Announcing Lord of the Waters

Hello Thrones Community,

Alongside new aspects of the source material and reliable mechanics, the Sea of Shadow cycle has pursued innovation in three areas: factional mechanics, the shadow keyword, and the Warship trait. While each pack hopes to further each of these areas to some degree, the Lord of the Waters will appropriately serve as a capstone to this naval theme! Alongside the final four in-faction shadow Warship locations, we have representations from Seagard and Orkmont, an escapee across the Narrow Sea, an aspiring admiral, and the City of a Hundred Isles. And if the sea holds little interest, you can look forward to the assassination of two Lord Commanders…

With a face to prove illegitimacy and the blood to kill a king, we begin with House Baratheon’s new variant of Edric Storm, the easily-identified Bastard of Robert Baratheon and devout follower of The Seven – specifically, The Warrior. Crucial to the plans of Stannis Baratheon and rituals of Melisandre, the boy combines his faction’s fondness for control with his faith’s focus on power tokens by restricting how much power each player can gain – by any means – and forcing an emphasis on movement such as through power challenges, “Song of the Seven”, or Fury. The event A New Hand supports another, newer strength of House Baratheon: The Small Council agenda, added with Whispers of War. Depicting the replacement of Jon Arryn by Eddard Stark, its effect provides sustainability to a board state reliant on unique characters by offering substitutions rather than saves.

Looking west to the Greyjoys, we see two additions to its new mechanical theme: location and attachment superiority. Already partially revealed through Naval Bombardment‘s focus on locations, the new Army of Ironborn and Raider-granting Weapon show the role of attachments in the equation. Our interest in mechanics reliant on relative superiority – like Lannister’s pursuit of more cards in hand – stems from the flexibility it affords its user; one can hoard the relevant resource or deplete it from an opponent, turning an already-advantageous position into a distinct playstyle, late-game goal, and catalyst for powerful effects. Orkmont Elite support this through a pillage-based pilfering of the discard pile a la the original Euron Crow’s Eye, facilitating a glut of attachments which Reaver’s Greataxe can leverage into an unkneeling attacker.

From plunderers to money-lenders, House Lannister’s new focus on the Small Council sees familiar mechanics affixed to appropriate characters. The deathly Gyles Rosby combines the Trait with a generous-but-precarious economy, punishing a lack of challenge phase gold with death. One extravagance his gold might be spent on is Lannister’s own shadow Warship, the King’s Landing Dromond; part of a royal fleet Cersei Lannister hoped might project strength following her father’s death, the Old Lion’s spirit can be seen in the location’s emergence from shadow banishing low-cost characters back to their owner’s hand – complimenting cards like Tywin’s Stratagem and Tywin’s Whisperer. Once in place, the ships also offer a different kind of unreliable wealth, reserving unspent gold after taxation rather than yielding it only in specific circumstances.

Sharing a stereotype for duplicity and a penchant for control, we have House Martell. Recalling their origins on Mother Rhoyne, their great migration across the Narrow Sea, and Greenblood’s great canals, we have the Dornish Sloop. Much like its fellows, this in-faction Warship offers both a faction-appropriate active and passive effect, in this case boasting both an increase to one’s reserve and the removal of a challenge icon upon emerging from shadow. Turning from reliability to innovation, Southron Informant compliments an already-intriguing effect with support for Martell’s new mechanical desire to be outnumbered by immediately infiltrating an opponent’s ranks. Beyond clogging their side with an unimpressive character, this process also discards a random card from said opponent’s hand and draws one for the Spy’s owner. All this requires her to enter play during the challenge phase, however, simultaneously preventing marshalling phase shenanigans and Military claim soak.

