WIth the incoming tidal wave of Lannister (hyper? uber?) kneel and intrigue decks, I've found myself considering what the environment is going to look like in response. First Snow of Winter and Search and Detain are secondary considerations as well.

As far as decks, I'm thinking Stark Siege and some Greyjoy decks, with their focus on (low-cost) characters, will fade a bit. Kneel will be rough on them. Greyjoy will probably have a rough time choking out Lannister's gold also, although First Snow of Winter might help with that if the gold characters maintain/increase in popularity. Along those lines, I'm thinking Targ burn might have a bit of a resurgence, as it's a reliable way to get rid of Lannister's characters and Dothraki can flood the board pretty nicely. Maybe Baratheon Rush could be a good answer for Lanni as well.

With FSoW back and GG still lurking, along with plenty of other bounce, I'm guessing Rule by Decree will become more popular, and perhaps even Fear of Winter in combination. Cannot be Bribed, Cannot be Bought is a pretty obvious anti-kneel tech; heck maybe even Distinct Mastery will see more play.

What do you folks think?

I don't think kneel ever went away, it works well. But, I do think Lannister's got a nice Clansmen bump. That trait is fleshed out pretty well now and can be a viable build theme (not that it wasn't before, its just better now). Army is another theme that could work well for them now. Knights, too. The most important element is the emphasis on intrigue icon challenges. In what was viewed as the red headed step-child of challenges, this has become more difficult to ignore for the other houses. There are many cards that make losing INT challenges more painful than just a random hand discard. Character kills, un-opposed power claims, challenge restrictions (Wars Won Quills Event, etc), makes it rough to be INT light. I feel like more houses are going to build decks with a few green icons thrown in now.

I agree with a lot of what’s been said. With more PBtT decks running around, I think we’ll see fewer sand snakes as the percentage of getting off the combo goes down with 2 intrigue challenges and the occasional claim replacement suiting as a third. Military challenge isn’t even required.

I’m also expecting Hand’s Judgment and maybe shadows trickery to be even more popular out of lanni with all that gold lying around. Also seems like ally hate will be even more important, especially against those ally weenies and other bigger chars like Bronn and Lorch.

It’s already been stated elsewhere, but Search and Detain is fantastic. Especially when paired with KotHH. ~It’s even one of my auto-includes!

Unfortunately I have to say I think it'll make Martell stronger simply because they have so many Intrigue icons. Stark Siege took a huge hit, a dedicated Intrigue deck running some of the new plots can not only out-kill a Siege deck, it can actually prevent the Stark player from making any challenges at all for 3-4 rounds. I think it'll also hurt Bara Rush quite a bit, preventing them from making challenges for just a Round or two is enough to stop the rush and swing the game the other way. I won't even get into the fact that Lanni is going to be able to make 4+ challenges every Round, potentially 5-6 depending on how the deck is built.

Skowza said:

Concerning Baratheon Rush decks, I think a good option could very well be The First Snow of Winter, considering most of the Bara chars have a cost of 3 or more anyway (even Royal Entourage has a printed cost of 3). Especially if the Lannister is heavily relying on the weenies, those cost 1-2 characters like Bronn's Hireling or House Payne Enforcer with their lovely Deadly.

For the heavy I decks.. I don't think they will be problem. Building a deck that can consistantly win I 3 times in a turn will be hard. Problem comes in that there aren't so many characters atleast yet to make this run solidly, Cercei is one who can run this deck herself, but you cannot trust her to always be there to save the day. Another problem I see with this is the lack of stealth in Lannister Intrigue challenges (there will be some deadly but I doubt there is room in 1 cost for bronn's hireling). I will see this deck being popular now for a while to punish decks that have abbandoned I icon, but these decks will fade away as its easy to adapt ones deck against it and still have it do well against all other decks.

As for match ups:
1: Stark, these decks will have to change to not completely ignore the I icon if they want to continue on being competitive especially siege will have a rough time.

2: Targ, burn decks won't have much trouble, but the new intrigue stuff will definitely hurt dragon/dothraki builds.

3.Baratheon, I don't see rush builds being in trouble, actually I think they will do well against this type of deck, with noble rush you can easily over extend against I heavy deck since you should be winning 2th or 3th turn against this. Most of your rush stuff is on the table not in your hand, especially if you kno te deck will allow you to overextend your forces.

4.Greyjoy, I see this PBtT to need valar for it and in this match up GJ just does valar a lot better as an offesive trick. Also I don't see this impacting choke all that much, I can still destroy pretty much anything with my combination of newly made lord + wintertime marauders.

5.Lannister, if you are against a mirror then it will be pure hell for both of you, much like knights vs knights. When against lannister control.. they will usually have better board position AND enough I icons to combat PBtT decks.

6.Martell, enough I and combat tricks to handle this. Now if PBtT ever comes a problem we will see Norvos get played and then no lannister player will have any fun when they see a Martell house card.

What I'm really fearing of Lannister now is even more solid kneel or shadow kneel. The resource base just became a lot better for shadows kneel to actually finally run smoothly.

Also I'm pretty sure we will see a lot more Lannister knights. This deck will run very solidly with added gold, poerful characters and one of the most solidest draw engines in the game (Lannister + knights agenda)

I noticed that the Iron Throne can cancel Viper's Bannerman's come into play ability the other day. This could be a pretty big blow to martell if they've chosen this for their restricted card. He calls it thinking is a great answer... but man, what a killer 2 cost location.

I've been waiting a while to try and build a deck centered around the Baratheon Iron Throne, and now they release an Iron Throne that will get played all the time (because it is way better). Well, at least theirs won't work either.