So it has become a habit to have some forum discussion about imaginary dream cards. With the new impressions from dance with dragons i think it will be interesting to have some new design approaches. So i thought i´ll just start a new thread and of course start with a card or two:

Agenda: Hostage of the Boltons

Whenever you win a military challenge and you don´t control an opponents charachter you may choose to take control of an opponents charachter that is about to be placed in dead or discard pile.

Place a power token on a non-army charachter you control after dominance is won. Power on non-Bolton charachters you control counts as -1 strength and if that charachter´s strength is reduced to zero it´s placed in the dead pile.

Maybe placing gold tokens on charchters would be better, but i thought it would be nice to make renown and rush approaches riskful. ~And of course a gold token variant would make the agenda really hot in a house Dayne deck. ;-)

Agenda: Growing stronger

Whenever you win an intrigue challenge you may choose to search your deck for an inhouse card with cost 1 or lower put it into play instead of the normal claim effect.

Agenda: High as honour

Littlefinger, Alayne Stone and Arryn charachters cannot be discarded.

Dominance: Kneel this agenda to discard a charachter controlled by the owner of this agenda from play. Any player may trigger this effect.

Obviously some Arryn charachters are needed too. And cards like :

Attachment: Sky cell
gold: 2
Attach to an opponent´s charachter. Attached charahcter cannot attack. If you win a power challenge by 4 or more total strength and as high as honour is in play take control of that character.

Agenda

The Night's Watch

At the start of the challenges phase you may give each Night's Watch character either a military, intrigue or power icon unless they already have 2 icons.

Plot

Taking the Black

3 6 1

You may not initiate power challenges. If you win a challenge as the attacker and you have atleast one participating Night's watch character you may choose a character in your opponents discard pile and put it into play on your side instead of the normal claim effect. The character gains Night's watch

Ser Robert Strong - Neutral Character

s3 - gold

5 str

M icon

Kingsguard, Knight

Challenges: Bring Ser Robert Strong out of shadows by paying the rest of his gold cost. Until the end of the phase he gains an I icon

Response: return Ser Robert Strong to shadows to cancel an effect that would discard a card from your hand or deck

Feedback

Hostage of the Boltons

Yeah, that's pretty neat. I like the idea of throwing an opponent's claim-soakers back at them, and the drawback of pushing players to use 'Moar Boltons!!!' so they don't have to burn their own characters is neat.

The only thing I'd say is power level. As it stands it nets you one free power per turn and gives you no-obligation character stealing. I'm no tournament shark (and have no idea whether Bolton could ever overcome its inherent volatility enough to be a good deck), but that's pretty savage... even outside of a Bolton build it could be pretty insane.

Growing Strong

Doesn't this need a drawback of some kind?

As it is it just reads "Your deck is now better".

The effect itself is pretty **** cool (though I suspect that it would spawn an insane rush deck in its current form), but as currently written there's no incentive not to run it in any deck that doesn't use another agenda.

As High as Honour

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really get this one.

All I can imagine doing with it is building an " Only half of Westeros Bleeds... and it's not on this side of the table " deck. That sounds fairly anti-social and possibly not that much fun (as it's basically asking your opponent to suffer through three one-sided Valars, then a real Valar... then a Wildfire, while you slowly edge to victory).

The idea of having some kind of 'Shields Up' Arryn deck is thematic and cool... but is an agenda card (which can't be interfered/interacted with by your opponent) really the best way of facilitating it (think Maester's Path and The Wildlings)?

Nights Watch Kit

Both ideas are cool (i.e. give us some way of playing the cool NW guys without having to use the rubbish agendas we currently have), but I think that both would cause massive record keeping headaches in practice. As soon as you get 3+ NW people on the table you and your opponent will be bickering about which icons they have and/or forgetting which ones you gave them all. The idea is good, but without some kind of standardisation (i.e. they all get the same icon at the start of the turn) or token granting, it's a bit messy.

