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Quill & Tankard Regulars - Volume II, Issue 5
Oct 15 2015 09:10 AM |
WWDrakey
in Articles
Q&TR Istaril WWDrakey JCWamma Ire Ratatoskr
Quill & Tankard Regulars - Volume 2, Issue 5CRACK!
The loud sound of a chair breaking echoed over all the racket in the brightly lit new taproom of the Quill & Tankard, while the treacherous seat’s erstwhile occupant found his rotund frame sprawled across the well-swept floors.
This was followed by an epically eerie silence, as everybody shuffled around to gawk at what, in-fact, had happened.
Once everybody had made doubly sure that the expansive shape scrambling on the floor was indeed NOT an Archmaester, it began. First as a slight nervous tittering, but quickly escalating into roaring laughter bouncing off the walls of the Inn.
Apparently, the only person not amused by this turn of events was the young sharply dressed Maester, who seemed to be preoccupied with checking the newly polished floor for damage, grumbling something non-descript about vipers, warlocks, and having said so...
Backroom Rumours
Backroom Rumours brings up various timely topics related to current developments in the game and specifically rules matters.
- For new players with Rules Questions, the 2nd Edition Rules Forum here on CGDB is a good place to start, and especially the Unofficial FAQ there is something almost everybody (old players and new) playing the game should get acquainted with.
- As there are no actual Tourney Rules for 2.0 out yet, prospective Tourney Organizers should look into utilizing the A Game of Thrones First Edition Tourney Rules as very little has changed in the game on a Tourney Organization level.
- FFG has also released Floor Rules for Android: Netrunner. It is quite likely that a similar Rules document is being developed also for AGoT 2nd Edition. In the meantime, most of the Netrunner rules can be adapted into use in AGoT by intrepid Tourney Organizers in need of guidelines on how to handle arising issues.
The Raven’s Message exclusively reveals and discusses an upcoming card that is of interest either mechanically or through rules ramifications. The cards are from future products, and have been obtained directly via raven from the Archmaesters at the (FFG) Citadel.
The very first Chapter Pack of A Game of Thrones 2nd Edition Taking the Black is on its way. Preceding it, a Raven from the Citadel has arrived, bringing a preview of its contents to the Quill & Tankard Inn. Without further ado, let’s get to the salty details of that message with The Seastone Chair:
The Seastone Chair develops the Greyjoy penchant for pushing unopposed Challenges through stealth, Throwing Axes and Balon Greyjoy into a new aggressive direction. Being able to choose the characters to be killed for your military claim is… pretty powerful, and will lead to your opponents concentrating on not letting that military pass through uncontested.
Whether it forces your opponent to over-defend to stop it from triggering, or lets you line up their big, meaty characters for a killing blow by burning away their duplicates, The Seastone Chair will often have a big board impact for a measly 1 gold. Some of us perverse old Archmaesters cannot wait to see someone place a Milk of the Poppy on their own star character to protect it from the Seastone Chair...
Replacement Effects
From an Archmaester’s point of view, one of the most interesting elements here is the fact that The Seastone Chair is the first claim replacement effect (and second replacement effect overall) for A Game of Thrones 2nd Edition. However, the re-entry of this special class of effects was clearly paved way for in the Core Set, as the RRG (p.18) has a pretty clear and exhaustive entry on how replacement effects work:
A replacement effect is an effect (usually an interrupt) that replaces the resolution of a triggering condition with a different means of resolving that same triggering condition, but in such a manner that the triggering condition is still considered to occur. The word “instead†is frequently indicative of a such an effect. After all interrupts to the triggering condition have resolved and it is time to resolve the triggering condition itself, the replacement effect resolves instead.
Pretty straight-forward stuff. However, as usual, there’s a bit more here than meets the eye. An easily missed detail is that the Seastone Chair’s effect does not depend on your claim value. So, whether you’re hitting your opponent with a 2-claim using Winds of Winter, or a 0-claim due to their Calm Over Westeros… the end result is the same. One character, chosen by you, is killed.
If multiple replacement effects are initiated against the same triggering condition, the most recent replacement effect is the one that is used for the resolution of the triggering condition.
This isn’t relevant yet, as we have no two replacement effects replacing the same effect, but it is very important to keep in mind. If we wind up with competing “instead†effects, the order in which they are applied matters a great deal! Each “instead of normal claim†could be triggered (regardless of order), because, as replacements, neither changes the fact that from the point of view of the game, “normal claim†is still what is imminent. You could imagine a situation where if the first player uses Seastone Chair, the second will then use his (imaginary) defensive replacement effect to overwrite it entirely. However, if the first player passes in order to draw out the defensive claim replacement, he could lose the opportunity to trigger Seastone Chair if his opponent passes as well.
