Hello everybody! We are still toiling under the rule of Wamma the Monstrous and so we are forced to churn out more words to fuel your anger and indifference. Hark then, and marvel at these weighty words that will form your opinions for days to come! Without further ado….
Allard Seaworth (2.3 Average)
Hagen – 3 out of 5
There are clear synergies in Smugglers where most of the times you’re stealing a card you can’t use, but until you see and put to work Valyrian’s Crew or Lady Marya you’re paying 3 for a blank body. Beautiful artwork, average card.
jcwamma – 2 out of 5
If you squint, it’s approximately a 3-for-3 bicon with renown that’s conditional and comes with a cost. Parmen Crane says that’s under the curve. But also Parmen’s probably above it, so who knows. I think it probably goes as a one-of in a Smuggler deck, which isn’t exciting as a spot for a card to land but it’s clearly not trash.
Johannes – 2.5 out of 5
Not sure how good the decks that steal cards under Baratheon cards are yet, but getting a win condition for it is nice. The issue is that do you want that win condition be on a 3 for 3 bicon? At least the power goes to you faction though. I guess this is a decent one off in those decks.
Von Wibble – 2 out of 5
Dominance actions are already weaker than others, especially when printed on cheaper characters that won’t stick around. Realistically in most decks you have just a couple of cards this works with, so I just don’t see how there is room for this outside being maybe a 1 of in Mummers.
Xelcor – 2 out of 5
Allard Seaworth as a dominance action this feels a bit slow and I cant imagine he would survive many challenges. There is a bit now with facedown cards so you can make it work somehow.
Martial Law (2.1 Average)
Hagen – 2 out of 5
Cheap Seized but less effective and with more restrictions. In theory it’s not that bad if you’re looking for a way to control locations, but I doubt Baratheon are interested in this theme, especially in a deck that focuses on power challenges.
jcwamma – 1 out of 5
I had a play around with this one and it’s just bad, sorry. Yes it’s cheaper than FroSo but having a condition on it doing anything at all, and only working on locations that have to kneel for their effect, just sinks it. Baratheon have better options for dealing with locations than this.
Johannes – 2.5 out of 5
This is a good card for Valyrian Steel decks but not so much for other decks. Qohor probably prefers Seized by the Guard that can hit all locations. And cycling 1 cost attachments is just better. Being terminal and being conditional just doesn’t do it for me.
Von Wibble – 2.5 out of 5
A poor man’s Seized by the Guard. I’d take the latter every time in Qohor, but at least in a Valyrian Steel deck this is worth including.
Xelcor – 2.5 out of 5
Against some decks this can win you the game, and against some others this does nothing. If you get the lock on power challenges which bara likes to do this is quite okay, but sometimes it cant even be used.
Great Kraken’s Crew (1.9 Average)
Hagen – 2 out of 5
I had to go and search my review for Scheming Snake before rating him. The effect is pretty similar but this one is easier to pull off and will be more useful in the majority of occasions. Still it’s a card you’re probably struggling to include even in a full shadow deck (btw, Scheming Snake got 1.5).
jcwamma – 2 out of 5
I wish this was 1 gold cheaper, both to marshal and to bring out of shadows. The body just isn’t good enough given how limited what you can remove from the challenge is. Some small value in melee where all unopposed tricks are better than they seem.
Johannes – 2 out of 5
Great Kraken’s Crew just feels expensive for the effect when GJ already has a lot tech to get unopposed challenges. Being a Raider doesn’t seem to have synergy, since a lot of Raider tech requires that no defenders were declared for the challenge. Maybe the are some shadows recursion tech coming for GJ that makes this worthwhile. Currently, the body is too weak for it to be played over something like Grey Ghost, Raiding Longship etc.
Von Wibble – 1.5 out of 5
When I look at cards with Shadow X that have an enters play effect, I will always value them by what the body is worth, and what the effect is worth. A 2 str bicon raider with a neutral keyword is worth 2 gold to me. The “gotcha!” effect is worth 0.5 given how many tricks Greyjoy can employ of this nature. So I’d say this is over costed by 1. For decks wanting shadows triggers only, and even then only maybe.
Xelcor – 2 out of 5
Greyjoys economy just doesn’t like shadow cards that much, it is very inefficient for them. It is a nice trick but very expensive for them you do have cheaper or stronger options to get unopposed.
