Dobbler said:

Ive always thought FFG should be printing more low cost uniques like Hot Pie, younger Night Watch dudes, Citadel apprentices, squires and others.

LaughingTree said:

Twn2dn said:

Maybe a bad choice of character examples? Sansa and Arya both have quite playable 2-cost character cards...actually Arya has two, plus Cat O The Canals.

dcdennis said:

Dude this card hasn't even been released yet, just spoiled. You have no idea whetehr or not Greyjoy gets the mill cards you are looking for in this set. Howsabout we wait till the packs start rolling out before we complain about what is and is not released in a set?

And how many unique characters are auto includes in Targ decks anyway? What is the problem with Targ finally getting some decent auto incldues besides Core Set Khal and the new Barristan Selmy anyhow?

Stag Lord said:

Hah, I haven't put either of those characters in any of my Targ decks in a long time. I guess we have different definitions of autoincludes.

I don't think I've built a targ deck w/o Pyat Pree in it since the card came out, but perhaps that's just me...

fhornmikey said:

Definitely not just you.

Dobbler, you don't put Barristan in a burn deck? Or you just haven't built one in a long time?

Penfold said:

+1.

I'm hoping Targ doesn't get too much more burn. But there are a number of themes that need to be more developed in all the houses.

He played a burn deck at the Moonboy on Saturday....

Kennon said:

Wow, I hope he t4ed, I'm really curious to see the list now.

To my point exactly - there still is little consensus on an auto icnlude unique for teh Hosue (though I think popular sentiment has new Selmy as a top tier card). Targ has needed staple uniques for a long time - nice to see Illyrio will fill the role and give the House an auto icnlude.

imrahil327 said:

Yes, I top 4'd. And no, I didn't use Selmy. Still not sure I would. I definitely don't consider him an autoinclude.

Dobbler said:

Ah, but did you play Pyat Pree?

Selmy is great and all, but if I made a list of what I considered the strongest characters in the game he wouldn't make top 10. He might not even make top 20. He's really expensive, for Targ especially given their influence needs.

Viserys and Jhogo are auto-includes. Everything else is negotiable and that includes Pyat Pree.

Illyrio is very good but you still have to build around him. He just provides interesting deck building options.

Selmy you can shoe horn into any Targ deck because Renown is always good and he has a ghastly special ability to help push through challenges. He's still pricy and has no special defensive features.

imrahil327 said:

Top 4 Decklists and tournament coverage will be up on CGDB on Friday.

playgroundpsychotic said:

Its funny - I never run Viserys anymore - and he was a claim soak auto include for ten years (give ro take rotation and legality). i did overlook card draw jhogo in my earlier post. Can't imagine building a serious Targ deck without him.

Hmm, now I'm trying to think who it would be nice to see in the Essos cycle. Most of the spoilers so far seem to have focused on Targ, so we already have a good sense of a few upcoming cards for the House.

*Spoilers for A Dance with Dragons*

Assuming we're sticking to a fairly Nedly, Essos-centric set of characters, we're already getting Griff and Young Griff, so maybe we'll get the rest of their group. Ser Duck would nice to see. Both Jorah, Daario, and Barristan are all strongly thematic, but we've just gotten new versions of all of them in this last cycle, so I'd imagine it's unlikely we'll see them (not impossible though, our two versions of Margaery Tyrell were in back-to-back cycles). The Tattered Prince would be cool to see, maybe like a Lord/Mercenary. Make him Martell/Targaryen. We absolutely need a new, good Strong Belwas, if Strong Belwas does not show up in this cycle then heads will roll. And it'd be nice to have Dany's handmaids get represented as unique characters.

There's also a fair number of native Meereenese options, though I cannot for the life of me remember any of their names (and the ASOIAF wiki seems to be down). Dany's husband is the best option. He should have something to do with Shadows; not be a Shadow card, but give some Shadows synergy, it would reflect on his perfidious nature. I also wouldn't mind seeing a new Dany. Her being crazy badass and riding Drogon needs to be on a card.

alpha5099 said:

Ogawd, new Strong Belwas art:

http://www.gametrademagazine.com/Home/1/1/58/591?articleID=119369

As for others:

Yeah, I would like to see a number of Meereenese. Skahaz mo Kandaq and the Brazen Beasts. The Green Grace. Hizdahr zo Loraq. A new sensible Quaithe to go with a new Sensible Strong Belwas.

Ooo, I'd forgotten that art got spoiled. Yay, Strong Belwas, looking bad~ass!

And yes, I forgot Quaithe, she definitely deserves a new card.

Dobbler said:

He definitely isn't a *bad* card, and is as much fun for his flavor as he is for his card text.

Also, agree with Stag that Viserys isn't an auto-include. I try to keep the number of 1-STR guys to a minimum given Threat from the North, and right now I'm enjoying Shadow Parasites too much to cut.

Twn2dn said:

If you're talking about my KotHH deck which recently won a 40-people tournament (I've checked that the other successful Targaryen deck that won a 25-people tournament, Jef's maesters build, did not include Selmy), I must say that I do not consider Barristan an autoinclude, not even close to the definition of autoinclude. In fact, he has was not in the deck until recently as he's very expensive, both gold cost (and please note that I was playing KotHH and had 2 extra gold) and ability cost. He is, however, an important asset vs Greyjoy and Stark as they don't have many characters with stealth. During the tournament I won he was the key in the semifinal win when I was losing 14-0 vs Stark summer and he had only have to win a power challenge with his cavalry flank to win the game and, although he left me with a very small hand, he forced my opponent's valar and I could show retaliation! and start a big comeback. In spite of this, he is one of the prime candidates to leave the deck for Illyrio when he is available (in my deck, an ambush&burn deck, he'll be great).

Right now, I would only consider Jhogo as an autoinclude, although there are some characters, that are very useful and will show up in many, many decklists (Viserys, dragon thieves, Pyat Pree). Time will tell if Illyrio is another.

I think I'm just bad at building Burn, then I always feel like without Selmy I don't have enough terminal effects to do anything with my deck. My Flame-Kissed always sink to the bottom of my deck randomly, and Dragon Skull always seems to get HCIT'd, so it hasn't been in my deck for a while. Also I find Selmy's renown important to win the game in <1 hr.

I'll third that Viserys hasn't been included in a lot of my targ decks though, and Jhogo is awesome.

For some reason I feel like this Illyrio will go well in my Targaryen Tullys deck. It's an easy quick reduce on their claim to kill the claim soak so they can't toss in a bunch of people to attack me for a challenge victory. And then I can burn the rest of them down. I like it.