ktom said:

Happy that we agree!

I've always talked about "potential" of Lannisters. And the funny thing is that it can do a heavy set up.

After that, Castellan of the rock + Enemy informer is just sick (should read: powerful) and Core Set Lannisters events are wounderful in the LCG format (think about Lannister pays his debts or, one of the best IMHO, Insidious way, that doesn't seem so powerful, but in the early game, is very efficient).

And in the end, I'd point out something that's more important than it seems: Intrigue. While Stark/Baratheon/Targ are well balanced in Icons (M and P), Lannisters have a surprisingly balancing between M and I...And Intrigue has not any consistant opponent in the format, without Martells.

Sorry if I replied with this enthusiasm, but if it wasn't clear: I'm Lannister inside. :-)

Hail to the Lion!

DB_Cooper said:

Pay close attention to the event "I'm You Writ Small." Granting Deadly in the middle of a challenge AFTER the defender has been declared is huge, especially in an intrigue or power challenge. And, remember that the character that gets the +2 attachment does not necessarily have to be the one that gets the Deadly. That one an Insidious Ways are very "Lannister" events.

ktom said:

One of the game we played (Lions vs Wolves) ended up with that damned/fantastic I'm you writ small...The feeling is that you cannot trus any choice of a Lannister player in this sense.

He always has a trick.

Always.

And it is good.

And lovely

i'm going to have to agree here -- now that i have something near a playset of LCG cards, i've gone ahead and done some deckbuilding, and the most notable thing to come out of that is a joust lannister control deck. its ability to draw and consistently dominate intrigue challenges while still fielding plenty of board and location control (strength in military battles, various tricky events some of which have been mentioned, lots of stuff that kneels, some location control and anti-gold generation plots, etc.) will put it on par with targ concerning versatility.

finitesquarewell said:

Excactly...

Against Targ, Lannister deck performed very well, Starting with Fury of The lion...Followed by Blockade.

If it starts good, a plot like this is the natural flow of the events...and the additional turn (basically that's it) gained in this way can mean "game over".

yup, exactly what i've been doing concerning plot sequence

For Joust, I would say Lanni or Stark. Lanni has great events (Writ and Lannister Pays mainly), a solid character base, and very nice locations/attachments (Golden Armor or whatever is great in a Valar world, and they use Bodyguard well too).

Stark has the best chapter pack cards that haven't been banned Icy and that silly location (Bear Island, right)? They have fairly decent events as well. Oh, and their Fury plot is still silly

Targ is pretty good, and I haven't really tried Bara but I don't think they would be THAT solid. Just not sure what they do better than anyone else - I haven't seen a really good power grab card. They do have location control I guess...

rings said:

The Iron Throne Gilded Plate might have been good in a Valar world, particularly in an Infamy deck, but the Core Set Gilded Plate on anyone other than Core Set Tywin is crap against Valar. How often do you have the gold to pay its cost, even in Lanni, during the plot phase?

After playing around with the cards and building a few decks, I feel Lanni will dominate this meta. Even if that house doesn't win every tournament, I think it will almost always place well. I recently built what I admit was a crappy Lanni deck and played it against a Targ deck. (I interrupted Finitesquarewell's studies to do so.) Basically, I think Lanni's massive draw, lack of effective location discard of any kind (poor rotating all location discard without replacing it with something), Lanni's gold, kneel, and tricksy events make it really hard to compete. Unless I'm missing something it just doesn't seem like another house can compete.

In order for other houses to have a chance to compete, here's what I think they could use (skipping Martell and GJ, which I think are currently unplayable at a competitive level):

All: House-specific or neutral location discard. (Warhorn doesn't count--you have to have White Raven out, then win a challenge, and all that before an opponent discards it.)

Targ: More draw would be nice. More influence for the ambush mechanic would also speed things up. Targ probably has the best characters (dragons) right now, but these aren't enough to balance against Lanni's draw engine/resources.

Bara: Probably needs a faster way to claim power, or more renown guys at the very least. Even in a good draw, with the summer knights and the Black Raven out, I doubt you can win by turn 3. Turn 4 isn't all that great because once Valar hits, you have to start over and Lanni will probably have kneel control by then.

Stark: I haven't fooled with them all that much, but I suspect they have the same draw problem as others. It's really too bad War Horn costs 2 gold (should be 1 gold) and doesn't have any other benefit while it's not winter (such as +2 strength or gives the character a power icon).