The plot is pretty nice as a concept... but again, will you remember who the NW guy/guys are three turns in the future? Wouldn't that sort of effect be better served by, say, an attachment card that attached to a card in a dead-pile (or a character heading there) and made them into an NW? That way there'd be a permanent tag on the character reminding you how he got there and what that meant.

The Mysterious Ser Robert Strong

Yeah, I think he's awesome.

Cost is high, but that's not unjustified (or wrong) as he's a big body who can throw a serious wrench into two types of incoming challenge (or else appear suddenly to slap an opponent who lets his guard down). Traits are Nedly without making him absurdly overpowered.

While a serious tournament player may think the effect is stronger than I do (I may be underestimating it) I think that it's right for the cost. At 3 gold a pop (and with your opponent being able to see it on the table long before it goes off) it doesn't seem like it's unreasonable.

Like it.

Contribution

First, I've always felt that AGOT is pretty conservative about preserving its boundaries between card-types. That's in direct contrast to games like, say, MtG.

Cycles like the 'Banners' ('Banner for the Storm' and friends) and the Reinforcements ('Missing Recruit', etc) give us a taste of what can be done when the boundaries get blurred. The effects that they create can be surprising, novel and skill-testing.

Second, I love effects like Ser Mandon Moore's " Jump out of Shadows at an inopportune moment for an opponent " ability. They make the Shadows zone a constantly looming threat that opponents can't just forget about until the end of the phase, meaning that they open up whole new dimensions of bluff and mind-gaming. Indeed, I have to admit to being slightly puzzled that Shadows wasn't originally designed to allow all of its inhabitants to pull off similar " Surprise! " entrances to the Challenge Phase (just like Shadows' distant half-cousin 'Morph', over in MtG land).

As such, I came up with the following guys (both dual-house Tyrells as it happens, because I have a massive fanboy obsession with seeing House of Thorns style Southrons coming back into the game):

S1
Opportunistic Turncoat
Traits: House Tyrell. Traitor.
Strength: 2
Icons: Intrigue, Power
Crests: Shadow

Text:
House Baratheon or House Lannister only.

Response: After Opportunistic Turncoat comes out of shadows, choose an opponent. That opponent reveals three cards from their hand (or their whole hand if they have less than three cards), then randomly discards one of those cards.

After you win a P challenge by 4 or more total strength, you may bring Opportunistic Turncoat out of Shadows for free.


S1
Whispering Handmaid
Traits: House Tyrell. Traitor.
Strength: 2
Icons: Intrigue, Power
Crests: Shadow

Text:
House Baratheon or House Lannister only.

Response: After Whispering Handmaid comes out of shadows, move one power from a character to a Lord or Lady character that you control.

After you win an I challenge by 4 or more total strength, you may bring Whispering Handmaid out of Shadows for free.

Turncoat is the fickle minor lordling who senses which way the political wind is blowing and deserts his former master when he's needed most, taking his resources/forces with him (hence the discard). Handmaid is the spy in your enemy's midst who whispers their secrets back to her paymasters, gradually helping to shift the balance of power in King's Landing in your favour (represented by leeching power tokens).

The idea is that they play like Characters, but can leap into the challenge phase like effects (think 'Seductive Promises', etc)... unless you just want to use them like regular Shadow guys. Whenever you see a big P challenge heading your way you always think " Seductive Promise? ", but with these guys around (when the Shadows area is inhabited) you also need to think " Turncoat? "

Also, they let you double up on the challenges that Bara and Lanni are traditionally good at (respectively), OT provides a 'soft' Intrigue win effect after you win big in a P challenge, WH gives a quasi Power win effect when you push through a massive I challenge (and, of coures, they give you a standing body to swing with in the next challenge, be it I or P). Either could slot into a deck on its own merits, or go into a dedicated Shadows build (where they don't clog up your 'one dude a phase' limit) to combo nicely with 'Sister of Truth' (so they aren't the kind of hideous linear 'only in the deck the chapter pack cycle insists that you build' tat that I've ranted about here before).

