With Fire and Blood: The Reboot is Upon Us

Hey guys, do you remember who won Worlds? Me neither! (sorry Istaril) The REAL news out of the World championship week this year was the announcement regarding the future of the only game that matters, and the ideas behind it can be best summed up by Nate French himself, as he lays the framework for the change and some of the reasoning behind it out in his fantastic open letter to the community, found on FFG's site or linked to here.

Have you read it? Go ahead, I'll wait. It's worth reading his work because I truly believe what he says--he loves Thrones and wants it to thrive for a new decade, not just in the short run. If you listened to Beyond the Wall episode 32 in which I guest-starred and discussed the options for Thrones' future, you'll have seen that we came to much the same conclusion--all other options available to the developers were a band-aid, short-term fix rather than the robust options available to the game if it were to fully relaunch.

And, if you're living under a rock, let me tell you that this game is fully relaunching as A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Second Edition. Let's take some time to unpack this announcement, see what the future might hold, and analyze whether this will be positive or negative for our game and for our community. (Oh, go and read Nate's letter again. It'll be important as we go through the impact on the game)

REBOOT LETS US REVITALIZE THE RULE SYSTEM

Many players felt like the rules system in Thrones was a severe drawback to attracting new players and a significant obstacle to gameplay itself. Nobody wants to spend an hour figuring out if Threat from the North is passive or constant (spoiler alert: It's half and half) or arguing with a n00b that just because Battle of Oxcross doesn't say "cannot be saved" that it really does mean "cannot be saved" because there are no responses at end of phase, ever. Nobody likes remembering who gets first response when, as shadows, framework actions, and player actions are all treated separately. Well, maybe Ratatoskr does, but the fact is that our beloved game had some wonky rules. It wasn't easy to learn, and it often wasn't easy to play. As Bomb put it, a game that needs an actual lawyer to serve as a sort of forum rules lawyer really needs some help.

While it remains to be seen if the 2.0 rules actually resolve all of these issues (and I'm a bit skeptical as FFG is known industry-wide for less-than-awesome rulebooks), the Conquest rules layout and the ability to learn from a decade of mistakes and other rulings is a good sign. Getting rid of Moribund in favor of Forced, Interrupt, and other Response timings will be amazing (and this is from a guy who likes Moribund). Our beloved game will be easier to learn, easier to teach, easier to play, and see fewer rules arguments. We will also see fewer accidentally illegal game states. I hearken back to the GenCon final match in which some very obvious missed passives led to difficult rewinds. If our new rules can help players navigate these issues more clearly, that's a positive, if done right!

I've seen some argue that streamlining the rules will actually be a bad thing. In their view, if the game becomes more simple, it will lose some of its depth and reward player skill less. I would beg to differ, as I believe a clearer rules presentation will allow players to spend more bandwith churning strategic possibilities and less churning opaque rules interactions.

PRO: rules streamlining helps new players and vets alike

CON: KTom out of a job; players depending on advanced rules knowledge (or rules badgering) to win now at a disadvantage (OK, OK, we all know that the rules aren't going to be Candyland or anything. KTom's job is safe)

REBOOT LETS US EVALUATE THE CORE MECHANICS

Thrones is great, Thrones is dynamic, Thrones has the best and deepest gameplay of any of the LCGs (IMHO). Nate has led us to believe that the true heart of the game will remain, specifically mentioning a few things including:

Plot Deck

Plots set Thrones apart, helping players balance resources, avoid variance, and provide for yet another deckbuilding decision point. Plots will remain, with a few tweaks. First, each player can include one (and only one) of their plots in their plot deck twice, to increase the uncertainty your opponent must deal with when matching wits with your plot deck. Certain plots, like Valar, will still be 1 per deck, of course, but making every plot possible to have twice like we've now seen with Power of Faith will be very interesting.

Can you imagine a plot deck with two Fears of Winter? Or two Cersei's Schemes? Or two Summoned by the Conclaves? Yikes. The designers will really have to take this into account while building the game--but they're going ground up, rather than grafting in the first edition cardpool, which means they can. They could never have done this change with a soft-relaunch or a rotation. In some ways, this new system is like the Star Wars LCG, in which each player can have two objective sets. We've already seen one set errata'd to a Limit One, and I suspect we will see the same for Thrones. That's not on this mechanic though; that will be on the design.

