's Landing methods are pretty close to where things should be, especially when coupled with the couple draw or similar effects floating around for each house. If you want to draw a a lot of cards in a house that does no feature that as a strength, then you have to be willing to build for it.

Related though is that there just aren't any neutral attachment control cards available. I don't want every house to have options better than Targaryen who feature it as a theme, but I do want something halfway decent to be available. At the moment, my best option is..... run Maester Cressen out of house? The must be some Mummer's Trick type card that would fit into the not as good but still useful category.

I like houses having different strengths and weaknesses. I also like each house having its own way to answer various problems though. For example, I like that Targ has Mad King's Legacy because Targ is the attachment house and should be able to handle attachments pretty well. Other houses have access to Let My Porridge Fly which is not as easy to use as Mad King's Legacy but does give other houses, especially Lannister, a fairly good way to discard attachments. I'd like to see different mechanisms for other houses as well (maybe for Stark an event that can be played if an opponent has a character killed or for Greyjoy one that can only be played after you win an unopposed challenge).

I like the card pool a lot at this point and really just want to see more cards and themes to allow for more diverse decks. Right now, what really bothers me while I'm playing is the dependence of certain cards on the use of a specific other set of cards to be balanced.

For example, cards like Shadows Robert and Shadows Sansa. I suppose that if the Shadows crest continues to see moderate support that I will have to get used to cards like these (since complaining about them will be equivalent to complaining about any other character that is a little too strong but can be answered by appropriate character control), but playing with/against those cards with someone without access to Shadows cards just generates a negative player experience for me (it feels like "my deck is better than yours because I've acquired more cards").

What bothers me more than those Shadows cards though (because Shadows cards are becoming prevalent enough that they are not such a big deal) is the immunity of the ravens. I really wish they had some built in answer. For example, I think it might have been fair for them to have a triggered response that would shuffle them back into their owner's deck if the owner had lost three challenges in one round (and this response could be triggered by any player). Something like that would at least give any given LCG deck a chance of changing the season against a dedicated seasons deck. I know that they're not going to errata the ravens, but that would have been my ideal solution. As it is now, you have to put Carrion Bird into every deck if you want to be able to control the season. This fact bothers me especially because, given the general assessment that draw options are limited for most houses in LCG, the Kings of Summer agenda is one of the most powerful draw engines if you can keep it Summer (which is pretty painless to set up and maintain if your opponent has no birds/ravens in his deck). I think it's poor design for one card (or two if you count White Raven in addition to Carrion Bird) to be so necessary. So, since it appears from Defenders of the North that the seasons mechanic is going to continue to get new support cards, I'd like to see some more (raven-traited) seasons control options.

Kennon said:

For reference purposes, what other themes were stripped from Lannister?

And in my opinion, draw should not be a theme for any house. Lanni has the kneel theme along with high gold and powerful on intrigue going on for them. It's the draw that's the problem. And I agree with you, there shouldn't be easier ways for the other houses to draw. Draw should be hard to achieve - for all houses.

I would like to see some more draw. It doesn't necessarily have to be neutral draw, though that would be best, because it would represent the least impact on card design. I always felt that Watching the Heavens was a well balanced card. I don't often (if ever) call for reprints- but if it aint broke don't fix it. Massing at Twilight was the original no-brainer draw event...and I felt that Watching was a really nice fix. It gave any house the ability to draw up to the cap in a round if they were willing to devote the resources. If people are worried about recycling the event and abusing the draw, make it deathbound.

I am one that agrees with those that say Lanni draw has become a bit "no-brainer." I am all for having draw being a part of their strategic theme...but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have to work a bit for it. "After you reveal a plot card, draw a card" is just too simple. Where's the resource investment?

Kennon said:

Did I understand correctly that you play Lannister? What about Fury of the Lion, Let My Porridge Fly and Compelled by the Rock?

BTW Zealous Collector these days is quite playable.

I think its more that lanni has too much draw. In some ways i'd rather they ban some more lanni draw cards then try to make the other houses compete.

I dislike neutral draw primarily because if its any good it becomes an auto-include. Thats three less cards I get to choose for my deck. And yes if you want to make a deck that is competitive there are just certain cards that you have NO choice in the matter for putting in your deck.

bloodycelt said:

My experience with the game and cards is limited for sure, but I definitely would agree with this sentiment from what I've seen.

