2C1C- Episode 179

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com Game of Thrones Deckbuilder


Total Cards: (81)

House:
House Greyjoy


Agenda: (1)
1x Black Sails (RotK)

Plot: (9)
1x Rise of the Kraken (KotS)
1x Naval Reinforcements (RotK)
1x Naval Superiority (TGF)
1x Rains of Autumn (Core)
1x Take Them by Surprise (LoW)
1x Twist of Fate (APS)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)
1x Rally Cry (TBG)
1x Retaliation! (ASoSilence)

Character: (42)
3x Ambitious Oarsman (RoR)
3x Iron Fleet Captain (CD)
3x Iron Islands Brigand (TCC)
3x Ironborn Marauder (TGF)
3x Maester Wendamyr (KotS)
3x The Sparr (APS)
3x Victarion Greyjoy (RotK)
3x Alannys Greyjoy (ODG)
3x Asha Greyjoy (FF)
3x Theon Greyjoy (KotS)
3x Moqorro (VD)
3x Follower of Two Gods (CD)
3x Aeron Damphair (KotS)
3x Qarl the Maid (AJE)

Attachment: (6)
3x Burned and Pillaged (FtC)
3x Captain of the Iron Fleet (TGM)

Event: (6)
3x Seasick (KotS)
3x Support of the Kingdom (Core)

Location: (27)
3x Aeron's Chambers (KotS)
3x Bay of Ice (KotS)
3x Captured Cog (AHM)
3x Gatehouse (KotS)
3x Longship Iron Victory (KotS)
3x Scouting Vessel (KotS)
3x Sunset Sea (Core)
3x The Iron Mines (KotS)
3x River Row (QoD)
 

Clash of Arms: First Mate,  Fishwhiskers, Foamdrinker

A Time of Ravens: Fishing Net, Carrion Birds, Alannys

King’s Landing:  Boatswain,  Blackwater Raiders,  Scurvy

Defenders of the North: Ahead of the Tide, Tarle the Thrice Drowned

Bortherhood Without Banners: River Blockade, Refurbished Hulk, Euron’s Enforcers

Secrets of Oldtown: Baelor Blacktyde, Maester Murenmure, Iron Lore

Tale of Champions: Nighttime Raid, Nightfall, The Knight

Beyond the Narrow Sea: Sacrificed to Two Gods, Victarion’s Reavers, Longship Grief

Song of the Sea: Fleet from Pyke, Andrik the Unsmiling, Blazewater Bay

And, since it was pointed out that I forgot to post the revised list last week, here's 2W1W.

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com Game of Thrones Deckbuilder


Total Cards: (77)

House:
House Martell


Agenda: (1)
1x Dark Wings, Dark Words (Ancestral Home)

Plot: (7)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)
1x The Aftermath (The Prize of the North)
1x Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL)
1x The Power of Blood (Core)
1x Forgotten Plans (KotStorm)
1x Retaliation! (ASoSilence)
1x Fury of the Sun (AE)

Character: (35)
2x Arianne Martell (PotS)
1x Dagos Manwoody (TBC)
1x Doran Martell (TGM)
2x Edric Dayne (IG)
1x Myrcella Lannister (ODG)
3x The Red Viper (PotS)
3x Desert Raider (TCP)
3x Spy from Starfall (SoW)
1x Elia Sand (The Prize of the North)
1x Seneschal Ricasso (The Prize of the North)
1x Darkstar (PotS)
3x Lost Spearman (MotM)
1x Ellaria Sand (PotS)
3x Greenblood Merchant (ARotD)
1x Harmen Uller (PotS)
1x Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS)
2x House Messenger (PotS)
1x Quentyn Martell (TGF)
1x The Bastard of Godsgrace (EB)
3x Refugee of the Citadel (RoW)

Attachment: (2)
2x Prince of Dorne (Ancestral Home)

Event: (16)
1x Parting Blow (PotS)
1x Calling the Banners (Fire Made Flesh)
1x Condemned by the Council (AToT)
1x Support of the Kingdom (Core)
1x Distraction (Core)
1x Nightmares (LoW)
1x Dissension (QoD)
1x Much and More (AHM)
1x Paper Shield (QoD)
1x He Calls It Thinking (PotS)
1x The Only Game that Matters (LotR)
1x Blood for Blood (PotS)
1x Choosing the Spear (AJE)
1x Deceit (ARotD)
1x The Viper's Rage (TftRK)
1x Locked in a Cell (A Dire Message)

Location: (24)
3x Ghaston Grey (FtC)
2x Harrenhal (Ancestral Home)
1x Street of Steel (LoW)
1x Street of Sisters (Core)
1x Street of Silk (LotR)
1x Shadowblack Lane (Core)
1x River Row (QoD)
1x Flea Bottom (TGM)
3x Water Garden (PotS)
3x Summer Sea (PotS)
3x Palace Fountains (PotS)
1x Lord Doran's Chambers (PotS)
1x The Kingsroad 23 (FaI)
2x Shores of the Summer Sea (AToTT)
 

I love the wedding shirt idea! Can prior guest hosts get a t-shirt?

