@moistloaf, I started playing Netrunner before any other card games, and then went on to explore Star Wars LCG, Conquest, MTG (just drafting), and now Thrones, in that order. I refer to these types of games as “creature combat” games.
Thrones is my favorite of the creature combat type games so far, because of the way it handles the concept of damage and the win condition. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the game, so forgive me if I speak too broadly.
In Thrones, you can perform one of three attacks; an attack on the opponent’s hand (net damage), and attack on their board (not specifically killing a character of your choice, because they get to choose who to discard), or an attack to further the win condition (agenda points, from the runner’s perspective particularly).
This may sound like a busy system, but it is actually much more like Netrunner than any other creature combat game I’ve played so far! You can spend your turn basically as you please, and whether or not you should be spending resources disrupting your opponent, building your board, tearing down their board, or pursuing the win condition is very much at your discretion.
It seems like with other card games there is always a correct opportunity to attack. Whether the system is based on reducing life totals, destroying opposing creatures, or some combination of both, many games seem to have entirely “correct” lines of play, especially when it comes to combat.
I think Thrones gets away from this in the same way Netrunner does. You could spend a whole game of Netrunner drawing for a specific tool to set up your attack rather than just making small, opportunistic runs, and it’s tough to quantify which of those lines would be better, even in hindsight. Thrones is similar; you can make intrigue challenges the whole game while sacrificing board state, but you have a sense that the effects of your attacks are inhibiting your opponent in such a way that will eventually win you the game. I’m really digging the game so far.