With the banning of Blood of the First Men and the spoilerage of The Laughing Storm, how has the House Hierarchy been affected? Who is sitting at the top of the heap? Tell us your opinion of the house pecking order after listening to Episode 7 of 2 Champs and a Chump.

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Thanks for all of the feedback from everyone that has been listening. We are incorporating the advice from many of you. Also, if you have made a topic suggestion and have not heard us discuss it yet, never fear, we will be getting to it very soon! We have a list of suggested topics that we will be discussing in upcoming episodes!

Or on another note, what do people think of house strengths and weaknesses? It's been a long, long time since we've seen an official article that went over where the houses should be at the moment.

Good episode! I liked the segment about the house ranking, and agree that Targ would move up from last to near the top with a bit of draw. Very well thought out. I would put Lannister a little lower now (and I would rank Martell 1st as well), in large part because Stark remains fairly popular, but I generally agree with the order.

Interesting combo idea. In terms of the Parting Blow, the timing works so that you wouldn't be able to redraw it, right? So you will still likely have to have a separate draw mechanic like Val, right? Thanks for sharing!

Also, good discussion of TLS. I agree that houses should have various strengths and weaknesses, and it kinda worries me that TLS seems to contradict past precedent. (I don't mind Bara getting some draw and more recursion, but this seems to take card advantage to a whole new level.)

Good episode.

To clear up that combo a bit -- Secret Hideout would always go to the bottom of your deck, even if it's Winter. The reason is that Stalwart only kicks in if a card with the Stalwart is killed or discarded from play. Pyre of the False Gods replaces the discard effect:

"After you play an event card from you hand, put it on the bottom of your deck instead of discarding it."

Since your events are never discarded while you control Pyre of the False Gods, Stalwart never enters the picture.

FATMOUSE said:

Are you sure? They are both replacement effects. A card played from hand is never technically discarded. It is sent to the discard pile after being played. So Pyre actually just replaces where it is sent. Lets ask Ktom....oh ktom, where are you?

Dobbler said:

Probably sitting at the front of the bus giving Nate GPS-like navigational instructions.

Dobbler said:

I probably know why you say this, but Pyre of the False Gods is a prove that events are discarded after playing.

Dobbler said:

FATMOUSE is correct that there is no discarding in case of Pyre of the False Gods - it is rare wording just like Bronn (killing never happen).

However I think it is simply first player choice since both effects (Pyre of the False Gods and stalwart) are passive. I may be wrong though.

Rogue30 said:

I stopped thinking after this, but if we take it further, then FATMOUSE is correct: if I choose Pyre first, then stalwart cannot kick in, if stalwart is first, then it doesn't matter since Pyre change the situation next.

FATMOUSE said:

I have got to figure out how to do that cool linky stuff! My links always look like crap

Rogue30 said:

Both Pyre and Stalwart are replacement effects. The easiest way to tell is the word "instead" in both. They are not necessarily equivalent in results (based on the Bronn-like "instead of discarding it" text), but they are equivalent in what they are trying to replace - the disposition of the event card once it is played. As such, they conflict. So the First Player gets to decide the order in which they are applied. And, as we said above, since the first one applied puts the event into a moribund state (that cannot be changed by the second one applied), that will be the destination.

End result - the First Player decides what happens to the event in this situation.

ktom said:

Of course. Too much thinking

Dobbler, I think you're missing the real point here. We don't have nearly enough people talking about my amazing rendition of the Hound.

I enjoyed listening to the episode.

1. Finally a quote by someone without the surname Lannister. All the opening quotes to date have been memorable, but other Houses/characters had great lines too.

2. The Renn music between segments was a nice touch.

3. Top 6 Houses in Joust

Spot on. Lannister is still top house, without getting any strong house-specific cards in the last 2 chapter pack cycles/box sets. The Last strong card they got that I can remember is Arys Oakheart in the Martell Box and alot of goodies in the Shadow cycle. If top players decided they wanted to run Lannister at major events, the kneel build is still strong enough to dominate the overall meta. The gap has closed, but Lanni still leads. "Gold plus draw is good? Who knew"

Will had good points about Martell. 2nd best Control, 2nd best draw, 2nd best rush in the game. 2nd at GenCon. "Always the bridesmaid...."

Bara is slightly higher in my mind than Stark, because of the variety in-House. Especially with the box set and latest cycle expanding on the builds they have available to them. Until Stark gets more reliable search for their toolboxing, I'll give Bara the slight edge.

