This weeks card of the week article seems very on topic to the forums....odd

Its looking at Bara's "Supersonic" (their term, ~I wonder how many airplanes they've seen.....) rush ability and how Sallador's Crew (you know, that card that Stag and I love so much in the newest CP...) really ramps it up.

So, lets take a look at the premise, what they use to support it, and then point out the truths, the flaws, and game-play realities...

Rightly so, they state that "one of House Baratheon's prime strengths is Renown and a strong spread of the Power icon. Among the veteran players of AGoT, the combination of the two comes together to form a strategy often called the Baratheon Rush." They article maintains that this road is paved by Baratheon's, I would say supposed, ability to bring characters out quickly with the reducers they have available to them.

After making this statement the focus is shifted to the characters w/ renown and the ability to get them on the table and keep them there. The power icon is pretty much ignored from that point on. It might be because the character they are 'spoiling' doesn't have a power icon, or it might be that they just wanted to limit the length of article.

They provide a list of, what I am assuming they see as the key characters with renown. They list four; "Robert Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Melisandre, Knight of Flowers." This list comprises over half (4 out of 7.5) of the number of in house characters you can get on the table at once. Despite there only being three others (Brienne, Joffery, and Army of the Faithful) with renown and one other with renown in Power Challenges (Arena Knight). Average Cost of this 7.5 forms of renown? 4.4 Gold/renown. That is a big investment.

One way to perhaps minimize that investment is to use cheaper neutral options with renown. counting Jon Snow's and Ghost's Pseudo renown there are 5 options (Jon Arryan, Ser Berristen Selmy, and Former Champ). average cost per renown = 3.2 Gold. So, while this might be a way to alleviate the cost the Article disregards them and instead focuses on ways to make the in house characters cheaper. Not a bad idea per se. Since the article disregards neutrals in its strategy I will disregard using them to supplement any strategy I discuss.

The article dubs this strategy "Baratheon acceleration," which mean a way of "bringing your characters into play even faster, flooding the board with them before your opponent has enough characters or effects to oppose you effectively in challenges. This is especially strong if you can overwhelm your opponent with enough characters to win unopposed challenges and earn extra power." I will brake this defination down into three parts and address them individually. I will address them in reverse order of their presentation in the definition.

Part I - Enough characters to win unopposed challenges.

The article is implying that if you have more characters then your opponent you will get unopposed challenges. This is wrong. While numerical superiority is a fine way to win a challenge it does not in and of it self lead to unopposed challenges. All it takes is one character to defend a challenge and prevent unopposed. I can have 50 characters on the board, without something more I will not win a single unopposed challenge if my opponent has three characters. What wins unopposed challenges are keywords like stealth and deadly, ways to kneel possible defenders before the challenge, removal of characters from opponents board, or ways to remove icons from characters to make them unable to partake in challenges. Baratheon has very little of these elements available to it. Those that are available are limited and costly.

In terms of keywords, Baratheon has 5 characters w/ stealth, more importantly those of five characters 2 can only particpate in power challenges and only 1 is a tricon. The average cost of those five characters is 2.8, not a bad price, but if we remove the two who only have a power icon, the average cost is 3.66 gold. Deadly might provide a cheaper alternative to stealth outside of power challenges, but not in Baratheon. There is 1 character with deadly in house and costs 4 gold.

In terms of kneel, Baratheon has 1 card, Kingswood Trail that can kneel an opponents character and 1 card, The Black Cells that can prevent them from being knelt to participate in a challenge. They are both shadows cards and require a 2 gold commitment to place into shadows with another gold to take them out. While by themselves they might be acctative, in game play situations where you are spending 4.4gold per renown you are rarely going to have the 2 gold needed to put them into shadows during Marshalling and might even be stretched to have the one gold to bring them out. You would be better off with Distraction or even Parting Blow, however this is still only 2 cards, both with limitations, and not enough to ensure early unopposed challenges so not ideal for "supersonic" speeds.

