Twn2dn said:

That's exactly the point I was making over at agotcards.org. A lot of folks only focus on the setup math, and completely ignore the agenda's opportunity cost, nor take into account the relatively low number of actually eligible and attractive cards for which to use this agenda. I think few existing decks stand to gain anything from it. Will it provide opportunities for new deck types to become strong(er) -- absolutely, it's a very solid agenda that's opening up interesting possibilities (and the thought of Bear Island fills me with dread, but then again, it already has before the agenda). But I don't think it's the supernova people are making it out to be. It's certainly not an auto-include for currently agenda-less decks. I have an agenda-less Bara rush deck, and I won't include HoD. I need to have the flexibility on setup to put down a 4-cost char with a bunch of 0-cost cards, something I couldn't do if I played HoD. And I'm sure there's plenty of other decks whose setup texture stands to suffer if the deck is not adjusted for the agenda's setup restrictions.

And yes, the immunity is strong. But generally, I find there's plenty more 1- or 2-cost locations I would want to utilize with HoD (as opposed to 3-cost or higher locations), and the threat of A City Besieged is very real.

There's benefits to be had from running this agenda, but they are neither universal nor overwhelming, in my opinion.

Saturnine said:

Opportunity cost means nothing!  Absolutely nothing.  EVERY SINGLE AGENDA has the exact same opportunity cost.  Once you choose that agenda, you don't get to play any other agenda.  So trying to ascribe any sense of balance to HoD by stating it has an "opportunity" cost is a game of folly.  KotHH has the same opportunity cost.  As does Kings of Winter.  As does Knights of the Realm, etc, etc.

I'm not going to get into my issues with House of Dreams.  But I couldn't keep my mouth shut when people starting talking about "opportunity" costs.

Dobbler said:

I agree, and would've pointed out the same thing. All other Agendas in the game have a real drawback. This one doesn't.

The drawback on Kings of Summer is real. It might not matter in most games, but you know that, if you run into a Winter deck and lose the Seasons game, you're screwed, and when you're planning to take a KoS deck to an tournament, you have to take the possibility into consideration.

The drawback on TMP is real. Sure, the benefits outweigh the drawback by far (as well they should, or you end up with Heir to the Iron Throne), but if you don't include enough Maesters, or if you don't play well enough, you might end up having complete board control and still being unable to win the game.

With this agenda, if we leave opportunity costs aside (and I concur with dobbler on why we should) all we have left is "it might not fit into every deck". Well, duh.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on HoD. I don't call for nerfing or restriction before it has been sufficiently played with (learned that lesson with TLS). Actually, I'm looking forward to playing around with it. But I don't like the precedent it sets from a design viewpoint. 

Dobbler said:

Oh, please do! I'd love to hear them. Do it by E-Mail if you must!

I have not heard one compelling argument against this agenda.  Mostly because I am not convinced it is so over powered as a lot of people seem to think.  I am still waiting for a deck that is over powered because they are using this agenda.  Which competitive agendas have easy solutions to them?  The decks that have such solutions have a chunk of their deck to counter them(like Summer versus Winter for example).  Or Knights of the Realm needs a lot of opponent's knights to counter the goodness of the agenda bonus.

I not only don't see it happening, but I want to see it happen before I believe this agenda is bad for the game.

Dobbler said:

That's  true.  But, then for this debate you would need to line up your apples and oranges differently.  What HoD in effect does is make that location your agenda, nothing else on the positive side.  So, if that is the case, the opportunity cost is no different than any agenda.  But, then we need to look at the drawbacks.  The drawbacks would then be back to: one card less, two gold less setup, plus the possibilty to negate the agenda for the rest of the game.

*sigh*

You aren't down a card or down gold as long as you choose a location that is at least 2 gold.

@Dobbler: I'm really confused about why you say opportunity cost means nothing. You are correct that this argument holds true for every agenda, but that isn't an argument against my point. When I look at a Martell, Stark, Targ or Greyjoy deck, I usually am NOT considering a no-agenda build. I think you, of all people, would understand the inherent advantages of the existing builds that run agendas. Every game that you and I have played and that I have seen you play has involved a build with an agenda. It may be that you frequently run agenda-less decks in your games with local metamates, but based on your competitive track record, I would assume that you understand agendas typically add more to your deck (positive benefit) than risks (drawbacks).

I very much respect your opinions, but frankly I don't understand what that opinion is. So far, I think we agree 100% that every agenda has an opportunity cost, but I'm at a loss for words as to why you think this is unimportant.

This is a matter of opinion, of course, but I think it makes very little sense to focus on this agenda in a vacuum, as it does with any other card in the environment. I do, however, think there are valid arguments to be made against the agenda, but those should factor in the context of the environment and the game. Simply put: Does the "net advantage" (perceived benefits of the effect minus the risks/drawbacks) of this agenda exceed the "net advantage" of other popular agendas?

Kennon said:

*sigh*

My point is if you treat the location AS your agenda [because that is all it does] then it should not be considered in the setup calc.

If you say, nah, let's not do that - fine.  Then your plus is you have one extra gold setup with a 3-cost location, protected and searched.  But, then your agenda is nothing and the opportunity cost argument can be made.

Whichever way you look at it there IS a drawback.

My opinion is it a mild drawback, akin to the TMP; KotHH is a much. much steeper drawback

Would it be balanced if 
A) HoD was restricted, or

B) if it were errata'd to say "you may only spend 5-X gold on setup, where X is the printed gold cost of your location."

