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Deckbuilding in 2.0: Initial Thoughts on the Game of Thrones Second Edition Metagame
Sep 25 2015 08:05 PM |
Twn2dn
in Strategy
2.0 thrones second edition agot
I have read a lot of reviews and tried to follow the "metagame" for A Game of Thrones Second Edition (2.0)—that is, to the extent there is a competitive metagame for a game that has not yet been fully released. I am finding that I disagree with many of the reviews posted online and discussed in podcasts, and I thought I would share a somewhat different perspective. In my view, ratings for many second edition cards, in particular, should be different from what I have experienced and what I would expect to see as the competitive environment takes shape over the next six months.A resource-focused game, and the implications
With only the Core Set cards, the pace of nearly every 2.0 game feels largely dictated by resources (gold and cost reducers), or a lack thereof. To be sure, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the player who has the most resources on setup or in the first few rounds of the game will win. However, it is rare that a player has the ability to marshal 2-3 (or more) characters every round, as is common in 1.0. There are several consequences of a resource-constrained game. Some of the more obvious include:
High-claim military is high impact. Akin to the LCG draft format, multi-claim military puts significant pressure on an opponent. This contrasts somewhat with the 1.0 constructed environment, in which high-claim military is frequently more of a “nice to have†than a “need to have.â€
Large, high-cost characters are dominant. FFG worked hard to ensure that the central characters to the Ice & Fire story are the dominant characters in the Core Set. Because it is difficult to marshal multiple characters per round, and because character removal effects (kill, discard, return to hand, etc.) are still somewhat limited or difficult to trigger, each character plays a greater role in maintaining board position. Controlling a 6+ gold character becomes a major advantage. Tywin Lannister, Robert Baratheon and their counterparts in other factions can rapidly alter the game state. This, of course, results in other interesting metagame dynamics. For example, cards such as Hand of the King and Milk of the Poppy, which are best when used with or against powerful characters, are seeing more play in 2.0 than they had in 1.0.
Establishing character board presence early is crucial. Setups have always been important in A Game of Thrones, but getting characters into play early is more important now than it has been since Fear of Winter was an unrestricted plot choice in first edition. And yet, powerful characters can be a liability on setup, with early high-claim military challenges and Marched to the Wall in the environment.
So what does this all mean for the metagame?
I think most competitive players have come to the above-mentioned conclusions. However, my sense is the community still hasn’t fully adjusted to the new playstyle. To be competitive in the future, I predict players will need to:
Optimize for the setup. A competitive deck should setup four cards fairly consistently. This can be difficult with a limited card pool, without very deliberately building the main deck with this in mind, and there are a few things to consider. First, when bannered to another faction, consider running more than the minimum number of out-of-faction cards, and focus specifically on adding most of the 1- and 2-cost characters of the bannered faction, rather than only the most powerful effects. Second, powerful 3-5 gold characters are more important, with only a few 6+ gold characters. While less powerful (and glamorous) than their six and seven-gold counterparts, the mid-cost characters are easier to marshal. And because 3-5 gold is a smaller investment, losing such a character is typically less harming, and therefore those characters typically require less protection.
Run more aggressive plots. A lower cost curve frees up the plot deck to do what it does best—disrupt the opponent. Many of the plot decks I’ve seen lately include a couple high-gold plots to support the marshalling of 7-gold characters. I won’t argue that marshalling a 7-gold character is a bad thing. As noted above, such a character can significantly alter the game state and secure an advantage. However, at the point that a player devotes plot space to marshal such characters when s/he could instead be kneeling, standing, choking, or killing characters (i.e. high-claim), that player is making the deck less consistent and more prone to disruption. Given the limited number of targeted character removal choices in the Core Set, plot effects can be timed when needed them to ensure board advantage.
Leverage powerful effects more effectively. The goal should not simply be to kill, discard or in some other way remove an opponent’s problematic character. Use “tricks†to push through challenges that maintain pressure on the opponent. Get ahead early with the faster setup, and stay ahead with disruptive effects and high-claim plots.
I realize the above suggestions will work more effectively in some houses than in others, at least until the card pool expands. Nevertheless, I hope these suggestions prompt some thought or even conversation around what others are seeing. With that, I’ll end on a question… What do you find to be the most effective, consistent approach to deck building in second edition?
- WWDrakey, Amuk, scantrell24 and 15 others like this
22 Comments
Awesome article, Dan!
I'm particularly interested in your perspective on running a lower curve in order to have better setups and to free up plot slots for more controlling plots (as opposed to "econ plots").
I have been experimenting with both extremes (Swarm and Big Guys Only), and everything in between. I still haven't landed on anything I'm very satisfied with. The closest is probably a Lanni N/A that runs 3x most of the big guys and 2x Noble Cause (thanks, Aaron!), but it still feels less than ideal. I'm thinking this is just the new curve combined with a core-sized cardpool, but I'm not ready to concede that just yet.
