72 replies to this topic

[sparrowhawk]

It’s a slow day at work so I thought I’d start an old favourite thread title from 1E Thrones (it’s been ages since I started one). So without any further preamble (as if I do), here are my wishes for the next FAQ .

 

 

JOUST FAQ WISHES

 

 

ERRATA

None – changing the written text of a card is a last resort, better to change the rules

 

 

RESTRICTED

The following cards are Restricted: a tournament deck may only feature 1 of these cards (up to the permitted maximum).

 

First Snow of Winter

This plot has distorted the meta far too much, destroying archetypes and making Lanni ambush too good

 

Trading with the Pentoshi

This plot injects too much on-call gold into the game and big boards, restricting it lowers playable cost curve

 

Counting Coppers

This plot injects too much on-call card draw into the game, restricting it makes other source draw more valuable

 

Varys’ Riddle

This plot is too easy an opener and often mitigates 1 character set ups hence encourages high curve builds

 

 

RULES

Revision to some unintuitive card interaction rulings including:

Tears of Lys – “choose” is no longer a pre-requisite explicit wording for targeting where choice is implicit in executing the text

Riddle – the opponent’s “when revealed” plot text appears on your card, has no effect in some cases (like Harvest and Throne)

Stand – where not stated, no card may be stood more than 3 times in a phase using the same ability (better than Jeyne errata)

I’m sure there’s other silliness that cause barriers for entry and gives LCG players a bad reputation of being “sad rules lawyers”

 

 

MULLIGAN

The rules for a Mulligan in a tournament are different. Instead of returning all cards to your deck and reshuffling, each player puts aside face down any number of their initially drawn cards, refills their hand back to 7 cards then shuffles the cards put aside back into their deck (opponent then cuts).

 

 

SCORING

A player scores 1 point for a win and 0 points for a loss. When time is called, the current turn is played, then the player with more power wins. If tied on power, the player with more total cards controlled in play wins. If tied, the player with more cards in hand wins. If tied, the player with more cards left in their deck wins. If tied, first player wins.

 

 

PRIZES

Better – stop killing the competitive game with paltry prizes, skinflint FFG OP, this is such a short-term approach

 

 

 

So what are your FAQ wishes? What is it about the game that you consider a blemish that can be easily fixed?

[FedericoFasullo]

I play in a different meta and Trading with pentoshi was never played in decks which made the cut at tourneys.

 

Also restring FSOW without restring any other lannister card is not really a thing.

 

My wish on errata is that "at the end of the phase" would be "inside the phase" so the Eerie can work on tears of lys.

[chem2702]

#WUA

[Reclusive]

My wish is to not have any changes. Or at least get some feedback from known great players/deckbuilders and adjust accordingly.

 

Random but-hurt forum posts never did the community any good.

 

Fan service is bad for the health of the game in the long run.

[istaril]

Speculating about FAQs is always fun, although I'm still firmly in the "let valar do what it'll do before we start changing things"

I find it intersting to see Pentoshi on that list, when its prevalence has plumetted with Summer Harvest entering the game. Varys's Riddle really doesn't seem like a problem to me - it's actually a variance mitigator in the anti-marched role (which most people clamour for, claiming a bad setup loses them the game).

 

Counting is an odd call too, because while it IS currently devaluing in-faction draw, it may well be necessary to mitigate variance until all factions have properly fleshed out. It's another case where I think it's removal would hurt competitive play at the moment, but isn't outside of the realm of possibility to drive more diversity in decks later down the road.

 

As for the setup/mulligan changes, I think you have to be *very* careful there. The more 'stable' you make the early game, the more you push it towards a real game of Rock-Paper-Scissors (because the starting position is less variable). There's obviously a spectrum you can lie on, but everything we do that makes a setup more predictable inches us towards a chess-like opening (with more pairings, sure). I mean, a lot of people complain that a "Tywin+Reducer+Roseroad" setup is basically unbeatable...

[sparrowhawk]

I play in a different meta and Trading with pentoshi was never played in decks which made the cut at tourneys.
 
Also restring FSOW without restring any other lannister card is not really a thing.
 
My wish on errata is that "at the end of the phase" would be "inside the phase" so the Eerie can work on tears of lys.

Yeah but that would mean you Nightmares your own Wall to gain 2 power, right? It would make Varys safe from Nightmares and lots of other interactions. I think we are stuck with the rule. But I also think your main issue is specific to Tears of Lys?

Perhaps they should just bite the bullet and errata Tears, release a new version as an alt-art participation prize for a season (thereby increasing prizes too) so that it's widespread.

