Reviews for N00bs - A Clash of Arms: The War of the Five Kings

 
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 Lannister kneel effects. Could play with Training Ground to have non-kneeling armies.
• 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.
• All have “No attachments except Siege.” There are no Siege attachments to speak of, so think of this as essentially protection from negative attachments.

House Stark – Overall Theme: 7; Efficiency: 5

King Robb's Host (TWot5K) – Theme: 9; Efficiency: 5

• Stark has a lot of armies. Robb Stark (KotS) allows you to reduce the cost of armies to 0, which is rather redundant given the reduction you get from having a king out.
• Synergizes with Kings or Queens (Stark Kings are Robb Stark (KotS) and Robb Stark (LoW); Stark Queen is Jeyne Westerling (ASoS)) for a cost reduction.
• 8-str non-kneeling army with a war-crest is beastly for military challenges. Played in combo with The Power of Arms (Core) will bump it up to 10-str which is hard to beat head-to-head, and is very efficient especially if you manage to pay 4 for it.

Vanguard Scouts (TWot5K) – Theme 2; Efficiency: 3

• No synergy in current card pool with House Umber trait.
• With high initiative you could get more use out of them, and they would basically be a two use character. If someone attacks you intrigue first then their ability is worthless.
• There are much better 3-cost characters out there than this one.

Icy Catapult (TWot5K) – Theme: 10; Efficiency: 6

• Limited Response. This is Stark’s only limited response, so this isn’t too limiting.
• This is fairly cheap direct kill. You can put this on a weenie like a refugee and get a free kill on a lost military challenge or during lost dominance. In this sense it’s more of an equalizer since you and your opponent are losing characters. Use this in combination with House Umber Berserkers (BoRF), giving you a net two character advantage.

House Lannister – Overall Theme: 7.5; Efficiency: 4.5

Jhalabar Xho (TWot5K) – Theme: 5; Efficiency: 3

• His ability is pretty much only good for tool-boxing against high-renown decks, such as Baratheon, which depending on your meta may see varying levels of play.
• Ally trait is a down-side, but with Lord trait you could put a Bodyguard (Core) on him.

King Joffrey's Guard (TWot5K) – Theme: 10; Efficiency: 6

• Synergizes with Kings or Queens (Tommen Baratheon (SA), Joffrey Baratheon (KotS), Cersei Lannister (AToT)) for a cost reduction.
• Great for a one-time effect. There is no other non-plot card that kneels more than one character. It doesn’t have a lasting ability like the other “host” armies, however.
• With Lannister’s income, this tends to be more affordable for Lannister than the other houses.

Pyromancer's Cache (TWot5K) – Not Rated Theme: 10; Efficiency: 9

• Banned in official tournament play, likely because it gave Lannister way too much easy drawing capability, and since it could be played out of house, was giving all houses too much draw which was affecting the metagame. Moved to restricted list. Play this out of house for easy draw, especially in Baratheon since they have a lot of Kings, and Targaryen who has attachment manipulation.
• Tin Link (CbtC) may affect the utility of this in some games, but you can still get some draw off of it, and with attachment recursion like Bronze Link (FtC) and Lady Daenerys's Chambers (Core), it should be easy to keep in play enough to
• Synergizes with King’s and Queens (see King Joffrey’s Guard above)

House Baratheon – Overall Theme: 8; Efficiency: 6

King Robert's Host (TWot5K) – Theme: 10; Efficiency: 6

• Easily the best “host” army in the pack, because of its ability and because it’s so easy to get kings in Baratheon for the cost reduction (Kings are Renly Baratheon (AToR), Renly Baratheon (KotStorm), Robert Baratheon (KotS), Robert Baratheon (TTotH), Robert Baratheon (KotStorm), Stannis Baratheon (AKitN), Stannis Baratheon (KotStorm); Queen is Selyse Baratheon (ASoS)).
• Once it’s out, opponents can’t initiate power challenges against you, which is quite an effective stop-gap. You take their power and they can’t take it back.
• Use in combination with Distinct Mastery (Core) to win and stand for protection and then dominance.

House Florent Scouts (TWot5K) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 5

• This is a good card for Bara rush decks with high initiative. Baratheon tends to have less intrigue icons outside of Asshai decks, so it’s a good complement for renown-heavy mil/pow rush lord or knight decks. Outside of this, they are just okay.
• It does lock you into a specific logical way to play this and predictability can sometimes hurt you.
• In combination with The Fox’s Teeth, you can attack unopposed for mil, gain renown and stand Scouts, then use them later for intrigue.

The Fox's Teeth (TWot5K) – Theme: 8; Efficiency: 8

• Siege attachments don’t matter. This is protection from negative attachments.
• In high-initiative decks, this is very effective to have turn-one to shut down your opponent and get an early lead. If you’re going first, the only way an opponent can get around it is if they have some sort of abilities triggered by kneeling characters. This ability makes up for the lower cost-strength ratio.

