2 Champs and a Chump- Episode 141

Just to argue some of the berlitha points:

Creating more setup friendly stuff/gold producers/alternate control agendas: Any card they design today would take a couple cycles to come out. This solution also has effects non-kothh decks and the tempo of the game in general.

Kothh was underpowered to start with: yeah, but has no bearing on how it is now. We have more cards that negate or partially negate setup, more influence using cards, and now cards at your command tech.

Just because kothh can be played out of more houses now doesn't make it overpowered (for example, the Knights agenda): yes, I agree. But if an agenda is seeing a lot of play AND a disproportionate level of success it probably is.

Also, the restricted list isn't just for overpowered, game breaking cards anymore. It's also meant to shake up the meta and promote deck diversity. I think restricting KotHH would do a lot to help that.

However, I'm aware that one of the champs getting their card restricted would be tough. So to be totally fair they should restrict Coldhands at the same time .

Riders of the Red Fork kick ass!

Please have Kyle get a better microphone. The sound quality from his mike is kind of grating.

Topic suggestion: during the summer y'all started doing a rundown of your top 10 favorite cards out of each house, but put the discussion on hold because of Gencon. I would like to see that picked up again, as there are several more houses that have yet to be covered,

As for a critique of Kyle's first episode, a new mic would definitely be an improvement. Also, and it could be nerves, but I thought he came on a little strong. I felt that his content regarding the actual topics was solid, but thought he was trying too hard. There were several times when he'd make jokes that didn't land and more often than not just interrupted the flow of discussion.

I think this podcast is strange and some line of thoughts are not comprehenceble (at least for me). The biggest point are the Ally thoughts. When you look at the Allies that see currently play, the most are either very cheap to not lose much ressources when the enemy discards it, or does something before the enemy has an oportunity to discards it (like the mentioned Saladhor). I miss the last point completely. When Saladhor for example discards a 2 cost location and gets then hit by a Dissention, you are then 2 gold down and 1 card up compared to your oponent, which isn't that bad.

Furthermore the talk about KotHH was also very one sided. You didn't even mention once how the control plots like First Blood or Bungled affects the whole "having no setup" clause. Furthermore AGoT was geared towards aggro while TLV wasn't erratered. So a comparison between TLV and KotHH would have been nice. The agenda thing is just not true. I have seen control decks with the Fire/Ice, BS, PbtT, Char Agenda and even the GJ agenda would lend itself to a controlish playstyle, because attacking is becoming more dangerous and stalling is therefore easier. KotHH is just way more effective when you want to build a control deck. Karma for example tests a Lannister KotHH deck and has currently better results than with the No Agenda deck (at least that's what I remember).

At last Bara KotHH not a control deck? And the reasoning is that the deck runs many characters? This is bs! Just look at the character cards, they almost all have a controlish effect printed on them. When you would ask any player about the strongest Bara character, they would either answer with Mel or Stannis? And why aren't the two strongest Bara characters in this list? Because they don't do anything for controling the board.

I love that Kyle joined the show. Great job! The podcast has a new energy.
Love to hear more.

I have to agree that Kyle dominated the discussion and came on a bit strong.

Also I didn't like how Kyle and Darryl refused to entertain the idea that KotHH should be restricted. I'd rather listen to a discussion in which both sides are fairly considered than a debate where one side dismisses the other.

With KotHH, you're not just getting a Treasury and a Kingsroad Fiefdom. It's better than that, because they're always there, every "setup", so you can rely on them. And they're always going to stick around because location hate can't touch the agenda's bonuses.

As far as Allies go, I definitely shy away from 3 and 4 cost Allies, such as the new Areo Hotah, who is otherwise awesome. The 1 and 2 gold Allies are less of an investment, so you're not screwed if your opponent happens to have Varys/Jorah/Oakheart.

I hope that was helpful feedback.

@Alando- I agree with much of what you say, and particularly, the bit about restricting champ cards. We saw quite a bit of fallout when The Laughing Storm was restricted, and I have a feeling that FFG is wary of repeating something like that- as evidenced by the repeated errata to other other cards that interact with it after TLS came off the restricted list, rather than doing something about the card causing the interaction issues.

@Tomdidot- Weird, I didn't notice it much at the time, but I was probably just too caught up in the moment. Was it picking up background noise or something else entirely? We did have a couple Skype issues, so I wonder if that might have played into things. Did his mic sound off in the previous episode he was on?

@Joshaw- Since we're about to run into an historically slow time for AGOT activity, I'll see if we can't get back to rounding out those lists!

@Ignithas- But are you seeing much in the way of Ally hate currently? We've not been seeing much, which makes it seem like sticking with only the low cost utility allies is a holdover from an earlier time.

