Stag Lord said:

Hey, that kinda sounds like game balance there. I hear that's the kind of thing games need to keep people wanting to play them.

Husemann said:

Yeah - funny thing that, Huse.

And LT - you're not seriously suggesting TLS is a problem becuase of the infinitesimal chance you actually lose initative the turn you flop Take Them by Surprise and you won't lsoe your cards? That comes up maybe once a year as is and ithe "drawback" is hardly a balancing factor on what is pretty much an auto include Plot in an aggressive deck anyway.

Val is a clear problem with this card though.

Stag Lord said:

This happens all the time out here, inluding last night with the loser losing his hand on a dice roll in round 5. Point is, it becomes a no brainer to play Take Them by Surprise when ever you want. Not the most broken situation in the world, but just one of several examples of draw backs on cards that TLS nullifies. Nevermind the 100% complete hand protection.

To all the people that say he is so broken I still say why don't you just....

Tap him.

Kill him.

Blank his text.

Bara has very little anti attachment tech so blanking his text just makes him a 3 cost 3 str 2 icon knight with deadly.

Problem solved.

Heck even the arguement that him + Val = over powered, is silly. Sure someone might get them both out, but what are the chances they will be able to keep both alive?

As well he is Bara only so there will be no splashing him into other house decks. So between that restriction and him needing to be untapped to work it balances the card out. Really the only argument here that holds water is he should cost 4 just like the blackfish and I agree with that.

Ivengar said:

just to point out a few differences. Blackfish both draws cards (while knelt oddly enough) and claims power (last time I looked that was still the win condition) all on his own. TLS does neither of these.

Deathjester26 said:

in that case ban or errata bay of ice now!!!!

the Burning/challenge cancel events vs tls debate. its really potato vs pahtato. sure tls is more than one shot, but you still get to WIN the int challenge (lots of good stuff still happens). Plus to me its not the repeatable nature but the surprise factor that is much more NPE....if i know its coming i can plan around it.

TLS is not the straw that broke the camel's back on needing character control in your deck, no matter the build. Was it ever a good idea not to have character control in your deck? i'd say no, milk was in the core set for a reason. I'm prefer rush builds over other stuff and I still include character control of some kind. Its just smart. If you didn't have character control before TLS I can name at least 15 different characters that could beat you , is it that big of a deal that I can think of 16 now?

@Ingevar

Actually, Baratheon has one of the very best attachment control cards in the game (and ever printed) in Maester Cressen, and thanks to the soon-to-see-the-light-of-day At the Gates, he'll only ever be a plot flip away.

Also, judging by how easily I've managed to keep Val, King Robert, and often the Knight of Flowers as well all alive in my games with the Army deck.... I'd say that it will actually be quite easy to keep The Laughing Storm and Val alive and in play.

Kennon said:

Maester Cressen is one card and a character at that.

So if I understand you. You can make a deck that will keep VAL, Cressen all TLS untapped and alive though plots like Valor and Wild fire and events like Bleeds and Nightmares as well as stop military battles claims? So with all the moving parts you need for that to happen how will you claim your own 15 power?

I am not saying it can't be done but with so much energy and card slots taken to protect those 3 it will leave you open somewhere else.

Well, TLS is the only one that needs to stay standing. I could care less about Val, and Cressen only needs to stand long enough to trigger his ability. Even if the other player is playing a kneel deck and Marshalling first, they very often kneel a cost reducing location, play an income location, or some other similar ability, which then gives me the opportunity to kneel Cressen and discard Milk of the Poppy before they can kneel Cressen. Of course, then their kneel can be used on The Laughing Storm, but I don't expect him to be always foolproof. I just think it's going to be at a power level higher than I like the game to be pushing toward.

Besides, I thought everyone hated Lannister and never wanted to see another kneel deck again? (At least, that's the impression that this poor Lannister enthusiast has gotten over the years.) Other than Castellan of the Rock, I can't think of a card that encourages people to play kneel decks more than TLS. In fact, I may have that backwards. TLS may be the single card with the greatest push for players to run kneel decks.

While this singular card in a vacuum doesn't strike me as broken, I think that it pushes design and the meta in directions that are poor for the game as a while.

