Card Game DB
Sign In
Create Account
Welcome to Card Game DB
Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!
Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!
1
Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 36
Jun 29 2014 11:00 AM |
WWDrakey
in Game of Thrones
Small Council Quill & Tankard Regulars Ire JCWamma Ratatoskr WWDrakey
"Oh deary.""Aye."
"Now how by the Seven am I to make me renowned Archmaester's Love Raven Special Brew, wiffout hops?"
"Aye."
"You's sure 'em millers wasn't pullin' yer leg?"
"Aye, bashing me 'ead more like. Screamin' bloody murder about some debts or sumffin'."
"Oh deary. Well, you'se all ken what that means."
"Na beer?"
"Oh no. It means we's gotta do a RAID."
"Aye!"
The Raven’s Message
The Raven’s Message exclusively reveals and discusses an up-and-coming, either mechanically or rules-wise interesting, card. The cards are from future products, and have been obtained directly via raven from the Archmaesters at the (FFG) Citadel.
If there’s one thing a good game requires, it’s a plethora of bloodthirsty, vengeful, cunning and devious young women, out to make their mark on the world. Today, we have the rare pleasure of previewing one such individual, and she’s a right Bastard. Literally. Meet Elia Sand:
Elia Sand is a 2-for-2 Sand Snake, with the ‘usual’ Martell icons of Military and Intrigue. Like many cards in this Cycle she bears the malady of having the Prized keyword, but thankfully only at it’s smallest possible value. So far, so vanilla, right? The really interesting part here comes with her ability, which is the first repeatable method (that does not involve some kind of combo) for gaining intrigue challenges. All you have to do? Have fewer characters in play. Kinda like her big sister Obara and her Southron Heiresses. If you consider the fact that the only character who she can really be compared to, is a 5-gold Baratheon King… Well. Not bad for Elia, not bad at all. I guess the relevant battle cry here would be: To the Spears!
One of the things Sand Snake decks have been forever lacking, and which Elia brings a bit more of, is flexibility. There are a few key pieces to the deck, most of them cheap low strength unique characters that you want to keep in play. While Elia Sand ostensibly follows that very same pattern, there’s a very important effect that slowly starts creeping in, with the addition of further Sand Snakes. The more you have, the less you are forced to rely on specific ones, allowing you deckbuilding space to move towards having a wider selection… with each one becoming less irreplaceable. In AGoT, the ideal place for any kind of trait-synergy is to have a wide variety of cards, each able to stand on their own power-level wise, with uniquely frustrating abilities, but still harmonizing together to form even more frustrating situations. Attempting to rely on keeping any single piece consistently in play with the current state of the game… that’s mostly a fool’s errand.
The tactics on using her are quite clear: Use her ability before you do a military. Going second is quite nice, since your opponent will have to take Elia into account with his Military challenge. Comboing her with high-claim plots works wonders. And finally… she can do some nasty tricks with Bastard Daughter and Narrow Escape, maybe even trigger her ability several times, if you have the Patience for it. Why? Well, that “limit once per phase†only refers to that exact copy of the card in question, and is ‘forgotten’ by the game when the card goes into an out-of-play state (like your hand or discard pile).
Scribe's Heart - Raiding
Scribe's Heart is a series of articles delving deeper into specific topics, from game mechanics to specific types of card effects and beyond. An effort is made to explore the discussed topics in-depth, in order for these articles to function as important study material for both apprentice and acolyte.
Background
Today we’re taking a look at cards related to the ‘Raiding’ strategy in AGoT. Most people would probably know this better by it’s Magic: The Gathering derived term of ‘Milling’. However, some of FFG’s older News articles seemed to indicate that ‘Raiding’ would be a much more thematic name for it in AGoT, so that’s what we’re going by.
In essence, Raiding is the discarding of a player’s deck through card effects. In other games, like Call of Cthulhu and Magic: The Gathering, emptying your opponents deck completely is actually an alternative win condition, while in AGoT it is not. There have even been some legendary games along the years with Raiding decks, with opponents managing to still win games, despite having not been able to draw any more cards for several rounds.
