Really, -2 gold rather than the +stealth? I find that agenda far more frustrating.

Kennon said:

I just find the idea somewhat nonsensical... how can a wildling army have stealth? Its an army, it can't be stealthy !!

Kennon said:

Actually both make wildlings NPE.

FATMOUSE said:

Again - too bad Valar got dialled back a little. Cry me a river. But I have come aorudn on the Narrow escape thing insofar that you shouldn't be able to get it off 2x in one phase. It shoudl definteily have the limit the old CCG version did.

But other than that - too **** bad you can't just flop Valar to prop you up after a abd start or coming out on the wrong end of some challenges.

I hope Outfox comes back as well.

Isn't 2x Narrow Escape sort of balanced by the fact that any character you discarded to the first one when discarding your hand would then be put into play by the 2nd one?

Darksbane said:

Pre-errata, that's what I thought. That is, I thought the exact wording of the card was intentional for that reason, but the errata changed this. They should have added a limit as well, but they didn't.

Doesn't it say "Killed or discarded from play " ? So dudes that you chuck wouldn't come back.

Stag Lord said:

Now it does, but the actual printing of the card (pre-errata) didn't. The original card text and the errata is listed here .

ahh, I missed the errata on that. Too bad then because I think pre errata the card had a strange balance to it like that. With that errata I'd agree that it needs a limit 1 per phase.

Then Narrow Escape would be unplayable...

After all, the first one will just discard a hand. :-P

You need the second one to actually get the effect off.

bloodycelt said:

~Yeah, discarding your opponent's hand and getting all your characters back isn't a game changer.

~I should also mention the immense amount of skill it takes to draw into 2x Narrow Escape.

FATMOUSE said:

Slightly more skill than playing a Valar??

Although I do think a hand size of 0 should count. That is the only change I would make to the card.

Ivengar said:

The "~" implies sarcasm. I actually like the hand size of 0 better, but I doubt they'll budge from 1; however, if it was 0, there would be just about no need for a limit.

I can't imagine narrow escape being that significant of an impact?

After all, we've had Outfox before, we've had From Winter's touch Returned, Outmaneuver, massive saving effects....

The meta hangs like a spider over a candle. Too much character destruction and we tempt a draw intensive control heavy character lite builds, too little and builds like the wildings get out of hand.

The game itself is about uncertainty. You should never be secure in something such as valar, or even when you are at 14 power. Hence why Burning on the Sands and Narrow Escape belong in this game.

I think bloodycelt nails it here - just that the Limit once per Phase thing should be back. But yeah - it really, really sucked playing under a bulletproof Valar for two+ years. Thank the seven for Power of Blood.....

Skowza said:

I suspect that the various SpecOps military units would strongly disagree. Fun fact. I was IM'ing with Damon on FB on Veteran's Day. He was a Force Recon Marine. How cool is that? My eye-sight was too bad fly but my dad was in the Air Force and as a kid I always dreamed I'd be a fighter pilot. Totally off topic, sorry, just saying a large group of armed men can be stealthy.

Stag Lord said:

Valar wasn't a problem for the environment in my opinion. Valar is powerful, but it's far from bulletproof. As you point out, Power of Blood is a big problem for it (and PoB sees decent play). Dups, saves and other existing events could partially counter it. It's stats 2/0/0 are a huge issue for it. It's not uncommon in my experience to see Valar get played and, because of its horrible stats, the opponent -even after having his board wiped- is right back in the driver seat by the end of the round. And it's a plot, which means it should have some oomph since there's an opportunity cost with plot effects (choosing Valar over having another useful plot in your plot deck) that I think is higher than with effects you build into your House deck.

I half-joked with FatMouse last night that Narrow Escape isn't an anti-Valar card, it's anti-Stark, as it mucks up Stark kill effects and high claim. I'm not ready to say it would be my choice for card to ban, but errata? Perhaps. I think the once per phase limit should have been there, perhaps even having it a Limited Response.

Two NE's might be bad for Stark, but most Stark builds I see don't mind ditching their hands.

Two of many cards can be an NPE for decks that rely on something too much.

You'll vnever sell me on Valar, LGR. Its as talentless as its ever been but we've had that argument to death. Its here and its not going anywhere and I'm Ok with that.

