Reviews for N00bs - A Clash of Arms: Calling the Banners

Calling the Banners

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.

House Stark – Overall Theme: 6; Efficiency: 3.5

Jory Cassel (CtB) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 7

• The ability to dupe him with whatever character card you want is great (like leftover unique characters that are in your dead pile).
• The war-crest helps if you want to play Die by the Sword (LoW) or The Price of War (KotS).

Gates of Winterfell (CtB) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 6

• Can’t be blanked from attachments.
• This can seriously assist with Stark’s draw issues if you have an all Stark deck (no or little neutrals). Draw is so big in this game, the extra help makes up for the higher cost. This effect also doesn’t count against the draw cap.

Compelled by the North (CtB) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 1

• The effect may be helpful sometimes, but there are a lot better events out there.
• The stand effect only works for Banner attachments, and since the Stark Bannerman is one of the worse ones, you probably won’t get a lot out of this event.

Banner for the North (CtB) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 2

• This is okay as a character – it at least has two icons whereas most of the others only have one.
• Giving Stalwart to a character is a distant second to saving it since you still need to draw it, and spend resources to get it back out into play, and this (now-)attachment would get discarded for your trouble.

Campfire Lights (CtB) – Theme: 4; Efficiency: 1

• You get to search for a mediocre bannerman – not great. If you’re playing bannerman or this card out of house, that’s probably a bad idea.
• You get to permanently kneel an opponent’s location.

House Lannister – Overall Theme: 4; Efficiency: 4

Ser Lancel Lannister (CtB) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 6

• This could be very effective in a weenie deck. You will already have a lot of weenies out (Lannisport Weaponsmith (Core), The Hound (PotS), Mountain Refugee (RoW), etc.)
• Also consider this in a Clansman deck that gets benefit from knelt characters (Timett Son of Timett (MotM) and Shagga Son of Dolf (DB)).
• Lord trait – can have Bodyguard.

Compelled by the Rock (CtB) – Not Rated

• Banned from legal play. Taking control of an attachment and moving it is a little broken.

Practical Believer (CtB) – Theme: 2; Efficiency: 2

• There aren’t any holy crest characters in Lannister, and there are only two neutral holy-crest characters that kneel to trigger an effect, so you will not get a lot of use out of this. Disregarding the effect, this character is not that good.

House Baratheon – Overall Theme: 5.5; Efficiency: 4.5

Compelled by the Crown (CtB) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 6

• This is actually a decent control card which you can play to win a challenge to gain renown and trigger your vigilant characters. But you can still stand all your Banner characters even if you lose. Your opponent’s committed characters stay knelt.
• It’s a little redundant because Banner for the Storm gives a character vigilant, which if you win the challenge, it stands anyway.

Banner for the Storm (CtB) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 6

• Not efficient as a character on its own.
• Gives a character vigilant, which is excellent on characters with renown. Consider placing it on Robert Baratheon (Core) or Stannis Baratheon (Core) to get multiple power quickly and easily.

Zealous Collector (CtB) – Theme: 4; Efficiency: 2

• It would be such a great effect if it didn’t require the Kingdom locations. There are not very many Kingdom locations in the game, let alone 3 good ones, and certainly not enough to consistently pull off this effect. The most viable build would be a Shadows Asshai deck so you have Kingdom of Shadows. The Stormlands (KotStorm) may help and if you have enough neutral or need the influence, Shivering Sea (KotS) may help, but that’s probably a very unfocused deck.
• There are better Asshai weenies than this considering the ability is pretty much impossible. Kingdom trait needs more support.

House Targaryen – Overall Theme: 4.5; Efficiency: 3

Compelled by the Queen (CtB) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 5

• This could be interesting to use in combination with some attachments. Some good combos might be Aggo's Bow (RoR) (to kill two defending characters) or Jhogo's Whip (OSaS) (to remove up to 4 characters from the challenge) or maybe Horn of Dragons (ASoSilence) or Seafarer's Bow (KotS).
• If your characters with these attachments happen to have Banner attachments as well, they can stand.

Ascetic Follower (CtB) – Theme: 3; Efficiency: 1

• Banners are not widely used, so you won’t be getting these from opponents.
• If you are using Banner for the Dragon, you’ve got other problems if you are desperate enough to have to detach it.

Banner for the Dragon (CtB) – Theme: 4; Efficiency: 3

• It is the cheapest of all the Banners and the hardest to pull off. It feels like they ran out of ideas for this Bannerman.
• There are only 4 characters with Ambush that can have attachments, and only 2 that are viable targets for this.
• The best combo with this is probably Dragon Thief (AE)so that you can discard multiple attachments. Dragon Chaser (SB) is another possibility.

House Martell – Overall Theme: 5.5; Efficiency: 5.5

Compelled by the Sun (CtB) – Theme: 5; Efficiency: 5

• There are better icon manipulation options for Martell, but if you are playing with the Banner of the South, this may be decent.
• Since Banner attachments give your characters Vengeful, which lets them stand when you lose a challenge, this event is most useful when you need to win or guard against one challenge in particular and can’t afford to lose.

Banner for the South (CtB) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 6

• Gives a character vengeful, which can be good on certain characters, especially since there aren’t a lot of characters with the Vengeful keyword.

House Greyjoy – Overall Theme: 7.5; Efficiency: 7.5

Fishwhiskers (CtB) – Theme: 9; Efficiency: 9

• A very efficient character, even given its drawback.
• You must play with Warships, but since some warships are very good, this isn’t much of a drawback.

Compelled by the Sea (CtB) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 7 *Edited for errors

• This could be useful to stand non-unique locations, probably Scouting Vessel (KotS) or Naval Escort (ASitD). This has a similar effect to Ours for the Taking (IG), which is slightly better since it can be used with unique locations, most notably Longship Iron Victory (KotS).
• If you are playing with Banner for the Kraken or Naval Escort, this may be worth it to get additional unopposed challenges through intimidate. A 6-8 strength character with intimidate can take on pretty much anything and get unopposed, so getting to stand it would probably get you two unopposed challenges. With Rise of the Kraken (KotS) plot revealed, that’s an additional 5-6 power alone.

Banner for the Kraken (CtB) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 6

• This is a decent character since it has 4 strength, even with one icon.
• Giving a character Intimidate can be very powerful, but the best you can do with any character is around 4 strength without buffs. Euron Crow's Eye (ASoSilence) or Dagmer Cleftjaw (KotS) with Intimidate would be formidable.

Neutral – Overall Efficiency: 4

For Family and Honor (CtB) – Efficiency: 4

• The effect sounds great, except that you’ll probably only be running 3 Bannerman characters in your deck, which greatly reduces the chances of playing this event. You might be able to pull it off for one character, so it would be pointless for Martell or Baratheon, but better for Greyjoy.

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