2C1C- Episode 190

Archmaester Marwyn seems like a great fit with your River plots.

You said you were going to post the lists?

You said Bitterbridge, but described the effects of Brightwater Keep. Which did you mean?

Admirable work with the episode, ser. Monologuing for half an hour and keeping it interesting (as you did) is tough work, so colour me impressed.

The Unburnt issue was nicely side-stepped for multiple reasons - firstly as you alluded, the probability that it gets broken up. Secondly though, the fact that there kind of already is a 2-cost attachment in Bara that offers repeatable save, core set Lightbringer, and it sees zero play. It actually neatly summarises why attachments always get overrated - accomplished players will swear up and down that something is amazing or broken, but if you put it on a positive attachment, odds are they're wrong, because they're just vulnerable at the end of the day. Unburnt is worth it in Targ A&A almost certainly, but trying to splash it out of house is a fool's errand.

This episode basically made me decide Bara A&A isn't much cop, at the end of the day. You took a skeleton deck that needed work, and made a bunch of changes - and almost every single one of those changes made complete logical sense with the agenda and theme chosen. And yet I can't say they actually made the deck any better. I know comparing it to a serious contender for the title of "best deck" in the meta is an unfair comparison, but why would I play this over Bara NA other than the novelty value?

I think the reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, Seat of Power already does a lot of the work the agenda does, and makes it less relevant to Baratheon; secondly, the key cards in most top Bara decks right now are not four-cost characters - they are Mel's Favour, Brightwater Man-at-Arms, Dale Seaworth, The Laughing Storm, etc.. Stannis might have a case, but running a whole agenda for him? Meh, pass.

I'd like to hear you guys try a house that can use the agenda more - basically any of the other houses, actually!

Except for a rush based deck. A&A is too slow developing that the prized hurts too much. Its an agenda that looks like it was too good without a drawback, so they gave it a drawback that hurts it too much.

Because I am a goof and forgot to post these when I posted the episode.

Aaron list:

http://www.agotcards.org/deck/v/66795

My revision:

@JCWamma- Yup, I accidentally swapped Bitterbridge and Brightwater Keep in my head. I'll come back to comment a bit more once I have some time tomorrow, but also- great observation on Lightbringer. I'd completely forgotten about it!

Personally playing with A&A in Stark and Greyjoy, both have their ups and downs.  Stark lets me play underused characters that are normally overlooked because of their costs originally, so I've crammed in a defense wins theme.  LoW Winterfell and other locations to ramp the defense theme are playable because of low-cost characters and cheaper heavy hitters!  The Greyjoy deck is also fun for a different reason, one which is harder to enjoy, but playing a choke theme in A&A is quite fun as well!  The new Sea Tower, Drumm, Red Rain, plus some familiar high cost raiders makes for different play experience, as compared to traditional Krakenchokers!  Cheers, great show!

You know, this does bring up an interesting discussion point. At this point of the game, does a new agenda have to be the "best option?" I can surely see some people just wanting to play it for variety's sake, but there's such a difficult line to walk with agendas. No one wants the next Maester's Path, but likewise no one wants the next Defiance.


Good thought on the army stuff, Cockbongo. I had the thought of wanting SWiS to keep bringing back larger cost armies and such, but it would have required too much of an overall of Pulseglazer's starting deck- ie, really just an entirely new deck. But I think there's something to be said there for the armies. Probably not the OOH stuff that I frequently like to fiddle with, but a straightforward all Baratheon deck still gives some solid options. Intrigue icons, however, will still be at quite the premium.

Finally an excuse to play the Highgarden Honor Guard?

I'm off to try an Holy option - RQF, Fiery Followers, Army of the Faithful, High Septon etc. We shall see what happens.

Thanks for the episode Kennon !

You know, this does bring up an interesting discussion point. At this point of the game, does a new agenda have to be the "best option?" I can surely see some people just wanting to play it for variety's sake, but there's such a difficult line to walk with agendas. No one wants the next Maester's Path, but likewise no one wants the next Defiance.

I completely agree with this (except for still maintaining Defiance is interesting and underrated, but that's neither here nor there!). Like I said, the main reason I could see for playing Bara A&A is the novelty value - I don't mean that as an insult, though I'm aware it sounds like one.

I guess it's a couple of things. Firstly, with Store Championship season upon us I'm looking for the deck I want to win a shiny plaque with, and Bara A&A is not that deck; secondly, this is actually a super-diverse meta with lots of different builds for every house...except for Baratheon, which is a case of "the big fish in the pond is No Agenda, the smaller fish is Maesters, and the big fish ate all the other fish". I think in the other houses A&A can offer something new, or at least a new spin on an old form; in Bara it just feels like a pale imitation of their best deck already, diluted through the theme of the agenda.

You know, this does bring up an interesting discussion point. At this point of the game, does a new agenda have to be the "best option?" I can surely see some people just wanting to play it for variety's sake, but there's such a difficult line to walk with agendas. No one wants the next Maester's Path, but likewise no one wants the next Defiance.

This brings up an interesting point.  I find that our rating systems on cards(on both agotcards.org and here) are not evolved enough with the period of time a card may or may not be relevant.  Each rating given is frozen in time and unless it's updated by each user, will remain within the context of the meta at the time the actual rating was given.

Even though each person has their own agenda with rating a card, it would be a very interesting analysis if ratings were displayed using the year that the rating was given.

For example, we know that Tin Link is an amazing card, but it's virtually been a soft banned card since it's restriction.  That being said, when it was unrestricted, we may have seen the following displayed:

2010 - 4.7 out of 5 stars

2011 - 4.85 out of 5 stars

2012 - 4.3 out of 5 stars

2013 - 3.5 out of 5 stars

2014 - 3 out of 5 stars

Other cards have been great in the past as well, but their greatness has declined due to power creep or new cards that end up being popular that are ultimately their antithesis.  For example, once Dissension became available in 2011, how many pre-existing Ally characters became much more of a liability?   I'd be really interested in seeing how their ratings may have suffered when more Ally hate came out.

The flaw with this system is that it requires the online community to provide these ratings and to update them when possible.  It would be a cool way to see the meta evolve outside of using the Annals.  This would be quite helpful for agenda analysis as well, especially when new agenda's are released.

I think that each click of a cards rating records a new one, but the only rating that counts is the most recent rating each year for the above reports.  Also, the above type of report could be a special page if it ends up taking up too much real estate for card pages, so it could be a special request?  Maybe even create a simple reports page for cards?