I hate Tears because
- an INT icon is treasured on high cost characters in any build without denial (Stark)
- it "does not target" that negates the value of cards like Drowned God's blessing
- the end of the phase which negates the value of cards like The Eyrie and Crypt
- clunkiness of poison tokens (in fact I hate treachery tokens too, inelegant design)

If they wanted something asymmetric to Sword with the lack of immediacy tempo in that challenge phase but easy to administer with limited targets, I would have far preferred:

"After you win an INT challenge in attack, kill a knelt unique character not in the challenge."

This maintains the lack of tempo (both this and Tears prefers go second), the same ease of application, but can always be mitigated (don't kneel), kills only the character subtype that can be duped (no poisoning Armies!), both of these would be far better target restrictions than having an INT icon which creates imbalance in intrigue-weak houses via a neutral kill event.

But we have what we have.

 

 

@Reclusive
You are probably right. Debate is bad (hey, this isn't Facebook standard, logical arguments, not just "but-hurt").
I recall facing the same attitude when I proposed they reboot Thrones 1E (6 months before they announced).
"It ain't broken, don't try to fix it" seems like the cry of people who don't want to strive for something ... better.
I have previously been against a Restricted List (I still hate errata) but Patrick Haynes' article changed my mind.


@Istaril
That was an excellent well-argued counter post. Your suspicions are correct, my post was more a "let's get the ball rolling and have a conversation". Hence some controversial choices (and non-choices).


I'm still hoping more people will contribute to a reasoned debate like Istaril's excellent measured response...

[FedericoFasullo]

Yeah but that would mean you Nightmares your own Wall to gain 2 power, right? It would make Varys safe from Nightmares and lots of other interactions. I think we are stuck with the rule. But I also think your main issue is specific to Tears of Lys?

 

Eh... no? I'm not sure. If the wall is blanked (until the end of the phase) it cannot trigger its interrupt (when the phase ends) because since the end of the phase is now inside the phase AS IT SHOULD BE the wall is still blanked. Am I wrong?

 

 But I also think your main issue is specific to Tears of Lys?

 

No it's specific to logic. The end of the phase is inside the phase, not in a limbo. The 31st of august is inside august, not somewhere in a limbo between august and september. It really irritates me.

[uBaHoB]

I'm curious why you added only plots in the restricted list. Do you think that they are really the key?

 

I'm with Alex on this one. Lets see what Valar, the whole Cycle and the Expansion will do first. Currently the cardpool is sooo small, every deck is 40-50 fixed cards with 4 plots fixed.

 

I think that with increased card pool and people trying to go "wide" in the builds will solve most of the meta and fix it. Also I think Banners will stop being played in some time.

[uBaHoB]

Double Post Delete me

[Serazu]

The S.O.S. changes imo:

Errata: Make Tyrion loyal.

RL: Tywin, Tyrion, Mirri

[Khudzlin]

I have a better erratum to resolve the problem with Jeyne Westerling: choose targets before determining and paying costs. That way, Jeyne can never be a valid target for her own ability.

[sparrowhawk]

I have a better erratum to resolve the problem with Jeyne Westerling: choose targets before determining and paying costs. That way, Jeyne can never be a valid target for her own ability.

Winner winner chicken dinner!
That's neat - the above solves a lot of potential issues down the line and promotes intuitive card interactions.
Very hard to argue against this change.
Bravo!

What about the old Janos Slynt rule? In Magic, you are allowed to look for a card and not find it, even when your opponent knows it's there (because you are searching his deck, eg, Haunting Echoes). I always felt uncomfortable with the Janos Slynt rule but it still exists in 2E. You can search for a card and genuinely not realise it's there, thereby breaking the Janos Slynt rule.

For example, I have an empty hand. I play Summons. You play my favourite Heads on Spikes. You force me to trigger first and all I can find is Tywin. Can I say "I find nothing"?

This is moving slightly to the issue of Enforceability of some rules (that we discussed in the Etiquette thread).

[sparrowhawk]

I'm curious why you added only plots in the restricted list. Do you think that they are really the key?
 
I'm with Alex on this one. Lets see what Valar, the whole Cycle and the Expansion will do first. Currently the cardpool is sooo small, every deck is 40-50 fixed cards with 4 plots fixed.
 
I think that with increased card pool and people trying to go "wide" in the builds will solve most of the meta and fix it. Also I think Banners will stop being played in some time.

Yeah, very hard to argue with Alex on the "let's see what Valar does" argument.

In research, you have Pre and Post focus groups. You could view this as a Pre-Valar navel gazing exercise (that us 1E players used to love doing, loads of shameless speculation and wishful thinking to fill the forum).

On the point about why I chose 4 plots, they were more like "stimulus material" (another research term where you don't force feed the focus group, just stimulate - I chose plots with extreme effects).

I don't pretend I have the answer. I was more prompting the audience to share theirs and provoke a discussion.

