Crimson and Gold - FAQ 4.0 and Lannister

There are many notable additions to this list, including Meera Reed, Game of Cyvasse, and Kings of Winter. However, we are here to talk about the overall impact to Lannister.

IMPACT #1: Less dissension, less Varys, more allies
I learned very early on in my competitive career that one has to be careful with allies, especially the expensive ones. There are too many common and easy ways to get rid of them, specifically Dissension (QoD) and Varys (SaS). Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS) and Ser Jorah Mormont (WLL) are less common but also an option. Lannister has a lot of allies. It's quite devastating to drop a three or four gold for a character you think is going to wreck face then have it hit with Dissension on the next player action. I am here to tell you that with the new restricted list and the new Song of the Sea cards, that will not happen near as much. There are several reasons.

1) Greyjoy got a huge implicit buff as they were the least nerfed house. Very specific decks were targeted by the new list, including Stark Winter, Martell Maesters/Anything, and Targaryen Recursion. Greyjoy wasn't winning events (especially since my friend shanked his chance to win worlds with his epic Greyjoy Winter deck) so Greyjoy didn't get nerfed. Well now Greyjoy is winning. Don't take my word for it, read a recent tourney report. Greyjoy has 20 legal in-house dissension targets, only 5 of which cost 3+ gold. Compare this with 47 legal Lannister targets, 20 of which cost 3+ gold. Furthermore, the best Greyjoy cards are not allies. More Greyjoy? Less Dissension.

2) Refugees got restricted. Refugees were in almost every deck. One used to be able to throw dissension in one's deck and say to oneself "if they don't have allies or mercenaries, at least I can use it to burn a couple of refugees". Not anymore. Fewer guaranteed targets means less dissension.

3) Targaryen got nerfed. Targ has a lot of dissension targets and their targets are much more dangerous on average than the Lanni targets, e.g. Long Lances (THoBaW) and Street Waif (AToT). Before worlds, many players in my meta saw Targaryen as the strongest house and, apparently, they were right to. I played Targ myself, though obviously I wasn't as svelte at it as Bruno. The euro champ, Mathieu, was rolling a heavy recursion Targ no agenda deck in the Joust event. Dissension was a great way to slow or even shut down Targaryen recursion. In fact, Matthieu lost only two games in the joust, both to Stark Winter, and in both cases, he got street waifs Dissension'd before he could activate them. With Long Lances added to the restricted list, in addition to a Targ-burn staple, The Hatchlings' Feast (ASitD), and the Bruno-loved Aegon's Hill (TTotH), most of the pre-2012-worlds common Targ motifs got nerfed. This means less of that style Targ will be played, which means fewer expected high-priority Dissension targets.

4) Martell got nerfed hard. Martell isn't quite so ally and mercenary heavy as Targ and the reds, but they have a few characters that were very commonly used that everyone likes to be able to blow up, e.g. Lost Spearman (MotM), their Maester Refugees, and Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS). Two of the cards I just listed are now on the restricted list, along with a couple of other cards nearly ubiquitous with the Martell House card. I would suspect that one will see a lot less Martell in the coming year.

With the Meta shifting away from Targaryen/Martell and towards Greyjoy, and with much fewer refugees in the field, one should see much much less dissension. One has to plan for the meta and in doing so, realizing that dissension is a dead card, a wasted draw, and intrigue challenge fodder against Greyjoy. Several players I know who have their names on cards in your deck have already taken it out of their decks in favor of cards that are guaranteed to be useful.

This, of course, presents an opportunity for team Casterly Rock. It's time to start looking at some of those more expensive allies we previously dismissed. Deadly-defense Bronn (LotR)? Sure, why not if the gold curve supports him? Arrogant Contender (LotR)? Ser Amory's Poachers (LotR)? Yes to both, if they fit your deck. Castellan? Sure. It used to just act like an event that said "Pay three gold to kneel a character. Also you wasted your restricted card". Now it acts like a character that kneels people and says "You wasted your restricted card." In any case, you should not be as afraid to use allies or mercenaries. +1 Lannister.

IMPACT #2: Card Advantage got more straightforward and yet more complicated
Card Advantage is king, which makes draw, discard, and removal all princes. With the restriction of Kings of Winter, Kings of Summer, Aegon's Hill, Bear Island, and two more Maester staples, a few of the most consistent ways for other houses to create and maintain a card advantage got much less common.

