Generally I'm against of errata-ing unless it is really a big issue. In my eyes all changes done were completely not necessary. Maester can be easily beatable, Bannerman was trade 7 gold for 4 cards, Prince Plan has not proved to be broken and with getting next one you need two cards combo which will trigger not so often. I understand however that FFG wants to have tournamnt scene more under control. I think as well that they followed our errata thread and just took into account people complains. Bannerman was more than as a factor of surprise to prove that list was independent from our thread which is not true in my eyes.

berto said:

I think you're right. Princes Plan's was wildly overrated by the community and therefore now changed but in reality, this card was quite good in theory but not that awesome in practice. Same happened with Laughing Storm.

Actually i'm out from the game but I like this faq. I think this is the best ever edited. The game needed some balance and this faq do well this task. There are so many good cards great for maesters tha saw not play cause the maesters deck run "non-maester chars".

The lore of a game is important and if the most powerful maesters around were Robert Baratheon, Joeffry, Killer of the Wounded... something was wrong... And I understand the FAQ of Bannerman even if i'm not so ok with it. If nothing would have been fixed on martell side, changing the agenda would have put martell on the "easy edge again".

Hope this faq will put balance in the game. This is the only important thing to achieve.

Gualdo said:

Again, playtesting should have caught this, and it is not hard to have a new, easily played card that could handle that (e.g. a plot card that had something along the lines of "All cards lose all non-printed traits")

Gualdo said:

I disagree. If balance is the only important thing to achieve, we can all go play chess. There are a good many things at stake here, and balance is but just one of them.

berto said:

Month ago you wrote at Polish forum , for example (translation):

"Is turn the same thing as phase?" (about Killer + Lead link combo)

"****, shield can stop forever burning?" (about Paper shield and canceling deathbound cards)

"I like this deck, maybe I change my Night's Watch for Martell" (about Greg's Gencon deck)

"Tell me why there is Edric Dayne in this deck? And moreover, 3 copies? His effect is mediocre. And Narrow escape - is this some defence against Valar Morghulis?" (about Greg's Gencon deck)

"Tell me how this combo works with Robert. He can stand only once." (about Brett's winning deck)

Also, you did create topic How to stop Maester dominance and you asked what to do with this sick combo.

And today you are experienced game expert? Wow. Impressive.

Shenanigans said:

I'm pretty sure berto is from Mars.

Rogue30 just sent his regards.

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

Given how particular FFG is about the reprint policy, I'd like to agree with you and say that The Prince's Plans should still be able to go into the discard pile, but the FAQ does include the unique card number "F74" and I think that might trump the card title.

[EDIT: poor message board quotation code....]

schrecklich said:

Well, there's a whole bunch of cards with the number F74, none of which is called "Princes Plans"

Last I checked, they updated it so say "The Princes Plans", which is close, but still is missing an apostrophe.

Rogue 30... in fact people can improve very quickly!!! Most of all if they come from Mars... ;-)

Gualdo said:

Please stop this stories about people from mars. It makes breathing so hard when you have to laugh all the time.

I think Bannermen was a preemptive strike vs. all the additional income/options that starts coming with any game. They are super-efficient, and crazy-efficient if combo'd with return to play effects.

Sigh...do we have to go with the 'it shoudl have bee caught in playtesting' angle again? Every game misses cards. FFG playtesters are NOT professional nor paid. Magic has all the $$ in the world, and professional PT's, and still misses a lot. FFG doesn't have to listen to playtesters regardless.

Anyone who didn't break Prince's Plans wasn't really trying. It was almost too easy to stop every opponent's challenge from going off, every turn.

The more I think about it, the more I like the Viper's Bannermen restriction. A couple months ago there was a discussion thread on these forums where posters debated what Martell's best card was. Several very skilled players argued the Bannerman is Martell's "best" card, even if not most obvious, because more often than not, a Martell player who gets these out early gets ahead. We didn't reach a consensus, but it's pretty clear that without Bannermen, many Martell decks are going to have a MUCH harder time drawing cards...House Messengers and Dornish Paramours are just not going to provide the same sort of card advantage that Martell players are accustomed to. The restriction of the bannerman is a great way to dial back Martell's strength without completely crippling it's ability to win tournaments.

