A Game of What Ifs: Hound of the Hearth

Originally, I set aside 3 of 20 cards slots for attachments in the House Umber fan expansion CP. Unfortunately, "Loyalty Bought with Fingers" and "Frostbite" (a Stark only winter-burn card) never came together.

Provided your opponent doesn't discard it first, Hound of the Hearth gives you a few obvious advantages. First, neither the Hound nor the attached character (or 'leash holder') need to kneel and/or be standing to trigger the Hound's effect. Not only does this effect combo with character like Brutish Drunk but, like the melee keyword version of the Greatjon, it bypasses House Umber's intrigue icon weakness. The kill effect is just gravy at that point.

Bonus points to anyone running Old Nan, as that would allow you to force an opponent's character to participate in a challenge, say, when you were running a character with deadly.

The question is, as with all fan cards: is Hound of the Hearth too powerful? Should the kill effect be a second triggered effect, requiring a discard? That would give the player a choice to make -- possibly a tough choice given how good they both could be. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Decks By Democracy: Issue 1

A Flaying is Coming: A Bolton Deckbuilding Retrospective

A little while back, I got a bug and decided that I wanted to build a new deck, but I had a very hard time deciding what deck I wanted to build. I chose for my solution to go to the cardgamedb.com message boards and post up a topic asking for people to vote on which deck I should next build (the thread can be found here: http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4521-next-deck-to-build/ )
Thus was born Decks By Democracy, my monthly posting about a deck type decided by voting and how/what I did to make it. Though I’ve already gotten my next build voted upon, I’m going back this issue to the first one I did, a Bolton HoD: Dreadfort deck. So here’s A Flaying is Coming, and some insight into why.

House:
House Stark

Agenda:
House of Dreams

Plots:
After the Mummer’s Ford (KotS) x1
Assault on King’s Landing (KotStorm) x1
Fury of the Wolf (AE) x1
Manning the City Walls (CD) x1
Storm of Swords (LoW) x1
The Minstrell’s Muse (RotO) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1

Characters (33):Bolton Refugee (RW) x3
Brienne of Tarth (PotS) x1
Catelyn Stark (LoW) x1
Damon Dance-For-Me (VD) x1
Jory Cassel (CB) x1
King Robb’s Host (W5K) x1
Maester Luwin (FtC) x1
Maester Vyman (TWoW) x1
Meera Reed (TftH) x1
Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) x3
Old Nan (BRF) x1
Reek (MotM) x1
Roose Bolton (DB) x1
Sansa Stark (TftRK) x1
Ser Jorah Mormont (PotS) x1
Ser Kyle Condon (APS) x1
Steelshanks Reserves (ASoS) x3
The Bastard of Bolton (IG) x1
The Bastard’s Boys (ARotD) x3
The Bastard’s Elite (RoR) x3
The Flayed Men (DB) x3

Locations (19):Abandoned Fort (RoR) x2
Bay of Ice (KotS) x3
Great Keep (LoW) x3
Harrenhal (ODG) x1
Lord Eddard’s Chambers (LoW) x1
Narrow Sea (KotStorm) x3
Northern Fiefdoms (LoW) x3
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (LoW) x1
The Dreadfort (DB) x1 (played with Agenda)

Attachments (0):
n/a

Events (9):
Die by the Sword (LoW) x3
The Price of War (KotS) x3
To Be A Wolf (SB) x3

Synopsis:
At its root, this is a basic aggro deck. You want to control the board, wiping characters as often as possible. With a very low cost curve and high strength characters, it is generally easy to force an early Valar, which (more often than not) you can come back from a lot faster than the enemy. You want to go first every turn, and between events and claim, manage their characters pretty effectively. The land destruction combined with easy-to-win elevated claim challenges means even Greyjoy will have a hard time keeping up.

