Sooo.... umm.... who else is hoping for straight out of the box errata? He's insane with something like Val, who was already crazy good to begin with.

Umm... I actually have to slightly agree. The combo with Val is just silly. Not to mention the For R'Hllor combo, or just playing this guy together with Ser Preston Greenfield from Kings of the Storm in a Knight deck (maybe with Fear of Winter).

Possibly my biggest gripe with the card is that it's yet another nail in the wet coffin of GJ. Martell, Baratheon and Lannister all have some powerful repeatable kneel they can use to control this guy, Stark and Targaryen have some direct removal to deal with him... but GJ? No in-house solutions that come to mind (Fishing Net, Pulled Under, Marauders... none of em' work on this guy) and this hits GJ Winter builds quite heavily (Alannys and the Agenda can both be negated), just as they would have had a chance to become playable again after the BotFM ban.

Not sure on how any errata should be worded however...

WWDrakey said:

Not too sure about the actual wording, but changing it so that only the claim from intrigue challenges is affected might work, no? Still a good card, still does what was intended, basically, I guess, but takes away the possibly ridiculous combos.

I also smell an erratum coming, something along the lines of "cards in your hand cannot be discarded by opponents or as claim for an intrigue challenge."

~This is the most broken card ever! We should ban it now before Baratheon takes over the meta game and no other houses are viable !....oh, he does take milk of the poppy...and he has no immunities....but I like proclaiming how cards will break the environment before they are released, only to never see them get played regularly.

While I see your point about Greyjoy/Winter, I think that deck has other holes besides the Laughing Storm.

Without playing with him for a while I can't say how powerful he actually is. At first glance though I think he is good in the right deck but not in need of errata. He is a card which protects you mostly from intrigue focused deck type but is also vulnerable to some common strategies of that deck type (many of the intrigue decks have kneel as a major component). He is great as a combo card and I think this game benefits from more interesting card combo interaction.

Val is my only real concern with him, because as it is it will be the best draw engine any baratheon deck can achieve. I really can't see myself hesitating too much including Val x3 and Laughing Storm x3 in any Bara deck I make, perhaps with a Asshai Initiate or 2 to keep them from being dead.

I completely disagree on the strength of the for R'hllor combo.....it still requires 2 other actions to happen before the laughing storm makes it 'silly'. the part that TLS interacts with is also controllable by the player in the number of cards he has in his hand (how often does a bara player have more than 5 cards in his hand anyway? 6 being the threshold for the 'brokenness' since for r'hllor would be the 5th card in hand and once played the player is down to 4 already...).

The combo with val is pretty neat, but I don't see it being silly either. Quick name the baratheon draw cards......ok so you named 2....keep going......stuck? yeah me too. bara is such a bad draw house that i won't even think of running a non-knights (which i didn't count as a bara card, as all house have access to it) deck right now. so val in bara is only good for 2 cards. now w/out laughing storm I sill don't run val in my knights deck.....i'd say 90% of the time I draw with her I'm going to have to either not play cards from my hand to afford what i draw into or discard it. So bara gets a reduction on val and can now draw 3 cards a turn, its still not as easy as lanni, martell, or targ, and it relys on two extremly controllable characters.....(nethier of which are protected by power of blood....).

I'd even compare this combo to the dreadfort.....dreadfort is a lot less vulnerable is a garanteed card a turn, realistically 2, and the characters it interacts with are a lot beefeyer and majority non-unique.

TLS can be kneelt, burned, killed, and blanked with 0 additional protection over any other-non unigue.

If the complaint is TLS dosen't work as intended i'd smile and tell you to reread the third paragraph that Alec wrote and tell me thats not excatly what he intended.

Its important to note the "House Baratheon only" tag on this dude. Which means he will not be splashed out of house in other decks just to play some of the combos with him. He is an amazing tool in the Baratheon arsenal, but not something that will keep me up at night.

does any one rember when the blackfish came out and he was so broken? Do note you are still seeing the cards that there drawing that can be a big help. You play lannie and there drawing 3 card a turn and you have no idea what coming. Barb still cost a ton! Do the have the gold to play the cards in hand or that jsut give you options?

I think the draw engine is too strong - not sure if erratta is needed.

Unluckily as much as I want to like the card (I love the character, I love uniques), I just don't. Anything that stops a challenge basically, is just bad for the game (never liked the original Queen of Thorns). Imagine a house Lanni only card that said 'your characters cannot be killed by military claim while (Shae?) is standing'. It would be like Aemon heavy I would say the same thing about power challenges but Bara already has that (the army that stops power challenges while standing).

