Response: After a Sand Snake character is killed, kneel 1 influence to search your deck for 1 Sand Snake character, reveal it, and add it to your hand. (Kneel 3 influence to search for any number of Sand Snake characters and put them into play instead if The Red Viper was just killed.) Then shuffle your deck.

I'm not sure: The Red Viper must have the Sand Snake trait, right?

Rogue30 said:

This is one of the nedliest cards to date. Love it. NOw to see if the Sand Snakes can be made into a viable deck. Doesn't matter really I'll build one for casual play if it isn't.

Absolutely. I doubt that this event alone is enough to carry a Sand Snake tribal deck to the top tier of tournament play, but the joy of watching the crazy megabomb effect going off properly makes it worth running the theme deck at least a couple of times for jokes.

Heck, the minute I get my hands on this pack (and I'm still waiting for Song of Silence here, btw) I'm going to be rocking out a casual Martel deck until I see this trick work.

Penfold said:

What does that mean?

mason240 said:

In this instance, the idea that all the Sand Snakes will take to the field after the death of The Red Viper covers pretty much half the story from Dorne in the 4th book.

Out of interest, why did the word 'Ned' get used to mean that? Which card (presumably an Eddard) got the gag started?

LoneWanderer said:

It's not a card. It was an AGoT take on "player archetypes" penned by the game's creator waaay back. He identified 3 archetypes for a licensed game:

1. Shagga, the power player. Prone to rely on individual combos or card effects and often sticks with "good cards" that don't work particularly well in his deck. Probably not the most nuanced or sophisticated deck-builder you will meet. Tends to be the last player to move beyond the military challenge as the focus of his decks. Can be just as happy watching his combo come off as actually winning the game. Mechanics keep him interested, so a designer needs to come up with new mechanics, or new ways to use old mechanics, to keep him coming back.

2. Ned, the thematic player. Probably showed up to the game because he loves the books. Enjoys recreating the source material (or further exploring it) through the cards. Probably has a blind spot for non-thematic plays (like, say, attaching Ice to Tyrion Lannister). Tends to balance all three challenges, but plays with as many unique characters as possible. Themes keep him interested, so the designer needs to come up with new ways to express the books in the game to keep him coming back.

3. Jaime, the competitive gamer. All about the game for him. May or may not have read the books, but doesn't let that limit his thinking about the best way to win. Is probably the most creative deckbuilder, but will quickly abandon ideas that aren't efficient or aren't going anywhere. Usually the first to move beyond the military challenge as the focus of play. Game play keeps him interested, so the designer needs to come up with new ways to keep the game competitive and challenging to keep him coming back.

They are not hard-and-fast categories. Most people are shades of all three.

The "Ned" or "nedly" term eventually became a catch-all adjective for anything thematic. Every once in awhile, you will hear someone use the term "Shagga" to mean "blunt" or "Jaime" to mean "competitive" - usually in a derogatory way for both - but it's rare enough to be unheard of.

I use Shagga to mean playing fun decks, often based on some weird mechanic or combo that is not very competitive but the idea of winning with it would be just too cool. Like a Nuke Viper dying to your own Valar and doubly wiping out the board to flood it with Sand Snakes douped to combat the impending answering Valar from your opponent while you reveal to the spears or some sort of 2 claim plot and you just go to town.

The ability to make this work out in your favor against a competitive deck isn't very high, but the bragging rights that you'd get from it would be worth the dozen or so losses.

The No Use for Grief Sand Snake deck would indeed be a Shagga deck. Many people delve into the "Shagga" realm on purpose - either with "fun" or "combo" decks - when they want something a bit lighter than high competition.

Shagga, the playstyle is a lot of fun. Shagga the mindset is a little difficult to watch. By "mindset," I mean the guy who thinks his fun, combo decks are competitive because they can clear the board in one move - even though that move only falls into place 1 time out of 50. It's the possibility of the mindset that ends up getting Shagga a lot of flack when, in fact, it's a perfectly good way of approaching the game.

I've got some Shagga in me. Heck, I played the Septon deck and the "Viserys Targaryen, pawn of the Asshai" decks at competitive events back in the day.

Just to further my curiosity about this mystical back-in-the-day lore a bit more; what did the Viserys/Asshai deck do?

I remember seeing a few mumblings about how the Septon deck managed to pull of some baffling combo wins in times gone by, but the Vishai/Asserys deck isn't one that I've heard of before.

Additional question: Can the second (Viper) trigger of No Use for Grief put duplicates of unique Sand Viper characters into play ?

I would say so, but want to make sure.

LoneWanderer said:

The Viserys/Asshai deck included a Viserys that said "when a character comes into play, Viserys claims 1 power; discard Viserys if he has 4 or more power" and a Baratheon event that put all characters into play from the dead pile. Use a whole bunch of low-cost Asshai characters to flood the board, kill them (Valar, for example), then play the event when there are anywhere from 10-15 weenies in your dead pile. Viserys claims power for each (even after the 4th, when he is moribund).

AegonTargaryen said: