-Istaril said:

* Recursion is nice. Draw is better. The former only works if you manage to draw the tools needed to do it. Its not free either.

* Burn typically requires multiple cards. You're creating card advantage by giving yourself card disadvantage.

* Jhogo is pretty hawt and probably the only mandatory character for Targ. However, his draw power is blockable and restricted to the challenge phase. He'll also draw hate from your opponent. Also all my friends are jerks and play Muster the Realm to stop early game military challenges.

* The problem I typically have with Meereen is it wont provide solid draw until later in the game when you have additional Dragon's out. In fairness, even a single dragon can be harder to stop challenge wise early game so at least you're getting one card.

Honestly, the best card advantage combo Targ has is Cache with some Maester shenanigans to fuel it. Does this seem right to you?

I agree that Cache is Targ's best restricted card. See - I think in combo with Dany's Chambers - its virtually inifinte and I think Targ palyers HAVE to igonre covnentional widsom and play 6-7 attachments. Falme Kissed, Cache and Milk are ceartinly worth teh slots and Dragon skull kigth be as well. Yes - tin Link hits them but Targ's strength is that i can get them back AND handle the link as well.

Its definitely card intensive and its not as eficient as throwing out a Golden tooth Mine - but that's jsut the reality. given how strong burn is as a form of character control - it can't be too easy, and I sort of feel its rigth where it needs to be. If Targ had a better charatcer base (and they are slwoly getting there Jhogo, Pree, and Selmy) this infin ite series of loops would be perceived as a real strength, not a weakness.

Shade of the Evening? Dragon Thief? Viserys? Kraznyz? Khal Drogo...

And keep in mind that since you're further from the draw cap than most decks, Threat from the East and Counting Favors will both benefit you more than your opponent.

Once again, I agree that Targ is low on Draw, but not that there's an irrecoverable gap of card advantage. Furthermore, other houses with serious card-advantage issues (some Bara builds) wind up running out-of-house draw engines. While Pyromancer's cache may not be quite as good for you as for bara, it's certainly possible.

Pyat Pree is a 3 cost Ally, I'd never put it in my deck.

Paying 3 gold for Cache makes the resource problem worse. Of course you can solve every issue any deck has by running Maesters and just add Pale Steel Link... You'd be better off just running Valyrian Steel Link than Pyromancer's - it's much more efficient and safe and draws more cards.

Lady Daenerys' Chambers is going to be public enemy number 1 with all the new location hate that will be run for Ghaston Grey. It also doesn't recur nearly as well as Bronze Link does.

I think the moral to the story is run Maesters.

Are there any treaty builds where Targs work better in combination with something than other houses ?

I think people are arguing different things. To separate out the threads a bit...

Everyone agrees:

• Targ has fantastic cards with very powerful effects. Some of these, like Dragon Thief, Flame-Kissed, Core Set Khal Drogo, etc. would make a top 50 list of the best cards in the game.
• Burn is very powerful, and arguably the most powerful form of character removal in the game. (Obviously there's no consensus on how "efficient" burn is, but everyone does agree that burn is very good at what it does.)
• Unlike most houses, Targ *must* manage multiple resource curves. There are not very many/any competitive builds that can get away with playing no influence. (I'm assuming everyone agrees here, but I could be wrong.)
• Targ lacks sufficient "centerpiece" or larger characters that are efficient/competitive. This is NOT to say they don't have good 4 STR characters, but only that few such characters "work" with Targ decks. (In other words, the Dragons are great, but Dragon decks just haven't proven to be that competitive in joust. The characters are big, but the decks have big vulnerabilities.)

Where there's disagreement:

• Targ's fantastic effects are usually very card intensive, and often too card intensive to be efficient or playable (competitively). This makes them both resource intensive (gold/influence) and requires the player to draw into more cards than other houses to do a similar effect. Targaryen *card advantage* and *character removal* effects are examples.
• Targ's primary in-house card advantage mechanic, recursion, tends to be too inefficient/weak, excluding some key cards (i.e. Lady Dany's Chambers and To Be A Dragon). For example, Street waif costs 2 gold (same as Golden Tooth Mines) but dies *much* more easily and draws you the *worst* card in your discard pile every time. It is also frequently discarded to a staple Targ plot...Threat from the North. At best, a waif is expected to last 3 rounds (though in my games typically only 2), which means it's net drawing capacity is 1-2 cards after it replaces itself. That's significantly worse than any other "playable" draw effect in the game.
• The best recursion cards are still somewhat slow or difficult to use.