Nightfall (2.6 Average)
Hagen – 3 out of 5
I’m not sure how many targets there are out there, but attachments that give renown are not to be underestimated, especially for this cheap. Sadly the reaction is a bit meh, because in an Harlaw deck you’re already running Hotho that does the same for free. Great artwork but again average card.
jcwamma – 2 out of 5
[Insert grumbling noises at making me bother to look up how many good House Harlaw cards there are these days here]
…Nah, not enough. Cute more than good.
Johannes – 2.5 out of 5
There just might be enough House Harlaw characters for the renown ability of the card. Getting a win condition for hardcore reserve choke decks is good. In general, those decks haven’t been great, so this might help a bit. Then again, most targets are weak bodies, so winning challenges is going to be tough. And the effect kinda overlaps with Hotho anyway.
Von Wibble – 2 out of 5
When combined with First Snow of Winter in a choke deck this can be horrible, but effects like this tend to trigger once in the game only because your opponent won’t recover in cards very quickly. There is also the argument that Hotho already does this for you. Cheap renown is nice but I don’t think it makes the card make your deck when it wouldn’t have done before, so this struggles for space even in a winter choke deck I think.
Xelcor – 3.5 out of 5
Even though house harlaw doesn’t work sometimes with the reserve choke, this is worst case a 1 cost renown attachment so not much complaining here.
Grand Maester Pycelle (2.9 Average)
Hagen – 3.5 out of 5
Let me say all the artworks are super cool in this pack. This amazing bearded man has place only in a Lannister Conclave deck with an effect we’ve never seen before. Together with Marwyn you’re basically immune to intrigue claim, the limit is you need both guys on the board before getting advantage from Pycelle. Applying the effect to opponents too is quite interesting and will counter builds that wants to fuel their discard pile (Targaryen, Flea, Annals), or any faction that runs the recursive 2 gold events.
jcwamma – 2 out of 5
Card advantage as long as you remembered to be one of the two ways of getting cards out from under your agenda. But the existing Pycelle is already card advantage, and can go in anything, so eh. Is 4/4 better than 3/2? I’m honestly not sure either way. At least you get to grief Targ players trying to discard A Dragon Is No Slave, I guess?
Johannes – 3.5 out of 5
I think this is an excellent card for Lanni Conclave. Negates intrigue claim and the synergy with the Gold Mine is very good. The body is also nice for Maesters, since it survives First Snow. Comparing it to Maester Gormon makes Tyrell players sad.
Von Wibble – 2.5 out of 5
If he weren’t loyal then the effect would really help Conclave decks. Given that Lannister Conclave isn’t really a thing, I prefer the core version, but there is something to be said for making opponents unable to access their discard pile or use an Archivist to get cards back. So there is potential in mill decks.
Xelcor – 3 out of 5
It is a very nice card and a very unique ability, sadly he is racing against his other version for deck slots and it doesn’t look like he is winning that race even in Maester agenda decks.
Kingswood (3.2 Average)
Hagen – 2 out of 5
1 gold for a card doesn’t sound bad, but it’s not a reliable engine and basically does nothing if your hand is already empty. Lannister is missing draw so some decks might be desperate enough to consider a copy of this, but it’s not going to solve their problems.
jcwamma – 4 out of 5
Finally, a cool card! The right deck will find this easy to trigger every round, making it cheap and repeatable draw for an archetype that sometimes struggles for it. And the +1 initiative is a nice low-level bonus for if you miss your trigger one round. It’s also an annoying bugger for dodging stuff like Political Disaster more often than not, too.
Johannes – 3 out of 5
Lanni has been struggling for draw a long time. I think Kingswood is a very reliable source of draw for jumpers decks. Very comparable with Messenger Raven. Then again, if it sees no play, Lanni might not struggle for a draw after all and does well with the discard to draw filtering tech.
Von Wibble – 3.5 out of 5
Converting money to card draw has potential, though you do risk running above reserve when you consider you are drawing a card and adding the Kingswood back to hand. Cards like Kevan do at least allow you to take advantage of this. I think this card plays better than it looks.
Xelcor – 3.5 out of 5
Very nice for draw and “more cards in hand” theme. . Love that i can save all the gold for ambush but still don’t waste the 0 cost kneel locations in those rounds. You can make the initiative matter but that most often cost you the draw.
