A New Chapter - Tales from the Red Keep

The 4th installment from the King's Landing Cycle, this particular pack is an interesting one, as it packed many very interesting card that is useful for a variety of decks.

But first, as usual, the distribution of cards -

1 Agenda

3 Attachments, 1 for Lannister, 1 for Greyjoy and 1 for Stark.

10 Characters, Martell, Targaryen and Lannister each gets 1, the other Houses gets 2 each, and 1 neutral character.

1 important Martell event,

4 Locations, 1 for Baratheon, 1 Greyjoy, 1 Targaryen and 1 Neutral.

and of course, a city Plot.

The Agenda is the famous White Book, for the Kingsguard. We all know what these fellas are at the moment, so perhaps for the future~

The attachments are no big deal, except for the Lannister's Flogged and Chained, which is a common combo for kneeling decks, though not always a necessity - it does work very well in Joust environment and I might even say it is almost mandatory for Lannister kneel decks to have a couple of these in a Jouse deck. Well, you get 3 of them in a single pack, so it's not too bad.

The characters in this pack is, well, very good, to say the least. Syrio Forel, the neutral fencing tutor everyone likes, is a very good inclusion to almost any deck. We have a single copy of him here, definitely not enough. We also have only a single copy of the Red Viper that is not used in Sand Snake decks, he does a different thing, but does it very well too, and is a cool character for the foundation of some very cool Martell concepts.

The Joffrey Baratheon in this deck is the king of many Lannister decks, and one can argue the Lannisters will need to get 3 packs of this one just to get enough Joffreys. The other characters, with the exception of Daemon Blackfyre, are not as exciting, but many of them are quite useable, such as the extremely cheap Distinguished Boatwain for the Greyjoys and the Queen of Thorns for Baratheon Shadow decks.

The 3 copies of Viper's Rage event for the Martell, is absolutely necessary in pretty much every Martell deck.

The Red Keep and the Dragon Pit locations in this pack are also commonly seen, indicating their usefulness.

The City Plot (City of Spiders) is a very good one, used in every decks that use a good number of City Plots.

All in all this is an excellent pack, I'd say it's a MUST get for Lannisters and Martell, and good to have for almost every other House.

(o.o)

A New Chapter - Tower of the Hand

The 3rd installment in the King's Landing cycle, and here comes quite a bit of Shadow manipulation tech, many of them "Anti-Shadows".

In this pack :

1 Baratheon Attachment,

11 Characters! - Stark, Targaryen and Martell each get 1, 2 for everybody else, including Neutral.

3 Events,

4 Locations - 1 each for Baratheon, Lannister, Stark and Targaryen.

and of course, 1 City Plot.

The Baratheon attachment Jousting Steed is for Knights, but wouldn't be of much use in the current Baratheon Knight decks, but perhaps more necessary in a Kingsguard deck?

There are quite a few good characters in this pack. Greyjoys will greatly benefit from having the Sea Urchins, which is a very good low cost character useful as a filler or warm body in pretty much any Greyjoy deck. (Plus he can sometimes randomly win you games) The Royal Entourage for the Baratheon is an auto-include in any Power rush decks with any good number of Lords. Ser Jaime Lannister in this pack is an excellent character for Lannister kneel decks, and useful for pretty much any other Lannister concept. The other characters may not be very memorable, but most of them aren't completely pointless. Oh, I almost forgot Ser Preston Greenfield - this particular version is very good for Kingsguard decks.

The most important event in this pack is The Hand's Judgment - pretty much the most commonly seen "dispel magic" card for events. You will eventually find space for some of your decks for this card I'm sure - so buy 3 packs of this chapter to stock up on this card - you might need 3 copies of it eventually. The other events are, well, niche.

All the Locations put together cannot challenge the impact of the Aegon's Hill for the Targaryens. These hills are getting on my nerves. Used at the right time with some luck, this card will just eliminate key characters from opponent's deck - once and for all, until Benjen comes along. Even if you do not trigger the ability, this card provides maximum espionage - no reason not to play at least 1 copy in any Targaryen deck.

The City plot is an average plot card.

(o.o)

A New Chapter - A Time of Trial

The second installment in the King's Landing Cycle, and one that Lannister players may want to take a look at, especially so if one is toying with Shadows here. But first, the distribution.

