I think Cat o' the Canals needs one of the following two errata:

1. House Stark Only
2. Change "No attachments except a single Weapon" to "No attachments except a single [stark] or neutral Weapon".

I currently only play standard format and there are three weapons in that format that would make her an out of house monster.

Firstly consider 3 Cat o' the Canals & 3 War Scorpion in a Martell deck. It will cost you 6 gold, less if you use Under One Banner or another reducer, but once it's out you have a freaking Juggernaut! They can't target the character to spoil the attachment as is usually the case. They can only discard the attachment or prevent it's triggered response. With this combo you can defend any challenge with her alone and kill all other participants after it's resolution. They can't stealth you or remove your icons, they can't stop you from defending (Wex Pyke, Cersei Lannister ITE). A PttQ would usually prevent it but Martell are strong on intrigue challenges and targetted card discard fits in quite well too (Confession, Ghost of High Heart, Varys).

Now look at the usefulness of the Cat o' the Canals dupes. Normally dupes are of questionable value because the character can be killed rendering the dupe a dead card. With Cat o' the Canals the dupes become 0-cost military claim soak that cannot be countered, quite useful in Martell. Usually you have weenies or saves to deal with claim soak. Weenies can be killed before claim with various effects and saves can be cancelled which often results in a more valuable character dying. The dupe is a save that can't be cancelled.

Second possibility, use Cat o' the Canals, Driftwood Cudgel & Greyjoy Master at Arms in a Greyjoy deck for slaughter of non-uniques. With the Greyjoy Master at Arms in play the Cudgel won't be going anywhere ... or at least not for long.

Thirdly, Cat o' the Canals & Aegon's Blade in a Targaryen deck. Now you have an untouchable tricon character with 3 STR, Stealth & Renown. You can never remove that renown power (it's LCG legal too). Hmmm, now that I think about it there are a fair few cards that would allow you to transfer power to her where it's nice and safe. Add Cat o' the Canals to an Infamy deck with Wardens of the Reach and you can make all of your power untouchable. So I guess another errata is in order: "power may not be placed on this card".

Ok, so I think she should get the following two errata:
1. Change "No attachments except a single Weapon" to "No attachments except a single [stark] or neutral Weapon".
2. "Power may not be placed on this card"

She would still be quite formidable in a Stark deck with these changes, Ice & Cold Steel combo nicely with her. Greyjoy unopposed hate her too.

What do you guys think?

I think we need to play with it before we start calling for errata. How do you know your solutions will work?

Bah! Forgot to include links to the cards I talked about. The forum won't let me edit my post. Here are the links:

• Cat o' the Canals
• War Scorpion
• Driftwood Cudgel , Grey Garden Master-at-Arms (I called it Greyjoy Master at Arms before)
• Aegon's Blade
• Wardens of the Reach
• Ice , Cold Steel

I think you cannot use the combo with War Scorpion since she is immune only to opponents card efects so if you play the war scorpion you would kill her as well and I think that a single Weapon is limited enough, and I wont play 3 Aegons Blades in my deck just to have this combo posible to come together. So I can see no reason why errata.

Does Immune to Opponent's Card Effects include keywords like Deadly or Stealth, or passive effects from cards like Moment of Glory?

JerusalemJones said:

Yes it does. If I have understand it it right only Claim, and Claim Replacements can kill her for example Pyat Pree. So these card is too good in my opinion.

JerusalemJones said:

Anything that happens because of card text instead of rules text (and game sequence) would be considered a card effect. Keywords are card text - although they are shorthand that is explained by rules text.

I´m with Ktom, before calling for an errata we should finally get the chance to play the card. At the moment i really can´t see why Cat o´ the canals should be that strong - yes, i will play her in a Stark deck, but i think i would still prefer 5KE Arya with house umber berserkers and icy catapult and all the other good cards.

If weapon attachments are a problem, it would probably be better to ask for some decent forms of attachment removal for all houses and not for the errata of Cat. So as long as City of bones is a classic card i doubt that Cat o´the canals will be a real problem.

I think she needs the errata as well. Or she should be frakking immune to the owner's card effects as well.

This is a case where I don't need to play with or against the card to see where this is heading.....

ktom said:

Pardon me for asking, but there's a seed of doubt in my mind. So would she be immune to Pyat Pree and the like, or not?

@Kennon: No, she isn´t immune to Pyat Pree´s ability or claim replacement in general. - We had other examples in the past proofing how that kind of immunity works - e.g. Arianne Martell (ITE) and knife in the back.

