Mathias Fricot said:

I would be plenty happy without these types of decks, but I realize some people like to play them. (Baratheon rush is a bit like that...I've never enjoyed it, but some people love it.) The problem is when every match up begins to feel like this...what you draw in the first round (or if you happened to flip the right/wrong plot) may win/lose you the game. The Seige deck is built around a single concept with a particular strength and many weaknesses. The same is not true of the run-of-the-mill Martell summer, Targaryen maester, Lannister PbtT, or Stark Wildlings decks. These are all just solid decks that use game-swinging effects to create non-interactive situations that maul the opponent. If the Stark deck pulls off its 2-claim military + Die by the Sword + No Quarter, the Lanni player loses; if the Lanni pulls of Frey Hospitality + Terminal Schemes, the Stark player loses. I'm over-simplifying, but it's typically pretty predictable...we know Stark will typically win military against a PbtT deck, and a Lanni will win intrigue against the same deck. It really comes down to luck, and possibly whoever wins initiative. And if it were just the situation where every house had a particularly good/bad match up, that would be one thing...but the bigger problem if the lack of interactivity in a game that revolves around uber effects.

Again, I'm not saying we've reached the point that everything is doom and gloom, only that we're moving in the wrong direction, and that concerns me.

While I agreed with the OP's initial argument in the cardgamdb post, I was a little bit turned off by some of the cards mentioned later, and in this thread. The Hatchlings' Feast? Core Robert Baratheon? It made me feel that the suggestion was actually much more radical than you initally let on,

And Dragon Thief? In what way is Dragon Thief making the game feel like an unplayable straight-jacket for the opponent?

Hmm... I included Core Bob in my list, just for the sake of even-handedness. Since like Twn2dn explicitly pointed out, and I tried to emphasize in my list by including cards from all houses, the issue is NOT about house balance. Period. Like someone pointed out on CardgameDB, the houses are probably the most balanced they've ever been. This is nicely illustrated by some of the tournament results in both Spain and the US. It's just that there's much less game in a game. In a way, we have all six sorts of cake, they are all just starting to taste the same to a worrisome extent. No doom, but maybe just a little gloom.

Here's how I see it:

DISCLAIMER: All of these scenarios are optimal situations, not average results. They're here mainly to illustrate the direction in which the environment has shifted.

Well constructed Aggro decks (Siege, PbtT, Bara-Stark-Lanni Knights) can hit you round one for 3+ characters, 1-2 locations and 2+ cards from your hand. If this beatdown hurts you enough, you'll never recover, even if the game drags on. There's of course some deviations within the group (Bara will steal that third character instead of killing it and gather power simultaneously but may not be able to hit the discard, Lanni will hit for a larger discard etc.). A decent portion of these decks will run Fear of Winter on round 1 if they have better board position.

Well constructed Rush decks will win round 1-2, even though sometimes the game might last 1-3 plots more after that. Usually these can't be Valar'd or aggro'd to death due to Power of Blood (or other saves), so if they get far enough ahead, only a pure control lock will stop them.

Control decks can lock the game down from round 1-2... (Twn2dn or someone with better experience on Martell/Targ should check my details here) A second round Threat from the North + Hatchling's Feast + Supplemental Burn should help Targ keep the board next to empty from round 2 on out. Martell challenge control should be able to start getting a lock around rounds 1-2. I think Lannister kneel is still a bit less efficient nowadays, so it will require a bad setup from your opponent for a round 1 lock (or perhaps a high gold production setup + Valar)... more like round 2-3. Probably why we're seeing less of kneel right now. GJ Choke will get your gold production locked and important locations discarded around round 1-2... after that it's just waiting/baiting for the Valar (after which you will be struggling to keep anything on the table, unless you were able to pull some characters through the Valar + triggered effect cancels on saves).

TLS-based combo decks can reduce you to 1 or 4 cards in hand during the first plot phase. (The combo here is based on Citadel Law and TLS... Ire tested it out, and I think it was firing off at around 40+%, unless your opponent could interrupt it. There's ways of interrupting it, naturally, but still you have to draw them and the first action before plots is decided on a coin-toss...)

Satin + Killer of the Wounded + Lyanna + First Ranger should still be able to mill your deck on round 1.

If Maester's get ahead in the start, they will get too many chains off the agenda and you won't be able to Valar them down due to Outwit. The draw + utility + strength from the chains will wither you away, although the exact flavor will be quite different for the houses.

Here's where I see it leads to:

- Double solitaire. Interesting back and forths happen less and less. Games are decided much earlier (which does not relate directly to the actual number of rounds).

