I've been following this thread, and I wanted to throw down my 2cents because I feel it's not exactly been mentioned yet.

I'm an old CCG player. I played very briefly when the game came out, then came back to it as Winter was cycling and played through the beginning of LCG. I was very psyched for LCG, because I figured it was a great chance for the game to get a fresh reboot without some of the "CCG crazy/powercreep" that effects pretty much all CCGs at one point or another.

In CCG, one of the biggest things in the game (at least for me) was house loyalty. I loved Targ. Loved it as hard as was humanly possible without being illegal in at least 48 states. That's not to say I wouldn't occasionally play something else- I frequently indulged in lanni and greyjoy. But if I had to pick a house that I really "identified" with, it was Targ. And I'd say it's safe to say, a lot of other players have houses like that as well.

So where am I going with this? The cool part about CCG, with all of it's power creep and CCG idiosyncrasies, is that you could always build a variety of great decks for each major house. Now, of course, there was the fact that the card pool was larger- that's obvious. But looking at the overall design of CCG, it's pretty clear to me that the focus was on the major houses. Each set provided some new twist on the way the major houses worked, while reinforcing each house's major deck theme-types. There were definitely power tiers- that's undeniable. But I feel like post-Winter pre-LCG was definitely the best time this game had, with such a heavy focus on the major houses.

Alright, coming back to LCG now. I'm a Targ player. The feeling I've had since CCG went away is that I can't really put together a solid Targ deck that clicks like it did in CCG. Everything I build is just so far below the level of power of most of the other houses, it's almost not worth playing. That's a pretty radical statement, but I think that Targ's situation really has become one where the difficulty of both deckbuilding and results have become drastically lower then the other houses.

The obvious response to this complaint is "Well just wait- the Targ box is coming out next!". And that's where we come full circle. It's been about 2 years since we switched to LCG only, and players should not have to wait that long for a Great House to "get good" . The current development style of rapidly introducing new themes that do not reinforce the basic strengths of the major houses clearly detracts from the focus on balancing those strengths against each other. Furthermore, introducing "power updates" to the major houses in the form of infrequent bulk packs causes extremely long "FoTM-eqsue" periods for certain houses, while letting other houses languish.

First and foremost, A Game of Thrones is a story about the Great Houses and their struggles for power. There is most definitely room for the more minute aspects of the story, but it's important to remember that AGoT is not primarily about The Brotherhood Without Banners, nor The Wildlings or Nights Watch. It is not even primarily about the Maesters. It is about the Great Houses, and how all those things I previously mentioned play into their bids for power. I'll strongly back FATMOUSE's suggestion that the game focus on the Great Houses while releasing things like Brotherhood/Wildings/Maesters as box expansions.

I'm not saying it's bad to branch out and try cool new things- in fact, that's the only way to keep the game fun. However, it seems like the developers jumped on that bandwagon too quickly, without ever establishing the solid base each house had in CCG, in LCG. Continuing on it instead of fixing the underlying problem of properly supporting the Great Houses, is a Bad Thing™ indeed.

Penfold, the issue is (basically) this:

Seasons came out, and everyone played them. If you didn't then you had a really hard time competing.

Shadows came out, and everyone played them. If you didn't then you had a really hard time competing.

Wildlings came out, and everyone played them. If you didn't then you had a really hard time competing.

Maesters is coming out. Do you think everyone will play them? Do you think it will be hard to compete with them?

If you have a whole six month arc dedicated to one theme/mechanic, it obviously builds up some serious power. Look at shadows - there was no real answer to shadows until The Kings Law and Cragorn. But that came a long time after the shadows cycle started. The reason I think this happens is because a new trait or mechanic is new, so there are no cards before it came out to hold it in cheque. If there were anti-shadows cards in A Time of Ravens they would be dead cards, so they come out with or after what introduced the mechanic. And as soon as this happens, theres a new trait or mechanic or theme that has nothing holding it back. Until the control that works on it will come out, but by then we have probably moved on again. Its a little different with the seasons, since its less to do with things that hose seasons but rather their interaction with the wildlings. Winter gives you control over income, which hurts you more than it hurts the person dropping 1 gold 6 str armies, or the bara guy or raiders guy reducing everything to near zero, so when those decks lose their hold on the meta winter decks should be able to come back in.

