I typed up a long post in response to another thread, then accidentally hit backspace to delete a typo and instead my browser went back to the last page. Rather than lament all the hard work (and 15 min of my lunch break) I have lost, I thought I'd start a new thread that would be a bit more on-topic.

The following predictions are highlights that I hope will at the very least spark discussion, but ideally would force some people to rethink what they plan to run for GenCon and ultimately add a bit more balance to the environment.

Aggro decks will dominate this year. Whether it's wildlings or Martell maesters, aggro decks are much faster and have access to all the "right" tools to win this year. Specifically, this year they have much faster access to bigger characters with Wildlings on the rise, Manning the City Walls, and the Conclave. They also have efficient character control with easier access to Die by the Sword, No Quarter, Meera (Stark only), Seductive promise (bigger characters); location control with Price of War, A City Besieged, and Meera; and hand protection with Lanni and Martell aggro decks both viable, while Bara has The Laughing Storm (Bara) and Stark has Knight of Harrenhal (plus a good amount of intrigue icons as well). Aggro decks also have better hand control this year, with the exception of Greyjoy (which has MUCH better saves now than before). Lanni and Martell aggro always had strong intrigue, and this year they have competitive aggro builds; Bara has easier access to the (now unrestricted) Laughing Storm; Stark has Knight of Harrenhal and a growing number of intrigue icons on very playable characters.

City plots will be very common. Manning the City Walls adds speed to aggro, while At the Gates can be used to pull a learned crest to fuel Outwit and protect against a round-2 Valar Morghulis. This also gives aggro (or any deck) easy access to A City Besieged to knock out a Ghaston Grey or some other problematic location on round 2-3.

Control decks are going to have a tough time this year. Just to elaborate a bit on the above points, aggro decks won't have the traditional vulnerabilities they had when they played more weenies. Martell's Ghaston Grey and Game of Cyvasse can have trouble dealing with the high STR and *printed* cost of the aggro characters (especially armies). Targ burn has an even harder time against armies, which frequently carry the "no attachments" keyword. The addition of Incinerate could help marginally, but overall this is going to be a very tough year for Targ burn because the important characters to keep around (armies, the conclave, etc.) have a much higher STR this year. Stark's Bear Island decks could prove pretty strong this year, if they can win some early challenges with stealth (Meera will be hugely helpful) and keep Bear Island on the board long enough to matter. But Bear Island is usually found in aggro decks. In fact, the best aggro decks will likely have more control mechanics in them this year than before, because they have more control options.

Characters that rely overly on low-cost characters are going to be at a big disadvantage. These decks might have a chance if they are fast enough to slam the opponent early in the game. But round-1 Fear of Winter or Blockade probably isn't enough to dominate an opponent who can drop a Viper's Bannerman, Northern Cavalry Flank or some other huge army on round 1 with a 2-claim plot. Meanwhile, First Snow of Winter, Targ burn, and Narrow Escape seem to be growing in popularity. Winning 2-claim military challenges just isn't enough to be competitive. Players will need big characters that are difficult to remove from play to stand a chance against the control that does exist, and the average card in deck will need to be much better than the 1-3 STR chud to have a shot at winning a long-game.

Any other predictions? I'm especially interested to hear if people disagree with my assessment!

I agree that in general aggro is more viable than usual. I also think control is still strong. The difference it will make for GenCon in my prediction is that we will see more of a balance between agrro and control advancing rather than almost all control with a couple aggro decks.

One other prediction is with TLS off the restricted list I think we will see a lot of Bara at GenCon. I've been seeing a ton of Bara on OCTGN (almost every game) going for 1st turn TLS plus Threat combo. A side effect is that it is easier for aggro decks to handle this than control. Control decks need as many options as possible and rely on a greater variety of effects. Aggro decks have higher redundancy (35 plus cost efficient chars and direct removal events that trigger off winning challenges).

Control has always seemed in general like the harder deck to play - like fewer mistakes can be made in order to pull out a win. However, my instincts and brains are saying different things from yours, Dan. Here is my reasoning.

Martell Maesters have been there forever. While they're a strong deck, they are not invincible at all, and have been in the meta so long that people know how to play against them. That doesn't mean that their deck is necessarily built to handle them, nor that they get the cards they need when they need them, but what it says to me is that while the deck is incredibly strong and capable of making top 16, I do not think there's much of a chance of it taking the top spot (in joust - I think it's still a ridiculous deck in melee).

Wildlings are also quite strong. I believe Wildlings and Martell Maesters should be considered the top aggro decks right now - that much seems to be the area in which we overlap. The issue with Wildlings, however, is that a true Lanni kneel deck will crush them 9 times out of 10. With the extra power required, the somewhat slower Lanni kneel deck doesn't really suffer from its slowness, because it can control the characters and the challenges and can take its merry time to win.

Anything that can get around the 2 claimers is going to have a chance against them as well, i.e. Stark Knights with (for example) Frozen Outposts running. I do not consider Stark Knights to be strictly aggro. Direct character killing is a form of control no less, and at least in my experience, do not always win very quickly. Winning military challenges may be the current, best form of character control in the game, perhaps not topping Cyvasse in surprise factor, but handling characters much more effectively. At the same time, Seductive Promise, while largely ineffective against Wildlings, is fairly effective against most other decks. Except Lanni kneel, which, in general, can usually avoid it through small defenses, and kneeling.

Targ and Lanni have an interesting dynamic. Lanni generally relies on cheaper characters, while Targ tends to be able to burn the crap out cheaper characters with no trouble. At the same time, heavy intrigue can severely hamper Targ. In my view, it seems to come down to who can get rolling first, though my experience at Days of Ice and Antimacassars (don't ask) showed that a Targ burn deck with just a little extra character control (City plots, in this case) can win past a Lanni deck, even if the Lanni deck jumps out to a big lead. Targ does seem to have a harder time against big character decks, though, and hence I suspect to see fewer Targ decks this year, with the two aggro decks I've mentioned, plus Stark armies.