Baratheon has no direct kill, nor discard (nor even the influence base to risk westeros bleed), and no way to remove icons.

Unopposed challenges are not the purveyance of Baratheon. While they can be nice, there is nothing in house that really ensures you will achieve them.

Part II - Before your opponent has enough characters or effects to oppose you

I think that the basis of this argument is not only to advocate the main premise of using reducers to bring out characters but to strengthen the point addressed in Part I. As noted above, all it takes is 3 characters to defend, so realistically an opponent would need 4 on the board with 3 icons to prevent you from claiming any non renown power in the challenge. However, I think that this is a good time to draw in a subtheme of the article, protection of key characters.

The article rightly points to a flaw or fragile aspect of Baratheon Rush when it points out the fragile and almost temporary nature of characters in the game. The article is shortsighted when it talks about dangers and forms of protection as it only focuses on kill and discard. Two of the biggest nemesis to a rush deck are kneel and icon removal. A third form of character control that the article does not handle is burn, an almost un-savable form of kill.

Kneel and icon removal are devestating to Baratheon rush because they target the renown characters, can be just as fast as Baratheon, and only need to target one to two characters a turn. Kneel is the more devastating as it is more easily repeated, combos off of other kneel, and requires less of a resource base to trigger. Icon removal while less repeatable is in a house that has almost equal access to renown and are geared toward making life miserable to attackers during challenges. So while you are putting a lot of characters on the table odds are that only 1 in 3 (generously) will have renown and will need to be addressed by your opponents characters or effects.

Part III - Bringing your characters into play even faster

The article acknowledges that the traditional use of resources is not a good way to speed up a Baratheon deck; they say "you might end up packing your deck with resource locations (Stormlands Fiefdoms, Aegon's Garden, etc.) in order to increase your gold pool and bring more characters into play and actually slow yourself down since the cards you really want to draw in a rush deck are characters, not locations. Moreover, because most resource locations are limited, drawing too many of them might mean that they just hang out in your hand."

Its prescription for this issue? Reducers, specifically Seat of Power and the new Sallador's Crew.

Seat of Power is an interesting option. For 0 gold you get to reduce the next Baratheon Character you play by 3 gold. Since most of the cards highlighted have a cost of 3+ gold this appears to be appealing. There are 2 issues I have with this as a solution. The first, in order to avoid kneeling/ icon removal issue addressed above you need more then 1 renown character a turn. The second, in order to get them out you need to other resources. Now Seat of Power is Limted, an issue the article addressed with traditional resources, but ignores when discussing Seat of Power. While, Seat of Power can replace things like Aegon's Garden and Stormlands Fiefdom it does not add to them so you are still going to run into the problem of 'drawing too many of them might mean that they just hang out in your hand." Furthermore its a one time use card so you are weakening your position for the following round every time you use it. The article does try to make up for its limited trait by telling the reader to run black ravens and summer port. There are two flaws to this plan. One is that if you draw summer port before black raven then it is useless, which is not good for speed decks as you need to have somehting be useful when it hits the table. The other is that black ravens can be removed easily by carrion birds thus rendering your location base and perhaps your first plot choice useless.

One way around that might be plot based gold, yet there are only two plots with 5 gold that Baratheon has access too and often times 4 gold is about 1 gold too short even with a reducer. What amuses me the most is that the Article says that seat of power allows you to "play really expensive cards like Army of the Faithful." Army of the faithful costs 6 gold, getting it in for 3 gold doesn't do a whole lot to help the 4.4 gold average. Lets assume that you have 3x of Army of the Faithful in you deck and are able to get it in to play for 3 gold each time you play it, then lets assume that you have the four mentioned by name renown characters in the above list the article provided, "Robert Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Melisandre, Knight of Flowers." Army of the Faithfull at 3 gold per turn with those 7 renown characters able to be played to the table is still an average gold cost of 3.4 gold per renown so the cost to play 2 renown characters a turn even w/ seat of power is 6.8 gold. Army of the Faithful is not the way to make use out of Seat of Power