- Over-emphasized importance of Setups and initial hand. Bad setup and initial hand? You lose. Optimal pieces together? You win. This leads to a very high number of 0-1 gold characters/locations in all decks, and too often after seeing your opponents setup and your own hand you will know that the game is over. This is the reason I was commenting on the power-weenies and Fear of Winter.

- Only non-setup optimized decks that can make it in this environment are Targ and Martell KotHH (Control, naturally). This is mainly due to 1) the ability to play the first round with zero characters on the table due to powerful swing effects, 2) overall power-level of control effects. The smaller number of cards can be made up by their quality (not many locations taking up space, ability to run lots of powerful events, since they don't have to worry about setup). Maybe, just maybe, GJ could also run with KotHH... but I don't really honestly think so.

I see some incoherence in that analysis:

If Aggro deck are winning cause they can play 2/3 powerful events in first round, how are they getting good setups? being setup the main phase of the game, as your post defends, WWDrakey. I don't think a deck can average good setups (5 cards or more) with icon variety and a good number of events, so that situation shouldn't be happening often enough.

It would suck to have such environment, but we are not there.

I think restricted list as is right now is working well. If Targ is a problem, having some ease to play Feast+Threat, then the simple solution should be to add one of those to the restricted list, if they still are a problem, restrict both, if Burn is still problematic then try restricting flame kissed, and so on.

The restricted list has a deeper impact over the game that it seems. Let's pick Martell as an example. Martell has been getting restrictions with each faq during last year, to the point you know Martell will "never" run fury, val, fear, etc. Those restrictions actually limited the chance of having theme deck playing at high level. You could try, before restricted list, a Martell Aggro with Knights of the Realm, Fear, VBlade, Bannersmen, Narrow, etc. It was weaker than standard summer build, but it was still good. You remove Fear, Vblade, Bannersmen and narrow and you have now no chance of making a good deck with Dayne/Knights.

Op suggest a downgrade in power affecting all the houses, this way, as the previous deck won't be facing hyper optimal builds, if can have a chance. But whatever the restrictions are, there will always be a hyper efficient build, and by having the general efficiency toned down I can only see the gap between decks widening, as some themes need too many cards in place to be viable and others don't, so we will be like at the start of the game, having Lannister winning just cause the other houses can't even try to draw, or another unfair, no fun, advantage, like being unable to discard location.

This said, I can see how playing against an efficient control build, well piloted, isn't fun for a newbie. Competitive control decks (haven't seem a competitive rush tier 1 build in years) live on not allowing the opponent do nothing, so if the control get his lock there is usually no way back, but there is some space in deck designing to look for potencial problems and include disruption against those locks. Any aggro deck can run fear, hand's judgement, forgotten plans, etc. The same as control can run Loyalty, Shadows and spiders, etc. The tools are out there for all of us.

Jef said:

Good question, I'll explain this a bit more tightly then:

The basics of course are, that the number of cards to be setupped depends mainly on the number of 0-1 gold non-limited locations and characters in your deck. After the first 3+ gold character in your hand at that point, the next one will be unsetuppable. 2 gold cost characters help as well, but they don't really affect this nearly as much as the 0-1 costs, those are the ones GUARANTEEING you a good setup, really. Additionally, every single card in there that is either 4-5 gold or not setuppable at all is a liability.

Now, the first thing you have to do is get rid of all the useless fluff, and only run non-setup cards with a huge impact (either direct removal or some kind of powerful anti-Valar tech). Usually this is done by removing ALL attachments from the deck. This also removes any 'weakness' to Tin Link, so that's an added bonus. Then you run as wide a number of 0 gold cards as you can. Seas, refugees and then other 0 gold resource providers available to your house (Streets, Flea Bottom etc.) and limit yourself to ~4-6 limited cards.

Here, let's look at examples:

- Zeiler's recent deck

- Clu's recent inquisitor deck

- My own Stahleck deck

None of them run any attachments. Clu's approach is a bit different to mine and Zeiler's (more events and also denial/blank events... but then he has the highest number of weenies to compensate). I'm pretty sure all three of those decks will setup around 4-6 cards usually, with maybe 1 or 2 events in hand at the time of setupping. The combination of redrawing those 4-6 cards and the draw on round 1 (knight decks draw one extra card on round 1) will make sure they have 2-3 powerful removal events/locations in hand during the first challenge phase, which in combination with the 2-claim starting plot will guarantee the numbers I was talking about. Usually the first challenge that hits your table hard will be able to guarantee the execution of the second 2-claim challenge, by clearing the way.

