Well since they're clearly too drunk to post, I will make a topic. I thought it was pretty good, but I think that the Martell House Card is the top card of 2011. Every major shift in the meta came through Martell first or was the best out of Martell. It started with the Brotherhood, then went through to Maesters, and then to the Summer Masterlite Rush decks. They all are best out of Martell. Martell had the most restricted cards BY FAR than any other house and is STILL the best house for these decks. Also I listen to the end of each episode!

I made the suggestion for the Martell House card to be top, but the other folks didn't care to agree with me.

So, any other comments on the top 10 of 2011? I found the lack of Lannister to be interesting, considering their historic dominance in such fields.

Also, I should say thanks for starting the thread! I posted the episode to CardgameDB last night, but rather forgot that Greg is unable to post here about it any more.

Staton said:

Whoohoo... I applaude you, someone who knows the score :-)

I've yet to listen, but was Maesters really Martell-dominant? They certainly have a lot of printed Maesters which helps, but have they had tournament success?

imrahil327 said:

The deck that won the Spanish Nationals was a Martell deck with TMP. It wasn't an all-out Maesters deck with Conclave, Ebrose et al., though. More of a standard Martell Summer deck with Maester support for extra versatility. Didn't even run Maester of War. Still had six chains on the Agenda. It's published on agotcards, if you're a member:

http://www.agotcards.org/deck/v/4422

imrahil327 said:

I think that the Maesters were just flat out better out of Martell. Whether or not Martell was the most popular house for Maesters is another question though.

Maester of the Sun is pretty ridiculous, besides him i dont have a problem with martell maesters... (no more than out of any other house anyway)

Staton said:

Heh, that's fair I suppose.

*sigh* I hate to say it, but I think I agree with Staton about that as well.

I'm not sure I agree, though I guess it depends on what you mean by "better for X house." Maesters don't really add anything to Martell, other than attachment hate and a bit of variety. Martell already had draw and a decent amount of toolboxing (saves, amazing challenge-phase tricks, etc.). I don't feel Martell's maester build is the *best* Martell build, though it could be in certain metagames. Other than the fact that martell has a lot of playable in-house maesters, it doesn't seem to benefit all that much from the maesters cycle, simply because the maesters don't fill in any major holes (other than the Tin Link).

In contrast, maesters rejuvenated House Targaryen, and created some significantly different (and arguably better) builds in Greyjoy and Stark. Prior to the errata, maesters also provided Baratheon with a huge boost. On the surface, I would agree that Martell appeared most ready to take advantage of maesters. In practice, the cycle has been much more of a boon to Targ, and arguably GJ/Stark.

The maesters cycle was a big boon for Martell in one respect though. With chains piling up on opponents' maesters, bounce effects like Cyvasse and Ghaston Grey have become increasingly powerful and popular. Summer Martell is an especially good metagame decision in an environment where you expect your opponents to be playing maesters (though Targaryen maesters is arguably still better), unless you expect to see a lot of GJ winter.

Yeah I don't think it provided nearly as much help to Martell as it did to other houses. I just think that Martell Maesters are generally better than other houses running the Maester's agenda. Although that can probably be said of a lot of builds.

Staton said:

I'm agreement with both Dan and Josh here... I think it just bumped Martell from a 8 to a 9, while it goosed Targ and some of there others something more like 5 to 8, so the improvement was more dramatic. The variety of in-house Maesters & To the Spears! made it the most easy to rush with using the Conclave, but it also helped that non-Maester Martell did have the bounce advantage that Dan hinted at.

I'm still surprised we didn't see a Silver Link, since that was the first Maester "link" attachment we ever saw. (Yes there was the GM Chain... and Healing Expertise).