Anyone see the new Illyrio spoiled on the FFG news section? That is a beast of a character if I ever saw one. I will thoroughly enjoy playing this in a summer deck with the Dragon Knights... -3 STR + kill effect AND a character, all for the bargain price of kneeling 2 influence. Ambush from the plains makes a lot of sense in this deck as well, given Illyrio is prone to being discarded as a an Ally.

I may even find a reason to slide the Titan's Bastard back into my deck. He bounces back to hand every time the opponent's weenie dies, which is prone to happen when I put Titan's Bastard into play for free. The trick is controlling the timing of cards hitting my own dead pile...may have to consider bumping Forever Burning back up to 3x.

So here's the combo...Forever Burning to a 2 STR character-->Titan's Bastard enters play and triggers Illyrio to kill the character-->Titan's Bastard returns back to hand. Reveal this on a Threat from the North round, and 3-STR characters are in range.

Man Illyrio is strong !

Oh yeah, and Young Griff is pretty OK too

Edit: I should mention what I love most about Illyrio, and what offers balance, is that he targets non-uniques. Finally a real reason to take a second look at even the cheap non-uniques like the refugees and 1-cost "chud" (to borrow a term from Rings).

Twn2dn said:

As I stated in our meta's facebook group page....this card makes me feel like "power creap" isn't really an issue in the game...instead it is more like "power LEAP". Holy cow this card is nuts!

What about Griff? He dies, becomes an agenda, jumps back into play.

Dirty Stark will probably wanna try him too. Catelyn, Shadows and the Kindly Man to get characters into play.

My question is, does he really constitute power creep? I see him as a card who when mixed with effects that before were decent but not great (ambush), enables a new deck type.

I mean he is still a three card combo to do anything which pretty much, in my mind at least, removes any real discussion of being overpowered himself.

That said, I think an ambush/burn deck may become a build which rivals Maester's and Martell Summer.

He's completely balanced. He only targets non-uniques. Oh no I can't play my epic "lay out every chud in the game" deck! Will it change deckbuilding? For sure, but I don't think in a negative way really. Hopefully we'll even get cheaper unique characters as well.

The reason he's not balanced is his response creates a terminal effect. One of the big limiting factors for burn is cheap repeatable ways to create terminal effects. So strength reduction is easy finishing them off is the hard part. So what if it only hits non uniques there goes you claim soak, and there is enough burn that does not have target restrictions anyway. Right now I could reliably clear my opponent's board with valar and threat from the north, now it could happen on other turns, as well. Also Targ has so much recursion that I do not think there is a reliable way to remove Illyrio from play for long.

Also I had been playing with an ambush deck that was fun but ultimately lacked teeth, with Illyrio in play I could take out armies pretty easily. Anyway I think this could be a meta defining card, as non uniques become unplayable against Targ, with attachments, and dupes are already, so I hope you have 30+ unique characters you want to use in a deck.

People aren't playing toll gate and I can only assume that is because of the non-unique restriction.

Staton said:

I agree. Not seeing this card as unbalanced. very strong:yes. But this agem should be about uniques and it really is about time we got soem stuff that makes the chuds a liability. First snow was one great step - new Illyrio looks like he will be another.

I am very excited about this card.

Also do not see this as unbalanced. Weaker then VB and easier to deal with.

im ok with more effects targeting non-uniques, i think there should be an inherent downside to playing non-uniques outside of the traits they have

This guy is SOO overpowered. There are very, very few decks that can fill up all of their character slots with unique characters and still maintain any semblance of a cost curve.

He is still a character who gets to do all the stuff characters do...meanwhile burning off dudes by just being on the board.

Since he's an Ally, he should be relatively easy to handle as well if you are worried about him.

Illyrio is clearly the chosen one. He will bring balance to boards by giving players something to QQ about besides GG.

Dude, you don't have to have 30 unique characters. He isn't overpowered. Is he strong? Yes, but I think that Targ probably needed a boost like this. I still don't like their subpar draw. You basically have two ways to trigger this guy. Ambush and shadows (other than a few odd abilities like Titan's Bastard and Khal Drogo) which means to really get some major use out of this guy you are going to be burning influence or gold. Targ's gold curve is pretty sh*tty these days, and as other people where pointing out in another thread, their influence base is pretty weak also. Also, what happens when Illyrio just dies? Or you run up against a Baratheon Rush deck that doesn't give two ***** about their non unique characters? Or a Stark Murder deck that runs lots of beefy chuds like Bastard's Elite and Flayed Men? You just lose, that's what. I think the deck is very strong against certain types, but doesn't come even close to the number of favorable match ups as say GJ Choke or Martell Summer does.

Dobbler said:

This is where I'm coming from, if we had more 1 or 2 cost uniques this wouldn't be as much of an issue. Bring me more cheap unique characters!!!!

Bomb said:

Normally I would agree, but with ambush from the plains, he can easily be brought back from the discard and trigger himself. Also with 3 cost To Be a Dragon can bring him back from the dead pile. So why would you not run 3x of him.

Guarantee you that once he's released and people have time to play with him and six months after he comes out no one is bitching about him.

While his utility is obvious, I'm a little more interested in is if he combos with the other "River" Targs. Griff and Young Griff can trigger Illyrio.

In ADoD, there were 8 characters in total and 6 of them are likely candidates in game. Young Griff enables more come into play effects and Griff is highly repeatable jumping. I'm wondering if the remaining four characters can jump or will have come into play triggers like Illyrio.

While I think Illyrio is quite excellent, Young Griff seems more like pure power creep. He is shadows Tyrion for one less, with a different ability. Tyrion's ability may be strong, but I feel Young Griff's would be just as good without the additional card from shadows thrown on top of it! Really...take that Lanni kneel!

I both hope and worry that the other houses will get cards this strong.

DCRobb said:

Hmm.

The Baratheon character might be "After a challenge results in renown being awarded, this character claims 1 power.".

The Greyjoy character - "After a location is discarded from play during the Challenge phase, choose a character. That character gains Intimidate and +1 STR."

Lannister - "After a character is knelt by a card effect, take 1 gold from the treasury and add it to your own gold pool."

Stark - "After a character's text box is blanked during the Challenge phase, choose a character. That character gains a war crest."

Martell - "After a character loses an icon during the Challenge phase, choose a character. That character gains an icon of your choice."

All until the end of the phase.

I just made all that **** up on the fly for fun.

rhaenys hill + this = madness.

can't wait to see which one gets restricted/banned. lol

wow...does that combo mean that the non-unique opposition will melt before your eyes, provided with sufficient dead characters in opponent's dead pile?

you could only respond once.

Infernarl said:

How so?

It's doesn't say 'one or more', so how is it different from say Core Set Joffrey, or Anguy the Archer during wildfire or valar?

Rave said:

I would expect that both of these will hit the restricted list so that the combo cannot be used.