As a corollary, if a certain card or set of cards has been deemed by the meta at large a problem in the past, then wouldn't a new card that pushed the meta even harder to play the problem cards, be itself at best a design mistake and at worst a problem itself?

Rather than the BOTFM banning, what if FFG had tried to combat our Wildling problems by printing a card along the lines of:
Jon Snow

3 Cost. 3 STR

M,I,P

Nightswatch.

As long as there are no Wildling characters in play, Jon Snow gains +3 STR and does not kneel to attack.

Sure, on the surface it sounds like a sweet NW card that would entice people to give Wildlings a break and try something else. In the end though, it would only reinforce that people should play Wildlings in order to shut this great character down. While the methods impact of TLS and my hypothetical Jon Snow are considerably different over the course of the game, I think the abilities are broadly similar enough for the illustration.

Now, of course, on the other hand, I may just be skipping over an important issue. Is the meta at large ok with going back to a heavily Lannister kneel dominated metagame? If that's the case, then I suppose in at least one very major way, I've been looking at this incorrectly. *shrug* I mean, I personally got a bit tired of playing it, but if everyone else is ok with it, I might as well go back to my roots.

Lars - what sweet stuff happens when you win an intrigue challenge? A decent event...a couple of okay character abilities that need some setting up... I am trying to see you point, I swear! I just can't imagine how a one-off event is close to as powerful as a character that is fairly easily protected in this environment and is active constantly *shrug*

Ivengar (and Stag Lord really) - I would agree with you more if there was better control out there. A couple of houses have decent control, but nothing amazing - Lanni kneel is probably the best considering it is usually repeatable. There is just a TON more saves/protection out there than there is targeted kill (IMHO of course). Stag Lord remembers bomb cards, but also remembers PTTS, Tears, Fire in the Skies, The Moon Door, bunches of 'take over' effects, Locked in the Tower, 'Big Burn', etc.

So, if there is more targeted control coming, then I can back off for sure. Or if they are printing a Lanni character that says 'your characters cannot be killed if he/she is standing'.

~That would shore up Lanni's weakness to military claim and people dying every once in while!

~You know, actually, to make the trigger's more equivalent (since standing characters is something Bara is good at) it should probably be while you have cards in hand. In fact, be on the lookout for my card when I win in 2011!

Redcloaks

3 Gold

2 STR

M,I

Your characters cannot be killed while you have cards in hand.

Yup, it's gonna be great. *devious smile*

...and quite sadly, your Redcloaks still has more weaknesses than LTS, with the 2 STR. And is lacking the ability to trigger War -crest effects. Maybe you should also give them at least renown (it's as well balanced to give renown to a 3 gold Lanni non-unique, as giving deadly to a cheap Bara character) to balance that? And we'd still be one crest and 1 STR behind.

~Most houses have some discard from play effects and/or strength reduction effects (to combo with Threat from the North), right? And control builds often run Westeros Bleeds anyway, so how could this card be broken? Just a bomb card, eh?

FATMOUSE and Twn2dn pretty much already summed up my thoughts on why this kind of blanket ability against card discard shouldn't have been created. On the flavor issue... if you look at him without seeing the picture or the name, what house would you see him belonging to? Yup. He's a Lannister card. And I don't even want to go into the issue of some random character from outside of the actual book series being a much stronger card (in power level) than say any of the actual Baratheon brothers or Melissandre. Maybe I'd have given the card more of a break if he'd have been a Brienne instead. Still would've wanted the errata though.

The fact that there are some solutions to a card in the environment doesn't make it unbroken. Being undercosted to begin with (a unique Bara knight with the LTS keywords, crest and icons would still be almost auto-include in any knight deck) and additionally having an ability that would be good on a 3 gold unique location does. To see that it is clearly overpowered, just compare it to any of the existing 3 gold characters. Or even 4 gold characters. Sheesh. And I also have to say that it's quite sad if people don't care about the game being fun and balanced, and just take the opportunity to design a card as their opportunity to do whatever they want, without thinking of the consequences.

...on this note, and to not be TOO negative, I'd like to congratulate Dobbler on his brilliantly designed agenda, which is finely balanced and opens up fun new options into the game, instead of forcing deckbuilding into a certain direction. Good job.

