Come listen here as Darryl, Will and Zeiler talk about their regional predictions as well as discuss the Alliance agenda and the new LOTR LCG.

Dobbler said:

Man these seem to come out so fast that I am still two episodes behind. Oh well time to get listening.

By the way, is it just me or does anyone else obsessively check the Rules Forum right before a big tournament for (1) random card rulings that could affect games and (2) to try to glean from posts what other players may be playing at the upcoming event?

Toqtamish said:

Our release schedule is weekly....with all attempts made to release on Friday.

Twn2dn said:

instead of doing unhelpful things to improve your game at the margin, you could simply go through your decks and take out the bad cards so as to include more good cards instead

finitesquarewell said:

Yup, Toq, you should really get to listening. Don't let that silly LotR stuff distract you!

Twn2dn said:

Well, judging by rules section activity (which may be not accurate judgement), people don't really care about rules. For example player action windows during epic phase - huge difference for Stark Siege decks during tournament, and almost nobody cares (I guess 99% people even don't know).

Interesting podcast. Really missed having Greg there to reign in the discussions and add some insight.

I really enjoyed the discussion on which Restricted card to run in Baratheon. The fact that there was no concensus illustrated to me that the Restricted List hits Baratheon worst than any other house.

Regional predictions:

Agree that there will be more Targ aggro builds than last years Regional season due to the release of the box.

I don't expect the reprint of the Greyjoy box to cause more people to play Greyjoy because no new Greyjoy cards entering the environment.

Agree that Martell is the sexier build than Lannister, but still expect Lanni to place top 4 anywhere an above average player runs Hyper kneel. I expect it to break down 50/50 on Lanni and Martell in the top cuts at Regionals.

Without Heir and with TLS Restricted, Bara's only top tier build is Delayed Rush/Hand Destruction. Noble Rush is too inconsistent and cannot close fast enough anymore. Bara has dropped for me to 3rd at best and probably 4th or 5th in the House rankings. I like their versatility, but the majority of their decks aren't top tier.

Stark Siege is good, but not as good as it was a year ago. Though it might be good enough to bump them above Baratheon.

Bullsh*t alarm statements

Widow's Watch is as good card advantage as Golden Tooth Mines. REALLY??!!! What game are you playing, because it obviously isn't the same game I'm playing. Getting a dupe vs getting any card. Unique vs non unique. The only requirement for GTM is play a plot. You actually have to martial a unique character to trigger Widow's Watch. Maybe in a deck build like Rings where you run mostly unique characters it's close to equivalent, but otherwise it's mediocre. It fills in some of Stark's draw holes by giving more search, but it's no where near GTM. Widow's Watch is good in a deck you build around it. GTM is an autoinclude in any Lannister deck. whether you build around it or not.

Lannister isn't that good because they haven't gotten new good cards in the last year and have no new surprises. So, because they aren't 5 lengths ahead of the pack, they are only one of the best two, they aren't that good? Lanni still has more consistent draw than Martell, still has better gold than Martell, and only possibly lost either a mediocre Fury plot or Castellan to the Restricted List, and they aren't that good? Maybe Lanni kneel bores you because it's still top tier and hasn't really changed it's build drastically since the Shadow block, but it's still one of the best builds in the game.

Still enjoy the podcast immensely and look forward to listening every week. Thanks for all the hard work and hard drinking you put into every episode.

Rogue30 said:

~You mean there's rules in this game??!! Who knew...?

kpmccoy21 said:

Really wish I could figure out how other people can break down and quote multiple paragraphs with their own responses in between. Every time I try, it breaks the quote system here.

Widow's Watch- I really stand by this. Yes, I admit that it requires a change in the widely accepted deckbuilding idea that you only run one copy of a unique character, but I think that is part of what makes it so strong. It challenges widely held assumptions about the game. Each time I trigger it, I'm up one card, just like Golden Tooth Mines each turn. The fact that GTM is non-unique, but that WW can be triggered multiple times with learned crests is essentially a wash as they each require searching for or drawing more copies of another card, but I think that total card advantage on each trigger of WW is improved over GTM. While they each only net you one card, the card from WW also acts as a save to keep the unique that you just played on the board, meaning that you're up one card from WW, and likely up another card when your opponent needs to expend one to remove your unique. Granted, that math isn't strictly accurate. You're still losing a physical card in the duplicate, but keeping the obviously effective character on the table versus their Die By the Sword or Valar Morghulis means that you've neutered an aspect of theirs. As well, the duplicate you search for thins the deck and increases odds of drawing the cards you want with a standard draw engine. GTM, on the other hand, is the draw engine itself. Each time you draw with it, you have essentially an equal chance of it being what you want in that situation. While each sup optimal draw from GTM increases the odds of the next being something useful, it is also standard draw and thus subject to the cap. In other words, it's expending your chances to get the cards you want each time you thin the deck. WW watch nets you deck thinning on top of the other benefits without sacrificing your opportunity to draw into further useful cards that turn. Yes, I very much stand by my assertion that WW is just as strong as GTM.