I think I had at least two games with my deck at Stahleck, that would fit the description I made. Even though it's a tiny bit different, in that it doesn't actually need as good a setup, since it can flood the board on round 1 through Royal Entourage's and Seat of Power... but vice versa may suffer in a direct aggro vs . aggro with a first round Fear of Winter (and I of course wasn't running FoW, since TLS was still restricted).

Thanks for the explanation .

My comment was aimed at noticing this is not the usual outcome, you can include every cost 0 ans 1 available to you, still you won't average a five cards flop if you start using another powerful cards like Meera (yeah, I'm thinking Stark, as they have Hungry Mob, no quarter and crest to play Die by the Sword), northern cavalry flank, frozen solid, blackfish, etc.

If you are not including those powerful cards, then you can't play Die nor Price, as there are no war crest at cost 0 or 1. Assuming you indeed are playing and paying those cards, then your setup cannot guarantee board advantage against a random deck. If you have into account the slots you use in events, the outlook start looking even worse. Then you start accounting for the high % of characters in deck to minimize the chance of not drawing a char in a 2 draw turn (the usual one with stark, or are you devoting deck space to draw too?) and the result is you can't reliably play 2 events on the first turn after winning a mil challenge while meeting the events restrictions (war or unique char). And we're not considering the rival, why can't he win the challenge? why can't he remove the crest char? why shall he has 2 good non-limited locations ready to his price? why hasn't he played a plot that can protect him?

So my point is, those decks don't perform well so shouldn't have any weight while talking about competitive play, which is not dictated by those plays.

Now, if you are talking about a well built Stark siege deck, with maybe 5 events, getting that strong play on a game, well, that happens, but not often enough to the point of warping the game.

Jef said:

I really have to comment this part here, sorry. The decks linked previously had a winning tournament deck, a theoretical deck that will do well in competitive environment and a deck that was at top 32 in a tournament of 100+ players. These builds are optimal and do have average of 5 card setups

There is also the factor that it's not completely about how many characters you can table at setup (you still have the cheap locations aswell), but how powerful those characters are. We currently have very powerful weenies and some of those high cost characters that you mentioned, like flank will make it sure that if your deck is optimised it will give you the table presence that a few weenies would.

aggro =/= stark siege. I have been running for ages a gj/wildling aggro, every house that can run kotr agenda can run aggro out of it well and stark has several different kind of aggro builds, heck even lannister PBtT can be build to be aggro.

The main point here is that these aggro builds are ramping up the game and setup speeds to a point where even control and rush have to have completely optimised setups to be competitive. This thing on the other hand has been counterbalanced by giving more powerful effects for the control and thus raising the whole powerlevel of the entire game and getting it closer to power creep. Before this it usually took control decks nearly 3 turns to get their lock on the game, now on a good day they can do it in 1st turn. So there effectively is less playing and player interactions than before in one game.

A point that hasn't necessarily been made is the increased complexity of deck-building, and requirements to know more about a card that isn't printed on it. If the game was printed with certain cards being "restricted" (on the card), this wouldn't be an issue, but what you're proposing is a large pool of powerful cards which a player (especially a new player!) has to look up every time he builds a deck. This seems like a convoluted way to solve power creep - and one I'm very hesitant to get behind.

I follow your arguments and don't disagree with any in particular; I think power creep is inevitable in an LCG system (even if a small subset of cards are only slightly more powerful, over a large enough card pool only these cards will be used), I think that the result is more matches decided earlier in the game.

While I brought up some arguments against what I'm about to propose in the "rotation" thread, I feel it warrants more discussion:

A player-determined limited cardpool for deck construction. If decks can only be constructed with (for example) cards from One coreset, two Deluxe expansions and 3 CPs of the player's choice, we limit power creep (somewhat) without having to constantly refer to a changing list of banned or restricted cards. Suddenly Refugees aren't auto-includes. It effectively acts as a "legendary" pool or expanded restricted list. I can run Val and TLS, sure, but picking the DoTN pack is probably going to limit my plot deck, I'm unlikely to run Refugees, and chances are pretty good I won't be running "Retaliation" or Shadows Bob. The advantage is that the rules for deck construction are simple; not card specific, but by cardset - which IS printed on the cards and it also adds a strategic element to play; recognizing what CPs have been played from and what tools the deck might have.

It also would somewhat mitigate the entry costs for players - they'd be at less of a disadvantage with an incomplete cardpool (although still at a little one), and mitigate the poor availability of the earlier two CPs, as well as open up an interesting design space for a) reprinted cards, b) agendas that change the deckbuilding restrictions (One less CP, but can build a 45 card deck = more combo support, but tighter card pool?) (One more CP available, but smaller hand?). c) Weaker cards (Eg, a new CP could be printed with 1-cost refugees instead of 0, but they'd still see play depending on what other cards are available in that CP).