Water Gardens Sentry (2.4 Average)
Hagen – 3 out of 5
In general I like strong chuds and he doesn’t have a clear downside, except being blank in some cases. It’s also true the 2-cost with only military icon slot in Martell is already well covered between Bastard Daughter and Desert Raider. Might find his space in some Doran’s decks.
jcwamma – 1 out of 5
So apparently my Martell scores have been all over the shop this cycle so far, but please tell me I’m right that this one’s wank? A blank 2-for-3 bicon on defence (and sometimes not even that), that’s just a monocon with no upside at all on attack, and only really goes in a deck that is already swimming in strength and challenge control?
Johannes – 3 out of 5
Not really a cost slot or icon Martell lacks characters for. I guess the extra strength might be worth choosing this for a chud in Lords and Ladies decks.
Von Wibble – 2.5 out of 5
A 2 for 3 mobinocon? Monobicon? Bicon for squinters? The condition isn’t difficult to meet, but does the extra strength justify the fiddliness to beat out the competition at the 2 cost slot? I’m not convinced.
Xelcor – 2.5 out of 5
Very simple, will see some play, but it is not always the chosen card for your lords and ladies deck.
Nymeria of Ny Sar (3.6 Average)
Hagen – 3.5 out of 5
This is slightly worse than Baratheon’s and Night’s Watch’s because it’s less impactful once on the board, but plot manipulation has always been strong. What brings this tapestry down compared to the others is the difficulty in finding adequate targets at the right moment. Most of unique Martell locations are rarely played more than 1x, so the card, while strong, could struggle in finding its space in decklists.
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
Who likes win-by-5 triggers on cards that, by necessity, require a tempo loss to get on the board? Now, that said the upside is so high here that it still needs respecting. Flipping out of your reset is just always great. Or, if you had Behest in your plot deck still, flipping into it is even better. It’s not always easy to find a great unique location, especially that won’t leave play, but between Dorne, Water Gardens and The Shadow City, I trust most Martell decks will have at least one good base for this.
Johannes – 3.5 out of 5
I love this card in Martell Summer bigs. You already want to win by five and cycling from Late Summer Feast to Exchage of Information is always nice. Limiting it to Summer plots keeps the power level reasonable and boosts Martell Summer. The Martell plot option opens up every plot with Prince Doran’s Behest but I don’t think nastier decks can afford this and might struggle to win by five.
Von Wibble – 4 out of 5
It is easy to imagine scenarios where this does a huge amount of work for you. Revealing the Long Plan from a high gold plot to lead to a reset next round. Revealing a plot with claim on your Valar Morghulis turn. Revealing Tourney for the King when you have 5 knights in the challenge. But note that these scenarios require you to run these plots and expect to use them in any game, even if you don’t find or play out the Tapestry, and you also have to be in a position to win by 5 when your opponent knows you have these potential triggers. With all that in mind, I think the most likely scenario is to reveal Behest then get any plot down that you want. That is still a very powerful effect, but remember you can only do it once per 5 rounds.
Xelcor – 4 out of 5
Pretty sure this will break something at some point, swapping out late summer feast is very good, can be swapped into extra draw or some finisher. It is held back by the tapestry tax which is a bit easier to do in Martell I feel then other factions but still.
Bowen Marsh (3.8 Average)
Hagen – 4 out of 5
The big shadow guy NW was missing has unexpectedly a lower cost than his companions while keeping good traits, keyword and the classic limit 3 repeatable effect. Every cost 5 shadow 4 card turned out pretty bad, but he’s looking like a bargain for what he does and he’ll probably be the leader of a new wave of boring Wall decks.
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
Repeatable Maester Mullin triggers with no loss of tempo is great. The trick is going to be finding reliable stuff to bring out of shadows for the triggers. But the upside is clear here, and with one or two more good triggers this rating goes up to a 4 very easily.
Johannes – 3.5 out of 5
Not sure if this Bowen is still there, but it has a potential for being a center piece of a working and powerful deck. Denying challenges kinda ties him to core Wall decks though, so it doesn’t give options for other types of shadows builds.
Von Wibble – 4 out of 5
As a cheaper version of Arianne Martell, with insight but allowing defence of challenges, the Pomegranate is already a juicy enough card. He’s not quite there as the centrepiece of a deck but it wouldn’t take much more shadow tech in Night’s Watch for that to change.
Xelcor – 4.5 out of 5
He opens up a lot for NW, right now there are many decks that experiment with him and the right list for him hasn’t been found, but this is the strongest card in this set for sure. He revived quite some cards for NW I think. Playing against him….is frustrating though.