1 Targaryen Attachment.

9 Characters - 2 for Stark and Baratheon, and 1 for each other House, including 1 Neutral.

4 Events - 1 generic and 1 each for Greyjoy, Lannister and Targaryen.

5 Locations - with Greyjoy and Targaryen not getting one.

Finally, 1 City Plot.

This chapter is still Shadow heavy, expanding on the Shadow tech introduced by City of Secrets. Some rather staple card for Shadow decks were included, but nothing really key if one is not playing any Shadows.

The Tears of Lys, the only attachment card in this chapter, is a rather useful little attachment for the Targaryen. Gaining an Intrigue icon is always good for the Dragons, and the added deadly is simply too efficient for the cost of 1 gold. The triggered effect may look difficult to trigger, but remember that this happens whether or not your Tear's attached character is participating (or for that matter, whether or not you are even involved) in that Intrigue challenge. So, ya, why not have it? You get 3 copies of this in this pack.

Most of the characters are not very memorable, with the exception of Gold Cloaks, Street Waif and Flea Bottom Scavengers. These 3 are all pretty interesting characters to use within their respective specialized decks - Gold Cloaks for the Lannister Shadows, Street Waif for any Targaryen interested in discard retrieval (darn good!) and the Flea Bottoms somehow involved with the Brotherhood. Balon is worth a mention, especially when a Greyjoy deck-depletion tech finally become more prominent. All the above mentioned characters, with the exception of Balon, comes with 3 copies in the pack, so a single pack will get you all sated with these fellows.

The events are alright but I've not seen them played very often. The only exception is Condemned by the the Council. This is a neutral event card that deals with troublesome locations, very handy to have around if one's environment is full of Bear Islands and those pesky hills. A Fistful of Coppers is a gold generating card for Lannister, though I don't see a real need for it except in recurring Shadow Lannisters. Unfortunately the Condemned by the Council, and the Coppers only comes in single in the pack - you need 2 - 3 packs to have a good draw for your deck.

The Locations are mostly pretty good, bu they're shadowed by the Lost Oasis of the Martell, which is as staple as it can be. The good thing is that you get 3 copies of it in a pack, Martells, go get this one, it is almost mandatory to have a couple of this in any Martell deck. The Twilight Market is another staple Location card, specifically for Shadow decks. These 2 all comes with 3 copies.

The single plot card is another City plot, an averagely useful City plot.

All in all a good pack (almost essential) to get for the Martell and Shadows player (especially Lannisters). The Stark and Baratheon may be able to ignore this completely. Targaryen should get this, but it is not as crucial as it is for the others. Greyjoys? Ha.

(o.o)

A New Chapter - City of Secrets

City of Secrets is the first of the King's Landing Cycle and it is the beginning of the actual LCG, no longer the reprints of the older CCG, and therefore, they're white bordered, and there are way less banned cards from now on. The King's Landing Cycle introduced the Shadow tech, and every pack came with a little inserts with the Shadow rules, which is probably the reason why the chapter packs are all a little too big for the content.

First the distribution.

2 Attachments , 1 for Greyjoy and 1 for Targaryen.

8 Characters, 1 for Everyone (even Neutral) except Stark, who got 2.

3 Events,

3 Locations, 1 Baratheon, 1 Lannister and 1 Stark.

Finally, 1 Plot.

The Plot is the first of the City Plots, and one of the most commonly seen and useful one. The City of Lies is pretty much a stapler in all Shadow decks. You get 1 copy of this in a pack.

All 3 locations played with Shadows, with the Lannister's being the most immediately useful. The Tunnels of the Red Keep is enormously deadly in pumping strength for Lannister Shadow decks, and should be inserted into one if possible. You get 3 copies of each location, so one should have a good supply of these after you bought a pack or 2.

The events are pretty good, with the exception of perhaps the Martell's. Shadow Politics is a good card for the Lannisters or any decks with good Intrigue strength, and Bound by Duty is excellent for Stark defenders. Only 1 copy of Shadow Politics come in this pack, unfortunately, though you probably wouldn't need up to 3 copies. (perhaps 2, or even 1 could do sometimes)

Many of the characters are excellent - Tyrion, for example, is a great fella to have in a Shadow deck (best used with Lannister), the Hungry Mob is a free Stark filler, the 2 Kingsguards are alright, and Arya is so good she should be in any Stark Shadow deck with Winter tech. The problem is that the good characters are all singles in this pack, so you'll probably need to get at least 2 copies of the pack for them.

