so....not a lot of conversation about the newest chapter pack. I wonder if its because it was released in the middle of regionals, or because we all find it a little underwhelming?

Night's watch vs wildling: This pack confirms what i've been thinking. There really isn't any reason to run night's watch as a theme. If i need to spot in a few more icons and I'm going to use neutrals I think I'd rather just find the neutrals w/ that icon then worry about the night's watch, pay gold and +2 power for that icon. The wildling's seem to be a lot more versitle, both in and out of a wildling themed deck....

Deep Freeze: I can see the need for this w/out Lords of Winter coming out, but with LoW coming out it just seems like overkill....I guess since its a condition I shouldn't worry.....but houses like GJ and Lanni (~cry me a river) are almost at a lose of stopping 3x of these. Also, great way to kill the agenda's you just put out...

Osha: seems fun, plus gives stark an in house wildling....maybe stark is going to be the new GJ in terms of location control (see spikes).

Treacherous Watchman: more lanni mirror match goodness....wake me up later.

Golden Tooth Vaults: uhm....

R'hllor's Blessing: All my characters will be knelt, but golly gee wiz they will be strong knelt characters!!! Doesn't come close to Court Advisor...

Stannis: you know my thoughts

White Hatchling: This is a card I can get behind. I'm really liking the hatchlings and this one has stealth.

True Power: I'm really trying to avoid a repeat of the misinformation discussion....but seriously no cost? for all those that said military in stark is strong cuz of xyz....well power in targ w/ new Khal = closer to win condition and targeted kill w no influence costs allowing you to save that 2 influnce for burn/ambush/draw depending on what else targ has out......

Raiding fleet: man I would like to get this off once...not sure if i ever will (it has to make a deck first) but it would be funny....can you get carpal tunnel from discarding 8 cards at once?

Return of the Kraken: I think i'm missing the point. Wouldn't I just run dupes? Do I need 8x protection from discard? is first mate not runable for warship discard pile recursion?

Formal Escort: Bara Treaty martell just got interesting, a little pricey though @ 3 gold.

Serve. Obey. Protect: Why? not? say? remove?

Skipping night's watch as none of them strike me as good.

Climbing Spikes: poor man's frozen solid. in stark 6x frozen solid....

Varamyr Sixskins: cheap and interesting for combo ideas. overall interesting card.

Rattleshirt's Raiders: I guess if you need mil/pow icons...maybe.

I currently have 9 different decks built. I am using 5 different cards from this chapter pack in one deck or another.

I think this CP is the one I waited to think at themed wild/NW deck. And I'm sure (hope) that the last one will close the circle... The spoiler of The Wall is amazing and with Mace and Old Bear will be a great CP and then I will start thinking about NW and Wild decks...

...hope that in last CP there will be missed cards like Gilly, Ygritte, Snow companions, Sam Tarly... but I'm not too sure :-)

Agree for the msot part. Not sure yet hwo I feel about teh draw attachments for Bara. Given 3 x of these and 3 x CourtAdvisers - are you playing a 54 card deck? I think I wnat to run them - but buff attachments just don't seem efficient to me. Even with the draw issues in bara.

RE: the free power challenge event for Targ? Nots eeing teh problem. new Khal isn't even making decks is he? isn't the jumping Khal one of the strongest charcters in the game since he misses resets and kneel?

Pretty much agree on teh rest - like the giant GJ army, but you can't run it out of a winter deck. You'll never get it on the board.

I agree that the whole Night's Watch theme in these chapter packs seems poorly thought out. The Wildling agendas which give abilities like stealth are almost worth the 2 power hit. However all the Night's watch characters are too expensive for cards without icons and taking a 2 power hit per icon especially in melee would be insane!

If I ever build a Night's Watch deck I would look for the older cards that already had icons before this new system was thought of.

Underwhelming, just like the rest of this chapter pack cycle to be blunt. As a GJ player I don't see much to inspire me. Stark getting most of the love right now for sure.

The whole Night's Watch 'no icons' idea doesn't really encourage me to play them. Wildlings don't fare much better. The odd card (well, Orell and I suspect Qhorin in future) are making 'special guest star' appearances in our games but that's about it.

Raiding Fleet turns one AND two.

Now that was a fun game... and it was a Winter deck. It can be done.

Turn ONE!! Do tell

Fury Plot + Sea + Gatehouse I suppose.....

You must have had a really good flop

It was pretty much that, and yes it was a six card flop. The deck is designed to be able to pay for him whenever I draw him from turn two on... the fact I was able to two in a row from turn one was absolute luck.

Dobbler said:

osha, hatchling, climbing spikes, and uh Maybe a night watch deck? or the Steward in a resource denial deck (just run misinformation in lanni though save the 2 gold...)?