For example, one of the major strengths of what was arguably a top deck in 2012, Stark Winter, was the synergy of the best agenda, Kings of Winter, with the rest of Stark's strong cards, e.g. Meera and Pump Robb. Kings of Winter single handedly and almost irrevocably established card advantage for a deck that lacked any significant draw. You never wanted to get into a Top-decking competition (both players having no cards left in hand and relatively few in play) with 2012 Stark Winter because, for one, you were losing half your draw to his or her agenda alone, before you ever got to marshall. Now King's of Winter is restricted, along with a number of other good cards, which makes it a much less attractive choice.

Lannister has some of the easiest natural draw (e.g. Tommen Baratheon (SA), Golden Tooth Mines (Core), and Pyromancer's Cache (TWot5K)) and a lot of intrigue and discard power (e.g. The Power Behind the Throne (LotR) and The Bear and the Maiden Fair (TPoL)).

With other houses having to invest more into what comes easy to Lannister, we are getting a boost that we should embrace and exploit. Furthermore, it will behoove us to consider how the other houses might try to establish card advantage now that the options are narrowing. The specifics of such an endeavor might compose an entire future article.

IMPACT #3: Less attachment hate, more attachments
Tin Link (CbtC) was the single best way to burn attachments and it was so effective and common that almost no one in my meta ran any attachments unless they could effectively recurse them (e.g. with bronze link or one of the targ methods). Now that Tin Link is restricted. So is Maester's Path. So, unless someone netdecks some kind of legendary main-deck-chains-maesters deck, it's likely you aren't going to see Tin Link very much, if at all. This leaves Dragon Thieves as the most efficient attachment removal, but they only hit non-uniques and, as I mentioned earlier, Targ got hit pretty hard by the restricted list, so they are less of a worry. This all means we are going to see a lot more attachments being played in the coming year.

For Lannister, the impact of this is good and bad. The Bad: We have no in house way to burn attachments and the neutral options are all terribly inefficient. We are going to have to suck it up and get our kicks in other ways. The Good: Pyromancer's Cache is a damn good card that previously got too easily removed. Now it's less easily blown up.

IMPACT #4: Two auto-includes got restricted. Harder choices must be made
Every Lannister deck I have built in the six months before the 4.0 restricted list ran three Mountain Refugees and two or three Pentoshi Manors.

The 'Gees
Lannister is an expensive house. We don't have the cheap strength other houses have. We have nothing like Hungry Mob, Lost Spearman, or Distinguished Boatswain. Mountain Refugees were very important for our flops and our gold curve. Now they are restricted. Lame.

Manors
Pentoshi Manor (AHM) is an exceptional card. It's super cheap, non-unique, and it shuts down everything from weak characters to rush decks to stand-cycle decks. It was my go-to control and defense card. I am not going to waste your time talking about whether or not it should have been restricted. It is now. Lame.

The Choice
Deciding what restricted card to put in a Lannister deck got much harder. While each deck will call for a different choice, the way I see it, we now have to choose between the Pentoshi Manors, Pyromancer's Cache, Mountain Refugee, Search and Detain, and maybe Retaliation. Retaliation made the list because it is strong in kneel decks and its a four-gold-two-claim that used to be in every deck. Under no circumstances would I play Castellan over Pentoshi Manor as they serve almost the same purpose but Manors are cheaper, less easily removed, and don't use your limited response.

Gold Curve
The Lannister gold curve, which is already a fragile thing, as mentioned above, got hurt by the new restricted list. While I can see replacing refugees in many decks with the income characters (e.g. Lannisport Weaponsmith), they will not be as strong and our flops definitely got weaker. Of course, we will compensate, but the net effect is that the aggregate strength of our decks will be reduced because we are forced to use more cheaper characters than before. Arguably, all houses will have the same problem, but most of the others are better equipped to deal with it. -1 Lannister.


Parting Thoughts
Lannister is stronger this year, mostly because the strong houses got weaker and our new cards are better than most. Furthermore we should be able to develop card advantage most effectively. It took a former world champion to take Lanni into the late game last year (Kudos Greg), but its not going to be that hard or uncommon this year. In fact I'll make it my job (like 1 hour a week, maybe) to get you, my readers, the best deck ideas and the most educated guesses one can possibly pull out of my ass. Maybe we can develop the World Champion deck together and then show up DC-Meta style, with like 15 of us playing the same thing, to all the tournaments. Then when it's all Lanni in the final four we can make some sort of deal for placement. No promises. Clansmen next time.

Cheers,
Beej