After the largest AGOT Tourney ever, I'll have to add my voice to the chorus (see Tourney of Stahleck thread), and say that the meta isn't that healthy right now due to the 3-6 agenda decks running pretty much rampant.

Some statistics (from memory):

• The final match was 3-agenda Martella vs. 5-agenda Martell
• There were also two 6-agenda Starks in the top 8, so at least 50% of the decks in the top 8 were multi-agenda decks. (I wasn't
  there to follow all of the matches at that point due to a spontaneous wine tasting with some of the portugese players ) Maybe more.
• I know of at least one more 3-agenda Martell in the top 16, and I'm pretty sure there were more.

In addition to those decks being extremely powerful (and out of Martell almost unfairly so), the NPE caused by playing against one of those is quite horrible. You just sit there for N turns waiting for them to slowly beat the requried power out of you, which usually takes ~40-50 minutes. The sheer stupidity of people getting to play 8 strength armies for 1 gold while consistently drawing 5 cards (or many more on a good day, see Gualdo's post in the Stahleck thread) just distorts the whole idea of the game.

Additional arguments for doing something against them can be found at least in:

1. Nedliness - ~Because NW and Wildling ruling Westeros together is the whole idea of the books, right?
2. Disappearing Flavor - You're not playing against a certain house anymore, you just look at the pile of agendas and go "Not again...". The first time that you even remember that you're playing against a certain house is when you run into either Burning on the Sands or Frozen Solid.
3. Even all the people playing them were complaining about them not being fun to play, or balanced.
4. A general consensus seemed to be between all players in the tourney (biggest FFG tourney EVER...) that the agenda decks are not good for the game and make it less enjoyable.
5. I didn't hear a single person try to defend their merits. Not one.

Probably the best solution that people were coming up with (the topic was springing up all over the place), was limiting the decks to only 3 agendas. So we would still have NW or Wildling decks, but not these horrors that can churn out 5 huge armies a turn without breaking a sweat.

Okay, so that's me kicking the ball rolling and now I think it's time for me to go crash...

As already told I agree about an errata...

In the last years Lannister were "invincible"... before them people said (I started playing only in 2009 so I didn't know old cards) Bara split were the same and I'm sure getting old history there were a lot of archetip to face off with fear...

Now there is the 6 agendas... I expected lots of them and so I tried to find a way to face them and all the "things that would make me loose" to have the chance to answer to all of them... The testing were so intese and I changed so many cards before arriving at those deck...

I'm proud about the fact that my deck was made by me but I cannot hide that I stole some tricks seen by other players (most of all erick). Facing with great players (Italian dondiego is the one that helped me the most (beating me a lot with his targaryen hill based)) you understand your weakness and try to go over them...

That's just to defend my position and to take some merit :-) I think I made decisions that other players didn't consider... unpopular... related to a more control deck based instead of a only heavy military... and it worked...

Let's consider also that in top 4 there were 2 agendas and 2 not agendas so the meta is not so "broken" but surely needs some limitations....

I thought about limitation in numbers of agenda (3 should be great) but also Old Ben idea (in Staleck thread about adding a one power penalty for agenda) should be the right way...

Let's consider also that Baratheon core set were not legal... I think they will have a so huge boost that maybe will make us forget about this topic ;-)

Joking guys (but maybe not too much)... I will continue reporting on the Stalechk thread so we can also make considerations about games and deck construction...

and let's hope to not create a very bad card :-)

@Gualdo: Oh, sorry if I came off a bit aggressive, must be all the Stark playing that I did in Melee. And I was trying to be a bit provocative on purpose too. I really think that you deserve the victory and both had the best thought out deck and playing skills in the Tourney! And fighting your way up from that 5 to 20 character situation is just pure genius! Congrats Ser, well played, well played!

Back on the main subject after a good night's sleep. I think the situation is pretty similar to the über-kneel decks a year (or two?) back. Any deck wanting to have a decent chance against one of those agenda decks needs to either be one themselves, or have some serious design to combat them. Of course certain deck types (like playing Westeros Bleeds or just otherwise being really reset-heavy) have a much better chance against those built-in.

I think the real problems are in the game becoming A Game of Agendas, with your deck being classified by number instead of House, and the games becoming long and tedious NPE experiences for a non-agenda deck that hasn't tech'd against them. And that stuff just isn't fun. For anyone. Least of all any nedly or new players. I really had one game where I just sat down, saw the pile of Agendas and asked "How many?". And only realized on turn 4 that I was playing against Martell. (Burning on the Sands somehow gave it away...)