Here's a thought, if everyone wants better draw let's just bring back Seal of the Lion and everyone can run it out of house.

Uniques and trait based theme decks are the things I most want to see. It does nothing necessarily for the mechanics of the game itself, but it provides such a rich and enjoyable experience in the building and playing of decks. I'd love to see each House have a side House than can do some of the things that house is weak in. Take Stark. Back in the day Boltons had some of their best intrigue icons and even had a draw thing going on. How awesome would it be to have attachment control and power icons in Martell in the form of House Uller or something? Though I suppose Martell is really not lacking for power icons the way it used. In this case maybe they need attachment control and saves (because keeping it Summer and discarding cards from hand to keep a character in play is a ridiculous amount of work when compared to every other House).

This would allow them to kill two birds with one stone. Give some added thematic depth to the Houses and help tweak the House balances a little. This is a brilliant game but I will never forgive Eric or Casey Galvin for allowing Lannister gold and draw as house themes. Not to mention the ridiculous synergy with its kneel. They need a whole cycle with no kneel at all. Find something else to let them much around with for six packs while everyone else's themes mature.

Oh wait! Can I change my biggest thorn?

How about finding a use for the Learned crest? Even the Holy crest could use some help, although it has a 1 or 2 things going for it.

Deathjester26 said:

Well, the usefulness of crests in general is a bit sparse in the LCG environment. Very, very few cards interact with them. They are almost completely below the radar for most players, imho.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned my particular thorn, but then, I kind of loaded the topic against my biggest frustration - because it isn't a mechanic or a card theme. My biggest thorn is the continued absence of an organized play program (including a ranking system) that would encourage more competitive play.

My thorn would be lacking joust versions of the various search plots (character, location, attachment). We have the LCG versions for characters and locations, but they are melee focused and allow an opponent to search as well. In general, I don't like playing plots that help my opponent as well, especially in Joust.

Second is not really a thorn, but something that would make me happy. I want to see cards for Lyana Stark and Howland Reed. I've thought about them and even have ideas for their text. For Lyana I'd give her "attacking Lords do not count their strength when she defends" to reflect how Robert and Rhaegar fought over her. She seemed to have a profound influence on powerful men. She'd have the "lady" trait and I'd give her intrigue and power icons, probably 2 strength. Howland would read, "+1 strength to Eddard while he's in play" or my favorite idea, "Kneel Howland to save Eddard from being discarded or killed" to reflect how he helped Eddard surive his encounter with Arthur Dayne. Yep. I'd love these cards. Howland would be 3 strength, military and power icons, house Reed trait and ally.

I'd like attachment control for all houses, but don't feel it should be as effective as Targ's version. I just feel each house should have at least some in house or worst case neutral way of dealing with attachments. I'd also like draw for all houses to be improved. I think draw capability should be balanced for all. Sam is nice with his birds, but I'd like to see something like "Massing at Twilight" or "Watching the Heavens". Draw in neutral event form like this can be used for any house, thus not ruining balance for any of them when compared to the others.

That's about it. In general, love the LCG and all the work that has gone into making it what it is so far. Look forward to whatever comes next.

Zsa, Haha, no problem. I'm a little too lazy to type out the entire history lesson, but essentially Lannister has formerly had Plot manipulation which was eventually decided as bad for the game, then event cancel was too strong for Lannister so it was moved to Greyjoy and Martell so character ability cancel was given to them, now that appears to have been dropped. They were once the kings of stealth before it was moved elsewhere, and they had an interesting challenge manipulation theme that seems to have been dropped. And those are just the things that I recall being actively mentioned as Lannister themes in Designer Journals and the like of years past. That doesn't cover the themes that they appeared to get for a time and then fade away that were unannounced like dominance and power discard. *shrug* That's not to say that things don't shift somewhat over time or that other houses haven't lost things (Baratheon lost burn to Targaryen for instance) but Lannister has had the largest rate of themes deliberately moved elsewhere. Perhaps that's why we don't get cards for Lannister that do anything other than kneel- there's nothing left in their repertoire.

Rogue30- Lannister is my favorite house for sure, but I honestly don't think I've touched that deck in a few months. I've been playing Greyjoy and Martell lately.

