I agree with rings whole-heartedly and call on him to return to GenCon, win the national championship, and design that card.

I'm also with you, rings. I find the uniques far more interesting than the weenies so I like it when non-weenie decks can be successful against those vile, faceless weenie decks.

rings said:

Unfortunately, Forgotten Plans is not a viable option now since it is not legal.

Maybe rings knows something we don't?

And I hate playing weenie swarm decks so much, it sickens me. But i just feel that you sort fo have to ATM.

Pretty much the only thing I've gotten from this, is a few ways to get around it. That relies on a good bit of luck.

With the statement of "Can't beat em? Join em", I can say this hurts the game. Forcing players to build decks and play a certain way isn't how the game should play. Like Rings said, unique characters are slowly working themselves out of play because they cost so much and usually have a tough time standing up to weenie decks.

Yeah I'm on the same boat as Rings and Husemann. Weenie decks should be viable but they shouldn't be way better than unique decks. ~Although didn't my bara deck just prove that uniques are still better than weenies?

Anyway, first off Rings, your plot just helps decks that run lots of non unique war crest dudes. It would probably help the unique decks more, but I could see it being exploited out of those weenie decks too.

Second, if a plot forces the game to be played in a certain way or decks to be built in a certain way, then isn't it bad for the environment? I would think so, but First Snow did just that, albeit in the opposite direction, and it never got banned or errated.

Staton said:

Well that just seems silly. I believe something like this is bad for the environment. But I don't think it should be banned. Maybe an errata of some sort, or a restriction on playing it. But that isn't what this thread is about.

Husemann said:

Staton said:

There are always power cards and/or balance situations that "force" the game to be played in a certain way and for all decks to consider it and have to deal with it. This isn't bad or good for the environment. It simply IS the environment.

Lanni kneel and draw pretty much defines the environment. If you're going to build a competitive deck, you have to consider what you are going to do when you run up against a Lanni deck that is kneeling 2-4 of your big characters every round. It forces you to build your decks and play in a certain way - and the way that many people address it is to play Lanni. "Forced" to build and play a certain way? Isn't that the same thing? So isn't Lannister bad for the environment? But no one seems to think this and instead talks about "Lanni killers" and "how can we stand up to Lanni"?

Is the difference here, that we're willing to treat the power of Lanni as a puzzle to be solved but the power of Fear of Winter as a destabilizing force that needs to be addressed and limited at the rule/errata level, that we can point to one card (albeit in combination with a lot of others in order to make it a real problem) instead of a couple of strong themes in a single House?

The Stark box is still pretty new, but the military power they can field, cheaply, is pretty intense. Even without Fear of Winter, I think people are going to be surprised just how much they can kill in the first round when people get deeper into them. There will be a lot of NPE during the learning curve, and people will be "forced" to build and play a certain way if they want to have much of a board left after the first round. So does that make military bad for the game? Or Stark? Or 2-claim plots?

I'm not saying Fear isn't powerful or that its power cannot be exploited and built upon, especially when used in the first round after a particularly unbalanced flop. And I'm not saying "of you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is the best solution - fully acknowledging that it is not a particularly satisfying solution, too. But it is usually the first solution people jump to. Why does everyone seem so ready to throw in the towel? Why does everyone seem so ready to bristle against having to consider this power card when they so readily accept having to consider other power cards and/or strategies?

Suck it up. Deal.

Plus, I think Nate has shown a great deal of awareness of the larger metagame when these things come up, particularly since the beginning of the LCG. I have confidence that additional options for dealing with Fear of Winter will appear in the next CP cycle without needing to break out the errata stick. Design and development has earned the benefit of the doubt in these matters, I think.

I think you might be right there Ktom, that there will be cards to balance it out. However, I think the almost immediate call for ban/errata is due to the fact that big tournaments, regionals and GenCon, are coming up and people have been building decks for them for months and don't want one card disrupting all that time and work.

I also think that it does come down to the fact that its one card. Sure you need other cards to combo with it, but the problem is that card. If that card didn't exist then the problem wouldn't either. If the other cards it needs to work, it'd still be a very good card, so the easy solution seems to take out the one card. I'm still not convinced that it NEEDS to be changed at all, but time will tell I'm sure. And I'm betting you're probably right too. Still I don't like when a single card impacts the environment this much.