Lannister- I'm not saying that they're a bad house, but mainly that they'll likely be less popular. At least, that was the point that I believe I was attempting to make. That said, yes, I think that having less in the way of new tricks does hamper their power level. For instance, say you set down at a tournament and across from you is either Lannister Hyper-Kneel, or some totally unseen before Alliance based combo monstrosity (for the record, I don't have one in mind). Which deck do you feel more confident against? The one whose decklist you can probably recite with 95% accuracy due to there being little variance in the build in years and that you have years of play experience in how to counter, mitigate and otherwise play around their style, or the entire unknown that might possibly have none of the answers necessary to your deck, or absolutely every possible answer in triplicate? I'd choose the known enemy. Heck, it's like playing in my meta down here. Against any player here (and we have some good ones. You might have heard of Dobbler before), I can set down and say with relative certainty that I can take the game. Based on which decks we're playing, I can further increase or decrease the odds to amounts that prove me right far more often than wrong. I can do this based on familiarity and a deepening understanding of play and possibilities on the part of those players and decks. On the other hand, playing against an unknown makes me extremely uneasy. Know your enemy.

Also, thanks for the consideration of all our hard drinking. That means a great deal to us, ser!

Kennon said:

Kennon said:

Kennon said:

It has become quite distracting, and very challenging. That and Magic the gathering almost sucked me in again.

I still stay on top of Magic relatively well through the Daily Magic site and a couple of podcasts. Kind of interesting with the New Phyrexia suff, but it won't ever be as cool as the original Phyrexia. Yawgmoth, FTW baby!

And as far as actual mechanics and such go.... Nothing in awhile has seemed quite as cool as Ravnica. Might be the most perfect block in Magic history. Though Lorwyn/Shadowmoor stuff was pretty neat too. I'm a sucker for tribal.

Yeah I like Mirrodin and the return to it too but it is just so expensive to get into and keep on top of. I figure instead I will work on trying to expand the GoT community so we can try and have some proper tournaments. At least with GoT I can say I own every card that exists, minus QoD as I have not picked up my copy yet.

Might add more later, but I just wanted to say that perhaps for the first time ever any House (Neutral doesn't count ) is capable of winning a Regional. Obviously not all builds are equal, but there are strong enough builds for each House where if they have a skilled driver, they can do very well.

I think only the DC Regional is today. Good luck to all attending, and by that I mean: Go Twn2dn!

Toqtamish said:

Was able to play some sealed Magic at the PreRelease events this weekend. Magic is still fun sealed, just too expensive to play constructed.

I really miss being able to play AGOT sealed or draft. That may be the only thing I dislike about the LCG model.

That is what I was planning on playing in but between it being mother's day and it cost $30 for the tourney and I knew how addictive any ccg can be I figured probably safer to skip it. So I did. Crisis averted!

Now if we can just get some new AGoT players here, we had a steady 3, now back down to 2. But I figure the HBO show might help expose the IP and thus the game some more.

I have to agree on Widow's Watch - a dupe just isn't as good as a card (obviously). Even in a build like mine as someone said. I love the card, but it is probably 25% as good as GTM's...which is still pretty good.

Lanni will continue to be in the top 1-3 as long as their strengths are card draw and income. As long as they do those two things even a bit more efficiently than other houses, they will be strong. Throw in ANY repeatable kneel, and they will be up there. I agree with Kennon though, that they will be less represented. The gap has closed between them and other houses, and people are tired of playing their usual builds. The only reason I am playing them is more unique builds like Lanni Knights or to see if Trait Manip is decent yet.

rings said:

Interestingly, I have both a Lanny Knight deck (almost no kneel) and a Lanny trait manip, and they are both quite good. Mostly for the reason you mention, draw and income.

Interesting episode. Especially the regional predictions.

I agree completely that Martell is probably going to be the best represented House and would be very surprised to see a Top 4 with no Martell. I think Martell may even be above Lanni in terms of overall House strength but those 2 are definitely top 2 Houses at the moment. Other than those two I think every other House has a competitive build that is capable of Top 4. Bara is still very strong despite TLS on Restricted and Heir being Targ only as Gualdo mentioned Bara seems to have won a lot of tournaments in Europe over the past year.

Oh I want to add that I agree 1000% with Zeiler and Patrick Rothfuss about LoTR being totally blech

And Rothfuss and Martin would definitely still have jobs without LotR. They might even be able to mention "fantasy" without the negative bias it receives from so many people because of LotR. I believe Gormenghast and Narnia both predate Tolkien. And the novel Ivanhoe (which is closer to GoT IMO than LotR is to GoT) was published in 1819. So there you hobbit lovers

Fantasy would be nowhere near as main stream as it is without Lord of the Rings. And this is really a different topic for a different place.

Toqtamish said:

We can agree to disagree then as I personally believe fantasy would be better without the mainstream stereotypes that Tolkien created.

And this was a topic in this episode of the Podcast so this is 100% on topic in this thread.