Lars said:

Why do you say that? Bara doesn't really have all that many "after you win a power challenge" effects. And most of the ones they do have are "win by 4" effects, which a power challenge version of Feigned Retreat or Misinformation would not help with. Short of the plot, automatically winning a power challenge with the event wouldn't help Baratheon capitalize on the power challenge all that much. Certainly not as much as Stark on MIL or Lanni on INT.

If anything was deemed "too strong" with these events for Bara, I doubt it was their ability to capitalize on winning the power challenge. If anything, I'd think it would be Vigilance that was deemed too strong, which means the cycle would be more balanced if Bara didn't win any challenge type automatically. Oh, wait....

Plus, look at the Dominance direction they seem to want to take Bara in with this cycle: The Iron Throne, Zealot of the Light, Acolyte of the Flame (think about it...).

ktom said:

just further emphasis's my point. If a challenge in bara is too strong because of vigiliant in any challenge type (if its not power alone, I was thinking of attaching banner for the storm , support of the kingdom, renly, Arena Knight, claw isle, heck even kingswood trial, blackwater bay and that bara wants power, not the win by 4) then they didn't get it. If military in stark is so strong why did they get?

Lars said:

Aaaaand we come full circle. Balance within the environment, not consistency within a single card type. Stark gets the military even with the influence cost because the designers feel it is strong, but not unbalancing. Baratheon doesn't get a "cancel and win" on power or any challenge because (possibly), the combo with Vigilant is seen as bad for the environment as a whole. Not everything is created equal and neither House affiliations nor icons are simply interchangeable in costing effects, cycle or not.

Lars said:

Back to the Vigilant thing.

Lars said:

Has nothing to do with Baratheon, per se.

Lars said:

Requires a third card, not just him and the theoretical event

Lars said:

1 Power for Renown? Comparatively weak compared to what Stark can do during MIL or Lanni can do during INT.

Lars said:

Not restricted to the power challenge

Lars said:

Has nothing to do with winning the power challenge

Lars said:

Shadow recursion can be cool, granted.

Lars said:

Sure, but your original assertion was that the designers probably saw that Bara with the POW auto-win was "stronger" than Stark with the MIL auto-win, and thus didn't give them a POW-centric Feigned Retreat at any cost. I don't see that at all, because I don't think Bara is nearly as good at capitalizing on winning a POW challenge as Stark is at capitalizing on winning a MIL challenge. Bara's strongest "challenge win capitalization" effects are either not exclusive to the POW challenge (eg, Vigilant), require winning by 4 (eg, CS-Edric Storm) or not exclusive to the House (eg, Seductive Promise, Support of the Kingdom). Stark's are.

so military is so much stronger in stark that we give it to them, but power is so weak in bara that we give them a sub sub theme that another card already can do?

or is that winning any challenge in bara is stronger then winning a military challenge in stark?

if the answer is yes to both of them then there is a flaw there. Its interesting that you spend a lot of time arguing down the baratheon power win effects yet still maintain that winning any challenge is baratheon was probably too strong.

Anyway I was just using this as an exploration of the power of winnign challenges, not as a reason why baratheon got one thing and not another so arguing the merits of baratheon really doesn't help solve my issue with misinformation.

I'm still not satisfied that one challenge should have a cost while another doesn't. Game space isn't the answer (it would be if the effects were different, but the costs the same, like the win by 4 events). military being uber in stark isn't the answer for various reasons. And like i've said while some people see intrigue being a waste in lanni its not the answer either.

ktom said:

With exception of Robb (and Fury against specific two Houses) Stark don't have interesting cards with winning military challenge.

Lars said:

And that, in a nutshell, is what I've been trying to argue against. The effects of canceling and automatically winning the challenge types are functionally different because the claim effects for each of the various challenge types are different.

No matter who you are or how you order the importance of the three challenge types, they are different and winning one - on attack or defense - means something different to your game. And more to the point, they mean different things at different times during the game. That's why game space is the answer to this for me. Feigned Retreat and Misinformation are different in their effects and fill different game spaces because the MIL and INT challenges themselves are different and fill different game spaces.

ktom said:

ok, so we are back to why is military claim considered 2 influence better then intrigue claim? again I'd submit very strongly that you can win a game without wining a single military challenge and yes you need characters to win challenges, but with shadows, character lite, resets, cards in hand, saves, CBK, weenies, claim soak characters, etc. you can overcome a lost military challenge almost easier then you can a lost intrigue challenge, its certainly not a 2 influence hammer to win a military challenge over winning an intrigue challenge.

Not buying it.

The MIL Claim 2 is a one sided board reset - given what else Stark has in their arsenal. Show me how Lannister capitlaizes an an unopposed INT challenge and I may reconsider - but ATM I think its perfectly fair that Stark's event costs 2 INF while Lanni's is free.

