…return to hand instead of return to top of deck. To me this makes it infinitely better. Of course there is still the chance that the card gets poached to an INT challenge, but thats better than being dead and/or clogging your draw for next turn.

dcdennis said:

Taking it back to hand could be a passive on a plot or location or something. I don't think they need to change the whole mechanic. If it were changed, though, I'd rather it just have the additional rule, "then you may shuffle your deck."

Well, they seem to have realized that stalwart in and of itself isn't very good, but they've chosen to remedy that with effects that feed off it rather than changing the keyword. There are more and more cards that interact with the keyword; Kyle, Follower of the Many Faced god, Needle, Midnight Sentry…. it's a start.

Yeah but making cards that support the keyword doesn't help that much when the ability itself just isn't that good. I would rather just avoid cards with teh keyword in general than build a deck using that support it and risk a deck bogged down with support cards, or not getting them out at all and just having some cards out that are going to bog me down in draw.

Turning Stalwart into "return to hand" would make it too good. Clogging up your draw is supposed to be a drawback of it. It's a very harsh drawback in a House that doesn't do "draw" very well, but you can mitigate it a lot with all of "search" effects that Stark has.

Assuming Stalwart needs a fix, I'd say the better option would be to turn it into a "may" instead of a "must" (like Ambush, Vengeful, and Vigilant are). You can choose whether to get the card back - paying the price of a "clogged" draw - or to sacrifice it to the dead/discard pile to keep the draw flowing.

I think that I'd rather Stalwart was optional and perhaps with an added "you may place this card on your discard pile or the top of your deck".

If your whole board is Stalwart, you are now drawing into everything that was just killed/discarded. Perhaps having a separate pile for Stalwart cards that becomes an optional deck to interact with would make it more functionally useful. Right now the only remotely useful character is Ser Kyle Condon and to a small degree, core Eddard Stark…

AGoT DC Meta said:

Ugh, just lost my original post, so here's the short version….

I like the idea of a Robb Stark or another unique character with stalwart + renown and the text "Any card that would return to the top of your deck as the result of stalwart instead returns to your hand." It would allow players to create the stark version of a jumper deck…mass kill effects and cards coming in and out of play.

Edit: This forum software is extremely frustrating. I tried posting, then got an error "OMG, someone posted a reply since you starting writing, so you may want to reconsider!…blah blah" That happened three times, and ultimately I accidentally hit "cancel" instead of publish and lost my original post. (At least they worked out the bug with Chrome that was removing all text following a double back-space.)

ktom said:

Agreed. It is why it's not a popular keyword and there also is very little support for it.

To get around the "drawback", you could always use cards like Satin and Much and More.

Bomb said:

Don't forget Septon Cellador!

I agree with KTom's suggestion. Return to hand would probably make it too good, but having the option of NOT placing the killed card on top of your deck would help it. Stalwart is basically the worst house-specific keyword, but making it optional would both be a modest buff to it, as well as being a smaller change to test out. If they made that tweak and Stalwart STILL continued to suck, they could always look to address it more. I tend to be in favor of testing out smaller, incremental changes, as opposed to ones that completely change a game mechanic.

wow i didnt expect so many great replies to this thread so quickly after such a quiet day. these boards are ripe with lurkers!

" You may put back into your hand, then, choose and discard a card from your hand "

At least then it will stop the draw frustration whilst still retaining the negative drawback of having to pay for said card again.

Wish it was better myself as I only play Stark.

Why is Stalwart the only keyword with a drawback?

Why…?

Save Ned and clog up your draw. Then pay a small fortune to bring him back into play. Works with Kyle and that's about it for me.

mdc273 said:

> Infamy's drawback it that you are keeping power on characters, locations, and attachments - which you will lose if the card is killed/discarded/etc.

> Intimidate's drawback is that it affects your characters, too. That means that if you want to win challenges, you have to invest in bigger characters, not an army of little ones. It's a higher investment that can be harder to bounce back from.

> Ambush's drawback is the effective need to maintain two separate resource curves, which makes card management and deckbuilding more complicated.

Now, I'm not saying that all of the drawbacks are equal, but then, the benefit's aren't all equal, either.

There really aren't any significant drawbacks to Vigilant (except that it encourages you to always attack first) or Vengeful (except that it encourages you to always defend first). But hey, you can't have everything.

mdc273 said:

mdc273 said:

Infamy doesn't have a drawback?

I think it simply is the keyword with the least support. Drawback or not.

It does just about nothing for you while the character is in play or in your hand. You are not necessarily building your deck around it.

Intimidate can be supported.

Ambush can be support in many ways.

Infamy has a lot of different ways you can use it to your advantage.

Stalwart… Ser Kyle Condon's ability is good as a standalone ability with Stalwart supporting it. The Follower of Many-Faced God could prove to be decent, however there isn't that much you can build around it's ability. It treats Stalwart more like a trait than a keyword.

If the right support is created for Stalwart, then maybe it could prove to be a decent keyword, however all it does it keep your character out of the dead and discard pile by making you draw them next unless you can shuffle your deck before that happens. It just isn't some deck building consideration yet really.

Honestly, the only thing I can think of is somehow getting 2-3 of the same Stalwart characters onto the top of your own deck and then using Jojen Reeds ability on it. But how much of an effort is that? Too much to make it worth the effort.

It would be nice if the Cycle after the next had a theme of a Plot Card in each CP and then 2 in the sixth CP. The first that allows you to search your deck for a card with one of the House-centric Keywords and put it into your hand (potentially a card with a gold cost limitation?). And the next 4 introducing a Plot Card that aides one of the first four House's specific Keyword. The fifth introducing one for Martell/Greyjoy that plays to their Keyword benefits.

I feel like Plot Cards have been a missed opportunity to lend support to these Keywords. Most Houses have such a strong showing of their Keywords, but Stark has been basically left behind for so long it's only now starting to somewhat catch back up to speed. We could really use a new Rickon with Stalwart possibly or even a Direwolf with Stalwart. Add some flexibility to the House.

"Infamy doesn't have a drawback?"

It's always your choice to use Infamy though, or declare an Intimidate attacker, or to use Ambush instead of paying gold. Stalwart is forced.

Hence, why I think "make it optional" is a better tweak than "return to hand."

Exactly!

That's what I always talk about. Simple change: Stalwart is a "may return to the top of the deck" though I like the idea of it being "may return to the top of the deck or the discard pile." Either way it should be an optional thing. Just like all of the other house keywords, it would not be forced. Infamy may have a drawback, so don't use it. Stalwart does not have the same flexibility to not be used, so let us choose not to use stalwart on a stalwart character. It makes it way better, without being too good or overpowered compared to other house keywords.

agktmte said:

Alando said:

Intimidate is not optional.

i think stalwart need more characters or cards to play whit it, in ccg there were attachment with stalwart, maybe designer coud do locations or atachments that help stalwart more usefull.

It´ll helps a poisoned coin with stalwart, i don´t mind draw this card again and again…XD

Two quick ideas would be:

Character that has: "Limited Response: Save one Character with the Stalwart keyword from being killed and return it to your hand instead of placing it on the top of your deck."

Location that has: "When a Stalwart Character is killed and placed on top of your deck, all Stalwart Characters you control gain +1 STR (Limit 3 times per round)."

Two abilities that aren't completely overpowered but would help with increasing the strength and recursion of the Characters that currently have Stalwart on them. And would help keep them from burning while also going up against Intimidate Character of Greyjoy. All they really need are more cards that have synergy with the ones currently available. Give them 3 more cards of any type that do things like this and suddenly Stalwart Characters become far more playable while making the player use their Stalwart to achieve other effects.