I like the idea of how the cycles work, I like the theme of it, I dislike how everyone plays it all at the same time. And this is the reason I think it happens.

ps whoever said raiders are not prime are foolish, they have so much variability and discard its foolishness

Am I really being unreasonable based on what the game has shown us so far? I don't think so. I also don't think it's wrong for me to express early criticism of this cycle, nor do I think it's wrong to do it on these forums.

Sorry, you just lost all credibility in this argument for me with this phrase.

How can you feel that early criticism is warranted to this level when you have not even seen the contents of the first pack? I mean good lord this is the kind of crap that gets titled "nerd-rage."

I mean if you had said, "I'm disappointed to see another cycle themed on traits rather than themed on a broader Westeros concept" I could at least see your post as having a salient point. You instead practically condemn the entire cycle off a few spoilers put out by the marketing department with no knowledge what-so-ever about the contents of the cycle or the direction of development.

I'm not going to continue with this. You feel that based on two previous cycles based around a trait you know precisely how this one is going to turn out, ignoring that those two cycles varied from each other wildly. You could be right, but you don't know that and can't prove it. I'll wait until the cycle is released before I pass any judgments on it and how it is pushing the game in the wrong direction.

Well I hope Penfold is right. If too much of the chapter packs is maesters, that's boring. An underlying theme being "maester support" is tolerable, but I really hope I'm not sifting through 90% maester characters, events, locations, and attachments. Unless there's like maester traited versions of non-maesters. That would be so lame it'd be cool... but would wrap around again and be lame.

My biggest concern is additional support for getting out of house maesters to create a maester deck. Too much support and it'll be the new flavor of the year. Too little support and it'll be good because houses can splash the trait without making a super friends deck. I just hope there's something in these packs for those of us (or those of me if I`m the only hater) who aren't interested in the trait.

Mathias Fricot said:

I never used seasons, didn't see the need for it. Still won in my meta a reasonable amount in joust and melee. I'm certainly not the top player in that group, but I am above average.

I had a shadows deck, but it was not as good as my non-shadows deck. Unless you mean have no shadow cards in which case I did frequently have 2-6 cards with a shadow crest in most of my decks.

I'm still not using wildings or night's watch. The wilding theme is just annoying to me. NW too meh. I'm suffering against wildings in joust, but melee not so much.

I will probably play maesters since Martell is one of my main houses and they have a few maesters i really enjoy... but I doubt I'll hop on board full steam with an all maester themed deck unless it is cool. By that I mean interesting, fun, and competitive. That is where wildings fail. They aren't interesting or fun.

I should also apologize to FATMOUSE. My last post was much more dismissive and possibly condescending in tone than I was "saying" it. So for that. What I mean is that we disagree. I think your reasons for feeling that you can go out as far as you did make no sense to me and so I won't continue to try and discuss it, because I'm sure my stance and reasoning behind probably makes little sense from your POV as well.

I will happily continue discussing the other elements of your and everyone else's posts.

Hi Forums User Penfold! I'd like to address you previous two posts. In your second-to-last post, you dismissed FATMOUSE without actually addressing any of the recommendations he made because he made an evaluation of the soon-to-be-released Maester arc based on what has been previewed so far, and based on the design decisions of the developers over the last two years.