Kennon said:

Remember - immunity only protects from direct action. Pyat Pree and the like work on claim, which then works on the character. To be immune to Pyat, you'd need to be immune to claim.

a staple ccg rule, and especially in agot, is that there should be a 'reasonable' and direct way to counter-act a single card. What made jaqen 'broken' more than anything was his stalwart ability, which allowed decks that were designed entirely around him to be viable.

what we have in cat o' the canals is a single card that is even more resilient than jaqen. she may not be an unstoppable force in the limited card pool of league play, but in standard or classic, she can break the game.

Sithlord Threadkiller said:

I thought it was Intimidate that made Jaqen broken, and the +1 STR ability. Personally I really hate Stalwart, as it clogs my card draw.

JerusalemJones said:

the intimidate and +1 str made him a strong character but the stalwart essentially made him 'unkillable' and the basis behind making decks around him. ahot tywin and promo ilyn payne have similarly strong abilities, but without the stalwart your deck will fizzle when they hit the dead pile.

Oh, I dunno. All in all, I don't think my deck did poorly most of the time when Tywin died, or even when I never drew him. Of course, I can't say that he died all that often....

@ktom

I didn't mean that we should push for the card to actually recieve an errata before coming out. I just wanted people to weigh in on whether they think it's overpowered and, if so, what they think would be better. I think it's reasonable to have a discussion like this before the card comes out, because if there's a strong consensus that there are problems with the card then it might be dealt with sooner after release than it would be otherwise. Also it's fun.

@rozy

Yeah you're right. War Scorpion wouldn't work like I thought. Scrap that one.

I've seen a number of cards that people thought were over powered on the face of it end up barely making top decks. I've seen cards people dismissed become staples, and eventually getting nerfed. And the there are those everyone knew was strong and got nerfed eventually.

I personally think it is ridiculous to propose errata before you have had a chance to even see the card in action. As to nerfing it for classic combos... won't happen from FFG. They don't support the format so why would they create a rule for it? In a Legacy format it isn't easily breakable, you'd have to dedicate your deck to it... hard to do with one copy of the key card and one copy for each weapon you might put on her.

On Raven's Wings, followed by Scouring the Vaults (or Benjen's Cache) will get both cards for the combo. And now that can be done during the same turn with the right cards (Bran, the Rookeries, Tides of War). But that still doesn't mean that I want to see her errata'd. What I hate most about erratas is that you need to remember each one, which is tough. Sure, I remember VED Jon Snow has "No Attachments except Weapon," but I don't remember the one for Longship Iron Victory. Or the Eyrie. Or dozens of others, mostly because I don't play with them.

one of our players, Slio9, put it pretty well: A card should never receive Power Errata. Leave it as it is, or ban it. An errata to weaken a card weakens the game. And it is pretty true. Either live with your mistakes or ban them, but to errata nerf a card that snuck through the playtest process (like the mega-text that was originally added to Jaqen, and often actually made him better in some deck types) just confuses the game, and alienates new players -- if they even bother to play the card the way it became nerfed.

I hope we can all agree that this card is overpowered on the face of it. We;ll just have to suffer through a few months of it being Jaquen like in appearance until it gtes nerfed or banned. I was pretty pleased with the way Jaquen was handled - I am confident FFG will address this down the road.

Geez - i'm actually kind of glad no one plays Classic or Legacy at the moment. Thsi card would completely dominate in those formats. WTF were they thinking?

i'm still trying to see how much damage she can do by herself with a SINGLE attachment on her....

her + Aegon's Blade (targ tricon sword) does not equal Jaquen...(she doesn't get stronger the more she wins challenges and you have paid 6 for a 3 STR solid Char)

other then not being able to remove her (outside of assination) i'm missing how she is going to dominate anything. If i devote a deck to her she will be strong...but wouldn't the same be said of CS bobby with a sword or two on him?

Stag Lord said:

On the face of it? Sure. She's powerful. And probably more powerful than people think on first look (think of JJ's comment in another thread that he was unsure if he wanted to pay 2 for a 1-STR, even if she is a tricon; of course, that was probably when he was thinking Den of the Wolf trumped her). And I whole-heartedly agree that "immune to card effects" is a dangerous design territory. I'm waiting on the "overpowered" verdict for myself, though, until I have had a chance to really try to break her.

Time will tell, and you are right that we're going to have to put up with some interesting months before the verdict is completely in.

ktom said:

'twas me.

Lars said:

~ Well, when you get old like me, your memory will probably suffer, too.

Sorry JJ.

No comparison with I&F Robert + Sword. Any character that can be rmeoved by teh opponent is inherently weaker than this card.

Funny - someone reminded me yesterday that i siad back when the Mance deck was all the rage that if they ever printed a character Immune to Plot effects I woudl concede that the game had jumped the shark.

Um

I'm not ready to say that yet, but like ktom says, we are really in dangerous design territory here. I'll wait to see how bad this gets, but I'm extremely nervous baout this card.