What do you reckon?

LoneWanderer said:

Thanks for the feedback. The main goal of the agenda is indeed to make nightwatch better, maybe it needs an additional drawback because it gives alot of flexibility (although the 2 icon max limitation doesn't limit future design or makes it a tricon galore).

I don't think the bookkeeping will be that bad, an easy way is to put mil left, intrigue in the middle and power on the right. Another option is to place the cards that receive mil 1" higher and power 1" lower. Red, green, blue tokens could also work.

The concept of the plot would indeed also work as an attachement.I think it would need to have the cannot be discarded or blanked text as well though.

LoneWanderer said:

I agree that shadow could use some more interactivity so I like the concept. Since there are more cards atm that punish Ally then Traitor it would give them ally aswell.

LoneWanderer said:

just to clarify, are these dual banner Lannister/Baratheon cards? or neutral banner? obviously if they're coming out of shadows, then fiefdoms and halls won't apply, but it would make a bit difference to whether they can trigger/target effects. (and possibly whether it's costed appropriately?)

either way, I like the sound of these, although to be honest, i've never really understood the 'traitor' keyword- are there any cards which target it? perhaps if not, these cards could do with coming out at the same time as a new cycle which made more of the traitors - kneel a traitor to do x, when this character comes into play discard a traitor from play etc.

(possible) spoilers

spoilers

based on the end of Dance do you think book 6 might finally get the Tyrrells enough limelight to see their own set of cards. Possibly a few other candidates for the traitor spring to mind - Dornish Septa perhaps?

LoneWanderer said:

Thanks for the feedback! I also wonder if his discard cancel effect isn't slightly too much... maybe if he had to kneel him, then return him to shadows so that he couldn't participate and activate the ability in one go. And of course he needs the No Attachments except Weapon keyword i forgot.

I really like where you're going with the shadows concept. For me, not being interested in decks that rely on having cards in shadows, the mechanic is largely just a clunky way of marshaling. The shadows area seems tailor made for that dynamic, anxiety inspiring element of the unknown, but the potential hasn't been explored much. Your Opportunist Turncloak and Whispering Handmaid add a fluidity to the shadows area that would be welcome and would really flesh out the whole "looming threat" aspect that the mechanic is supposed to represent anyway. Cards in shadows are supposed to represent uncertainty, but they don't do so more than any other card if they can't come into play in unexpected ways.

It's funny you mention Ser Mandon Moore, because it's the Kingsguard theme that needs these kind of cards the most. The problem (i've found, anyway) with trying to pull off a White Book Kingsguard deck is that looking across the table at your board full of cool effects that activate off winning on defense, your opponent has too many ways to avoid activating those abilities, often sticking to intrigue and power challenges or even passing on attacking if it's obvious that you are more dangerous on defense than offense. To remedy this, the Kingsguard need a) more powerful "surprise" effects that can initiate after your opponent declares attackers, and b) effects that punish opponents for not challenging you. at the moment, the former is limited to a few powerful event cards and Targ ambush, and the latter to a few Tully cards like Guard at Riverrun. To that end, a few more ideas:

(spoilers follow)

Ser Rolly Duckfield - Neutral Character

3 gold

Kingsguard, Knight

2 strength

M,I Icons

No attachments except Weapon. Stealth.

War Crest

Challenges: Name a Noble character in your hand, or a Lord or Lady character in your shadows area and reveal that character. If in your hand, you may immediately put that character into play by paying its printed gold cost with influence. If in your shadows area, you may immediately bring that card out of shadows by paying its remaining gold cost with influence. Limit once per game.