The Watch Needs Good Men (3.0 Average)
Hagen – 3.5 out of 5
Great artwork for a scary ability. It somehow reminds me of the Drowned Gods plot I was so afraid of and that ended up being played by nobody. Is fate of this one doomed in the same way? If I were a Big Wall player I wouldn’t think twice in including this, but either I’m wrong or such players don’t exist.
jcwamma – 2 out of 5
This plot needs good gold.
Johannes – 3 out of 5
I guess this is alright. A lot of NW steal stuff decks just have more efficient ways to do their thing and don’t want to use a plot slot for this kind of “win more” plot. But gotta give extra credit for encouraging some jankier combo deck like older Night Gathers… decks. Don’t think there are good combos to get insane amounts of gold anymore though?
Von Wibble – 3 out of 5
Maybe Pycelle is a good idea after all! Whilst the gold on this plot is low, the best use is likely just to siphon off the cheap characters from the discard pile in order to guarantee your 6 cost Wall gets a bigger guy. I feel like I could give this a 1 or a 5 and it’s use in games is really swingy, so I’m going middling on the score but that doesn’t reflect my opinion really!
Xelcor – 3.5 out of 5
The low gold holds it back a bit so you have to work a bit to make it useful. Overall a very nice plot but the recruit theme in general holds itself back a little with how it works.
Jon Snow (3.3 Average)
Hagen – 3 out of 5
Looks like every Stark Jon Snow has some secret rule of being extremely niche and ending up underplayed. This card can swing games if stars align and help you clear a board at the right moment, but most of the times it’s easy to play around him, either leaving a challenge unopposed or making a wise use of your duped characters. But I like his good cost/strength ratio.
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
This is a really fun effect. I like how you can always use it to force the opponent not to claim their weakest character unless they’re all standing or kneeling. The counterplay it gives the opponent, while only allowing them to access that counterplay by playing what would normally be considered suboptimally, makes for a really interesting card that has a clear application without being OP. That said, clearly the next person with a champ card needs to make a negative Direwolf attachment to fuck this guy up.
Johannes – 3.5 out of 5
I really like this Jon Snow. It fits really well to a SoB deck and also Battle of the Trident deck. The ability doesn’t seem like much, but it will cause your opponent some headache. And if you are able to do the other challenges first and have some stealth, you are going to get some juicy claim or force opponent to give you a lot of unopposed challenges. Only issue is all the efficient Stark characters that makes it hard to justify more than one copy in the deck.
Von Wibble – 4 out of 5
This is a card that makes your opponent make bad decisions. It looks great for melee, which is fitting given the design is by a melee champion! The only question is if you have room for a 4 cost monocon. In an aggro deck based around high claim I think the answers is always yes.
Xelcor – 3 out of 5
It is quite difficult to play around him sometimes but overall he is under the curve for what stark can get with 4 gold so finding space for him is a bit difficult sometimes.
The Hour of the Wolf (4.0 Average)
Hagen – 4 out of 5
This looks super interesting. It’s almost as good as Marched, has more gold, greater flexibility in what you want sacrificed or not and a better artwork. Reserve is poor but Starks will never swim in cards and will struggle to defend their hand anyway. It’s not replacing Marched, but why not running them both?
jcwamma – 4 out of 5
“How can we make Marched to the Wall only it’s not quite the same as Marched to the Wall but it’s really similar to Marched to the Wall, without making it strictly better or strictly worse?”
Difficult game to play. I think this probably mostly manages it. Should’ve just made it Winter, cowards. Anyway Marched is great so so’s this.
Johannes – 4 out of 5
People like Marched to the Wall and this kinda gives you a way to run 3. If you are playing against a faction with a lot of Loyal chuds like NW, this might get even juicier targets. Stark also has plenty of loyals, which sometimes allows you to play this without an eligible target yourself. There’s a chance it backfires but if you have Marched as an option, you should be fine.
Von Wibble – 4 out of 5
An extra Marched is undoubtedly a strong effect. The words “if able” are important as this can be a one-sided effect, though usually this will be early game as chances are you will get a non-loyal character out as the game goes on. In ambush or shadow matchups this is not a good card, but otherwise it feels an easy include.