The Dragon Skull attachment is an excellent addition to Targaryen burn decks, and unfortunately only has a single copy in each pack. The Greyjoy's Kraken Tatoo is not very useful at this point, though I suspect that it may come to light someday when the Greyjoy's deck depletion tech is filled out.

All in all a must get for the AGoT game if you even think about playing with Shadows at all. If you aren't keen on Shadowing, or playing City tech at all, you probably can make do without a copy of this.

(o.o)

Battle Hymn - 16-03-2011

16th of March, in the year of our King 0001, Paradigm Infinitum.

After many more weeks of frustration on waiting for the Core sets to arrive, we've finally got around to create proper decks with proper resources now that all our stuff are mostly in. Core sets are still lacking over here, creating a problem in getting new players, but the core group of us is now having pretty regular (and many impromptu) skirmishes on AGoT.

I went down to PI yesternight mostly to meet our new TO- Colin, and most of the fellas were saying that they couldn't make it since we already had a battle yesternight. However, pretty much everyone turned up (except G1), so we did had quite a few games.

Before people turned up, I was introducing AGoT to Elliot, and hopefully, as an experienced L5R player he might bite into the game. I think he likes the game, but might take a while for him to research into this before committing fully - and it definitely didn't help without any Core Sets available for sale~

I played a introductory Joust game with Elliot, he using my Deep Fear Greyjoy deck, and I trying out my brand new We need a Home Neutral Refugee deck.

Since this was the first time both of us were tempering with the deck, things weren't that smooth throughout. I had Dorne in my opening hand after a mulligan, and proceeded to get The Iron Throne with my Building Season. Elliot had Balon on table and slapped a Dragon's Horn on him right away, supported by a Scouting Vessel while I threw down a good number of free refugees.

The game was actually pretty close despite Elliot's inexperience - my Refugees continually worn down his character count, while Balon's attack simply meant that I can't block with anybody I know in my deck. The round before I could close in with my killing blow, Elliot ran away with the game by using an Assertion of Might after Balon's Power Challenge, with Asha paying the kneeling price. Oh well. It was close.

After the guys settled in, I sat out to observe the first game that they played. Fadzulli was playing his Lannister Joffrey deck, John his Lannister too (I think, he was too far for me to see clearly), YY his Martell (probably not the old one since his Red Viper was the kill everyone version) and Bann his Bolton Stark.

Bann started the game with Roose Bolton stacked up to the sky, with duplicates, Nymeria, and a Bloody Scourge. John's very first plot was Condemned by the Realm, and Bann chose to eliminate Fad's Joffrey (he dies everytime!). The battle went on for a while, and from my angle (which was closest to Fad), the Lannister was getting it hard as everything he had was either killed or destroyed without mercy.

I went down to dinner before the game ended, and Bann told me later that he would probably win the game but YY needed to leave, so the game was pretty much a draw (sorta).

I then sat down for my first melee game of the night.

I was pit against Colin's Baratheon deck (John's, since Colin didn't have a deck), John's Lannister Brotherhood deck (strangely effective, if you ask me) and Fad's Lannister. I played my I need a Home Neutral Refugee deck to test it out further.

John and I were getting the better side of the bargain most of the game, though Colin pretty much stroke a semi-permanent alliance with Fad, and was attacking me (most of the time, since I almost always had the largest number of warm bodies on table.) The Lannister was kneeling people left and right, and I got Lion's Gate all the time!

Anyway, I started the game with an ok draw after a mulligan, placing the Iron Throne down during setup, and drawn Dorne during replacement. I therefore chose to play A Time for Ravens, and dropped down the Black Raven (since I was the last player, no one else benefit from the extra gold this round) and summoned Gilly.

I only Valar Mroghulis at the 3rd turn as I saw John having a very good number of Lannisters gold people on the table (he even outnumbered me), and the game sorta reset a little bit. Colin was having a good time rushing his House power to about 7 or 8 before John and me smacked him down a little and eliminated everyone he had on table. When John summoned Beric and gave him the Head of a Dwarf, I knew I had problem, especially after he so strategically dropped my only copy of Milk of Poppy. Fad came to the rescue by sending Beric back to hand.