Staton said:

I don't buy that at all. Fear of Winter has been in the environment since February - a full 2 months before the first Regional. So if "people have been building decks for [these big events] for months," Fear of Winter was available and part of "all that time and work." That one card shouldn't be disrupting anything since it was available and known from the beginning - as are all the things being used to exploit it (with the possible exception of the Stark Agenda).

That's just another form of the "I don't want to" and "it's too hard" argument, just with the "I missed it" caveat.

ktom said:

I've really only seen this card break apart from the rest with Stark. The new weenies they have and the agenda allowed them to start flopping better and really push hard with the FoW-Blockade-RBD combo.

I'm sure it works in other houses and builds, but this was definitely the dominant deck using the card.

Agreed. I hadn't seen the card being really abused until this weekend. I guess it could've been elsewhere that it was being used a lot, but that wasn't the case for me or my meta. I think the siege of winterfell sped the deck up too, which made it a lot more attractive to people.

My general deck building has pretty much always been a large amount of low cost characters, no more than 9 events in a 60 card deck (frequently only six), only a handful of 4 cost characters (I rarely include more than six characters at cost 4 or above and the 0-2 gold range equals more than 50% of my character base), and I try to flop four card minimum every turn with two locations and two characters in that set.

Fear of Winter is just not something I've feared, and didn't understand why others do, until now. A cycle of cards like Fow, Blockade, RBD and then some sort of closing plot is certainly a hard plot cycle to withstand, but I'm not convinced it is any worse than the City plots cycle of Lies, Sin, Spider, Soldier.

= YMMV

Then what you have both just said is that the issue is the direction Stark took with their small box expansion, not Fear of Winter.

While the damage is particularly egregious with the "slow down" tactics of Fear of Winter, Stark could achieve similar results with just about any claim-2 plot and a solid defense. It feels particularly frustrating (and is brutally efficient) with Fear of Winter, but the outcome is the same.

Fear of Winter has been in heavy use around here since it came out. It has not been a popular Round 1 plot, but it is in just about every plot deck, every House, and has been used consistently as a sort of board position reset. It hit the ground running up here, so nothing presented in this thread so far seems new, unexpected or even particularly abusive to me.

But standard play style for a lot of players is to Marshal as much stuff and sling as many events as they possibly can. That's what the plot challenges, whether in the "abusive" early-game sequences Greg showed everyone at the Missouri Regional or in limiting you to the single best effect from your hand in a later round that most people saw as the card's strength before this discussion.

I have to say that I'm not surprised many decks are popping up exploiting Fear of Winter in combo with other plots. I've said as much in a post in late march - see below - but it seems not a lot of people agreed with me.

**********************************************

It's not the board advantage you work for that worries me the most. It's stuff like a good setup on one side and a mediocre one on the other side. That's not really work you do in the game... we'll see how it plays out I guess. I don't hate the plot (hate is a strong word for feelings towards a card anyway ), but I don't like that it's as good as it is. I would have been VERY HAPPY with the same plot - but a claim of 1 instead of 2.

The plot effect is also a more powerful choker than blockade will ever be. And the fact that blockade has the same initiative but a claim of 1 says a lot in my opinion about the power of this card.

I think that this plot appear in most decks from now on (which I don't like), but I've been wrong before

*********************************************

I have to pretty much agree with ktom's take on the situation, Fear of Winter has a really strong effect on the environment... but no stronger than say Valar or Lannister kneel. A strong effect? Yes. But the game is called a Living Card Game for a reason methinks. If your deck that used to be good against everything isn't good against first turn Fear of Winter... well, that just means there's more fun deckbuilding in store, eh? =)

Personally I think that Fear of Winter is causing such a fuss, because it mainly works in aggro -builds and out of non-control houses and is especially good against control builds. And we all know that most AGoT -players prefer to feel in control... The houses I find it benefiting most are GJ and Stark, and hurting mainly the 'basic' builds of Martell, Targaryen and Lannister. Funnily enough it gives Baratheon decks a bit of an edge in the environment, because they're one of the best equipped at dealing with it (Power of Blood, fast setups are mandatory in rush, some plot control etc.).

There's a bit of a distinction here to make, regarding what really causes 'the problem':

Is it just the 1st turn Fear of Winter and the combination of 2 claim M and I challenges? If that's the case, then saves that can be played in setup are your friend (Davos, Viserys, Aemon, Iron Mines...) as is any kind of control that can be setup easily (Toll Gate, Lost Oasis, Frozen Moat...). The other option is to go with the second or first turn Valar and any draw should help lessen the impact here.

