I believe that the world will soon be infested with targ burn decks. The new Illyrio is amazing, and he works well with Young Griff and Griff. There are no limitations to Illyrio's ability, so your opponent won't excecute a millitary challenge agianst you, or else you kill Griff, then bring him back to play, inflicting burn on a charater. I have a deck specially reserved for this guy, it has a ton of ambush and burn. What are your thoughts?

It's a powerful card for sure and combos well with Griff; I'd be worried about targeted kill taking away Illyrio, which isn't too difficult given his Ally trait. It also requires you not to run an agenda for the Griff-combo, which can limit your options so much, especially since Burn works well out of multiple agendas. To me, the nastier combo is Dragon Knight - in summer, that means you can spring -3 and killed if strength is 0 from nowhere.

Definitely a powerful card though, I'll certainly be trying to build a burn deck if possible!

Yeah, I guess that's true. Grey Worm might finally see tournament play. Hatchling's feast becomes even more absurdly powerful.

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken said:

Ugh, lets hope we get a better version in BtNS. The one we have now was actually extremely useful in the one or two games I got him into play, but definitely not a good card imo.

Several months ago I predicted burn (the Shadows version of it to be more specific) to dominate the environment in the months to come. I stand by my original statement. Especially if the Sorrowful Man fuss is clarified in favor of the card. Even without it, Shadows burn is top-tier. With SM it's even better. It has a major drawback though: difficult to play. Many things to take notice at any given time. Not a build for everyone to be sure.

Sorrowful Man? What is Sorrowful Man?

The new card http://www.agotcards.org/card/v/4382 , which will change the way our lives go. At least, once the ruling is FAQed to allow to choose only possible options for that card's Response.

I don't haev access to that site. Guess I'll find out down the road. Sounds like a fun card.

Well, it's a Shadows (s0) 2STR, power icon Ally with Targ Only and Dealy. And whole issue was about his text, which reads "Response: After an opponent's character enters play, kneel 2 influence to bring Sorrowful Man out of Shadows and into play. Then, that character's controller must choose to either pay you 1 gold or kill that character."

And as it was found out, you can always choose to pay 1 gold even if you have no gold left (it's one of those hardcore rulings, which make no sense from everyday logic viewpoint), hence making him much weaker than he appears.

Thanks BBSb. It was kind fo you to summarize the card for me.

That ruling is preposterous. Clearly the player should actually have to Pay the gold, or else the character dies. Rules lawyers drive me nuts when they overthink these things. I'm sure FFg will address this.

I hope they do, Stags, but I'm skeptical that they will. This is based on a long, LONG standing ruling.

Remember Consolidation of Power from Westeros? This Sorrowful Man issue is based on the principle established with that card ten years ago. In that case, it was the ability to kneel a character that was already knelt, thus choosing an option that you can't actually do.

For anyone that's confused by the reference, Consolidation of Power was essentially You Killed the Wrong Dwarf without the House Lannister only text.

That ruling also works with pyromancer's apprentice, right?

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken said:

I am not sure. THat one says to pay 1 gold to YOU. I am not sure if it qualifies.

However, things like game of cyvasse work. If you know you aren't going to win, you can kneel an already knelt character. They just don't count towards winning "the game of cyvasse"

It's pretty slim difference in wording, but I'd say that most rules lawyers would argue that the usage of the word "must" in Pyromancer's Apprentice requires the actual fulfillment of the choice.

If ktom or someone comes along now to disprove this and show that we've all been playing the Apprentice wrong for years, my depression in regards to AGOT's rules is going to reach a new low.

There's a significant difference in the wording of the consequences between Sorrowful Man and Pyromancer's Apprentice:

SM has the word choose while PA does not (at least not in the consequences portion).

The Pyromancers Apprentice comparison was already made here and ktom did not indicate that we have been playing it incorrectly. I dont have the card in front of me, but I'm pretty sure PA does not use the word "choose"

"That location's controller must pay 1 gold to you or discard that location from play. "

There is no choice in with the Apprentice.