-

Well, every deck you can show will have few attachtments and will try to be optimized for setup, that's a fact.

But, I guess Zeller's deck wasn't aiming at a too short game, else he wouldn't play 3xBear Island and 2xHarrenhal, those being at the slow side of the curve. Further analysis show us he just played 7 characters at costs 0-1, while at the same time he runs 16 characters of cost 3 or more. He runs 10 events too, so while I think this is a perfectly fine deck, I think too it isn't a good example of a really strong deck at setup, note he isn't using any street, a staple at setup. He can make a good one and play the events, but he can make a slower one and work his way to the victory. If this is an example of how little interactive the game is beginning to be... then I think i don't get the point.

Your Bara deck gets a similar analysis, 6 limited locations, only 6 locations al 0 cost, 10 events... The presence of See Who Is Stronger suggest you didn't expect to win by round 2, else you wouldn't be wasting slots on slow cost 1 limited reductors and events, while you could be playing non limited 0-cost reducers and having bay of ice instead of the See. Those choices, favoring a faster game, would argue your point, we gamers are increasing deck speed at all costs. But choices you made tell me you tought otherwise.

So... what's the point, again? Aggro builds are built to endure the first turn, as they know they can't hope to win by turn 2 or 3 most of the time. Maybe Valar isn't what it was before Search&Detain, and aggro has become more popular as a consequence, but I'm not really seeing a 2-players solitaire game here.

I Don't know why this 3 cp discussion keeps coming up as less annoying than looking at a restricted list during deck building? I think resorting my 2000'ish cards by cycle would be much more of a nightmare and/or more heavily require deck building tools to keep track of.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure it doesn't help theme builds that are currently weaker than pure mechanic/calico decks because those themes (traits) are scattered all over the effing cardpool.

RobotMartini said:

~You are right, we were not thinking of you having to resort your cards... That is a big issue...

It wouldn't be that tough. Many of the card spoiler engines do it by block...oh, and I heard the cards actually have the CP set bug on them as well!

Yeah, theme decks are having a tough time...Maesters, Brotherhood, Wildlings...I don't see them doing well at all. And how do you even make Stark Murder with only 3 CP's, the Stark Box and the Core set? Probably impossible.

WWDrakey said:

For the record, this combo doesn't work. First Ranger is Unique character only so cannot be placed on Killer of the Wounded.

RobotMartini said:

Agree. Much easier to look at a list of maybe twenty cards then to sort by block. Plus (again) you have many more cards still playable. Teh List is the better way to go than even CP restriction. .

I strongly disagree!

The restricted list of 10-20 cards isn't so bad - but with additional CPs, the list WILL increase in size. In fact, the list proposed by Twn2dn would be a fair bit longer. Many people here have proposed "legendary lists" or a second list from which you can pick two (or more cards). Regardless of which solution, you'll either start with, or end up with (given time) a long list of things to keep in mind that are NOT printed on the cards.

The "X CPs" deckbuilding restriction is one that never has to change - regardless of how many cards are in the cardpool. Many of the themed (Dayne, Direwolves, Brotherhood, Wildlings, Night's Watch, Maesters) would still be quite playable (or at least... no less playable), as they're concentrated in specific CPs. Future CP design could be balanced around what cards (total) they offer the house, not which cards (specifically) they add to the house. It also means the deck building restrictions dont have to change every time a card becomes an auto-include, as the system is more self-correcting than the restricted list (not that some cards wouldn't have to be restricted).

Between the two choices i would take the chapter pack/cycle option over further restricting more cards.

But at the end of the day thay are both terrible ideas.

I'd be fine with restricting more cards, especially on a seperate list, but I definetly would only want the great cards on that list. Not every decent card in the game.

To go against the grain, I played a game today where first round I lost 2 characters, 1 card from hand, and 3 locations from the first challenge phase. Hurt me and part of me wanted to throw in the towel there, and the rest of the game didn't go perfectly for me either, by the end my opponent had 3 pyromancer cache in play and me with no attachment hate. I was playing a summer deck and my black raven got shuffled back into my deck at least twice. I guess it goes without saying that I won, does that mean I am an amazing player, nope it just means that with a control deck you can come back from a terrible opening round.

Most of the games that are decided early on are between the aggro decks or rush decks, they try to win in the first round, but if they don't they have an uphill battle. Even sometimes when they get that dream setup that has been mentioned here, Fear of winter+epic battle+calvary flank or something like that, it is still possible to beat them if you don't put your head between your legs and count the plot until you can restart the game.

