sabrefox said:

~ Yeah, too bad the Copper Link there is busy giving the Maester a Warship Trait. Otherwise it could have been useful here somehow, I'm sure of it…

ktom said:

I love how you didn't even bother to mention Baratheon there… ;)

But yeah, I'm also a bit perplexed with how Street Waif could be an Issue for either Targ or Stark. I'd guess Bara and GJ would be the two Houses with the least solutions to such cards (and targeted removal of any kind for that matter), since Venomous Blade still exists for Martell (even if it is restricted) and Enslaved isn't all that bad as a solution either in Lannister.

All of these things that have been mentioned are muti-card combos in a House that doesn't really draw all that well.  So you've used up a large portion of your hand playing your discount locations, Influence, SW, LL, etc… this isnt going to win games by itself.  It will be a bigger concern when Targ gets more Renown (yea, I realize they are getting more and more recently) but for the time being it seems like over-reacting to something that has not seen enough play.  Its also a Response and can be cancelled by a number of cards.

WWDrakey said:

We really just need a blanket "limit 3 times per phase/round" to all triggered effects in play; it'll eliminate the potential for nonsense and the designers wont have to worry about how players can infinitely abuse some combo off a new card.

Skowza said:

Easy to say we need a blanket ruling. Not nearly as easy to execute as people think.

Sorry, I'm lazy at quoting. With regards to the deck winning worlds, it's one tournament. If it dominates regional season, then we have a problem. In football there's a thing called "the rookie wall". It's the idea that a rookie can be extremely talented and successful, but that success is based on the fact that there is no game tape on them. No one knows how to beat them yet. We will see if the Targ deck hits a similar wall once decks in the meta start to consider it's strengths and weaknesses.

mdc273 said:

I believe that we should consider a cards strength and synergy using all contexts of play.  The evolution of a meta and a deck type is not limited only to tournament play.

For the record, I don't have an opinion either way as I have not yet encountered the trouble this type of deck poses.  However, I do believe there are plenty of existing ways to handle it, but it may be at the cost of changing a chunk of your existing deck to handle it.  It could be at the sacrifice of part of your deck theme or at the sacrifice of cards that handle other deck types, but it would be justifying the reason why this game is called an LCG.

mdc273 said:

At Stahleck there was 18 KotHH and 5 TMP decks run out of Targ. 5 of those made the top 32, 4 of them getting eliminated first round. One KotHH made the top 4. Its clearly beatable.

I recall someone mentioning that some people were definitely net decking. You still have to play it well.

playgroundpsychotic said:

Out of curiosity, do you know if these were using Long Lances and Street Waif and recursion to their maximal effect?  KotHH can be built several different ways.

Bomb said:

Offhand, no. Quill and Tankard's Stahleck report said there was no "frenzy" of netdecking. Ratatoskr did use Long Lances with Waif's and Marwyn. Only found two other decks. One that did use the combo (didn't make cut), one that didn't use the Lances (Top32). I couldn't find Martin Herman's Top4 deck.

Bomb said:

I love your last line here. It is in fact the whole point of a customizable game, haha.

As for strengths and weaknesses, I'm talking generic. If strength boosting is the solution, you put in strength boosting. If more char removal is the solution, you put in more char removal. If trigger cancels are the solution, you put in more trigger cancels. A definite reason to restrict a card is the fact that there is no generic counter that is applicable in all situations. For example, if there was an "I win" card and the only way to beat it was to play "You lose", but "You lose" was useless if the opponent didn't have "I win", that would be an example of a hard counter that can not be used generically. I doubt we've reached a point where it can be determined there is no generic counter play to the deck that can not be applied successfully against all of the other deck archetypes.

Put me in the camp of "Long Lances needs close looking at, but Street Waif is OK as is."

If someone is able to use Street Waif's effect 6 times in a row, it requires significant setup. At a minimum, it's a 2-3 card combo on marshalling (depending whether you are outright playing Long Lances vs. using influence) and then a 3-4-card combo every phase after (Street Waif, Long Lances, ambush card + influence if not Khal Drogo). And the owner of the cards doesn't get to pick the card that is returned to hand. The gold/influence investment is 5+ on characters alone, and both Street Waif and Long Lances have negative traits.

I'm not saying using Street Waif repeatedly isn't strong, but rather that if there is a problem, it has (a lot) more to do with Long Lances. In fact, the vast majority of the time, standing a maester with several chains is MUCH better any phase, while standing a high-STR character of any kind is often better during challenges than standing Street Waif. I would hate to reach a point where cards like Street Waif are avoided in the design phase.

All that said, I think Long Lances is potentially overpowered. I'm not ready to push for restriction quite yet, but I suspect that in the end it will probably be needed. 

Separately, I think both Long Lances and Street Waif are good examples of why it's probably better to put powerful effects (and card advantage effects in particular) on unique cards rather than non-unique cards. 

Twn2dn said:

I think its worth mentioning that Targ only has 8 characters that kneel for effects. Two are reducers. Two provide recursion. Two are really bad (Merchant and Ascetic). The last two provide modest utility (D.Handmaiden and M.Aemon).

By way of comparison Greyjoy has 12. Some are pretty lame but Alannys alone would be terrifying. Throw in Murenmure, Wendamyr, Moqorro and the Ice Fisherman for more potency.

I only play tier 1 decks, and I play thrones competitively. I played at worlds and I played against the championship deck (which fielded Long Lances). I play against Targ jumper decks often in my play group. I just wanted to state this to give perspective on my following opinion:

Let's compare Long Lances to another card: Castellan of the Rock because these two cards have opposite and conceptually equal abilities in a sense.

Long Lances:

   +is not restricted

   ++can be triggered multiple times per turn (gets worse with multiple copies of LL)

   =has a good trait (army) and a bad, but not the worst, trait (mercenary).

   +has a keyword (ambush)

Castellan of the Rock:

   -is restricted

   --can only be triggered once per turn, regardless of how many copies of CotR

   -has the worst trait in the game (ally)

   -has no keyword

In addition, Long Lances beats Castellan of the Rock when played against each other, and Long Lances is just horrible to play against when other jumper cards are present, where Castellan of the Rock does not improve necessary with other card intereaction (at least not as much)

I will not be satisfied until Long Lances is restricted AND has its ability nerfed to a limited response. If they do not do this, they should take Castellan of the Rock off the restricted list because, by comparison, it is quite inferior.

flipperlord said:

Great comparison, but this is comparison in a vacuum. I don't think Tom Brady would win many games with the Kansas City Chiefs of 2012, and he's Tom %$*#ing Brady, LoL. Hard to argue that Tom Brady wouldn't be an amazing individual card, though.

mdc273 said:

I understand your argument, but in the metagame, LL is even better through other Targ card interactions where CotR does not benefit nearly as much (which I stated in my previous post), which makes LL even better than it already is in the "vaccuum" comparison with Castellan of the Rock.