I'm new to the game and was hoping to receive some direction as to which Houses do what well, so that I could choose the one that best fits my playstyle.
Thanks in advance!
House strengths/weaknesses?
Sure, here ya go:
Stark - Wins military battles, is extremely strong with mil challenges and can be very fast. Also tends to have a lot of direct kills, but has some strong restrictions on it (because obviously that could be really dangerous).
Lannister - Kneels opponent's characters, very generally a devious, control-based house. Extremely difficult to build a power rush deck, but almost never needs to, as it just kneels enough characters to where you are winning challenges every turn consistently (usually unopposed), and you just win from that. Largely focuses on intrigue challenges. Also has a ridonkulously strong draw engine.
Baratheon - Extreme power rush deck, focusing largely on power challenges. Has a lot of new, really dangerous asshai cards. Can not infrequently win on turn two or three, depending on the jump they get.
Greyjoy - Strong in military and power, and not terrible in the control aspects of the game, but is tremendously slow - everything they have is expensive, basically. Still, my favorite deck to play.
Martell - Strong in military and intrigue, and fantastic with the control aspects of the game. Has strangely strong draw, despite their draw cards requiring you to kill/discard them from play (they're characters). Also has the most characters that have influence, and having that can open up some abusive influence-based strategies at times, although I haven't seen a really strong deck do that just yet (their non-influence-related events are, in general, some of the strongest in the game).
Targaryen - Strong in military and power, has a lot of what's called "burn", where they control the opponent's strength through strength reduction, typically. Can easily kill off any individual characters. Has best attachment control in the game.
Neutral - As you might expect, it's fairly generic. You can play chars out of house more easily (for only a +1 penalty instead of the standard +2), but it only applies to characters.
All of these can be modified greatly by the agenda you want to play - for example, the Stark Siege of Winterfell agenda can make a Stark deck be faster and more abusive than any Baratheon rush deck (it can do 3-4 military challenges on the first turn with Fear of Winter out, for example, which has a claim of 2. That's 6-8 opponent's characters killed, for one. For two, winning all of those military challenges gives you +2 power for the agenda, so you can often get 6-8 power first turn, and then second turn you pop, say, Blockade and prevent them from having some/any gold, and you win that turn.)
There's undoubtedly more. The game is full of beautiful and elegant strategies, and trashy, sleazy moves.
Thank you! I had been leaning toward Stark and Targaryen for story reasons; those actually sound like they'd fit me. I like my decks to kick ass, and to be as direct about it as possible.
MarthWMaster said:
Thank you! I had been leaning toward Stark and Targaryen for story reasons; those actually sound like they'd fit me. I like my decks to kick ass, and to be as direct about it as possible.
That is the most fun, burning and pillaging!
Good luck!
Marth - if you want to chat about stuff, you can message me on GTalk/Gmail - [email protected]. That goes for everyone of course.
MarthWMaster said:
Thank you! I had been leaning toward Stark and Targaryen for story reasons; those actually sound like they'd fit me. I like my decks to kick ass, and to be as direct about it as possible.
Now all this may change with the new Targ box that's about to be released in a week or two. If you're interested in Targ, I *strongly* recommend you pick up one of those.
how does fear of winter allow you to do 3-4 challenges in one round. could someone explain how this works in a stark siege deck?.
WolfgangSenff said:
for example, the Stark Siege of Winterfell agenda can make a Stark deck be faster and more abusive than any Baratheon rush deck (it can do 3-4 military challenges on the first turn with Fear of Winter out, for example, which has a claim of 2. That's 6-8 opponent's characters killed, for one. For two, winning all of those military challenges gives you +2 power for the agenda, so you can often get 6-8 power first turn, and then second turn you pop, say, Blockade and prevent them from having some/any gold, and you win that turn.)
You can still only initiate one military challenge during the challenge phase with Siege of Winterfell, it just gives you additional power when you win. Fear of Winter doesn't allow you to initiate multiple military challenges, so I think Wolfgang might be confusing this with another card, possibly Storm of Swords. You can still claim 2 power for winning multiple military challenges (as a defender for example). I have seen some decks with multiple Epic Battle cards (Battle of the Whispering Wood, Battle of Ruby Ford, War of Five Kings) which allow for multiple military challenges - in this way a Stark siege deck can win a lot of power quickly, but having Fear of Winter out would only allow you to play one of them.
The trick with the Epic Battle events has to do with the timing of playing them. You can actually play them from your hand before plots are revealed, thus getting around the restriction on Fear of Winter and allowing you to use that single card on another character or whatnot.
Stark Epic Siege decks aren't nearly as good since the Targ box came out. The Epic Battle can be cancelled by Paper Shield, and Muster the Realm (played defensively) and Loyalty Money Can Buy seriously hurt the rush nature of Epic Battle decks.