Oh and awesome episode. 

I am worried about deck imbalances. I know you have talked about playing these two decks against one another. It would be nice to see how that plays out. By looking at them Stark seems to have an advantage. 

I'm playing a simmilar DWDW Martell deck, and found The Red Wedding plot very useful.

Why are you thinking that with the Stark deck? Repeatable kill from the wolves overpowering what save GJ has?

I'm wary of your Black Sails choice. It seems like you guys built these decks with an eye towards what cards should be included in the refreshed card pool, but didn't give any mention to how the decks work as an entry point for new players from a "learning the game" perspective. Naval enhancements are one the trickier concepts to grasp. On the other hand, maybe it would be good for new players to get challenge timing down pat right from the get-go. 

@traitor, I do feel the direwolfs, Brienne, and winter is coming will be too much for the Kraken. 

Edit: For some reason I thought Brienne was in the core Stark deck. Without here it is not as bad as I thought. 

Listening to it in short segments (busy day):

Abolish Moribund: Certainly! Keep in mind that order of responses matters a lot then (my die by the sword can prevent his "after you lose a challenge" response on a character), and that you can't (currently) have any "after (self) leaves play", "after attached character leaves play" effects without a new "Interrupt" timing. I'm entirely ok with that. You already have Lucas Blackwood, though, who doesn't work without Moribund.

Dupes being cannot be cancelled: Sounds fine to me. It's a minor change, although it'll matter more in a small card pool (where people will have access to fewer characters, and dupes might be more efficient use of deckspace). In the current cardpool, it wouldn't change that much.

Edit: For some reason "Rally Cry" made its way into your decklist instead of "King's Law". Rally Cry should still be in the pool from the Kingsroad cycle.

Note: The current setup restrictions require that a- you have a legal target for a setup attachment in *your* setup, and b- that it then get attached to a card from your setup (eg - not your HoD Location, for instance). Burned and Pillaged, even with setup, would never get set up. Not a problem, just pointing out rules inconveniences here.

Firstly, thanks for addressing my complaints from last week! I still disagree (shocking, I know) but it was good to have it discussed.

The one I disagree with most strongly is that we should keep Kingsroad and C&D. You're using the argument of "people just bought these", but I wouldn't anticipate any refresh actually happening for a minimum of 6 months. The chances of FFG flicking an imaginary switch at Worlds itself are basically 0. I think the absolute earliest would be the new year, and far more likely (if it even happens at all) would be Gencon, at the end of the Wardens cycle. I accept that keeping these cycles would help increase the cardpool and they would get rotated out, but I don't think that suffices for reasoning honestly - when (well, if) the card pool is refreshed, it will undoubtedly be coupled by a huge effort to get new players into the game, and beginning with two CP cycles full of cards that were designed to synergise with, or fix problems relating to, cards from a full 10 cycles, plus house expansions and the original core, is just asking for confusion.

Rules ideas sound good to me, the uncancellable dupes one has been floated before and I like it. Hopefully this means Ser Axell Florent sees play!

As far as Greyjoy... well, I think they are the toughest house to do this with. That said, I don't think this was a total success. Greyjoy's problem, as you alluded to, is that they have a lot of themes - but honestly I don't think they have more than any other house, rather their real problem is how poorly those themes mesh with one another. Unopposed doesn't gel with location hate doesn't gel with cancel doesn't gel with holies doesn't gel with winter doesn't gel with mill. You had the good sense to cut those last two (although more on winter in a second), but then 'made up for it' by adding Black Sails. I completely get why - Black Sails is one of the most interesting agendas in the game and enshrining it in a new "core" will do wonders in the long term. However, for a new player it's complicated; it encourages a style of deckbuilding that suffers from a smaller cardpool; and, most importantly, it takes away valuable deck slots that could've been spent trying to add some cohesion to other themes. Cards like Dagmer Cleftjaw and Drowned Disciple would've added a lot more, I think.