More to the point, I played a couple games with the Martell summer deck yesterday after the FAQ (running Ghaston Grey, then Bannermen as my restricted). The Martell deck functioned basically the same, which is to say it wrecked my opponent in the same way that Martell summer decks typically do. The one major difference is that it was much harder to deal with fast aggro, and that was true yesterday, when my opponent's refugees were sitting on the table for multiple rounds rather than dying to the blade.

So Martell players now have to choose among direct challenge phase control effects (burning), aggro weenie control (blade), and massive card advantage (bannermen or Narrow Escape). I think those are fair choices, even if a bit annoying/inconvenient. I suspect most decks will still play the Viper's Bannermen, but it's not an easy choice. Maybe Martell Brotherhood will be a better metagame choice now, since it ran Fleabottom Scavengers and will be helped by the fact that there are fewer Martell decks (I'm guessing) in the environment, and combo slowed down pretty significantly with the Maester's Path errata.

It's not immediately clear to me what *the* power deck will be now going forward. Any guesses?

I hope there isn't a power deck. I'd like to see some variety.

I'm currently thinking that stark search will take the lead now, with some playtesting I have had games where the deck just plays itself solidly and my opponent can't do much about it (overwhelming the board with duped efficient stark characters). I think every house has now a nice powerful build possibly that can work competitively.

Ire said:

I don't think you are wrong.

Good FAQ's, but I expected ban for Ghaston Grey and a serious errata for Venomous Blade.

Why would VB need an errata? It's already restricted.

Ahzrab said:

I disagree; after testing PP with Starfall Merchant, the game pretty much just grinds to a halt if you are using BotS as your restricted card. Yes, you had to get 2 PP for the combo to start working properly, but between Dornish Paramour, House Messenger, Bannermen, etc, Martell has plenty of draw and search mechanics. In the last game I played I used PP 3x in a single Round since I get the 3 Influence SM back each time. It wasn't even a good deck (icon manipulation), but PP definitely was OP.

Twn2dn said:

Sadly, with Ghaston Grey, the new Lannister attachment that turns power into gold, and Tin Link still around, I don't see Brotherhood being viable again for quite some time.

Maester of Vegas said:

Yes, and a little too powerful and recursive.

Kaworu said:

I wonder if they've ever considered changing gold costs to make cards less good. AKA, making VB cost s2.

At the Gates + Initiate of the Citadel, chains to hand, robbie and voila!

This change did almost nothing for maester agenda. Still combo elements are available right from the agenda. Which actually is good as I think no changes were needed in new errata.

berto said:

For me this was the whole point of the agenda errata, it didn't kill the über Robert build now it actually is combo. It forces the maester Robert MD to play in a way that is more vulnerable to opponents tricks and you have to find the needed cards to get your combo to work and protect it. Now it really feels like a combo deck.

For example the initiate of the citadel will be vulnerable to small burn and the venomous blade and other kill effects as its harder to protect than Robert. Also those cards that you use while trieing to get the chains to your hand can be interacted with better by your opponent than just slaping Robert full of dupes and free chains from the agenda.

It will be more vulnerable but still there is not so many direct kill in the game. Even for 1 STR char. And still combo parts don't need to be drown, they are ready for use. OK it's one turn delay, ok you need to pay 2 gold for lead link. Does it really change something?

berto said:

It obviously does.

I'm no Tourney Shark, but it seems pretty clear that there's a big difference between (1) a 48 card deck, that starts the game with a ready drawn hand of twelve (completely free) cards, that gets its 'combo' by drawing a specific character from its deck, and also allows its pilot to have a grip of cards that can be either extra combo-bits or just otherwise useful stuff, and (2) a 60 card deck that actually has to use its limited drawing power to find its combo pieces (which it then has to pay for... imagine that!), and which forces its pilot to use the various cards in their hand to assemble the aforementioned combo (because it doesn't just have all of the required bits sitting on the table already) ,and which doesn't allow its pilot to hold onto a full grip of Paper Shields etc.

But don't take my word for it. After all, I've never won a major tournament, what would I know? Just do a simple test... go find an opponent, give them a pre-restricted version of the deck, arm yourself with a post-restricted version, then see which one wins 9/10 of the subsequent games.