House Targaryen – Overall Theme: 8; Efficiency: 5

Queen Daenerys's Horde (TWot5K) – Theme: 9; Efficiency: 5

• The downside is that Targaryen only has 2 decent King/Queen characters (Rhaegar Targaryen (BoRF) and Daenerys Targaryen (Core); The Viserys Targaryen (KotS) king is unplayable.) New Daenarys is coming soon, though. The likelihood of you getting a King/Queen out to get the discount is lower.
• The special ability to control challenges is significant in a Targaryen deck. There are very few Queen characters in the game, so this makes the likelihood of using the ability pretty high.

Queen's Knight (TWot5K) – Theme: 8; Efficiency: 5

• A 3/3 tri-con is pretty good in terms of efficiency. Ambush makes it easier to get out.
• This card is most usable with Ambush, so you need high influence decks to run it. It fits in a “bouncing” deck where your characters are coming in and out unexpectedly.
• There aren’t a lot of knight-traited cards in Targaryen, so you have to be very intentional if you want to keep it out, but since you can’t count on your opponent playing a knight deck, it’s better to use this for ambush attacks.

Flaming-Pitch Tower (TWot5K) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 4

• No synergy with Siege trait.
• It’s expensive at 3, but might be more viable in an Army deck with strong characters, or with a lot of burn in order to successfully pull off the condition.
• Very strong effect that can get rid of pesky duped characters with higher strength.

House Martell – Overall Theme: 5.5; Efficiency: 3.5

Maester of War (TWot5K) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 6

• I wish this was x3 in the pack, but it’s not. Martell currently has the most maesters, most of which have intrigue and power icons, so this complements them to make tri-cons.
• By itself, this card is not extraordinary. In fact it has a lower efficiency. This card will obviously find a place best in a master-heavy deck, and as the newest cycle, Secrets of Oldtown (which focuses on maesters) is released, it may become even better.

Queen Myrcella's Guard (TWot5K) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 2

• The Vengeful trait is slightly counterintuitive on a high strength army in my opinion. You probably don’t want to find yourself in a place where you are losing challenges with an 8-str army on the board.
• With only 1 mediocre Queen, it will be very difficult to get this into play, and there are much better armies for that cost.

Besiegers of Dorne (TWot5K) – Theme: 3; Efficiency: 2

• House Dayne is one of the major Martell sub-themes (in both PotS and Time of Ravens cycle)
• This ability could be useful in some circumstances, however since Martell has fantastic triggered effects, you are also hamstringing yourself. A mediocre ability at 4 cost results in this not seeing much play.

Dornish Chariot (TWot5K) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 4

• One of three siege attachments (two in Martell, one in Stark) which can attach to these host armies and Besiegers of Dorne.
• When attacking, it allows your character to stealth normally un-stealthable characters and get some deadly kills through. When defending, it protects you from them. This is classic Martell tactics of discouraging attacks.
• For 1 cost, it might be better just to put out a character with stealth or deadly.

House Greyjoy – Theme: 8; Efficiency: 3.5

King Balon's Host (TWot5K) – Theme: 10; Efficiency: 6

• Losing keywords is huge: opponent’s characters won’t have renown, deadly, stealth, stalwart, vengeful, vigilant, etc. This can really put a crimp into an opponent’s plans.
• Unfortunately, this card is usually just too expensive for Greyjoy’s resource curve to manage effectively, but it is possible since Balon Greyjoy (KotS) and Alannys Greyjoy (RoW) are both good. However this may be worth paying 8 for in itself if you can manage the cost.
• Use in combination with Distinct Mastery (Core) to attack and stand to maintain the ability. You can combine with deadly and stealth characters so that none of an opponent’s characters are safe.

Longship "Foamdrinker" (TWot5K) – Theme: 7; Efficiency: 3

• At first glance it looks like a good ability, but this card does not consistently make the cut because it can’t consistently kill. Opponents could easily oppose with one character and kill it for claim for military challenges. It could net unopposed challenges for intrigue and power, though.
• Warship trait has some synergy with characters (Victarion, Dagmer) and other warships (Naval Escort). Since it’s down-side is consistency, playing it with Naval Escort can mitigate this by kneeling it for a different effect.

Seawater Scalawags (TWot5K) – Theme: 6; Efficiency: 2

• Intimidate is a plus, and the war-crest, but there are better characters with keywords and war-crest at cost 3 (compare Dagmer Cleftjaw (KotS)).
• The ability is worthless. The only kingdom cards that consistently see play is Kingdom of Shadows (KotS) and Bay of Ice (KotS). You might be able to pull off kneeling Kingdom of Shadows for some effect, but not enough for this to make the cost worthwhile.

Neutral – Overall Efficiency: 6

Kill for Your King! (TWot5K) – Efficiency: 6

• Cards that inflict direct kill (outside of Stark) are rare. This could find a place in a deck that runs a lot of Military Battle plots (there are currently 6-7 in the card pool, with varying quality).
• It can only kill characters without a Military icon. Since military plots focus on Military challenges, this event targets characters that may hit a weak spot (intrigue or power challenges) after you go for their throat in a military challenge, but it also doesn’t remove opponent’s potential defenders in military challenges.

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