Beyond the Wall, Season 1 Episode 31

Corey's Winning Martell N/A

Looking forward toward hearling the 'cast. And thanks for the decklist! Just a few questions: Which Coldhands? Which Viper? Which Myrcella? Which Quentyn?

Just kidding, of course. But would it be possible to publish decklists in a format that includes the sets the cards are from? That would be super-cool.

The agotcards link includes all the set identifiers, but as I copy from there, leaving the set identifiers in is a lot of clutter (it's the full name, in between the card and the #). In the past, I've tried to remember to tag relevant sets when applicable, although I'm not sure it is here! I've added some identifiers.

I totally missed the link to agotcards. Sorry. I thought the decklist in the first comment was all there is. Instead it's just a bit of extra service for readers without agotcards accounts. In that case, ignore me.

I would like rotation to be; Core, House Expansions, the last 2 or 3 cycles, and one older random cycle. FFG should also reprint the seasons tech into an expansion to be used. 

If they're going to do rotation, we need a new box (or boxes) with some reprints like Tyler said. I'd prefer a reboot though in order to streamline the rules.

I don´t believe in reprints. You could print other versions of the birds and the likes. 

The deluxe boxes is another matter. Not sure how to rotate them. 

Option 1: Complete reboot, core 2.0. This is the best long-term solution but alienates the fans the most.

Option 2: Print a series of packs with a collection of cards worth keeping from each cycle. Examples of cards that would NOT be included: Castellan, Ravens, most agendas, any card that is remotely overplayed (note: there's a key difference between played and overplayed). All cards not in these packs are banned from competitive play. This drastically reduces the chaff without just leaving the meta stuck in the same position its always been, allowing for new exciting cards to be printed that aren't stuck in the shadow of pre-existing cards. The same would need to be done for the deluxe expansions to excise some obviously problematic cards from them (such as PotS Viper and whatnot). This is an attempt to compromise between options 1 and 4, while also trying to make the metagame more open, at the risk of pissing off fans.

Option 3: the same as option 2, only without attempting to excise problematic cards. This is similarly a compromise, only instead of pissing people off because their favourite cards are unplayable, instead we basically get a more entrenched version of the current meta.

Option 4: leave it as it is. Risk alienating new players and allowing more broken combos to enter the game in exchange for not upsetting existing players or compromising the original spirit of the LCG format.

Options I wouldn't consider:

- Standard rotation. This leaves old cycles unplayable AND has the disadvantages of the next one.

- Rotation that changes which old cycles are legal. This doesn't actually solve anything, because new cards still have to be designed with old cards in mind, and it just makes the game more boring for each season by limiting choices.

- Chosen Few (i.e., you the player may deck-build from core, deluxe expansions, latest cycle and 1-2 more, or something to that effect). This solves nothing. Sure it means a player doesn't have to pay as much to enter the game, but if they want to build more than one deck they're suddenly going to have to buy an entire new cycle to justify it? More importantly it doesn't solve the two biggest problems with the large cardpool - a new player still has to learn about thousands of cards to avoid being surprised in a tournament, and it doesn't prevent broken combos (and if anything entrenches them deeper provided you don't need more than 2 or 3 cycles to work them, since there are fewer alternatives in the meta).

- Basically anything involving some cycles being legal while others aren't. Cycles aren't designed in a vaccuum, they're designed with the entire cardpool in mind, and it doesn't make sense to allow some cycles, but not allow cycles with necessary cards. For instance, say King's Landing is legal but A Time for Ravens isn't - how is Stark meant to build the winter shadows deck that the KL cycle suggests for them? It also doesn't help design space - OP unique locations still can't be designed for fear of HoD decks running wild, new Martell nobles still can't be created because of whenever Ghaston is allowed, etc.. If you want to solve design problems long-term, we need to be more drastic (or just not worry).

Hopefully that can give you some material to be getting on with .

As for rotation itself, I think we need somewhat of a reboot.  Back when I played VS, there came a time when wording got way too mired in the vein of, what the definition of is is, and Upper Deck made it MUCH simpler.  Couple that here with framework windows, moribund, and play as opposed to put into play (a minor last point but was a personal pet peeve when I started) AGOT needs a very deep understanding to play proficiently and effectively.

After you simplify the wording FAQ wise, comes the cards themselves.  It'd be financial suicide for FFG to blow up the world and start from scratch and invalidate every single card they've worked so hard on and that we as existing players have purchased already.  You'd need to re-word everything in a new template in order to avoid that.

For new deluxe boxes, use the new template and consolidate the houses so you get JUST cards from that house.  No Joffrey or Robb in the Greyjoy expansion for example.  It'd be nice too if every deluxe expansion got a full art card of an iconic character for that house and you show it prominently on the box itself to catch new player's eyes.  A deluxe box for Night's Watch and / or Neutral staples like seasons or the neutral Kingsguard would be good too.

Edit: Haha, I started writing this before James and Kain8 posted, rendering pretty much everything I've said below obsolete. Keep those suggestions coming!

