Hmmmm are we serious here? I mean are you sure that with the Siege of Winterfell Agenda You can take power from an opponent;s house to yours with power attack? If this is so the agenda is broken... You take 2 power from military and you take power from power challenges? and you take power from defending a military challenge? Does it cook too? If it can cook i marry the agenda... This is hillarious...

GioKarab said:

GioKarab said:

The card isn't remotely broken. There is too much that can be done about the "one trick strategy" Stark has to play when using it. This is essentially a Stark military rush deck. And as strong as rush can be, it isn't broken.

I strongly disagree. The card is broken. Think about what are the limitations and the drawback of the agenda. You can still discard a card from an opponent using intrigue, you can still as you say take power from an opponent's house using power challenge and above that you take 2 power from a wining military challenge either as a defender or attacker and claim unopposed power with military again.

So.... what are the drawbacks? You don't take power for unopposed intrigue and unopposed power? Lol... The Heir to the iron throne Agenda makes you forfeit a whole challenge type to give you a 2nd power challenge.... And this agenda makes you forfeit only unopposed power gained from intrigue and power to give you 2 power for a military challenge either as an attacker or defender.

That doesn;t sound broken to you? You can honestly say that the heir to the iron throne and the siege of wintefell can be categorised as equals?

And because i think we play with words here to make this agenda happen... The rulebook clearly states that "if you win a challenge as the attacker the following CLAIM effects happens,

Power Challenge : The defending opponent takes a number of power counters from his House card equally to the CLAIM value on the attacker;s revealed plot card, and places them on the attacker's House card.

I think the keyword CLAIM appears twice in this situation. And still taking power isn;t claiming?

Clearly Fantasy Flight must fix this.

GioKarab said:

If you do an intrigue challenge and they discard a card from their hand, do you claim that card? No. You really have to distinguish between the contexts in which the word claim is used.

As for the agenda being broken, why is not everyone running this agenda and winning tournaments with it left and right? Because it's not broken (~and because FFG hates rush blablabla). It can be strong, but that's the point, no? Nobody wants to play an agenda that's weak.

You still don't answer to the question that when the only thing you lose is unopposed power from intrigue and power and then winning so much more how can you say its not broken? and how can you say its in the same league with agendas as the heir to the iron throne. And yes i can play with words too and say that when i discard a card from an opponent's hand i claim that card. I don't claim it for my wife to be . But the keyword claim is for all of these actions.

GioKarab said:

Have you ever played with the agenda? Or against it?

By the way, you also lose the power from winning dominance, and any other effect that let's you claim power for your house unless it is triggered during a military challenge.

Dude, chill. Seriously. You're coming off a tad combative here.

This is from the FAQ:

Is there a difference between moving power
and claiming power?
Moving power is not considered claiming
power. If an effect prevents you from claiming
power for your House card, you cannot bring
power into the game from the power pool and
place it on your House card. You can, however,
move power that is already in the game
onto that House card by, for example, winning
a power challenge.

I agree that the wording of the rules and the card is not optimal and a bit murky here, due to using the word 'claim' for two different concepts. But this is how the agenda is played, and how it has been played since it was around in the CCG under a different name. So you might want to just accept that.

As for it being broken, well, it is kinda strong, and I can well imagine that it is too strong in your Meta. These things heavily depend on the card pool you're playing with, and on things like playstile, too. But let me tell you that overall, it is not broken at all. Look at the tourney reports that are available online. You'll not find that Siege decks are over-represented. Stark can field very good decks with this agenda, and they can do very well at tourneys, but it is definitely not "broken".

Ask any top class French player, for example. France has one of the strongest national scenes in the world, and they tend to play Stark a lot. From what I hear, they've moved away from the agenda recently, because they feel it makes their decks one-sided and predictable. Look here for a short discussion I had with a French player why he didn't run SoW at their Nationals.

GioKarab said:

Not at all in the least bit broken, Wars are won with Quills is a single event card that can completely shut down your opponent running Siege.

heh i think Maesters path is more broken than Siege

Its a good agenda for Stark because of the way the house usually plays and it fits perfectly in the environment imo.

The key to the discussion is really "What is bad about using the Siege of Winterfell agenda?".

GioKarab has a valid concern and after reading his points I had at first agreed that it did seem like a pretty jacked up agenda. However, sometimes it's not always obvious what the drawbacks of certain game play styles can be.

To me - if you attacking with a Military challenge doesn't appear to be effective(you aren't going to win, or not going to have a good character killed or knelt and your claim on winning challenges is only 1, won't be unopposed), it isn't necessarily worth doing them. Against this agenda, I think you really need to focus on ways to prevent the winning of military challenges. One way is to not attack them with military unless it is a guaranteed win. Another way is to force them to use their military characters if you are going to be attacking.

Also don't forget that unopposed Power and Intrigue challenges don't give them power for their house. So, if winning a Power or Intrigue challenge uses up too many characters to be worth defending, you don't have to use any characters to defend those challenges. So, they no longer have the strategy of making you use characters just to prevent them from being unopposed, which can be HUGE.

Winning dominance will no longer be as enticing for them either, so the only reason for them to win dominance is to keep you from claiming a power.

I know it may sound like a lot of re-workings of the way your current deck may be built and how you use it, but your focus shifts on hurting their chances to have successful military challenges against you. You probably are not going to kneel, kill, or disable a character who is strong in Power or Intrigue anymore, but will seek out the military strengths.