Is it the combination of Fear of Winter with Blockade or Rule By Decree? If it's RBD, then running your own RBD pretty much negates the problem, and it's not a bad plot to run anyways... [i'm not sure if you can play Any Phase events before the RBD is revealed, but if yes, then you play those to stop RBD hurting you... You've killed the wrong dwarf and Forever Burning come to mind]. If it's Blockade, then having plenty of non-limited resource locations that you can setup (Seas etc.) should give you an edge on the second turn, as well as getting your draw working. This combo is pretty brutal I think, but not unbeatable.

Is it the combination of Fear of Winter with Epic Battles? Well, this currently means that you're facing many M challenges in one turn from Stark or GJ. What's needed for this is either a load of cheap M characters or ones that can take part in many challenges. The solutions here are pretty straight forward, you need to have something that can be setup and can wipe away or control the problem. Or make your characters unkillable (ala Power of Blood). Easier said than done though. A first turn Uneasy Truce might also be fun if you see your opponent playing the Epic Battles pre-plot... Actually, this last possibility could cause even more problems if some deck had access to characters that can participate in several I challenges on the same turn, and also could play a load of Epic Battles to get several I challenges in that one turn. Cheap vigilant I characters with Epic Battle Intrigue might be fun...

But what I think Fear of Winter really does is put control decks on the defense on turn 1... and I'm not yet convinced that it's a bad thing. I prefer to see it as a nice challenge (and our local GJ player has been posing me with this challenge for a while now...)

EDIT: Golly, what a load of posts while I was writing this... Agree with ktom again, the Stark box is only making people see something that's been there all along. Remember Zsa talking about this when it came out also. Agree with this plot becoming a fixture in the years ahead (similarly to Valar).

I personally dislike Fear for the CURRENT environment. I highly expect new cards (i.e. Forgotten Plans) will be reprinted to help counter it, which won't make it as bad. Unfortunately, for now the game has, in my opinion, "devolved" to having the better flop. I think this makes the game less interesting to play.

The fact that it's 2-4-2 is also pretty brutal. Imagine if Valar was 2-4-2 or Blockade was 0-4-2.

While saying this may come back to bite me in the NYC Regional: running Summoning Season 4-3-1 first turn to fetch Margaery may have potential to work rather nicely. If you're opponent doesn't play Fear, you can always get another character instead. Seems like this would only work in Bara though (or a weird Stark deck running the Seas). Another counter to first turn Fear may be Noose and Swordpoint 4-3-1 if your opponent has a bunch of weenies. Valar is actually a decent counter as well; especially if you have saves and run Fear as your second turn plot. Rise of the Kraken can be interesting if you want to preserve your higher gold plots. Storm of Swords is a nice counter for Stark. Of course you can also counter Fear with Fear. It doesn't help the situation, but at least you have a 50-50 shot of going first with 2-claim. Siege of Riverrun offers this same opportunity.

All in all, I think Fear 2-4-2 is bad for the current environment of cards. I like the concept, but it's made the game pretty much all about set-up. It's definitely possible to still win a game when behind first turn while Fear is revealed; it's just much more difficult. With Fear you have to be very wise about what plots and cards (mainly plots though) you will play from the next round on.

One (sort of) positive note I find about Fear is that I think it really helps demonstrate how important plots are in AGoT. I firmly believe the plot deck and how players build/play it, is what separate the "noobs" from the "pros."

Related Question: If someone plays Fear first turn, can you play a card pre-plot in the next round if you played a card while Fear was revealed in the last? The whole "plots go to your used pile at the end of the round" is making me confused. Thanks.

FATMOUSE said:

No. The plot effect specifically creates a duration of "until you reveal a new plot card." No matter when you move Fear to the used pile, you haven't revealed a new plot yet.

ktom said:

Thanks again!

ktom said:

Unfortunately, that argument applies equally in consideration of playtesting. Jaqen was in the playtesting environment for a couple months, yet the unbalancing effect of his existence seemed to have slipped under the radar. Likewise you can apply that argument to any card that's been banned or errated. "Well, it was played for a couple months before we saw it, so it must already be fine." Unfortunately a game like this with so many moving pieces is also one where these sorts of things don't always jump out at people the first time they see a card.