Sallador's Crew

This is perhaps the silliest part of the article. It suggests that the way to reduce costs is by playing a 4 gold character w/out renown. The article attempts to justify this cost with the following phrase. "Yes, Salladhor's Crew is kind of expensive at 4 gold, but given the massive 3 gold discount they provide, that up-front cost is mere peanuts if you're holding a decent Baratheon character in your hand, preferably one with renown." Remember the average cost is above 4 gold for a renown character so odds are you will need at least 5 gold to implement this strategy. Again there are only 2 plots w/ five gold so these will most likely be the only two characters you play that turn and only one has renown (easy choice to kneel/icon remove). The article ties in Seat of Power again to reduce the cost of Sallador's Crew by 3, therefore making you only need 2 gold for those two characters. However, you will still mot likely only be playing one renown character as you still need on average 4 gold for the second. Yes, you might be able to play Renly and a Robert that turn, but you have used 4 cards to do so and have cut your resources down for the following turn and still need to protect both of them. Its a tough situation that reducing doesn't add to. The article brings up Royal entourage, a fine card, but not the solution as it doesn't alleviate any of the problems addressed above. With Seat of Power, Sallador's Crew, Renly, Robert, and Royal Entourage and a 4 gold plot you will play four characters. Robert will be controlled, Renly will have 1 power on him and Salldor's Crew or Royal Entourage might win you dominance for a grand total of 2 power. At that "supersonic" rate you will win the game in 7.5 turns...

Part IV - Solutions

As I have said elsewhere, the better solution is to be give Baratheon access to better lower cost characters. If you insist on making reduction a theme, let them have something behind that one renown character a turn. Baratheon's 0-2 gold slot is spare and not as swiss-army knife like as most other houses.

The article brings up the universal solution of draw and search, but it is in passing, and with an inefficient form of search. It states, "Of course, apart from lowering costs, it is also handy in a rush deck to draw more cards and search your deck for the ones you need (see Herald of the Stag, Sacred Bonds F54)." Search in Rush cannot bring to the top of the deck, it needs to be more immediate then that. The search plots are also inneficient for rush as it allows the opponent to get a delay tactic.

If either Seat of Power or Salldor's Crew said "draw 2 cards" instead of reduce they might be more of a boon to Baratheon.

Excellent analysis. You summarize well why Salladhor's Dudes really don't accelerate the rush at all given the resource curve in this game - we can disagree about Seat of Power, I really feel the 0 for (-) 3 ratio makes this a must include and a legitimate accelerant. The limited thing isn't a factor - one on the flop and you'll this over other limited lcoations any Marshalling you draw them and be happy about it.

Just a little more draw, just a little more standing and maybe some sort of limited immunity - and Bara rush will be a serious contender. Right now I think its just a little bit short.

All in all though - excellent analysis and rebuttal of the original article's premeses.

Pretty much agree with your analysis. While I think the crew is not a bad card, it doesn't do much for a rush -type build. Might be decent in a more control-oriented deck - Similarly to Throne of Power really helping to kickstart a shadow-based control Baratheon, as shadow-control is quite cumbersome to get moving otherwise. Then again, it's still just another 4 gold char, which forces you to play another high-cost character that turn as well...

Good popints drakey.....and to folow up: since when is extending out three or more charatcers in one Marshalling - only one of which has renown (Salladhor's dudes+renown guy+army that keys off noble) a GOOD Idea? Yes - after a reset, but Baratheon rush wnats the game over before the reset- and certainly isn;t running one of their own.

Like drakey says though - if a clever Bara player was running some sort of control deck or delayed rush deck - where you hit on Plot Six or later for teh rush, then thi8s guy gets a lot better.

But does delayed rush work? How does baratehon keep from getting controlled and owned Plots 1-4?