In regards to running more aggressive plots, I haven't really found any in the core set that feel impactful enough to take the place of econ plots, since they allow me to play the impactful characters that can usually stay on the board for multiple rounds. Naval Superiority is hit and miss. Jousting Contest has a definite spot in a few decks, but those decks aren't that great IMO. Honestly, Winds of Winter is my favorite low-gold plot so far. Claim/Removal seems to be king in 2nd Edition, at least so far.
As expected from Twn2dn, a very interesting and sharp perspective, and one I can easily get behind.
I feel the changes to how much military claim and attrition truly hurt decks in 2.0, due to the lack of easy economy and free claim soak, has been greatly under-estimated, and the possibility of combining that with running Marched to the Wall at 2x even more so. The two approaches in unison, perhaps combined with a bit more attrition or targeted kill, can exert some overwhelming pressure on your opponent if built for correctly. A lot of player's seem to be compensating for the lack of claim soak through duplicates, which means that using cards like Plaza of Punishment or Grey Wind (or even targeted removal on weenies) you can quite easily open up those big targets to an (unsaveable) Marched to the Wall. The resulting tempo loss is one that very few deck can recover from.
The "duplicates as claim soak" approach seems to be stemming from a lot of 2.0 deck building concentrating around the Fealty Agenda, due to it's simple and straightforward task of optimization. However, it's also that same approach that's bringing elements like Melisandre and Milk of the Poppy even more to the fore, as Fealty intrinsically forces you to rely on a specific deck structure and makes you over-reliant on the 6-7g characters. This seems to be a large source for the high variance experiences from players, as they're first tying their hands with regard to deck composition through Fealty, and then running the effects that best mitigate their opponent's 6-7g characters... which again hurt the same approach the most.
As Kizerman says, it may be that the Core pool doesn't quite open up enough build room for really optimizing decks down from being over-reliant on the big characters (though I'm not yet convinced of that), but I've got a feeling that once we get some more CPs in, the deck compositions will start shifting rapidly as those Banner decks especially can start truly optimizing their cost curves.
Of the Aggressive disruption plots in the Core, my take would be that the key ones are: Marched to the Wall, Filthy Accusations and Winds of Winter. Almost any "competitive" Core deck should consider running some combination of those.
This can not be emphasized enough
One thing that starts to trouble me is Tears of Lys. Any medium to high cost caracter in early stages of the game not having INT icon is prey to Tears. If we do not have cancel on hand then seeing 1 gold on opponent side should force us to defend INT at all costs.
Put to the sword or even ICE is not near as effective and cheap in use. This creates an advantage for every house who has 4-6 gold characters with INT. They are easy to setup (or marshall first round) and can calmly build up our board for rounds to come.
I know there are build-in-faction cancels like Aemon or Catelyn(even Bran) but let's face it having green Icon makes your characters perfect for opening rounds. And there will be games that Tears will flip in one direction in first round. I had two of those yesterday - one in my favor and one in opposite direction.
They gave a small council banner to Glazer. That shows its value.
Also: listen to Dan. He's one of the reasons I was able to make it into the top 16 at GenCon this year.
I think the approach dan states here may be best tested out if Martell since their top-cost characters are not that great compared to some others.
NW has a LOT of low costers, but they generally just aren't that good.
This is why I decided not to buy the game. All of you people won't let us newbies have opinions (though I doubt Dan is a newbie). If any of you convert to Lotr, you'll find me there, in the wonderful community they have. Or Conquest, where there are so many sides to the game that nobody can really prove who is right (Tense Negotiations anybody?)
Buz was joking - as he acknowledged a few posts up, he knows full well that Twn2dn (Dan) has been an important part of the community for a long time. He founded Thrones Times, he's been integral to creating and maintaining the NYC meta, invented entire deck archetypes (Targ TMP Burn).
What thrones community are you seeing? Everyone has so many opinions. All the opinions!
I consider twn2dn to be a friend and esample in the game and was just giving him a bit of a hard time. Perhaps I should have made that more clear in the initial post and apologize for making you feel like I wasn't accepting of different views. As I posted above, his work has been formative for me as I have become a better player.
I blame it on the death of saracasterix (~).
Come on, man. You're listening to a guy that somehow thinks Targaryan is OK, while it's a piece of crap-faction.
This post (and his post for that matter) was obviously a joke.
On the article: I'm experiencing the same things. I'm not having much fun playing my self-made proxydecks (2x core), but that might be my fault. Games drag on for a long time as one person can't really get the advantage, with cards like Milk and Tears tearing up the lords of the board. If you disable them or (better yet) lock them down with Melisandre or kneelcards altogether, you can push through and start getting ahead. Only played 3 games so far but I'm having more fun playing v1 for now.
Optimizing for the setup has always been a part of competitive play in AGOT. If they swept the board t1 with valar, it's their loss. But I think you're correct in thinking that it will be all about pressurizing: making them defend with their biggest characters, or making bad combat decisions in general.
This is awesome. Eagerly awaiting your next article!