(and +1 to DCDennis for dubbing them HoDor decks, SO MAY THEY EVER BE ;-)

Kennon said:

Kennon said:

Might be, but you are still down from using 4 or 5 gold card in a setup (with Greyjoy I'm having fairly often 5-6 card setups where I placed one high cost character on the table.) and you are also down from having as heavy character begining as you could. Control & combo sure it is powerful as hell. Aggro and tempo? unless you are building on very specific trait theme that isn't knights then I don't see this having as much power in those. Haven't played with this card enough to have an opinion on it yet, but for me it is the same as TMP was when it was released, easily splashable for any non-agenda deck, maybe too easily and we'll just have to see where this goes from here.

Also what I would like to test is that do you really need to "setup profit" with this agenda. I currently think that the players just want to come on the top in the whole setup thing, but there really are some powerful 1 cost locations that can be used to great effect with this. (Again speaks well for the powerlevel of this agenda.)

Saying that there has not been drawbackless agenda. After playing this game for many years I can count with one hand fingers on how many times I have activated the Kings of Winter drawback, it just does not exist. If I have lost the season war then the summer deck does have more cards in his hands. This all coming from a mostly Greyjoy player :)

This card is more complicated than just setup math like every other agenda and it needs more testing in the environment. Two things are sure, its powerful and it will shape meta in new ways rest is to be seen.

(Note: Tried to quote OrangeDragon, but forms conspired against me….)

This is an example of what I mean in my above post. You have to look at the "net" advantage you gain from each agenda, and compare HoD against that. Here's my personal comparison (some may disagree)…

HoD: Assuming the most expensive card in the game, The Ten Towers, you gain 1x search, 3gold, and immunity of your location of choice the whole game. Against decks without much non-plot location control (most Targ, Lanni, Martell and Bara builds), the immunity means very little, but against Stark and GJ the immunity is potentially very strong, assuming the opponent draws into their location control. The immunity is also ignored by plot effects, so while I feel the immunity is important, I personally feel it will only be a factor in about 20% of games.

TMP: Average of 5-6x search effects for non-Martell; average 7-9x links in Martell maesters. The big downside is that you have an auto-loss if you take too long to win (no modified wins/losses), AND you get an auto-loss if your maesters all die before you can win enough challenges.

KoW: Most games your deck will discard a card at random each turn from the opponent's hand. In my experience, this usually means 4-6 cards at random throughout the game. Against an opponent running the summer agenda, this agenda's drawback is only a consideration of you have more cards than the opponent, which I find is rare in Greyjoy/Stark winter. The really big drawback is that Wintertime Mauraders/choke/Meera's blanking/etc. are all worse when it is summer. In other words, the big drawback is less the agenda and more loss of card effects.

KoS: Most games, the agenda effect will net you 4-6 cards throughout the course of the game. In the infrequent cases that your opponent plays winter (let's say 1 in 5 games at most?), there is a hugely crippling effect if you allow for winter to stay out. Assuming you have a 50-50 chance to prevent this, we're talking about an overall 1 out of 10 chance that you suffer the drawback. I feel summer Targ actually has much better odds to keep it summer against a winter deck (b/c attachment recursion, character control, etc.) , so the real downside for them is probably closer to 1 of 15, with the vast majority of cases Targ simply drawing off the summer agenda.

KotHH: You miss out on 5 gold for setup, plus an average of 4 card setup. You gain 8g - 14 gold (assuming a game lasts on average 4-7 rounds), as well as 2 influence. While you are particularly vulnerable to Fear of Winter and early rush, you are uniquely positioned to leverage the powerful effects of First Snow of Winter and a couple other plots. This agenda has a very high return on investment, so long as you can make it through rounds 1-2 without losing too much board advantage.

I believe that reasonable people will disagree with some of the estimates on numbers I present above, but these are a starting point, and my purpose is merely to show that the vast majority of the popular agendas have more of an "upside" (offer a net advantage) than a downside. Of course, the risks/drawbacks matter, but in the vast majority of games are insignificant. The biggest drawback is not the 1 in 5 chance that you will face an opponent running the opposite season, but rather that you picked a season deck when you should have picked a TMP deck or vice versa.

All other agendas have drawbacks. Those drawbacks can be mitigated - to the point of being meaningless in many cases - but the drawbacks are there. There are "worse case scenarios," no matter how unlikely they may be, created solely by having the agenda.

House of dreams, on the other hand, is "self mitigating." The only real "worst case scenario" (a "bad drop" - which includes the unique location) is something that you can't really say is created solely by having the agenda. You can always have a "bad drop," with or without the agenda. In fact, when your "bad drop" includes a 3-4 cost unique location that is pretty well going to stay there all game, your "bad drop" with the agenda is probably almost always going to be better than the "bad drop" you might have unluckily drawn into without it.

That is not a judgment on the actual function of the card one way or another. It's just a comment that even in comparison to other "no practical drawbacks" agendas, this one is better.

 A cost is only a cost when it is truly a cost :)

Got it?

On a more serious side, if ALL agendas have the same opportunity cost, then when it comes time to evaluate an agenda against another agenda, opportunity cost is a moot point.  Its like evaluating a grouping of 3-cost characters against one another.  They all have the same cost, so in the vacuum of that specific analysis, the 3 cost is MOOT.

The only time opportunity cost is relevant with HoD is the opportunity cost of NOT running an agenda and comparing HoD to a non-agenda deck.

And HoD is an improvement over a non-agenda deck in 99% of the cases.  Until there exists in the metagame diverse and plentiful drawbacks to running an agenda (like Northern Calvary Flank), you will NEVER be able to convince me that there is a true "opportunity" cost with HoD.

Twn2dn said:

ktom said:

Yes. Yes it is :)