I'm probably somewhere in between JJ and Stag when it comes to Beric. I don't think it's top five, in part b/c I don't think it becomes a beast/game changer without the addition of some other cards. There are plenty of solutions, as Stag suggested, and Beric isn't immediately a threat when he hits the table like other cards. But I did run up against Beric just recently in a Martell Brotherhood deck that revved him up with Taste for Blood and Insidious Ways and I lost pretty much solely b/c of my inability to deal with Uber-Beric. I do think Beric is perhaps strong enough that you have to specifically consider the card when building your deck to make sure you have some means of dealing with it if need be, since many character solutions you'd might typically run rely on kill or discard.

Stag Lord said:

I agree. You still have to win challenges and get to 15.

If you combine him and the brootherhood agenda with an already great deck, it might speed things up a little bit. But, I don't think that it is broken, or something that will completely change the game.

TempestTenor said:

Uh Core Set Melisandre.

Elarria Sand is also fairly awesome in this regard.

Don't forget that the brand new Melisandre is able to take power off of characters as well.

Stag Lord said:

Well, you can usually handle every charachter in this manner with the exception of the "immune to events/ charahcter abilities/triggered effect" charachters". Even Jaqen H´qar had this vulnerabilties.... and he was no threat to any deck, no ? ;-)

So here´s my top 5 list:

1. Jaqen

2- pyromancer´s cache

3. fortified position

4. fear of winter

5. Melisandre (from the wildling/nightwatch cp)

Precisely.

Which is why I rarely name characters on lists like these. Viper is in my Tp 5 because he is practically immune and Castellan is in their becuase of his repeatable control effect (I know - repeatable on a Turn basis, not in the same pahse. Still). I rather doubt i would name any other characters in my Top Ten - Val, Beric notwithstanding.

Milk is certainly getting better...as is location character control.

He has the possibility to be as good as the Viper though...the Viper REALLY needs power of bloods, but is immune to almost everything else. Beric is better vs. high claim and Valar in general.

Old Ben said:

Exactly. The ways to deal with Beric are not all widely available or dependable. I think Jaqen has become the AGoT forum's Hitler =)

Rings - i know you and dobbs aren't crazy about Milk - play a card but the target can still attack/defend. But I just love spending one gold to nerf my opponent's key linchpin. I can't imagine not playing a couple of copies in my builds.

I've got to agree with Stags here. Milk was a staple in my decks for a long time after the LCG switch, but eventually got crowded out for other things. With the recent upswing on some pretty key characters, I think there's a good chance that it should make it back in.

It always has been one of my last cuts, and one of the few cards I really seem to be unlucky with (I have it when my opponent is just playing good characters, I don't draw it when my opponent is playing a Viper deck). Paying 1 gold and a card to still let my opponent attack with a character? Sigh...I wish there was a better way Basically I am NEVER worried about it vs. my decks, so it is hard to wrap my head around my opponent being worried about it...

In a world with more spot control I never played it, but I agree I might be coming around on that.

You guys forget that Milk also contains the caveat that many people have a knee-jerk reaction to choose the milked character as claim.

And Milk doesn't really help against NW/Wilding Decks.

I think Milk makes sense when played out of certain houses, especially in houses that tend to run fewer attachments and consequently have more room to squeeze in extra non-setup cards.

Still, Milk is pretty difficult for me to justify playing out of Targ, which has much better forms of attachment-based removal (in general, I think burn is better than text removal), and Targ also relies more on its attachments. On the other hand, Targ has the least problem discarding the problematic attachments (Taste for Blood, Devious Intentions, etc.) that make Beric a monster, so maybe it's all balanced out.

Perhaps once the Brotherhood cycle is complete, it may be worth taking another look at MWNK?.... I know people said that about NW/Wildling, but in this case I think it's a bit more attractive. We'll see....

Dude - its ALREADY time to be thinking about MWNK. Seriously.

Now, now, gentlemen, let's not be hasty. ~Wouldn't do to prove Lars right.

Stag Lord said:

I think MWNK and other reinforcement-based themes (or all event-traited themes, for that matter) probably become more attractive if one can establish a form of reliable event recursion so that other events can still be played in the deck. But then even if you can recur a reinforcements for repeated triggers of MWNK (or the other armies' effects), a recursive build means that deckspace is taken up in other ways. The location/character investment required to sustain recursion means that there are fewer slots for cards that actually win challenges. And since you'd be playing fewer reinforcements, the effects would be less reliable until you drew into the recursion and the event.

So I stand by my initial impression...it's probably going to be awhile before MWNK is an extremely attractive option, at least for me. But if the Brotherhood deck becomes as good as it looks in terms of potential, and people keep playing lots of Wildlings, I could be persuaded that it's worth another look. At least, rumors of more MWNK decks should keep some of those frightening Beric decks from becoming ubiquitous at tournaments.

I don't think it HAS to be recursive. Teh rigth steal - at the right time - can either end the game or fatally cripple your opponent's position. Its a two character swing - and you're charcter has renown and stelth - not to be sneezd at.

I agree though - you will be sacrificing in House event slots for this approach - which makes it unlikely out of Targ, Martell and probably Lannister. But the non control Hosues all could take a good look at this and tehy might be surprised.

It will need to eb a specific build - cna't just slot these in to another theme. But given what's popular out there ight now, and givne that Forogtten Plans mitigates the need for the five card flop against Faer of Winter.....

Milk's still a better idea, but you see where I am going with this.

It is a three character swing in the case of a brotherhood deck. I have my Reinforcement character, your Brotherhood character added to my side, and you lose your Brotherhood character.. +2 to me -1 to you. Net 3 character swing... It would be interesting to see what someone can do with a MWnK melee deck, maybe out of Martell with Viper's Rage and Red Vengeance (running a high amount of events, and a low amount of characters), assuming that Brotherhood dcks start making appearances in melee.

I'm just thinking that you can redirect challenges to yourself which you can afford to lose, and pop the reins in and grab someone's neutral badass. In theory it could work... of course that actually means very little.

1) The Bratheon house card...seriously!

2) The Black Cells - Great character control.

3) Fishing Net (Awesome control, and it's a weapon so it gets to go all sorts of places)

4) Burning on the Sands

5) Arya Stark (CoS) - near-infinite character, with great abilities.