You are actually advancing your board position by decreasing your opponent's position. You are spending two gold(myrcella) to bounce one of his characters to his hand. Myrcella herself never really counts as part of your board in this case because you aren't using her as a character but as a resource for GG.

Exaclty - and 99% of the time you are certainly advancing the strategic situation by discarding power on your opponent's character.

Stag Lord said:

Christ. You know a card is OP when Stags and I are agreeing on it! nerfbrokenGGnow!

Penfold said:

Penfold said:

I'm sorry Penfold, but I just can't hold with your reasoning. The point is that when using GG, you will almost always be choosing to bounce a character of your own (Edric and now Myrcella, even Arianne or TRV if desperate) who will really just cost you gold, whereas you'll bounce an opponent's character who has a lot of power, a lot of attachments, doesn't kneel to attack, or is somehow critical to their deck strategy. The delay of forcing them to marshal again can be key for a control deck like Martell. Sure, I can bounce Doran or TRV back to my hand and bounce their Hedge Knight, but I'm not going to (unless I'm setting up to Valar the next turn and am looking to save my own important character. And longclaw has the right of it (and not just because he's the one who "personally demonstrated"* to me at GenCon how crazy good GG can be ); a very powerful effect has just become significantly cheaper to use. I'll trade 2 gold to bounce your Conclave, Northern Cavalry Flank, Wintertime Marauders or Fat Bob every time.

I agree with longclaw regarding TMP as well. Yeah, you're still going to see plenty of it, but it seems that it's becoming less the laser focus of decks, and more often a bit of an add on (two or three chains to shore up a deck's weakness.)

* read as "cleaned my clock"

Stag Lord said:

I'm on the record in more than one place as saying I love the maester's cycle. I'm likely in the minority. But the reason I like it so much (beyond all the fun combos ) is that we can't look at the power levels of houses in a vacuum. If we wanted to do away with TMP, then why not do away with the summer/winter themes too? And if that happens, Lanni is pretty much on top. No matter how you cut it, I think the maesters (and TMP specifically) add A LOT more variety to the competitive scene than they take away. Without these, it's basically the same 1-2 decks making the top 8 every tourney.

One point where I suspect I disagree with a lot of people though is I see TMP as functioning differently in most houses. When I play against a Stark maester deck, I expect significantly different things than a Lanni maester deck, or a Targ maester deck. In fact, I find it kind of nedly that each house runs a little smoother with a bit of maester support...they all have access to the same tricks (chains), but each house takes advantage of them quite differently.

Really the only chain you can guarantee they will ALL run is the draw chain. That's to be expected though...and really, as Longclaw points out, draw isn't house specific. So whether it comes from an easy-to-play neutral card or an easy-to-play in-house card, doesn't really matter to me. I think it's a tragedy that Lanni gets such easy access to draw (Pyromancer's Cache + Golden Tooth Mines), while Targ gets shafted...unless you can find a way to make Maegi Crone work. But luckily for me, the Valyrian Steel Link has my back, so that I can play my favorite house without feeling significantly disadvantaged against Lanni.

The one aspect that I really do hate about the chains is the Tin Link. Attachments are already hard to play, and this thing just makes them awful...except for Targ burn, which doesn't really count. If maesters are cheesey, it's because they can easily protect their own attachments and knock others off so easily.

Twn2dn said:

I'd really like to see your reasoning here. What houses do you see going from contender to whipping boy if TMP wasn't around? I think a point might be made for Targ, but what are the other two?

I tried to make that analysis a few posts up, and I honestly don't see it. In fact, I tend to think that, if TMP and all the Chains were banned tomorrow, the relative power level of the houses wouldn't change that much, except maybe for Targ going down a notch, and I'm not even sure about that.

I still don't think GG is going to be used heavily once the other stuff comes out. Am I the only one that views GG as 70% of the time having no nobles to bounce except my Red Viper with 9 power on him? Or getting Edric and Myrcella out instead of better characters that could help me win challenges? The only reason GG has been so common is because that stupid chain that makes the maester +X strength makes A Game of Cyvasse unusable, and martel currently has nothing else for spot removal for those volition maestros. Once people start abusing A Tale of Champions and Maesters become as common as wildlings... GG will become less common (once the honeymoon with Myrcella is over... and people realize she's just a little girl with a power icon, so she'll get locked in the tower, and you'll have an affair with a more mature character).

