Now,

I've been playing on OCTGN quite a bit lately and in the past 2 or 3 weeks I'm only playing vs Martell decks. Martell KOtHH, chargenda, maesters. Does anybody have a feeling, like me, that next gencon will be a gigantic Martell festival and maybe finally someone at FFG willl realise that its not only on the maesters agenda that they ****** up ? The new entries are bannermen or southron mercs first round on a claim 2 ( and god knows how strong is first round Martell), vengeful viper, fantastic renown characters with great abilities (Doran to name one) and Ghaston Grey back in great shape. At this point my only hope is that people will grow bored out of playing Martell as it is just too easy to win.

Anyone willing to bet on this prediction ?

I'm betting on Targaryen with Griff the guy who just won't freaking stop coming back. Not to mention Martell's dependency on low-STR non-uniques.

martell is fine, nerf nights watch. nothing to see here, move along

<sigh> How is this topic something new? It has been going on for years.

The thing about Martell is that although it is certainly the flavor of the month, it's also super super beatable. Especially since it is fairly easy to predict (with relative accuracy) a large portion of the deck's contents after just a plot or two (of course there will always be surprises). As long as you go into it knowing what to expect from most of the Martell decks in the environment, and have constructed your deck to have answers to those things it's really no different than any of the other houses. I am sure half the field will be Martell at Gencon, but that is mostly likely due to it being the "flavor of the month" rather than it necessarily being OP or required to win, etc. etc.

I think with maesters around, the enviroment is soooo boring… yesterday spanish national was won by martell maester… what a surprise?!?

Maester cycle was one of the worst ever designed in a balancing pov. Let's see how the game evolve, but the worst thing in a game is the "boring feeling" and this is how i feel at the moment.

Gualdo said:

QFT

I had to double-check that this post was a July, 2012 instead of a July, 2011.

Last year's Gencon was a gigantic Martell festival, too. 10 of the Top 16 were Martell decks of one type or another (Maester, Summer, etc.). -- And only 1 of the Top 4 was Martell. The event was won by a Baratheon deck. So it's hard to say the problem is in the power of Martell itself.

I'm more inclined to agree that it is the over reliance on Maester's for control (in all Houses) that is making the game boring, not anything about Martell in particular. "Let's see how the game evolves" is a nice sentiment, but as is, there isn't going to be any evolution any time soon because nothing has really created enough incentive to move away from Maesters.

My feeling about "let's see how the game evolve" is intended from a faq pov. This is the only way I see to solve a dramatic bad design. Same thing done "at the time of 6 agenda deck".

i still am holding out hope that the community will kinda make a groupthink decision and kinda reject maesters on our own. i for one have never and will never play them in the competitive environment because (fpr me personally) there is no satisfaction in winning via that method. i hope others will follow suit, but am realistic that they most likely will not.

Here is the question: was there ever a moment in history of AGoT when there was no deck or no House that everyone thought was overpowered/unbalanced/unfair/etc.?

I actually think the environment has evolved pretty significantly over the past year. Sure Martell was dominant last year, but it was all about control, with Ghaston Grey and Game of Cyvasse beating out Martell Brotherhood. The ultrafast Martell maester rush build wasn't at all present…in fact, I don't think I saw any Martell maester decks at GenCon last year (they were all summer). The first time I heard about the Martell maester rush deck was at the NYC regionals piloted by Corey Faherty, who went 4-0 then dropped to play casually rather than going on to win (which I suspect he would have).

Moreover, in other metas we've seen wildlings and knights perform well, especially when run out of Stark and Bara. Targ burn has done better this year than the past few years, but I think it's performance tends to be best at tournaments where the big army and high-STR character builds are less represented. Targ, and probably Lannister, tend to be more meta-dependent.

The bottom line is that I think the environment right now is all about getting out a few big guys AND having a few control "tricks" to deal with any threats. Martell maester does it particularly well because the chains add draw and some character control mechanics without taking away from the speed of the aggro.

I agree with you Tywin that there will be a lot more aggro decks. I see it as a natural reaction to the maesters agenda.
What I don't see anyway dead is Martell control. When I saw the new city plot (manning the city walls), I immediately thought: "Oh my god bannermen !!!" and I think every one of us had the same exact reaction. A first round claim 2 for martell, who has on average the strongest start is just gold. ok Ghaston Grey is partially nerfed (still working well in some builts though), but how much more control do you need than what you get from the scourge (and I mean a re standing scourge) ? a card like Doran Martell effectively shut down your challenges for 1-2 turns, in a game that on average lasts 4. Concave is another Martell joke. Therefore what I see coming is:

Martell ( a lot of them in any form): maesters rush, kothh/chargenda control and/or aggro)

Stark aggro (wilding or maesters)

Baratheon knight rush or maesters aggro.

All the rest is behind I think.

sorry I mean Twn2dn

Hey, if the community has a Tywin, he'd get my vote!

Been playing against a lot of Martel Lately and I must admit things are getting rather stale. And that free first turn Viper's Bannermen is getting old fast. And what scares me more is how the other houses are going to be buffed to to catch up to it once ffg finally decides to even the playing field.

The thought of a game devolving into yugioh is such a frightening one.

Do other houses have to be buffed in order for FFG to even the playing field though? I never played with Martell Maesters nor have I seen people play with them (simply because… I don't know any metas in my area…), so I don't know how effective Martell can be but surely there can be erratas or something to steer people away from Martell without buffing the other houses.

Right that first round bannerman is "heavy". But at the moment to get variety we need something to do about maesters. In Spain won a deck quite similar to an 1 year ago one… this is so bad since we had an entire set get out after that and nobody is using thematic. There are several way to nerf agenda. Restricted, pay the cost of attachment, limit the response… I still have faith… for sure we need that early… i cannot think Stahleck with the Agenda like now…