Xelcor – 4 out of 5
With stark having a lot of loyal characters in there decks you can even run into situations where you don’t even have to sac something (sometimes you want to though for some effect). Starting with high cost non-loyal chars and a loyal chud is now very scary vs stark. The 4 reserve balances out the potential of it just being a good stuff card.
Black Balaq (2.9 Average)
Hagen – 1.5 out of 5
The first comparison that comes to mind is Unsullied: 4 gold 3 strength for the Army, 4 gold 2 strenght for the Mercenary. Army is immune to First Snow and has No Attachment, mercenary can potentially give a bigger malus (but how?) and has better traits. They look pretty similar to me, and noone has seen Unsullied in ages.
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
Solid burn/aggro card with easy synergy, what’s not to like?
Johannes – 3 out of 5
At first glance Black Balaq doesn’t seem like much, but he can be deadly in Free Companies burn decks. Getting negative modifiers stacking up is just good and Black Balaq can easily get a lot of gold. Cheaper and quickly better than Unsullied.
Von Wibble – 4 out of 5
He’s a cheap(ish) commander, he turns Unbridled Generosity into a burn card, and he will give you a good number of unopposed challenges even if just combined with core Dany. His own low strength and lack of challenge keywords mean in a non-Mercenary non-burn deck he doesn’t see play though.
Xelcor – 3 out of 5
A bit of an expensive body but if you can load him up with gold he can do a lot in challenges phase.
Aegon the Conqueror (3.2 Average)
Hagen – 4 out of 5
Tough one to rate, because Targaryen have the same issue of Martell when it comes to unique locations, plus this fits only in specific decks that already require huge amount of golds. But God, once you get this out what’s going to stop you from having increased claim in every challenge you declare with a Dragon? Difficult to play but it’s probably the tapestry that brings the highest impact on the board.
jcwamma – 2 out of 5
This is what I’d call a ‘trap’ card. A clear, potent upside, but a crippling condition. I.e., the big dragons deck doesn’t have a unique Targ location to reliably put this on. Now that said, the effect is still strong enough that I’m hedging and making this a 2 in case it’s warped the decks to include more unique targ locations.
Johannes – 4 out of 5
Yeah, it fits only one deck and yeah, it’s a big investment. But continuous claim raise is no joke.
Von Wibble – 3 out of 5
A very easy claim raise in the right deck, but just how good is that deck compared to using other dragons? It’s a big investment for sure.
Xelcor – 3 out of 5
From everything I have seen so far it is more of a “win more card” plus tapestry tax. Yes it will hurt if all 3 big dragons attack with 2 claim all the time, but then again all 3 big dragons attack you anyway.
Dickon Tarly (3.1 Average)
Hagen – 3 out of 5
The effect is a bit boring but synergic with his father Randyll. I can see this chud making the cut in many Tyrell decks instead of Coleen, granted you run the Courtiers (and if you aren’t, you’ve built your deck wrong).
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
Unconditional 2-for-2 mil/pow bicon with no drawback? In my Tyrell?? Holy fucking shit. The reaction is even fine and sometimes relevant, to boot.
Johannes – 3 out of 5
Dickon is the prince that was promised. Except he is not a prince nor a lord. In Lanni or Stark, this would have a Lord trait and he would be great for Heir. In Tyrell, he is just the chud that was promised. Something Tyrell has been missing. And the ability is not too bad to be honest, just missing a positive trait.
Von Wibble – 4 out of 5
Whilst he isn’t particularly flashy, he is providing double chud duty and seems an easy 1 of for pretty much any Tyrell deck. The high rating reflects this ubiquity.
Xelcor – 2.5 out of 5
He is a good chud, most often stands but not as impactful as some other 2 cost other factions have in that slot.
Olenna’s Wheelhouse (3.4 Average)
Hagen – 3.5 out of 5
Differently than the previous card, this is just the opposite of boring. The artwork is questionable, but the card enables a lot of new and unexpected tricks, opening up interesting deckbuilding possibilities as rarely Tyrell cards do. If only green players weren’t so focused only on their goodstuff…
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
Neat trick. An easy source of leaves- and enters- play triggers that can also cycle negative attachments away, good and versatile card.
Johannes – 2.5 out of 5
I like the effect. Issue is that it’s a bestow card and Tyrell doesn’t have good ways to re-fill it. And if you use Free Companies agenda, the faction kneel will clash with Mace Tyrell and To the Rose Banner! that have the same effect. And it’s only marshaling action. So, in the end it’s a nice card that lacks synergies.
