Hey all, great community here. I am impressed. Only been playing for a short period but moderately obsessed already. I searched the forums but couldn't find a link to definitions of terms I here or read often either on podcasts or on forums. Terms that refer to deck types like "Choke", "Kneel", "Burn", stuff like that. I would very much appreciate it if anyone could run off the most commonly used terms, any that you can think of, with a short definityion and maybe the houses that generally run those types of decks. Thanks so very much.

Oh, one more thing if the community is feeling generous in replying to a newb like myself….so far in my limited experience with my group, Lanni clansmen decks have been very strong. But, doing some research it seems these are not as competitive with more experience players. Is there a simple means to beating a Lanni Clansmen deck that I am just overlooking or does it come down to just lack of experience on my part?

Thanks in advance for your answers. Very impressed with the game and the community so far.

Choke: A strategy (usually out of Greyjoy) that denies resources to the opponent. Common 'choke' cards: The Sparr, White Raven, Burned & Pillaged, as well as anything that knocks out resource locations (e.g. Newly-Made Lord)

Kneel: A strategy (usually out of Lannister) that focuses on kneeling an opponent's important characters in order to push through challenges. Common kneel cards: Enemy Informer, You Killed the Wrong Dwarf, Castellan of the Rock, Lannisport Brothel

Burn: A strategy (usually out of Targaryen) that focuses on challenge control & killing an opponent's characters through strength reduction effects. Common burn cards: Flame-kissed, Forever Burning, Incinerate, Hatchling's Feast, the plot Threat from the North

Rush: A strategy (often but not always out of Baratheon) that focuses on quick power grab using the Renown keyword. Common rush cards: Stannis Baratheon, Robert Baratheon, Melisandre (RoO)

Hope those help, others can jump in with other terms, or you can post some more that you've heard.

Re: Clansmen, they can definitely be scary and deceptively strong- Tyrion Lannister from LotR and some of the claim-raising effects they have can play havoc on an opponent. That said, there are two things that Clansmen can struggle a bit with: First, their characters are often somewhat expensive, so a choke strategy can deny them sufficient resources to play their best characters, or a kneel deck can easily neutralize the one or two threats that they can afford. Second, many of their most potent effects rely on having fewer cards in hand than the opponent. This is somewhat of a double-edged sword, as it requires precise control and effects that let you lower your hand size, while still getting proper throughput of your deck using some sort of draw mechanic.

That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much.

A couple more…."Nedly", "Shagga", and Mill.

Thanks again.

Nedly comes from Eddard Stark's nickname; it means "in line with the books' background", from what I've gathered.

Shagga is the name of a character (Shagga, son of Dolf); I'm not quite sure what it means as a qualifier (but it's probably related to the character, who routinely threatens to cut off people's manhoods and feeding them to the goats).

Milling means discarding cards from a deck (it comes from an M:tG card called Mill, which had that effect).

To elaborate a little more, Mill (coming from the MTG card Mill Stone ) in AGOT is a strategy used almost exclusively by Greyjoy, and tries to gain benefits from cards being discarded from your opponents deck. Typical cards that mill are Motley Crewman, Bloodthirsty Crew and Desperate Looters. Cards that take advantage of mill are Corpse Lake and Fishmonger's Square.

While Khudzlin was correct about the two names, the more common use for them around here is as follows:

There are three psychographic profiles, or ways of describing the type of decks that players like to play- Ned, Shagga and Jaime.

A Ned (or Nedly*) player prefers above all to play decks that closely mirror the situations in the book. For instance, even if it improved the deck, a nedly player would never consider adding a Lannister card to a Stark deck.

A Shagga player prefers to play combo decks, focusing more on splashy effects or combinations of effects. It is often possible for a Shagga player to enjoy a game quite thoroughly even while losing badly, if he is able to get his combos off effectively and show off his cool tricks.

A Jaime player is the type who likes to win at all costs. He does not care what house he plays or what cards are in his deck as long as they give him the best chance to win the game and eventually the tournament.

*It should be noted that Nedly is also used to describe the text of cards- as in "That card has a very Nedly ability," meaning that the card's function is very similar to how its namesake acted in the books.

Thanks for your great responses. Very in depth. I will ask more when I come up with them.

imrahil327 said:

Ultimately, Shagga decks tends to do one thing very well without a lot of versatility. That doesn't really describe all combo decks, particularly when a large combo is built of many smaller combos (exhibiting the versatility, efficiency, and adaptability normally associated with the Jaime archetype). Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you are up against a combo deck, you are not up against a Ned or Jaime player. Pretty much any deck archetype can be played by any player archetype.

Huh, I've never thought of Siege as a Shagga deck before. Thanks for the clarification!

A little more background info on the player archetypes (Ned, Shagga, and Jaime): They were first defined by the original game designer to explain the development process . They were originally the player approaches to the game - and what keeps them interested - that designers keep in mind when developing new cards. They have evolved and many players/pundits use them to talk about the way players approach developing decks and the strategies they tend to use when designing/playing their decks. But they were originally meant to talk about the audiences for whom designers develop cards.

Shagga was originally the "Timmy" of the AGoT world (an M:tG reference). The original archetype was more generically defined as the player that enjoys the game for cool mechanics (requiring a designer to keep finding new mechanics, or new ways to use old ones, to keep his interest) and will tend to focus - sometimes overly so - on their favorite mechanics and effects. You can see where that evolved into "combo decks," but it also describes something like a Siege deck, focusing almost entirely on the military challenge, declaring as many as possible, and exploiting them when you do.

Point is, whether you are a "Ned," "Shagga," or "Jaime" player, that doesn't really equate to whether, as a player, you favor "aggro," "combo," or "control" deck types. A Ned or a Jaime is just as likely to build a Siege deck as a Shagga. (That's mostly because Siege is better defined as an "aggro" deck than a Shagga or a Jaime deck; heck, done right, they can be very Nedly, too.)

"Aggro"?

bara2424 said:

Aggro is not a thrones-specific term, and it could have a couple different meanings within AGOT LCG. It's short for Aggressive obviously, and that's what it's going for in this context. It could either mean a fast deck like Bara rush or a deck that kills a lot of the opponent's characters such as Stark.

Yes, an "aggro" deck is some form of "aggressive" deck type. As imrahil points out, it tends to be used in a broader sense in AGoT than in other games because there are a couple of different ways to play aggressively in this game.