Drakey explained perfectly my thinking too.

Calling him broken is patently ridiculous. Short of Jaqen hgar - it is nearly impossible to break a chatacter in this game - BECAUSE THEY ARE SO VULNERABLE. Teh supposedly overpwoered abaility (and remember - we haven't even seen it in play yet, but never mind that) is balanced - because ti is on a character with no immunity or protective keywords. I'm not going over again the myriad ways there are to deal with him. Are there counters? Yes - but that's why we paly teh agme adn we can go on and on forever about counters to counters and cancels to saves.

The fact that he can be dealt with is also why the hypothetical card the control players were chuckling about is so insipid. There is a huge difference between making CHARACTERS who cost gold to play and affect the immediate tactical position more difficult to remove as opposed to rpotecting RESOURCES whioch may or may not affect the overall startegic position soem limited protection.

And I think its scurrilous to attack the desinger's integrity and accuse him of being short sighted becuase he didn't create a card YOU like. Everyone ahs their opinion adn you are certainly entitled to yours - but clearly we don't have a consensus here that this card is bad. Becuase quite a few of us think it is (frankly) awesome. So let's restrict our discussion to the card itself and leave the designer the hell out of it. It was vetted by the game's lead developer adn went through the playtest process - so obviously it wasn't just the world Champ who signed off on this.

Rings - yeah: point and click removal could be better, but there are still so many ways to handle characters that i really find it hard to believe he can't be dealt with.

Again - the Val thing is a concern. I agree. But i am sure that will be addressed if it turns into teh problem we all think its going to. Otehr than that - you control players are going to have to think a little and work around an obstacle in order to **** Baratheon's hand for a little while. But in the iterim, please - continue to cry a river: It is (admittedly) rather entertaining

Stag Lord said:

*clap clap* Well spoken

Stag Lord said:

Calling him broken is premature yes but not ridiculous in any way. You seem to believe a priori t hat no character in Thrones can ever be broken simply because there exists a handful of cards that provide different means of character control. That is not a sound or valid argument in my opinion. Simply because a card has a counter does not mean that the card is not overpowered relative to other cards. Where is the Targaryen 3 gold 3 Str character with keyword and crest AND an absolutely amazing kick-arse unique ability? While it might be pre-mature to call the card "broken" it is not at all too soon to call the card Undercosted for how powerful it is relative to every other unique character that has been made. There simply are not very many cards in the game and some Houses have zero cards that are as thoroughly efficient at what they do as TLS especially considering how easy it is to protect and stand characters in Bara.

Ironically the new card that was spoiled Widow's Watch would be a great OOH card to throw in a Bara Hand Advantage deck to protect The Laughing Storm.

Stag Lord said:

If not for the interview with the card designer when TLS was spoiled I don't think anyone would have questioned the integrity of this specific card designer.

However, when the card designer himself claims that " During my Gen Con mini-interview with Fantasy Flight Games, I mentioned that my plan for next year was to make the most broken, over-powered card possible and run three copies of it " then yes his integrity is in question.

Anyone that wants to just make the "most broken over-powered card possible" is suspect in my opinion. The goal of a world champ should be to a make a very strong but BALANCED card like Dobbler's agenda or a card like Former Champion. When a one-time card designer sets forth with the GOAL to make an over-powered, unbalanced card then that is most definitely a problem for the overall game balance.

What is interesting in the interview is that a classic sales trick. Present a card that is soo over the top overpowered and broken that when you present a slightly toned down version its going to seem less broken simply because cognitively humans are going to be comparing the slightly toned version with the immediate reference point of the super-broken card instead of comparing the new card with existing cards.

WWDrakey said:

The Bara only text stops it from being in ANY knight deck. This card is no more broken than VB. On its own VB is a repeatable zero cost kill anyone STR 2 or less. With the right setup it is a repeatable kill anyone STR 4 or less.

Cards in play are how you win the game. Cards in hand are only good for cooling you off on a hot summers day.

