2 Champs and a Chump- Episode 139

During the in flight report team covenant posted from GenCon FF sad that LotR was one of their best sellers. Plus I play it and I couldn't disagree more with what was said, the game is awesome and there is plenty of reasons to buy all the packs: you get so few player cards each pack. As a keen player I would say that game is just really hitting its strides with its latest releases (IMO)

Also Kings law is not comparable to valar because the guy running KL/ shadows, KL acts as a one sided valar. Where valar is always valar, unless you're playing Gregs deck. Either way its a one sided 0 for X, for the non-shadow player

Great episode as always, thoroughly enjoyed

Glad to hear you liked it. I'll admit, there was considerably more other LCG discussion that I trimmed to try to make things more bearable for our AGOT only listeners. A good chunk of that was LotR related stuff where Darryl lamented that it would have been awesome to have as a fun event in between melee and joust days at WCW and I pointed out that they are actually making quite a lot of LotR product.

Right, since you're in control of your own deck's vulnerability and timing of your own reset, you can much more fully mitigate the impact of King's Law on yourself than you can with Valar, but even that can be done with healthy save usage. Still, I'd probably put King's Law more in line with something like Rule By Decree where you can always play it when it doesn't affect you, but savvy opponents can be aware how to watch for it and lessen the impact.

Boy, Darryl was really holding himself back. He must be dating a really nice girl and is trying to behave.

Crap, I hate that GJ agenda. With hammerhorn raiders, immediate teir 1.

Crap, I hate that GJ agenda. With hammerhorn raiders, immediate teir 1.

What does the agenda do? Can't get the audio feed here at work at the moment.

I believe from what I've read it says along the lines of "When a challenge is resolved, the player that counts the least STR must choose and kill a participating character they control."

So it means if you're going to lose (against GJ) then you need to let it be Unopposed or tie. A tie is hard, so unopposed mostly, which triggers the raiders.

Hi kennon can you post the full agenda bresk down? I wanted to know how much people were pkaying song of fire and knight of the realms thanks

I think it has pretty good balance to it as it forces GJ to overcommit or risk losing challenges. Ironically this effect would be best in a naval deck, but I don't see it being better than Black Sails in that regard.. Just thinking out loud.

I'm with Darryl, I don't like how good the Kingsguard characters are. They are so powerful, it's hard not to run them.

The pic is now above. Also, for those wondering, here are the stats that I do have for Worlds this year.

kingsguard are the new maesters, but they have already included counters in the same cycle, so im loving it

The Old Way will make Greyjoy unopposed strong, I've always hated seeing a Wex Pyke across the field. This agenda also benefits Lannister kneel and Martell icon control far too much. I wouldn't want to play The Old Way in a tournament because you always see one of those two there. As a Lannister player, this agenda removes the downside of Pentoshi Manor now that it is unrestricted.

Re: the king's law in the meta:

Darryl: "So would you not run characters since you're afraid of Valar Morghulis???"
Greg: "Yep."

Re: the Kingsguard in the current meta

On the one hand, often times people complain about a theme being introduced that doesn't get enough support and thus end up not being worth it/a bunch of dead cards you'll never use. Thus, people tire of using the older archetypes and long for something fresh.
On the other hand, people often complain that new themes are too ubiquitious and new cards are too commonly seen (and thus overpowered). That's where we are at with the Kingsguard....but would you really rather have a bunch of suboptimal Kingsguard that are only good for theme decks? Or would you rather have solid characters with some built in counters like Ygritte? I'll take the latter, and be happy that we have some new cards that are actually useful right out of the box.

We'll see if everyone is still running Kingsguard after some of the new Prized cards come out, but I guess my opinion is I'm not mad about really useful new cards, though I don't prefer those new cards to be neutral since they seem to dilute house themes. I'd have preferred them to require an agenda or something to be slotted into all decks. I mean, the draw that Jaime adds to my Baratheon shadows deck is critical, but Jaime in a Bara Holy deck? Ick, from a Nedly standpoint.

/ramble
TL; DR at least the KG are worth running instead of being a disappointment

STOP THE MUSIC...

Maybe I missed it during the episode, but if I make a challenge that goes unopposed, who's got two thumbs and counted the lowest total STR in the challenge? This guy.

As it stands now, all you have to do is give Greyjoy unopposed challenges to always have Bronn-like Defense!Deadly.

Well, then again...maybe that's the opportunity cost for the agenda. I can get all the unopposed power I want, but I have to overcommit with at least one weenie, or burn a save. Considering the multiple ways to boost claim and leverage Unopposed challenges, it *might* be worth it in the right build...

STOP THE MUSIC...

Maybe I missed it during the episode, but if I make a challenge that goes unopposed, who's got two thumbs and counted the lowest total STR in the challenge? This guy.

As it stands now, all you have to do is give Greyjoy unopposed challenges to always have Bronn-like Defense!Deadly.

Well, then again...maybe that's the opportunity cost for the agenda. I can get all the unopposed power I want, but I have to overcommit with at least one weenie, or burn a save. Considering the multiple ways to boost claim and leverage Unopposed challenges, it *might* be worth it in the right build...

If I count seven and you count zero, who counted the fewest? Well, you did. You counted zero, which is less than seven. Thus, you'd have to choose and kill a character participating in the challenge. Since you don't have one, no harm no foul, but I don't think the wording makes it backfire on the attacker if it's unopposed.

Unopposed = counting 0 STR.

Yeah, you still have to compare strength totals to determine the winner and it's long been ruled that a player who did not oppose a challenge counts 0 STR rather than null STR, because then you'd never be able to determine a challenge winner at all.