Second, plots will feature a Reserve value, which is the player's maximum handsize at the end of a round. Not only will this obliterate the ability to carry forward any LCG plots as-is (like how we can play certain reprinted CCG cards), this value will from the outset put a clamp on any super-handsize strategies like Bloodthirst with Rivers. It shifts the focus somewhat away from card advantage as True King and more onto card advantage as tool, depending on its implementation. We saw just how little of an impact that Song of Ice has had in the meta, but to make each player's plot with this constant effect will, I think, be a nice shift away from "card hoarding into a reset" strategies and more onto dynamic interaction on a per-turn basis. Some have even speculated that the reserve value will necessitate changing most draw from pre-marshalling into a challenge-phase system since the incentive will be to "dump" your hand to an extent. I'm not sure exactly what will happen, but I think a basic check on strategies that have proved harmful to the LCG metagame at large coupled with more deckbuilding variables can only be a good thing!

Let's speculate for a bit, shall we? Consider the ability in a new Thrones metagame to draw and hoard cards...you could, in theory, dedicate your Plot deck to high reserve values and trade off in economy or control abilities. Or, you could better balance "autoinclude" plots such as Retaliation! If you change the reserve value on that plot to, say, 2, you remove the plot from most control decks and shift it where it belongs, to its aggro home. The possibilities are endless! Perhaps my favorite baseless speculation is a plot with a When Revealed: Draw Three Cards and a Reserve value of zero. Amazing! (thanks to WWDrakey for these pointless, shameless speculations!)

PRO: Reserve value is cool; plot uncertainty is cool; plots are awesome and I'm glad they're still here

CON: Do we trust them to not break plot decks with these new things to balance???

Characters

Characters are at the heart of Westeros, and Thrones is no different. For it to be the game we know and love, it has to be character based and challenge based. Nate has indicated that the three types of challenges will remain, including Military, Intrigue, and Power challenges and that accumulating power will remain the win condition (incidentally, Reserve values just might make Intrigue challenges matter even more--or even less depending on changes with the Draw mechanic).

A rebooted game also clears some space for reprints of some of our favorite iconic characters. Let's take the Red Viper, for instance. Even though he had three versions, there really is only one right choice when you pick your Viper--the PotS version. Anyone who drafts knows how awesome the APS Viper is, but he's not as good as the other. Rebooting all the Vipers out of the game clears space for a new version. We also get to live in a world where Prized Dany doesn't exist, where every Bara deck doesn't use Unopposed Mel, and where Northern Cavalry Flank doesn't smash everyone. In short, we are freed from our history of autoinclude characters and can build a new history ground-up. I'm excited to be a part of that fresh, new environment.

In an interview with Team Covenant after the announcement (available on their YouTube channel), Nate French said that a real advantage of having learned what LCGs are all about will greatly impact their design choices going forward. What that meant, for him, was that Core and Deluxe products can include the type of staple cards needed to build decks but that they needn't include a full complement of exciting and splashy cards. After all, these are intended as permanent products in the line (until they're not needed anymore, amirite?) and therefore a middle-of-the-road approach best suits. I think we'll see CPs push the boundaries a bit more since they have a shelf life and can always go away down the road.

What does that mean for our new game? Well, on the one hand, it sets us up for a bit of a disappointing Core experience. If we expect it to consist of generic house staples, it will be a while before the "real" characters come out to play. I'm thinking of a Lannister set that has such things as Golden Tooth Mines and Enemy Informers but that lacks an impact Cersei and Tywin. While I'm speculating, I think it will be a while before our Core decks seem as "complete" as they can, and certainly a while before 2.0 versions are as robust as 1.0. That's a downside, to be sure.

On the other hand, better planned expansions means that we can get Core decks that really "feel" like the house they represent. Anyone who has used the 1.0 Core Targaryen deck knows that that deck doesn't do what Targ does--it falls flat. Focusing on house themes will set us up for a streamlined experience out of the box but one that can really be built on down the road. Here's hoping they also emphasize house weaknesses and avoid filling gaps easily with efficient neutral cards.

PRO: New uniques (a good Ned!), characters designed with their lifespan in mind
CON: An "on rails" experience as the cardpool matures

Setup and Gold Curve

Setup phase is continually referred to by top players as something they love about the game. This has always confused me a bit, because it seems a bit of a no-brainer--why wouldn't a game have setup? A lot of other games don't, though, leading to a few boring first turns as the engine is built. For Thrones, the dynamics of the setup phase create a variability within your experience and the "jumpstart" to the game that is needed to begin with engaging game play from turn one. That will be retained in 2.0.