LaughingTree said:

If anyone has ever seen the Aflac commercial were Yogi Berra exclaims "They give you cash, which is just as good as money" and then the duck opens his mouth a couple of times unable to say anything, then you know my response to this statement. Apparently our much maligned world champ needed to use the "~" in the article because his clear sarcasm and attempt at humor missed with some folk. Hell, look at the next sentence, discussing "draconian restraints" . . .clearly this had no attempt in humor or sarcasm and this is a man of poor integrity..........

Ivengar said:

Ivengar said:

I don't quite understand what you mean. VB applies to "printed STR," so STR modifiers won't affect whether or not the blade can target a character. That said, I think very few players would agree that VB is perfectly balanced as is (many people think it is, in fact, "broken"), so even if some agree that TLS is only as strong as VB, maybe it's not a good comparison. I actually think that TLS' effect is much stronger, but that's just me. Like VB, I expect TLS to have an impact on deckbuilding in that it forces decks to run cards that might not otherwise be auto includes. Now if you are suggesting that both TLS and VB need errata, I'm sure there are a few other people who would agree....

With regard to cards in play versus in your hand, I disagree with this conclusion completely. Roughly 1/4 of the cards I play in my decks (more if I'm playing KotHH) are events or cards with the Ambush keyword. These cards most definitely make a difference, and losing a Narrow Escape or Direct Assault from my hand can be the difference between winning and losing the game. Protecting these cards IS important. If TLS' effect were unimportant, then we wouldn't really be having this discussion.

Finally, on whether or not it is fair game to involve Alec in the discussion, I agree that we shouldn't attack him, but I think it's OK to discuss his role. Alec is a great guy, and I've had the pleasure of playing against him in several tournaments. I also sympathize with his desire to make Bara more competitive. It's been a long time since the House has been able to keep up with the heavy-control houses, and if I were in his shoes, I would want to make a card that addressed my favorite house's weakness too. Nevertheless, do I think it was problematic that Alec approached the design process with the intent to make a broken card? Yes. Does it seem like he proposed multiple broken copies of cards until one finally got through? Yes. FFG and playtesters do not have infinite energy/bandwidth, and it appears that a World Champ who pushes hard enough can get something through. (I acknowledge that the article was likely written to be humorous, but the earlier versions of cards Alec proposed are all similarly overpowered in a very obvious way.)

The point is, although we shouldn't attack Alec, I think it's important for future World Champions to remember that they are accountable, to some extent, to the AGOT community as a whole. So I think it's just fine to discuss the World Champion's role in the design process. More importantly, it isn't that this particular card might be overpowered (nobody has proven one way or the other yet), but rather that the direction appears to compromise key mechanics within the game, as Rings and others have pointed out. This card alone may do very little to undercut hand destruction or the challenges phase, but I very much hope that we don't see more cards like this in the future. The creation of environment defining cards can be good, especially when designed by World Champions, but only if such cards expand deckbuilding/play possibilities rather than restricting deckbuilding.

Thanks GDS for putting the Champ's (clearly) tongue in cheek comment in context. Sad that we are even discussing this. The champ's decsion and approach should not even be on the table. I'll respect a difference of opinion about teh card. Once you criticizing a champion for his design, I can't take you seriously.

LTS is not broken. it isn't an a priori assumption - it comes from eight years of experience with this game and any number of cases where these forums howled about certain characters. Apart form a couple of the CBK ones and Jaqen Hgar - in every instance the furor quickly died down and the characters were dealt with. even the Prince's Loyalist lasted all the way up until he was about to rotate without getting banned or errat'ed (and he was orders of magnitude stronger than this card - not that the comparisom matters in this different era).

His effect crimps Lannister's style. Makes Martell work a little harder. Too **** bad - there are answers and he is not broken.

I gotta agree that this card isn't broken at all. Like others have said, there's character removal. It's a meta card. You have to run meta to deal with certain things in the game, and with the exception of maybe the blitziest rush decks that win fast or lose fast, every deck has to run things that don't further its win condition directly but counter obstacles the other player might hit them with. Plus while you're worrying about defending the Laughing Storm, your other guys will be getting hurt, and you still have to deal with siege decks or other military or powered focused rush.

Regarding the news post written by champ, I understand overpowering initial designs. You never know how much design will chop before they approve, so as with any negotiation, aim high.