On the general topic though, I don't feel that every house should have equal draw. If we go down that route then we just ban all cards that draw and everyone gets the standard 2 per turn with nothing else. No, I want houses to have unequal abilities to draw, to save, to rush, to kill. I do want there to be possibilities for each in each house and for there tho be some neutral options- even pretty good ones (good grief, have you watched King's Landing in action? There's a Stark deck in our meta that draws more consistently from that thing than I do with generic Lannister)- but equality in ability like that isn't really what I'm looking for.

As the unbalance in draw seems to be such a hot topic, I thought I'd throw some more fuel into the fire.

I'm quite stronly against 'watering down' the card pool so that all houses have access to powerful draw abilities. As I feel that this way the game would just degenerate to all players drawing 4-5 cards per turn. This changes the power structure of the game considerably by weakening military characters, emphasizing events, making weenies too powerful, emphasizing Valar etc.

My solution to the problem would be to give the houses lacking in draw (at least Stark and Baratheon, maybe GJ) better weapons against draw. For example somekind of draw cancel, as we were seeing in the form of the Iron Throne in King's Landing.

Examples:

Winter Watchtower - Cost: 1, House Stark, Location, House Stark Only, Response: Kneel Winter Watchtower to cancel a triggered effect that would allow a player to draw one or more cards, use this ability only if it is winter.

Iron Island Watchtower - Cost 1, House Greyjoy, Location, House Greyjoy Only, Response: Kneel Iron Island Watchtower to discard three cards from the top of a player's deck. Use this ability only after a player triggers an effect allowing him/her to draw one or more cards.

Tourneyground Tower - Cost 1, House Baratheon, Location, House Baratheon Only, Response: Kneel Tourneyground Tower to draw a card and force target player to discard a card from his hand. Use this ability only after a player triggers an effect allowing him/her to draw one or more cards.

These are purely examples I dreamed up quickly (I'm pretty sure the texts have some formulation problems, and some of the locations might have to cost 2), but I really feel there's a whole load of different solutions to this problem, and just giving all houses more draw is the most boring of them. The Stark idea here is a bit Greyjoy-ish, but goes together with cancel-Eddard and Jeyne Poole, making Stark a house that has non-surprising cancel abilites seems like a plausible development direction. The GJ location might be underpowered, but could serve to power mill decks (which seems to be a direction the game is developing in). The Baratheon location is perhaps the most solid of these three, but it allows the opponent to choose the card to be discarded, giving them the opportunity to cycle their deck to find that right card that they need.

All of these make drawing less fun/free for draw-heavy decks, forcing your opponent to think twice about using their draw effects.

So, whadda ya think?

EDIT: The card texts should possibly be revised so that they also work on non-triggered effects such as Golden Tooth Mines, didn't remember that it wasn't a triggered effect...

Hehe, thanks for the history lesson Kennon

And yeah, you don't necessarily have to give all the other houses alternatives as good as Lanni draw. Like Drakey mentioned, you can make it harder for the opponent to draw as well (one neutral example would be the wildling wisewoman that we saw a preview of for the wildling horde cp).

I would like to see some cards besides the Red Keep that provide more than 1 influence. I've mentioned this before, but it is my biggest issue. We're starting to see more cards that require 2 or more influence to trigger Joffrey and Red Vengeance come immediately to mind and we've got dozens of cards that provice 1 influence, so I need to have at least two influence cards on the table to trigger an effect that only uses influence (and yes, Joffrey at least can use nobles for his effect). I wouldn't necessarily mind if some of these multi-influence providers were house specific Doran's Palanquin, iirc, was a 4 influence provider that was Martell only, and the Pentoshi Palace was X influence for Targ, where X was the number of Dothraki you controlled. Bringing back similar mechanics would work just fine with me; Starfall could very well provide X influence, keyed off the number of House Dayne characters you controlled.

I don't have huge issues with draw at present, though I think that is the biggest issue with older players, as draw used to be easy and plentiful. And I like how the game's search and draw plots give the bonus to your opponent as well. The only card I run that benefits us both is The Dragon's Tail, and when you look at a card like that, the draw cap can actually be your friend. If we just want to allow for crazy card draw the answer is simple unban Pyromancer's Cache. But after I realized the reason that this card was banned was to control the over-abundance of draw, I don't have as big a problem with it. If your opponent is consistenly outdrawing you, start running Rule by Decree. I know I should put that in more of my decks.