What do you all think?

Twn2dn said:

Oh, well..

Me and Ktom (as you can read in some of the previous posts) were venerating Lannisters for a while :-)

No, seriously...

I agree with you, for lots of reasons...

Even if, tonight we've been playin' a lot and I built up a Stark that's going to be competitive with the same Lannister who beated us all some nights ago...

But it's a particular building, without neutrals, with some nice synergies between locations and char and Bear Island and that Lannister (even if VERY strong, still lacks of some multiples and, consequently, of consistancy).

But I still think that a well built Lannsiter is still the no. 1 in this format.

Let's wait some new stuff....

I'm not sure lannister is that much stronger then every other house. I can see a good build for the 3 other core set houses that would all be tourney worthy against lanni kneel

Stark: Search and Kill with standing. Also, the only in house cancel card in the game right now.

Bara: not neccesarily power rush, but power challenge control. Lanni would be weak to this as focus on kneeling takes away some power icons. also, Renly is the perfect anti-lanni card (immune to chartacter abilities and self standing)

Targ: flame kissed/xaros home/dany's chambers/forever burning = recurssive kill of basically whomever you want that also gives you draw.

Lars said:

Pretty expensive, though, since if you want to draw when you use Flame Kissed, you have to pay gold and PLAY it instead of kneeling influence to PUT IT INTO PLAY.

true. I'd do it if i didn;t need/have a big gold character or say a dragon thief in my hand (then i'd only need 2 gold and 3 inf to kill an 2 str char, draw, and get my own char into play). I think it is one of the more solid combos in the LCg format.

Lars said:

I agree with your point, but Lannister Strength that I'm talkin' about comes from different basics.

Here's the essence of this matter.

1- Stark, Bara and Targ have Military and Power balance, in them and between them. Lannister is the only superior house in Intrigue challenges ( lack of Martell house is going to be very significant in this sense). If Stark and Targ, i.e., can be tied on both of their favourite challenges, Lannister has not any serious opponent (right now...). And the thing becomes worst if you think about the fact that they're very consistant on Miltiary too.

They're not so strong in power challenges...But they can set up a good defense in the early game in order to take some time and set up their own locking tricks.

2- Lannisters draw a lot. I know that it has always been...But in this format their big skill in card advantage (added to the "total intrigue dominion") becomes enormous . In two or three different games I had something like 11 cars per turn in my hand, and it is absolutely sick in this format (this is the reason why Ruled by decree should be played in almost any non-Lannister deck). In a restricted card pool like this, is very difficult to get rid of this advantage.

3- They have the table control by kneelin' options. Every house has its type of table control, but the kneelin' one is very effective. Lannister can do lots of tricks by kneelin', killing with surprise and something more without any influence...They just need gold (and I swear to god that my Lannister deck gets something like 10 gold per round). In many cases, the "additional" prices of Lannister's events and effects are not so heavy as other prices are.

This doesn't means that other houses are considered to be "ever losing". I just say that at the moment I cannot find other decks in the format that can be considered serious problems for the Jaime's House (it's not Jaime's, but I like to say so :-) ).

This statement maybe is not true for Starks...

Let's wait for the enemy.

Until then...

Hear me roar.

ktom said:

WHAT? I read it 10 times and still thought it was 1 power!

rings said:

Nope. 1 gold. As a cost.

The ITE-version was 2 power. As an "after effect."

Lars said:

Remembering that Dany's Chambers has the same "play vs. put-into-play" deal as Xaro's Home (so the Ambushed Dragon Thief does not get your Flame-Kissed back), I'd say that while it is a solid combo, it is not the endlessly and easily repeatable monster many people seem to think it is before they look closer at the play restrictions on the two locations.

ktom said:

???

The trick is to "play" the Dragon thief for 2 gold and than use Daeny´s chambers to return flame-kissed to your hand, which you "put into play" for 2 influence. So where´s the limitation in the combo - assuming it´s done right. and you forget about that undelightful Xaro´s home ?! ;-)

It´s still very solid to play a charachter and return an attachement to your hand.