Can't wait to play Bara decks with him and the army - hey, you get one claim effect per round, unless I happen to have searched for Aemon with the new Maester plot!

No sky is falling, they are all controllable. Just don't like the direction.

Great card. The House Baratheon only thing balances it as Dobbler points out. i was always a fan of the old QoT (unlike rings above) adn he has NO immunities. Suck it up control players - sorry you can't rip out cards with Confession and Claim 2 INT and all Martell's stupid tricks.

The draw engine, however is an issue. I can't argue that. Bara now gets three carsd a turn and draws better than Lannister.

its not going to stay that way - but I'll play the hell out of the combo while I can.

Great card Alec!

King Blith said:

King Blith said:

Me being new and foolish...I don't see the problem . You're talking a lot about this and that effect and Val and combos and IDUNNO? You don't have to but I'd be very grateful for a clear overview about the problems you see with the card (like in that which house is good at what thread ).

I looked up 'VAL' in the AGOT Dabbler and couldn't come up with any card that would be terryfing together with the 'Laughing Storm' and that makes me feel so, well, foolish.

Ser Folly said:

I believe the "combo" everyone is referring to in regards to Val and TLS is that TLS can over-ride the drawback to Val's draw ability (since even if one can't afford to pay for the card that is drawn it is not discarded due to TLS's ability). So, long as Val and TLS are on the table at the same time it effectively lets the Baratheon player reach the draw cap each round with no risk or drawback.

Ser Folly said:

Some powerful combos currently with TLS

Val - he prevents you from suffering the negative effect of her drawing.

For R'hllor - You can use Counting Favors , Dragon's Tail , or just wait for your opponent to draw something then make them discard while your hand is protected.

Ser Preston Greenfield KotStorm - As with For R'hllor he protects you from the downsides.

Personally I don't think any of these combos are gamebreaking. Val is the only one which concerns me and that only from the perspective of do the designers want bara to have fairly easy consistant draw. Currently they are not a house with very many draw options so this seems like quite a big deal some types of bara decks.

Yeah, I agree that this seems a bit over the top. I don't like that it effectively negates the Winter agenda, Rule by Decree, and other non-challenge phase effects so easily. The jury is still out for me on events...I don't like that it negates Confession (not a card that sees much play anyway), but I won't lose much sleep over that. The Val thing scares me though...way too easy to play 3x Val and 3x TLS with Asshai Initiate, then bounce back TLS with To Be A Stag.

I would likely be up for an errata that says this applies only to intrigue challenges AND NOT triggered effects, but I'd like to see how things actually play out first. If TLS seems as broken in a month or two, I'll add my support to an errata.

Lars said:

Hmm... gotta say that I'm confused. I don't know how only having a couple other draw cards makes Val only good for 2 cards? My plan would be to use Val as my engine and cap at 3 cards per turn with no resource or challenge investment past the initial buy in.

Which leads to my concern. One of the few drawback to Baratheon is that they would get off to a huge start with their income boosts and renown characters (many of which are nobles and notoriously hard to kill), running Baratheon out of cards was one of their few weaknesses. Now that King's Landing Edition and the recent Asshai bring a strong dose of control to the house, as well as filling their intrigue icon gap, I'm not sure I can see a weakness in Baratheon. It's sure what I'll likely be experimenting with here for a couple months.

Also, I agree with Rings. I'm really not in favor of cards that effectively kill challenges. A few events here and there like Feigned Retreat and the like are fine, but permanents that shut down challenges ala KLE Catelyn, etc, worry me. While they're interesting effects (and I am kind of excited about comboing them with Riverrun) I feel that they are NPEs. Not game breaking, but create experiences where a player can't actually do anything. Granted, Lannister kneel can reach similar levels, but it seems ever so slightly more interactive as Lanni kneel requires interaction and awareness of the cards that opponents play, unlike this style of card.

As well, I'm not really sure that I agree with Dobbler that "House Baratheon Only" makes it balanced. Sure, it's a mitigating factor that limits some of the degenerate possibilities as he says, but it still leaves open a wealth of options in house and continues a style of card that I don't feel is fun for the game. Rather than balancing it, I think the last 6 months of cards plus this capstone (and the BotFM banning) is going to fully catapult Baratheon to the top of the heap for sure.

Kennon said: "I think the last 6 months of cards plus this capstone (and the BotFM banning) is going to fully catapult Baratheon to the top of the heap for sure."

Isn't that basically the goal of becoming the world champion and designing a card for the house of your choice? Its nice to see a different house up near the top. Keeps the game fun.

