I like how thematic the card design is, and I think that it is not overpowered strictly from a comparison with the other cards that exist in the environment. It is on the powerful end of the spectrum, but not so much so that it warrants restriction in my opinion.

All that said, I tend to agree with mdc273 that I am not particularly fond of the card design, nor do I think it's particularly healthy for the game. It may sound like I'm overstating the impact of this card, and I don't mean to (which is why I wouldn't restrict it), but this card shares two characteristics with many cards that are restricted.

First, the triggered effect in my opinion reduces player choices, and thus reduces interactivity. There are a lot of cards that reduce player interaction/decision-making (rather than increase it), and it is only when the effect is particularly powerful that it becomes a problem (for example Burning in the Sand, Threat from the East, and Bear Island). I'm not sure whether it's fair to single this card out to pick on, given a lot of other cards similarly reduce options and decision-making (The Laughing Storm is the best example), but from a design standpoint, I think this effect misses the mark. At best, Margaery gives the controlling player some control options and toolboxing, but the decisions the controller makes about which characters to kneel aren't all that difficult. And there is some dangerous combo potential with this, for example by giving Margaery deadly, that could create NPE moments.

Second, there are no real trade-offs required by the controller, further reducing decision trees. What separates "good enough" design from "great design" is the creation of an effect that has a variety of uses, but which involve a difficult trade-off by the player. These opportunity costs are built into A Game of Thrones. When I kneel my character for a challenge, I choose a challenge type, and my character will be unable to participate in other challenges throughout the round. Similarly, when I choose a plot deck, I must balance gold, claim, plot effect and (usually less important) initiative. The problem with Margaery is that she does everything pretty well, a bit like Fury plots, Meera, Long Lances and many other restricted cards.

I suspect mdc273's reaction to this card has to do with the second point I made. Frankly, in a world where card effects look more like Margaery and less like real decisions, the game devolves into who puts the best cards in their deck rather than who makes the right decisions during gameplay.

I guess where I net out is that I'm OK with champion cards seeing a bit more play than the average card. And for that reason, Margaery's usefulness as a toolbox is fine, I guess. But if you want to talk about good design, then we should have another conversation about Ser Barristan Selmy and/or Sellsword Deserter. Both have very powerful effects, but require the owners to make very real and significant trade-offs throughout the game.

I may never win a larger tournament and have the ability to design my own card, but if I did, it'd be just like one of those.

Bomb said:

I like this post and Danigral's, lol. Okay, so I'll break this down and show you how cards like Margaery create these silly NPE spirals.

The first aspect, initiative, absolutely agree, but let's take a look at how this will play out. Let's say I have Cersei in play vs. Margaery. You go first, you kneel Cersei and win the challenge. Your 4 gold character beat my 3 gold character. You go second, I intrigue with Cersei, Margaery wins the challenge. I can only win power challenges with Cersei and only if I go first. Cersei can never win an Intrigue challenge against Margaery in a vacuum. she is literally unable to without any supplementary card effects. And this isn't just Cersei, this is literally any Lady in the game that is affected.

Kneeling her out. This basically boils down to if I draw into an NPE card I can cancel out Margaery's NPE ability. And NPE isn't subjective. A card effect that negatiely impacts your ability to play the game is NPE. Stealth is NPE, but it that doesn't make it bad for the game. NPE doesn't inherently mean bad for the game as I might appear to be insinutating. Icon removal falls under this but is a little more particular. You need to remove all her icons and any icons that could possibly be added to her.

I love the manipulation this could cause with Deadly. The actual effect is brilliant, but the fact that my only choice when it hits me is to sit there and accept it is why it doesn't add much from a gameplay aspect. There is no way you can play around Margaery without other circumstances having fallen the correct way. She even gets to participate in the challenge she drags you into. There's no risk/reward element to her. If you make her not participate in the challenge, suddenly the owner has to decide whether or not it's worth the lost strength. There isn't really any added gameplay with her ability. She's just a new trick in the tool-chest.