[RedSquadronK]

The errata I think would be extremely beneficial to the game would be Tywin now costs 8 gold. That would mean there are no longer the incredible setups of Tywin+reducer+roseroad that are all upside: now if you want to set him up you've gotta risk the Marched. It would make him much more difficult to safely play in the early game to snowball and dominate while keeping him just as powerful late game...

...but I doubt that errata will ever happen.

 

Restricted list...Maybe just Tywin and Mirri? Or even just Gregor and Mirri? Also agree with the feeling that it's probably best to (impatiently) wait for Valar and see what decks survive.

[Toggle]

As for potential errata, there is a difference between "functional errata" (that changes the general impact of the card) and "templating errata" (that clarifies how a card works and eliminates counterintuitive exceptions to commonly understood interactions).  I would much rather apply templating errata to cards than to change the rules.

 

An example of templating errata would be changing Tears of Lys to the following:

"After you win an [Intrigue] challenge as the attacking player, choose a character without an [Intrigue] icon controlled by the losing opponent. Place a poison token on that character. At the end of the phase, if that character still has that poison token, remove it and kill that character. (Max 1 per challenge.)"

 

I am 100% behind the idea of templating errata, especially if it would have no impact on 90% of times that the card is used.

 

Functional errata for balance purposes is a much harder sell, as it is confusing to track what a card "really does" and makes things less accessible for new players.

 

Most players would probably agree that Tywin is objectively above the curve of a 7-cost character, but I think any other functional errata or restriction at this point should wait until we see how Valar shakes up the competitive scene.  In a vacuum, I think my preferred "fix" for Tywin is to add Limited.

 

I also think a lot of the card interactions would not be an issue at all if the loyalty mechanic was used more liberally.  Cards like Mirri and Gregor should probably be loyal to break them apart (much like all card draw effects are loyal).

 

Jeyne should just be errata'ed to choose a different character, to make herself an illegal target.

[Khudzlin]

What about the old Janos Slynt rule? In Magic, you are allowed to look for a card and not find it, even when your opponent knows it's there (because you are searching his deck, eg, Haunting Echoes). I always felt uncomfortable with the Janos Slynt rule but it still exists in 2E. You can search for a card and genuinely not realise it's there, thereby breaking the Janos Slynt rule.

For example, I have an empty hand. I play Summons. You play my favourite Heads on Spikes. You force me to trigger first and all I can find is Tywin. Can I say "I find nothing"?

This is moving slightly to the issue of Enforceability of some rules (that we discussed in the Etiquette thread).

 

I don't see why that rule would change. Search effects do not target (even with your proposed "implicit targeting" rule), because you cannot choose the card you take before you begin resolving the effect.

[Khudzlin]

An example of templating errata would be changing Tears of Lys to the following:

"After you win an [Intrigue] challenge as the attacking player, choose a character without an [Intrigue] icon controlled by the losing opponent. Place a poison token on that character. At the end of the phase, if that character still has that poison token, remove it and kill that character. (Max 1 per challenge.)"

 

That's a functional erratum as well, since it makes Tears of Lys target the character it affects (under the current rules, it doesn't, because the word "choose" is required for a target).

[istaril]

I have a better erratum to resolve the problem with Jeyne Westerling: choose targets before determining and paying costs. That way, Jeyne can never be a valid target for her own ability.

 

Ah, but there's a problem: how do you handle effects whose targeting restrictions depend on a choice made in the cost (e.g. Tower of the Hand, Vaes Dothrak). It creates some rather awkward card interactions there too.

 

There is a solution that might be reasonable; requiring target selection to be among targets establishes as legal in step I of initiating the ability (checking play restrictions).

[Toggle]

That's a functional erratum as well, since it makes Tears of Lys target the character it affects (under the current rules, it doesn't, because the word "choose" is required for a target).

 

Yeah, it can be a subjective distinction.  If it doesn't actually impact how a card works at all, it's probably not worth doing.  My point is that an errata like that cleans up a lot of card interactions that are not intuitive (to me at least), but leaves the core function of the card in tact.

[theamazingmrg]

- an INT icon is treasured on high cost characters in any build without denial (Stark)

I find it interesting that you choose Stark as the faction without denial for Tears when they're one of the factions who can most easily prevent it. Bran, The Pack Survives, core Cat and Winterfell can all prevent Tears and they actually have one of the highest number of characters with Intrigue icons in any faction at 11 (mostly 2 str characters, but still...) with Kennel Master/Direwolf-related shenanigans to boost str in Intrigue challenges.

Compare that to Baratheon with their current 4 Int icons and no in-faction way of outright stopping the event (apart from a lucky Seen in Flames/Ruby) and they're a far better example.