2C1C- Episode 169

Luwin is the man in DWDW, so depending how that performs affects what you want to choose to put onto the restricted.

Re: Restricting something else from Greyjoy besides Mummer's: I don't think that's necessary. 

Re: Dothraki underperforming: I would wager that some new/unexperienced players are drawn to the badassery of the Dothraki, which would drag down the qualification ratio of Targ No Agenda.

Re: Taking Meera off: That works for me, but it might be hard to find the exact formula. Restricting Brienne and Luwin in her place doesn't sound like enough, but Brienne, Luwin AND Northern Cavalry Flank sounds too harsh.

Last thing: Why are you saying that Wheels Within Wheels won't be legal by Worlds? Did you mean Gen Con?

We just recorded our own segment on the FAQ speculation yesterday, I'm eager to see how much overlap there is!

Annals: Now... I wonder what the data would look like if Iowa or MIssouri had submitted their data. *cough* Kennon *cough* Kyle *cough*.

As for the order of the 'cut' choices (for both Agenda and Restricted), the reason the second pie-charts aren't sorted by their representation is to keep colour patterns matching that of 'overall' to more readily identify them. Resorting each graph by it's own 'largest to smallest' had its own problems, unless I manually paired categories with colours which would need to be redone every time I re-sorted the list.

I used to add "number in field' to the QR graph for agendas, to avoid skewered QRs. Way too much curator work, so if you have any suggestions on how to properly 'weight' it automatically, I'm all ears.

I'm about to listen to the episode, but was it really suggested to take Meera Reed off the RL?  I don't see that happening ever.  She might arguably be the best restricted card on the list(context dependent of course).

Nah, the context doesn't help. Pulling her off the restricted is laughable. Even if shes 100% picked as the restricted choice that doesn't mean "welp, this accomplishes nothing, so let's just take her off the list."

yeah, Meera off restricted is a joke

I would rather hope FFG will be consistent with it's philosophy (ala' Princes Plans) and would rather make her deathbound and removed from game

Haven't listened to it all yet, but I wanted to protest that with regards to Lannister HoD having a good qualification ratio you didn't bring up the 100% qualification ratio (as far as I know) the Highgarden variant has!

Dude, I know right! I bring Glazer on as a numbers man, and then he misses something like that!

any link to this post?

Glazer is right...man it hurts for me to say this, but meera should come off and 3 other cards from stark should go on....

It's hardly worth discussing as the odds FFG is going to go out on a limb with a card like Meera are astronomical. That said, give another example of a card as powerful and as versatile as Meera that's not restricted?

She's a best in house card that fits in almost all builds if shes not restricted. I don't know enough about the "next best" Stark cards that you would select to be restricted, but would any of them hurt many of the strongest Stark builds that are currently prevalent enough that the opening of the restricted slot isn't actually a boon? I know No Quarter and from hand Catelyn were at least mildly suggested, if those are 2 on the list you'd surely have to pick 2 more, right? Would any of those end up being consistently selected enough over mainstay restricted cards like FoW, Negotiations, etc etc etc to have justified the entire ordeal to begin with?

In the end pulling Meera off and restricting several other cards would, by my best guess, do very little that's positive overall and would very well end up being harmful to out of the box / off the beaten path builds that may actually utilize multiple cards that aren't restriction worthy but are linchpins for said build.

I don't actually want to see Meera unrestricted myself, but just to lay out what the argument is meant to be:

Near enough 70% of the Stark decks that make the cut run Meera. Not every Stark deck does (Wildlings often going Narrow Escape), or can (Stark Maesters unsurprisingly runs Maesters), but the vast majority do. Therefore, there is no decision point to be made when choosing your restricted for Stark, and not only that but if you want to run Stark you are operating a soft-ban of sorts on every single other restricted card, by virtue of the fact that they cannot be run in the same deck as Meera.

The assumption being made is that one of the points of the restricted list is to provide a choice at a deckbuilding level. There is currently no choice. If you unrestrict Meera, functionally not much changes except that (70% of the time) Stark would get to choose a different restricted card. If you then restrict two different cards that a typical Stark deck will run, you're taking a tool away (unrestricting one and restricting two to replace it will do that) but if you didn't unrestrict Meera and just restricted one of those two cards, you're just taking it out of the 70% of decks that run Meera. What Stark deck is dropping Meera so they can run Luwin, or Kyle, or Jumper Cat or whoever else? So it's a method that, for 70% of decks, will firstly weaken Stark to what is considered a more acceptable level, and secondly do so in a way that isn't soft-banning another card due to the crime of not being Meera.

If I've misrepresented the argument, can someone who thinks it's a good idea please add to or correct it.

My issue with this is essentially to do with the other 30% of decks. Some of them would be unreasonably boosted by the move (the Shadows Knights build that made top 8 at Stahleck, for instance), while others would potentially be crippled depending on the card - for instance, one that was thrown around as an example a lot was Maester Luwin. Now, I've been running a Stark Maester deck of late, and while getting Meera added to it would be great, losing Luwin would probably kill the deck. Edmure's been mentioned, but he's already seeming key for Stark Wings, Stark Words. Jumper Cat being restricted wouldn't really give a choice, it would just result in the Asha effect - if there are multiple strong versions of a character and you restrict one, look forward to people never playing the restricted one and sticking with the good unrestricted one instead. And so on. There doesn't seem to be a single good choice for this "restrict two different cards" idea, nevermind two, because as it turns out cards are used in different decks to different effects.

That said, give another example of a card as powerful and as versatile as Meera that's not restricted?

The Red Viper.

: Insert JCwamma Quote : (yes I know thats not a command)

Very well put.

Being behind the 8-Ball on most things Thrones I will forever default to "I'm wrong" when a valid and concrete stance is laid out and defended. Unfortunately, one for Meera "off" doesn't exist yet. Wamma, you have laid it out better than anyone, to my limited knowledge, ever has. 

My hang-up - which I think(?) - is the same as yours, really hinges on the decks that gain a significant boost from Meera coming off the restricted list, and the then others which will inevitably suffer from the repercussions. The real issue being the ones that are already on the higher end in terms of competitive decks.

The one minor thing that your #'s dont (and cannot) relay is the #/% of decks that then pick up Meera for "free" to make them better. There will be those that get to replace her for a free restricted and then become significantly more powerful, and then those that replace her for a sub-par or replaceable piece, that still see a power increase. 

Meh. I dunno. Beer + TI3 > more thoughts... 

The Red Viper

Eh, maybe I'm wrong but I expected this one. Obvi bait answer.

Not more versatile (even remotely), inherently NOT-versatile.

Exponentially more expensive and more pigeon-hole in regards to build viability & effectiveness.