@kpmccoy21- Actually, a great deal of the succession depends on your view of social contracts in a fuedal society. I've read some awfully detailed arguments on both sides of the matter, though it's been long enough ago that I'll just summarize very briefly. Some say that Daeny is the only rightful heir at the moment because Robert was never legitimately king by superceding the rightful heir with his own tenuous claim to the throne. ie. Might does not equal right, only the established laws of succession. The flipside argues that Aerys broke the social contract with his subjects and was replaced with a new dynasty by popular support.

@ Staglord. Really?

Really?

After living through people on the boards mostly good-naturedly bash me for my emo nature and severe troubles with things like the old Hand of the King attachment, or watching card after card after card for my favorite house be banned or erratted and still trucking along because I enjoy the game and the community, I find it distressing that something like this has caused such a reaction from you. I suppose only each man knows his own breaking point, but for a change that lets you still play with TLS if you want to, and saves melee from the absurdities of Baratheon Heir decks (I could have sworn that you'd been a long time advocate of melee) I am surprised and troubled.

Dobbler said:

Yeah, this was more or less my experience too. To be honest, when my opponent beat me, it was typically on round 2-3, but that was in large part because I had ultra fast starts and then played Blockade/Fear on round 1, followed by tons of control (including cards like Threat from the North). Despite all the tricks, Bara Heir usually still rushed to victory on round 2. And none of that's necessarily bad...if the Bara deck goes off like that 10% of the time, it's great. Even 50% of the time might be fine. But consistent round 1-2 victories, or a round 3 victory if your opponent is playing heavy control and exhausts all options, is probably just too much.

So yeah, I agree something needed to be done, but *how* it was handled was very poor indeed.

Dobbler said:

Oh yeah. I made the mistake of going first with Bara.

Dobbler said:

But you still only made a total of 3 challenges. And the only really horrible card that val can cause you to lose is narrow escape... oh that wont happen. So Val's drawback is negligable in baratheon generally. I still think you can accomplish what you did with Heir with a Baratheon deck that just has a balanced amount of intrigue icons with renown.

I think the agenda is a trap. (Think of Admiral Akbar saying it).

bloodycelt said:

Can you still do Bara rush without Heir? Sure. But it is nowhere near as explosive. Its not about the total # of challenges...its about the total number of character in EACH of those 3 challenges. With Heir, Bara could often throw 3-4 characters in a Power challenge. And then they all stood. And you did it again. Assuming each of those characters has renown, you just gained 4-6 extra power because of it.

~Is this the line for the torches and pitch forks?

There are a lot of "should have's" that we can bring up. Hopefully, they serve as learning points for FFG, but there's nothing to be done about them now.

In the here and now, if it's even possible, FFG has made me more excited for regionals.

Deathjester26 said:

+1 For me. I am a Targ/Bara/Martell player and have been waiting for this new set, regardless of the FAQ. I still love the game in all it's glory and can't wait to meet all the players @ MetaGames.

these cards cause 1 of 2 outcomes. Either: They release w/ no errata or restriction and we get people losing turn one or two to a bara rush deck with no real way to combat it. Think about it. What could stop a bara rush deck with 2 power challenges open to it? The only thing that comes to my mind is "True Power" event from targ (auto-win power challenge) and wildling defense wall. If you have another idea, I'd like to hear it. These cards are too powerful to remain un-reined as is. Is there another option within the scope of the game? <shrug> You tell me.

Or: They release w/ errata and restriction and we get people annoyed because of such a quick slap-down to bara's perceived (or possible) strength as a house and the lack of communication between ffg and us. I would love it if ffg could un-muzzle their employees, but that isn't really an option. So who's fault is it? Marketing? Designers? Someone else? Again, you tell me?

No matter how they handle the situation, there was going to be people pissed about it. The fact of the matter is they don't have to explain themselves and so we, as a community of players, sit around and try and figure out their intentions when designing, releasing or restricting cards. I know it's our collective curiosity that gets us into this mess because there are not voices from ffg explaining WHY they do anything. I am as guilty of this an anyone. I think that is the crux of the matter. We see an action without explanation and insert our own because we are not given a formal one. Do they owe us an explanation as a community of people why buy their products? Or do they have an obligation to do what they think is right and stay above the fray by keeping all communication to a specific and official voice? Personally being on the other side of the fence at ffg, I will not answer this with my own opinion. I will say this:

"So many vows. They make you swear and swear... No matter what you do, you are forsaking one vow or another."

