Seems to me that a lot of this crying is a result of people not changing their decks properly to anticipate the current meta. There are solutions to a chain'd up bob in almost every house (Dragon Thief, Frozen Solid, Scurvy Cutthroat, etc.) not to mention neutral cards like Ill tidings. Seems to me that if you simply make your deck to accommodate the fact that attachment removal/control is important it becomes not such a big problem at all (not to mention the return to hand effects present in some houses *cough* martell).

I like giving the apprentice collar the Condition trait, because if you think conceptually it would fit. Plus that gives every house a decent shot at removing it. On a side note when the difficulty of killing Bob due to the noble crest was mentioned it got me thinking, why isn't there anything to blank crests? Unless I'm forgetting something (a real possibility). Everything else of a character can be blanked or removed or changed but those. Just odd.

fhornmikey said:

Exactly my thought.

I think it comes down to the previous conversation we had about agendas. They are hard to balance. Ones without any real drawback suck.

I respect the other side of the fence, and for sure Maester/Bob took most people by surprise which helped it win, but I really think we need cards that help disrupt agendas. Or stop making no-brainer ones *shrug* Starting in play cards shouldn't be no-brainers...

Also, re-printing Bastard would help

Ahzrab said:

Actually, I wasn't not calling for a ban. As a matter of fact, given the fact I LOVE Wildlings, I was trying to get a grasp of why exactly BotFM isn't in the same situation than TMP. With the slow power creep that the card pool has been having, and the fact that Val and Fear of Winter were restricted and the errata to The North agendas, perhaps BotFM isn't broken anymore.

The thing that makes TMP weaker than BotFM is that it's bonus can be nullified more easily (the opponents are given an "easy" chance to destroy the bonus from the agenda by destroying the cards that came into play).

However, two big distinctions must be made between the Agendas, IMO:

1 - TMP gives real Card Advantage AND Resource Advantage, turning up the speed of the deck greatly; you wouldn't see Martell Maester's rush or Targaryen Maester's Rush if it weren't so;

2 - Because of the previous fact, the time any given opponent has to find the solutions is a relatively small window. In all TCG's/CCG's/LCG's that I know of it always is like that: you have the answer to the rush deck or you lose. The big difference is, with the current card pool, Martell (for example) is powerfull in it's won right outside the rush strategy; so, even if the game slows down a bit, the deck will still have a good chance at winning in the mid-game. I've now assembled a version of Maestered Bob, and even without chain attahments on him, more often than not I win those games. All because of the initial power rush. it's not hard to win at 4th or 5th plot when in the first two rounds you got 9 to or 10 power.

And... about packing solutions to attachments in your deck: I know most houses have 1 or 2 answers vs. attahments (not counting Targaryen, which has more than I remember right now, for sure). But that is also true for any house vs. Wildlings that can pack influence and Too Proud Too Bow. I know that 4 or 5 influence is sometimes much to gather, but as not all decks can support it, not all decks can support Ill tidings too.

As I said before, the developpers know best, I suppose. *shrug* We just have to trust them to keep this great game as awesome as it's been. I, for one, do.

fhornmikey said:

Hell yes +1 to this ^^

I knew I'd be glad we met at Gencon. Since you have no meta of your own in Indy to speak of, we here in TN would like to adopt you as one of our own. You just have to make sure that next year at Gencon you don't knock any of us out of a chance at the top 16.

widowmaker93 said:

Done and done ser!

goshdarnstud said:

The only one I know is Veteran Knight.

fhornmikey said:

Awesome!

Now i just need to get Octgn for my Mac and we can get in some games online. Stupid OCTGN not coding their program for a REAL operating sytem. Unlike that jank Windows that crashes every 30 min and gets viruses like a night time street walker down at the bus station. *shudders* bleh. I'll never go back to that garbage.

Meera Reed, she blanks traits, good by all chains, and any body guards on Robert. Initiate of the Citadel is an easy card to give you a turn of respite against some flavors of the maester deck.

Maesters kicked but because a lot of people didn't predict the meta appropriately if you ask me. When a third of the field is playing functionally the exact same deck (which btw is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, have some frakking pride people) if you figure out that particular Meereenese not you are going to end up with a great record. Maester Bob is too fast with too much protection for a seasonal control deck to hang with unless you are one of the top players.

I think Wildlings are in a really good place right now. Rather than bringing back BotFM I'd like to see a few more new cards that leveraged them up a bit without making them silly.

Old Ben said:

fhornmikey said:

Respectfully, I have to disagree with both of you. If you are not using Ill Tidings, which doesn't fit in every deck, Lannister and GJ have no effective way to remove attachments. Scurvy Cutthroat only works if it is already in play when the attachment is played, and does not do anything to prevent someone from stacking chains from TMP onto Fat Bob or any other character in play. Its also a Response, which can be cancelled by HCiT in all those Martell decks, and the HCiT can be easily recursed with an Initiate of the Citadel. Lanni has no attachment control that I'm aware of. Frozen Solid is only a partial solution given that it will be discarded with Tin Link or Ill Tidings at the first opportunity. The only House that really has in-House attachment control for Chains is Targ.

Skowza said:

Well if you have a neutral card as a solution (Ill-Tidings) to the current maester theme and in addition you have the possibility to get it every time you want (A Time for Ravens), I honestly don't see a problem, especially in Lannister & Greyjoy which have some good maesters/learned characters available. You have to adapt to the current meta-game and probably have to play some cards that you don't like that much in your deck. It's the same stuff with Carrion Birds or Refugees and I guess we will see some further attachment removal in the upcoming cycle.