I suppose what my problem with this sequence is at least in a gameplay sense, a matter of proportion. While old school military heavy decks (think I&F era) forced you to run some saves or chump claimsoak, or Lannister kneel forces you to play with standing effects, it's still in general something that effects major decisions on what... 1/6 of a deck (10 cards of the basic 60)? While this sort of thing skews a much larger portion of deckbuilding in a certain direction. Suddenly now we're talking about it forcing character choices on what... 1/2 of the deck give or take a couple? I think that's a point that is excessive enough to be looked at. First Snow made playing those smaller characters dangerous yes, but I didn't quit playing them as long as I paced myself in play. In this situation, I'm likely never going to see those more expensive characters enter play and thus must build heavily the other direction.

Of course that leads to my issue in the "fun" category. Obviously as a primarily control player I enjoy keeping my opponent's cards from doing what they want, but at least even when I play Lannister HyperKneel or Shadows my opponent still gets to actually play their cards. Having faced both Greg's version of Lanni Shadows over the last few months and this combo over the past weekend, I can say that it's far more frustrating to simply be unable to play my cards at all.

Kennon said:

Keep it in context. I didn't say "It was in the environment for 2 months prior to Regional season so it must be fine." I was specifically answering Josh when he said people have been building Regional/Gencon decks for months and that this one card undoes all the work they have done so far. I think he's wrong to say that one card undoes all the work they have done to this point when that one card was always available to be a part of all their work.

There's a big difference between refuting one argument as nonsense and saying that the situation as a whole is without any problems. The situation does have its problems, but I don't think they are insurmountable ones, even with what we have now.

I actually don't think Fear of Winter is uniquely strong in Stark. I ran it to good effect in my Targ build, I've seen it run even more effectively in Greyjoy (where saves make a round-2 valar a pretty bad response), and even very effectively in Martell (though to a lesser degree).

Again, it's more the one-two punch of this and blockade that is harsh, but even this plot alone on round one can heavily affect the rest of the game. (I think the effect is a bit like if one person were able to play 2-3 gold worth of cards on setup.)

I dont think the combo with Fear of Winter, Blockade, etc, is really -that- strong. I think it's solid, but there are certainly ways to break it up. If you can just stall it out for a couple of rounds, it's not too difficult to recover.

I was able to disrupt it early when testing against it playing my Greyjoys and not let them recover. The new event from the Stark box (blanking on the name, but it kills a character after you win a challenge with a war crested character) is a great way to help break it up even on the defensive. Early Valar with saves is a nice option as well. Blockade isn't that scary when you Valar in the same turn and have a save or two. Targs can deal with it pretty easily too, using the plot (again blanking on the name, it's late... >.<) that reduces strength by 1 and discards if they hit 0. This nullifies a lot of their stealth by taking out Carrion Birds and allowing Forever Burning to one shot kill Syrio Forel and other small shadows characters.

Haven't Blockade/Rule/Valar been in the environment since the Core Set? Does Fear really add that much to that Cycle? I agree that if you are not prepared for it, or get a bad flop/drawback it can be frustrating, but that is true for many other situations as well. I agree that it changes the way you build your draw deck and changes some of your plot selection, but so do Bara rush, Lanni kneel, Stark Murder, Greyjoy Winter, etc. There are a half dozen builds I would love to bring to a tournament, but the dominant deck archetypes make me choose between playing what I want to play and playing what I think has a chance of winning. Fear/Blockade/Rule/Valar do the same thing. Maybe after NYC I will be singing a different tune, but as for now, it is just another evolution in a Living Card Game.

On a side note, isn't it nice to be discussing something "overpowered" that doesn't relate to Lannister?

The thing is that I don't see how any house other than Greyjoy is getting a significant number of saves into play on Setup. They can luck into an Iron Mines or two and Maester Wendamyr, but off hand I can't recall any that other houses are able to play on setup. Sure, Baratheon could play a Loyal Guard as their one card first turn, but any other house could just as well play a duplicate or Bodyguard so that's pretty much even.

Likewise, how do you win the military on defense with the war crest characters that you played on setup? I can't recall any that have stealth, so common creatures for this sort of build (Carrion Bird, Shadowcat, Syrio, and Direwolves with that new location that gives them stealth whose name I can't recall) are able to really hamper this strategy.