Aegon VI - Targaryen Character

s1 gold

Lord

2 strength

M,I,P icons

Noble Crest, Shadow Crest

If you have at least one Military Battle plot card in your used plot pile, Aegon VI gains:

Limited Response: after you play an event card, name a Non-Noble character you control. Stand that character. Until the end of the phase, that character gains the Kingsguard trait and +1 strength for each Kingsguard character you control (+2 if it has the printed Kingsguard trait). (Limit one limited response per round)

After seeing so many good characters' plans thwarted, it was great to see Young Griff and crew going like gangbusters, and their exploits seem perfect to be represented in the "surprise" effect category that the kingsguard needs. Even though Connington doesn't think much of Duckfield's intellect, i think the years spent in hiding warrant an intrigue icon. Similarly, the military icon may seem out of place on Aegon if it weren't for the ambition he expressed in his final line. Those defenses aside, i think the abilities are cool enough that they need to be made vulnerable at 2 strength (and luckily, i would say that's the proper strength thematically as well).

Ser Jaime Lannister - Lannister Character

4 gold

Lord, Knight, Kingsguard

3 strength

I,P icons

No attachments. Infamy.

Noble Crest

Response: after Ser Jaime Lannister is declared as a defender, discard X power from him to choose X kingsguard characters. Those characters are now participating in the challenge as defenders.

At the end of the challenge phase, if no player has initiated a challenge against you, search your deck for up to X Kingsguard characters and put them into play. X is the power on Ser Jaime Lannister.

If you are running the White Book agenda, ignore any out of house gold penalties when playing Ser Jaime Lannister.

It's always bugged me that Jaime didn't have the Noble Crest, since he's the one depicted on The Power of Blood, and especially since the only thematic reason to deny him the Noble is if he had the Kingsguard trait. This version of Jaime represents the one-handed Lord Commander at the end of Storm of Swords. With Cersei as regent having already made the unprecedented moves of dismissing members of the Kingsguard and appointing a non-knight to the order (not to mention the nature of Cersei and Jaime's relationship) i doubt Cersei would make Jaime choose between an inheritance and the white cloak if he wanted both. There is a remark that Jaime makes near the end of Storm of Swords to the effect that if he had just a little breathing room from all the intrigues and chaos of war, he could devote his energies to restoring the Kingsguard to its old glory. The abilities here try to illustrate that in game terms: he can stop just about any challenge, but it's two steps forward and two steps back, treading water instead of moving toward victory (though discarding a power to get Mandon Moore into Intrige or Power challenges is definitely worth it). You'd probably never get to use the second ability, since the opponent just has to initiate a challenge, not win it, but the point is to force them to attack against their better judgement, letting you get your White Book power and trigger other Kingsguard abilities.

all three characters are also eligible for Distinct Mastery, my favorite, and the most straight forward surprise effect!

Have they previewed the new Jaime coming out in song of champions? I know we've seen the picture, but I can't remember a proper card-preview.

Either way, between that and Lions of the Rock, I just hope we get a Kingsuard version of Jaime sometime soon. Your version looks cool, although I'm really not a fan of infamy. It just seems like a way to make your power more vulnerable. At least here, there's a purpose to putting it on Jaime.

LoneWanderer said:

i said it in the last thread and ill say it again because i think its a good idea, i really think the Arryn House should be built around mechanics playing up the remoteness of the Vale.

have the three castles Stone, Snow and Sky be unique locations for 1 or 2 gold and have them say something like kneel Sky to pick an opponents character, that character cannot participate in a Power challenege this round, (pick two characters if you control snow and stone)

having a way to limit characters involved in challenges because of the mountains seems like a viable strategy for the Arryns and Nedly

LoneWanderer said:

The extra power a turn is of course a power boost. The idea was to give away some sort of strength ./. 1 marker without the need to create an extra marker. The strength ./. 1 thing should it make risky to play renown charachters on the one hand and give some nedly feeling about how the Bastard of Bolton treats his hostages, well and if there´s isn´t a captive he´ll find another target to do the flaying thing in his own rows, with the exception of Boltons charachters.