I'd like to now include a quote from Finitesquarewell, Champion of Black Friday '08, '10, the '09 Kingsmoot in the East the '10 DC Joust Regional, the '10 NYC Melee Regional, two-time consecutive Overall World Champion, and winner of the first Days of Ice And Fire event:

Finitesquarewell said:

"so whether or not fatmouse is a playtester is irrelevant to his decision to foment widespread anger based on some assumptions and extrapolation given the nature of what's been spoiled for maesters so far (that they are based on strong characters that can be played between houses, and cheap neutral chain attachments that likely will be very strong given the sideboard agenda and the spoiled chains thus far; and that maesters as a theme will be playable out of any house, thus requiring some neutrals, etc.), and the design crew's multi-cycle record concerning pushing brand new, trait-based and/or neutral themes."

Wow! It's almost like someone who has some sort of qualifications when it comes to high level AGoT play is agreeing with FATMOUSE's analyses! But let's not make this about who's won what. Let's make this about your excellent objective (read: pertaining to game design, not using the words 'fun' or 'interesting') rebuttals of FATMOUSE's main arguments such as that the game could not have survived without the Great House expansion boxes. Or your deft counter-argument for his proposal that the game should be releasing strong Great House support in the chapter packs with alternate themes supported in box expansions.

Hmm. Well. Actually, in lieu of those, let's make this about your primary argument so far: "HOW DARE YOU CONDEMN A SET YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN!". I'd like to ask- if FATMOUSE had made a thread espousing the awesomeness of Maesters, and how pumped he was to see them- even going as far to say how flat-out-awesome he thought they'd be based on the power level of wildlings and the design decisions of the development team over the past two years- would you have stoically responded, "Hey man. Before you get all excited, wait for at least the first chapter pack to come out!". I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you probably wouldn't have. Insofar, your inability to specifically address the individual points that FATMOUSE and others with his concerns have made, coupled with your complete misconstruing of FATMOUSE's points as "just hating traits" (see response #13, paragraph 9 if you don't believe this) has only served to show that you're arguing from the standpoint of "I like this, so don't make fun of it" rather then any legitimate game design perspective.

Also, the whole "I didn't play theme x and did just fine!" is both pretty anecdotal and understating of the actual poor design choices behind wildlings.

EDIT: Man, this forum's quoting functionality is the worst!

Or maybe I didn't address those points because they aren't something I was interested in debating at that moment. I chose the part that bothered me, passing judgment on a cycle that he hasn't seen. As I pointed out the examples we have of this in the LCG are vastly different from each other in scope and style and as such there is little that can be determined about how the designers are going to implement a trait themed cycle from a couple of articles from marketing (since the whole point of marketing is to try and build a buzz on something new and different, even if it is not the sets most powerful or game changing feature from a long time players perspective).

But lets talk about the expansions... Who are these marketed towards? What purpose do they serve from FFG's perspective, which from the comments I'm reading here, compared to the verbage on the box and on the inserts of these boxes, do not seem to match the perspectives of some of the players here.

Perhaps these boxes are being done in this fashion because that is their purpose to keep a second "core set" like set of cards available for the houses further enhancing basic themes for them. Perhaps the point of the cycles is to explore the nooks and crannies of Westeros allowing all kinds of players access to cards they are going to resonate with on some level, if not every cycle, at least every few cycles, while still providing cards that are useful in multiple deck types.

People can talk about how the books are all about the Great Houses, but they are about so much more than just that. They are about the Night's Watch and their duty to the wall, protecting the land from both the Wildings and the Others. Considering a fair amount of time is spent with Jon Snow not just A view point character, but one of the most popular, and obviously one of the central characters and main protagonists of the series, FFG would be remiss to ignore such an iconic setting and the friends and foes who fight over the wall. Casual players the world over would be wondering when they got a chance to re-enact the battles the book details.

This game is far larger than the competitive world so many of us think of.