Twn2dn said:

I agree with this and the others who have said testing needs to be done before final conclusions are reached, but I do support the idea that TLS's effect should only apply to intrigue challenge resolution and not to other triggered effects (I would add that it doesn't apply to any other card effects to make it even more of a blanket to catch whatever loopholes may be present or could become present in the future).

This is definitely one I will be keeping an eye on for a while to see how things pan out.

I'm worried about the Val combo as well, but I was thinking about it and, while I don't think this is how the card is currently being interpreted, I figured I'd throw it out there just to make sure.

Val's text says: 'Reveal and draw the top card of your deck. Play that card as your next response or action, if able. Otherwise, discard it.'

Could the argument be made that the cards you draw with Val are never part of your hand? What I mean is this: currently, if you draw a card with Val, it can only go into play, or into your discard pile - there is no way a card drawn with Val can end up in your hand (unless you return it to your hand at a later time). If the card is never in your hand, then TLS's ability wouldn't protect it.

I'm thinking of a card like House Messenger where you reveal the top two cards of your deck, then choose one to put in your hand while the other is put at the bottom of your deck. In that case, couldn't it be argued that the second card is never in your hand?

It's a bit of a stretch, I realize, and probably completely wrong, but was a thought I'd had.

I believe a card 'drawn' is considered in your hand, while a card 'revealed' isn't (unless it is also drawn, like with Val).

rings said:

so let me guess you never use burning on the sand right (or any of those events)? by the same argument a whole theme of Greyjoy should be taken out of the game because saves effectively negate the military challenge. Its not like you can't get other bonuses for winning an intrigue challenge. if you are running a control deck i'm sure you can find a way to stop TLS to get int claim. If you are running an aggro deck you probably aren't overly concerned with int claim anyway. no one is saying stark is broken becuase of winter shadows or play from hand catelyn which pretty much keeps your opponent from winning an int challenge as attacker (or even declaring one!!), so it is in the environment already and clearly not running the environment into the ground.

rings said:

Imagine a house Lanni only card that said 'your characters cannot be killed by military claim while (Shae?) is standing'. It would be like Aemon heavy I would say the same thing about power challenges but Bara already has that (the army that stops power challenges while standing).

again, isn't this basically GJ's theme?

rings said:

~yeah cuz that bara army is soooooo overplayed and powerful right now....

Twn2dn said:

thats 12 cards out of your deck to draw 3 a turn if you have 2 of the people out. Lanni and Martell already have these, but with more diverse effects that draw cards on their own. Targ has two better recursion/draw engines and other draw cards. stark is getting more diverse in its draw as well.....bara starts catching up and evewryone wants to cry broken? if bara was close to dominating the meta without draw and this came out maybe i see a problem.

Kennon said:

refering to knights agenda so with that and val and TLS (3 card combo) you get to draw three cards....both lanni and martell can do it with less cards and btoh have access to val also.

Kennon said:

so he fills a whole or two and thats a bad thing? we don;t want 6 (well 7) strong houses we only want a couple and let the other houses rot? I don;t get the compliant. He does fill holes, but he doesn't win the game by himself or with any of the combos mentioned.

also, the "bara is so fast, giving it draw makes it too good" is hog wash. rush is still vunerable to control. Its just that now once the lock down happens bara has a slight chance of drawing or protecting its hand to come back into the game. the only real change that TLS makes in a bara rush verse control game is that the control player now has to make a decision about which character to keep controlled, and its still not that hard....

jmccarthy said:

1) its funny that the card hasn't played one game and its gotten bara 'up to the top" 2) couldn't agree more with the over all sentiment of the comment, what's wrong with a card that can elevate a specific house to the top (no one wants an errata to Red Viper after all)? Maybe if it prevented other builds, but he doesn't weaken other houses just boosts baratheon.

I agree with Lars, alot of knee jerk reactions to something is not even out yet. I don't think its as bad as everyone assumes it will be.

Anyone who plays a deck that has no way to kill, steel, kneel or blank text should loose anyways. If you have at least one of those abilities you can deal with this card. So really this is not a big deal.

~boy I can't wait until that first time I finally manage to kill TLS, only to have Narrow Escape played from my opponent's untouchable hand.... that he drew into with Val...

I definitely want to see how this card plays IRL, but at first glance it seems a bit too much. This isn't a one time event card. It's a character that is able to be protected. Having a character just standing around has its disadvantages, but Bara has pleanty of ways to stand things back up. We'll see.

Deathjester26 said:

I know there is a sarcastrix, but i just wanted to point out that your opponent's hand being untouchable doesn't stop you from canceling narrow escape

also, his protections are pretty limited, he is much more vulnerable than say Blackfish who gets protection from both his trait and his crest. Plus house stark has in house cancel and attachment control while baratheon doesn't....