Also if they ever reprint 5KE Myrcella.... we won't worry about GG anymore

Having followed this conversation for a while now, I thought it might be my turn to inflame it back up again...

Disclaimer: I do think that Ghaston Grey is definetely a Tier-1, 5-star, bomb of a card.

But... (someone once said nothing that is said before this word counts, if I remember correctly)

It's still a 2-card combo. That you'll need the draw or search (giving the other player cards, while at it) to get going. And, since it's composed of a character and a location, the combo can be disrupted using both location control (pretty straightforward) and character control (due to the crest being the issue, this is a bit more difficult, but there still are solutions) and also intrigue challenges or discard from hand effects after the bounce.

Now, there's a few ways of running this, as far as I can tell:

1) Splashing it in:

• Put in 1-2 copies of Ghaston Grey
• Have 1x copies of the decent Martell nobles (Sorry PotS Doran): Edric, Viper, Arianne, Myrcella, the new Doran is a bit of a question mark here, since running several 5 gold chars is a bit of a liability with choke running around...

With this, the chances of actually getting the combo going in any given game are not that high to be honest (especially with a cheap nopble), and it can be pretty easily disrupted. However, it won't take too much room from your otherwise functional Martell control-deck, and the deck now has SOME weapons against Maesters and über-characters.

But at least from what I've seen, this would tend to look quite a bit like what bloodycelt was saying. You see one part, but don't have the other... and then if you see the other one, it's probably too late (draw the GG after the Valar that killed your poor Myrcella). In some games this will be golden, but that's maybe 1 game in a large tournament. Max 2, if you're feeling really-really lucky. In the other games it'll be mediocre or useless.

2) Going all out:

• 3 copies of Ghaston Grey
• Have 2-3x copies of the nobles that REALLY work with Ghaston Grey: 2-3x Myrcella, 2-3x Edric, 2x Arianne, 1x Viper, 1x Doran (let's put him in here now)

Now what did that just do to your deck?

• Filled up around one third of its character slots, replacing other really good characters
• Also took most of the slots you have for any control locations
• You will never willingly get to use Edric's dying response, so his actual usability dropped quite a bit, and he's around 4-star to begin with.
• You cannot play any positive attachments on many of your key characters, even though you can remove Tin Links, since your main characters will lose them once they bounce (this particular sword works both ways, sadly). Nor can you attach Venomous Blades to them.
• The vulnerability for your whole deck to CERTAIN location control cards just went through the roof (mainly Stark: Meera and Frozen Solid).
• The vulnerability of your whole deck to choke also increased quite a bit. Burn? Ditto.
• Your deck needs to either have a high income curve, to pay for this whole shibangle, or run a really tight ship otherwise. If your opponent has highly superior resources, this will be quite a bit of a liability.

Other considerations of this particular case:

• Myrcella will be pretty much a dead card in 1/3 of your games to begin with (mirrors due to Venomous Blade and Targ due to Burn), so running her 3x is quite risky. Of course you can mitigate the mirrors by bouncing her in Marshalling, but then you'd need high initiative to have them go first...
• All-out bounce can be a bit of a pain, if your opponent is running cards with comes into play effects...
• You'll have to play REALLY tight to not lose any of the nobles to Valar, since they'll be dead cards in hand if you lose any of them. Meanwhile, you can't drop the dupes on them, since they'll be wasted in case of Ghaston Grey.
• Bouncing your characters to save them from Valar also gives your opponent one more character after it. Not really a hot deal, to be honest.

Something REALLY nasty you can do:

• Play and bounce Myrcella several times during Marshalling to bounce several of your opponents characters. Kind of scary.

Final Score:

Now, on a good day Ghaston Grey will give you some very good tempo, card, resource and strategic advantage. There really isn't denying that. Why else would you play any card to begin with? (Well, except Direwolf Pups for their cuteness) However, it does this in a very House flavourful way (bounce is a Martell thing, Kneel is a Lanni thing, Burn is a Targ thing...). Personally I'd see it as pretty much similar to Dany's Chambers, really. Both can give you huge advantage. Both enable repeatable execution of a House-specific theme. Both require building around.