What if things were reversed? 55 cards twice a year to explore all the interesting parts of Westeros that was not specific to the Great Houses. That could work I suppose since it would actually be about the same or more cards than the current scheme... though it does start to bring up other questions, such as how do you introduce and support new mechanics into the game if they are supposed to be only done so in these box sets? Would people buy the boxed sets if they only contained the theme cards. Lets face it, what is best for the game is for FFG to still see a nice profit from AGoT and thereby see worth in continuing to print cards. I'm a creative type, marketing was something I studied a fair bit in school. No company is going to make a product that does not look like it will turn a sizable profit. They would always be better off putting their time and resources in a project with better returns.

As to whether I would have told FATMOUSE to rein it in if he went so far as to start a thread titled, "Mono-theme Cycles are What Makes this Game Great" Yes I absolutely would have. You don't know me at all. I am a pragmatist. I believe in analyzing and critiquing things that I can actually see and prove before making judgments. I caution those who don't.

As to Finitesquare... *shrug* don't know him. His statements could be read either way. I certainly took them to be a case of he didn't think FM had to be a playtester to make his points, I didn't say that he did necessarily, but that is the only way he would know what is in the next set and without that everything is supposition. If it is supposition then I can ignore it as irrelevant to proving his general hypothesis unless he puts great stock in it himself. In which case it is good to point out that it is supposition, not fact and as such, there is no real point in addressing it, refuting it, or using it as support for an argument.

So then what we have is mono-themed cycles pushing the game in the wrong direction. Mono-themed cycles would be seasons. I don't agree that it was bad for the game. Generally speaking most people said there was not enough season tech for there to be competitive builds for each house... due to the amount of non-season dependent cards in the cycle. Shadows. Well again a large portion of the cards were not actually Shadow dependent, and a lot of the cards that did feature the Shadow crest did not interact with any other cards in or out of shadows, allowing them to fit into any pre-existing decks, and we saw further development of existing themes in that cycle some of which also had a shadow crest. Either way you count it, either King's Landing was not a mono-themed deck and is irrelevant to the discussion or it was and included support for existing builds and House strengths or offered new avenues of approach while still putting up a new mechanic and it is a refutation of the premise.

So lets take a look at Defenders of the North. We have Dire Wolf Support, Noble Support, Bara Rush Support, Greyjoy Discard support, Stark Defense Support, Martell Control support, Draw, attachment control, Targ burn, all without having to buy into the NW or Wilding deck type. This argument is looking weaker and weaker.

Brotherhood without Banners, with a few arguable Houses, the mono-themed trait support seems to have come out pretty good over all, opened up a new deck type with some interesting characters from the books and done so without forcing everyone to use the titular Brotherhood characters. Now if you dislike all the mechanics for the House cards I can see why you'd be peeved, but lets face it, those same cards could have seen print without the traits and had the same mixed reaction, but lacked any cohesive fluff to tie them together.

I have yet to see a mono-themed cycle that pushed the game in the wrong direction... but I do agree that ATfR was not the best of sets as far a number of good cards that didn't involve the season mechanic, and those that did being to restrictive for general use, and I agree that Wildings are much too strong. First Blood is a definite problem (though there are other cards that I'd have been happy being a bit weaker as well). I still don't see that as proof that mono-themed cycles are pushing the game in the wrong direction.

~Man. Half these posts are so long... forgive me if any of this has been said during the parts where I blacked out

First of all, I like themes. I definitely think they have their place in the game. I agree somewhat with FATMOUSE. What I feel most coming from the LCG is that I'm being "told" how to build my decks in order to be competitive. 2 things are happening. 1) The current theme is so dominant that playing anything else at the time is silly (i.e. Shadows, Wildlings). 2) The current theme is so synergistic that in order to have any of it, it basically takes over your deck (i.e. Ravens). I think the Brotherhood cycle was well done.

What I want is to be able to build my own decks and "splash" in the options FFG gives me (BTW, with a deeper card pool Shadows now does this nicely). I'd prefer to stay away from FFG saying "here's this new deck type, try it out in your favorite house!" There's definitely a bit of both in the game right now, and perhaps too much of the former. Either way, when I am building a deck I feel the base of it is coming from one CP cycle's theme, with very little cross over from cycle to cycle.