Character Base:
A lot of obvious choices. You want a lot of Boltons so the all-important Bastard’s Boys can come out as cheaply as possible, and you want most of them above 3 strength, so you can draw frequently off of the primary draw-engine: The Dreadfort. Now, I see a lot of players using Bolton Loyalists in their Bolton decks, and as you’ve noticed, I do not use them at all instead opting for Steelshanks Reserves. So long as you you can go first they’ll be strong War-Crested characters, and when they come back to your control, you get to draw for them! This maximizes the effectiveness of Dreadfort without having to lose a challenge. I could have included the Loyalists as well, but as intrigue is the weakest icon type in this deck, I didn’t feel they were worth it, and opted for more efficient non-Bolton support instead.

Locations:
Mostly just production cards, but with a couple extras thrown in. Bay of Ice may seem like overkill on draw, but as going first is key, initiative is crucial. Most of the plots already have high initiative, so at 0 cost, Bay of Ice is a pretty ideal fit, and will usually keep you on the top end of initiative. The extra draw for those times you don’t get Boltons is icing. The Abandoned Forts serve a double purpose. On the one hand, you don’t want your opponent having Boltons because you want The Bastard’s Boys ability going strong. In addition, if you’re doing your job right and keeping all your Boltons yourself, Old Nan can make an attacking opponent character a Bolton and then bounce them right back to hand. Just a little bit of challenge control.
Harrenhal is just a the cherry on top. It’s hard to underestimate the usefulness of this card in a deck that will be killing characters often, but even so, it isn’t strictly necessary. I have occasionally switched it out for a Crown of Winter to boost Meera and protect a character.

Attachments:None. Who needs ‘em? Except for Crown of Winter on occasion.

Events:While overall event light, they are all crucial. The Price of War and Die by the Sword are obvious, and To Be A Wolf is both one of the best tutors in the game, and allows you to reuse The Bastard’s Boys to max out claim even if it’s cancelled.

Plots:
High initiative is the name of the day. Aside from that, multiple military challenges means you can easily get up to 6 military claim over a phase with To Be A Wolf and Bastard’s Boys. The plot everyone seems to question is Assault on King’s Landing. Well, for one, it’s a military challenge, so if your game goes to turn 8, you still have one in your used pile for To Be A Wolf. Secondly, if used properly, it cuts through Greyjoy’s resilience by butter. And it has 5 initiative, which is fine by me!

Well, that’s all for this month folks. Feel free to comment on the deck or ask any questions! I’ll be back in a couple weeks at most with my next deck: A Stark Maester Burn.

Off the beaten path: Kingsmoot

This week's Off the Beaten Path is dedicated to AGoT's Kingsmoot variant. However, I must first make an embarrassing admission: I've never played it. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone else playing it either. This reality may illustrate two significant challenges for AGoT and rules writing in general.

The first and obvious challenge: if rules are purely optional AND require additional work to facilitate, no one will play them -- and Kingsmoot stumbles on both of these points. Not only are its rules unsupported by official play, you will need to build a new and fairly specific melee format deck to do well at it. 

Second: Kingsmoot rules, by their very nature, adding 'more rules' to the game. 

Together, these issues are not unlike the woes we all face with the first CP of each cycle. Naval enhancements are interesting, but are they worth the effort to get working? Will they clutter the errata list and scare away yet more new players? At least those mechanics are tourney legal...

In principle, Kingsmoot is quite interesting. Like Civil war, it supports up to 6 players, which is a great boon for 6 player casual metas and, possibly, retail spaces alike. Additionally, as they have no support/oppose concept, Kingmoot's Titles are probably easier for new players to understand. However, this simplification is a catch 22, as it results in some cards (admittedly only a small few) having meaningless wording in the format.

In practice I can't imagine Kingsmoot working well at all. Without supporting Titles, no player is ever safe and since 'winning' is dictated by the number of Titles you control (semi in addition to collecting 15 power) it only emphasizes the advantage of going last and/or forcing the earlier players to over manage the later players to prevent them sweeping the board. In short, the poor player decisions that already throw a standard melee format into the non competitive pile are probably worse here.