To sum it all up, the main disagreement seems to be not over the power level of Targ cards, but how viable or "efficient" they are in a typical game. This depends a lot on where you play, and how your meta plays. In metas where people tend to play extremely fast, competitive decks, games may last only 3-4 rounds...or if they go longer, it's a one-sided beating after round 3-4. In these metas, recursion is significantly worse, because you often don't have sufficient time to get the cards needed into the discard pile + recursion (card advantage) engine going. In addition, the dual-resource curve hurts more, because games go faster, making it more difficult to recover from a situation where you have too much of one resource and not enough of the other.

In other metas, where people play a slower form of control or more casually, then Targ may have the time it needs to "set up" its card advantage mechanic (recursion), as well as get the multiple pieces in place to effectively burn characters larger than 2 STR. In these metas, cards like Street Waif may be extremely valuable, because rather than dying after two rounds, they'll last five (netting 4 cards instead of 1). Same with Forever Burning...that card is terrible if the game is only 2 rounds long, but fantastic if the game goes for 9 rounds.

In short, nobody is saying Targ's cards suck. People complaining about the power level of Targ are looking at the house as a whole, and how it tends to play in the competitive environment. In slower pick-up games, or in certain metas where control players take a bit longer to get a "lock," Targ can do very well.

I think I agree very much with Twn2dn. The gripe; that recursion takes a while to get going, is a valid one... but it's a bit hard to speed up. I'd love to see (for both Greyjoy raiders *and* Targaryen recursion) some agenda involving the discard pile (Maybe each player discards the top X cards of their deck), and maybe a few more recursion tools that allow them to play with their discard pile.

I just don't see the "other houses can out-draw me, so I need more draw" as a homogenization worth making.

Stasis said:

Stasis: I really disagree with your assesments. Pree gives you unstoppable, targeted kill that bypasses immunity. I can't iamgine NOT running him. And now - wiht Bloodrider available, I am not even afraid of Varys or Oakheart.

And yeha - Maetsers are too efficient. Point conceded. That doens't mean Targ doens't ahev other options or that you HAVE to run maesters. Martell is more efficient overall - why not just run them instead or Targ?

Stag Lord said:

I run Targ because Emilia Clarke is hawt.

But seriously this kind of question shouldn't ever come up.

Stag Lord said:

Note that Varys is not triggered ability.

On the sub-topic of burn, I agree with the previous comments that it would be too powerful if it becomes too easy to do and I think that the balance is almost right as it is. But perhaps they could print a card to give a slightly better reward for the investment that goes into burning a card,like maybe printing a card that lets you claim 1 power for reducing a character to 0 strength, limited to once per turn. That way you'd get a slight speeding up of burn decks and a better reward than just board position for the investment of influence, gold and cards. Or maybe 1 gold per round for burning a character to 0 str, 2 gold if they had str 4 or higher, that could be stored on the card to spend next round to help smooth out the costs. That might fit flavour-wise because It could represent the wealth gained by Dani by sacking the eastern cities with her dragons.

burn and discard need the same thing
a two gold two strength character or location that can burn (or discard) and benefit from a character hitting zero (or discarding card type X).

playgroundpsychotic said:

Hawt *and* nekkid. Now that's what *I* call an unstoppable combo

Guys, guys, comparing the recursion to draw is just wrong. Recursion, due to its dual nature, becomes just a substitute to it and, of course, it should never be better than draw. Treat this substitution as an "icing on the cake". Recursion's biggest pro is the ability it provides you to play again a precious card and to raise someone from the dead. The -naturally weak compared to regular draw- card advantage it provides is just a delicious "side-effect". No need to compare the two; their function is different.

Maybe a reprint of Perished in Flame is in order? That would give some draw, but as an event with a condition, wouldn't be as regular as the traditional card advantage houses.

goshdarnstud said:

Doesn't that mostly help Targ/Maester builds?

Maester_LUke said:

Only one of the maesters that Targ Maesters run is actually a targ, and you probably want to avoid killing him if possible. But if you really wanted draw, you could flame-kissed your own Killer of the Wounded maybe...seems like an interesting card. I assume it was created before the draw cap, since it will draw-cap you with even one attachment on?

