Join us this week as we discuss the restricted list, its impact on the game, the metagame, and each house.

And Kennon has a little fit over the inclusion of the Furies on the list.

Episode 16

Thanks for recommending Woodkid's "Iron" video... I checked it out and loved it! Great stuff. The song would be excellent for a Game of Thrones trailer, too, I think.

Great episode! I know it was a little more wonk-ish than normal, but I really liked the discussion's incorporation of strategy and current (game-related) events. Nice work.

On the question raised about Fear of Winter, and whether it will now be more problematic since fewer decks will run it, I think you raise a good question. I agree that a round-1 Fear of Winter will likely be even more powerful than it used to be, but I think this question implicitly conflates two issues that have to be separated. An extremely powerful effect doesn't necessarily lead to a win or even a negative play experience; rather, consecutive extremely powerful effects that shape the course of the game, rather than just setting the tone, CAN and DO create NPE experiences. So a round-1 Fear of Winter on its own doesn't make a game NPE (although I suppose in some cases it can).

Maybe theory sounds like splitting hairs, so to illustrate, let's say I play my Martell deck against your Bara. I have a faster setup and play round-1 Fear of Winter when you play your Fury. On the first round, I play Burning in the Sand during the power challenge so that you can't claim power or steal my character. On the second round, I play my Fury and drop a Viper's Bannermen. You're expecting me to tear into your hand, so you play all but 1 card in your hand. Round two goes well for you...you lose intrigue and I bounce a guy, but you still manage to get up to 11 power with all the renown characters you have on the board, despite that VB hitting your small guys with stealth. You're thinking all you have to do is win initiative, and I won't Valar because I have 6 characters on the board. But I have tricks...I trigger my Skirmisher to draw a card, discard your final card, and drop Valar to clear the board. I then immediately play a Narrow Escape. My Viper's Bannermen leaves play, then comes back...+4 cards in hand. I draw into a second NE, an Orphan, and a Burning. I draw into a Game of Cyvasse and an Ellaria.

Maybe the above events sound like a special (rare) case, but I play a deck that regularly performs similarly to the above...sometimes its Red Vengeanceor Cyvasse that swing the game, and sometimes I don't need the Fury plot to marshall the Viper's Bannermen or Skirmisher to discard the last card. But the result is generally the same...the opponent is effectively locked out of much of the game after round 3-5. Now, it's possible that the Bara player above ultimately does come back and win, but that definitely isn't the typical result for any match up I've seen other than Martell vs. Martell. The point I'm hoping I make is that no one card creates this NPE experience; the NPE or overpowered feeling is the result of the combination of multiple powerful cards played together. Whereas banning the worst perpetrators would prevent this from happening, I also believe (and hope) a restricted list will ultimately do enough.

So to answer your question about Fear of Winter specifically, "Yes" it's likely that the restricted list will make Fear of Winter even stronger. On the other hand, decks running Fear will move a little slower without Val, Venomous Blade, Narrow Escape, the Fury plots, etc. That little bit of extra time or added clunkiness gives the opponent a little longer to react...for example, with a follow-up game-changing plot or drawing a few extra cards that make the difference.

Secondly, on the issue of Heir being added to the restricted list the moment it's released, I agree 100%. Like you guys, I've been playing around with it since it was spoiled, and I have come to similar conclusions on my own. I'm not sure I would support a banning just yet (though I don't think I would cry about one either), but in this case I think Stag's "testing period" rule of thumb might be appropriate as an alternative to banning. Heir could possibly prove too powerful as a restricted card in Bara though, and after a few months of that I'd definitely support an outright ban.

I think this was the most focused episode so far (that I've heard - not sure I caught it from the first, but I think I did). Except for the end.

The chump was right, too.

I would hate for the agenda to be banned. I really like how it opens up possibilities outside Baratheon. If they must, an errata like "Cannot be used with a Baratheon house card" would be okay with me.

With regards to GJ, I think losing the furies for the Cache's will be the right move most of the time. Balon and Alannys should be in most GJ decks to get the two cards, and even without it the draw is better than Bay of Ice. Hell, throw it on a bay of ice - then your not having to kneel a standing location with any consequence. It will probably be seen out of Targ as well, since its significant card advantage to a house that is usually pretty poor with draw. The new attachment will give it some nice "fish, arrange, pull" card advantage potential.

I agree that Lanni kneel looks like it might have taken the biggest hit, but thats good for the game - you wont see 30% of the meta with the same deck every single tournament. Sucks if thats what you enjoy, but a little less potent version will still be enjoyable.