Claim replacements brought with them one of the most confusing aspects of first edition: figuring out that they could affect a card that was immune to the cardtype on which the effect was written. This sounds exactly as complicated as it was. The Red Viper (who was immune to character abilities) was not immune to Pyat Pree (who had a very similar effect to Seastone Chair), because the latter’s ability acted on the claim, and The Red Viper wasn’t immune to claim. Makes sense? Only to 1.0 veterans!
Despite the fact that the game has no released cards with an “immunityâ€, it is covered by the Second Edition rules (see RRG p.9). So, let’s see how that scenario would work out this time around. Thankfully, we don’t have to dig too deeply at all - without factoring in the claim replacement ability, we already know instantly that a character that is immune to location effects would be protected from the Seastone Chair. This is because the location’s ability forces us to choose a target, which the rules for immunity specifically prevent.
Faction Card Kneel
Another interesting element with the Seastone Chair is that the cost to trigger its effect is a Faction Card kneel. This is the fifth non-Agenda card so far (Wildling Horde, The Things I Do For Love, upcoming Ser Alliser Thorne, upcoming Wolf Dreams) that has this cost, and the first one for Greyjoy. Now this of course means that there’s a built-in “one per turn†limitation (which is very similar to 1.0 Limited Response:s), meaning f.ex. that the location cannot be abused in combination with A Storm of Swords. However, the other obvious repercussion here is of course the fact that Fealty decks will have a harder time in including the location, or need to choose carefully between using their Faction card for the cost reduction or for their Seastone Chair.
As this is already the third Faction card kneel we’ve seen from the upcoming Cycle, there may very well be more headed our way…
The sharply-dressed Maester was nodding enthusiastically, “We’ll have some fine new selections in a few days - I even have a special shipment coming in from the north of…â€
BUUURP!
The loud, and obviously deliberate, belch stopped his eager elucidation in it’s tracks.
‘s rubbish innit. Bug’rin mammoth ‘iss innit. Three barrels o’ tha cheap swill fer me!
Uncultured lout!
Antti Korventausta (WWDrakey) is a self-proclaimed Finnish AGoT philosopher and doomsayer hermit, who used to practice Quantum Mechanics, but found that it paled to AGoT in both interest and complexity. Having played and judged for more years than he would like to admit, he has found himself on the winning side of rules arguments more than he would expect. In any game he plays, he has a tendency of playing anything he considers to be off the beaten path, whether it makes sense to others or not.
Helmut Hohberger (Ratatoskr) started playing AGoT in September 2010 and has never looked back (although his wife has, longingly). As a German, he loves rules - and I mean *loves* 'em. He is the quintessential rules board morlock. While the others played and frolicked about outside, he sat by candlelight in a remote corner of the library and tried to get a grasp on the intricacies of the 1st edition rules. He even thought he did not do too bad at it, but then the Call of the Three-Eyed Crow drove him into the darkest depths of madness and despair. But he’s all better now, honest, and looking forward to new challenges.
Iiro Jalonen (Ire) Started AGoT in 2009, got pulled under the waves by Krakens years ago, and has never looked back. While not an Oldtown local, he has often been spotted in the Quill & Tankard Inn making sure that the rules of sportsmanship are maintained with the traditional finger dance games. A self-inflicted Shagga and active member of the global AGoT community, he has always strived to know the rules of the game, in order to make them do ridiculous things.
James Waumsley (JCWamma) is a first edition veteran who has judged at multiple large tournaments including the European championship of Stahleck. A renowned loudmouth and pedant, he will shout about the rules loud enough that he can be heard by those north of the wall.
Alex Hynes (Istaril) co-hosts Beyond the Wall, writes articles for FFG, created and curates the Annals - and even tried to fill in ktom’s shoes in the big ktom drought of 2013. When the Regulars asked him to be an honorary member, he, of course, refused and said he didn’t have the time. Or should have, anyway. Still, how much work can being an “Honorary†member be?
- Egg, scantrell24, scwont and 5 others like this
18 Comments
Great job everyone, thanks for sharing!
Edit: We have also seen that the new 'Street of ...' cards will have the requirement to kneel your faction card as well. (Like you said, not fully revealed yet though!)