Already infamous for its unsavoury and untrustworthy populace, the Night’s Watch lives up to these low opinions as the cut-throat cards offered by this pack draw from the cold-blooded murder both Jeor “The Old Bear” Mormont and Jon Snow. First comes Dirk, seen here holding his namesake, who moves characters discarded from play into their owner’s dead pile via a situational-but-lethal forced reaction; appropriately, this pairs especially well with Mutiny at Craster’s Keep, as sacrificed characters are not affected. Moving ahead to one of the most recent chapters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Conspirator’s Blade fits nicely alongside Mists of Memory‘s Bowen Marsh and Marsh’s Conspirator, not just by helping you bring yet more cards out of shadow but also by preventing the cancellation of events; this can justify the inclusion of otherwise risky cards, like The Bastard’s Letter with its high cost or Daggers in the Dark whose caveat for cancellation is denied by this Weapon.

From a land where water is worth more than gold to where it’s as common as mud, the Riverlands and House Tully are one of the game’s oldest card families. Marrying House Stark’s aggression with the rapid acquisition of power on characters, this family’s strategies are powerful but fragile, and so we looked to yet more faction-appropriate mechanics which might offer either sustainability or speed. In Tytos Blackwood, scion of a northern house displaced south in ancient days, we see power-on-characters paired with the faction’s love of even-handed negation, in this case with the master of Raventree Hall‘s participation blanking the text boxes of all participants without power. If one prefers acceleration to protection, the house words of Jason Mallister – Above the Rest – double a character’s power gain, with a House Tully character additionally standing as a nod to another of Stark’s oldest rewards.

Unsurprisingly for a house in exile, House Targaryen returns us to the sea and boasts the most far-flung cards of the pack. Sailing out from Volantis at the head of the Golden Company is Ser Harry Strickland, whose non-loyalty and interaction with Mercenary characters makes him an able servant of either Aegon Targaryen variant. More shrewd than bold, the company’s former-treasurer turned Commander strives to wring greater value out of his subordinates, doing so not just by standing them but by granting them your choice of icon for that phase. And in the uttermost east, where the Cinnamon Straits meet the Jade Sea, lies Qarth. The trade which fuels this Queen of Cities relies on ships like the Qartheen Galleas, which not only eases its faction’s reliance on small hand size but offers the versatile recursion of shadow cards.

From one merchant power to another, we have House Redwyne of The Arbor, and the wealth of House Tyrell in general. Beginning with the last in-faction shadow Warship, the Redwyne Merchanter draws on the faction’s roots with a permanent increase to income and a one-off boost to STR; an addition desirable to almost anyone, which is just how the Tyrells wish to be perceived. A new addition to the family itself comes with Megga Tyrell, whose power-gain from the removal of opponents from a challenge recalls the Mists of Memory cycle and its efforts to create a more reliable playstyle through cards like Chivalry of the South and Highgarden Treasury.

Finally, as alluded to earlier, the neutral cards offered by Lord of the Waters serve as a climax to the cycle’s Warship-focus. In the humble Ibbenese Whaler, players can find a small discount on marshaling into shadows and a last-minute gift of cards should their hand be exhausted, all of which feels appropriate for a group eking out a living on the fringes of Westeros’ wars and schemes.

Sailing out of the shadows to lead this now completed fleet of nine we have The Bastard of Driftmark, exchanging his ties to House Lannister for stealth and self-standing via his ships. As a neutral Small Council character he joins the dubious company of Littlefinger and Varys, albeit with a far fairer face; on that topic, we would once again thank the talented illustrators who give form and features to this project’s cards, with more than half this pack bearing an original commission especially for Lord of the Waters!

In this pack’s agenda card we have the capstone for this cycle’s seafaring theme: Trading With Braavos. Intended to evoke both Trading With Qohor‘s challenge-based searching and The White Book or The Conclave‘s trans-factional deck-building, those wishing to ally themselves with the Titan can balance a wide range of locations with greater reliability of access. Finally, in a nod to the game’s Melee format, we offer The War of Five Kings. Fluctuating in strength with one’s number of rivals, this plot hopes to simulate the entertaining chaos that defines both A Song of Ice and Fire‘s opening conflict and the Melee format in general.

We hope this fourth installment in the Sea of Shadow cycle proves as enjoyable to play as it was to create. Few packs remain, but there’s still plenty to explore; new uses for shadow and new factional themes, as promised, as well as overdue debuts from the source material and creative implementations for familiar tools…

We wish you good fortune in the games to come!

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