What they're looking to push forward, however, is a more granular gold curve with more options for players. They're doing this in a few ways, it seems. First, they're ridding the game of influence. As a Targ Jumper fan, this hurts a bit, but most people won't care since really only Targ got to use influence anyway. It seems they're adding more ways to use gold throughout the round, perhaps by paying for events, shadows, or even Ambushing characters with gold instead of influence. Giving players more choices with their economy is a good thing, I think.

Second, they're trying to expand the gold curve beyond where it is currently locked in. In the current gamestate, a four cost character is truly expensive, and a five coster almost never makes the cut. Three cost and down is the tournament standard. But, we all know that not all three costs are created equal--Asha Greyjoy, Edmure Tully, Ser Jorah Mormont, Ygritte, and Jon Snow are all three cost, and, while they're all good, they're not all *equally* good. Stretching the curve out so that we can cost Asha at four and Jon Snow at three to reflect their varying power levels is a good thing, so long as the setup phase and economy of the game reflect that. A redesign allows it to happen. A possible downside of this is that decks will be subject to variance at a greater stretch or that our decks need more economy cards--the most boring type of cards to include. For example, if my good characters no longer cost three but now cost 4-5, I'm going to want to produce more like ten gold per turn rather than the sixish that works now in the LCG. That means either a boost to plot income (which we've already seen on the spoiled Wildfire), a boost to each location's income value, or us putting more econ cards in decks.

Third, they're boosting the attachment card type by giving them all the Setup keyword (or equivalent rules text). This idea was floated by 2C1C in their Refresh series of casts, and it's a great idea. Attachments are already vulnerable enough, and removing their crippling non-setup status is a great way to boost a really fun card type.

PRO: retaining dynamism in the setup phase; allowing for variability in character costs
CON: if poorly implemented, can allow for extra variance

Great House Loyalty

Perhaps one of the largest changes to hit the game will be the addition of two new factions, bringing the total up to 8. I expect that we'll retain the six we have while adding two more. This will affect the game in two ways, mainly: speculation and implementation

Speculating the Factions

I've noticed that they've been scrupulously using the word "Faction," not "House." Why would they do that? Well, one reason is perhaps that not all factions will be houses. From the Song of Ice and Fire, we know that certain groups don't have loyalty to one of the noble families and really work for themselves--or, as they would think of it, on behalf of everyone. These groups include, but are not limited to, the Night's Watch, the Maesters, Wildlings, the Brotherhood Without Banners, and the Brave Companions and varying merc companies. One might include some of the Faiths in here, such as the Septons, the Asshai/R'Hllor peeps and the Faceless Men. Of these, really only the Watch, Wildlings, and Maesters make sense as a faction, and of those I'd be SHOCKED if we get a non-house faction that's not the Night's Watch. One of the real shames of First Edition was the underpowered Night's Watch theme. While a great part of the books and the show, the card game Watch was unplayably bad.

We've also seen a few of the Houses not currently in the game speculated as targets for additions, including House Frey, House Tyrell, House Tully, House Bolton, and House Arryn as the main contenders but perhaps a few others bandied about as well. Confirmed: House Brax is not the addition. The problem with most of these speculated houses is that they have historically woven them into the six other houses as subthemes. I'm thinking here of the way that Tyrell characters are often Lanni/Bara affiliated to reflect the Tyrell's dalliance with Renly and then support of Joffrey/Tommen Baratheon with the Lannisters. If we pull Tyrell cards from Bara, who do they have left?

In the same way, the Tullies really just support Stark and don't do much on their own. Bolton is more dynamic, especially since the game was previously designed before Dance with Dragons, and there'd be a lot of space there to explore. House Arryn hasn't made it into the LCG until the tail end and we haven't seen how they'll come to life, but the books don't include a lot of engaging uniques and cool neutral ideas--who wants to play the house holed up in the mountain? (apparently a ton of folks on the forums do, but I still don't get it)

Deepening our speculation, we've seen photos of the game box. The border has eight sigils. If I could work a computer well, I'd link it, but you can see on the border the six sigils we have plus a flower and then what looks like a bird with a sword in the background. I'd say the flower sigil confirms it for Tyrell, but the bird/sword could be either Arryn or Night's Watch. Given that Arryn's sigil involves a crescent moon and given the designer's careful use of "faction," I'd say Night's Watch will be our eighth playable house.

