New FAQ is up.

Restricting Viper's Bannerman came a little out of left field, but as for the other errata, many players will be pleased with them.

Honestly, both cards are a +3 card advantage bypassing the draw cap... they deserved looking at. Deathbound was essentially a bare minimum (and may not be enough). Putting the bannermen on the restricted list actually makes sense, even though It hadn't occurred to me. My current deck will almost certainly keep the bannermen... so I don't think the ruling was too harsh or that we'll never see the bannermen again.

I think the Maester change is overkill (a shame) - I was hoping they'd err on the side of just changing the Apprentice Collar to not being a chain, but we'll see how it plays out. I hope to still see this agenda played occasionally! I can appreciate the justification in the article, though (forcing current uber-char decks to draw their cards like other combo decks)..

I am good with all the rulings.

The Maester ruling was a little high, but I wasn't sold on any of the solutions. Obviously it was working outside the mean, on the cycle.

Well, my meta mates will be pleased. This kinda disrupts my Martell build.

What I'm kinda curious about is the version number. Why go from 2.4 to 3.0 with this one?

Ratatoskr said:

At least "The Prince's Plans" is still broken, as the errata is for a non-existent card called "Princes Plans"

I think Deathbound isn't going far enouh with Prince's Plans. Sure, you can't recylce it any more, but you can still get Martell's nasties out of the discard pile, at ANY time - and recur all your burning on the sands and Red vengeances. I'd prefer it if was restricted as well, but I'd probably be happy to give this the benefit of the doubt, and just try it with deathbound

I agree that Viper's Bannermen was slightly unexpected, but, yeah, in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. It's silly card advantage AND a strength 7 stealthy and deadly character.

Change in the Maester agenda should stop ridiculous deck thinning, and should make it so that you only really run 5-6 chains, lest you run out of Maesters to stick the chains on. I would have preferred an errata that meant you had to pay for the chains instead, so you could still play stuff onto non-maesters but for a cost, but this errata works in a way that promotes trait synergy.

Also, interesting to see no change to Ghatson Grey. GG was something that could have used a change as well, I reckon. Its still way too easy to bounce any character back in its owner's hand, especially if it's a high cost character or a character with lots of attachments, for 3 gold.

I'm good with all these - just wand the Laughing Storm unrestricted now to be really happy. but I can get behind all of these chanegs and i am glad I don't have to suiffer through three more months of "all maesters, all teh time" which is what my meta had pretty much become.

Tomdidiot said:

Well it's partly seeing so much play because of the Uber Char/Maester decks, making it a meta requirement. It is a 2 card combo to get some gold gap over your opponent IF they have a more expensive character. Very useful, but not essential. I don't really think it's broken.

I'm glad they addressed the "searching your deck vs searching the top X cards of your deck" question.

Good errata all around. I like that the maester agenda still gets to keep the potential for rush, while eliminating the OP character aspect.

I'm not sad about Martell's changes at all either. Though I like that Prince's Plans didn't end up getting restricted. I think deathbound is an elegant solution.

Agenda and Prince Plan expected. I was surprised a lot by restricting Bannermans. Especially that Martell didn't get any success last time to justify this. Card is good but as well quite expensive. Martel now needs to find another draw possibilities. Anyway good FAQ.

Martell didn't get any success last time to justify this??

*Blink*

You mean any success apart FROM THE LAST YEAR or so?

berto said:

Martell kind of swept almost all the US regionals, came 2nd for joust and won melee at worlds......

Stag Lord said:

I agree Stag, but IIRC, Berto is a European player, and Martell isn't the juggernaut there that it is here in the USA.

I agree that TMP was a little premature/overkill, but I'm fine with it. Like any combo decks, the Uber/Voltron builds were disruptible and didn't always go off. Heck, Zeiler's Championship deck went 4-2 in Swiss. They are/were intimidating and won in a flashy way.

So, do we think that PP being Deathbound will cause more dead pile recursion to be used? Is Core Benjen Stark going to see some play?

Berto, as far as the expense of playing TVB, I see your point, but at the same time, a meta-mate of mine recently pointed out that the most infuriating thing about playing against Martell is not the events, is not TVB itself, but how easily Martell is able to play it. I was a little taken aback at first, but he's right. Martell has the best reducers, often runs Summer for more gold, and with the right plots can play TVB (relatively) easily. Look at Dobbler's Joust deck from this year. WIth KOTHH, Summer Seas, reducers, and some sharp plots, TVB is hitting all the time. Added to that is that TVB is often all you need to marshal on a turn to hold off an opponent, especially with those extra cards it gives you.

Like 8 of the top 16 at worlds was martell.

You're crazy

Ummmh, Martell now has the honor title "the house of errata and restriction". The erratas seem to be fine, except that bannermen errata, at least you will usually have to pay 7 gold for them or use some trick events to get the effect. But okay. i´ll have to rebuild my Martell decks once again.

It might be that they wanted to cut combo Narrow with TVB. Now will be difficult choice what should be taken from martell restriction list.

No nerdrage from this latest update on my account, at all.

All well and good. I think the best card in the game is still Crossroads.

And this changes none of my decks. I wish all you Martell players the best of luck at GenCon 2012, where I will ravage you. And it will not be consensual,

I think the changes in the FAQ are positive for the game. Bannermen were sick and are still a powerful card that will no doubt be the restricted card of choice for many Martell players. I am not sure that deathbound is enough for The Princes Plans, as upsetting as it might be to see another Martell card get restricted. Maesters can still make strong decks with the change it will just seriously limit the maester shenanigans that can be easily abused.

I am certainly looking forward to playing with these changes, and hoping to discover that deathbound will in fact be enough to check The Princes Plans.

Let's hope there will be more maesters in the upcoming cycle for all other non martell factions and a learned character for bara

Ahzrab said:

I'm betting on Willas Tyrell as the "Bara" learned character.

Tomdidiot said:

Nah, it will be Ser Davos Seaworth. Why print a new character when you can reprint an old one?

Basically Martell (sufficient good in house maesters) and Targ (attachment recursion) will be the two houses capable of competitive maester builds with the agenda.

While I don't particularly dislike the changes, I really, really, really dislike the fact that there is a new set of restrictions and errata. This is the third time that changes have been issued between sets, and it feels fairly knee-jerk to me. New cards that can handle existing combos or better playtesting should be the way to go.