... another reason to bring back Paper Shield (or something like it).

Deathjester26 said:

Nothing 'like it'. Just it It was a very balanced card to be sure.

Although...Interrogate would be nice as well

the hands judgement 3 to a pack would also have been nice :?

No prob. Just run Valar, Wildfire, and three copies of Bleeds and Hand's Judgement and you should be able to push a reset through sometime.

Davy Back Fight said:

I assume that is sarcastic, and would point out the chances of drawing a Judgement is equal to the weenie player's chances of getting the Narrow Escape. And I can still cancel the Narrow Escape if I don't have one (especially if I have set up myself well with draw and/or saves). *shrug*

I guess I just haven't seen a weenie deck that should be worrisome, if someone wants to post one I would love to test against it. And I am usually the doom/gloom guy on weenie decks (since I hate them! ).

Stark Knights of the Hollow Hill

3 hungry mob
2 Bolton Refugees
2 Vale Refugees
2 Guard at riverrun
3 Peasant Defenders
2 Trident Reinforcements
3 Host of the Bear
2 Midnight Sentry
2 Blackfish
2 Royal Guard
3 House Tully Septon
3 arya stark (shadows)
3 the bastards elite
3 rusted sword
3 northern steel
3 feighned retreat
3 distraction
3 lethal counterattack
3 frozen moat
3 frozen outpost
3 narrow escape

Turn 1 hit Marched to the Wall if they dropped a character in setup, you have none so there are no worries there. Then overwhelm them with military and power challenges. Its military weenie.

rings said:

x3. Bring back Paper Shield. (This should be it's own thread)

While I'm asking for wild things, bring back Put to the Question.

Oh, jeez, JJ. I just developed a mancrush. PTT? is probably my favorite event of all time after interrogate.

Hell, I loved all the 'put to' cards I think

The Stark deck looked fine, but I certainly don't see an issue with it...too many ways to kill it (Stark, Targ, and MArtell especially) and not enough draw (especially w/o a set-up phase, although it is an interesting take to be sure). 3 of those characters doesn't equal one Wildling Army. Thanks for posting!

If we're bringing back PTT how about we include it's twin PttS

If you tested it and you say me it worked I trust... but looking at first sight I don't like it. Too many stalward "blocking" my draw. and 3x arya stark has no sense in my mind.

Let's say first round you can splash all your hand. If you don't have narrow escape you finished the game... and if you have it you don't have stealth so an intrigue can kill you anyway cause you splash the table and you can suffer an intrigue. You have only 8 chars with intrigue so not reliable on defending a "low card hand for narrow escape play.

Ps if you cannot counter a valar and you have in play 4-5 stalward. Your hand is blocked for 2-3 rounds

rings said:

Yeah I forgot the tilde. I totally agree with what's been said: weenie player has to have one in hand, through draw, and as Gualdo pointed out, it has to remain in hand past intrigue challenges. Plus the weenie player has to be careful to not overextend either in case it is canceled so overall I don't see Narrow Escape as an issue. Back in the ccg era I hated Valar, mostly because when I was a new player, I'd get hit with it a lot, and didn't have a copy of my own. When I got Narrow Escape, I tried to use it and found that it wasn't as useful as I thought it was for my playstyle and never played it after my initial testing... too unreliable when you can draw them, when it benefits you more to use it, and when it won't be canceled.

Also put me down for a Put to the Question returns petition as well.

Sorry to get a little off topic, but could someone explain briefly what's meant by a "weenie" deck?

Zordren said:

Weenie deck means the characters are all really low cost. Weenie strategy would basically be keep throwing down lots of low cost characters, you can declare plenty of challenges and still block all your opponent's challenges. Doesn't even matter if you don't win them, opponent gets no power for unopposed, you have plenty of guys to kill on his military victories and you keep making 3 challenges every round. Opponent can't keep up and will eventually be overwhelmed if he/she is relying on winning with 3-4 medium/high cost characters... its especially useful against baratheon players imo because sooner or later you will get through defenses and start killing those nobles with all the renown, or reduce hand to no cards and he/she won't be able to plots as well since draw phase comes after plot and baratheon is a bit lacking in draw mechanics.
You can counter weenie strategy with things like Venomous Blade...

I don't know if anything should be banned myself, but I do not like that some cards are so much better than others.

I dislike that venomous blade is so powerful. The reason for that is that any other attachment for martell does not even come close to its power.

Like for example the newest attachment, poisoned knife. It is a joke compared to venomous blade, and not even a good one at that.

I dislike that fear of winter has such a powerful effect and is also two claim.

I dislike that the wildling agendas are so much better than the NW ones.

I dislike that narrow escape is so powerful right now.

/end{rant}

@Skowza: Thanks for the info! Figured it was something like that. Yeah I could see it being very effective, but vulnerable also to the wide array of strength reducing plots/events/attachments/etc.

Zsa said:

I have to disagree... Poisoned Knife is pretty decent, especially when used with Lost Oasis, Martell can now make a challenge with 2 weenie characters, kneel one character with Lost Oasis and discard another from play (return to owner's hand would be bad enough, but discard from play?!). Taste for Blood is also worthwhile, and I would argue that in some ways Martell events make up for lack of power in attachments. As far as Venomous Blade being OP compared to other Martell attachments, one could easily make the same argument about Lightbringer. Sand Snakes are coming too, I wouldn't be surprised to see another Martell attachment or two in these last 2 Brotherhood packs.
Fear of Winter, while it is very powerful, can be cancelled with Forgotten Plans or by forcing opponent to reveal a new plot card.
Narrow Escape can be cancelled by discarding or by The Hand's Judgement as well as a number of other cards one may have in play.

