I was looking at the card pool the other day, and as I was going through the cards I saw Pyromancer's Cache . I said to myself, "Wow, I remember how this card was great for draw, even OOH." Then it struck me that we have Val -- a cheap, neutral, strong draw card. So what's the difference between Val and Pyromacer's Cache? Why is Val legal and Pyromancer's banned? Is Pyromancer's really that much better than Val; do the "drawbacks" of Val truly balance it? Do you think Val should be banned because Pyromancer's is banned? Do you think Pyromancer's should be unbanned because Val is legal? If Pyromancer's was neutral and 2 gold, would it be ok? Again, is there a difference between the two cards; if so, what is it?

Yeah - huge, hugedifference. Val discyards stuff you can't play AT TAHT MOMENT. Cache just nest you crads - A far superior effect. i'm still not sold on Val - except maybe out of a Wildling deck. Black Friday I saw event after event hit my discard pile that could have beenr eally helpful but i was down characters and trying to get a stabilized board position. I also don't EVER need to see a Forever Burning go staright to discrad pile.

Cache was much mcuh better.

Stag Lord said:

Why would it? You'd just play it after drawing it with Val.

FATMOUSE said:

Yes. The appropriate thing to do would be to play Forever Burning's "Any Phase" effect as your next action in order to put the card into your dead pile for later recursion. (In fact, you have to.) That definitely mitigates the problem, but it is also annoying to have to essentially "waste" the event and wait a round for it. Granted, you're doing that anyway if you're waiting to draw it, but the galling perception is there in this context.

Now, if Stag had said "I don't EVER need to see Westeros Bleeds go straight to the discard pile" for the Targ deck he played at Black Friday, there wouldn't even be that mitigation....

Here's the difference between Val and Pyromancer's Cache to me: Val I need to plan for and build the entire deck around in order to use her as a draw engine. Pyromancer's Cache I throw onto any deck as an afterthought and it becomes my draw engine. Val is a neutral character that lets you draw cards, but she is by no means a general draw card that can be tossed into any deck to make it better. Pyromancer's Cache, even at 3 OOH, is a general draw card that can simply be added into any deck - and will most likely make it better by adding reliable draw.

I don't think there is a comparison to Pyromancer's Cache and Val. The better comparison to me is Val and Sam Tarly. He's a cheap, neutral character that lets you draw cards - but only in the right deck, just like Val.

Yeah but... what deck couldn't use val?

So what if you discard a westeros bleeds or some other event?

In most decks you have a 50% chance of drawing a character and a 25% chance of fetching a location or attachment.

Considering that players don't see most of their deck in a game, why does discarding it matter? (This is also why milling doesn't work and has no tactical value). Only the events in your hand that you can play currently matter. I almost feel that if you can't take advantage of val in your deck, there is something wrong with your deck.

bloodycelt said:

...and now we come full circle. I feel a strange sense of deja vu. I agree completely. Unless you've got a combo deck or such an important piece of the puzzle you can't afford to lose, Val doesn't hurt your deck. As Stags pointed out, still nowhere near as efficient as the Cache, but still...

I disagree -wth you (and Ktom has the rigth of it) Bleeds is a better example - i was just short of egtting the reset off against you in the cut round adn against GJChris later I Val'd through tow parting blows that would have been very handy.

I only have a limited amount of slots for events - and they aren't all: Any Phase by any means. To see them hit my discard pile without being used - BECAUSE OF MY OWN ACTION - kills me. I run three copies so i can draw one if I need it going to your cards in hand v cards in deck theory

Val is far from an any deck card and she is coming out of a couple of mine. I think the Sam - Val compariosn is more interesting - and i'd go with Sam in all likelihood. At least he doesn't cost you your own freaking resources.

Let's also remember that Val is a printed 1 STR Character, and therefore far more vulnerable than an attachment on a location at the moment.