Is anybody else looking at that agenda and thinking about Stark? There are lots of Mil/Pwr armies and the cheap bolton ones might be interesting. Sure, less renown characters than Bara but Seductive Promise/Support for the Kingdom can be really annoying when your up against 4 and 5 str dicons all day.

Very good episode, possibly the best one yet.

As to cards on the restricted list, As a rule I never want to see cards placed immediately on the Restricted List before given time for the Metagame to adjust. Too many cards are "broken" and have "overpowered combos" when spoiled, only to never really shake the game up. Cards shouldn't be Restricted because of potential problems, only for real problems they create.

Still listening, but I have to say I disagree with some of the assumptions being made about the restricted list.

I don't see a problem with a large restricted list. I also don't see where someone having a choice between a perfectly fresh piece of fruit and an overripe piece of fruit is a false choice. If I'm making banana bread, I don't want a nice ripe banana, I want one that is overly ripe. The flavor stands up better to the baking. If I'm not making banana bread then sure that may be a choice I never make, but I have a choice. If returning a character to hand makes more sense for my deck than killing a 2 STR character I will choose the Fury of the Sun over Venomous Blade. I'm not sure what deck that may be... but I also don't know what cards are coming down the pike.

People talk about the restricted list as essentially banning certain cards, and they present it as a negative, I'm not sure it is. We've been talking about rotation, and banning this or errata-ing that, so putting cards on the restricted list may essentially create the very rotation or spot banning people were contemplating.

I could see multiple lists, like one card from list one, one card from list two, eventually occurring as the card pool gets larger and larger

kpmccoy21 said:

Yeah, but try convincing people cards really are broken and/or have overpowered combos, when they really ARE broken, unbalanced, have overpowered combos, etc.

Dobbler said:

This was probably one of my favorite episodes, mainly because I found the topic of discussion to be very interesting and the conversation didn't deviate (as much as it normally does) and was engaging. ~Having 2 champs does make a difference.

Quite a bit was covered. I guess I'll address some of the bigger talking points one at a time.

Fury Plots

I don't think that Song of Summer and Take Them by Surprise will simply slot into plot decks for Fury. Sure, they might, but I think a lot of the time a player will be losing out on more useful plots. Should those players have been running those plots in the first place then? Unlikely. I find the "spread" between Fury and Sos/TTbS is large enough that you'd run a plot over SoS/TTbS but not Fury. I think we also have to keep in mind that we may see more 5 gold plots in the future. Slotting in SoS/TTbS may becomes less "obvious" as the card pool grows. Unfortunately, the plot pool grows very slowly. I know I'd gladly trade a few neutrals to see a few more plots in each cycle.

I did however agree with Kennon when he mentioned that the plots in the card pool are failing to live up to Fury's standards, not that Fury is exceeding the standards of what a plot should look like. I've always missed the resource-friendly, efficient plots from CCG before rotation. I still believe lowering the resource curve of LCG from CCG was a big mistake as it lead to the creation of cheaper, weenier cards instead of costlier, beefier cards. Because of the decision we continue to fight with Refugees instead of awesome Armies and big-name uniques. So while I agree that the Fury plots were an auto-include (and they actually did have balance issues relative to one another), I don't think they went in the wrong design direction. I actually think it was the right one.

In that regard, I'm disappointed that the Fury's are restricted. I'm glad because their restriction should open up plot deck creation, but saddened that FFG has pretty much told us we'll never see many of the kind of plots we saw in CCG.

The Giveaway

When playing a game, I'm constantly formulating what my opponent does and doesn't, may or may not have. I don't think the restricted list presents anything new in that sense. I know pre-restricted I pretty much expected 3-5 of those cards in any given deck. Knowing my opponent will only have 1 may make it harder to predict -- until they show it. I can see how that can be annoying, but I don't see how it really differs from a card being banned. I never say to myself, "Aha! Now I know you don't have Jaqen!"

So if there's a problem with what I'll call "The Giveaway" it's not the release of that information, but the non-immediate release of it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's what Kennon meant by "silver bullet-ish." Ultimately, it may prove to be annoying because it's virtually guaranteed that everyone will be running a restricted card. It's simply a matter of figuring out which one. Personally, I don't know how I feel about it yet because I don't think it's akin to, "Do you have 2x of 3x Red Vengeance in your discard pile." There's really no card in the game that definitively restricts you from running other cards other than your House card (and now the cards on the restricted list). I'm ok with House cards doing it, but I'm not sure about general pool cards.

Dobbler makes a good point that the size of the restricted list makes a difference, but my only criticism is that just about all the cards on the restricted list are auto-includes. Every deck will be running a restricted card. Unless you think causing you're opponent to be paranoid is an actual advantage, there isn't a single good reason to not be running a restricted card. Simply because an auto-include is put on the restricted list, doesn't make it less of an auto-include, but more on that soon...