As for the KotHH discussion, I do apologize for the lopsided nature. I thought that I could represent some of the anti-KotHH arguments that I'd been reading this week, but it appears that I sometimes do a poor job of playing devil's advocate. I'd look for us to be revisiting this topic soon.

Sure, there are other control decks played out of other agendas, but you do agree with JCWamma that KotHH seems to be squeezing out many of the other control builds, which I thought was an interesting enough theory to bring up on the show. I'm curious, though, what people would call the Lannister decks that did so well recently. the Clegane Brigands makes at least a portion of the No Agenda decks feel like their treading into aggro territory. Or even if they're still just straight control in most people's minds, that means that the KotHH didn't really have a stranglehold on the field, so it makes me wonder if we can lay the blame (and thus the eventual solution) at it's feet.

@Schi0384- Thanks! We think Kyle brings a great new energy to the show as well!

@Scantrell24- Certainly it's helpful feedback!

@Kennon: Almost every deck has at least one character that discards an ally. The Worlds winning deck for example has Varys and Arys. While you are right that there isn't much Ally hate, playing them can have a very high impact. Discarding for example the new Bron with Arys makes a 7 gold impact.

Aioria called his deck a control deck. And he has many control cards in the deck and only a few amount of aggro cards, so it is definitly more a control deck than an aggro deck. But I wouldn't conclude that KotHH isn't warping. The game is pretty much dedicated KG decks against KotHH (in the case of Bara KotHH both in the same deck). From a designing standpoint, I think that the KG was specificly made to counter KotHH decks. You have cards that come into play in shadows so First Blood isn't as effective, Preston can save at least one character (sometimes 2) from resets, you can hold back without losing ressources by putting threads into shadows, you have a plot that resurects one KG, which is pretty good against hard control decks and Meryn has basicly a sticker on his lance that says "KotHH".

Topic suggestion: during the summer y'all started doing a rundown of your top 10 favorite cards out of each house, but put the discussion on hold because of Gencon. I would like to see that picked up again, as there are several more houses that have yet to be covered,

Whilst I agree with this in general (I think most of us like lists!), there was the problem that everyone seemed to have virtually identical lists.

What would interest me would be to cover a list of the 10 worst cards from each house, and then maybe an attempt to build a workable tier 2 deck for 1 house (please not Lanni PBTT ) that contains as many as possible.

A deck containing Without his Beard will not be tier 2. It will be tier 10.

A deck containing Without his Beard will not be tier 2. It will be tier 10.

challenge accepted.

A deck containing Without his Beard will not be tier 2. It will be tier 10.

Well, I did say preferably not Lanni

What about a Dayne deck containing and built around Old Bill Bone? Or a recursion deck using UUU? A Shireen Baratheon charagenda deck? A deck designed to use Drowned Prophet with Doran's favour to actually give a chance to trigger him?

Discussion of the weaker cards could produce some interesting ideas and insights on why the deck won't work at the top level or even lead to spotting a diamond in the rough, and could certainly provide a lot of help for newer players. I like the deckbuilding episodes because they often give a lot of good info on what proportions of cards to use and what kind of things to consider.

Three cheers for deckbuilding episodes.

How about a neutral house TLV look with all the awesomesausce new neutral characters and income locations to choose from?

What comes to the discussion on agedas being mostly aggro (and there can be a debate on how competitive some of those aggro choices can even be and if they are aggro), but what about plots? nearly most plots that are played are for control and partly for combo I would argue that barely any plots are aggro by nature of course there are some, but the majority seems to be on the control side and the most effective aggro ones have been restricted.

challenge accepted.

Zoiks!

T10 probably doesn't exist unless it's a deck full of events and no characters or locations.

What comes to the discussion on agedas being mostly aggro (and there can be a debate on how competitive some of those aggro choices can even be and if they are aggro), but what about plots? nearly most plots that are played are for control and partly for combo I would argue that barely any plots are aggro by nature of course there are some, but the majority seems to be on the control side and the most effective aggro ones have been restricted.

I think that would be a cool topic for this show, or just a discussion thread.

I might disagree about "most" plots being control - but that's just my perspective from a mostly casual player with a small meta and some OCTGN play… You may very well be right about competitive/top-tier level, but I would put it more at 50/50. Yeah, even aggro decks like the control aspect of plots (because of course you get that on demand kneel, getting rid of shadows, challenge control, whatever), but I think there's a fair amount of plot selection that boils down to $$$ and claim, and even sometimes initiative or search (at the gates, time for ravens, etc).

I agree about the restricted "aggro" plots (furies, negotiations, etc), but still plenty of Power of Faiths/Bloods/Arms, Victarions Schemes, etc I'm seeing out there to support aggro.

BAM! Sounds like a topic for next week's show!