Is it just me, or does the whole "lots of chain attachments on maesters" theme seem a little threatened by targ? I know it always would have been (them being the most attachment oriented house) but its no longer discarding, its taking control of, and moving to other targets. Any thoughts?

Mathias Fricot said:

Just to be picky, the card an attachment is attached to is not a "target" as this game defines them.

But I don't think the Crown of Meereen and taking control of Chain attachments is going to be that much of a swing. First, you have to win challenges with the "Crowned" character. So it won't pile up as quick as you might think in most cases. Second, you have to have your own Maester character to move the Chains to; otherwise, they stay on the opponent's character. The primary effect of this on an opponent's Maester deck is to deny them a couple of links. Of course, the Targ player may be able to use the links even if they stay on the original character, but that's the same kind of "moving parts" that makes Targ hard for many people to play.

Also Maesters are no slouches when it comes to attachments either. Ill Tidings I think will be in most maester decks. Targ still has the advantage with Dany's Chambers but perhaps some of the new cards will even it out some.

I actually think what you're more likely to see is "Targ Maesters." Since the Maesters - with their chains - are attachment intensive, why wouldn't you play them out of the attachment centered House? People sometimes think that Targ is good at attachment-hate. But what they're really good at is attachment control . Theirs and others. Should be an edge in making a Maester deck consistent and reliable.

I don't think Crown of Meereen will see much play, if any. Maybe in Summer decks or if the Targ Box has some good Summer effect boosts, but I think there are (and will be) better cards to run in its place.

FATMOUSE said:

Really? I'm obviously missing something here, because this seems huge to me. I was fully expecting to see calls for bans and complaints how this takes the game in the wrong direction and whatnot.

The Bara Fury plot was errata'd because it was too strong. Seductive Promise is one of the better events around, and it is way more conditional than this. Compelled by the Rock essentially did what this does, only it was an event and thus non-repeatable, and they banned it.

Yeah, I know. Characters are not attachments. CbtR was not banned because of its effect, it was banned because it was a Lanni card. Bottom line is, steal effects are strong, perma-steals especially so. And this is quite easily repeatable, even several times per phase.

Just compare this to Kraznys - his ability is limited to once per phase and is a lot more conditional. How is this not power creep? What am I missing?

~OK, try this: Play KL Knight of Flowers OOH. Put Court Advisor on him. Put Imposter OOH on him. Kneel 1 influence to make him a Targ. Put Crown of Meereen on him. Play Frozen Solid OOH on Crown of Meereen to blank its text. Go to the Challenge Phase. Kneel 1 influence to make the KoF a Targ again. Kneel 2 influence to ambush Dragon Thief into play. Discard Frozen Solid. Voilà - you can steal six attachments that phase. Eight if Empty Throne or Mummers Ford are revealed. Ten if both are revealed. Broken!~

EDIT: ****, Frozen Solid is Stark only. So you need to do this with Stark, play the Crown OOH and use an OOH Meereenese Brothel to get rid of Frozen Solid. Works like a Charm!

Ratatoskr said:

Sure, you can find a way to get the crowned character in to 6 different challenges. But are there always going to be 6 attachments worth stealing in a single round? And honestly, if you have The Knight of Flowers winning 6 challenges per phase, the "steal attachments" from the Crown is going to have almost 0 impact on the situation. You will have won the game off of his Renown and winning the challenges long before you steal enough attachments to make that a deciding factor in the game.

ktom said:

~Yeah, saw that myself. Found a way to fix it. See edit above. As for the renown thing, I refined my plan somewhat. I'll use CS Arya to take renown from my own Knight of Flowers, so I will get a few rounds of attachment stealing goodness out of the combo and prolong the suffering of my opponent/victim. After I win worlds using this fine combo, you'll be sorry you doubted me.~

Does it count as broken if you need a six-card combo just to set up the condition, before you even win a single challenge?

Sounds to me like whilst you're getting all those cards in your hand/in play, not to mention lots of influence providing locations to kneel, your opponent will be winning challenges and killing your characters, so that by the time the Knight of the Flowers is ready to go, he's facing an entire army of opponents, and doesn't win a single challenge.

The combo was a *joke*. Thought that was obvious.

As for the crown, apparantly no one thinks this is much of a deal, so I guess I *am* missing something. Guess I'll just have to get in a few games with and against the crown to see how it plays out.

BTW, how does the Crown interact with Venomous Blade? Am I getting this right?

- If the player with the crown is the Active Player (i.e. attacker), his opponent will always have first response and will always be able to put VB back into shadows before the Response of the Crown is played, right? What if they have multiple copies of VB attached on characters? Can they put them all in shadows before the Crown is activated?

- If the player controlling the Crown is the defender, he will have first response, and be able to take control of VB and use it himself from that point on, right?

Do I interpret the timing correctly here?

Ratatoskr said:

I believe so. As for multiple copies of VB, I believe the player can only trigger one response, i.e. return one VB to Shadows before the other player gets his turn to trigger a response.

As for the second case, remember that even if you take control of VB, when it goes back to Shadows, it goes to the owner's Shadows, at which point you lose control again. So you don't get to use it. But it's still great to deny your opponent the ability to use it.

Ratatoskr said:

No. The first player have the first opportunity to respond, since it's framework action window.

Your opponent has the first Response opportunity to anything you do in a PAW right? and its the First Player who gets the first opportunity in a FAW?

Mathias Fricot said:

Therefore, in the situation where the "Crown of Meereen" Targ player wins a challenge and the "Venomous Blade" Martell player loses, it doesn't matter who is attacker or defender. It matters who is First Player. If the Targ player triggers first, they get control of VB, so the Martell player is not able to trigger the Response (since they don't control the card). If the Martell player triggers first, VB is headed back to Shadows, even if the Targ player does take control. Nothing in the "take control" effect counteracts or undoes the "return to Shadows" effect.

And, as was pointed out above, whenever a card leaves play - including going into Shadows - all "take control" effects end and the card goes to the owner's out-of-play area, under the owner's control. The only thing the Targ player can hope to do by taking control of VB is keep it out of the hands of their opponent, not use it themselves.

I feel like Viserys + Harp + Maesters will be an interesting casual deck to play. Throw a bunch of chains on him, win a 2 power.

ktom said:

the first player always gets first response to winning/losing challenges, regardless of who initiates the challenge