Hi guys,

I must say I am disappointed by the way FFG is trying to fix the meta and arguments being used to justify their decisions. I do understand that making new erratas is basically accepting that the game is not play tested properly, but trust me guys making restrict lists that are longer with each FAQ is exactly the same. It is something between "Look at Me, I'm the DCI" from Unglued and panic induced reaction to abuses from US tournaments.

The Martell get nerfed more and more and why? I have no idea New cards pretty much support only army decks with crappy setup which I understand. FFG tries to force changes in the meta. But be careful. Forcing every house to be army based will make the game so boring, people will start to leave. Already you can see that the designers are getting… lazy is too much, but guys! 5 Armies with exactly the same responses for each house. This is silly.

My last point is one plea. I would really like to see The Maester's Path properly cut. Trust me, blocking conclave or tin link will not stop two most powerful decks right now GJ Maester Choke and Targ Maester Burn (though this one has an alternative with HoD Dragonpit). These two deck types are not indestructible but are most annoying right now (I know, I play one of them) and restictions will not make it better. TMP needs one final errata that will make it competitive finally. It will stop you from building Maester towers of power, that can nuke any char with their Lead Links or nuke the deck in 3 phases with Brass Links. I do beg you FFG. Do one final errata to TMP.

"Response: After you win a challenge, attach 1 Chain from this card to a printed Maester character you control, that participated in the challenge."

With this small change, TMP will become a normal agenda finally and you can even take conclave from joust restrict list. Maester decks will finally become playable.

Interesting. I have completely opposite feeling of the FAQ, it seems well thought out on what cards they wanted to hit and does work as a soft-rotation of which was discussed in the article where the new FAQ was released. At least for me and my meta the FAQ gave a nice new fresh air for deck building and playing.

Now the lack of Conclaves is a serious blow to maesters as well as tin link. They now have to have other tools against season decks and they are a lot more slower on powergain so if they go for the ultimate control route now they might actually run out of time in tournament settings as they are lacking the conclave challenge winning renown help. Gj maesters lack the attachment control now so it can be used as a weakness and this on the other hand forces them to use not so powerful card in their event slot which is Ill tidings. Targ maesters cannot abuse long lances anymore for unlimited standing and they lost one of the best burn cards in hatchlings feast. They can still use lead link and other burn tools, but they are a lot slower now. They are still competitive, but now they have more weak spots.

Maester decks will be competitive, but it is not anymore like before. Now you just cannot make a fun casual maester deck and notice after few games that it can actually beat well established T1 decks with ease. I would even say that maesters now are going more to the combo direction than the heavier control one which it was before FAQ.

As for the army responses being "lazy" or that everyone will be running them. I actually think we finally got more reasons to go no-agenda route since the most powerful current agendas are all restricted (you could argue for KotHH, but it has severe drawback unlike that of KoW, KoS, TMP). As there will be more agendaless decks running around (I have already built several after the new FAQ) the fleets power drop as most decks cannot handle 7 cost so they will likely get one out with Manning the city wall if they are running it. Might even be that the fleets don't get splashed much outside of the naval centric decks. Now for the ability being lazy, no it is not. It is something that is needed as the fleets will be backbone to Black Sails decks and the problem they face is that they need more characters on the board to get the agenda response done. Now this is where the fleet response comes in, now you can trigger the agenda and not dedicate so many characters on the challenge. I would actually call it good design since it is keeping sure that all houses have more chance on using the new agenda thanks to the fleet response. Thou it is hard to argue what design is good for the cycle and what is not since we are only 2 chapter packs in, might be we have new TMP on our hands after this cycle with the Black Sails or it could bring completely other deck types to the mix.

I also had a sour reaction to the new restricted list. I do not view it as much as laziness, but more of a fickleness and levity, how a baby will stare at any thing new in its visual field…

Certain cards are amazing cards, and pehaps a lot of decks for a given house include them. So what. I enjoy watching deck archetypes grow and morph, slowly, card by card, until they hit a point of maturity and we see a lot of people playing them. I have no problem with that. And, watching a few well established decks face-off is really fun, because we all know what side needs to draw what in order to win, and it often comes down to a tense few draws or plays.

Why is it a big deal if something is an auto-include in a certain deck type? And, do people not understand that by removing a certain auot-include, now there will just be a new auto-include in its place? Things will shift for a few weeks as people retool existing models and find loopholes, gaps, and synergies with things that were not restricted, and then we will be right back in the same place.

I also do not care for the pattern of FFG releasing good cards, and then nerfing them later. It seems like a blatant strategy to sell the new packs; release cards that they know are overpowered, but that will have no long-running impact on the game because they will get nerfed later. Watch how the Black Sails stuff will get neutered in future FAQs, after the sales slow down and the next cycle is being prepped.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys are playing the same game I am playing. The restricted list is literally like 30 cards long, this is not a big deal, and was certainly warranted, the meta hasn't even had time to shake out.

fhornmikey said:

+1

mr mike to the rescue of this dumb thread.

the new list really kicked martell but (as a martell player) i don't feel the hurt that badly, im frankly more glad to see some of the other cards that are getting a restricting, tin link, aegons hill, bear island etc. also bear in mind that ffg is actually really good about evolving and even removing cards from restricted list as the meta or new cards make them less synergistic, so have heart maybe next faq will remove some of the cards they restricted recently.

Oh the swing of the nerf bat… There's always haters, hehe.

From a design standpoint, these cards were creating a stale game in which certain builds were overtuned (overpowered) when compared to alternative builds. The restricted list reduces the power of those decks (nerfs them) to be more in line with the alternative builds. Refugees are not necessarily overtuned in all decks, but there are certain decks that they give a disproportionate benefit to that makes that deck build overpowered compared to the alternatives. The same can be true of most of the cards added to the list. The Scourge made Martell builds inherently more powerful than the majority of non-Martell builds. Bear Island made Bear Island Stark builds inherently more powerful than non-Bear Island Stark builds. Nerfing these cards increases the viability of builds that do not include these cards while still allowing people to play them.

Nerfs happen in big competitive games. Look at Magic. They ban and restrict cards as well, never mind they do rotation to ensure that they can rotate out overtuned cards. WoW constantly changes the tuning on classes. League of Legends goes through repeat nerfs and buffs. Starcraft receives regular patches. It's a part of the competitive scene. They want to maintain some form of competitive balance and they use nerfs to do so.