Okay, with the latest FAQ 3.0, and with The Viper's Bannerman becoming a restricted card, I'm looking at the list that Martell has now and wondering if we've now reached a point where there are too many restricted cards?

Sure, Viper's Bannerman is a powerful, pretty efficient card, but it's also something that costs 7 Gold. Comparatively, something like Edmure's host can cost as little as nothing (my experience with Riverrun decks) and still lend 6 STR to a challenge.

On the point they made about getting around the draw cap with Viper's Bannerman, why not simply Errata the response to read: Draw 2 cards? That way, if you try to use Vipers Bannerman purely for the draw effect in one round, it will only net you 3 cards still.

I'm too new to the game to know if they've ever UN-restricted cards, but I'm hoping they will with this.

Comparing Edmure's Host to Viper's Bannermen should never be done. Viper's Bannermen is so much better that they should never be in the same sentence. I'm very happy it's restricted. Changing it to draw would have lessened its power, not sure by how much. I guess a Martell Summer deck would've only netted 2 cards off it a turn since summer adds one draw. The other thing to consider about TVB is that it's not just a draw card, it's a draw card that has an extremely high strength and 3 amazing abilities.

I do think the restricted list should be revisited now that so many new cards have hit the environment. Specific cards that I think could be taken off are Narrow Escape and The Laughing Storm (maybe with an errata on it or Val). There was very little cancel in the environment when Narrow Escape was restricted (Hand's Judgment only). Now Paper Shield is everywhere and maybe it can be safely removed. I don't think it'd be very fun to run Narrow Escape as your restricted card only to have it Paper Shielded.

TVB is Deadly AND Stealth AND a STR 7 body AND "draws" you EIGHT cards for 7gold (assuming you were running narrow escape as your restricted card previous to this)

It's unfortunate that the restricted list has so much Martell stuff on it, however they do seem to be given broken things to play with in the first place. The games designers obviously want card advantage to be a Martell theme, they just don't seem to have nailed the power level for it yet.

I agree too that the list could probably do with a revisit. I'm still not entirely sure why The Laughing Storm is on there, I must have missed the reasoning on that one somewhere.

Whizzwang said:

I'd guess the reason TLS is on there is the combo with Val.

Best solution of all this is equal FFG publish cards (like this or this) and also restrict. Martell have no reason to cry if all are restricted.

TLS out of restric list is a great idea.

Whizzwang said:

Saying that TVB is an eight card draw is a relatively weak argument to make, IMO. There are many other factors that may make Narrow Escape a bad play when they leave the table - you want to hold NE for another turn, the opponent has just lost an important character, you're almost sure that the opponent has Paper Shield, you're waiting to draw into another TVB, etc...

Nevertheless, consider this: apart from the reveal two cards, Southron Mercenaries cost 6 gold tha can be splitted into 2 + 6 (much more easy to get into the game), have two good abilities (not so good as TVB, but still) AND are game swingers per se. They weren't restricted, so I must admit that TVB were because of their response, and, more than that, because of the possibility of combining their response multiple times (if you draw into two of them AND somehow play them both in consecutive turns AND draw into Narrow Escape - sure you can comprehend that's a lot of AND 's and IF 's).

I think quite a few number of players are really ignoring the difficulty of putting them into play. If you've played with the 2nd place deck from Gen Con you'll come to realize that many times TVB will be your only play for the turn (barring free events or very low costed characters and locations). So, TVB, albeit powerfull, need a certain deck-building thinking to properly play in a deck. A bad decision (once again, IMO), all in all, to include them in the restricted list. Martell may be powerfull, and this card surely help to maintain them that way, but they're excessively neutering a House that would, possibly, lose some gas with the addition of the new cycle of unique cards - unless they will be printing "many" reasonably costed noble Martell characters.

~ With this new errata, It almost seems the developpers looked at the top 16 of Gen Con and set out to nerf the decks that reached it to the ground...

~Also, I wonder when they will restrict one or two of the three:

- Rickon Stark

- Galbart Glover

- To be a Wolf.

I played against the 2nd place deck at GenCon with a 42 character Siege of Winterfell deck. His only play turn 1 was Viper's Bannermen and Orphan of the Greenblood. He prevented my military challenges with it + Parting Blow + Desperate Tactics or Narrow Escape.

Greg talked about how aggro was what he feared, but my deck was extremely aggro and he beat me handily because of the bannermen and a couple of events.

The restricted list remains manageable, and not egregiously long/confusing. Which alternative(s) do you prefer? There are several alternatives: (1) do nothing...FFG tried that early on, and flame wars ensued; (2) heavy bans/errats [FFG has done quite a bit of that]; and (3) rotation of older sets, so that whole chunks of our cards are unplayable in standard FFG-sanctioned play. (Although people can play with non-legal cards in casual play, past experience shows that they mostly don't.) Although rotation would simplify keeping track of older cards, many of which have been the target of bans/errata...for example, we could all just ignore the bans/restrictions/erratas to Fury plots, Cache, Jaquan, Castellan, etc... there would be many fewer cards legal for play.

