Unfortunately, there's no "cannot be saved" accompanying the card text, turning the Disaster into an enormous missed opportunity. Accompanied by Put to the Torch might work, but without it I'm not impressed.

There certainly could be situations similar to wildfire where I only have 2 Roseroads in play in certain decks and the opponent is loaded up on Iron Throne, Reducer Locations, Painted Table, Rose Roads, etc. but it can be the other way around as well.  Unless you don't play many locations, but there are not too many decks designed in this manner right now.  

You could dig yourself into a whole, and with mediocre stats and reserve of 4, this is not really what you want to see as some sort of filler plot in the mid-game.

Agree that they've missed something here without "cannot be saved".  And reserve of 4 - why?? It's not unbalanced in its other stats or abiity...

Are people thinking this card should be "cannot be saved" because they want it to be a Wildfire for locations, or because they are seeing so many duped unique locations that they think this will be effectively meaningless because so many locations would be saved?

I predict this will be one of those plots that looks kind of unimpressive until people actually play it.

> Each player chooses up to 2 locations he or she controls. Each location not chosen is discarded from play.

Text is clear, no safe for the locations not chosen. Only immunity for plot card effects can prevent the loss of locations that needs to be discarded.

Text is clear, no safe for the locations not chosen. Only immunity for plot card effects can prevent the loss of locations that needs to be discarded.

How do you figure that? Which part of the text says that a duplicate (or any other "save a location from being discarded" effect) could not be used to interrupt and save the location?

Are people thinking this card should be "cannot be saved" because they want it to be a Wildfire for locations, or because they are seeing so many duped unique locations that they think this will be effectively meaningless because so many locations would be saved?

 

I would like to see this as a location wildfire.  Only Greyjoy at the moment seem to have effective location removal (and even steal!) - others need something to balance it out a bit.  

In the same way we have Summons to search for characters and Building Orders for Locations, we should have Wildfire for characters and Political Disaster for Locations (with the understandable adjustment to 2 rather than 3)

I would like to see this as a location wildfire. 

In the same way we have Summons to search for characters and Building Orders for Locations, we should have Wildfire for characters and Political Disaster for Locations (with the understandable adjustment to 2 rather than 3)

If the two cards should fill the same purpose for different card types, any thoughts on why the "Plot deck limit: 1" was deemed necessary on this, but not on Wildfire? If this should be a location Wildfire, shouldn't the have the same level of play restriction ("cannot be saved" and "Plot deck limit: 1" on both)?

If the two cards should fill the same purpose for different card types, any thoughts on why the "Plot deck limit: 1" was deemed necessary on this, but not on Wildfire? If this should be a location Wildfire, shouldn't the have the same level of play restriction ("cannot be saved" and "Plot deck limit: 1" on both)?

Not sure - although a deck that would run 2 Political Disasters would be a strange one indeed (and I don't think I've ever seen 2 Wildfires but if someone does run that, I would be interested to hear their reasoning and strategy).

It could be that because it's discard down to 2, it's more "damaging" than Wildfire which is obviously down to 3. Much easier to marshal characters than locations (2-3 card ratio in most decks) so 2 Wildfires don't impact the game as much as 2 Political Disasters could.

But while we're at it, what's with the Reserve of 4??

I am playing with 2 Wildfires. I have a Lannister Melee deck and my strategy is:

"Try to make a lot of gold and reducers on setup. Start the game with Calm over Westeros, choose to reduce the military claim. Try to put into play Jaime, Tyrion or Tywin.

On the second round, choose Summons and search your deck for Tywin (or a duplicate). Marshall him or play the duplicate. If you can't, try Jaime.

The next two rounds, choose the Wildfire Assaults and save Tywin and Jaime, Tyrion or Cersei. Keep the gold for Tywin, Things I Do for Love, The Hound and the ambush characters.