In the LCG-side of AGoT, Raiding has never been a major element of the competitive metagame. That’s not to say that there haven’t been some decks that have done well using it, at least two-time World Champion Greg Atkinson piloted a Baratheon Maester Raiding-deck to a high placing in a Regional in 2013, while French player Ser Arthur Lannister was second in the Swiss, losing to the eventual Champion in Top 16 in the 70+ player French National Joust in 2011. Perhaps the most recent example of such a deck doing well is in the recent OCTGN Tourney, where a Raiding-deck based on Bloodthirst made Top 8.
Raiding as a Strategy
Raiding is quite a controversial subject in AGoT. It tends to be quite binary in it’s effectivity, since the mere act of raiding your opponent’s deck does quite little… while actually having your whole deck raided can be one of the roughest things you can do to most competitive decks. Because of this, it tends to wander somewhere in the grey ground between being ridiculed as being next-to-worthless… only to be accused of causing extreme NPEs (negative play experiences) when it actually starts working.
That said, FFG has consistently supported the strategy with new cards throughout the development of the game, and is still doing so, as can be seen from another new spoiler from the upcoming chapter pack. On a theoretical level, this is actually quite understandable. When focused too much on controlling, disrupting and negating of your opponents actions, AGoT is one of the slowest card games around. It already has one of the longest round times available for 1-on-1 matches (most other card games play multiple games or ‘best of 3’ in the same ~60 minutes that a single AGoT Tourney game takes), and recently there have developed decks that will still often go to time even with that 60 minute round. Similarly to how this current Cycle is attempting to speed up games with the Prized keyword, a viable Raiding strategy existing in the metagame would add a ‘ticking clock’ that extremely slow denial decks would have to take into account and prepare for… forcing them to concentrate a bit more on being able to also close their games out after they’ve assumed Control.
One way of looking at it, would be to think of Raiding as a Combo/Control-deck, one which turns the tables around on Aggro and Control decks that are dead set on drawing a load of cards and pummeling their opposition into submission, only winning as a side-effect of their opponent not offering any more opposition. Suddenly, against a Raiding deck, all they have to think about is the power they need to win the game, before the Raids will take their toll and cut their lifeline. No wonder some of the most vocal opposers of Raiding decks over the years have been either Control- or Aggro-players… after all they didn’t sign up for having to take the role of a Rush-player. For a Rush-player? Business as usual - that’s the situation you are in 9/10 games anyway (with the last one being a mirror-match).
The Cards
The primary reason why Raiding is worth it’s own entry in the Scribe’s Heart, are the myriad different wordings and templatings used in some of the cards themselves… leading to some surprising, and often confusing, interactions.
Iron Fleet Raiders
Most of the Raiding ‘engines’ (cards that provide methods for discarding cards from your opponents deck) are quite straightforwardly templated triggered or passive effects, Iron Fleet Raiders is a clear exception. Why? Because of that “Do X to Do Y†pattern, which makes the discarding of the card actually a *cost*. Costs behave quite interestingly in AGoT, anything done as a cost is not considered having been done by the effect it pays for, the cost cannot be saved or cancelled from and the cost is paid regardless of the effect itself being cancelled.
Essentially, this means that cards discarded for Iron Fleet Raiders will not trigger any effects that specifically respond to cards being discarded by a card effect, or a subset thereof.
Corpse Lake
Corpse Lake is perhaps the most convoluted of Raiding cards. Most of the confusion arises from the part:
After a triggered effect discards 1 or more characters from the top of an opponent's deck...
The first important part here is to note the ‘triggered effect’. This means that Corpse Lake cannot respond to any of the many ‘passive’ raiding engines, like Above the Sorrows, Wharf Rats etc. It also has the ‘opponent’s’ portion, leaving out self-discard like Desperate Measures and Priest of the Drowned God. Additionally, with Corpse Lake being one of the most popular Melee Raiding cards, it’s Response is worded in such a way that there’s yet another hurdle to be crossed. The Response actually responds to a single triggered effect, not a single card being discarded. This is an important distinction, since it means if a single triggered effect from, say Euron Crow’s Eye, were to discard a character from three opponents, you would still only Respond to the effect once, claiming 1 power. Oh, and of course it does not work with Iron Fleet Raiders, due to the cost thing. More discussion on Corpse Lake can be found here and here.
Easy, right?