Nobody feels the restricted list is the ideal solution. In a perfect world, all cards would prove to be perfectly balanced AND fun to play with in perpetuity, and there would be no complaints, no matter how large the card pool is. That's obviously not what happens in reality, and doing nothing has in the past proven pretty bad...not only does the community become frustrated, but card design is restrained and ultimately suffers. The goal is to try to figure out a way to tone down abusive/NPE cards in the least disruptive way possible. Seems to me the restricted list as a whole achieves that (though individual cards may or may not be unjustly added to the list.)

On the bannermen specifically, if the goal is to tone down the power level of Martell without neutering them entirely, I think this is the perfect card choice. What it really means is that VB is banned in many Martell decks, but where people prefer VB (for shadows, etc.), Martell's draw is going to be less consistent and (likely) slightly worse than Stark/GJ.

tovra.pt said:

I'm going to go with "probably never" on that one. It's a clunky 3 card combo at best.

Seriously - as we keep adding CP cycles with no rotation, you can expect the restricted list to continue to grow.

Taht being said. it should eb a living list and yeah - TLS needs to come off now

Stag Lord said:

You should allow it for Black Friday and see how it fares.

Ratatoskr said:

And as I understand it, Val's there mainly for that combo as well. I was hoping we'd see an errata for TLS in the FAQ. The most sensible one I saw was changing it so that it only prevented discards from opponent abilities and claim. It's still a strong card, but it loses its combo with Val, and then maybe both could come off the list.

Twn2dn said:

This is ideal and clearly the only sustainable method for growing the game.

The problem with the restricted list is that it becomes defacto bannings at it's current pace. So if there are cards that are truly too powerful just ban them and be done with it.

I love the list, and expect it to grow in a responsible manner. Anything that adds variety, while stopping (or at least putting off) any type of rotation is great by me.

As long as their are people saying to unrestrict TLS I will have to counter not to. Especially with the Lanni box coming out, where he just gets more powerful. He gives repeatable crazy-easy draw with a two-card combo to the one house that isn't supposed to get it. He is just a poorly designed card (not by Alec but by FFG to not make it more nuanced and still very powerful). Anything that repeatedly stops one of the basic tenants of the game isn't healthy - I hope to never see a character that says 'none of your characters can be killed while standing' or 'your power cannot be moved while standing'...so it isn't just intriuge or Lanni I am worried about. He is still very strong and combo's well with quite a few cards, including a plot.

papalorax said:

That's just not true.

While the rotation model works for some formats in some card games (notably MtG's Standard Format), it's not the only sustainable/plausible method (notably MtG's Modern/Legacy/Vintage formats, and the entirety of the White Wolf 'Vampire/Jyhad' game, for starters).

Ban/Restrict lists come with their own problems of course, but so does a set rotation policy. However, the simple fact that those issues exist doesn't in and of itself make a Ban/Restrict list an unsustainable option (indeed, if you use that logic, then you can just as well argue that a rotation policy is unsustainable too).

The game doesn't become unsustainable because of a lengthy list (or a Vampire-esque set rotation policy), just as it doesn't become perfect with a rotation policy. Pretending otherwise is to be wilfully ignorant of the actual pros and cons of the two opposing arguments.

@ The OP:

In fairness, asking if the list is 'too long' is a bit of a pointless question. If a card is warping the meta and needs to go on it, then it needs to go on, the overall length of the list is relatively meaningless (except for purely aesthetic reasons). If there's ten bad apples in the bunch, you don't only throw half of them away because "the pile of bad apples looks too big ".

The real question is " What is it that's on the list that deserves to come off? ". If there's specific cards / groups of cards that no longer pose a problem to the meta (because, say, effective answers to them have now been printed) then it's worthwhile arguing why they should be put back into General Population. That's why the Laughing Storm discussions (etc) are good ones to have.

rings said:

Actually, Bara pretty much hast that. Go check out King Robert's Host.

I think Val and TLS could both come off the restricted list provided a very simple errata that stops you from abusing them together. The most simple thing would be making Val's ability unaffected by anything that prevents discard.

Val really isn't overpowered. One strength characters are very easily burned by Threat from the North, Targ, or any kill under 2 STR effect. I was shocked when I started playing and realized she didn't have the "Ally" trait. I think she should've maybe been printed with it since all the bomb utility characters seem to have it. Maybe Ally could be added to her if people think it's that much of an issue.

Coming from Magic, restricted means limit 1 copy of the card in a deck. It's interesting to see how the restricted list works in this game. I've thought about having a multi-tiered restricted list or something a little more complex, but maybe it would be too clunky or hard to balance.

I do like the idea of having separate restricted lists for plot cards, although at this point it would just be Fury or Fear of Winter. A lot has changed in the game since the original restricted cards and the list definitely deserves a second look at by the designers. It's very hard to justify putting your restricted card as a plot out of most houses. I saw A LOT of people running Pyromancer's Cache out of house at GenCon.