• Asha - I hate does not kneel to attack. I think it serves no functional purpose within the game other than to inflate the power of the character. Situationally stronger (if control not needed)
• Meera - Yup, situationally more NPE than Margaery. Will be most of the time. Situationally stronger (getting back to shadows)
• Ellaria - Ugh… I LOATHE this card. All it does is artificially extend the game for Martell. There is literally no gameplay in her beyond maybe not getting her killed to Deadly. Definitely stronger
• Arys - I actually have no problem with Arys. He serves the function of making Allies actually risky characters to play. He might be overtuned, but he adds a ton of risk/reward to Ally characters. Situationally stronger (allies)
• Alannys - I like Alannys for the same reason as Arys. There's a risk/reward element to including triggered effects. She may be overtuned with so many triggered effects in the game. Definitely stronger
• Baelor - Risk/Reward thing again. I actually like him. Situationally stronger (luck of the draw)
• Moon Boy - Hah! That card is awesome. Another card that given a decision-based out would be amazing. Too much control as is. Situationally stronger (luck of the draw)
• Laughing Storm - Ugh… How does removing a core gameplay element improve overall gameplay? Definitely stronger
• Damon Dance-for-Me - Probably too strong, but goes back to the risk/reward element. Situationally stronger (agenda)
• Renly - I hate that card so much… Rarely stronger (if control not needed)

How did you get rid of the bullets? Must learn…

@Danigral - All kneel effects are NPE per the above. LC and RV are equally NPE. You are 100% correct in everything else you say. The issue is that there are often going to be times where you have no out. Your opponent will play it in such a way that they are guaranteed to get what they want no matter how you play. Shouldn't the game be about your ability to make good decisions, not your opponent's ability to prevent you from making decisions? I love Margaery if you give her ability a power out and take away the Melee or if you make it a kneel effect where she doesn't get to participate. There is no risk/reward or gameplay element to her effect right now. It just happens and its going to be obvious when to and not to use it. Abilities like this usually boil down to "Who should I use it on?" not "Is the risk worth the reward of using it?"

@fhornmikey - I feel the same way about you. You are contributing nothing to the discussion objectively. Your views may be incredibly valid, but you are being entrirely subjective in your analysis. Citing popular opinion as fact doesn't work and there is no way of discerning if I'm on my own. There could be hundreds of people who feel the same, but won't post a thing because they don't want to be harassed on these boards or just don't visit the boards period. Just look at the near Flame War that developed on the CGDB boards when someone effectively said "please don't belittle my style of play" and the likes Drakey got for defending Aggro and Rush as requiring as much skill as Control. I believe the popular opinion is that Control is the hardest playstyle.

@Darknoj - Reddit doesn't say a thing about her, not sure where you're getting that info from. I would also like to note I did not introduce Reddit into this thread.

@kr4ng - Yes, Nightmares is NPE. I'm torn on it, though. It denies powerful cards, but sometimes a card is tuned around the powerful text. When it results in a temporary benefit, I think it's great. When it results in permanent benefit (like if it could knock off Frozen Soild) it's bad for the game.

TL:DR - NPE does not mean bad for the game. It means negatively affecting play experience (like being able to play cards). Margaery is an NPE card that can be countered by other NPE cards. This results in an NPE feedback loop that makes not playing NPE cards difficult. Is that good for the game?

@Twn2dn - Beat me to it! Lulz

mdc273 said:

No. The game, and probably every competitive game, sport, whatever, is all about limiting your opponents decisions as much as you can. Every Military challenge removes an option from the table. Every Intrigue challenge randomly removes a decision from their hand. Every Power challenge you win limits how many rounds they have to make decisions.

By your logic every card is a NPE card.

Alando said:

~No, just the ones he doesn't like. ;P Cards that give my opponent decisions are NPE. Any stand effect is busted.

This whole thread makes me laugh pretty hard, all powerful cards are NPE cards. If half the cards in the game create a truly "negative play experience" for you, why are you playing this game? There are PLENTY of ways around Margaery even inside Lannister, let's take your example. You could run strength boosting cards (i.e. painted dogs), you could be running kneel. You could also blank her, kill her, or handle her through any other myriad of control mechanisms.

Would you like Margaery better if she were a foil card?