Thanks! Yes, the partial Street spoilers looked like they might have Faction card kneels as well, but since we weren't aware of full spoilers for those, didn't count them in here yet.
Regardless, it looks like we might get some interesting competition for what to use the Faction card for...
Fantastic article as always.
The chair is powerful of course, but balanced by the factors you mentioned (anti-synergy with 2 claim, requires faction card kneel, and can't hit a character with attachments).
I'm glad they're using "without attachments" again as a targeting restriction. Shame that wasn't the case for other effects like Melisandre, Dracarys! and Ice.
I love that they are using the faction card. I hope this continues for powerful effects. I like that it adds more incentive to not run Fealty, but they should continue to support that agenda in other ways.
I also like that it doesn't have a dependency with Greyjoy characters. Meaning, yes, it supports the unopposed theme, but it doesn't require Greyjoy specifically for that. it could easily complement a Bannered faction depending on how much non-loyal stealth, unopposed support, etc that another faction might have. It seems like Bannering with Baratheon could work well with this since you can try and focus on kneeling MIL icons so you could kill whoever you wanted.
This would also support any 0 claim plots that might come out at some point. Valar Morgulis was a 0 claim plot in 1.0, so they could release a plot with 0 claim and make up for it in the plot effect and the other plot stats. 0 claim would be very risky because it doesn't put much pressure on the opponent's characters, but there are ways to mitigate that with card effects as well.
Boom!
This card is nuts for 1 gold. There aren't enough two claim plots to worry about replacing one, and since you can control when it goes off, much more likely to be abused during an opponent's Calm Over Westeros or your own Valar (c'mon we know it's coming and it'll still be 0 claim).
Oh Greyjoy...I loved you in 1.0 and The Bro-mance continues..........
Great article guys ! I always love the Q&T stuff.
If Confiscation wasn't already a consideration for your double plot, it most certainly will be now for Greyjoy.
As a 1drop this is pretty ridiculous, it wont need to proc very often to be absolutely amazing.
Still great for 1 gold though.
Claim replacement, how much I missed yeh.
And Aaron's rage against Greyjoy goes on...
Want to say, Greyjoy just gets stronger with every salty tear you shed.
Regarding the attachment restriction. It's very fitting for the GJ player that the triggering condition is the same as for We Do Not Sow and reactions happen before claim. So it's not sure that restriction is that worrisome.
I'm also wondering if perhaps Kraken's Grasp will become more playable. I still don't like the first player restriction on it but since players will be more eager to oppose military then Kraken's Grasp almost becomes a kill card for their best character.
The combo of The Seastone Chair and Throwing Axe is also nice and combine it with Kraken's Grasp and Iron Fleet Scout then the challenge math becomes really tricky.
The thing is, we are at this point entering combo-land, where you have to make something happen, which can be as well be achieved by single cards like Put to the Sword.
Also, I don't see Seastone Chair as that obnoxious powerful as some might think. While the effect is strong, it depends on a single trigger, which is telegraphed and can/should be played around by the opponent. It also replaces claim, which is a bit weaker than an effect which adds to the claim (like put to the sword or plaza). It doesn't work with multiple challenges and claim 2, it don't work nice with Fealty-Agenda.
So please, leave your torches at home.
I don't have a man-crush on the updated, clarified templating. I have a thirteen-year-old middle school girl crush on the new templating. I doodle hearts around it in the margins of my notebooks, I have a poster of it over my bed and I stare up at it, wondering if it's thinking about me.
This was the first thing that came to mind for me. It puts the opponent in a position where they have to overcommit to a particular challenge, which not only opens up other options for you, it depletes the options they have for themselves. It's similar to The Red Keep in that way--forcing the opponent to make sure you can't push that challenge through because the result is unacceptable, and that's one or two fewer separate challenges they can defend, one or two less challenges then can make of their own.
Greyjoy is the new Power-Rush faction IMO, just from Stealth and Unopposed. Being able to weight one challenge disproportionately can make up for a lot. Can't wait to figure out the best way to combine this with the new Frey agenda.
TL;DR - I don't want to kill characters with the Seastone Chair. I want you to stop me from killing characters with the Seastone Chair, so I can do other stuff.
I actually thinks it works great with Fealty. I read many complaints that there aren't enough cards for it, so this helps to use it another way when you don't have loyal cards.
I wouldn't call that working "great" with Fealty. I'd call that "maximizing the Faction card as a resource". I think it works poorly with Fealty because once it's out, you will have rounds where you are not using one or the other and it will ultimately be a waste.