Limbhack (A Game of Thrones, 2nd Ed:)

I should try it out at an LCG one of these days. I think a fair amount of our ANR community is playing it. Attacking someone’s hand seems positively brutal. It definitely is a ‘creature combat’ game as you say, but I am inclined to believe you when you say it’s the best…

Exactly. Game of Thrones is the best creature combat game. There are three separate combat types which each have different and interesting effects.

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I think Conquest is still by far the best of the unit combat games, but Thrones has the potential to eclipse it if the cardpool gets more interesting.

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I also like Conquest better because I feel there’s less bloat and games are quicker. I think agot2 is a better game though; Conquest has a snowball problem.

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The snowball problem in Conquest isn’t really prevalent in games with skilled players. While things definitely feel snowbally for the first few games, this ends up going away with more experienced play - much like like the “runner is really bad!” (because they aren’t running) problem in Netrunner or the first turn giant shootout problem in Doomtown.

Having played both Conquest and Thrones at a high level, I can say that Thrones seems more snowbally at present, since the cards that actively punish being behind (Marched to the Wall) are stronger than the relatively few cards that help you come back (Wildfire Assault). Most of my Thrones games, even against skilled opponents, are clearly over within two turns or so, with one person so behind on board state that they have no real chance of coming back.

Now, to be fair, I am playing fairly aggro decks - but my experience has been that Thrones snowballs very hard, especially on early military challenges or kills from other sources (Dracarys! for instance). I also have high hopes for the future cardpool - in particular First Snow seems like it will be very helpful here.

If anything, a long GoT game feels more like a burn-down instead of a build-up, which is interesting in a different way :stuck_out_tongue:

I would agree that it’s much less prevalent in high-level play, but still present. It’s much easier to see with beginner and even intermediate play.

I haven’t played enough to say, but I suspect you’re right.

One of the factors that I suspect is leading to this sense of blowout games because a person got a bad draw is deckbuilding itself. Partly because the cardpool is limited and partly because we’re all enamored with the cool high-cost characters, I have a feeling that the cost curves of the vast majority of decks is way too high. 3-cost locations, many copies of 5-7 cost characters; if you get a bad mulligan with mostly pricey cards, you are kind of screwed.

I’ve been lowering and lowering my cost curve and have found that my deck has been performing better and better. In my Tyrell deck, I’ve taken out the Queen of Thornes and Highgarden (keeping only the Mander) and have added things like the Arbor Knights and Street of Sisters, Widow’s Wail (great on setup), and even a copy of Noble Lineage. It’s humming pretty elegantly and I’d like to get more games in to solidify my hunch.

So yeah, games can be pretty rough, but I think you can tune your deck to avoid some of these problems. It really is all about the setup!

been doing 1 highgarden with support of the people to find it. It’s a very powerful effect once you are setup

Yeah, I don’t have anything against the card, I like it. I’ve really tuned my deck to be a power rush one, however, and Highgarden didn’t directly work with that plan (and costs 3) so I cut it.

Do you have a list, I’ve been thinking about building a SoS Tyrell deck since getting taking the Black. I’m assuming not fealty since you have to kneel your house card.

Yep, here it is! I feel pretty good about this deck, am excited to take it to a tourney soon. I’ve been honing it for awhile.

http://thronesdb.com/deck/view/3868

private deck atm

I think it should be fixed now.

Some thoughts:

Consider playing support of the people. Win by 5, play it, grab the Mander, draw 2 cards. Or get Streets of the Sisters. With Support of the people you can reduce the number of the mander, maybe even to 1.

I’d probably add 1 highgarden, another target for it, and a useful card.

Muster the Realm seems bad, you have only Wardens of the Reach for army cards. Winds of Winter seems much better than it in this deck.

Do you have too many limited cards? I find the Lannisport Moneylenders to overload on limited and also they can hurt your setups, because you cant play them with a limited location. Sometimes this prevents you from playing a good setup. Maybe the 1 cost lannister reducers would be better.

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Its the same in Game of Thrones.
I played some early on on OCTGN with friends over skype, and like half our games would be over on turn 2 with one player getting blown out and their characters killed. So some of them decided it wasnt very good.

However, when I go to LCG nights and play other experienced people now, it almost never happens. People have decently constructed decks that result in them setting up several characters and usually no one gets blown out right away.

Unfortunately, it takes some experience to figure out how to build a deck to get to this point, so that you arent having lots of bad setups.

There’s always the classic Euron on setup against Marched to the Wall ragequit :wink:

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This is crucial. Having only played one Creature combat game (LotR) I realized that deckbuilding for it is different from Thrones. I would try an event heavy deck and just get bad setups fairly regularly or having big cost characters so I was only setting up two cards. It took me a bit to understand how deckbuilding and the cost curve for Thrones works.

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This is the newest addition I’m monitoring–it’s likely it will revert to Sneak Attack, but in my games I’ve always managed to pull off a decent turn with Muster the Realm, I usually manage to draw the Wardens.

I haven’t had any trouble yet with Limited overload, but will keep my eye on it. The Moneylenders help ensure that i’m always bolstering my econ every turn. Paxter is really nice as well, as you can frequently add two gold to your income on the turn when you play him, seeing as he’s not Limited.

Event space is really limited, especially after I realized how bonkers Growing Strong is and quickly went to x3. I could cut the Noble Lineage but that would hurt setup. Maybe -1 Mander.

One really important note for newcomers is that setting up one character in Thrones is awful and more or less instantly loses the game if the opponent has Marched to the Wall in their deck. Setting up two characters is almost as bad, especially if both are expensive. I’ve seen people be really happy with their setups that have one huge guy (all 3 Tywins, Bodyguard, Roseroad) or two powerful guys (Asha with Throwing Axe, duped Sansa), only to lose in the first turn or two thanks to Marched + military challenges (and then rage because they had Such A Good Start!).

I just start by explaining that setting up only one character will almost always lose the game so that people don’t have to learn it the hard way, as that’s quite a rough way to lose one of your first games.

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Aye. The designers put a ton of really mean cards in this game :smile: one of the first things you need to learn in Thrones is when to expect them and how to play around them. I do feel kinda bad winning at this game sometimes against the newer guys.

Hoping to ramp up the quality of deckbuilding and play at the local shop so we can start getting some tense and interesting games in.