Most of your posts on these forums seem to somehow pertain to your own personal percieved inadequacies possessed by the game (or involve you cluttering up the rules forums with a veritable "knowledge dump" that often times does not actually pertain to the rules question being asked). I don't think anyone will disagree that they miss a viable and dynamic draft format, however alternate art in packs, foil cards, and just about any of these other ridiculous comparisons or ideas you bring to the table related to M:tG are complete nonsense (not to mention fiscally unviable for a company like FFG). I would wager a good portion of the players in this game played M:tG at one point in time or another (myself from Beta through Weatherlight) and one of the reasons I play this game is specifically because it is NOT like M:tG.

In terms of reducing player choice, your argument is inherently one sided. Although it reduces choice for player opposing her it grants additional choice for the player playing her. She's a form of character based control that has the inherent vulnerabilities of a 3 strength character (of which in this game there are plenty). I have played with her now in several different decks (for 10+ games) and frankly she has never panned out to be nearly as game changing as you would posit her to be. The additional choice of what to use the control effect on, how best to utilize the opportunity provided from that control, creates entirely different decision trees for both players. This notion that simply because she takes away control from one player and gives it to another she is overpowered or creates a negative play experience is short sighted and fails to look at the overall picture.

I just used her for my first time last night. I have to say that I wasn't finding her to be terribly useful(except for being a Queen with Pyromancer's Cache in my situations). I was torn as to whether or not I even wanted to use her ability because I didn't necessarily have anyone in particular I wanted to "kneel and add to the challenge as a defender". I think if she had Melee at the time, it would help mitigate the adding of the opponents character to the challenge, but frankly I'd rather stealth past characters or try and grab the UO power. Plus, you might be trying to encourage the opponent to actually win the challenge by adding their character.

I wasn't finding her to be particularly useful 80% of the time, so I find her to be properly costed and not overpowered. With more playtesting and being up against different decks, that may easily change for me, but in my experience so far, I don't think I'd miss her if I removed her from that deck. I think she might be a better fit in Baratheon though(I was playing Lannister).

I'm very interested in how people have used her and how people feel about her after they've used her a few times.

mdc273 said:

You must hate playing against GJ…

Bomb said:

Lol, +1 and I think we all know Moonboy needs to be banned immediately.

Margaery really is nothing special. Her ability may sound nice (and it is) but actually getting a significant benefit out of it is quite conditional. Generally you need to be going first for it to do anything and your opponent needs to have either a non-kneeler or a beefy int/pow icon guy you need to put down so you can win intrigue. And even then it is still worse than something like enemy informer since the guy you kneel still gets to oppose a challenge, whereas with most kneel they are just nullified for the whole round. That's not even considering that she is plenty vulnerable to control effects herself. I would put LotR Cersei on the restricted list long before her.

It is fun using her with writ small though.

tibs3688 said:

Am I really going to have to make a silly Lanni deck with a lot of Deadly? C'mon man… I need to fix my Stark deck first…

Actually she's probably better out of Bara… Can recur her… Can remove characters from challenge with Compelled by the Crown… What Deadly cards can I play out of Bara…?

Ghost of Winterfell, Laughing Storm, Stannis' Calvary all have native deadly. Though throwing her in an Asshai deck with black amethysts could be fun.

I have no idea how a card that forces participation can be said to be non-interactive with a straight face.

Well comparing her with lost oasis she is a lot worst…..both get to kneel a char but one gets you unoposed power. (i notice for the first time that the ability to kneel is granted to the char and the viper is immune!!! ….**** mirror match).

Also, Brienne is by far better than a lot of those 3 cost chars .

Penfold said:

I'm not sure if you're responding to me, but if you are. There is no opposing player interaction involved. There is no opposing player participation involved.

Interaction - "reciprocal action, effect, or influence"

There is nothing reciprocal about her effect with regards to the player. It simply happens and is one sided. I don't get to equally do it. I can't equally cancel the effect by its nature. Compare it to Pentoshi Manor, that gives you an out. It's interactive. You initiate an effect and I have an opportunity to cancel the effect. Pentoshi Manor may not be balanced, but it's interactive.

Obviously it forces the player to do something, but that is not by its nature interaction. If this were a game of solitaire, then Margaery would be relatively interactive. Since this is a game where player's actions affecting each other is the norm, she is relatively non-interactive. Her effect is as equally one sided as most effects in the game and not interactive when compared to cards with an out like Pentoshi Manor.