Von Wibble – 3.5 out of 5
There are plenty of characters with decent enters play abilities that help you in challenges, although you do lose the surprise factor. It also works nicely to act as a free stand (though Tyrell do have a fair bit of that already), and a way to control negative attachments. Seems fun.
Xelcor – 4.5 out of 5
this card feels amazing to play. It for sure will break something somehow. From getting more gold with Hightower, blinking chars so they lose milks to using orton and HFK triggers again, there is a lot this can do. Getting in Olennas informants and spamming multiple power challanges in a reach deck is also a very good use for it.
Varys (3.7 Average)
Hagen – 4 out of 5
He’s going to be super annoying in a competitive environment, I’m sure of that. With cheap stealth and a repeatable effect to mess with the opponent you can even accept the punishment of looking at his ugly face. Castamere and bestow decks are going to love him, but even a single trigger will be worth it most of the times.
jcwamma – 4 out of 5
I think this is probably very good as long as you’re playing a deck that can reliably get gold on Varys, and I don’t think the reaction is reliable enough. But using a Bestow deck, a portable nope throne is just good.
Johannes – 3.5 out of 5
I really like the card. The body is good, there’s a built-in way to re-fill him and the effect has been proven to be strong. Just to be safe from something will help in challenges and the real power comes in decks that have access to hand knowledge. It gets annoying very quickly when you combine this with let’s say Red Priest, Seen in Flames and Nope Throne.
Von Wibble – 3 out of 5
An Iron Throne with (human) legs. There are plenty of times where facing a specific card can be game losing, so pre-emptively removing the chance for your opponent to get Nightmares, Dracarys!, The Hand’s Judgment, Doran’s Game et al in challenges, or just simple bombs out in marshalling is really nice. With the scheme refill he probably needs bestow 1 at most. There is of course an opportunity cost, and nope Throne may well be a cheaper alternative. Of course, you could run both to really restrict an opponent’s options…
Xelcor – 4 out of 5
This Varys is really good. A variation of “Nopethrone” on a body with stealth. Of course Lannister likes him the most, and every deck that plays FC Rains or Unbridled Generosity for sure wants at least 1 copy of him in the deck. A very good card overall.
The Green Fork (2.7 Average)
Hagen – 2 out of 5
If Red Fork was 1.5 this has to be at least 2, because money is better than initiative. Still 2 golds for a non-limited economy with niche effect is definitely too expensive considering every faction already has its own card that provides income plus an additional benefit.
jcwamma – 3 out of 5
So I was very low on The Red Fork, and stand by it. But +1 income is actually, you know, relevant and helpful. If you are running one of the decks that sacrifices its locations or needs neutral locations to kneel or whatever, this one’s not terrible. I still don’t think it’s going to see loads of play or anything – as 3s go this is quite a niche one – but I at least ‘get’ this.
Johannes – 3 out of 5
Another Fork for the Trident. This one is nice as well. Not sure how easy it is to get it back for the Trident decks, but at least it pays for itself at some point.
Von Wibble – 2.5 out of 5
The best of the forks but still only for specific decks. See the Red Fork review from the previous pack, but with a nicer effect.
Xelcor – 3 out of 5
A non limited econ location you can cheat into play somehow isn’t so bad. The forks theme hasn’t gone of that much but as a standalone 1 off this can see play in quite some decks.
Battle on the Green Fork (3.6 Average)
Hagen – 4 out of 5
At first I thought it was broken but then it showed some limits, like putting the opponent in a highly defensive stance and being impossible getting a claim 3 going. I still think it’s better than an average claim 2 where you have huge drawbacks in initiative or reserve, you just have to read it as “get claim 2 on one challenge”. It can still miss but if you’re not able to win as an attacker you shouldn’t be playing this anyway.
jcwamma – 4 out of 5
So this looks scary as anything, but if we do the sums, if you’re able to win all 3 challenges on attack this is, on average, a blank 4-7-2-6. Which, fine, slightly above the curve but not absurd. And if you can’t win that many challenges, it gets really bad really fast. Now that said, I’m no fool, and I understand that there are way of initiating more than 3 challenges in a round. If you can get multiple 3 claim challenges off, it can be game-winning. I don’t normally score win-more cards too highly, but if you try to hold on one more round before resetting and your opponent answers with this, you are very screwed. There’s a point where “win more” becomes “win game” and that’s when my rating doubles from 2 to 4.