Glad to see some comments to start off our rotation talk. Please feel free to suggest any idea we can discuss (even if it's not the solution you'd prefer). No need to defend the merits, or lack of merits, of the proposal!

For instance, just to list two of those I've heard in chat elsewhere: 

-In Magic, "rotation" involves using only the 2 latest blocks and one new "Core" introduced periodically. This would be mimicked in Thrones by releasing a new Core set to keep certain key mechanics relevant, and keeping only the (deluxe?) + x latest cycles. When a new cycle starts, another cycle would start.

-In AGOT, many cards see little to no play. It might be possible to reprint a 'best of' pack for any cycle (or group of cycles) over a certain age and rotate out the remainder of the cards from that cycle.

A smaller cardpool probably also means a smaller restricted list. 

Another question is how many tournament formats there should be used post rotation. There is a lot of complaints about melee.

1. Joust with post-rotation cards and melee with all the lcg cards?

2. Scrap melee and replace it with draft?

3. Something else (I´d like if there is some use for the rotated cards still).

This is game of thrones.  just cut houses.  For example, next season, kill off the Lannisters, then the Greyjoys, targ next, followed b Martell, finally kill of Bara.

I may be wrong, but I'm going to make some assumptions about the player base.  First, I think there are different "levels" of players.  I'm not talking about skill level, but levels of ... I don't want to say dedication, but something like that.  The highest level is active on a national/global level - these players travel around, they often have large card pools, and they are highly competitive.  There's a level below that of people who may play at a regional level, and below that the weekly game night players, etc..  Now, the goal with the local, weekly tournaments is to generally have fun and get players into the game. 

I think the easiest route would be to have nationals/worlds with the largest card pool and go down from there, so the standard for the weekly game night formats is a very limited pool.  For the majority of competitive tournaments, you would go most if not all of the card pool.  Let people get their feet wet and if they want to play at the highest level of competitive play, they are likely to make the larger investment. 

A rotation level that varies on the level of tournament makes the most sense to me. 

But then again, my assumptions of player types, etc., may be off.

Some sort of trade-in program would also be an option. This way it encourages new purchasers with a smaller barrier to entry, and it would provide incentive for long tenured players to keep with the game through the transition. 

I figure that the game is just a little too clunky and unwieldy. I'm from Singapore, started playing earlier in Jan this year but since then it's been very difficult to attract new players, partly because of the huge buy-in required to be competitive, partly because of the terribly complex rules.

The biggest competition here is Netrunner. People only have so many days in a week to play it and when you compare the costs of being competitive/complete of Netrunner versus Game of Thrones, it's about 1/3 in cost difference. In this small city, there was 2 weekly Netrunner nights at different stores easily attracting 10-20 players while Game of Thrones highest attendance was 9 players. I think we should analyze why NR is so much more successful in comparison.

Regarding solutions, I don't think Rotation is a real answer. It's a huge bandaid over the issue of attracting new players. You'll still be stuck with the clunky FAQ and the need to keep up with cards as cycles rotate in and out.

My vote is for a new core set and deluxe boxes with cleaned up rules. It would include the old staple cards that made each house what they are (Iron Mines, Flame Kissed, Alchemist Guild Hall, Knight of Flowers, Northern Cavalry Flank etc...). There would be a list of cards no longer allowed in GoT 2.0 from existing cycles - the cards that do not work or require too much errata to work in the new cleaner ruleset. Cycles would slowly phase out as the card pool grew. Possibly 2-3 cycles a year in order to maintain a decent sized card pool. It's a painful transition but I can't see the game going on or growing after another year or two, just because of how much it would cost to create a decent deck.

(Posted without reading other peoples comments, sorry if I've mentioned what has been said before)

I don’t think its power creep, but clearly some of the cards already spoiled from the wardens cycle have an increased power level. So do some of the cards in conquest cycle and over the last few cycles there are a lot more draw and cancel options. E.g. AH Dany > Core Dany. I think what FFG is doing here, is making it so that the new cards they put out are good enough, without you needing to buy the earliest cycles. Plus they will probably be a new core set and series of deluxe expansions, so if FFG continues this theme, you may not need rotation at all or it won’t mater you can’t play really early stuff.

I also think from FFG’s tiers of play thing, it looks like they could easily set varying card pool size formats for your skill level, meaning casual game store play could only be new sets/the last few and gencon/worlds level could be the full card pool. 

I’m sure rotation will be fine overall, but it would be cool if they cycled in old chapter packs/cycles 3 or 4 times a year. Worst case, the game can still be played the way it is now. Hell won’t freeze over.

I have always been a proponent of Magic-style rotation.  I used to see it as a despicable money-grabbing operation by Wizards, but I have since, after seeing Thrones' meta stagnate ad the metagame dominated by cards released years and years ago, have come to view rotation as a necessary evil.

I agree with Tomidiot's entire post.

I'd be all for rotation IF the current cycles were designed with rotation in mind, but they were not. Therefore, I'm in the reboot camp. After the reboot, when the card pool reaches six cycles or so, we can start rotating.