Maester_LUke said:

Doesn't the card say when a Targ character is killed draw two cards +1 for each attachment? At the end of the day you get to draw 2 (+1 card) after you lose a character. And there are plenty of attachments played on characters outside of the maester build in targ that this could net you the third card.

@imrahil327 Not trying to be glib, but characters die all the time in this game, so you wouldn't have to burn your own character. Just wait until you sack someone for claim. (Or in those hot (pun intended) Targ on Targ match-ups your opponent offs a character) And true with the draw cap this would stop at one. But maybe if you wanted to get real saucy (and this would totally be in maester builds) charge it to say "For each attachment the character had reveal one card from the top of your deck and put it in hand."

goshdarnstud said:

If we consider current cards vs old cards how about this:

Xaro's Home (Cost 0; Unique)

Free Cities

Response: After you play an attachment from your hand,kneel 1 influence to draw a card.

VS

Qartheen Bazaar (Cost 2)

Free Cities

Response: after you play an attachment card from your hand,draw a card (limit once per phase).

Honestly, I'd almost prefer the Bazaar. You gain draw for thematic reasons (attachment play) thus keeping your card draw in check. Both do not key off of "put in play" mechanics. You are almost always going to have gold to spend.

Xaro's Home whilst being cheeper, still requires you to have influence and having nothing better to spend your influence on. It effectively requires you to play two cards to start it up and then puts two additional conditions on top of that.

I used to play the Bazaar all the time - even after Xaro's came out in Valyrian. Of course, back then - Targ was even more attachment heavuy, what with Quartheen Trader's Guild and City of Bones.

Perished never really worked well in practice. You are spending a character and an event to draw two cards. So - its a net 0 on crad advantage and it was really hard to justify running it ini a tight deck. .

Yeah, I agree with Stag Lord, that event just isn't card advantage. I have some ideas for cards but I don't know how productive it would be to post them.

Stag Lord said:

I still don't understand how you ever got Stag into your name.

EDIT: Also, you would be losing the character regardless right? Its not like you kill a character to use the event to draw two cards. You are using the event to draw a card in response to your character dying. It is still a net of one card as I see it.

goshdarnstud said:

Yeah, I certainly wasn't saying that would be an optimal play But if you needed to draw cards in the Marshaling phase for some reason, it would be an option. I would love to see it come back with reveal->hand, but that seems...unlikely

Staton said:

Moreover, consider the other major drawbacks with Perished. It isn't reliable at all, since it only ever works after your own characters die. Usually, the character you're stacking attachments on is not one you'd like to see die...after you've invested cards + gold into it. Also, being an event, Perished is particularly vulnerable to cancel. So typically, Perished just sits around in your hand and then when it is played, there's a chance it won't even work for you. Even if it does work, it doesn't protect your board position...it just takes some of the pain off of losing board position. Cards that help you *not lose* are not the same as cards that help you *win*, and this card isn't even particularly great at helping you not lose.

The important thing to remember when designing an effect intended for card advantage is to consider not just what it does (i.e. "draws cards"), but how it will be used. Although Perished is terrible as an event, the same effect *might* work as a 0-cost attachment. Attachments aren't inherently better than events, but in Targ it would essentially net one extra card (since it would count itself as an attachment) AND it would work with all the other Targ attachment-based effects...Xaro's Home, Pentos, LDC, etc.

See here's my problem with the situation you described. If you don't have Perished in hand, you lose your character. If you do have Perished in hand, you lose your character. However, with Perished you get to draw two cards. I'm assuming no attachments here. This to me is still a plus one card advantage over not having Perished in your deck, just because you are going to lose the character regardless so I'm not see why that should factor into the equation. A save effect like Viserys is going to be card advantage as well, but why not just run both? I don't see them being exclusive to one another. The "drawback" of having your character die isn't really a drawback in my book. I mean characters are constantly dying in games here in the midwest. Maybe you guys just don't do militaries or something on the coast, I don't know, but there are militaries almost every turn in the games I play. Plus you get resets as early as turn one or two.

I also just thought of the fact that not every card is the same. So you might be losing a C card but drawing two A cards. I mean you could also draw two C cards as well, but that probably needs to be factored into whatever equation you have.