I don't know what else were going to see for Bara, but I do notice that it specifies Bara card and not just character. If we do get something like RWC back, that would nice. But seriously, rather than looking for hate... why not consider it a 1 gold 3 STR bicon. Yes, you need the ability to pay/reduce for 4, but you get 3 back instantaneously. Rather than a ORP, you have this dude.

I'm not trying to soft sell he's deficiencies, but what do you want... yes, I'm sure piles of draw would be everyone's in house request, but look at Storm Dancer for the hoops Stark has to jump through. And we all know that balancing rush has got to be mindnumbing. One slightly too strong card and we face bannings to avoid an overly reliable 2nd turn win. :/

Maester_LUke said:

i asked f or it already. ~or are those cards unrealistic because they garantee a 2nd turn win?

Maester_LUke said:

I'd take storm dancer in Bara in a second. give me a card a turn and a chance for 3 cards with a little luck/work.....amen!

Maester_LUke said:

because ORP is better. I don't need a bicon with 3 STR. I need either something to protect, add to, or in case they miss to the big 4. ORP = ultimate chump blocker. I also need some other keywords. Oh, and I can get Orp out on the flop.

Maester_LUke said:

I think i've been asking for it. I don;t want reducers I want weenies that help the deck while in play not help me get out one more fragile character

Maester_LUke said:

Its funny that they only worry about making rush expensive/balanced in bara. Martell has a 5 gold immune tricon w/ renown and the inheriet abilty to not kneel on attack. They also have a self standing come into play for free renown character, a claim raiser, ways to remove character from challenges, a non-unique stealth and kneel in one package providing location, and a renown character that doesn't kneel if you have draw w/ ways to draw and avoid draw cap.

In all the cutting up for quotes I lost the 'card' not just 'character' comment. However, show me a 3 cost bara non character card that helps rush (as the article put Sally's Crew as a rush inhancer)? The closest 2 that I see are 2 costed (so I've over paid for SC) and contigent (claw isle, need to have power on opponents house card hasn't made a bara deck in a while for me as its tough enough to make sure he has 1 on his house card for power challenge) and King Robert's hammer which gets rendered usless against either season. The only 3 cost non character (according to Rouge's database) is musteryard....

I also missed the fact that he can reduce all baratheon cards, that helps a bit. Although, Mustering Yard really IS the only Bara 3 gold cost non-character. =) Plus it's a King's Landing (didn't notice that before). Now if it only weren't useless... But he can be used in more control-based builds, that possibly like to use 2 gold attachments (winter with Burning Swords, Hunting Spear) or 2 gold control locations (although, Claw Isle and the Hammer are the only 2 locations that aren't shadow).

Still, the fact that you can't flop him makes him more than a bit of a liability. Add both these and Entourage's in your deck in place of cheap chars and you'll be really relying on luck to give you a good flop. Like I said, for a control or pseudo-control Baratheon, he's 'ok', but for rush... err... =)

Perhaps we should just cut out the reference to power rush in the article. Were it not for some possibly inaccurate labeling in the beginning, would you be willing to concede it as a solid card for your house? I know I'd love a 3 STR bicon with a net cost of 1 gold in any of the houses I regularly play.

then whats baras theme a bunch of crappy characters on the board?

like stag said if deleayed rush would work maybe. He might work in w inter control deck, but winter control works so much better out of greyjoy where you have the ability to attack resources. I can;t even run price of war in bara if i wanted to.

Lars said:

If a 1 GOLD, 3 STR vanilla bicon is a crappy character in any house but Stark, ~I feel for you, really there are tears.

Lars said:

If you're going to complain that seasons work better in one house over another, again I'll try to be polite when I say "Shut up and Deal." (Strangely, this was my signoff on the old battletech boards, which had nothing do to decks, cutting or distributing graphite laced cardboard.) Bara should be happy they have the freedom to fiddle with either season, and while I am sad about the Hammer's refurb, I still find the distribution of effects to be lop-sided in effectiveness... and Bara hardly finished worst.