Johannes – 3.5 out of 5
This card has a lot of potential and feels like a very Jim card. Still, if you can win multiple challenges, starting from 2 claim isn’t bad either. And if you are already ahead, you might not need this after all. But it’s still a good plot and there are only so many 2-claim plots you can use. It might open a lot of deals in melee table like growing claim from other players to hit the player leading the table. Or getting an unopposed challenge if promising not to trigger the plot.
Von Wibble – 2.5 out of 5
If you get to claim 3 you probably have the game won already. Triggering this twice for challenges with 0, 1 and 2 claim is more realistic, and even then will likely require a card like Khal Drogo to give an additional challenge to enable this. If you want high initiative to go second and have high claim, use Retaliation! instead. If you want to go first and are running a tribal deck, Vanquish beats it. Seems like this is a niche plot.
Xelcor – 4 out of 5
A very strong plot with few downsides, you mostly wanna try to get additional challenges with the plot but you don’t really have to sometimes. High initiative helps a lot. Yes sometimes you don’t get everything out of it and it falls a bit flat, but sometimes it wins the game with the 3rd challenge either in power claim or you cleared the board and your opponent has nothing left. Remember if you don’t win a challenge you don’t do claim anyway 🙂
The Gift of Mercy (2.6 Average)
Hagen – 2.5 out of 5
It’s a card I don’t quite understand and it doesn’t encourage me to analyze it in depth. The huge barrier comes from the fact I would never build a deck without heavy resets, but that’s just a personal opinion. I’ve seen people master this agenda with Jaqen/Kindly Man and win games brilliantly, but only time will tell if it’ll be successfull in a competitive environment. I highly doubt it.
jcwamma – 1 out of 5
It’s a fun effect. I love the idea of an agenda that encourages you to win the game by pure control, that’s brilliant, and I thank Alejandro for creating it. But I cannot overstate the degree to which announcing to your opponent that you’re definitely not running a proper reset (I guess The Stranger kind of counts at a push, but you know what I mean) is bad. Not running them is one thing, but not running them and telling your opponent makes it a billion times easier to play against this agenda than just about any other agenda in the game. But hey, the power claim upside is fun, points for that. (Not actual points but you know what I mean.)
Johannes – 2.5 out of 5
The downside is big but it’s a good way to gain extra power for some decks. Of course, using Jaqen H’ghar multiple times is some extra spice. Getting characters to exactly 3 tokens before killing them is hard though.
Von Wibble – 3 out of 5
This isn’t going to trigger for power too often, as chances are your opponent will use any chuds with 2 tokens on for military claim, and will just do all they can to keep big guys with 2 tokens on alive. However, if you can just get the interrupt off a couple of times then you only need 11 power to win the game. The drawback is huge though, as your opponent knows your reset is going to be Wildfire if anything.
Xelcor – 4 out of 5
I was a bit scared about it coming out of testing, but i went into a nice spot. The non omen plots are a big downside and keeps the power gain this can do in check. The interactions with Jaqen H’ghar is slightly concerning, you can just ignore the power gain and just use it as a spot kill every time he wins a challenge. Aaannd Kindly Man….. Most decks play strong good stuff and multiple stands to spam so many tokens your opponent cant really reset you (at least that is the game plan).
Card Averages
4.0 Hour of the Wolf
3.8 Bowen Marsh
3.7 Varys
3.6 Battle on the Green Fork
3.6 Nymeria of Ny Sar
3.4 Olenna’s Wheelhouse
3.3 Jon Snow
3.2 Aegon the Conqueror
3.2 Kingswood
3.1 Dickon Tarly
3.0 The Watch Needs Good Men
2.9 Black Balaq
2.9 Grand Maester Pycelle
2.7 The Green Fork
2.6 The Gift of Mercy
2.6 Nightfall
2.4 Water Gardens Sentry
2.3 Allard Seaworth
2.1 Martial Law
1.9 Great Kraken’s Crew
As an impartial observer for this pack, I am utterly shocked to see that Dickon Tarly didn’t finish in the bottom five of the pile given the number of complaints I’ve heard about him! I’m even more surprised to see Great Kraken’s Crew as the worst card in this pack… Maybe the team are simply overtired from producing content at such a ferocious pace?! What do you all think? As always, please direct any complaints to [email protected]. Until next time!
