Looking For

It's not a terribly long list, but hey. As you all know, my life goal is to make a baziliion jillion Stark decks. I am looking for any spares anyone can, well, spare, of the following common cards.


Eyrie Bowman (Talons)
Like Warm Rain (5KE)
Mindless Brute (5KE)



Just let me know. Thanks! See you all Saturday?

Wants and Needs

Greetings and salutations, sers!

It's been a while since we last posted here and kudos to Rich for posting. And yes, it's good to have new cards. With the influx of new cards, this will hopefully breath back some life into our AGOT community. And let me tell something to you. Size can be daunting...But don't be afraid...At least you can still see it. And I'm talking about our small but solid community. =]

Moving on though, as Rich mentioned, on to deck building! And with that, I wanted to post some of the cards that I need. I just want to try a fun deck that I can have fun with. So there. Anyhoo, here's the list. If any of you can lend or give me the cards just so I can try this deck out, it would be most appreciated. I wouldn't mind trading also, especially for the rare cards. But take note, the rares that I'm looking for are kinda trashy so expect trashy trades too. =P

2x Great Sept of Baelor (R from ITE)
3x Dornish Confessor (C from ASON)
2x Pious Librarian (R from ITE)
2x Septon Chayle (R from ITE)
1x Unorthodox Priest (R from AHOT)


It's pretty obvious that I'm making a crummy Septon deck but hey, I just wanna try it. Even if it is crap and doesn't do well, I wanna try it. Just for the fun of it and just to satisfy my curiousity.

To Ser Meeks: I tried checking for extra Traveling Jewelers from AHOTa but unfortunately, I only have a set and none to spare. =[

I guess that's about it. If you guys can bring the aforementioned septons (and their sept) this Satuday, we will have fun trying this deck concept out. I'll try it and you'll get to fight it. =]

In with the old, in with the new!

Well, we have our first round of chapter packs! And we've been buzzing away happily at them, which is the main reason for this new post...


I want to tourney this Saturday! I want a full-blown tournament! Who can make it? What time can you be there?


I myself will be coming from rehearsals nearby, so I can either come early or catch a movie while I wait. You guys in?


In the meantime, though, I've been going over (and over and over) the new cards we have, and the new cards that we can expect in the Core Set. The Core Set makes its debut this week in the States at a Con, I believe, and so soon we will know what we have coming our way. But they've also already released spoilers, and some of them are quite a surprise. Get ready to dig deep into your old binders, because some classic cards are coming back.




The Streets, as I mentioned already, are making a return, although in a new form that only allows one per deck. No big deal, though, we'll just dig out the old ones and if we find more than one in a player's deck, we burn him alive! Or something less destructive.




WES Eddard is back in a significantly altered form. Adds a Noble crest, Deadly and Stalwart to an already esising Renown and a truly mockable ability. The good news: no one will feel bad about scribbling the new abilities on the face of the old cards, 'cause that was one weak Eddard. We'll see how the new guy plays out though.





Promo Shae is back, unchanged. If you had the old one, you can use her again with no changes, although, really, is she worth it? The best thing about the card was just that it was Shae.





Ice. Westeros Ice, not cheap and not game-breaking, but still, it's back. And, hey, it's nice to at least HAVE an Ice in Standard. I find this card to be too expensive for what it does (no strength boost! Bad, bad ancestral weapon!) but it seems to be continuing the themes of House Stark: Murder, and Really Unimpressive Reprints. (Note: now you can fetch Ice using the reprinted Winterfell Armory. Oh, undiluted joy.)





Speaking of game-breaking, which Ice is NOT, here's one that may be: Lannisport Brothel is back. The NON-UNIQUE Lannisport Brothel. Every turn, kneel a character. Run three, and hey, you've never seen so many guys unhappy about a brothel before!





Blood Of the Dragon. Ummm, yes, it's back. I can't say that I much care, but it is back. With the title Blood Of The Dragon, and a pictue of a Dothraki. Sigh.




Did I mention the Streets were back? I did? Okay.