My only disappointment with the card is like others said, the flavor. Such a minor character to have such a major effect, and the problem is that it doesn't fit Baratheon flavor. If any type of denial like this existed, I would've hoped to see it out of Greyjoy. Definitely not a Lanni card; having enough dominance over the intrigue challenge and card draw as is, they wouldn't have needed this. Start patching all the holes in all houses and each build is a min maxed version of the most cost efficient house. Houses need weaknesses to allow the game to have a hypothetical cyclical chain of good and bad matchups.

goshdarnstud said:

I have no idea what tv commercial you are talking about, sorry.

I am not intending to attack the integrity of this person as a human being but rather the card design by a champion process that was described and resulted in this card. Those are different things.

I am questioning the issue of game balance when someone's stated intention is to create the most broken, overpowered card possible. Sure he was trying to be funny, but unless the entire process described in the whole interview of him proposing multiple, even more overpowered versions of this card to try to get past the censors was simply make believe and in jest then my point still stands. Sure the "draconian restraints" sentence comes off as sarcasm but the description of the entire process sounds like he really was trying to get the most broken, over powered card printed as possible. And that is a legitimate concern imo for the future of this game. The process as described begs the legitimate question of game balance if a one-time designer player champion is allowed to make the most broken over powered card he can persuade the designers to introduce into the environment.

I apologize if it seemed like I was attacking his integrity in general but I do feel criticism of a player-designer trying to make the "most broken, over powered card" possible is legitimate. It should never be the intent of a game designer (even a one time player-champion card designer) to try to make the most broken over powered card possible irrespective of the effects of that card on the game environment in general.

Its been mentioned far more eloquently by Rings and Twn2dn so I won't regurgitate their well stated points but what this speaks to is the issue of Power Creep. This card seems to signal a direction the game is moving towards power creep which is always a challenging issue with collectible games that continually expand. I think in any type of collectible game you need horizontal creep rather than vertical power creep. So there should be more deck building options opening up horizontally to be on par with current meta builds rather than cards that simply are increases power level of cards due to new amazing abilities on a card that would be quite playable even without the new amazing ability.

Twn2dn said:

I purposefully left ambush out as I was using it as bait in hopes someone would mention it. So thank you for setting it up! Fist of all as to events. Events in your hand for the most part do nothing. You have to get them in play for them to activate and most of them have some sort of condition or cost that must be met so until they are met they are just cards in the hand. Yes being able to protect your hand is very strong and really what this card is all about. But again, because this card is a character and needs to be untapped to function he is by no means broken.

As to ambush, Bara has no ambush cards so being able to protect a bara hand does not have any effect on ambush at all. I can play my TLS and you can ambush to your hearts content.

So right now there is one house who has decent protection from hand destruction, so what. Hand destruction is one of the least used method of control anyways.

You think this one card is going to make every AGOT player all of a sudden stop playing any other house just so they can play him? Is Bara all of a sudden going to be the number 1 deck at all events world wide because of this one card?

I think not.

The sky is not falling .

Davy Back Fight said:

I agree with you fully. Except not GJ, I hate them enough as it is lol

Maybe Martel as they seem to be pretty good at back room deals.

@ Anyone calling Alex's integrity into question- I certainly see the attempt at humor in his article, and I don't at all think that he really set out to break the game. I've had the pleasure of playing with him in several tournaments now and I have full confidence in his character. That said, as designs go back and forth and a variety of opinions and implementations are tried out, things can go a direction not originally intended. Regardless of how many people a card has to pass through before it sees print, broken and grossly overpowered cards do sometimes make it through- including cards like the previously mentioned Jaqen and Prince's Loyalist. The design of one particular card should not lead to questions of one of those individual's integrity.

@Staglrod- You really think Prince's Loyalist was orders of magnitude more powerful than TLS? Also, I'm not sure that Prince's Loyalist was a great example as his early rotation was an admission that he was a problem that needed addressed.

Meh, I'm not sure that he crimps my style all the much out of Lannister. Sure, I may have to spend several effects in order to keep him out of the way, but I'm not worried about being able to keep him controlled out of one particular house. What does worry me is the way that he's going to push me to play that particular house and in fact, one particular build within that house. At this point, I really doubt that I'm the only one, either.