Mathias Fricot said:

I agree that the Knights agenda's weakness is not well balanced to its advantage, but I don't necessarily agree that an agenda's drawback needs to be a drawback against an average deck, unless that agenda's advantage is also big. For example, Kings of Summer has a disadvantage that doesn't always kick in, but a base state (no season) that is fairly common, and an advantage that is (in my experience) usually triggered but not overpowering. Alliance, with a correspondingly larger advantage that is always available, has a subsequently greater drawback.

By exclusion, if you don't think that the drawback should be possible against the average matchup, your default position on agendas must be that they provide a benefit disproportional to their risk. This creates an environment where if your not running an agenda, your at a disadvantage.

I'm done being a bastard, I do understand what your saying; if your agenda gives you a small benefit, it should be much more "stable" than one that gives you a large benefit, which should be much less stable for the purpose of balance. Part of why I hate knights is because there is no real risk (except in the mirror) to have the negative effect active (which i explained in my previous post). The Summer and Winter agendas need to be evaluated in the environment they were printed, and the environment now. When they came out it was in a chapter pack cycle based around seasons - with ways to counteract each other and balance each other out. One was the yin to the other's yang. Four (?) cycles later you have a plethora of deck types more than you had when those agendas were printed, so naturally the proportion of the environment running seasons has declined. This makes the seasons more powerful because you have less people to counteract you using winter if you are playing summer, or counteract you using summer if you are playing winter. I get what your saying, I do, I just thing the seasonal agendas are a bad example because their drawback is active much less now than it would have been in the environment where they were printed (since the drawback is only on the opposing season, not the "seasonless" state).

But ya, Knights are lame.

I wouldn't say the Knights agenda is as safe as that. Brotherhood decks will always have an unkillable knight out and Martell and Lannister have anough good knights that you can lose draw even outside a mirror match.

You also have to take into account the way the Agenda imposes a deckbuilding restriction on you as a disadvantage too. It's only a straight advantage if you were planning to run a lot of Knights anyway.

You guys haven't even mentioned Melee yet either. Although the upside is a little less likely in melee, the downside is HIGHLY unlikely. Anyone running bara at all without an agenda in melee is making a mistake (unless they are running an asshai deck).

The presence of good Knights in other houses is not a weakness to the agenda unless they are all being run together. Brotherhood has Beric, yes, we know, but one Milk and they are knightless. Balon Swann is an amazing card, but how many other knights will Lannister have in play at the same time? Jaime and Lancel? Well thats three uniques. You need to have lots of knights being played, and like I said, if the concentration is high enough they will just run that agenda as well (as I have seen with Dayne and KG out of Lannister using the Knights of the Realm agenda).

Milk does not cancel traits sadly. One of my opponents found that out the hard way at the Chicago regional when my AToR Renly cancelled out his KotS Renly.

Also I would argue that in an environment absolutely rich with resets and trait manipulation, it can be a LOT easier than you might think to lose the benefits of the Knights agenda. All it takes is them having as many Knights as you to negate your extra card, and if they (or you) Valar and they manage to save a Knight or drop one next Marshaling and you do not have one waiting in the wings you are at a serious card disadvantage (it has happened to me, facing Lannister).

Four Houses can run knight heavy builds and hurt your draw. I find the downside to be a very real risk - even in this environment, where there are fewer good knights han there were when the agenda first appeared. there are a few decent neutral knights in the kIngsguard that see soem play to augment teh knight base in other Houses.

Plus there's kill and claim and your non uniques are going to go away.

And when you Do lose the knight edge and are drawing only one card a turn - its a whole lot worse on the scale. you may not win with the +1 card per turn, but you will surely lose down a card. (same thing with the Summer agenda - and i think that;''s actually ahrder to keep going). i think the Knights agenda is fine the way it is.

The knights agenda does have drawbacks, and I don't agree that this is only true against knight decks. There are actually plenty of situations where you can get screwed by the agenda.

After you play a valar for example, your opponent might end up with more knights than you on the table, provided he has more saves than you. And that can happen with almost any match-up. Kings of Summer is more consistent because of the raven immunity to everything but ravens. The drawback there is the winter mechanic.

Stag Lord, you can't have fewer good knights since the agenda was printed, they just make a smaller proportion of the cardpool.

Zsa, there are always a few ways of killing characters. Your opponent getting a sh*tty board position or you topdecking 3 VBs to kill off his knights, then play more of your own, or play less of your own then valar then save more of your own, well to me those seem like situations where your already close to lock.