Heir to the Iron Throne

Now that players can no longer make super crazy OP control decks, something might have to be done about Bara/Heir. I don't know if restricting it is enough if it turns out to be as crazy as it might be. Odds are that it would need errata/ban if something has to be done about it, which I'm starting to think is more likely than not. I will say though that I find it very interesting how a lot of players are content with permitting extremely powerful control cards and archetypes (i.e. Lanni hyper-kneel), but when aggro gets a big boost (i.e. Bara/Heir) there's much more pressure to have something done about it. Hyper-control is ok, but hyper-rush isn't, and I'm not sure why other than maybe there are more control players than aggro players.

Fear or Winter

The card is and will always be very strong until it is banned/errata. That's pretty much true of all the cards on the list. Some more so than others.

Restricted List = Better Game ≠ Best/Most Balanced Game

There should be little doubt that the restricted list improves the overall state of the game. No longer is it possible to create some insanely OP decks. It also opens up the metagame since players won't be able to run 3-5 auto-includes, and won't have to meta against or play the insanely OP decks (that's not say there aren't some very strong builds still out there to be concerned about). Unfortunately, the list does little to individually balance the restricted cards. If anything, they may individually be more potent than ever before. As much as I wish that it did more, the list really only decreases the power level of the overall game and not the specific cards on it. This is why I said in another thread, "The game still has kinks in it."

While I'm very glad FFG finally did something, I suspect the restricted list will prove to be a more temporary than permanent solution. Errata/ban will have a better effect on the balance of the game and specific cards than the a restricted list will. Why FFG didn't do this in the first place, I'm not sure. I suppose avoiding having to change the words on a card that can't physically change or telling competitive players they can't play with a card X in tournaments is some sort of taboo. I don't know why (~oh right, unless it's losing hundreds of dollars on rotated cards, people can't part with or have modification done to the 3x cards they paid 75 cents for), but apparently it is. I just hope people (including FFG) realize a restricted list isn't an end-all, fix-all solution. It's probably one of the best things to happen to LCG (or maybe worst if the designers really do want it to be the "go to" solution), but errata/ban is and will be more effective.

For example, why does a Wildling deck have to sacrifice running a bunch of other cards to run Val, a Wildling? Couldn't she be errata to, "If you control more than 1 Wildling character, Val gains," or "If you control more than 1 The North Agenda, Val gains," or something like that? I'm very happy FFG did something, but I suspect they could and will have to do better for an even higher quality competitive experience.

BEcause every errata that is not meant for clarification is a hurdle that players have to get over to play the card correctly.

When you start adding text, removing text, or completely changing text that changes teh way the card is played, both mechanically AND strategically, you push more casual players further out of the loop. Even those who come to the boards and download the FAQ but are not people who travel to Gencon, though they may play in their FLGS weekly/monthly GAoT league/tourney would qualify as a casual player.

There are a number of people, like on BGG for example, who just dismiss games when they find that there is a lot of errata that effectively changes the way a card is played. Errata and Banning are undesirable at every level, but high level tournament players are going to be far more accepting of it than others will. A restricted list of this type can easily be seen as a deck building restriction, and is much easier to explain and to accept at all levels of play.

As to the list not doing anything to restrict the power level of the individual cards... you are right, but all the cards on the list ar eones that people are arguing on about the balance level of the individual cards. If the most invested and engaged players can't agree I'd say that it may be much a more an impression of the local meta or personal playstyle that is informing the feelings on the cards.

Balancing the game itself is more important to me than trying to balance a card we the players can't agree on being too powerful for the game.

In regards to the episode, I maintain that Lannister lost Compelled by the Rock not because FFG doesn't want Lanni to have attachment removal, but because it was the best attachment removal in the game for a house who was not intended to have that as its identity. I mean, look at the Crown of Meereen, it is essentially compelled made more scary, but for the most part people aren't condemning it the way they did compelled, because it is Targ and that is their thing. A few people said if The Laughin Storm had been printed as a MArtell or LAnnister card there would be little complaint about it because mastery of the intrigue challenge is sort of their thing.

I think if compelled had just been a discard attachment effect it would have been fine. It was the stealing of the attachment for no cost that got it banned.

Penfold said:

I can and do understand those concerns, and I don't discredit them as a legitimate ones. I've just always found that casual players play games however they want. Basically meaning "in-House" rules are very popular in casual play, whether it's a board game, card game, or any other kind of game. Even something as simple and common as chess, most casual players don't use clocks; despite every chess tournament demanding them. Even when I meet-up to play Thrones locally for League Play, we've previously created in-House rules on cards that can or can't be played; ignoring the guidelines set by the FAQ. FFG even suggests different ideas of assigning prizes/points for the League play kits. It's pretty much up to the players' discretion how they play the game, except when they play competitively.