This can either be a result of how Nate likes to design, or perhaps this is being done on purpose as a built in way to help avoid crazy combos from one cycle to another (see other thread on rotation ideas).

I'd love to see more "meat and potatoes" cards that can splash into MY deck ideas. However, I understand if FFG finds good solid cards either 1) less exciting to sell in CP form or, 2) a risk down the road for potential power creep or broken combos.

Penfold said:

Note: I hate this quote system, so the rest won't be so fancy.

I saw a few examples from the last sets given. A set comes out, most people jump to it, and it dominates the environment for a while until the next big set comes out. The point of those examples are that it has happened twice now. In a row. If we consider it a trend, where do you believe the next set will take us? I very much dislike that about this game and that is why I agree with Fatmouse. (My opinion of course.)

This is a very intersting topic which I have thought about a lot. It really gets at the question of what is the LCG about and how should players interact with it. There have been some great points made so far (but let's keep the hostility in check!). Sorry that this post is so long. I was stuck on a train and spent the time reading this thread and responding (reading the thread and typing out the response offline).

I am sympathetic to many of the concerns that FATMOUSE brings up. However, I don't think his solution is viable (though it's possible I do not understand correctly what changes he is calling for).

I think Penfold made a very good point when he brought up marketing. Some important questions to ask when criticizing the way in which the game is packaged and sold are "who is buying this game? and "what are they looking for in this product?" While there is a core of competitive players posting on these forums, it is a small number of players, and I'd guess that most players play the game in a small, isolated meta made up of only a few friends.

The current theme-based chapter pack cycle system is well suited to this style of player because it offers him/her something new and easily understood. For example, he/she may already have a Targ burn deck but not a Targ Shadows deck or a Bara rush deck but not a Bara Summer or Bara Ashai'i deck. It would be harder to market "more solid support for each house" to this player every month/six months. Some of these players like the "builds-itself" style of theme so it is important to print some cards of this kind, but there is no need for the power level to be top tier (e.g. something like House Dayne or Greyjoy discard is fine, but Wildlings goes too far).

The expansion boxes also work best supporting a single house because they are able to playable decks right out of the box. Since the game is also marketed towards board game players who like card games but do not want to put in the effort to collect, it is important to have these playable-out-of-the-box kind of products.

With those points in favor of the current system out of the way, I think that many of the issues raised about the current LCG model could be corrected by better development (as Rogue30 has already suggested). That Shadows has come out and dominated, and then Wildlings after it, is evidence that these mechanics were pushed a little too strongly. In the case of Shadows, it was also evidence of a fairly shallow card pool (it's really hard to balance a small card pool). Regarding balance between the houses, I don't see why the deficiencies of different houses could not be filled in in the chapter packs (whatever the problems with Targ are, could they not have been addressed somewhat in the last cycle by the appropriate answer cards with the Dothraki trait?).

Regarding the "linearity" of the chapter pack cycles so far, I actually admire the cleverness of FFG in coming up with this approach. I think using linear themes is pretty much the only way (perhaps there are others I have not thought of?) to constantly introduce new cards to the game that are relevant without obsoleting older cards. If each chapter pack just gives more "good stuff" to each house, it will soon be necessary to print strictly better versions of older cards in order to keep the new cards relevant. With something like the Seasons or Wilding mechanic this is not the case because they work best in new decks using many new cards. When development works properly, the best Wildling deck should be no better than the best Tully deck or the best Dothraki deck. Of course, it is hard to get this balance right in practice.

