sorry mdc273 your wrong...whats better then that?

I'm not sure why I'm defending my position when you haven't made an argument for your position, but as I've said in a lot of threads on CGDB TLV's current level of strength is a symptom of the mechanics of the game being such that feedback loops (both positive and negative) are about the only meaningful thing in this game. When you knock down TLV, the next best card advantage deck will most likely become the problem. Don't treat the symptoms, fix the problem.

Fix the fact that card advantage (which TLV is) creates a ridiculously strong positive feedback loop and you will fix the TLV problem as well.

I think the question needs to be asked more formally at some point. Is this A Game of Card Advantage, A Game of Deck Building, or A Game of Game Play? Right now it's A Game of Card Advantage.

It should be "A Game of Card Advantage brought about by Solid Gameplay".

What the hell are you talking about macd..feedback loop. I cant even talk to you, your on another plant where the sky is purple and you cant define what a better solution then my proposel is if your life depended on it obviously.

I wish NatGS and TLV were printed in different cycles. Because the noise around TLV has had a negative effect, overall, on NatGS

So many TLV decks won regionals without NatGS in it btw if you didn't notice--so I don't know how NatGS is getting complained about so much, other than a few champions of the community think they are expert playtesters outside of the tourney scene. NatGS wasn't necessary at all to win a regional for most TLV decks, I don't see why it should be restricted. But don't take my word for it, because I am just some dude with little thrones experience, and definitely not a world champion--take the words of the 2C1C guys, they perfectly described and agreed that NatGS (and I forget which episode this is in sorry) is fine and fairly balanced--plus I personally think it gives an added dimension to managing your hand size on the whole.

NatGS doesn't belong on the restricted list in the same way that valar doesn't belong on the restricted list. They are resets, in a way, that make the game interesting and deck building more complex and fun.

TLV belongs on the banned list because it makes deck designing bland and helps bad players get an extra card every. single. turn. You should have to earn your card advantage by doing something in game at the very least, like all the other agenda's make you do (for the most part).

Or go see the post on agotcards that brought the elusive Corey out from his mushroom hunting in the woods. Another world champ, Dobbler, also defended NatGS as a solid card in that thread while explaining what differentiates it from the poorly designed TLV.

What the hell are you talking about macd..feedback loop. I cant even talk to you, your on another plant where the sky is purple and you cant define what a better solution then my proposel is if your life depended on it obviously.

Feedback loops work like snowballs. A positive feedback loop represents a snowball rolling downhill and getting bigger and bigger. A negative feedback loop represents a snowball rolling downhill and getting smaller and smaller.

TLV is the snowball getting bigger and bigger.

Kings of Winter is the snowball getting smaller and smaller.

Both are feedback loops.

I'm also pretty sure my suggested solution was fixing the overall strength of card advantage. A more specific example would be removing TLVs strength by restricting a lot of the redundant cards that are making it overly powerful. Expanding the restricted list is a specific example of how you can reduce the benefits of raw card advantage.

The problem is... you generally need 3 cards a turn to succeed in a game of thrones. However, they either make cards too powerful, or too weak.

So why not just ban all card advantage from the game (set draw cap to 3), and set the draw phase to draw 3. Then decks can focus on gameplay, not hoping you get card advantage.

The problem is... you generally need 3 cards a turn to succeed in a game of thrones. However, they either make cards too powerful, or too weak.

So why not just ban all card advantage from the game (set draw cap to 3), and set the draw phase to draw 3. Then decks can focus on gameplay, not hoping you get card advantage.

No.

I'd wait on restricting NGS until we see what they do with the "Cards At Your Command" mechanic next cycle. I've started trying to steer my hand size based on my own and others' NGS--it encourages you to play cards profligately, but not too much so. For what that's worth, it increases CYC overall. If the answer to TLV will be a lot of CYC effects designed to give advantage to the player who *doesn't* have card advantage, I want to see it. Put simply, TLV and NGS produce very high CYC, which all things being equal, is why they tend to be pretty winning decks.

I don't recall off the top of my head what's been spoiled, but I would hope that a lot of it would go to level the playing field *against* lots of draw and hand size, otherwise they're just adding to the snowball. The fact that we even know that they've come up with the concept of CYC, I would speculate, is evidence that they are aware of the effects of overall card advantage, so I'm pretty comfortable waiting to see what they do to reestablish equilibrium there.

I've talked to Greg, and Will about TLV/Negotiations on a couple of different occasions. One at the Moonboy and the other when they came down to Tulsa to do some play testing for Gencon. Generally the conversation went this way. Negotiations is fine, people just need to learn how to play around it. TLV is just turning the game into a 85 card deck minimum and a draw 3 every turn game. For the most part, the discussion came down to getting rid of TLV and leaving Negotiations alone.

TLV is in a weird spot because there really isn't anything you can do to it outside of outright hitting it over the head with a hammer so that it doesn't perform the way it is meant to. You either kill it, or don't do enough to it and it still rules the format. TLV was released at the wrong time. If it was released several years ago when the card pool didn't have so many good options to fill a 85 card deck, it wouldn't have been seen as being such a over powering force. Right now, with how extensive the card pool is, it is the perfect environment to make the card explode.

To be honest, i'm not holding my breath for the CYC mechanic. To me, all that mechanic does is shift the meta to TLV even more. This is the way i look at it. Lets say that my opponent is going to be getting their CYC effects vs any non-CYC deck no matter what, just for argument sake. What would you rather have? 60 card deck where you draw 2 or a 85 card deck where you draw 3? At that point, you start fighting for the cards you can get so that you can still play enough cards to over whelm your opponent. I'd rather be drawing 3 cards then 2 cards to accomplish this and TLV becomes the best bet if you are not going to play CYC because you still need cards to win a game.

@Karma - Depends on the effects. For example, that Location that denies card draw is a good example of how impactful CYC could potentially be. I hope they're doing it the "Let's make CYC slightly underpowered and see what happens" way with the intent to ramp up to what's necessary, but who knows what'll happen. I can tell you that an event that said "After you win a military challenge, choose and kill a character. Then, if your opponent has more cards in command than you, return this card to your hand." would make people completely revalue TLV and the like. The problem is that a card like that is potentially game breaking and should probably never be released. Heck, imagine if Bear Island didn't have any restriction except "If your opponent has more cards in command than you." That might actually be sort of balanced, but probably not.

Well, to be honest, that location is what my entire beef with CYC comes from. That location alone makes you want to play TLV more then a non-TLV deck. I dunno, i'm just not holding my breath is all. I mean, i can see it being good but i can also see it just forcing more people into playing TLV simply because the free draw helps to combat CYC if CYC is going to be mainly based around taking cards from your opponent. Even destroying them still makes me think people will play TLV more.

Granted, my scenario is a perfect scenario but it still holds true to even in the lights of the event you describe. If your opponent is going to be getting their CYC effects whether your drawing 2 or 3 cards at the start of the draw phase, then why wouldn't you just play the agenda that lets you draw 3 cards anyways? Like i said, it was a vacuum example but you get the point i'm trying to get at.

I'm not sure I see the issue. You're saying that you're assuming your deck is always going to have card advantage, so CYC is just encouraging you to put in more card advantage? I think my confusion stems from you assuming that your deck will have card advantage at all times.