Tywin and Jaime will provide a good defense and the high initiative of Wildfire will give you a good position on the game. Dont worry about the military challenges, use ambush to prevent the unoposed and then loose the challenges. Kill the character you played with ambush, except The Hound.

Finish the game with Power Behind the Throne. It will make Tywin attacks two, or even three times, if you have the Seal of The Hand."

When I play the Wildfires, I have The Hound or other ambush characters ready to defend against a military challenge. I don't use the gold to marshall other characters at this point, because of the Wildfire. So, Tywin will be stronger than my opponents characters and if they do a military challenge against me, I can prevent the unopposed and kill the weak ambush character or even win the challenge with The Hound and Jaime (he gains renown!!!). With milk,and things I do for love I can control the characters my opponents didn't kill.

Looking at the reserve difference kind of points to the fact that you have to take the card as a whole. It really wouldn't make sense to take Wildfire, replace the word "character" with "location" (and change 3 to 2) and leave everything else the same to make a "Wildfire for locations" because characters and locations fill very different slots and purposes in the game. If everything were equivalent on a "Wildfire for locations," it would be like saying locations and characters are virtually interchangeable when it comes to board position and card advantage, and that simply isn't true.

I would suggest that this card should be thought of less as a "Wildfire for locations" and more of a Valar for locations. The lack of "cannot be saved" points to the fact that some of the intention here is to allow for a mitigated reset, which, planned for properly, allows you to improve your relative board position as opposed to simply establishing numerical parity. That's more like Valar from 1.0 than Wildfire (in both editions).

Thinking of this card as a "Valar for locations" also explains the low reserve number and "Plot deck limit: 1". Similar to the 2-gold/0-claim on Valar, there needs to be a balance to initiating a mitigated reset by carrying some small disadvantage to recovery. Unlike your opponent, you can see the mitigated reset coming, so a low reserve helps keep your recovery from the reset in check so as not to turn the mitigated reset into a way to unbalance the reset of the game. Similarly, there is a big difference between a "parity reset" like Wildfire being used twice in a game and a "mitigated reset" like Valar/Disaster being used twice, hence the "Plot deck limit: 1."

tl : dr - I think this plot is a lot more explicable as a "Valar for locations" than a "Wildfire for locations." It's a lot easier to explain why this plot is "down to 2" instead of "down to 0" as a mitigated location reset than it is to explain everything else as a numerical parity location reset.

If it was Valar for locations, I would expect it to discard all non-Limited locations.

I see this as being in the same vein as Fortified Position - it's a niche plot that can be used if you have specific difficulty with a specific style of deck, and have built around it's symmetrical effects.

hi guys could do with some advise, do saves and dupes protect from this effect?

For example, if i have in play 3 locations each with a dupe when this plot is revealed is the effect:

(a) i choose  2 location and they are unaffected, 1 location is discarded entirely.

( i chose 2 location and they are unaffected, 1 location loses its dupe only.

Yes, dupe can save from Political Disaster effect. There is no text: "can not be saved" as is in Wildfire f.e.

This means that you choose 2 your locations to stay and then discard the rest - and from those which has to be discarded, each you can save with dupe. Btw they are called Referential targets.

In your example, option b )  is correct. Also note that discarding dupe is optional, so you technically can choose option a) too. Sometimes it can be a way to get rid of some negative attachment (Frozen solid), and then marshal same location again.

thanks wordsmith

To complete the answer, maybe it's worth noting the interaction with the upcoming The House with the Red Door Agenda.

As a location, which was put into play with this Agenda, can not be discarded from play by card effects - this means that also Political Disaster will not 'touch' it. In other words, when choosing 2 locations to keep, you don't have to choose that one (Red Door) location. In the result you can then keep 3 locations in the game.

As a location, which was put into play with this Agenda, can not be discarded from play by card effects - this means that also Political Disaster will not 'touch' it. In other words, when choosing 2 locations to keep, you don't have to choose that one (Red Door) location. In the result you can then keep 3 locations in the game.