What i wasn't OK with was the lack of an organic counter to this Plot, that sees play in 75%+ of all decks. Hell, we don't even ahve freaking Outmaneuver in the environment. I want their to be a downside to playing this Plot - and Narrow Escape provides it. If you want the Limit back on - I can't really argue that but anyhting that makes the control player work a little harder is fine in my books.

rings said:

Because they are plagued with Stark's traditional lack of draw and so there's not much of a hand left when it comes time to discard it or because they are drawing so well they'll just recover? If the latter, I'd like to see those builds.

rings said:

I wouldn't go so far to say that NE was a NPE for me (yet), but it's rough on Stark trying to play to its traditional strengths to have two NEs come out on consecutive rounds. Not only does it unwind what you've committed your challenges to doing by reviving the opponent's characters, it's a free stand of sorts as well since those characters come back standing. So there's the extra whammy of having to possibly deal with a wave of challenges you didn't anticipate coming. That's a lot of goodness from a no-cost event. Hmmm, perhaps if the effect said that the characters return at the end of that phase. That would still let it be a potent answer to Valar (~if your undies happen to be in a bunch about Valar like some others seem to be ) but a little less potent against the relatively higher efforts put into killing/discarding characters during the challenge phase.

Stag Lord said:

Bah. Aren't most plots "talentless"?

I think I'd rather have Outfox back over Outmaneuver. Outmaneuver predates my playing the game, but to me it looks too foolproof. It cancels all of an opponent's plot's effects; that's almost always going to be a good thing. Outfox is somewhat a dud (still has very solid stats) if your opponent doesn't have a "when revealed" effect on his plot. If a plot is going to directly effect an opponent's plot, I think there's should be some rolling of the dice involved as plot effects shouldn't be easily compromised in my opinion.

What I'm starting to see locally is people playing NE simply as a counter to Valar, instead of using it for other implications. Valar serves a purpose in the environemnt, NE is the counter, but NE has so many other times it can be used effectively. But it is a great counter to any mass reset (including Bleeds). Eventually it may lead to people building decks w/o Valar, because getting hit with NE becomes to large a burden. I've even seen players play Valar, then NE themselves to get their characters back, just to get rid of valar early (which, I'm sorry, is pretty dumb. usually). And my Greyjoy deck which relies on lots of saves when I Valar is making me rethink my reset, and part of the build intent, with NE in the environment. And I'm not saying that is a bad think. it is the evolution of the game at present.

As I said before, in a different thread (I believe) the game really needs Paper Shield reprinted. It won't counter the powerful stuff (Bleeds, Hand's Judgement, Targ Burn) but it will hit stuff like NE, as well as Burning, LPHD and many other cards. And could really shake up the game.

Agreed with JJ. we really do need Paper Shield back. There go three slots in every deck - but I dunno. I really think we need it back.

JJ has it right that many people are just seeing NE as an anti-Valar card when in fact it has so much more utility: anti-reset (Bleeds, Wildfire, Threat, etc.) anti-(MIL)claim, anti-targeted character removal, and combo-maker (cards that have "after X is played" effects, and the recycling of characters with "Kill/discard to..."). Not to mention characters do come back standing and can be used for the duration of the phase (i.e. challenges) or to re-use "kneel to..." effects OR have your opponent lose their entire hand. I personally find it a bit disingenuous to say that House X doesn't mind losing cards. I think everyone minds losing cards regardless of what House your playing. Hand/card advantage is one of the biggest components in the game. It's why we have an entire challenge dedicated to removing cards from players' hands. Stark may not mind not really being able to decrease it's opponent's hand size, or even lose a couple of cards to INT, but I'm pretty sure it never likes the notion of having 0 cards in hand.

Anyway back to NE, cards like See Who is Stronger and Confession cost 3 influence to use. Not that they shouldn't cost three influence; it just shows how under-costed NE is. With the exception of the deck I used at Black Friday, NE has made the cut for all of my decks. It's utility is simply too good to not use it, regardless of whether you're playing control or aggro. For those who think that Valar should have a counter, I'm not saying it shouldn't; what I'm saying is that this 0-cost card has much more utility than simply being anti-Valar and is therefore is bad for the game. It means cards like Paper Shield will need to be reprinted, which in turn makes the game less distinct and innovative as it will become yet virtually another neutral auto-include.....LAME!