I'm struggling to think up good uses for the Asshai Initiate ability: "Any Phase: Discard the top 2 cards of your deck to choose 1 character in any dead pile. Move that character to its owner's discard pile. (Limit once per round.)".

The best I can come up with is that it allows killed characters to have what would have been duplicates played as 'replacement' characters. Is that it, or am I missing some nice combos and/or tricks that these guys can pull off? There are other more modest uses, e.g. to weaken Silent Sisters , but nothing which makes me think they're particularly good.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Thats mostly what it is used for, dead cards are a bad thing and this keeps your duplicates from being dead cards if you got unlucky early and had an important character killed.

You can also combo it with:

Blackwater Bay , Mustering Yard , Royal Entourage , Selyse Baratheon , and Regroup

Recursion of your own dead unique cards is the primary use. (Don't forget "To Be a Stag").

There are enough cards in Baratheon that get cards out of your discard pile that discarding the 2 cards could even be a benefit, too.

Good vs. Lady Stoneheart as well. Get her out of the dead pile and she isn't quite as good