Well, I don't think Lanni-control/kneel will be unbeatable, but I do think a different Lanni build can be extremely difficult to beat. A Lanni deck with about 35 2-3 cost characters (including 3x Castellan and 3x Enemy Informer), lots of draw (3x events, 3x locations, and possibly also Qyburn's Informers), and other tricks makes for a strong build. Play several claim 2 plots and flood the board, forcing the opponent to do the same. After emptying their hand--something that won't be difficult to do given Lanni's intrigue superiority--you Valar. Lanni's draw mechanics kick in again and you flood the board again. With the natural control mechanics that are already in the deck (Note: you do not need to build them in...in most cases they will exist in the cards you play), it is easy to overwhelm the opponent.

You can, of course, mix up this strategy depending on the house your opponent plays. For example, Lanni can Valar earlier against Bara power rush, and get out kneelers fast (using heralds to pull Castellan instead of Chella, etc.). Against Stark, just discard their hand ASAP, then Valar. A couple claim 2 plots will probably enable you to Valar on turn 3.

Again, I'm not saying that these types of decks will be unbeatable, but with surpise pumps and deadly in the form of events, and characters like Bronn and Chella (Chella is probably the only good, playable location control) on the table, it's difficult for other houses to compete.

And for the record, the Targ deckbuild that uses Xaro's Home to draw takes tons of locations and quite a few attachments to ensure the draw engine is reliable. I've been experimenting and the Targ draw engine works nicely, but I usually can't get it going faster than turn 3 unless I'm lucky on the draw or run fewer than 25 characters. If I cut characters, I'm less likely to draw things I need--very detrimental after a reset. If I cut events, I have fewer tricks to compete. (Given Targ's comparative lack of gold, it definitely needs challenge tricks to win.) Lastly, the comparative lack of gold (compared to Lanni) means that after Valar hits, it is more difficult to build back up. I don't think it's impossible for Targ to beat Lanni, but I would be surprised if top-level Targ decks consistently beat top-level Lanni decks.

Old Ben said:

I don't think that's the combo as he was describing it. As you describe it, he needs 2 gold and 2 influence to kill a 2 STR character and get his own into play while recursing the attachment.

But he described it as "2 gold and 3 influence to kill a 2 STR character, DRAW, and get his own character into play." I took that to mean he was paying 2 for the attachment, kneeling an influence to draw (Xaro's Home), then kneeling 2 more to get the Thief. He was either doing the Thief to make sure the opponent's 2-STR character was free of attachments or because he thought he'd get Flame-Kissed back via Dany's Chambers. I was just making sure he didn't think it was the latter.

Me and some friends played two melee games with the LCG, one with 3 players and no Stark and one including all houses. All players were experienced strategy gamers, but IIRC I was the only person who had played the AGOT CCG before. I won as Baratheon in both games, but take that with a grain of salt since I was more experienced and had a better idea of what was in the decks and what the general run of the game was likely to be.

In our first game Targ put on a really good showing, with their dragon's basically unmatchable on the board once they got out. Without Stark's Valor Morgalis to kill them off it was really hard to get rid of them. Forever burning and the various bits of attachment combo machinery made for strong plays, though I think that ultimately their strong position was a side effect of the poor decision that I made to kick Lannister when they were down for easy power. Even though I pulled off a win in the end it was largely due to the Targ player's inexperience and I think that had they been able to keep a closer track of the board state they would have been able to spot that I was about to make a move and crush me. The key problem was that Lannister was lacking in saves, which made each successful military challenge against them really hurt, whereas both other players had recursive saves, making military challenges against us pretty shabby.

In the second game everyone was in with a chance, with Targ initially dominant and then Stark building up a very strong board until Wildfire Assault and Fleeing to the Wall hit on the same turn and shook them up. As people have mentioned, Lannisters kneel powers were less strong in Melee than they might have been in joust, but they were very relevant, often letting them make good deals with people who didn't want to be left vulnerable and also frequently giving them the option of guaranteeing the dominance phase win. Stark seemed like it had the strongest board setup once it got all the pieces into play. Targ's dragons again were their star players, when they weren't flying off to the brothel. Bara was good all round, with Robert and his super-renown being my star performer in the end.

My general impression, admittedly after only two plays, is that the decks are reasonably well balanced, at least to the degree that no one house seems consistently to be able to completely lock down the game if the other players are alert. If I had to pick one house as strongest, it would probably be Targ, since their power cards seemed more consistently good.

Thanks for the reprot Illykar.

The current state of the game really reminds me of where we were back in 2003. Lannister dominant in joust and a weak sister in melee.