Implementation

The design team has indicated that they are open to rediscovering and redefining what each house's strengths and weaknesses will be. As a traditionalist, this makes me a bit nervous, but hopefully what it will do is more tightly focus each house on one major theme and a few subthemes. Among eight factions, those subthemes can be shared at times more easily than they could among six. For example, it may be that Lannister has a theme of Gold income. Tyrell, in the new incarnation, could also share this theme, but NOT share Lannister's draw theme, instead featuring, say, a Take Control theme. While that's all pure conjecture on my part, it shows that we can overlap strengths and weaknesses while not diluting what each house is all about. I think if we love our own house currently, we'll love it in 2.0. I sure hope so, since I can't see myself playing anything other than Targ, ever. (well OK; I'd play Night's Watch ) We may also see a redistribution of house colors, which I couldn't care less about but it may irk some.

While the ideas behind these designs may be solid, it will sure take awhile to get there. A common complaint among Lord of the Rings players is that their card pool expands too slowly--most of their expansion pack is taken up by an encounter deck they can't use. They get about two cards per sphere per pack for players to use. Well, let me tell you something: Thrones is about to get two cards per house per pack. That's a slow trickle exacerbated by splitting the 8 factions across the Core cardslots. Istaril has calculated that each faction will likely get about 25 cards in the Core--not a lot of options. This will slow down the maturity process of the game, but hopefully provide a better experience once we get there.

Mitigating this somewhat is the enhanced faction-mixing system. It seems that you can now play OOH cards with no penalty, very similar to the current Conquest agenda. To do so, you forgo your Agenda slot and it seems that many of the cards will be Loyal, meaning House Only. This is similar to the implementation in Warhammer 40k: Conquest, where allowing easier mixing jumpstarts the deckbuilding options out of the Core box. In that sense it's good, but I don't really like Treaty decks as they seem so unNedly to my delicate sensibilities. I hope that the designers balance this well. I almost wonder if the Conquest agenda was a trial balloon to see how the players dealt with these unlimited options--it's gone well, by and large, so why not roll it out on the ground floor? Nedly objections aside, it seems like a good idea.

I'd love to see them mitigate this even more with a three separate Core system, similar to the Duel boxes postulated by 2C1C or even a full cycle to drop on the same day as the Core set, just for more options. Those are unlikely to happen, but I'd still like to see it. FFG plans to hold tournaments for first edition for a full year as the 2.0 phases in, but I think excitement for that will wane quickly. We'll all be playing 2.0 Core decks, and I hope that they will satisfy.

PRO: 8 houses! Cool!
CON: Slower trickle of cards; minimal deckbuilding out of Core box

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS: IT TOLLS FOR THEE, CASUALS

This wall of text is already Brandon the Builder-esque, so let's snip there and evaluate. Is the reboot good? Well, I suppose it depends on your constituency. The reboot is good for players who had not yet bought in to Thrones, good for players wanting to see the tournament scene go on for years, good for anyone who had recently quit the game due to its issues, and good for anyone who will enjoy seeing the Thrones scene driven up by the reboot.

We've already seen several of the Thrones old elite guard say that they are revitalized by the announcement, and without getting all namedroppy, there's several champs on the list, former tournament players who had tired of the gamestate, and players that gave it a go but were stopped by the rules text and confusion in gameplay. It's good for almost everyone.

Who it's not good for is players who recently dropped a ton of money on the game only to see their meta dry up. Those of us with more thriving metas will probably see the time until GenCon eaten up by tournaments, but those who were disenchanted by this have seen their efforts to metabuild going fully in vain. We've seen a few players note they've spent several hundred local currency units on Thrones product, only for the Reboot announcement to crush any aspirations other local players had of getting into the game right now. They'll have to wait almost a full year to (maybe) get a Thrones scene thriving again.

It's also probably not great for retailers who have a ton of money tied up on Thrones stock that will be harder to move. Note, though, that FFG announced this BEFORE releasing the next cycle, so while they may have shot their partners in the foot, they are shooting themselves as well. Also, if 2.0 takes off (and it seems it will), the retailers will benefit far more from the new version than the inventory they've lost in the meantime. While I understand these objections, I think that on the whole, the game needed what it got.

I've also seen a lot of negative response from players who don't attend tournaments nor had plans to. I'm confused a bit by that group--if you only played at home and not at a tournament, what's stopping you from continuing to do so? I'd love to be enlightened a bit more about this perspective since it's not one I share.

What say you? What are you excited about? Worried about? Mad about? Where do you want to see 2.0 go and will you be going with it? I sure will be. I'll be going with Fire and Blood!