A few things I'd like to see added to the game are a few more cancels (I think this may be one of the reason Greyjoy tends to be more dominant), more reasons for staying "House Pure," and bringing out more uniques. I'd also like to see Keeper of Oaths reprinted. Even though there are only a handful of cards that allow an opponent to take control of your cards, there should be a way for you to get them back. KoO was in every single one of my decks, because he was a solid character with an ability that I may need. The only other card I'd really, truly love to have back in the game is Holding Tactics for me perhaps the best recursion card ever.

Love the discussion.

One thing to keep in mind in a competitive sense is that such a limited draw means you see so little of your deck, as things stand in AGoT. This means the game is much more random. A player takes great care to create a nice, balanced, brilliant deck, then over half his cards he never sees. That is not a wise mechanic, imho. Especially, if, in a "competitive" environment, you are not playing, at the least, best of 3 or 5.

Also, a poster above mentioned that a house should have a way of dealing with every other house's specialties, and I whole-heartedly agree. One must always be careful about a rock-scissors-paper mentality taken too far. All too often, in these customizable games (miniature and card alike), where you are blindly getting matched up to another player, it can happen that you simply run into a rock when you brought scissors, or, more often, you're sporting a rockish-scissorful-paperly deck that in theory should give you a chance against all comers but in reality does not fare well against a true rock or scissor or paper deck. Devs often fall into this trap of "house X has house Y's counter". The fact that this "mono" deck", for lack of a better term, does not fare well against its achillies heel found elsewhere in the environment does little to assuage the player who randomly got matched up against it. Being a newish player, but not new to games, I can only guess from what I have read and the amount that I have played that AGoT is a bit guilty of this 'problem' - though less guilty than so many other games.

One of the Team Fortress 2 devs talks about this in an interview; he stated that the goal was to have class-based combat, but even if one found himself in a room with a 'bad' match-up, skillful play, along with maximizing weaknesses/enhancing strengths, could make any class beat any other. This is the goal in design, as I see it (and I cannot say for certain if TF2 achieved his stated goal, but it seemed to in my plays). AGoT (and certainly W:I) do well in that there is a lot of "playing" involved, in addition to "building." But even so, I feel my concerns stated above still stand, and should always be worked on.

Another small thorn for me is the long playing time of a melee. It seems excessive for a card game. I wonder if the total power to win should be lowered? As it stands, I would prefer to play an epic, conquer the world board game in the time it often takes to play a thoughtful melee.

Rheingold

I already gave my answer to the opening post, but I wanted to chime in on the draw discussion. One of the things I really enjoy about this game is the generally low power level of the cards as whole (compared to Magic for me, but I also gather that the power level is low compared to the CCG incarnation). The weaker cards lead to longer games in which more distinct cards have an impact and overall things feel more epic like the books (as long as the two decks are balanced). The problem is that in a long game where all the cards of relatively equal power one side has a huge advantage if it is incrementally drawing more cards over the course of the game. I'm fine with Lannister being a bit better than the other houses, but I think that sources of card advantage should be relatively equal amongst houses. Right now, I'd say Lannister's draw is a bit better than what the other houses can employ to maintain card parity (eg stuff like Xaro's Home and LDC in Targ or Bear Island in Stark). I think I'd prefer to see something like Golden Tooth Mines banned rather than all the other houses' draw options ramped up.

A player takes great care to create a nice, balanced, brilliant deck, then over half his cards he never sees. That is not a wise mechanic, imho.

[/quote ]

But from an enjoyment perspective, this makes a single deck much more replayable.

Also, Rheingold, I agree that silver bullets often fail to live up to their jobs of maintaining a certain balance in the metagame. For example, By the Light of the Sun is the neutral Shadows answer card, but it is totally dead against a deck without Shadows, so much so that you would never run the card unless you reasonably sure that most to all of your opponents had Shadows cards (or your deck had a particular vulnerability to one of the recursive Shadows cards). I think answer cards need to be more versatile than that.

(EDIT: Well, I tried to get the

to work, but I guess I failed).