But... there are also other similarities to Burn here. Bounce (facilitated by Ghaston Grey + a noble) and Burn (facilitated usually by Dany's Chamber + Flame-kissed) seem REALLY scary, when playing against them. But when you start playing them yourself, you'll notice that their 'ridiculously strong' effects are balanced out by the whole thing being both quite clunky and fragile to disrupting control effects.

If we're talking about easily & repeatably controlling characters being bad, then the game is full of 2-card combos that can pretty much do just that already (Black Cells + Syrio/Priestess of Light, Wintertime Marauders+White Raven, Shaggy+Grey Wind). Of course, the stronger the effect is (IMHO: Burn would be strongest, repeatable kill second, repeatable discard third, bounce fourth, then kneel, then cannot kneel...), the more flexible the usage (limited to certain phase, limited by targets, limited by uses) and the lower the cost, then the better the card. Now Ghaston Grey really does have a cost, let's not forget that. It is limited by the combo pieces (and having to run them). It's greatest assett on the other hand is the flexibility (any phase, no target limitations).

Personally I wouldn't want to see anything done to the card, since I like the fact that there's a reason to run unique nobles instead of Lost Spearman -type over-efficient weenies... and it makes a house theme roll. But what I would least like to see is restriction. Martell already has too many cards on that particular list, and I think most of the cards on the restricted list are cards that work almost absurdly well BY THEMSELVES (VB, Val, Pyromancer's Cache...), without the need for some kind of specific combo or other deck structure. TLS being one of the major exceptions, and a card that I really would love to have seen be errata'd instead of restriction... The only similar parallel to a card that was really flexible, required a combo and still got somehow nerfed was Alchemist's Guild Hall. It has a higher cost to setup, a weaker effect, and could only be used once per turn (and less flexibly at that)... However it also had NO cost per use, was nonunique and could also target locations. I guess some kind of limiting errata might be "ok" for Ghaston Grey in the same vein... maybe kneeling it to use it (would stop repeating it several times per round etc.), but I personally don't see the need for it. Plenty of other OP cards in this game, it's just how the game works, since they balance each other out. (I think StagLord argued this during the TLS Wars, and I think I'm only now starting to get his point)

Now the Maesters on the other hand... *Leaves to join #occupythecitadel*

I'd just like to give my personal thoughts on why GG seems to stand out above some of the other combos you've listed. First of all, GG is strictly a two card combo. All of the other combos you've listed actually require a third card to be repeatable. Black cells needs kings ground or whatever to give it vigilant otherwise its just once a turn, and we know how fragile attachments are these days. Same thing goes for Shaggydog/Greywind and Wintertime Marauders/Winter. Heck those last two combos can only occur in the challenges phase and you actually have to attack the person with the wolf combo! GG is repeatable just by having it and one other card, and is any phase. Even the Flame Kissed and Daeny's Chambers need for you to play a character of at least two cost. Plus you probably need to use a Forever Burning or something to actually hit any character of relevance. GG gets to hit any character on the table, other than Cat of the Canals. So sure, there are other two card combos out there, but none of them really are at max potential without other cards. GG is more flexible, easier to set up (assuming you have three GG's and at least two of myrcella, edric, arianne, and one TRV and Doran), and is at full power as soon as it hits the table. Plus I don't really see having these characters in your deck as that costly. Other than myrcella, I think the other characters(maybe not edric, but he does have renown in a house that is kinda hurting for it) would make most Martell decks anyway. So you're taking up five or six slots, but what could you fill those slots with that would have more of an impact in game?

Staton said:

Sorry Staton but you are wrong on a couple of points.

1. GG is Challenges only. I don't know why but most people tend to miss this. WWDrakey is misled on this as well

2. Edric doesn't have renown (at least not the Martell one). At best he is a pretty average Noble.

So yes you can abuse GG by having it fire a couple of times per turn, at the really best. But that still very cost heavy and deck cluttering as many people have already pointed out.

Kalindas said:

Thanks for clarifying that up. Good that someone remembers to check the facts before commenting.

So... in a 2-card combo it's only repeatable once per round, just like all of the others.