Ahzrab said:

I still don't like calling ill tidings a solution to these, we are still lacking L characters and forcing someone to play maesters to counter opponents maesters atleast for me just sounds wrong as gameplay aspect. We shouldn't adopt "if I can beat them I must join them" strategy in this game. Your deck will lose significant amount of focus just for you to run reliably those 3x ill tidings. I just can't call a card solution when it needs deckbuilding around it (it will take several maester slots for you, one plot if you want to be sure to have that maester and another plot if you want to use time of ravens.) Hopefully we are getting the bastard back in Lions of the Rock.

Bastard is coming back, at least according to the spoiler article, which is probably healthy for the game in general.

fhornmikey said:

Good, but not great, since you can still place chain attachments on the character due to rulings (although the old ones do go away, and if you recyle them they can't go on the same person).

Ill Tidings ins't an answer. Nor is Frozen (are people even reading the Chains?). It gives you a second of breathing room with net card disadvantage.

After a few more chains are available, it is going to get interesting (hmmm...should I mill you, or wipe your board, or just draw/income...?).

Not saying it can't be disrupted, just that it is pretty hard using a lot of your resources to disrupt one of many win conditions in such a deck (if built right). All for the low-low price of...free and start in play effects that thin your deck to make it easier to draw the cards you want. *shrug*

I think something will be done. And it probably will be good for the game - as the changes in the past have had people yelling and then just go away.

Back to the original - I would love to have seen the Wildlings get a -1 reduction instead, only for uniques or the such. But, that is doubtful by now. I would love them to be more playable (full disclosure, I built the Stark Wildling deck which isn't horrible and went 3-3 at GC piloted by Wyndwalker, but it isn't anything to write home about).

rings said:

rings said:

Oh, after playing some games and playing Maester Bob and Greyjoy Choke etc. i must say that the cards seem to be very well designed. It´s just common within the last 3 chapter cycle that cards with uber-strength and too stupid combos get released. And i´m convinced that something will be done about it right after the last chapter pack is sold. It just seems to be a sale method.

The thing i dislike the most about the new enviroment right now is that highly competive decks seem to look the same/ have the same theme a whole set of the same cards. The game seems to be going to a wrong point if you wonder if it´s really a good thing to include Eddard in your Stark deck / include Jaime in your Lannister deck. There are a lot of examples to b found if you got through your collection carefully.

Back to the original theme than again, i like Rings idea of having a -2 cost for unique wildlings, that should solve the problem with the big armies and still allows you to play a lot of interesting wildlings at a lower cost ratio.

Both Ben adn rings sum up my feelings really well. The next three months look like they will be really silly with hte pwoer of teh Chains. I can't beleive they jumped all over TLS before he even saw play and the Chain thing is just goign to play out. Sigh.

Back to OP - i think Wildlings are halfway decent right now - the effieicnt stealthy characters with +1 STR can complement a few different builds form a few different Houses. And its not liek teh Wildling horde is unplayable - you can still get ti at a sizable discount. You just need to build in a win condition for your deck.

Stag Lord said:

Well, TLS already had a very strong combo in place w/ Val and the plot. I have to agree, that next to some of the other power combos going off now, and the semi-resergence of Targ, it isn't broken, but it was too easy to get 3X card/turn (plus blanket discard control, plus some other combos like the discard down to 4 event) in a house where that was supposed to be the weakness. The chains were far from an issue at GenCon IMHO, they really start to get strong adding in another 4 or whatever abilities (draw and mill being very good strategies). But I feel your pain!

I have seen some good Wildling decks, especially out of Bara (where they can use the stealth in a few different ways - that location that stands stealth-y chars plus the attachment that makes locations viligant is cool).

rings said:

1. TLS *could* be OK in the environment. I think it's safe enough post-GenCon to try it out. I fully expect Bara players to draw tons of cards if TLS is no longer restricted (Val becomes the easy restricted card, while Threat from the East is also very good), but I'm not sure that draw alone would make Bara the top house. Bara could probably use a boost anyway...despite winning the GenCon joust, I still think the house is closer to the bottom in terms of competitiveness. Also, with more maesters going forward, Targ will be a better metagame decision, and Targ shouldn't have any problems dealing with Val.

2. The chains could use a minor errata to slow them down a bit, but I don't think they need anything major. So what if decks are pulling off crazy combos...this hasn't led to round-1 rush deck wins, right? (Maybe a select few Bara maester builds can do this, but these crumble to Game of Cyvasse, Ghaston Grey, Targ burn...not to mention any deck that puts a card in shadows on round 1.) On the other hand, I also haven't seen any control builds running Maester's Path that are so powerful and fast that they should be reigned back.

If anything, I think it's more speculation that the maester chains will get out of control in the future. And while I agree that the mill chain and the draw chain could become ridiculous/OP, I think a few small changes that reign those in would be better than an overall hit to all maester decks. Just because a deck like the Joffrey voltron uses the chains very efficiently doesn't mean it should be banned or anything. After all, maybe the chains are functioning exactly as intended....that is, not just to promote the maester trait, but also to allow for more deck building creativity.

I thought you were OK with a tweak to Apprentice Collar? I was pretty sure we agreed on that - it was a question fo how far to go wiht teh tweak.

I don't cosider it just "speculation" about how OP the new chains are goign to be after three+ months of seeing them pretty ubiquitously at meetups and in discussions.

Stag Lord said:

How about 3+ months of people putting Old Nan and Initiate of the Citadel in their decks?

Stag Lord said:

Wait that is a question? people are actually saying that TMP isn't overpowered.

JackT said:

On Joff? ~You reading cards lately?

rings said:

Oh you mean the immune to triggered effects? I can see that stopping Old Nan, but Initiate? I think that targets the attachments, not the character.

If Joff is the concern, then one way you could go with an errata is make apprentice collar a triggered effect.