On the TLS, without turning this thread into the other thread, I see TLS as negative hand advantage. He draws me no cards, but protects the cards I have. I think King Stannis in the box set was likewise negative hand advantage. He draws me no cards, but prevents my opponent from outdrawing me each round. In that sense, TLS is inline with Bara hand advantage. Not draw or recursion, but more hand manipulation like Winter/Greyjoy builds.

On the Blackfish, this may be coincidental, but his appearance on the scene marked the rise of draw in Stark. His arrival with the guard at Riverrun gave Stark reliable draw which brought them out of 6th place in the Joust rankings. Until the Stark Box set, Stark had absolutely no reliable draw in house. Now with the Drawfort back. Stark draw is very reliable. So Blackfish either opened the door for Stark draw, or was the first to walk through that door. Not sure which.

Just out of curiosity, is the combo of the week something you picked out of the cardgamedb forums?

@Kpmccoy- Ah, thanks, I was really wondering if those transitions would be good or not. For those wondering, at the moment, I think I'm going to use them as a sort of audio cue system with the first, more dramatic sounding clip signalling that we have an upcoming AGOT game related segment, and the second, lighter sounding clip signaling that we're about to do something like Dobbler's Dating Disasters or Props and Slops.

Also, I really wonder about Martell. The way AGoT goes, you'd think that the versatility of Martell would allow them to capitalize on those 2nd best at everything skills and claim a major victory. How many Regional wins have we had from Martell?

Also, I'm with you on Baratheon. They have amazing versatility right now. Are they as versatile as Martell? Not quite yet, but I think they are very quickly catching up.

@Boerta- Hmmm... nope. I just go along with whatever nifty thing Greg mentions to me that week. Had this one been mentioned before?

Yeah, www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php , a series of posts I've been trying to raise some discussions around. Darksbane presented the combo back in early december =).

Just a shameless plug to get some more people to talk in those threads, and on the cardgamedb forum in general

Bwahaha. Hmm.... I wonder if Greg had seen that on there. And yes, we do need to use those a bit more. Especially since we're being hosted there. I'll see what I can do to start paying better attention (and get the other guys to as well).

Apologies to Darksbane who has graciously hosted our podcast, but I have not visited his boards. I tend to like to see message board discussion centralized in one place, but I realize that is not a reality.

Regardless, I don't consider any combos I come up to be my own intellectual property, and it doesn't surprise me one bit that players much smarter than me (like yourself) have already recognized them.

Heh, I had forgot I even noticed this combo.

Great work on the podcast btw!

Well, I hope I didn't ruin the conversation in this thread. I just wanted to advertise a bit for the imho superior forum, software wise, over at cardgamedb. It just needs more people

Anyway, I really liked this episode of your podcast, and I think it was your best so far. My favourite parts of your casts i think are the weekly combo thing and your analyses of chapter packs. I also enjoyed your house pecking order analysis and would love to see one on melee.

This is the first of the podcast I listened to but I enjoyed it. I really liked the discussion on the Laughing Storm and the House rankings.

Just figured out a way to listen to show while I'm driving to/from work!

Regarding the comments made while discussing House Stark - do they REALLY have an Intrigue "Hole" at this point in the game? I don't think there's any arguement that they are one of the weakest (if not THE weakest) on Intrigue, but as I was messing around with a couple Stark decks on CardGameDB, and figuring out which CPs I was going to buy next, I was kind of thinking "Wow, there actually are a lot of Stark characters w/Intrigue icons" (especially compared to when I started playing last year with just the Core Set...).

So I guess my question/comment is: Is Stark really THAT bad at intrigue? Sure they don't have many (or any) cool effects to play off intrigue challenges, but it seems there are enough cards for them where they should be able to at least hold thier own for defense, and even make the occassional attack (as opportunities arise). Especially now with some of the cool Bolton characters (who seem pretty powerful on intrigue on their own, without using any of the Bolton "control jumping" builds), but even with older cards like Littlefinger (although expensive), "Jumper" Cat, Old Nan, Septa Mordane, and some of the stuff in the LoW box, they shouldn't be getting "rolled over" on Intrigue any more I wouldn't think.

But hey I'm a big noob with a tiny group so I really have no "wider" experience to speak from - it was just my impressions as I was working on a couple Stark decks.

Anyway - great podcasts! Thanks for developing them.