Weird, challenges only?! Man I really wish I could read sometimes. lol Well touche! Although still more easily repeatable than the others in my mind. Also Edric doesn't have renown?! Man, I could've sworn he had a keyword. Also with Flea Bottom coming out it will be perfect with these nobles. Oh no the character comes into play knelt! Oh wait, I don't care because I'm just returning it to my hand anyway.

The flea bottom argument doesn't cut it for me as it will also be available for your opponent to reduce the cost of his bounced character. You have to see the total picture, not just the corner that makes your point stronger Same goes about the black cells for example. Ok you need another card to abuse the cells (Kingdom of Shadows anyone?). But on the other hand they are non-unique meaning you can have three in play, their effect is free (bringing a s0 character into play isn't really difficult in bara) and they are immune to a comme location hate card (condemned by the council). So all in all I'm not really buying the fact that GG is stronger than them.

Also considering Myreclla, as a martell player, the 2-cost slot for me is already quite cluttered with draw characters (paramour, messenger, cavenger), save and attachement removal. I would rather include any of them rather than Myrcella as they fill in important holes in most decks.

I don't think the Flea Bottom argument holds up, because the character comes into play knelt and then gets returned to hand before it can do anything. Unless they are using Flea Bottom on some cheap nonunique chud, which is fine with me.

True I hadn't thought about it that way. I stand corrected.

Staton said:

Faulty reasoning. You are talking about your mindset not the actual game. You paid money. A card went into play altering board position. That card and another left play altering board position. It bothers you less because that was what she was there for, but depending on what kinds of targets I have on the board you just gave up a character for a character, and that is not card advantage unless you hit an attachment, and hitting an attachment but leaving a character that is in fact more central to my decks play or objectively more powerful without an attachment leaves me with a better board position.

Decks that don't rely on attachment stacked characters have far less to worry about in a deck with GG, and if you are included characters whose abilities icon spread are not filling holes in your deck or boosting its strength, just to trigger GG, it means my deck is going to have a higher rate of higher quality characters.

GG is an awesomely powerful card, but with the location hate in the game, and the moving away from uber-characters, it can be handled and/or played around.

I think of it this way, imagine if GG said the following: "Challenges: Pay X gold and reveal a martell noble card from your hand to choose an opponents character. Return that character to owner's hand. X is equal to the revealed character's gold cost." I don't see how that's any different and you aren't affecting your board position at all. However you are still paying the gold and revealing a character, which is what I feel like you are going to be doing with Myrcella anyway. You are almost never going to actually use her for challenges. You are going to lay her out and then return her to hand.

Also I feel like this next chapter pack cycle is going to make GG even better, since it seems to focus on unique characters. Also before someone says, "But wait, Staton! That means they will have dupes and will make GG even worse!" its a good thing Martell has He Calls It Thinking.

I am not sure that my opinion holds any validity since my play group consists of 3 players who have not really seen much of the competative scene, but I will throw it out there anyway. I have been trying to put together a baratheon joust deck for some time, but no matter what I can't seem to find a reliable way to deal with my wife's GG. It doesn't seem to matter how much power I can grab in a round or 2 with renown since the power goes way when the characters are returned to my hand. Baratheon doesnt seem to have enough war crested characters to reliably run price of war, or enough intrigue prowess to make condemed by the council a solid choice when going against a martell deck. I have tried Saan, but it pains me to pay 4 gold for a character(Ally) that is just going to die to the blade anyway.

The other deck I play regularly is a stark deck, and at least in stark I have 2 reliable ways to deal with GG, in price of war and frozen solid. I don't think that GG by itself is a completely broken card, I just think that there are a few houses that don't have a reliable way to deal with it. Again take everything with a grain of salt, since this is coming from someone who has seen only 2 tournaments in the past 5 years.

I was going to suggest Direct Assault for location control out of Baratheon, but that turns out to only work on non-uniques. Fiddlesticks!

Staton said:

Because I can get rid of Mycella before you can lock her up.

We do not need rotation. Absolutely not ! Stop that, please, I feel sick if I read such things.