Like Laban said pretty underwhelming, though a bunch of stuff stood out in this pack as situationally useful. In general this whole block so far has felt very unimpressive. I don't really feel like the primary themes were strong or interesting enough for the most part. Most of the Night's Watch available are just not good enough to warrant the extra power to win to make a Night's Wtahc deck viable. I can see a Wildling deck running their stealth agenda being very strong but even after this block is mostly complete there are still just not all that many of them. Anyway since I need something to do while I'm on hold here's my personal take on the new pack.

Osha - very, very nice 2 cost char for stark (but at 2 cost and 2 str still a weeny even if a nice one)

Deep Freeze - nice card in multiplayer maybe. In joust a delaying tactic at best.

Treacherous Watchman - Lanni vs Lanni hate, yes they're good but cards like this are not the answer.

Golden Tooth Vaults - I really like this card because it's interesting. As an any phase action this card is one of the few effects that lets you play with gold before it's counted in marshalling. As such this could have some interesting applications with shadows cards or other effects that require gold.

Stannis - Uh, uhm, has the King trait I guess.

R'hollor's Blessing - not a fan of cantrip effects in a game with a draw cap, unless they are effects I'd already want to use without the draw.

Raiding Fleet - The new crown jewel of mill effects.

Return of the Kraken - Why? Seriously, why?

White Hatchling - Nice hatchling cycle, but I miss them being able to dupe.

True Power - One of the best of the cycle, but still probably not useful enough to run in Targ right now.

Formal Escort - Good potential, but needs more noble crests to be worthwhile. Does anyone even run treaties?

Serve. Obey. Protect. - Gives icons? Probably not that bad a card but at 3 inf too expensive to run in a house already loaded with good events.

Defenders of the North - Still not reason enough to run Night's Watch.

Steward of the Watch - See above

The Feast of the Crows - Again, see above

Varamyr Sixskins - Amusement value? Maybe in a Targ Summer Encampment deck?

Rattleshirt's Raiders - Not a big fan of the drawback, but probably worth running if building a Wildling agenda deck.

Climbing Spikes - Good effect, but has to have the deck built around it.

The Stewards - Not really a lot of reasons to run Night's Watch. Maybe a Bara Winter/Night's Watch/Wall deck? Actually with Seat of Power that could be a bit more viable than it was before.

The Songs of Bael the Bard - I can't imagine ever wanting to run this in a deck. If a deck needs trait manip you'd probably want a more reliable source, and I don't consder the effect strong enough to justify the 3-3-1.

Hmmm... I dunno. In general I'd say Nightswatch aren't all that strong, but the keyword granting of Feast of the Crows looks pretty great.

Kennon said:

Yeah, it probably is. I guess I just want a couple more just slightly better guys to use it on. Or maybe to not have to get as much extra power for value. And 3 Influence feels like a lot to me right now in the current environment.

i see Treacherous Watchmen being played more Out of House, like the old Distinguished Sellsword. This one is more expensive, but it could be helpful if you are expecting alot of Lanni decks.

And I love Raiding Fleet. I'm currently playtesting my new raid deck and the second game beat my Martell deck by discarding at least half his deck in the first four turns. It was lucky (the guy running my deck was rusty, as he hadn't played since ccg days), but it was nice to see the dck doing what it was supposed to. Now I have to make it do it consistently.

And, yes, my sadness is pretty much the fact that a Night's Watch deck is primarily a NW deck lacking icons, most of those cards are useless in other decks. But that isn't going to stop me from making a Stark NW deck in a few weeks (when the LoW and last CP are out).

~Why is playing Treacherous Watchmen out of house encouraged yet other cards became restricted?

I could see running one of the NW agenda to use for adding 1 icon your house is weak in.

Like Say The Stewards with House Stark.

That gives: Sam Tarly, Benjen Stark and old jon show, and maester aemon intrigue icons. Then you toss in a few other NW characters like steward (2 gold intrigue icon and discard a card from opponent seems good).

So...

3x Sam

1x Jon Snow

1x Maester Aemon

3x Steward

1x Benjen

Seems to me like it could work.

bloodycelt said:

Wow, sounds pretty promising to me.

Ok so what really makes stewards worth it is: the ranger of the north. All of a sudden stark gets a 1 gold 2 str intrigue icon.

Also that tome is really nasty against greyjoy. Its worth 4 gold to take rise of the kraken and just put it in the used pile. Can a Greyjoy deck recover from that?

Yeah, since half my Greyjoy builds don't run Rise of the Kraken.

Yeah I think Valar is what most stark decks are going to be using the tome on. I mean Rise of the Kraken is good, but if Valar isn't in the mix, then Stark is free to flood the board with characters, meaning that Greyjoy doesn't have close to the amount of stealth they'd need to get unopposed.

I think that the NW agendas are a little weaker then Wildings but I would never run all 3 agendas together anyway. I think it depends on decks... but running a Baratheon with the ragners seem a really good think to me right now.

I have also a Question for you guys what do you think of the Tome. I have never seen it in action but for me 4 gold was a lot to play it in stark deck. Do you have any experiance with it. For 4g i would rather play Blackfish