Motley Crewman
The third major source of confusion within Raiding cards is Motley Crewman, who has quite a unique ability, in that it changes the number of cards discarded by any effect. Note that the cards are considered discarded *by* that effect, not by Motley Crewman. Notice the word ‘effect’? Yep, this does not interact with Iron Fleet Raiders again... Where Motley Crewman gets really interesting, is in it’s interactions with cards that do specific things based on the discarded cards.
Let’s look at a few important cases:
Seaside Urchin / Harbor Thug / Apostle of the Drowned God: Here the interaction is as you would hope for it to be, allowing you to claim power for *each* discarded card matching the criteria. For more info, see here.
Raiding the Reach: First you reveal the top 5 cards of the opponents deck, then re-arrange them. Then, you start discarding, and discard 2 cards *plus* the additional discards from Motley Crewman. So, if you have 3 Motley Crewmen in play, all 5 of the cards you reveal are actually discarded, and you only choose the order in which they go to the opponent’s discard pile. Of course, that order can still matter, especially with cards like Maester Cressen. For more info, see here.
Called to Arms: The opponent chooses the amount of cards to discard, and the effect you get is based on that choice. Motley Crewman naturally increases the number of cards discarded when it actually happens. So, with 2 Crewmen in play, your opponent chooses 1 discards 3 and you stand all the Raiders you control. More info here.
Any further questions on Raiding related cards, or opinions on whether it should be a more conrete part of the competitive metagame? Let us know in the comments below!
Antti Korventausta (WWDrakey) is a self-proclaimed Finnish AGoT philosopher and nitpicker, who also used to practice Quantum Mechanics, but found that it paled to AGoT in both interest and complexity. As a Stahleck regular and judge, he sometimes has oddly vivid dreams of understanding portions of the game. In AGoT, he'll play anything as long as it's suitably twisted... often ending up with something that has horns on it.
Helmut Hohberger (Ratatoskr) started playing AGoT in September 2010 and has never looked back (although his wife has, longingly). As a German, he loves rules - and I mean *loves* 'em. Try triggering a Response at the end of a phase on his watch, and he'll probably invade your country. He has actually read the FAQ, and was made a judge at Stahleck and at various other events. He sometimes answers rules questions on boardgamegeek and the FFG rules board. Some of his answers haven't even been contradicted, corrected or expanded upon by ktom - there is no higher accolade for a rules board morlock.
Every Maester needs a Raven on his shoulder. As a Finn, Iiro Jalonen (Ire) got pulled under the waves by Krakens years ago, and has never looked back. A self-inflicted Shagga and active member of the global AGoT community, he has always strived to know the rules of the game, in order to make them do ridiculous things.
James Waumsley (JCWamma) started playing Thrones in January 2012. Although he’s not got many links on his collar just yet, he’s a fiendishly competitive player who delights in making sure the rules are upheld, so that his opponents have no excuses (or in practice, so that he has no excuses himself).
- scantrell24, Alex and LorasTyrell like this
14 Comments
Ah I really like that spoiler card. If only bloodthirst decks ran some characters. Still be good in kothh as well though and any time to let viper do four challenges, interested to see what new sandsnakes and other of the alternate subthemed cards be coming in the next cycle.
Also amazing in melee.
I really like the looks of this Elia. More intrigue challenges for this house is going to be brutal.
Thanks for the toot! Fixed now in the article, as well as another small detail issue (Frostfang Peaks is not passive).
I'd really like to see the bloodthrist mill...err.. raiding deck. Anyone know what it looked like?
Wait, removing a card from play resets ability limits? Does that mean that Preston can spam his ability on himself every phase, and I could re-use chains over and over again in the same phase if I found a way to return them to hand and play them again?
Arzoo while that is the case for most cards, it is *not* the cast for a card whose ability is initiated from out of play (Example; Die by the Sword), or specifically removes a card from play. Examples of the latter include Den of the Wolf, Ser Preston Greenfield.
These are drawn attention to in the FAQ, and in those situations the limit applies to all cards of the same title.
What's not to like?!
Not really a fan of the character-lite decks though.
Christina Ricci...
That's a really nice spoiler! I'd love to see some more aggro/"normal rush" out of Martell.