There really isn't any point in starting this all over again. No one is changing their minds.

The whole discussion is largely theoretical anyway. Maybe if we play with these cards for awhile, we could actually have a practical discussion about the relative strength of the events? If someone feels Misinformation is undercosted to the point of unfairness, go ahead and break it. If someone feels Feigned Retreat is overcosted to the point of unfairness, build a deck that tries to take advantage of it and prove that you cannot. THEN lets revisit this discussion - before this becomes MWnK-gate 2.0.

ktom said:

this is possible the must infuriating answer, and one of the things that annoyed the heck out of me in the MWnK threads (which i remember the answer back then was no one uses neutrals, so maybe in theory its bad....does that even still hold up?). why wait till someone thinks outside the box (if its really all that outside the box, but i'll leave it alone) remember ITE Arianne, she was 'proved' to be broken because she was so undercosted and the answer had to effect future design (not only for noble in martell but noble overall). What if someone had said, hey guys you know in theory its pretty sick that she can pay for a lot of events without actually paying for them AND she is virtually impossible to get rid of.....

Lars said:

~ Then my day is complete.

Lars said:

And yet, we're at an impasse here. Quite honestly, your position has boiled down to "the intrigue challenge is just as strong, if not stronger, than the military challenge." The opposite position is "no it isn't" and "not always." What arguments are either side going to give that sways anyone on these positions until the deck exists? Truly?

ktom said:

~well when I bring up some they get called situational and meanwhile stag's able to qoute a 2 claim plot as a reset as if gospel

Like you can't take it to the bank right now that when the pack comes out Stark is running five Claim 2/multiple MIL Plots in every deck.

If it ain't gospel - its in the family.

After reading through all this I just have to try and throw my thoughts of this into the fray...

I think what this all boils down to is the different challenges, and their relative strengths. I think so far in the LCG environment the intrigue challenge has been pretty strong due to the large amount of character resets, with military holding tightly to second and power staying way back in third. Recently however, with Fear of Winter and possibly even more with the upcoming Lords of Winter cards (for example targeted kill with war crests can be combined nicely with GJ save-preventions, mainly scurvy) the military challenge is clearly passing intrigue, and taking the lead. Why power is left way behind the others as an afterthought I cannot quite fathom.

Now, everybody else seems to be arguing based on the current situation (military challenges in the lead and getting stronger), while Lars is arguing based on the fact that the relative strengths of the challenges fluctuate (and not liking it), and that it's not good to make too many conclusions on where we are right now. Arguing based on two different timescales doesn't really seem profitable to me? I'm not sure if the different costs for the two events is really bad for the environment, but I can see the argument Lars is trying to make, although I think that Lanni-bitterness also plays it's role here. Gotta say the Lannisters in this game are nedly as hell.... =)

Then again, lately I've been looking at MwNK funnily, and thinking whether it has some effect on the fact that nobody's been talking about strong NW or Wildling decks, or even testing them out. (Although, this is probably more related to the cards being quite underwhelming so far compared to the shadow cycle - this far into the last cycle we had reports of all kinds of different shadow decks...)

There's not enough there yet for the wildlings. The best card they got so far was probably the location stealer - but I'd prefer if that were a discard effect. No real jaw droppers in the wildlings yet. I think they're getting there - but not enough to make a competitive theme deck yet.

The trait mainpulation thing is interesting, but I'm not sure there are enough effects yet to make it scary.

Lars said:

Point is, you didn't convince Stag and he didn't convince you. When you beat Stag @ the NY Regional in June, maybe that'll do it. That's all I'm saying here.

WWDrakey said:

I agree with Stag on this one. I think it has more to do with the "slow" progress of the cycle for each trait. Maybe after all the cards are available, we'll see more people trying them. I personally doubt anyone is looking at the NW or Wildlings and thinking "wow, what great cards - if it weren't for MWnK, I'd be all over these bad boys!"

I'm certainly not. For NW, I'm looking at the cards and not thinking its worth the +2 or +4 power to win to give them icons. They don't fill spaces in my decks that cannot be filled with characters that have printed icons. And I agree that the Wildlings are in a "not quite enough yet" place. When all 6 CPs are out, I'll probably look at theme decks for both (without serious reservations from MWnK), but as of right now, the card pool doesn't feel complete for either trait - which, in fact, it isn't.

I liked the stealth wilding agenda in a GJ unopposed deck (it made me not have to rely on Euron). With Orell, Skinchanger ability to float icons, the additional location base, and wildling mead stand it was fairly solid, but i played it once or twice and then chucked it cuz i didn;t want to put MWnK in to protect all that investment.