I don't think cards come out fast enough in this game to warrant rotation personally. You have 6 factions that mostly receive 2 cards per chapter pack each month. When you start listing out the "playable" cards for each house you don't have that big of a list. That's why many/most of the non-unique characters of most houses are the same in every deck. There are exceptions but look at Lannister / Martell as extreme examples of it.

The restricted list is a great idea. For those of you saying "those cards might as well be banned", I strongly disagree.

I still can easily convince myself to run Viper's Bannermen OR Burning on the Sand OR Venomous Blade OR Narrow escape in my deck. The only real restricted card for Martell that is essentially "banned" is Fury of the Sun, which will never see the... ahem... light of day. That to me suggests a very effective restricted list; powerful cards that can win games, and that you don't want to see abused in combination.

I think they could take the Fury plots off the list safely. We've got a lot of good plots that fit in any deck now, like Retaliation!, At the Gates, Loyalty Money Can Buy, Valar, etc, and more 5 gold plots, so the Furys aren't quite as great as they once were. They'd still make a lot of decks, but not every one. And I quite liked that every house had there own thematic Fury.

I disagree with everyone who says that TVB is balanced by their cost. Martell has a lot of discount locations which allow them to easily pay for TVB and still pay for other cards the same Round. Between the 3 neutral cost reducers, Summer Seas and Streets of Hellholt, it is very easy to afford them with a 4 or 5 gold plot. There is also Summer, limited reducers, and the title in melee. I very rarely have difficulty playing several cards including TVB after Round 1 unless I want to play something else expensive (TRV) in the same Round.

alpha5099 said:

I think Val was added to the list because she is a powerful Neutral draw mechanic that was being played in virtually every deck before she was restricted. Granted, if she was not restricted, most every Bara player would probably run TLS as their restricted card, but I don't think she was put on the list simply to prevent the combo; any deck that didn't have good draw mechanics would be using her.

Alando said:

I think they should remain on the restricted list; if they were not, everyone would go back to running a Fury plot again, probably in Round 1. In addition to the fact that the Fury plots have great stats at 5-7-1, they also provide the Trait that each House needs to run their To be a... event, and a huge advantage was gained first Round by whoever won Initiative on a coin toss and got to trigger their Fury plot first when opposing Houses jousted.

Danigral said:

Hell - if I was still calling those shots in NYC: he sure would be off: with no errata. I ignored rotation the whole first year I ran events in NYC - up until regionlas. But twn2dn and letsgored are the Night's Watch now in the Big Apple, I am semi retired. Tell you this though - I'll float the idea, and if they do say OK - ther won't be one more Baratehon deck there than was going already anyway. His ability is balanced buy the control that's already being played. If you can't stop Bara's draw and it costs you a game - you wold have lost to a Brotherhood deck or any aggro deck anyway.

You can see which why the tide of popular sentiment is running on this one. I'm all for making BF a litmus test on the issue.

Stasis said:

Erratta is better than restriction? Huh, I guess I just disagree there. Changing two cards is as bad or worse than having to choose between them (and other powerful cards) as is.

Val is easy to deal with, especially for Targ and Martell/VB (and to a lesser extent Stark using Grey Wolf) if a certain build - but too bad if you are not playing them. I have won and lost GenCon 'sweet 16' games with her alone (ask Dobbler). She is that strong. Either you deal with her, or effectively they are drawing 3X a turn off her AND doing challenges.

Furies are tough. I really don't think they are that overpowered. Yet, if they were put back, you would see 75%+ of decks running them, and auto-includes are just not fun (espeically for plots). Throw in the fairly unbalanced effects of them, and they are just not a good idea either. At least other fairly auto-includes (Gates, Retailiation) don't give a 'whomever wins the initative toss on turn one has a high chance of winning the game' feel to them.

Lastly, I agree that 6 factions only getting 2-3 cards/month isn't worrisome. I think any person looking at rotation is more worried about neutrals. The last three really powerful themes were Wildlings (and NW when you could combine them), Maesters, and Brotherhood. Not Clansmen, Sand Snakes, and Boltons. Assuming twice the number of cards people might think differently. Three times? Four times? But, I have to admit, the restriction list coupled with pretty decent faction design (with some notable exceptions) might just put it off for quite some time.

P.S. Stag no one is playing Brotherhood until (if?) something is done with Ghaston Grey.

Rings: A starter plot is essential to most decks, so you either restrict any decent starter plot which slows the game down and just favors weenie rush. Or you accept that the most effiecient income/claim/init plot is gonna be in 75% of decks as a starter. Since this is the one plot that in most cases we just need the gold for.

What I'd like to know is this: the draw cap was created for a reason - to limit combos that grant too many cards. So why not just add reveal effects to the draw cap? Then TVB would not be needed on the restricted list.

Also why not reprint TLS with a modified errata that states that you cannot trigger effects would cause you to discard a card.

I would rather have TLS errata'd to say "opponents effects only" than have it be restricted.