Since the most probable choices are already taken, I'll go with either:

1) The Laughing Storm costs 4 or 5.

or

2) When at least one card would be discarded from your hand during an intrigue challenge and the Laughing Storm is standing , kneel The Laughing Storm instead.

I'll go with option 2). It still allows TLS to trigger Val once for draw (twice or three times with Bara stand tech), puts him in line with cards like 'I never bet against my family' and allows some quirky draw combos without being too easy.

Oh, and I'd also want to blame my own workload for not being able to post nearly as quick as Darksbane...

Good competition btw.

With luck, they'll errata him so he's a little more balanced. I'm hoping for:

While The Laughing Storm is standing, cards can not be discarded from your hand.

For every card protected in this way, The Laughing Storm claims a power.

When The Laughing Storm has 3 power, he gains "Any Phase: Stand The Laughing Storm."

The Laughing Storm gets +1 STR for every power on him.

I think that'd play more to Baratheon's strengths and be a bit more thematic.

Flavor text will be eratta'd to:

" Look ma! No testing! Hahaha! "

hklown said:

They did test him, for maximum flame potential!

skeletonator said:

That's balance right there, its Science!

Whether they errata him or not I only hope they let him get some play time "as is" and see how he works out in the competitive circuit before making any changes and not just listen to the 0.01% of the player base that posts on this forum.

Can I just be first to say that in light of cent rules updates theyll probably restrict him instead? It would have taken someone with epic analyzing skills to see the restricted card list coming, clearly skills none of us had =P

I wouldn't count on that. There is still the problem where TLS is restricting design base. What I mean is that if they want to make a powerful effect that is balanced by discard they have to auto-include that card to the restricted list so that Baratheon isn't getting too much steam (unless the house is changed enough to be the new draw house).

I dont think it needs Eratta. If it starts showing up everywhere, people will run Distraction or Nightmare, which I think we should be running anyway because all decks should have a basic 1-turn answer to a problem like that.

DerBarchen said:

No, you can't be the first.

Dobbler said:

I will go the opposite route and say the following change would be interesting:

Cards can not be discarded from you hand at any time except for satisfying an opponents claim.

This would set TLS up for use in combos (such as TLS + Val) without making it too powerful. There was a discussion on the podcast about how in the balance of aggro, control, and combos, that combos have been very under represented in AGoT.

Saturnine said:

****, foiled again Saturnine! =P

Ire said:

Aye, thats the problem I saw with restricting it too. Infact if hes restricted you can still use him with the like of Threat from the East etc. I was just puting the idea forward tbh, Ive made my guess. Now that were on the topic though, the interesting thing about the restricted list is that it has the same problem with Every card that could be potentially game breaking. I mean, sure youve restricted That problem card, but what if something comes out in a while that say, syncs really well with Pyromancer's Cache, will it be restricted too?

DerBarchen said:

well in my opinion I don't see the problem with the other cards since they don't alter the game rules so much like "can't discard cards". True there might be something that could possibly break pyromancer's cache in the future or we might now start to see OOH caches in many decks instead of val, will see what happens

So the errda to this card not going to happen due to what happen early this week. With ffg adding the restricted list, he will most like go on it right away. That would take care of all the val and TLS combo. It will not take care of the one turn you could draw tree cards and not discard any do to the treat with the east. If TLS is on the list look at the cards you can not play any more. Big one is barb fury. It a five gold plot that help out so much due to barb having high cost charaters.

I really hope they don't start adding cards to the restricted list before they are even shipped. Let LS get some play in the environment before saying him + Val is to powerful. Given the current restricted list the bara player is already going to have to give up Fury and NE just for a chance at having some draw advantage.

Once again, working on a creative phrasing for the errata since the good ones have been taken. I don't think they'll change gold cost, place him on the restricted list, or make him kneel. Actually, using him with Val can hurt the use of See Who Is Stronger which is what Val would primarily be used for in a Baratheon deck. I don't think they'll errata away that combo. All that said, here's my stab at the contest.

"While The Laughing Storm is standing, cards cannot be discarded from your hand as a result of opponents' challenges and events."

This preserves Val combo, takes away Threat from the East combo since it's a plot and not event. It also allows TLS to prevent events from causing discard, which I think would be equally important to the cards initial design. There aren't many hand discard events, but there are a couple like Call Their Bluff (Core) and Confession (KotS) and more could come out in the future. I think TLS should still protect against these discard effects too post-errata.

Darksbane said:

That is a very good point. My plot deck will feel a bit castrated without a Fury. Especially considering the inevitable Targ uprising well have on our hands when QotD comes out. I hope that now that Val is restriced they might not even have to Errata TLS at all. Maybe thats a bit too naive of me though.

What if TLS was to get Vigilant back (lose deadly) and then his text box read, "While TLS is knelt , cards cannot be discarded from your hand"? This would take careful planning to pull off the card drawing/keeping combo which would greatly reduce the broken-ness...but without an intrigue icon, I suppose he would be fairly useless.

HAH! So TLS Did get restricted. Do I win now? Or do we all lose, because we guessed wrong And because its kind of a dumb decision made with minimal play testing in the environment? =P

Saturnine said:

Quoted for truth.