Definite sleeper. This cards rocks. At least as far as the core set is concerned. The flexibility of manipulating the discard pile is amazing and gives further incentive to play Wildling Horde which is also an excellent card.

Yep, I think it's great. Some people looked at it like a 6 gold plot and compared it to things like A Noble Cause for putting characters into play from your hand but the real power of the plot is the discardpile recursion. I've started using it in decks that have Varys as a reset to get a character back into play on the turn right after using Varys. It could also be used to get dupes back into play to protect an important character already in play. It will also gain in value once we get more sacrifice effects like Bran that you want to get back and use again.

Every plot has a reason to play it, but when you're limited to 7 plots and have a bunch that are almost compulsory the niche use stuff like this is what gets cut.

The reason you don't see this card is the importance of 6g and 7g characters. A 6-7g may easily have twice the game impact of a 5g.

Even a strong 5g char like a Tyrion (4 strength, no military icon, no marshalling gold) is nowhere near the impact of Tywin (+2g for not just events) and often strength 8-9+ military+intrigue+pow icons.

Reinforcements doesn't really feel like a 6g plot because only 5 goes to the character. So even if you have Reinforcements 5g char and +1g, +2g from 2 roseroads, you may have a pseudo-total of 8g, but you're still unable to play that impactful Balon Greyjoy (6g) or Euron Greyjoy (7g.)

The advantage of Reinforcements is entirely dependent on you having a 4-5g char in discard pile so that you're essentially getting +1 card draw more than other gold econ plots. This is foiled in several ways,

- enemy deck ignoring intrigue

- a discarded dead-draw of a unique that has already been killed

- your discard pile's only characters being inexpensive (you've just wasted an entire turn's plot if you Reinforcements in a 1-2 gold character from discard, getting a non-attachment non-event weenie card is not worth having 1g of cash leftover and 0 initiative in basically Any situation.)

If you reinforcement a card from hand because opponent didn't intrigue it, you're not gaining any card draw, so it just becomes an inferior gold alternative to A Noble Cause / Calling the Banners / Marching Orders.

Also, Reinforcements isn't very location-friendly. You can't play a 3g character to get 3g left over and play your strong location. Whereas A Noble Cause you can play a 4g lord/lady (for 2g spent) and still have 3 for locations.

Reinforcements value might increase if Several more exactly 5g characters with Tyrion power levels are introduced. Currently, it's medium risk for little reward compared to other economy.

If your running this then you play for it. With the Reserve Value you can stash any 5g or lower character you wish in your discard pile easily enough and save them for the opportune moment to spring them into play. It will seem like garbage until it is absolutely broken.

If you use reserve to discard your own character to play it, you're not gaining any card advantage.
There's never a moment this card is absolutely broken good, at its very best it becomes an average strength plot.

One of the few redeeming things is that you can get a 5g character out even after being hit with Naval Superiority which shuts down A Noble Cause.

Of course, there are several 5g plots better than it against NS, such as Calm Over Westeros (5g character AND you can reduce military or intrigue or power claim by 1)

Core doesn't have enough strong exactly-5g characters for it to be competitive. You cannot build a deck around 5g chars yet, the 6g and 7g are too important, and having leftover gold for 2-3g characters and crucial locations is too important. 1g left does not usually cut it.

There's so many strong plots even in core that no one's gonna have an incentive to build a deck around one below-average plot stealing a valuable slot.

I wouldn't be concerned as much as with the character being exactly a 5g character. Yes it is always nice living the dream and maximizing the card to its fullest potential. If we get a card(s) that have strong abilities that trigger off coming into play, this card's value will sky rocket. Already using it with Bran is solid. Will (first CP) synergizes well with it.

If it had one amazing stat. Initiative, 2 claim, or even an insane reserve value I think it would be played a lot more in the current environment.

It isn't only about card advantage all the time. Sometime tempo, or surprise effects can immediately change a game. That's where this cards strength will ultimately be decided.

Today, it isn't quite strong enough to make the cut. I agree. But tomorrow?

If we see a reprint of bungled orders this card will be absolutely fantastic- any other plot cycling would also make it money.