But it´s like i wrote i could also imagine to use gold tokens instead of power tokens.

About "Growing strong":

Yes, no real drawback. I think the ability is strong, but you have to work for it. Anyway having an agenda is always a drawback in two ways a) yozu can´t play another agenda b) your opponent may use cards that only work against agendas like the Stark armies. ~And hey, if FFG actually prints agendas without a drawback i think it´s okay for me to just imagine such agendas. ;-)

About "high as honour":

Yes, it obviously features Westeros bleeds, the math goes like this: Agenda + Westeros bleeds = (old version of) That´s worth another kiss. It also protects Littlefinger from ally hate. The discad part of the agenda should a) support the game feeling of "make him fly" b) encourage you to really play Arryns and not much else c) it provides a little bit toolboxing for charachetrs with comes into play or leaves play effects just like Aerys Oakheart.

Although you are right using an agenda to implement the theme may not be the only or best way in terms of game interaction. However i think if some main effects aren´t delivered with an agenda there are other problems, it looks like you can only always do this:

1. The ccg Arryn expansion had house specific Vale pact attachments which were rarely played with only few exceptions. It was just a little bit to easy to discard the attachment to make a solid theme. The Eyrie being just something like the KotHH agenda however was often played without Arryns. The need to run to many specific cards without some help right from the start just doesn´t seem fitting in todays gaming enviroment.

2. You could just do something like summer/winter ravens and give the key cards some immunity , but than i guess soon every deck needs to run 2-3 carrion birds and 2-3 "defenders of the vale" being str 1 charachters which discard arryn cards or vale pacts ....

3. You could make an agenda.

Feedback:

I would prefer to have a card like Opportunitistic turncoat not to be playable in Lannister, it looks like they get enough discard options. House Baratheon or maybe Greyjoy only would be just fine.

And i like the idea of Whsipering handmaid , finally an answer to Ellaria Sand. ;-)

Some neat ideas! I particularly like the Opportunistic Turncoat and Whispering Handmaid.

I have to say that I'd like to see more multi-house decks, as it opens up a variety of interactions, so I'd favour cards that promote multiple house alignments. Searching tools specifically for out-of-house characters, tools that either punish opponents for having only one house affiliation or reward you for having more than one (eg. Imposter). Cards like

"Sends his regards"
Deathbound
"Challenges: Choose and kneel character you control. Until end of phase, characters that share a house affiliation with that character do not count their strength in challenges in which you have a participating character".

Mighty Jim said:

I feel like i saw the Jaime from the next cycle previewed and he did have the kingsguard trait, but now i can't find it so i may be imagining things. In general i'm not a fan of infamy either, but with a card concept for Jaime that requires him having power it seemed more nedly than renown. I did also think about, instead of infamy, "if you would claim power for your house due to the White Book Agenda, you may instead place 2 power on Ser Jaime Lannister." I know there's some concern that if Lannister gets too many more infamy characters they'll be able to do Brotherhood decks without the agenda, so maybe that change would be better. It's still a boost to that build, as the White Book has a bit of synergy with Brotherhood, but not as much of a boost as a strong infamy character.

http://www.agotcards.org/card/nset/74/4276

Jaime does have a Kingsguard trait, though is ability is unfortunately not too great.

Kingsguard, Knight

Infamy. Challenges: Kneel Ser Jaime Lannister to choose and kneel 1 non-Army character controlled by an opponent. The, if Ser Jaime Lannister has more power on him than that character has STR, discard that character from play. (Limit once per phase.)

I don't quite have the exp with this game yet to make stats for characters but I'd like to see cards for the following characters:

Ser Garlan Tyrell (never a central character but awsome nonetheless

Ser Tallad (Bronn does say he's the best of the guys on the practice field.)

Ygritte (Shocked there's no card for her yet.)