Unlike Hand of the King, Kingsmoot doesn't lend itself to use as an Agenda ...but maybe,

given the Character-Title coming up in the currently cycle, maybe we'll see something like them in the future. Who knows? House Frey characters that lend their owner title-like effects when you reach certain achievements has some appeal...

What do you think? Does Kingsmoot deserve more play? Do you think we'll see more kingsmoot-like titling in the rumored revised Core set maybe.maybe not due later this year? Say your piece in the comments below.

The Sansa Award

What started as Tag's side gag is now an official HOBO tourney tradition: The Sansa award. As is befitting to AGoT's biggest loser and the award's namesake, the Sansa is given to the player with the lowest win/loss ratio at a HOBO tourney. Last Saturday, that happened to be me and my 0 for 4 Targ Treaty with the North winter burn deck.

I will treasure my framed piece until next time (probably our regional match?) where a new Sansa will be crowned.

(photo of Tag presenting the award)

Off the beaten path: hand of the king

For this week's break from competitive play, let's take a look at the Hand of the King alternate rules.

In many ways Hand of the King is the complete opposite to the Civil War rules we talked about last week. Hand of the King adds very little time to setup but complicates play. (both through the rules that dictate when and how a Hand enters and leaves play AND because the Hand is immune to non-hand rules gold moving card effects)

Due to it's potentially complex interactions, deep strategic options, and on-the fly customization (you could start with a different unique character from your deck in every game) Hand of the King is definitely a competitive build. However, it could be argued that HotK is best suited for an unusual and rarely talked about scene: the comfy couch meta. That is to say, a small group of players with moderately strong understanding of AGoT's core rules and enjoy slightly competitive play, but don't construct custom decks and/or have a small card pool to draw from.

The argument to support this is simple: in a true competitive meta, HotK presents hyper OP/broken play opportunities, which dramatically disadvantage new and less experienced players even more than the base game does already. (eg Reek can infinitely steal an opponent's characters, since he only loses a gold instead changing control) Furthermore, since it is not an tournament legal play style, it may be difficult to entice a competitive group to invest in it.

Regardless, for those small groups of players who enjoy the game at home, a single core set box can provide many interesting options. (eg Stark's lack of intrigue icons getting you down? Choose Catelyn and by round 3 you will always have at least 1 intrigue icon in play, and a useful character ability to boot. Or heck, just choose Bran and churn through your plot deck as rapidly as you want)

As stated earlier, HotK is not great for new players. However, given
experienced players, it can combine with Civil War rules for added flavor and stability. (eg since Civil War decks can have draw issues, starting with a character with on-card draw like Tommen is a huge thing) While it's probably too clunky for brick and mortar retail, it's not impossible and the added 'newness' to each Civil War + HotK game may excite experienced players to participate with new players. (especially if you draft your hand)

As a closing thought, imagine Hand of the King's rules repurposed as an agenda. Would it suffer the fate of House of Dreams and feel like it had miles of potential but only a few really bonkers good starting choices, or would the natural delay of more expensive characters balance it out? Love to hear your comments below.

Prizes away!

Here are my three final drafts for this weekend's "Burning Hearts" tourney. All three will be available on single sided card stock, while 1 will get mounted to an old CCG era card (so it will match normal AGoT cards)

and here are the three cards we gave away at the previous tourney

HOBO Feb Tourney Prize Preview

As with previous Hobo tourneys, this Saturday's prize pool will include a custom house card. As you can see above, the Asshai get some attention. A Bara version is obvious, since that house is home to the majority of Asshai trait cards in the LCG. However, I'm considering making either a Greyjoy or Targ version as well, even if the Asshai available to those houses are... lack luster?

So, Targ or GJ? Toss your votes in the comments area below!