This is a sentence to break up the rant and say that I liked the episode. Don't want too much negativity in a row!

The other thing about Black Sails relying on these weenies - you remember that Stark deck you built last week? It munches this. You've given Greyjoy 0 attachment hate (outside of Nighttime Raid in an expansion pack, but you can't rely on new players buying and incorporating all those packs straight away), at the same time as giving Stark muchos power attachments. I'm confident that 9 times out of 10 Grey Wind will win this game for Stark single-handedly (pawedly?), by taking out Brigands, The Sparr, Wendamyr (or else cancelling out his save), the Oarsmen, the Follower of Two Gods... and that's not even factoring in Shaggydog. If you try to naval in any character they'll die (well, unless Greyjoy has lower power in which case Asha cannot die, obviously). The agenda is basically trash if you only own the core, in which case you're eliminating the two naval plots and eliminating that plot selection.

You also made reference a couple of times to how Greyjoy would exploit Stark's Winter with some choke effects - except choke has nothing to do with Winter without White Raven. How does Stark having Crown of Winter in play make Theon's kneel more effective? When you said that I assumed you meant the "if it is Winter kill that character" Theon, but unless Will put the wrong one in that's not the case.

A reminder of my enjoyment of this episode and your cast as a whole to inject some good ol' positivity.

This Winter thing...because I was ranting about so much other stuff last week I didn't mention it, but I'll mention it now. I'm not a big fan of the Black and White Ravens adding +/-1 gold income, but having them discard the other was important. Right now there's no downside to running a season (if it can prove reliable), because it can be both seasons at once. As a result, I don't think they should be included in this refresh, and certainly not in the Core set(s?). It felt like an attempt to shoe-horn in an extra theme for Stark last week, and it hamstrung you this week with not being able to include any Greyjoy card that can benefit from Winter since they're in the same core as Stark.

If you had to include the seasons (I really don't think they're necessary, certainly not for Core at least), I think you should've re-arranged the contents of the cores differently. In fact, I think that anyway for mechanics reasons. I accept that, if you have to make 3 pairings based off the 6 houses, the most logical combo thematically is Star/GJ, Bara/Targ and Lanni/Martell. Basically because only Lanni, and to a much lesser extent Bara (mainly due to the Tyrells being Bara-alligned in this game), have any real beef with Martell to date. But Stark/Lannister, as well as being iconic to the books and the first book in particular, actually represents an interesting dichotomy of styles. This pairing puts the two aggro-iest houses against each other, the two rush-iest houses against each other and the two control-iest houses against each other. I'd much rather have seen Stark/Lanni and Martell/Greyjoy, because it puts the strongest thematic pairing against each other, important for a core; it allows for more interesting match-ups between the houses in those dual core boxes; and it means that if you do insist on having Seasons from the outset, you can put them in Martell/Greyjoy and actually have them face off against each other. Here, the Winter theme feels forced and uninteresting, and it hurts an otherwise strong core.

Final message of positivity, a congrats to Kyle on his impending marriage, and rant over!

Aha! I'm glad you're with me on that one, Wamma. There was quite a bit of behind the scenes back and forth on house pairings before we settled on this. I advocated for Lanni/Stark and Bara/Targ as the two big nedly pairs that would draw the most attention. While the Martell/GJ pairing is tenuous at best (through Dani- Quentyn vs Victarion), it was a sacrifice that I was willing to make mostly for Nedly reasons, but also because the playstyle of each house in each pairing would have been the most different. Alas, I was outvoted.

Thank you, Corey! You're a lifesaver!

Actually, Kizer, it's "duel." Ok, so really it works both ways.

Also, another thought that struck me that I rather like... what about just leaving the only house with a season as Stark and Winter? Rather Nedly there, I think.

Martell is probably the hardest house to pair because they've never overtly warred with anyone. I think the closest Nedly pairing you can get there is Martell/Lannister...Which i think is good, because it pairs Stark/GJ for Balon's Rebellion and Targ/Bara for Robert's Rebellion.

Lord almighty we don't need a stack, there's nothing wrong with a FIFO (first in, first out) system. It helps make initiative matter, among other things. Moribund can be confusing, but it does clear up things rule-wise.

I do like the idea of not allowing duplicate saves to be cancelled. Thematic and a neat little wrinkle.

Just listened to this the other day. 

Did you guys figure out that Dennis Rodman was married to Carmen Elektra and not Jennifer Aniston?