While I admire FFG's "linear" approach, I wish that they would not make new mechanics as "insular" as the ones they have created so far in the LCG. By "insular" I mean mechanics which can not be countered/interacted with by the core elements of the game. Seasons , Shadows and Wildlings/NW are all strongly insular in their own ways. As the card pool and diversity of deck types grow, it becomes harder to justify including Carrion Birds in every single deck, but not including the birds in your deck requires conceding that your cards will be less powerful than your opponent's when he or she is playing a Seasons deck since you have no way to turn off the Season.* Likewise, when you do not play Wildlings yourself, you concede to all of your Wildling opponents that their characters will be more powerful than yours (at the cost of needing more power to win but that does not affect the board). Outside of a couple cards, cards in Shadows can not be interacted with (the Shadows mechanic does not really bother me because the safety of Shadows is balanced by the clunkiness of removing things from Shadows and the inability to use most reducers to pay for Shadows cards; also, the total cost of most Shadows cards is generally equal to what the cost would be without the Shadows crest so the cards do not feel overpowered; I know some people dislike the near invulnerability of Shadows cards though).

I also strongly agree that the current level of support for some of the themes introduced so far is too small. Pretty much every theme introduced so far has just enough cards to support one deck without enough options for players to tune the deck to stand out from others in their meta (e.g. there's only really one Bara Shadows deck, one Targ Wildlings, etc.).

I am sure that there are other improvements that could be made to the current system. One idea would be for the box expansions to come out between chapter pack cycles and to include a chunk of support cards for the upcoming cycle (this is a modification of FATMOUSE's proposal to move all theme support to the box expansions). Personally, I dislike how under the current system the new theme is largely irrelevant until the fifth or sixth chapter pack when finally there is sufficient support for the theme to build a decent deck. Alternatively, I'd like to see the chapter pack cycle "frontloaded" with a double sized first chapter pack (e.g. 3 copies of 40 unique cards rather than of 20 unique cards) in order to allow players to start working with the new themes right away.

* In case it's not clear, I am asking that new mechanics fit in better with pre-existing form of the game. It's fine for some new mechanics to require a player to play a bunch of new cards together. What I do not like is when a new mechanic requires the opponents to also play with the new mechanic. A way of making the Seasons mechanic more interactive would be to give it a built-in vulnerability. Either not make the Ravens immune to all non-Ravens or give them some kind of off-switch like "If you lose three challenges as the defender in a single round, discard White Raven." This kind of ability would at least give an average non-Seasons deck some way of interacting with a Seasons deck.

Husemann said:

~though as with dobbler and his waistline, I've been working on lessening the circumference of my head over the last year or two

finitesquarewell said:

Pfft. You have a lot to be proud of. Glad to hear about the effort though!

I think Fatmouse makes a very convincing case.

schrecklich and penfold make good points about marketing - but I respectfully disagree. i think it would be easier to market a stand alone "Maesters" box or "Wildlings" box to casual players than not. It would be very clear what they a re getting, They would be able to pick a theme they like without committing to six chapter packs and they could skip themes that don't appeal to them.

Let the Chapter Packs develop house themes with a selection of playable cards for each House in all six packs in a cycle -(yes: like Clash or Arms) and let the "themes' come out in twice annual stand alone boxes - especially after we have completed the box for each house thing - and we are already almost halfway there.

I think past performance is a good indicator of future results, and based on how each theme has gotten progressively more dominant (Core set<seasons<Shadows<wildlings) I find Fatmouse's worries about Maesters to be rather well founded indeed.

Deathjester26 said:

~I second that. Do you people know how hard it is to procrastinate at work and hide it when you have to take notes on posts just to remember everything!

If FATMOUSE's fears prove true I agree. I hope they don't but I really like some of the themes that exist already so I would like to seem them fleshed out. However, I sort of count maester's in that. I think they could be a good theme that's already sorta there (see Maester of War in martell) but is nothing right now. So I guess the point of my post is to say I have no idea what I think. And I bet you are all glad that I shared that with you.

