Targaryen Second Cycle Review (By Justin Sengstock)

Wow, impressive write-up, thank you very much.

I was most surprised about your verdict on Barristan; I never liked the card for its weak cost-STR ratio and lack of keywords and thus confided it to the binder. But your report really changed my mind, I will now definitely give it a shot!

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

Don't get me wrong, if you compare Barristan to Tyrion, Knight of Flowers, or a number of other 5 cost characters, he comes out disappointing. As you say, his STR is just a bit below efficient and no keywords is a bummer. But he does have potential if you meet his criteria, which could be because your opponent is drawing a lot of cards, because your hand is getting abused, or just because you decided to run some low reserve plots (and in my deck, this last option is the most frequent trigger). If you're playing a banner deck then you should probably have better options, but as a function of the relatively weak Targ card pool, pure-Targ decks should probably consider playing him. At least he's not Pyat Pree. ;-)

Do you really think that Pyat Pree is that bad? I tried him in Kings of Summer deck with focus on reusing Dracarys and I usually had 3-4 Dracarys per game thanks to him, Shadowblack lane and Isle of Ravens. You can grab Crown of Gold or Fire and Blood as well to make your dragons practically immortal in Valar meta. I had some really good experiences with him.

Do you really think that Pyat Pree is that bad? I tried him in Kings of Summer deck with focus on reusing Dracarys and I usually had 3-4 Dracarys per game thanks to him, Shadowblack lane and Isle of Ravens. You can grab Crown of Gold or Fire and Blood as well to make your dragons practically immortal in Valar meta. I had some really good experiences with him.

I faced the same deck several times. It is really terrifiying and works quite good. However, he has to overcomit all the time making him vulnerable. I think this Dracarys-rcycle theme also works without Pyat, giving you a slot for other cards and sparing you to play a 6-coster. Thats what makes him bad

Also consider that deck style in the context of the current meta.

Over committing like that is great when your opponent is also attacking you, thus having fewer defenders. But with Baratheon and Night's Watch taking up a good portion of the meta, they can easily have all their defenders up to stop your big challenge, rendering him useless. Especially if you're going first, as neither deck really needs to attack you (it's more of an additional bonus.)

I think the reason Justin rated him so poorly is because his effect is not bolstered by anything about him at all. He's a horrible cost to strength ratio, has no keywords or anything and he does require that huge over commit attack in order to realistically spawn useful card retrieval with him. If you build a deck around him, he works well enough in his role, but building your deck around a 3 card combo often doesn't do your deck much justice in the long run. Especially since you likely aren't running Pyat, Shadowblack and Isle all at 3x.

Joe covered what would have been my rebuttal quite well.

Said Dracarys recursion decks can function almost as well with just Isle of Ravens and Shadowblack Lane. Pyat is just horribly-priced redundancy for that combo. As I covered in the review, he could have been a strong character, but right now he falls short. If he had just Insight added to his current form, I'd probably play him.