Yeah, Stag Lord, I understand where you are coming from. For instance, I am very careful about when I use her ability. As an example, if I'm playing Targ and have been holding off on playing Threat from the North waiting for a Hatchling Feast, I'm skittish about using Val's ability. I constantly assess the percentages of what I could draw based on cards I've already seen in my deck when I consider whether or not to use her. Consider, also, that she could get you closer to the cards you need, one way or the other, with filtering of sorts. It really just depends on how important those individual pieces are to your deck. You've made the analysis that you don't like using her in your Targ deck the way it's built, which is a perfectly valid assessment (which I made sure to qualify in my last post as well).

I've never said she was a perfect draw answer, and her drawback makes her balanced in my mind, for the most part.

Typically, for me, she ends up as supplemental draw, and in some cases, emergency draw. But she is very good at those jobs. The only time I'd run her as my main draw engine is if I had a lot of discard pile recursion in the deck.

another thing that is far different (i agre that a character is far more unstable than location/attach) is that Val is neutral. So everybody can handle it. Pyromancer cache were the perfect recursive draw card for an house that had (still have) the SUPER perfect draw card (GTM) :-)

I hear what your saying, LC. In fact, after I posted I realized that Val COULD have helped me against bloodycetl - very much in the manner you address. I said if had drawn the Bleeds against blooycelt it would have been a big help. Well - I didn't have Val in that game: if I had and i filtered through the two or three cards that did't help me win, and the Bleeds was sitting there for my next draw phase: she would have done wodners.

But again: that's 20-20 hindsight and she could have just as easily sent the Bleeds to my discard in Marshalling (which would have REALLY pissed me off)......

I agree - she is decent supplemental draw, (and filter) but I also agree with Kevin: you can't just throw her in a deck and expect results orders of magnitude better. You can with Cache - no comparison: and i'd really like to address the Sam v Val debate.

Gualdo said:

If I had my choice between neutral Val and Lannister Cache, even in a non-Lannister deck, I'd take the Cache. Take the "general" over the "supplemental" any time (which is why I'd probably take Sam over Val, assuming I was playing Ravens of any type).

Stag Lord said:

You're also forgetting Stag, that you could also use her ability during Dominance if you feel you really need Bleeds that badly. Steve used Val in the plot phase against Erick in one of their matches to fetch a Narrow Escape after a reset -- he drew it on his third try.

EDIT: To avoid a double-post. Cache would still cost 3 gold in a Neutral Faction deck as it only reduces the cost of OOH characters (surprised me too).

Wouldn't Val also force you to play the card if you have the resources? This could use up valuable resources on cards which you don't need or don't need at the time.

bloodycelt said:

she can get in the way of some decks, martell for instance, with a lot of events that I'd want to have sit in my hand. Where I think the best use of her is, is in the wildlings deck where she is usualy free to play and much more efficient as your gold curve is so low. But there the problem isn't here but a specific agenda.

Not only does Martell have some event recursion, but I think you missed a crucial and possibly contraversial point.

In the marshalling phase, its almost always better to discard an event or so, if you top deck a character to put into play.

Darksbane said:

Haha, I just find these sort of conversations interesting. I've played quite a few card games in one form or another over the last dozen years or so, and Val is one of the best draw engines that I've seen in any of those games. If any of you have played some of these, imagine her as a Guardians, Rage, LotR, L5R, Doomtown or Magic card. She would be nuts in those games. In fact now that I mention it, I wonder what copies of her would be worth if she existed as a Magic card.

It is right that cache can be used by everyone but the matter is always that "lanni pays it only 1 gold". They have best resource cards, best draw cards at cheaper price than others. In the black bordered cycle they received best draw card (cache), best kneel card (castellan), best anti non unique card (toll gate) and best attachment control (cache). And the fabolus thing is that all of them were not unique.

So let's say I think ban of cache and control attach balanced the game. In the next set lanni get tommen as easy draw cheap. But since it is a char and with low strength i can accept it... and tommen can be useful in a neutral deck at cost 2 and maybe with some others cheap queen/kings playing all clash armies (a friend of mine did a wildling neutral deck in this way... and were quite good... 9 armies very very very cheap :-))

Gualdo said:

I have always maintained that banning Cache had less to do with trying to limit Lannister power as it was about Cache itself not fitting into the "theory" of draw in LCG. There is no other draw effect in the LCG environment that can be triggered every round with no significant cost, planning or drawback. Everything else is conditioned upon doing something else first (eg: winning a challenge, playing a Raven, making sure there are no other Kings in play, etc.) or involves some actual risk (eg: Val).

