Alright, I've been out of the loop for a while. Luckily I'm moving back to my old playgroup very soon but, I'd like to know what everyone thinks of the current meta.

Now that Days of Ice and Fire are over and the tournament reports are being written up, I imagine most people have a good idea of whats dominant, overpowered, underpowered, etc. So lets start with that!

Strong - Wildlings still. Lanni (~what - income + draw is good?). Martell.

Moving up - trait manipulation. Knights. Bara.

Moving down - um...anything not above?

UP: Rush Deck in their forms: military with Stark siege (with Wildlings and not), Baratheon rush, Viper Rush

DOWN: others :-( I have looked at my greyjoy deck... After the core set I have added only one card: cost 1-STR 4 boatswain :-(

More Popular - Wildlings (Strong, cheap, stealth supported by draw coming from Val), Stark Seige(Military high claim rush supported by Narrow Escape make it all the more effective), Rush Decks (Same reasons for Seige, supported by narrow escape makes it hard for decks reliant on valar to level the playing field) , Baratheon (Introduction of box gives it a whole new set of abilities and tricks from knights to lord support)

Same position- Targ (Burn always seems to work, although again a good Threat from the North Phase could be thwarted by Narrow Escape), Martell (Still holding their own with excellent cards such as Burning on the Sands)

Less Popular - Lannister Control(with introduction of narrow escape, rush decks become increasingly more difficult to control around resets) , Greyjoy (not enough new tricks to keep up Raiders don't seem strong enough theme), Night's Watch (Not capable enough of mounting an effective enough offense for their cost)

Summery: run 3x Narrow Escape, its that good and is just as game changing when they reprinted Valar

Can someone explain to me how this Trait manipulation works? I know if I am playing wildlings, or knights, or NW, having them lose their traits is effective. So is playing around with Bolton. But there is something I am missing.

During Challenges, I give your best character the Raven trait, win a challenge with the Carrion Bird, shuffle your character back into your deck.

During Marshalling I give one of your characters the Ally or Mercenary trait, then discard with Areys Oakheart.

During draw, before we draw cards, I give one of my character's the Knight trait. My opponent, running the Knights Agenda, now only draws 1 card.

Just a few examples.

Don't forget the best part - Horn of the Dragon or whatever where you turn them into a dragon and take them over.

Trait manip is getting easier - the Lanni location, Old Nan, the Bard plot...any more?

rings said:

don't forget ♦ Rhaegar's Harp and there are some other card that give trait like knight and bolten

And the location that sends a Bolton character back to owner's hand - Abandoned Fort (?)

And Robb Stark?

rings said:

Yeah, this card with Trait manipulation is going to win some games if it's not controlled. Seems like we're back to the golden age of Trait Manipulation.

Kill the carrion birds is a good way to handle one side of trait manipulation. The rest of the Bolton shinanigans seems rather fun.

You know, speaking of Carrion Birds, I noticed something funny over the weekend. People shuffle it back in to their decks all the time. I mean, this isn't anything new for more than a year, but it looks to me like it's become a habit. People just shuffle the bird back into their deck no matter what. Even if it means they're losing their only stealth or military icon. From the games that I noticed, I would have kept the character several times instead of choosing to essentially sacrifice my own character.

Kennon said:

They shuffle their own carrion bird after they win a challenge?

Oh yes. Quite often.

But why would you do that? In the vast majority of cases you don't want to shuffle your own raven back into your deck.

There are a few instances where it would be beneficial ie. the certainty of a valar coming up next turn, or wanting to pick up the raven with the plot "A time for ravens" and get some draw with tarly, but otherwise it seems counter-productive.

Edit: on the topic at hand

To me "Narrow escape" seems to have had the biggest impact on the game so far. This card alone makes control decks much harder to use vs weenie kill decks.

Wildling decks with most houses (stark, gj, martell,targ) are also very powerful, and this was obvious from the last chapter pack in that cycle.

Who cares I have to get 21 power to win.

I have a 9 strength no attachment stealth and deadly army for ONLY 2 gold. Not a bad deal no? It's not like you'll get to 15 power soon.

Why?

Control decks employ large amounts of card advantage. If you are not reaching draw cap each turn, something is wrong.

And if you get 5 cards a turn... then what is losing your hand? Not to mention one can just use the hand's judgement to cancel the card.

There is no guarantee that you will get your draw engine going again, if you only draw 2 or 3 cards after a Narrow Escape. And regarding Hand's Jugement, it doesn't work on the most common usage of Narrow, which is after a Valar. So yes, Narrow Escape has just made it even harder for control decks. Add to the mix the poxerful and cheap wildling armies and Fear of Winter and you have a meta where all out control decks will find it hard to survive

Many houses have ways to deal with weenies, which is why I still don't think that is powerful.

VERY efficient low stength control cards include:

Martell - Blade (plus, they have Red Viper...heard he is good vs. weenies)

Stark - Grey Wind

Targ - well, a ton of them

That is on top of Threat, Wildfire, and Valar (and Fear Winter really), and decks like Bara which could give a crap.

The problem is that if you don't get your draw going, or it is disrupted (BTW, I have been seeing confession making a comeback), you just don't have much beef to handle other houses.

What does Narrow Escape have to do with weenies?

If I have lots of weenies, you valar to reset the board. With narrow escape, they are all returned to play. Wipe unsuccessful, and harder to keep the waves of low str characters at bay.

FATMOUSE said:

FATMOUSE said:

Well a weeny deck is based on the idea of getting out as many cheap/small guys as fast as possible and overwelm the other guy. To count this someone would play Valar or Westeros Bleeds or Wildfire assault. The weeny player then plays narrow escape to bring back his guys. So your left with the choice of either loosing your hand to cancel Narrow escape and be left with no hand and no guys or keeping your hand loosing your guys and the other player lost nothing.

There are other factors that can play in to this but that is the heart of the matter.

Oh, well it's just as "overwhelming" to have a bunch of weenies coming back at you as it is big armies or characters with strong effects. I'd actually argue the latter is more of a threat.

Ivengar said:

I'm confused, why wouldn't both players characters come back if he declined to discard his hand?

Darksbane said:

They do, but generally if you decide to play a reset it's because your opponent has board advantage or is on the verge of gaining it. Narrow Escape undoes that.