If you think about it, is declaring multiple Power challenges terribly different? Winning against opponents that have power on their house is at least a 2 power swing. I mean, it only gets you one power closer to winning, but you add 2 power to your net power because they lost power. If you can do this 2 times in one phase, it nets you 4 power from power challenges. If it's a 2 claim plot, then it's 8 net power.

They can't force you to attack them with Military challenges, so at least you are in control of that.

I just think this agenda will force your opponent to play Military challenge centric and leave them vulnerable to the other challenge types which can certainly make up for the pros of the agenda. It most definitely leaves them wide open for decks built around other particular areas of strength.

I've searched the rules and i agree that the rules say that moving power from one house to another is not claiming. I still believe the agenda is broken though;p

Anywayz if that is the case another question pops to my mind. What about the " Loyalty money can buy plot" ? If you make the opponent's plot claim to 0, What does he take? If he wins a power challenge against me does he still takes one power from me because its not claim it is moving? Does the only thing i gain with the plot is for my opponent not to gain power from undefended challenges? Ye i am confused...

Any explanation would be most welcome.

GioKarab said:

The explanation is in the rules:

Power Challenge: The defending opponent takes a number of power counters from his House card equal to the claim value on the attacker’s revealed plot card, and places them on the attacker’s House card.

If the attacker's plot card shows a claim value of 1 then he will move 0 power tokens from the defenders house to his (1 claim on plot reduced by one by "Loyalty Money Can Buy" equals 0). If the attacker's plot has a claim value of 2, he moves 1 power token, and so forth.

The plot has no bearing on power awarded for unopposed challenges.

I hope if you take the time and re-read the relevant passages on how to resolve a challenge, it'll all become clear.

i agree with that but i still believe there is a conflict with the siege of winterfall agenda again because of the statement you cannot claim power other than military challenges, effectively making your plot claim to 0 for all but military challenges. Anywayz i see your point but i think the explanation is wrong from fantasy flight's part.

Again thanx for the clarification.

The claim value on a plot is only relevant for resolving challenges and has no effect on any effect that let's the player "claim" power. Don't let the word "claim" throw you off, it has two different meanings in two different contexts.

GioKarab said:

Don't confuse "claim value" with "claiming power", it's two different things. The Siege of Winterfell agenda does nothing to your claim value (determined by your plot card). If you attack and win a military challenge, the opponent still has to kill a number of characters equal to the claim value on your plot; if you win an intrigue challenge, he still discards cards from his hand, and if you win a power challenge, a number of power tokens is still moved from the defenders house card to yours. What the agenda does is preventing the player from "claim power" for his house (taking a power token out of the pool and placing it on his house card) outside of a military challenge. So look for any effects that say "claim X power (for your house)", whether from game mechanics or card effects. If they would happen during anything but a military challenge, no power is claimed.

Yeeee i got it (still voting for the agenda to change any given time though:P)

thanx again for your time i appreciate it

Siege of Winterfell undoubtedly has the potential to be very powerful in the right deck with the right player, but I wouldn't consider it overpowered.

From what I know of the European meta, Stark is top of the heap, and Siege is probably considered much more powerful there.

For me, I think it's a great card in that it's powerful, Nedly, and works best when you construct a deck around it, not just toss it into most any deck (a complaint you may have heard about he Maester's Path as of late.)

This whole thing gets resolved rather quickly if you think of the Claim Value on a plot card as the "Winning a Challenge Reward Value" if you will. Claiming power from unopposed challenges does not occur, nor does claiming power from dominance. Winning challenges moves power from losers house to winners house, which is not the same as claiming.

I have another question about this agenda: if you are running Siege of Winterfell and win a military challenge as the defender, do you claim two power? The way the card is written, it seems so, as it doesn't say that you get two power for winning a military challenge as the attacker, just that you get two power for winning a military challenge.

Yes, you do. It's a pretty powerful deterrent for your opponent - they won't attack you with MIL unless they are sure they can win.

I know this will sound like a broken record, but I can't see how this card is supposed to be played as written and still claim power for power challenges.

Here's why.

I think that, given the fact that is played "wrong" so often by people who do have varying levels of mastry of the language, as written, the card should be errataed to make it more clear. If the official rules are using the same word for two different things, it should be clarified. If the intended effect is that the player with the agenda is meant to be able to place power on his house outside of millitary challenges, they need to change the word "claim" on the agenda.

Otherwise, when the rulebook states that "The game is immediately over when one player has claimed 15 or more total power between his or her House and/or characters in play," the power that is on the players house card which he has not "Claimed" but instead "Moved" wouldn't count toward the victory condition. Doesn't seem like it.

I don't have a problem with the agenda's intended use, but I think enough debates over proper usage have taken place that it needs to be clarified.

Corinos said:

"Is there a difference between moving power and claiming power?

Moving power is not consdered claiming power. If an effect prevents you from claiming power for your House card, you cannot bring power into the game from the power pool and place it on your House card. You can, however, move power that is already in the game onto that House card by, for example, winning a power challenge."

-=nods=- It does clarify the fact that FF is using the cord claim in a way that is against the norm, yes. It does't make the winning conditions count power that was moved though.

Bah. Using the word claim, not the cord claim. heh.

-=chuckles=- I suppose I should clarify, eh? When I say against the norm I mean that, for instance, every definition on Dictionary.com agrees that, even if the power is moved, because it's ownership is changing and it's the right of the winner to have it moved, it is being claimed.

I think it would be a lot easier for FF to erratta the card than explain in the FAQ that they are using the word in a way that isn't intuitive.