Meera Reed

Ser Aerys Oakheart (a non-Martel version)

Ser Balon Swann (Needs a neutral version. Why is he Lannister and Mandon Moore is not?)

Ser Boros Blount (Yeah, I don't like him either. Still for a sense of completeness)

Wendell, Willas, Marlon and Wyman Manderly (Where would the North be without it's noble fatties?)

Robett Glover

Ser Vardis Eagen

Gregor Clegane (suprised he's not in the lcg yet)

Prince Lewin Martel

Ser Oswell Whent

Ser Gerold Hightower

(Just so we can have some worthy kingsguard members)

Ser Talbert Serry (he had a brief part admittedly but he died well)

Kingsguard said:

Meera Reed is coming in the new cycle - there was a whole article about it. I feel like The Mountain might be as well, but i could have imagined that.

I think Gerold Hightower is in the final Oldtown chapter pack isn't he?

Mighty Jim said:

Yep, all three of Meera, Gregor and Gerold are on their way in either Here to Serve or the Tale of Champions cycle.

I'd very much like to see Ser Oswell Whent, Ser Vardis Eagen and Ygritte off that list.

Mighty Jim said:

Oh yeah, he is. There's no stats for him on AGOT Dabbler though.

I demand a Ser Pounce card!

Lord Commander version of Jon Snow would be rockin.

I'd like a more playable Stark version of Jon Snow. I don't consider the two versions now to be very good.

Kevan Lannister will hopefully be in the Lannister box coming out.

Qarl the Maid, Rodrik Harlaw (the Reader) and Andrik the Unsmiling for Greyjoy.

Bronze Yohn Royce.

As far as Dance with Dragons characters, it'd be nice to see Penny, Cleon, Jon Connington and his ward (anti-spoiler), Quentyn Martell, Tattered Prince.

Has the stats for Gerold Hightower been revealed yet?

Oh yeah the Harlaws would be good ones. The Reader and the Knight!

Ser Gerold Hightower:

http://www.agotcards.org/card/v/4064

The Knight

http://www.agotcards.org/card/v/4280

I've always been a fan of the Tully subtheme, and i'd love to see more Tully love for the Starks - stuff to give them a bit of a defensive "oomph" with big unique characters, but that also have nedly subthemes (How Tytos Blackwood and Jonos Bracken interact)

A Tytos Blackwood and Jonos Bracken pair would be fun, something like:

Tytos Blackwood - 3 cost

3 STR, M and P Icons, Noble Crest, Lord and House Tully Traits

Stealth.

If an opponent controls Jonos Bracken, Tytos Blackwood gains +2 STR and Renown.

Response: Kneel an influence or a House Tully character to Cancel an event played by an opponent in a challenge in which Tytos Blackwood is participating. Use this ability only if you do not control Jonos Bracken. (limit once per challenge)

Jonos Bracken - 3 cost

3 STR, M and I Icons, War Crest, Lord and House Tully Traits

Deadly

If an opponent controls Tytos Blackwood, Jonos Bracken gains + 2 STR and Renown

Response: After a character with stealth is declared as an attacker, kneel 1 influence or a House Tully character to make that character lose stealth until the end of the phase. Use this ability only if you do not control Tytos Blackwood (Limit once per phase)

Jason Mallister - 4 Cost

3 Str, Mand P Icons, Noble Crest, Lord and House Tully Traits

Renown.

Jason Mallister cannot be bypassed with Stealth. While Jason Mallister is defending, the defender wins the challenge is STR is tied.

Response: After you win a challenge as the defender, Draw a Card.

Since there might be restrictions about content on the forums FFG can actually use in their cards (or something like that), and I actually do kind of want to see these printed, I hereby give FFG all the rights to the above 3 cards and promise I won't try to sue them if they actually print them:p

That Jason Mallister is ridiculously powerful. Add Hodor to him and you have a wall of card drawing.