Ser Jamie Lannister

@Nick-ler: It is known.

It is known.

+11

Well said Nick-ler.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Aegon, son of Rhaegar, is heir to the Iron Throne!

schrecklich said:

Oh, you mean Darkstar.

Looks like FFG has released an updated update to the FAQ announcement, addressing many of our concerns.

Thank you FFG, Nate, Damon and the rest of the deisgn team!

Yeah, it was good to see FFG respond to our concerns in a timely manner. As much grief as the boards has given them recently, it was nice to see a positive action by the Design team to deal with the turmoil created by the new FAQ.

As to the changes themselves, I would have liked the Restricting and Errata process to go something along these lines,

1) A Design Journal or letter from the Design team stating that they were aware that certain cards were coming into the environment that could possibly create balance issues. They were planning on keeping an eye on the Regional season to see if the cards created the problems they foresaw and if the Metagame could adapt to them on its own. After Regionals, they would release a new FAQ/Restricted List before GenCon in light of the Regional results.

2) Allow the cards to go through Regionals and see their impact on the game in a large sampling. Find out if after 2 or 3 weeks people created decks that could counter Bara rush and be competetive against other builds as well or if the environment devolved into only Bara/Heir and anti-Bara/Heir.

3) Take the Regional results, make a rational decision for the good of the game, and announce the new FAQ/Restricted List and the data and rationale behind the changes.

The new letter did Step 3 really well. My problem is that Steps 1 and 2 never happened. I feel like public hysteria on the boards and small sampling of experience formed this decision and a large part of the player base were never given a chance to find solutions for Heir or find out if the hysteria was warranted. 1 Regional season of 2 months is not too much to ask for the community to test cards before they get errataed or restricted.( Wildlings had a good 4 months minimally and Hyperkneel had years before FFG came in and Restricted Castellan.) Especially since those 2 months will probably see the most creativity and competition of any 2 months of the year. Regional season would be the perfect crucible in which to test the impact of these cards on the Metagame.

How do you feel your process world work for cards released the month after regionals/worlds/the major yearly tournament?

kpmccoy21 said:

I agree with some of this, and definitely agree that FFG could have taken that approach and received about the same amount of flack (maybe a little less) from different people. Honestly though, I think FFG waited too long to deal with Lanni and the Wildlings. In fact, so much so that it affected design months later...so Lanni still hasn't gotten much in the way of interesting new cards, and Wildling apparently affected the calculation of Heir. Similarly FFG waited too long to neuter Martell (in my opinion), and still may not have gone far enough...guess we'll see during regionals.

In my experience, what happens during regionals season is used as a benchmark for the next block or two of design, even if there are a few erratas somewhere in there. This is pure speculation, but it seems just as likely that had Bara been as frightening as some people (me included) think it could have been, additional restrictions/errata may not have been the only consequences.

In the end, I'd rather have a quick reaction to something I personally see as inevitable. I still think the announcements were handled poorly, but it sounds like FFG has acknowledged the mistake and promised to avoid it in the future. I guess that's all I could have really asked for here. Design teams aren't perfect, and it sounds like tugging on one end led to unintended consequences on other ends that had to be addressed immediately.

hklown said:

Good question. This is a huge problem and may be the reason why Wildlings and Lanni took so long to fix. Maybe this is a good reason for a less casual Organized Play program. To me it seems like outside the May to August window, there aren't enough large events in quick order to really gage the overall metagame. Instead you're stuck with many small meta events and a large tournament once every 2 to 3 months.

@Dan-I understand what you're saying about design. I would hope that the Design team would always have the problem cards, combos in mind and communicate that clearly to the playtesters. Possibly have "alternate cards" that are playtested that would be slotted in if errataes and bannings took place. Restrictions should cause less of a problem.