As for the whole "Val is awesome and in any other game, no one would even think of not using her" line of reasoning, that is all probably true. The issue is probably one of perception. It's human psychology. We don't like to "lose" anything and, when you end up immediately discarding the card drawn with Val, you feel like you have lost something. As many have pointed out here, you probably have not lost anything in practical terms, but something about putting a card that you cannot use immediately into your discard pile (where you won't be able to use it later) instead of into your hand (where you might) is a pretty big shift in perception, if not practicality, for most people.

Kennon said:

I've played a little MtG, but only casually, and none of the other card games. Would Val be as fragile in those games as she is in AGoT? You can Milk or Bowl of Brown her as neutral, cheap solutions available to all houses (and they aren't silver bullets as they have a lot of utility against other cards) and Stark, Martell, and Targ can all easily kill her with cards that are staples or near to it and so, again, not silver bullets inserted just to deal with her.

As for Cache, I think Ktom has it right. It just made draw too easy. In the last days of CCG, I was bouncing my 3x Caches around from deck to deck. Lanni cards in my Stark deck?!?! The Horror! But I did it because it gave reliable draw (and the multiplier for having a king or queen was crazy good) that could be done before a I marshalled (that's a significant perk compared to draw that arises during the Challenge phase, which is where some houses such as GJ and Stark currently find their draw opportunities).

I love this thread, I thought of the same thing once.

People have a very valid point that Val is much more 'breakable' than the attachment. So many things kill her. But, you better have at least one (another reason why cards like V Blade and some Targ cards.

But there is absolutely NO reason not to run one. It is just very efficient draw, that doesn't cost much, doesn't need a trigger, and then can challenge as well (or soak claim). She costs 2 (sometimes 0) for goodness sake! I run 3X in most decks, especially with Narrow Escape. At 2/0 gold, she has WON me games (see: quarterfinals of Worlds vs. Dobbler).

Stag Lord - you have the same chance of discarding a Bleeds as you do getting through other cards and then drawing your Bleeds when you wouldn't have normally. My pet peeve with TCG/CCG players is when they complain about draw/discard effects if they lose a good card. You always have the same chance of drawing one that you wouldn't have drawn as discarding one.

As Ktom alluded to, I think banning Cashe probably hurt other houses more than it hurt Lanni. They would have a pretty good 3-cost (1 with Alliance which is getting to be a pretty darn good plot) draw engine, while Lanni just relies on GTM and other draw mechanics to hit their 3/turn.

~BTW still in awe that Ktom missed that the Neutral Faction house only works on characters. Dammit, I don't know WHAT to believe in anymore...I have lost faith in everything

She's way good, but Val can make you lose games too.

It has happened me more than once, and twice, to be forced to pay 4 gold to play Khal Drogo(CS) or Rhaenys Hill when it was a really poor play. Yeah, it's deckbuilding, I can remove Khal and the hills... but I prefer not to, and this can happen with any deck.

So the drawback can't be that you are discarding some cool event, the real drawback is you are playing random cards (of a chosen subset, of course) that can be good, or can spoil your gold and ruin you the game.

So I don't think it's psicological, it's a matter of efficacy, some decks can abuse this draw, some don't, and some just doesn't need it. Just like Sam, just like King's Landing, just like any other neutral draw, really.

rings said:

~BTW still in awe that Ktom missed that the Neutral Faction house only works on characters. Dammit, I don't know WHAT to believe in anymore...I have lost faith in everything

Kennon said:

My first instinct, with out researching further to find a closer comparison would be to compare her to MTG's Merfolk Looter (not exactly the same, i know). A decent card, but not insane or overpowered by any mean. It's just a common...