I also believe we do not need any addition to the restricted list at this time . The game is in an almost perfect state right now (I say almost, because some small things can always be improved, I guess). Stahleck has proven that. I have not seen such a variety of different decks in a long time. Every kind of deck was represented, from very fast Stark and Bara rush decks to mid-range decks to slower Lannister shadow and Greyjoy Winter control decks. Martell Maester was there as well, of course, and run by top players. And if you look at the top32 (out of 122 players), you will still notice the same variety. Even the top 8 are made up by quite different decks (2 x Stark Siege, 2 x Lannister Shadow, 1 x Targ Summer, 2 x Greyjoy and 1 x Greyjoy Winter). And those Greyjoy decks, for example, are quite different in their card choices. Such is the beauty of a large tournament where the players come from many different metas.

To those who still complain about Martell or Measters, think about it. If there was a dominant deck type, why then did it not dominate the largest AGOT tourney of all times ? Or any of the other larger tourneys ? Why does Staglord write "Teh maester agenda is too prevaelnt in the game and defines the overall staregic picture WAY too much." when it did actually not made even top 8 in the Stahleck tournament ?

So if a meta has not yet transcended the Martell or the Maester area, I absolutely believe this is not due to the state of the game, but because within your meta, you and your friends tend to play the same kind of decks again and again and also to play the game in a specific way. It did not came as a surprise to me when a top European player like Gualdo made second place with a Stark Siege of Winterfell deck in New York, a kind of deck that was certainly on nobodys radar there.

~ Yeah: because TMP was on the House card of only the winning decks at GenCon, Black Friday, Days of Ice and Fire and Spanish nationals. Add up the attendance at the four biggest US tournaments in the second half of 2011 - GenCon, NY, Iowa and Days - and see how many TMPs were played.

Nope - Nothing wrong here.

And this thread isn't even about TMP but Martell in general. And sorry – but Martell needs a couple more restrictions and one ban. Nothing in your post persuades me otherwise.

European and american meta are different. In Stahleck neither Martel or TMP did something which shows that they are not broken. They can work well as many others deck, they can win tournament as many other decks that's all. There are completely no needs to restrict anything on the martel side or even for any other house if environment is balanced. And sorry to say stag lord it is well balanced at that moment. I don't remember that it was so well balanced anytime in the past.. That's clear that each house has some diamonds. Martell has gg, Targ Hsatchling feast, Stark Meer Reed, bara The Laughing Storm GJ New Made Lords. Those are only examples but anyone can find in every house couple of cards which nerf. This is ok, I repeat this is ok as far as environment is balanced. I know that some people like to complains instead of thinking about solution or anty meta cards. For any threat you have solution and if threat is define it is even better to find solution which will be useful in many matchups. Still even if you build very good deck u will have very bad matchups which you can win with luck or very good matchups which you loose with bad one. That's the game, please don't make any rumor and expand restricted list if it is not necessary.

If your spending 2 gold a turn to bounce anything that costs more than 2 gold for your opponent/turn, it is advancing your RELATIVE board position. The same way a Valar doesn't advance your board position, it advances your relative board position. Now that is cleared up...

Beric, Daven, Fat Bob, KOF, TRV, Balon w/Support of Harlaw, Killer of the Wounded + Chains, Ebrose all loaded up, Queeny with a few power, Tywin, any other high gold character tanks that hold a lot of power in a game that you would enjoy having bounced repeatedly for two gold a turn?

Thats why it is advancing your board position.

And berto, I don't think you get it. The only meta solutions that exist ARE BY AND FAR CHALLENGE DEPENDENT which means GHASTON GREY WILL STOP YOU FROM USING THEM because YOU CAN'T WIN CHALLENGES. And the rare time you do they WILL CALL IT THINKING and send you home. Run some Newly Made Lords. Sorry not playing GJ Choke? OOH them. Thats 5 gold for a 1 cost location that they will probably regroup. Sure you can Climbing Spikes it, or Frozen Solid it. What if your Targ, what if your Lannister, or Baratheon? Well, you run Pyromancer's Apprentice and you hope they don't have a gold extra. You know, when they know you have a card in shadows and its a GJ choke containing environment. So yes, the numbers are stacked against you. Dont say people aren't looking at meta solutions because they are lazy, because I just gave you the reasonable ones right there.

And if your already at 60 cards and you can't decide what to take out for 3x myrcella, you find 3 more sleeves.