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Danigral's Reviews for N00bs - A Clash of Arms
Mar 02 2011 06:00 AM |
Danigral
in Game of Thrones
This review is especially written for new players, simply because I remember being a new player and getting a bit lost in all the chapter packs. I didn’t feel like I could make informed decisions about the chapter packs because I didn’t know what was “good†or not. I know that not everyone will agree with my ratings, and some players may feel that they are misleading based on their own experience or gameplay group or meta, however this is my review, so I can rate them how I like, and in the least, I hope they are a helpful starting point for new players to jump in.I’ve rated all the cards on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very bad/unplayable, 5 being neutral (some good/some bad), and 10 being very good/must have. I’ve rated each card in terms of theme and efficiency. The overall house rating is an average of all the cards of that one pack; the overall pack rating is an average of all the houses, neutrals, and possibly multi-house cards.
Some considerations about ratings:
Theme – Each house has its own appeal and flavor. The theme rating is based on how much the particular card enhances or aligns with the theme of the house and the overall cycle. These are my guidelines for each house in terms of theme:
- House Stark – Military domination and direct kill. Strong in power. Weak in intrigue. Buffs and burns from Winter. Weak in draw, but has more search effects. Dominant traits include Direwolves, Army, House Tully, House Bolton.
- House Lannister – Intrigue domination and kneel. Fair in power and military. Challenge control through tricky effects and events mid-challenge. Very strong in draw. House trait is Infamy. Dominant traits include Lord, Ally, and Clansman.
- House Baratheon – Power domination, standing and renown. Strong in military. Fair in intrigue (with Asshai). Weak in draw. House trait is Vigilant. Dominant traits include Lord, Knight, Asshai.
- House Targaryen – Strong in military and power. Fair in intrigue. Attachment manipulation. Dead and discard pile manipulation including recursion. House trait is Ambush. Dominant traits include Dothraki, Dragons.
- House Martell – Fairly even spread of icons. Challenge control through icon manipulation and deterrence by claim manipulation and hand manipulation. House trait is Vengeful. Dominant traits include House Dayne, Bastard, Sand Snake.
- House Greyjoy – Strong in military and power. Weak in intrigue. Character saves and location control. Most synergy from winning challenges unopposed. House trait is Intimidate. Dominant traits included Ironborn, Raider, Warship.
Efficiency – Factors of efficiency are cost, cost-to-power ratio, and ease of triggering effects. Playability is a correlation of efficiency. Building a deck with the most efficient cards tends to work out better (in competitive decks) than building in a lot of fancy combos and synergy (but it sure is more fun!). This is a factor in the efficiency rating. Always keep in mind resource curve and your ability to play a card given restrictions at any given moment.
In terms of optimal deck efficiency, there tends to be a cost-cap for each type of card, with some exceptions based on your deck design. In general, locations costing more than 2, characters costing more than 4, and attachments costing more than 1, should be exceptional and limited in your deck build. Cards that go beyond these general cost parameters automatically get a slightly lower rating.
Traits are another factor. Ally and, to a lesser extent, Mercenary traits tend to be “bad†traits. Ally-traited characters can easily be removed with the evil twins Varys and Ser Arys Oakhart, so you don’t want Allies to be the linchpin of your deck.
A Clash of Arms
The War of the Five Kings
Overall rating - Theme:7; Efficiency:4.5
This chapter pack focuses on large unique armies and enhancing house theme.
8-cost armies – Overall Theme: 9; Efficiency: 5
- Unique army. Comes x1 in the pack, but you arguably wouldn’t want to run multiples of an expensive army since they’re hard to get out and it may get killed before you could dupe it.
- Army trait provides some "protection" that non-army characters don’t have, most notably with some Lannister kneel effects (for example Cersei Lannister (AToT) or Flogged and Chained (TftRK)).
- Could play with Training Grounds (LoW) to have armies that don't kneel to attack on military challenges.
- All are reduced to 4-cost with a King or Queen out. Stark has 2 different kings/queens; Lannister has 3; Baratheon has 4; Targaryen has 3; Martell has 1; Greyjoy has 2; 1 Neutral king.
- Al have “No attachments except Siege.†There are no Siege attachments to speak of, so think of this as essentially protection from negative attachments.
Overall Theme: 7.5; Efficiency: 6
Fury Plots – Overall Theme: 10; Efficiency: 9
- 5/7/1 plots for each house. Even without the effect, 5-income plots are rare in this game, as are high-initiative plots.
- Each has an effect that synergizes with the house themes. Each has either “Military Battle, Intrigue Gambit, or Power Struggle traits which have some synergy with other in-house cards such as the “To Be…†events from Sacred Bonds.
- The effects have varying levels of strength, and only effect houses that are “enemies†to your house.
Overall Theme: 7.5; Efficiency: 6.5
This chapter pack focuses on further developing each house theme, and plays around withhouse keywords a bit introducing multi-house characters with shared keywords. It also comeswith excellent house-specific event cards.‘To Be…’ events – Overall Theme: 9.5; Efficiency: 9
- Really good events that synergize with house abilities.All have a requirement of a Military Battle, Intrigue Gambit, or Power Struggle traited plot in your used pile, so you could never use them turn 1.
- Leading with the Fury plots are common and a good way to utilize these in your deck. Unfortunately only one of each.
- Toolbox characters (good for claim soak) that allow you to search for other in-house characters. Really good to have in a deck that depends on a few characters for combos.All only have one icon. In and of themselves not that great.
Overall Theme: 7; Efficiency: 4.5
This pack focuses on events that initiate an “Epic Phase.â€
- The Epic Phase is a special phase that happens after dominance in which players can initiate another challenge, and each card determines what kind of challenge it will be.
- There are also locations for each house that enhance the core thematic of each house, and that give extra draw during the epic phase, so there is some synergy for playing the events with these locations in your decks.
- Unfortunately, someone thought that it would be good to only have one of each event and three of each unique location, rather than the other way around.
View breakdowns of every card in Epic Battles chapter pack.
Overall Theme: 6; Efficiency: 5
This chapter pack is a hit or miss for some players. If you love Lannister, this is a must have.
If you love Greyjoy, there’s nothing for you here. There isn’t a lot of cohesion in this pack. It
doesn’t develop the house theme as much as other packs, but there are some random good
cards sprinkled in.
View breakdowns of every card in The Battle of Ruby Ford chapter pack.
Overall Theme: 6; Efficiency: 4.5
This pack focuses on Banners, a fiddly way to give characters house keywords by attaching
inefficient characters to them. There are some decent cards mixed in, but this is a lower priority
pack, in my opinion, since there is very little synergy with the other packs in this cycle. The
banner mechanic is nowhere else in the game. Some banners are good, because the house
traits are good, others are rather counter-intuitive.
View breakdowns of every card in Calling the Banners chapter pack.
- BraavosiBanker likes this
10 Comments
I find the wording here unfortunate as well. The Army trait doesn't provide protection, or anything else. Again, a beginner might assume that there's an inherent rule or effect to the Army trait (or any other trait). If anything, the protection is granted by the kneel effects that exclude army characters.
Sorry for being nitpicky about this, but it's already led to misunderstandings, so I want to prevent any more of those.
Big props to you, though, for writing up such a comprehensive overview. Nicely done.
For new players, a good next step (other than purchasing more chapter packs) is to read and absorb the FAQ as much as possible. Playing a lot will also give you a better understanding of the cards. I've played with pros who still get things wrong sometimes. So take that as a bit of encouragement, too.