I still haven't had a look at the Kings of the Storm cards, so I don't know how that will affect the environment and I'm pretty sure the game will live and grow as it is won't to do... but I still don't like the effect those massive Agenda decks have on the environment. I heard so many times the same words from different people at Stahleck stating that the game is a whole lot less fun because of them that it made me think something should be done to them. Because the game getting less fun is something that needs to be taken seriously. Right?

WWDrakey said:

I completely AGREE ;-) I want a UBER only greyjoy deck without agendas :-)

Joking... as already said also "by person" I completly agree about modification about Agenda ruling.

COMPLETELY

Congrats, Gualdo

The Spanish community is also discussing this at javascript:void(0);/*1286794645749*/ . Most think something should be done, because 5-6 agendas decks ruin the game for everyone. Maybe an AGHesque errata, maybe a change in the tourney rules (timed final rounds?), maybe silver bullets against them. But the situation shouldn't be the same next year.

~Don't worry - Kings of the Storm now means that the 5-6 agenda decks will win a lot faster. That fixes it, right?

Actually... Kings of the Storm. Narrow Escape. Huge meatpile of Armies. Ugh. Horror.

...even resets won't help then.

It's also worth noting that, on the same weekend, in a different time zone, the same thing happened.

The top 2 decks at Calicon (only 13 players) were both running 6 The North Agendas. There was one more deck with all 6 agendas that took 5th, but I beleive he only missed the cut due to a modified win.

Did you guys feel these decks were able to reach 27 power in the time allowed without the losing player either (1) letting the winning player grab power once they thought it was hopeless, or (2) just plain forfeiting? I'm not suggesting people "stall out" against these types of decks, but even played at a reasonable pace 27 power is a lot to get. There is a tendacy for the losing player to want to be nice, and just give their opponent the legit 5 point win because they know they would have lost eventually. I wonder how much of a boon this is, and how much this nullifies the very serisous risk of receiving modified wins?

At the moment, I don't know if I'm ready to say I think something needs to be done, but I think this is something that certainly needs to be looked at.

I played 5 agenda and so won at 25.

Only one game were stalling cause I were playing against a 6 agenda stark. But in finals no time limit so we took it easy. Other game I won lasted 25-30 minutes... never faced problems of time with this kind of deck. Maybe also because I run 5 claim 2 plot so I goreally fast either for the win or for the lost :-)

I also think that time is not a problem even if you had to go for 27 power. Usually the 5-6 agenda decks were that dominating by round 3 or 4 that the extra rounds to get the 25 (27) power where just a continued agony.

I also had this experience that you are not sure which house you are actually playing and i think that´s a real bad progress for the game. It´s just cool to be beaten by Jaime, Cersei and the like or win with Eddard, Catelyn and the Blackfish, but in a lot of the (successful) nowadays decks these main charachters hardly found their way in to the deck. Most of the decks have some cheap (most of the time non uniques) like the refugees and the wildlings and two to three in house uniques which are too strong to be ignored just like the Red Viper.

Yeah, I could easily see this being an issue. In my neck of the woods, we were worried about it leading up to GenCon and the general field backed that up (How many of the top 8 there were uber North Agenda decks?) though the top joust deck turned out to be straight Lanni, if I recall.

So what do people think? Is the easiest solution something to limit people to only the Nightswatch or only the Wildling agendas? Or just a total cap at three? Or is it even that big of a problem right now?

I have to agree a little here. There just isn't enough answers for that type of efficiency. There are answers for a turn (kneeling, etc.) and some other options if you draw right (Seductive being one), but most good decks shrug off those sort of one turn answers off easily.

The point made above are strong, so I don't need to repeat those.

However, the big pain for me is that the best of the armies IMHO (the Wildling Horde of course) ends up having both stealth and deadly (and 9 strength many times). Jeez.

I have plenty of ideas for decks, but usually I am always hammered by the question - "what will I do against the Horde?".

Good point on Narrow Escape BTW...very strong in these builds.

Gosh I hate silver bullets, but Fallen Crow is starting to get to be an auto-include...

Kennon said:

I would say one or the other is a good start. It doesn't really solve the Horde problem, but anything further would rerf it entirely...

Good point on the 'it can be beat' BTW. Alhtough I think the decks continue to get stronger since GenCon.

Coldhands takes a pretty big hit if you limit it to just NW, or just Wildling agendas IMHO. I think just capping it a 3 total agendas is the way to go.

Capping at 3 total would be my choice too, or else the Traitorous Crow, just as Coldhands, would only be worth it in NW decks (since they don't have any icons).

