A much more sensible card that Tin Link. Neutral Attachment hate without going too far.

It has the added bonus of discouraging Maester splashing in decks that have no reason for Maesters other than slimming the deck (and playing Tin Link/Valyrian Steel Link).

It also can be used as a defensive tool against Bob (and other standers).

What do you think?

sWhiteboy said:

I agree with you, it is much more elegant/sensible than Tin Link.

However, as long as Tin Link is in the environment (and Brothel and some other weaker ones), I don't think it will be huge. There just are not enough amazing attachments in the game, and the secondary effect is too weak IMHO. Plus it doesn't really stop Maester super-characters THAT well.

It was much more powerful in the CCG days when:

1. There were VERY powerful attachments, including Swayed by the Light (Bara - steal a character).

2. There was Queen's Assassin, who discarded Bastards (as well as Allies and Mercs I think) so you could combo it.

When/if Tin Link is changed or Maesters really are not previlant...then maybe a little more usage.

Yeah I still don't think it will change much. The biggest use will be against Maesters, who will just discard it with a tin link and then start pulling all the chains you just knocked off back out of the discard pile. Also, I could see Maester decks actually throwing this on a maester and just putting the links onto the maester via the agenda and the link that puts attachments into play. That way you can't play your bastard, or milk or other negative attachment, on the chosen master.

Hold back the bastard until they drop the tin link on a maester and then boom goes the dynamite. They lose the way to get rid of it, and they lose anything else. If they are smart they'll spread their links around of course and will be able to still recycle it, but that is a couple of extra turns more than likely before all of that comes to pass. For a lot of decks that is enough.

There is no perfect solution to handling Maesters, but Targ's burn is going to make Maesters be a less sure choice, non-lethal burn will make winning challenges harder and burning maesters gets rid of the tool-boxing.

I agree that bastard is a pretty great card to have in the environment currently. Though, I also agree that it probably isn't going to change much, but as I build a Lannister deck (or I guess any other house without solid attachment removal options), it's nice to know that I can just slot 3 cards to attachment control, and not have to worry about diluting my deck concept with maesters.

Just not powerful enough... personally I cannot see it going into many of my decks, use seems very situational. I don't think it will change much, its certainly no Paper Shield...

Skowza said:

I agree, it's a good card in theory. Against a non-Targ Maester build it could be good. But Maester decks have such solid attachment control that i feel like a lot of people are not playing attachments as often. Which would make Bastard a dead card against a lot of non-Maester decks.

perpetual noob said:

I wouldn't say it would be a completely dead card, it still removes a Power icon. Pop that on KL Robert or Knight of Flowers or the Red Viper and suddenly they are not so scary.

Lol, RV is always scary. Even if he was Milked and had no icons, you still respect and fear the snake in the grass.

you mean "the snake in the plains"
...even a crippled RV can be scary if you see the player has gloat on his face and can spot a sand snake here and there.

So does Leyton Hightower prevent your opponent from playing Bastard on your Maesters or does it just prevent Bastard from giving Maester Bastard trait, removing it's power icon and making other attachments unplayable on him? In other words, can Bastard discard attachments from Maester if Hightower is in play?

he doesn't prevent anyone from attaching stuff, it simply negates any effects attachments would have on the maesters.

Everyone has picked up the fact that I can still move attachments from the Maester Agenda to a Maester character that has Bastard on it - because I'm not "playing" the chain attachment on the character - right?

As for Leyton, Bastard would still discard all attachments on the character when it was played, but the Maester would be immune to all the rest of it (lost icon, gained trait, "no attachments played" condition).

Still seems like some pretty good anti maester tech. Overall, not a bad card.

I think it will have an affect, but nothing earth-shattering. I think it will seem some play because of its newness, but it would peter down I think.

What I like about it has already been mentioned; it's rarely going to be a dead card. Removing the power icon gives some potentially very nice utility. Heck, you can even use it on your own character to remove something annoying, like a fishing net.

What I don't like about this as attachment hate is that it only affects attachment on characters, and there are enough non-character attachments (Frozen Solid and Pyromancer's Cache spring to mind) that I'd want to be able to get rid of. Also, while I mentioned above that you can use this on your own characters, I wouldn't want to make a habit out of it.