Bara rush can't work.

Unfair Bara perma-steal

How my head doth spin

I should be happy that I have the flexibility to try out multiple themes that don't work well or at all in my house, that because it tries to squeeze three or four things into a limited number of choices that I should not get annoyed when I get yet another card that only works with one of those and not the others or simple replaces one version of a card I already have?

Both GJ and bara have a winter theme. GJ has excatly one card that does something for them in Summer in and it still does something positive in WInter. Bara on the other hand has numerous effects that work in winter, another set that works in summer, and then some that don't work in either. Its schizophrenia on crack.

Lanni has some works in summer or winter stuff, but their core theme is so focused and tight that they can choose to run that stuff without bogging down or getting in the way of their theme. I've seen lanni decks throw in White raven, 'just for fun' because they know they will draw into, draw some more, and then be able to play/use their kneel effects. Thats without even comparing cost/effectivness of the effects (i.e. The wall vs. Winter Armada or Summer tax).

Even with a 1 gold 3 STR bicon, what am I going to do with a table full of these guys, royal entourages, and no draw? Meanwhile one of the following is on the board; Robert (rush), Shadow Stalker (winter), Summer Champ (summer), Maergy (Shadows), Knight of flowers (non-Shadows) or Mel (assai/holy); and are knelt, icons are removed, milked, burned, or discarded. sounds like win 2 challenges and have maybe 1 power for dom as there is no way to force an unopposed and i'd need to use 3 of them for something like Make an example. heck in Stark I could at least stand him w/ to be a and get search out of it.

for 1 gold give me house dayne knight (at the minimum) instead. At least I can flop him, or two or three, and not have to worry about my gold levels for turns when I draw him late with an event or a 0 cost location. Saying Sally's Crew is essentially a 1 gold 3 STR bicon is a fallicy and he should not be judged as such.

Ktom, thanks for the addition I guess, maybe you are trying to say potatoes /pahtatoes. Anyway, I'm not asking for the banning of any cards, nor am I even saying the bara rush can't work. I'm saying that in order to focus on anything Baratheon needs a different form of support. When GJ/Matrell weren't around and stark was a few cards less then its current state baratheon's everydeck type ability was okay, now that two of those houses instanously had nice focused themes and targ's able to build focus into the decks (not to mention the continued conflicting addition of themes to bara), bara's everydeck has turned into a no focus or at best a sparse and limited focused deck. Of the cards I think would help only one directly relates to rush and is a 1 str unsave-able character...

Lars said:

No, what I'm trying to say (in haiku form nonetheless - that's for you, Luke) is that one recent conversation complained that Bara has the balance tipped unfairly in their direction with the perma-steal mechanic in general and their Fury plot in particular (to the point that people were saying maybe there shouldn't be any perma-steal in the game). Now this conversation is taking the direction that it doesn't matter what you do with Bara's resource curve, the balance is tipped unfairly away from Bara in that there's not much worth "buying." (Admittedly, an oversimplification of both conversations.)

I get what you're saying about focus in Bara - and to some extent, I even agree. It is not an easy House to work with and people have strong opinions about it that end up being pretty polarized. I was trying to point out the polarization, not say that your comments are off or incorrect.

What I question (and what I think - or hope - Luke is ultimately trying to get at with his "shut up and deal" comment) is whether or not Bara cannot be focused, or whether it simply is difficult to focus. The follow-up question then becomes, if it is just difficult to focus, whether or not is should be easy to focus and if there is a place in the game for a House that is challenging to build and/or work with.