@Jef:

First of all, I had the large 'DISCLAIMER' text on top of that list for a clear reason. Those are mock results from your deck functioning 'as it should', instead of what it does on average (which necessarily lags behind). The point I was making was about what aggro decks are generally capable of nowadays. Not what they consistently do every game. And what this should be compared to, is what they were capable of, throughout the history of the LCG (I only started with the beginning of the LCG, so someone from the CCG side could chime in here, with how it was back then). Similarly all of the other decktypes should be compared primarily against their historical efficiency.

Regarding the inclusion of the stabilizing (See Who Is Stronger, Narrow Escape) and repeatable hurt effects (Bear Island) within Aggro decks, those serve mainly to help you MAINTAIN the advantage that you create at the beginning of the game. Most Aggro decks will take quite a while (3-5 plots maybe) to eventually close the game (Wildling-aggro decks even longer), so they need to have elements that will help them retain that achieved board position even against control decks. I guess this is slightly different than in Stark Siege, which is actually capable of closing the game after a fast start much better. Still, I would think that Stark Sieges could also do with justa slight bit more of cards that help maintain the obtained advantage. Similarly Bara also has a slightly easier time due to the added powergain, while Lanni Aggro should be able to last better in long games due to the efficient draw.

And yeah, while those decks I pointed out are optimized for good setups (something like 4-5, 6 being rarer) they aren't NEARLY as setup-optimized as a good Siege deck will be. I think Humber's deck at Stahleck had at least 13 0-1 gold cost characters, and all of his 12 locations are also 0-1 cost, with only 3 limiteds. But then most Stark Sieges are built solely to run with the first round Fear of Winter... while Aggro from other houses will more rarely do this (less bang for your buck, due to weaker weenies, no direct powergain from Agenda and more reliance on non-epic battle events). They may still run with FoW, but that is not always the first round plot (Retaliation! being another good choice, for example). Still, in comparison to Humber's 25 0-1 gold setuppable cards, my Stahleck deck had 24 0-1 gold setuppable cards (only 1 less) and the larger difference is in the limiteds (I was running 6, due to needing the influence... I tested the deck out with Frozen Sea, but eventually went with the fiefdom) and running 2 copies of one unique location (Hook). Funnily enough, my Bara decks setups were mostly hurt by the large number of 3 gold characters in there, instead of running more 2 golds... But this is largely due to Seat of Power and Royal Entourage making Bara Aggro function sligthly differently, and not running a first round FoW.

@Penfold:

I KNEW there was a reason, why I should have put Rhaegar's Harp in there instead of First Ranger. Thanks! Was bugging me, but I haven't played a lot with First Ranger and was too lazy to check it. More fool me.

SirDuck said:

Thankfully, such games still happen.

If we were at a point, where this wouldn't happen any more, the game would be in a truly terrible state, really.

And yeah, I've seen people lose simply due to the 'shock and awe' of a first turn beating, when they could still have had a chance to stay in the game with a cool head.

And I'm not even sure that control decks are the ONLY ones capable of climbing back from a disadvantage, although they have a much higher aptitude for it.

SirDuck said:

Hmm... I guess Aggro is one of those disambiguous terms, that people understand differently. To me it has always meant a character and challenge-centric way of playing, which starts out strong and tends to use plenty of 2-claim plots and run as many direct removal effects as it can. Characters are also valued more by their effectiveness in challenges, than synergy or tricky abilities. This however doesn't really relate directly to winning the game fast... I'd claim that all or most of the 3-6 Agenda decks with Wildlings were Aggro, but they sure as hell didn't win fast. I still remember one of the Luxemburg guys at Stahleck 2010 commenting on his 6-Agenda Stark deck, and saying that he sees most of his plots more than once every game. XD

Now Rush is different beast entirely (concentrates more on getting ahead than disrupting your opponent), but I can see that your run-of-the-mill Siege decks muddle this middle ground quite a bit, since they do both things at the same time.

And I'm not sure if it's Aggro vs. Aggro games that mainly get decided on round 1... although Knight mirrors usually DO get decided during Setup and Control vs. Control games are arguably the ones with the most push and pull during a game, so I can see the basis for that argument.

And by the way - given how powerful control is (and always has been) in this agem: you cna't build a Rush deck without some defense. at least a couple fo Paper Shields, Bastard x 2 or so - stuff liek that. becuase it is still way too easy for even a fast start to be dsirupted by just oen or two plays form your opponent.

Twn2dn,

I think the idea sounds fascinating. Have you considered trying it out in your meta? Jointly writing up a list and then seeing how it plays out for a few weeks? I'd love to know how that would work out.