I just don't find casual players care enough about the steps taken to regulate official tournament play. I'm sure most of them won't even bother following the restricted list or are even aware of it. Most of the cards on it will probably continued to be "banned" for their meet-ups, including cards that aren't on the list now. I understand the desire to cater to casual players, but the biggest factor in getting a casual player to join the competitive scene is whether or not the overall environment and individual cards are balanced; at least that's been my experience. At least the restricted list helps with the former. Will it be enough? We'll see. I'm willing to give it a shot.

FATMOUSE said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice this.~It's nice to finally agree with FATMOUSE

Having Forum issues. Sorry to double post.

kpmccoy21 said:

I 100% react this way, but here's my reasoning...

For me, if I'm getting beat up by a heavy control deck, I still feel I have time to wait for a mistake, or get a card I need. In other words, I may not be able to do much, but I'm still thinking about the game, and what I can do about it.

Now, if I get rolled by a Hyper rush deck because my oponent got the cards they needed right away, and I didn't see what I needed to early, I'm just taking a bathroom break. Games vs. rush builds envolve fewer decisions IMHO.

kpmccoy21 said:

~Can't I complain about BOTH

Seriously though, I think it SEEMS like you are interacting more with a kneel player (even if it is kneeling your characters) rather than playing to a Turn 2 win where you couldn't do much. I am not saying that is right, but it at least seems more interactive and easier to meta against/break through/interrupt. A good valid point though.

I can't believe even Kennon is on board with the Furies. ~I guess I will actually have to listen to this one...(j/k guys!!!)

Deathjester26 said:

Agree to disagree. I would rather end the game, get away and start preparing for the next game than play from what I draw for 4 rounds while my opponent slowly grinds out the win. After control locks, it's no more fun to continue playing than taking a bathroom break. getting a drink, and moving on from the loss..

KpMccoy is on target here - a control deck si just as non interactvie as a rsuh deck - it just takes longer to lose. At least you get to defend vs a rush. whatever - the fact we are even talking about steps for a card THAT ISN'T EVEN OUT YET just shows there isn't a lot to disucss at the moment.

rings said:

"I am not saying that is right, but it at least seems more interactive and easier to meta against/break through/interrupt. A good valid point though."

Actually, I think SEEMS is the key here. It's just that the current state of the environment is such that aggro decks are more used to having to meta against kneel/control, while control decks aren't nearly as used to having to play cards in order to counter agressive/rush strategies. Jhabalar Xho not making every Lannister deck would be a quick (and possibly bad) example of this behaviour. Of course this is largely due to control being more flexible in nature to begin with, and naturally having different kinds of solutions for problem-cards, but still.

On a completely different thought: With pyromancer's cache in the environment and some good attachments on the way for Targ I'd think attachment-control will be more important than before... and their Fury was the only Lannister in-house solution to attachments. (At least I found it to be a boon against Martell Viper or Beric builds to remove Taste for Blood and the accumulated power.)

rings said:

Wait, you mean on board that they were restricted? Nope, I'm against.

And wait... you mean you don't normally listen?! Are we going out of our way to mention you every episode for no reason?!

Stag Lord said:

Even though Heir isn't out yet, it's been spoiled for a while and can be replaced with a proxy while we wait for the Targ box. Point is, people aren't making assessments on the card simply using theory (not that there is anything wrong with that), but on actual gameplay experience.

Stag Lord said:

If by "on target here" you mean "shares my opinion", then yes, he is on target with sharing your opinion. Just wanted to make sure there was room in the world for a different view

Trust me, I know where you guys are coming from. I got "control locked" the minute Alec knelt my Viper with his city plots last year in the finals. It was painful, but I prefer putting up a fight if I'm going to lose. I fine if other people would rather just get it over with.

And yes, we need something new to talk about...

Whatever = proxy stuff doesn't count. There will eb a whoel bunch of new carsd flooding the environment at the same time the agenda is released - its nto coming out in a vacuum.

i know people are bored and looking to get their post counts up - but seriously: can we not talk about rstricting cards weeks and months before theya re even out? its just silly.

I agree with Starg... preemptive restriction is not good... I fear a lot the "Heir" agenda... let's see the whole core set. Let's test in Regionals and finally I expected one Faq for June if it is needed... Only hope FFG doesn't wait 2 weeks before GenCon to release some restriction (if there is something clearly wrong) cause lots of European Nationals are in June :-)