Fad was not doing badly at that time either, with Joffrey on the table and pretty much immune to anything I could do to him. I attempted a Westeros Bleed to reset the table again, and straight after that, Fad Valar Morghullis one more time.

The game time had exceeded 2 hours by then and we decided to call it a day. John would probably win the game, despite me having 10 power on my House, since he played Fear of Winter, and was the only one with characters on table after the Valar. On hindsight, I should've just discard my whole hand of (8 cards, I think) to save all my characters when Fad played Narrow Escape after his Valar.

Oh well.

(o.o)

A New Chapter - Calling the Banners

Last of the black border chapter, and last of the Clash of Arms expansion cycle.

IMHO, this is one expansion that one cannot miss, probably doesn't require 3 of this pack, as the important stuff comes with 3 copies in a pack already.

The distribution of cards are as follows -

1 Attachment goes to Stark,

11 Characters - 2 Baratheon, 2 Greyjoy, 2 Lannister, 1 Martell, 2 Stark and 2 Targaryen.

7 Events, and

1 Location for the Stark again.

The crux of this pack is the Bannermen of the various Houses. Basically they are the best and easiest way for your characters to gain their House ability, and they also stand in as a reasonably able fighter when times are tough. The good thing is, even if they're already on the table as a character, you can still attach them as a Banner after you fulfill certain conditions, usually winning a challenge. The sad thing is of course the Lannister didn't get one in this pack, and I can understand why, I mean, what's the point of going through those trouble for Infamy - hardly worth it~

The 5 Banner of the XXX all comes with 3 copies each, and that's 15 very useful cards to be considered during deck construction, at least for the couple of Houses where their House ability does impact the game significantly. House Targaryen, however, didn't get to gain "Ambush" as it will be quite pointless for them, it does, however, gain sort of a Bodyguard effect with the banner when it is attached.

Supporting the Banners are the events, and they all play with the Stand all characters with Banner attachment special clause, besides their already formidable functions. Do note that Compelled by the Rock is banned in tournaments, so you'll have 1 piece of wallpaper in this pack. These events is probably the main reason you might want to get 3 copies of this pack, as they all only come with a single copy in it.

The other cards are not so useful, generally. The vast majority of them are used to manipulate Banners - such as searching for them, giving characters with attached Banners special abilities (such as do not kneel to attack or defend) or disband Banners to make them your slave etc. The worthy mention will have to be Fish Whiskers, an unique Greyjoy character giving you 3 STR at 1 cost but will kneel if you do not control a Warship (not exactly a major problem in a Greyjoy deck) and Ser Lancel of the Lannister who could be a great addition to a Lannister swarm deck - if such a thing exists.

The only location in the pack is the Gates of Winterfell for the Stark, which is interesting but not entirely easily useable, though it obviously tried to support the Stalwart function.

Get this one, the Banners are worth it, and buy 3 if you need to use those events to beef up some of your deck's capability, but otherwise, a single copy should suffice.

(o.o)

The Ocean Orcheatra - House Greyjoy First Impression

Now that we've got the majority of our cards all of us have been building decks, and I went for House Greyjoy, mostly because I'm the only one with 3 sets of Kings of the Sea, and therefore probably the only candidate in the community who would bother to build Greyjoy decks. So I figured why not? Squids look cute anyway.

After toying with the deck with very consistent failures in games, I've finally sat down seriously to look at my cards and formed up a deck that will be ready for testing, hopefully sometime this week or next. Here are some of my thoughts about Greyjoys, the pirates of the Iron Islands.

To start with, let's talk about their "House ability" - Intimidate. I think among the House abilities, Greyjoy definitely has one of the best (if not the best). This is evident in the fact that the Intimidate ability comes readily to many characters (unlike the Stark's Stalwart), is relatively easy to use, and most importantly, is the only House ability that isn't situational - like the Ironborns, you're in control when you're using this ability.