That said, I wish, as a community, we could get away from "I'd like these cards to be reprinted" and more toward "I'd like to see this strategy/mechanic as a crystallization or focal point". I think the discussions are better when we talk about why a card like Vanguard Lancer (low-STR, character-based resource booster with a very synergistic trait for its House) would be welcome instead of how much we would like to see Vanguard Lancer back in the environment. It can be a fine line between those two discussions (how do you practice a rain dance?), but I think we're prone to the reprint discussion rather than the "fill this hole" discussion. Just my personal opinion on that....

ktom said:

I guess where the difficulty, or what I see as the cannot focus is that even w/ Seat of Power my resources early are so limited that w/ valar or a quick control deck (and even w/ power of blood) I'm often staring at few characters after turn 1 or 2, no hand, no way to draw and nothing to look forward to drawing. This is true not just for rush decks its just different (actually slightly better in rush) as i have a way to protect myself with a rush deck. Why I think a different set of weenies will help is that they provide me with a better use of my limited resources especially later in the game when I might draw into two weenies or one and an event. The focus factor comes into play because I can only put in like 5 or 6 individual [theme here] cards and then the rest of the themes don't work well with the other themes. I've tried to mix and match themes, I even had a shadows + Rush deck that tried to be a control early rush late deck, but often I either didn't get enough of the control or the rush got stuck and then lost from my hand or worse get limited rush and draw no control. The deck just bogged on itself and achieved neither of its themes. I've played against an interesting shadows winter deck, but it only winds up fueling GJ winter or realying on so many high costs effects (Shadow Assain being 4 gold for instance) that you can't afford it all still. Then when I try to switch to a 'pure' rush deck it is a kneel away from being stymied as the weenies just don't bring anything to the table.

ktom said:

I used reprints as a quick and dirty example of things that would help. I guess I caould have asked for a few 2 cost guys that provide synrgy with existing mechinics like night watch, influence/initative, more diverse crests. Asked for more friendly, but also late game useful 0-1 costs guys like attachment control, reducing a trait, or kneeling to give renown. Or asked for high risk to reward characters like low cost stealth but discard a bra character. but it was easier to find and point to older cards that would work well in bara currently. I don;t particular care if those specific cards come back, but I would like to see simular effects.

As, being the great double checker I am (~I need an auto-correct feature for life) I just saw that I counted four listed renown guys instead of 5. so, its still over half its just 5 out of 8.5 renown characters for an average of 4 gold, still keeps it in the 1 gold too many zone, now you just dont have to worry about .4 gold.

I agree with Lars' general assessment that Bara rush is still a bit weak. I do not, however, think it is uncompetitive. Finite put together a Bara rush build that gives our local meta headaches (especially the Targ/Martell players). To me, the real weakness seems to be most apparent when...

1. Playing against Lannister. The Bara rush theme really crumbles against heavy control, and especially kneel. (Bara has saves and enough nobles that can't be killed with the Power of Blood, so targeted kill seems to be less of an issue.) On the other hand, Bara is hardly the only house that faces a very tough matchup against Lanni. In fact, Lanni still has a fairly strong matchup against most houses, I think.

2. If one charts the support Bara rush has received since the Core Set, I'd say the trajectory looks pretty good. That is, Bara appears on track to get more support for rush, and possibly also control. They have arguably the strongest cards for both builds (with the vigilant trait, renown, Black Cells, etc.). So all in all, I'm not really worried about Bara, so long as the current trends continue.

So to recap...is a competitive Bara rush deck impossible to build? No. Is it difficult to build? Yes; but so is Targ shadows and several other competitive deck builds. In fact, as others have posted, a rush build that has the potential to end the game by turn 2-3 should be difficult to build, especially in LCG, which has a limited card pool.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I draw contention with claims that Martell and Stark have viable "rush" builds. They certainly have great rush cards that can close out a game, but a "rush" deck cannot be reliant on any one card. (Bara doesn't need Robert out to win quickly...a few other lords/ladies and knights will do the trick just fine.) Just because Stark has Eddard and Martell has the Red Viper doesn't make them houses that can consistently rush. Now maybe they'll get rush support in the next cycle or two, and I'd be happy to see that too. But it really begins to undermine an argument when a post is laced with statements about how Bara's rush isn't unique and it should be much stronger to set them apart from other houses. (I don't mean this to be a rant, though in retrospect it kinda sounds that way. Feel free to ignore, flame, whatever....)