As far as Wildling Agendas being much better than NW, um... uh... yea, I'm all out of excuses now. And yes, I realize cancelling Fear of Winter by forcing a new plot card is a pretty lame excuse on my part.

I don't really see, or haven't seen Narrow Escape as a problem, but if it really is good, I'm kinda glad in a way. Having global reset on command through Valar is a bit powerful too, so it needs a counter. While it does reward deck building if you run lots of saves or intentionally play around it as you plan on dropping it, it also rewards poor deck starts or gameplay by giving a losing player a do over. I always preferred Winter Has Come or First Snow back in the day since they required some telegraphing or was a more balanced form of anti-weenie as opposed to general, unbiased reset.

Skowza said:

Poisoned Knife vs Venomous Blade

Poisoned Knife is not good, it is a mediocre card.

1) It's a 2 gold attachment (just like venomous), but unlike it, it can't be placed during setup.

2) It gives stealth to a character - nothing great here.

3) The discard effect is pretty sucky - it can discard a character (without stealth) BUT you need to catch your opponent with your pants down all the way, no gold OR influence - it might have been somewhat more decent if it said gold only. So imagine the same thing on the venomous blade now (kill a character unless the opponent pays one gold or one influence). A very good effect turns into a pretty sucky one no?

4) Once you lose the element of surprise - ie its first use, you're never going to get even close to use that ability again (unless on red viper).

5) That attachment will stay on the char permanently, while venomous blade goes in and out of shadows, which is very useful to avoid things like mass resets.

The only saving grace of this card is that it can be used more than once in a turn, if you get it on a character like the red viper. I'm sure all the viper lovers out there are pretty wet now . I also think lost oasis is a much better card than poisoned knife. There's no condition on lost oasis that the opponent can pay 1 gold or kneel 1 influence to stop its effect.

Again, I disagree about Lightbringer. I actually find motely more useful than lightbringer a lot of the times. There's nowhere near such a clear separation for bara attachments as it is with venomous blade and other martell attachments.

Fear of Winter

You said it yourself that forcing a new plot card is a lame excuse. I wouldn't say it's a lame excuse. I'd say it would be the best choice around... if you had it! How many cards you know that force the opponent to change to a new plot

Yes Forgotten Plans blanks the plot. That's great news indeed... now let's look at the specs on those plots :

Fear of Winter : 2 4 2 Forgotten Plans: 3 4 1

So now the guy who revealed the fear of winter plot has 1 more claim and one less gold - still much better than forgotten plans wouldn't you say? I do like forgotten plans, and it's a great way to thwart off a Fear of Winter chokehold, but you still get that 2 claim there. Why does this one get 4 initiative and 2 claim for such a powerful effect?

Narrow Escape

Narrow Escape is hard to cancel with the hand's judgement if you're playing it in the plot phase - which is usually where a deck that runs The Hand's Judgement would want it played. Discarding your hand leaves you in a pretty bad spot most of the time.

The other option would be the dominance phase with Westeros Bleeds (might be others but nothing else is coming to me), but then you really gotta gear your deck towards this - getting the influence, having the two event cards in your hand - there won't be much room for yourself to play I guess

Poisoned Knife is better against anything over 2 str without stealth. Thats approximately 229 of the 463 characters (ignoring the reinforcement events). So i'd say stealthing has its uses. Its also better on your characters when there are no opponents characters with less strength, making it a viable attachment for... 418 characters who do not have stealth already (wildlings included).

It just depends how much you value stealth. I'm working on a deck where almost every character has stealth. and it looks fun.

Mathias Fricot said:

Killing a character is not the same as bypassing it by stealth. I understand what you're saying in your sentence, but killing something is always more useful than bypassing by stealth. So while poisoned knife is better against anything over 2 str w/o stealth, I'd say that's obvious since Venomous does not do anything vs printed strentgh > 2.

It's true stealth has its uses. And depending on the kind of strategy you build in a deck, it might be more or less important. I'm sure you would find a deck combination where the use of poisoned knife would be much improved. However, I think we can agree on the fact that paying 2 gold for an attachment that just provides stealth is usually not a good investment.

Well it doesn't just provide stealth, it also forces your opponent to save resources he might have otherwise spent on playing a card which would help him. Sure in the late game not such a big deal but in the early game it can really hurt.

Zsa said:

I imagine that opinions will be pretty split on Poisoned Knife, and we probably can't really judge the card until the cycle ends and we see what else shows up in the last two CPs. I understand why you feel it is underpowered, and I certainly am not trying to argue that it is as good as Venomous Blade, just that it is a good card. It will combo well with Dornish Chariot so you can stealth the stealthy and with Alchemist's Shop (as does Venomous Blade). I do think that the discard effect needed to have a modifier, otherwise it would be in every Red Viper deck everywhere and there would be people screaming to have it banned as Viper discarded 3 characters per turn without even kneeling. And I think that there are some advantages to leaving it on a character vs VB going back to Shadows since non-Targ houses don't have much attachment control but anyone can play King's Law or other shadow removal cards.

I did say forcing a new plot on Fear of Winter is a lame excuse precisely because there are so few cards that force a new plot. I agree that the specs on Forgotten Plans aren't nearly as impressive as Fear of Winter, and I personally think that the initiative on Fear of Winter should have been lower.

Ok, done with my rant now... and at least we agree on something... Boo to Wildlings!

Skowza said:

I think we also agree on Fear of Winter as well

And you're right that the cycle should end before we can draw some more definite conclusions (like how would we judge the wildlings before the last pack came ).

Poisoned Knife is a great card not underpowered at all. Especially considering the chance that you can have 2 of these out at once when you pull To The Spears. . . . not only does it force your opponent to conserve gold or not kneel influence for reduction it also allows you to use it multiple times a challenge phase

Skowza said:

This is a joke, right?