The Wildlings could still get their big army for 2 gold, but at least it's not 6 armies and 3 Wolves for 0-1 gold anymore.

Deathjester26 said:

Actually I was only running the 3 Wildling agendas out of Lanni.

Kennon said:

I think limiting to only NW or only Wildling is a better solution thematically and playwise than just limiting to max 3 agendas. I could still see some 3x DotN and 3x Wildling Horde decks with only 3 agenda limitation.

A better solution thematically IMO though would be to change them like this:

"If the player has a Neutral House card reduce the cost to play Horde/Defenders by 1 for every North agenda."

In this case a 6 Agenda Neutral North deck would be able to play the Defenders and Horde just the same but the negative would be every in House card gets +1 cost and no other House (like Martell or Lanni) would get the whole 0-2 Cost armies. I think this would be balanced.

Does anyone see the Neutral House card as competitively viable ATM? Or even interesting to play in any way?

No one needs to play the Neutral House card ever unless they want to handicap themselves. By making Defenders/Horde so strong only in a Neutral house deck would remove the incentive to run Horde/Defenders out of any and all currents Houses and it would also make the Neutral House card both more playable and more thematically interesting.

I realize that many of us would have to break down our current best decks (I would too) and it would instantly change the Meta. I could see the argument that this might nerf them into unplayability but this might be a more interesting long term solution. Heck many people want another House added. If FFG continues to support Wildling and NW traited characters then the Neutral/Wildling/NW archetype could become a valid "7th House". Thematically it is perfectly valid IMO as both Wildling and NW are really separate political/military entities than the other Houses.

I've never loved Agendas to ebgin with - untouchable game changing conditiosn are rarely a good idea - but I've learned to accomodate tehm for years now. but the fact is: the environment is dominated by these Agendas at the moment and it has left me rather disinterested in the current metagame. I agree that a fix of some sort is warranted.

I agree with most what was said in this topic. One of my collegues had interesting idea how to resolve this. It would only require simple errata to the Noth agendas. Instead of increasing your Power treshold by 2, they should decrease opponent requirements by 2. This would make it impossible to run 6 o 5 agenda deck due too high risk of loosing. Just my 2 cents.

Swirek said:

I think that would make them nearly unplayable - rush decks would make you lose too quickly, and every deck would become a rush deck, I suspect.

WolfgangSenff said:

I agree. No way to play them anymore with that kind of errata. They become pretty like treaty actual agenda... unplayable... At the moment If I had to vote for an errata I would vote for a 3 limits.

My needly side would say "3 but all from the same side" but in this case some cards would be umplayable.

Hi guys,

While I agree about the unnedliness feeling of the North Agendas, I would like to point out a few facts about the top 8. There was only 3 the North decks in the top 8. One Martell 5A (Gualdo) one Martell 3A and one Stark 6A. This means at least two different archetypes. Far from the total domination I expected. The rest of the top 8 was two Lanni hyper-kneel, one Targ, one Stark siege and one Barath rush.

Maybe erratting the agandas is the way to go, but I feel that the hate they are getting is a bit exagerated. Also with the arrival of Kights of the Hollow hill they will drastically decrease in power and rotate out of the metagame bvy themselves so maybe the problem will resolve itself.

Kalindas said:

I couldn't disagree more. KOTTH will not in any way affect the power of the The North agenda decks. KOTTH almost necessarily loses hands-down against any deck which rushes for power, which means it will almost always take second when deciding what decks to play in a large tournament. It's just too slow. There are certain things that can be done to make the deck last for a short period of time, but in general, I really don't see KOTTH making a big splash at all.

WolfgangSenff said:

All the wildling decks I played at Stahleck got the early advantage with the blockade/fear of winter/rule by decree trio. That will not work any more against KOTHH. Also note the arrival of Forgotten plans in the metagame to protect yourself against this. As for KOTTH I guess only time will tell, but I personnaly think it will make a spalsh in the environment. I might be grossly wrong though

Is there a problem with agendas or with zero cost strong characters?

I think the latter is worse. 9 STR deadly, stealth for free - I think it's wrong from the start.

If FFG will do any errata I think it may be easier to do it with those 3 cards (Wolves of the North, The Wildling Horde, Defenders of the North): Reduce the cost to play it by 1 for each The North agenda you are running (to a maximum of -3).

BTW As for Neutral House, you don't know at the moment if it will be good or not - we know only the first half of cards from new set.

Rogue30 said:

That is actually a very sensible comment to which I agree completly...