Twn2dn said:

I think Martell can rush as fast as Greyjoy, if not faster. I agree that Stark rush is a joke.

Did I bring up stark rush? I didn't mean to if I did, and if I didn't I missed it when it was brought up.

Martell can easily rush. Harmen Uller, Red Viper, Oakheart, and Darkstar is just as solid if not a more solid rush base then Robert, renly, stannis, and Mel. You have a immune non-kneeling attacker, a come into play for free self standing defender, a draw based non-kneeler on attack, and a character that pops an opponent's character from play. All of them have renown and Martell has good draw, weenie base, character control and ways to manipulate challenges. Heck they could even run power of blood if they wanted to. Lost Oasis is more a rush card then a control card (give uller or red viper stealth and ability to kneel....). They even have cheap and easy in house cancel to add to the protection if they so want to use it. The difference in martell over bara is that their 'non-rush' themes actually help rush and are not overly costed and don't get in the way of the rush elements. In a rush deck would you rather have 3x Orphan of the greenblood and 3x palace fountains or 3x seat of power and 3x Sallador's crew?

Also, Dan, I disagree that bara crumbles agaisnt a heavy control deck, not that you are wrong, but that you require too much control. A deck with a smaller focus on control can stop them as long as they hit their control early to keep bara from getting to 10-12 power by the end of turn 3. After that valar pretty much is devastating.

I almost forgot the best martell rush card, taste for blood.....so much better now that compelled is banned too

Stark rush is about as strong as Lanni rush (well, okay, Lannister has one more renown character, so possibly worse)... But, I agree with Martell really having an almost equal footing in constructing a rush deck to Bara. Due to Taste for Blood and Ellaria (who Lars missed in his list of rush cards) Martell rush is harder to stop with control around turn 4 (though possibly almost as susceptible to resets).

I would tend to agree with the previous posters in saying that any problems in Baratheon aren't caused by lack of powerful cards, but rather the inability of said cards to function together to form a cohesive deck. And again, this doesn't mean that such decks are not competitive, they just play really schizophrenic and have a huge hit/miss variation. Usually it goes that as soon as you see your opening hand, you know whether you're in for a horrible or easy ride - with nothing you can do to affect it. The only problem with building a competitive Bara deck is that they fare extremely poorly against Lanni decks, but that is similarly true at least for Targ and Stark - GJ and Martell might have a bit more options against Lanni, someone who's played those houses more could possibly elaborate.

So competitiveness isn't really the problem. The problem is that you have powerful cards, that don't work nicely together, but few solid 'vanilla' low-cost cards that would flesh out one of the powerful themes into a properly synergetic deck that has a cohesive strategy. Or possibly there's such a build out there (in reference to ktom), but it's **** well hidden. And Salladhor's Crew is yet another such example. Try fitting it into the same deck with royal entourage and say Kingswood Trail (all three are extremely powerful cards). Now think about what you're going to do when you draw both SC and royal entourage, in a turn that you have a 4 gold plot in play, are playing against a GJ or Stark winter deck (have already spent the one Throne of Power you've drawn, and winter is in play), and have Kingswood Trail in shadows. What do you do?

...it's like trying to live by only eating dessert.

Maybe - just maybe - now that Lanni can't Compel away the Bannermen - Brar rush got strong enough to voercome kneel. Its definitely a step in that direction. MArtell icon strip is still an issue, but teh FAQ defintiely helps baratehon.

and ktom amkes a great point up above. i miss Vanguard Lancer very much so I osted the wya I did. But hoepfully i articulated a little bit WHy i miss him so - a 2 gold resource/character that fits a key house theme is an A level card in my book.