Greyjoy, depending on the changes in a currently non-existent FAQ, has several interesting builds, maesters and otherwise. A card I haven't seen discussed much that came out in CD is Victarion's Reavers. I have found it to be stupidly effective in the early game, when the opponent has no power on their house. First turn Manning the City Walls, then use them to win a power challenge, discarding two of their locations, and, if you win by enough (not always easy to defend against 7 str first turn), use Seductive Promise to steal a character. With just a few of your own locations out, having out a massive character with such an effect on the first turn in a GJ winter deck can spell the end of the game very early on. The second turn you can play A City Besieged, and that will very nearly ensure your opponent has no locations out at all by the beginning of the second turn, and against a winter deck, it doesn't matter what you're playing against, that's game over. And given that GJ has a bunch of extremely effective event and triggered effect control, they have a big leg up against all current popular decks, in my view. Finally, with the recent Kingdom locations released, Copper Link + old school Mance "Location-Klepto" Rayder makes winter maester decks a force to be reckoned with.

I think TLS is actually too easy to handle. Nightmares are the least of the Bara worries, from what I saw in Tennessee. Fortified Position is an extremely effective tool vs the combo, and helps vs aggro decks in general, as well. There are plenty of other ways of dealing with it, too. Consider, for example, that in the round of 8 in Tennessee, DCDennis played vs Wade Freeman (who we all know to be an extremely strong player). Wade pulled off the combo, but Dennis fought his way back and won it. I don't know the details of the whole spiel, but it was interesting none-the-less. You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf! pre-plot selection on TLS can be a nearly automatic game over, by then revealing Rule by Decree by the Lanni player, and grabbing two intrigue challenges

All in all, I think control decks stand a chance this year. They will have to adapt, but I think they actually have a good chance. Are they going to be dominant or predominant? I must say surely not - aggro is too easy to play (not that it's easy, but I think still easier, in general, than control decks), too likely to make top 16, and in my view more forgiving. But I do think that control will place first this year in joust.

Thanks for ALMOST making me play my Lanni deck like I want to! I still don't think they have the firepower against Martell, who got a ton of help out of the City plots - and I think we are going to see a ton of them.

I will be interested in seeing how much OOH stuff starts going around. Newly Made Lords? Iron Mines? Griff? The new locations (which I don't like) seem to make people feel they can think about it in the least.

Overall though - I just haven't played enough OP to know what we are going to see. Obviously Martell Maesters since they are pretty easy to play. For some reason there is always a decent amount of Stark at GenCon and they do have some great control cards (by control, I mean board control through kill effects). I assume Targ will have a good showing as well.

I guess we shouldn't complain when at least four houses have a definate road to victory (Martell, Targ, Bara, Stark) and the other two certainly have a chance (Lanni kneeling depending on matchups, GJ has a very solid base of characters and locations).

@Wolf: I agree that Stark Knights will likely be well represented, but I see it more as an "aggro" build. (This could just be my own definition of aggro, but all builds in AGOT tend to have some element of "control" because of the plots, and especially Valar.) I'm uncertain about Greyjoy. I suspect it will be a popular house, but I haven't been able to get my builds to win consistently against Wildlings, Martell Maesters, etc. so I'm thinking that despite their popularity they're unlikely to do very well overall. I very well could be wrong about this. I think we mostly agree on things, but somewhat disagree on TLS…if you don't happen to have a removal effect in your opening hand, then TLS + Threat from the East on round 1 can be pretty brutal. The TLS + Val combo is annoying and can easily turn a game if the opponent doesn't have an answer, but it's generally pretty easy to kill/discard one of the two characters as you point out (Val being even easier to get rid of than TLS).

@Rings: Yeah, Lanni can have a tough time against Martell. Kneel heavy builds should do well against all the other aggro (especially Wildlings) in the environment though, and may stand a chance against some Martell decks…not favorable odds, but it's not an auto-loss (city plots can help). If you are lucky enough to not play too many Martell, Lanni stands a good chance at beating the types of decks that win against Martell. I agree that Targ will be popular too. The house has performed well over the past few months, and Targ players are feeling energized. I just doubt the house overall will perform well against bigger STR characters + more location removal in the environment. We will see

Challenge Accepted.

I shall bring a control deck.

Dobbler said:

I will be too…I'm just saying it's going to be harder this year. (~This is my disclaimer for when I go 0-6 in the joust.) That said, I'm sure you'll do well either way. You're an outlier on the bell curve.

It will be good seeing you, Greg. If we play, hopefully you don't draw all three copies of your restricted card against me in the first two rounds…but if you do, please let it be in the prelims

Feeling really bummed at missing Gencon and likely my only chance to meet some of you

Of course, a lot of this could change if/when we see a new FAQ…. <sigh>

dcdennis said:

Dang, I thought you were going. That's a bummer.

Twn2dn said:

Dan, I'm glad things worked out that you can come. It will be great seeing you.

And I'm thinking of not playing a restricted this year. We shall see how things settle out over the next 2 weeks

No restricted card, eh? You've peaked my curiousity, ser.

Twn2dn said:

During the Missouri Regional, both my Joust and Melee deck did not include a restricted card. Currently, of all of my decks, I have decks from two different houses that do not run a restricted, so I guess it depends on if I choose those decks or not.

Dobbler said:

I love this post Boiled down to one statement it says. "Whether or not I run a restricted depends on whether or not I decide to run a restricted."

dcdennis said:

In 2 seconds, dcdennis has learned the secret of being Dobbler. Sadly, that's all it takes