Intimidate is of course, only useful in attacks, but so is Vigilant. It has no attached cost (unlike Ambush), or conditions (like Vengeful and Vigilant), and has no need for something else to happen first (Stalwart and Infamy). It also plays very well with Greyjoy's unopposed tech, since it reduce defender's STR to zero if you out-STR them with an Intimidate character. There are also ways to get this ability on characters, such as the Banner. With 7 characters with Intimidate, with average cost of 4, and only 2 of them being unique, one can safely field 17 different Intimidate characters on the ground - scary ya?

Now, the Greyjoys have 3 distinct pathways -

1. The Raiders.

There are 7 Raider characters, only 2 of them are unique, but the Raiders are a little all over the place at the moment. Their true cohesiveness comes from numbers - Euron Crow's Eye (Song of Silence version) and Euron's Enforcers all support fellow Raiders. The Enforcers, with their Intimidate ability, gets quite deadly when enough Raiders are on the table, since they get +1 STR for each Raider character you control. The cheap Ambitious Oarsman is pretty much a Raider specific discounter that allows you to use them (and any warships with nothing better to do), to discount the next Raider character you call, making Raider summoning a rather economical affair. With Euron on the table, the attack can be rather devastating, since the Raiders all get Stealth, and most importantly, your opponent cannot use events - perfect for those Military attacks you need to send the Stark's way. And not to forget, with Intimidate and Stealth, there are few opponents who can even raise any defenders against you, and then, of course, the Support of Harlaw will allow Euron to lead the next wave of Raiders in a different mission, or even the same one with the Assault of the Kraken. The Longship Silence is also a very supportive warship for a Raider attack deck.

2. Deck discards.

Probably a lot more powerful in a Joust environment, deck discard is not exactly very viable in a melee environment at the moment - there just isn't enough tech to support the Greyjoy's manipulation of the discard pile. Sure, they can sack a lot of cards from all their opponents, but aside from a few means of controlling locations and so on, there aren't too many means to make use of that resource deprivation - milling just doesn't cut it, for the time being. That said, the psychological impact of the deck-milling Greyjoys is pretty cool.

3. Unopposed challenge.

This is probably the most commonly seen Greyjoy's means of victory. With either Intimidate, or Stealth (again, Euron is a great help over here, and I'm referring to the Kings of the Sea's Euron). Many cards from the Greyjoy's resources allow them to capitalize on unopposed challenges, from their unique Plot card, to power claiming or multi-attack Events, to many attachments and locations that enhances your gain from unopposed challenges, this is probably the easiest mean to build a Greyjoy deck, and probably a secondary part to any of those Greyjoys who didn't take this as their path.

There are several more interesting things about the Greyjoys.

I think they have many cheap and efficient characters, though they do come with some random problems. Take Ancient Mariner for example - this is an extremely cheap character for 4 STR, costing only 2 gold, though he gets a -3 STR in a Military challenge - not a big problem if you're using him for Power challenges, or just for Dominance. The Distinguished Boatwain is probably the most cost-effective character besides Lord Frey, and his ability isn't that much of an issue; and Fishwhiskers and the Mercenaries of Pyke come a close second. I don't think any other Houses has this kind of efficiency - except those Stark people whom you can never keep around in the first place.

The Warships concept is also pretty unique to the Greyjoys. I think they're the only one who manipulates locations in this way. They can gain Power with them, use them to contest Dominance and every Warship has some means of being used by the appearance of certain characters in some ways, and some even play off each other - such as the Naval Escort.

The Ironborn trait is also pretty consistent in the Greyjoy's character retinue, and some of their cards support that, such as the Salt Wife. But if you somehow uses Robb Stark's "name Trait" ability it could be quite profitable. They do however, don't have a lot of attachments to play with, but some of them are very effective for what they do, like the Fishnet and Harlaw's Support.

They also have the only event card in the whole world that allows them to win Initiative regardless. That is a bane to all who plays Taken by Surprise. It also gives them a lot of strategic advantage by winning them lots of Initiatives.

I now hope to see more of Greyjoy's other potential playstyle - such as the Drowned God's people, and perhaps expand more on their current deck-depletion tech.

All in all this is a power House, with a lot going for them, and relatively easy to start. Their problem is of course the current financial issue with the Kings of the Seas deluxe expansion, which of course will be fixed very soon.

And don't forget, they have the coolest Resin House card.

(o.o)swimming