Honestly, I think we'd all get bored really fast if all we ever got in the monthly packs were expansions on the current house themes. Yeah, I'd love a cycle that hearkened back to ITE days, where every card was nedly and was based around the core mechanics and/or themes of the houses, but I wouldn't want that to be the continuous cycle. I want the game to develop themes, and the chapter packs give us more evolution around a theme than an expansion set does. I enjoy seeing the card pool grow, watching my Brotherhood deck getting stronger as the new chapter packs come out. If Wildlings hadn't been so overpowered (and are they overpowered by themselves, or does the reduction agenda put them over the top), would we be complaining as much about everyone settling on the "new hotness."

I said it before: I'm excited to see both maester and learned crest support. I want to see what this cycle gives us. I was excited about the NW/W cycle, but was underwhelmed by the Night's Watch cards, the vast majority of which are useless outside of a dedicated NW deck. A deck that is pretty much only useful in casual and not competitive play. I'd rather watch maesters develop over a cycle than get a box with 48 maester-related cards and 7 plots. If we look at a dozen links for a chain, we're down to 36 cards. So we can assume at most 3-4 in-house maester type cards, a handful of neutral maesters and between 6-12 events. And then what? Are people going to complain that there isn't enough maester support out there for a theme deck? That there isn't enough synergy? Perhaps these are still the numbers we'll get in the 120 card cycle, but there might be more stuff that interacts with the maesters, or the meta-theme that Nate had in mind when he created it. We won't know for sure how all these new maesters will affect the game until probably May, and for sure the tournament scene in July will be ready to see if the maesters are the big hotness come GenCon, of if Wildlings still rule, or perhaps Brotherhood saves the smallfolk of Westeros. Then again, Stark kill or Lanni kneel or Targ burn might be dominant. We can't say until we see what the cards are going to be.

And I suspect that we'll be having a smilar discussion in July, when the next cycle of cards is announced.

JerusalemJones said:

I think a lot of people have this misconception that "cards that create a solid base for the great houses" equivocates to "ONLY ONE THEME FOR EACH HOUSE EVER", which is patently untrue. If you look back at CCG, it's not like there was only one/two themes per house that were supported, and that's not at all what people in this thread are suggesting. Rather, that the design team address the fact that they rushed into LCG making cool, yet gimmicky themes without developing a strong card base for each house in LCG like they had in CCG.

finitesquarewell said:

Dear fellows

I'm not sure how I got involved in this discussion, but I shall exit at this time.

Sincerely

Dobbler's Head and Waistline

Husemann said:

But this has always been the way of CCG's any time a new mechanic or theme is introduced. The first thing is people start narrowly looking at cards that can go into existing decks, then there is a big kerfluffle and people start building decks around whatever the new mechanic is. IF the mechanic/theme is well done it is instantly competitive (in LCG upon full release). If it is poorly done it is ignored or becomes the only thing that CAN be played. There are people who time tested and proven mechanics/builds to play the new hotness. And then it settles down and people either go back to those old mechanics/themes or find ways to fuse them.

I'm not sure you can say the existence of themes is pushing the game in the wrong direction. That has yet to come anywhere close to having been proven. I think a much better argument can be made about players responses to themes, and just new cycles in general. When was the last time someone here went through all of their Clash of Arms cards to see if there is something that with the expanded card pool would be an excellent card to include in a deck or build around? Do most people look at the newly released cards and try to see what is hot and captures their eye and just go from there?

I'm not condemning one form or saying that the other is better, just that you can see how a player approaches deck building and thinks about the card pool in general is going to greatly effect what cards get chosen and what decks get built. Perception becomes reality... for them.

How much can we hold development responsible for player reactions and choices when it comes to jumping on a bandwagon? Do we have them give up themes and new mechanics entirely because people will instinctively gravitate to the newest toys? And that said, what about the fact that this is what will happen anyway when a new set comes out with no specific mechanic? Older sets will get pushed out as new come in. When the new are themed in some fashion it can create a more varied environment (note Wildings are a definite aberration in my mind) because not every one wants to play a raider deck, an unopposed deck, a winter denial deck... but some people will, and the end result is decks in a single house that do play differently some fully committed, some splashed.