How about Daario Noharis? And WES Littlefinger? Both in modified forms, but they are even stronger, in my opinion. Although Daario comes up with the better bargain. With Littlefinger, even if he does make 2 Gold a turn, 5 Gold is a lot for a traitor turncloak bastard. Although he does have a Learned Crest. Which makes him a well-educated traitor turncloak bastard.
Daario will see play in every Targ deck, by comparison. Tricon deadly? Dude.




WES Bran Stark. Plot: Kneel to reveal a plot card. Differs from the 5KE Bran primarily in that people can actually understand the card.



Drogon. I&F Drogon with a twist, but he's definitely affordable at 4 Gold. Plus, he can take attachments. So you can put Blood Of The Dragon on him, give him the Dragon trait during challenges, and laugh and laugh. Because, hey, double Dragon.



Westeros Bleeds. Love it or hate it, you'd beter plan for it. Location hate takes a major hit with Winter rotation, and even as it is nobody can effectively police influence locations very much. The only good news for me from this reprint? All that trading I did two years ago isn't entirely down the drain.



And the cherries on the sundae...


Blockade. That's it. Just Blockade. You know it.



Aaand....


Valar Morghulis. All Men Must Die. 2/0/0. One per plot deck. My most recent run-in with this card was playing casual games with Jacob a few months back. His Greyjoy Classic, my Stark Standard. I thought I was doing okay until he flipped a plot and reminded me of the Original Great Unprepared Kill. The original reset. Proof that while The Mother loves you and The Warrior protects you, it's The Stranger who will have you in the end.







More on my views of the Chapter Packs later, I'm too tired to type; and besides, now I wanna deckbuild!

the Arrival

Finally they are here...the chapter packs have arrived!

We have new cards to play with!

Too bad we couldn't play with the un-errata'd Jaqn Haqar.

Ah well.

And some of the cards got left behind. One more week for the rest but we have them and that's all we need.


:)

Chapter Packs

Tomorrow

By the grace of all that's holy.

Hopefully they will arrive

Update on Chapter Packs

Greetings and salutations, sers...

I know that we are all anticipating the arrival of the Chapter Packs as well as additional booster packs for A House of Talons and Five Kings Edition. Based on my last conversation with Edge, the shipment was delayed. As such, we are looking at the cards arriving at the end of the month. I know, I know...We've waited for so long. And two weeks just seems all the longer. But it is arriving. So waiting a little longer is all that we can do.

On another note, the card list (and descriptions) for the new Chapter Pack called The Battle of the Ruby Ford has been posted over at Tzumainn's. You can visit it at the link below:

http://tzumainn.com/agot/cards/set.php?set=BRF


Suffice to say, I am a bit disappointed with this chapter. The cards are a little less than desireable other than Rhaegar Targaryen and, gasp, War Scorpion, an attachment for House Martell. And it's funny that they threw in some trait manipulation for Stark via Old Nan. Unfortunately, majority of the effects that can take advantage of such have already rotated out and the few remaining will be rotating out.

Be that as it may, we can then look forward to what FFG will do with their apparent new base set that should hopefully set things right...

Well, it is late so I will look at posting once more soon...

Sighing out...

The Very Real Dangers Of Card Sorting

Well, here goes my first post. Wish me luck! I've been wanting to post something since I learned how to access the site (around Tuesday; goooo, Rich) but I had a recent experience that REALLY made me want to try my hand at an article.


Last week we managed a few casual games, nothing more. The combination of a WoW tournament and a massive Bleach event (or some combination like that) put us well into the wee hours of the morning. A couple of those involved using Matt's Baratheon deck, which is becoming one of my favorite decks these days. Gil tweaked the deck for us a few weeks back, and I've gradually been making a few additional changes that he suggested and that Matt likes. Switching in King Bobby for Claim-Raise Bobby from Winter Ed., stuff like that. The deck runs on renown, and so I've done what I considered a pretty careful search of all the renown characters and renown-granting attachments and power-rush type cards that I have access to. The old favorites I Am King Here are of course a three-of auto-include.



But last week a card was brought to my attention that I'd overlooked. I'd love to post a picture here, but hey, I have no idea how. (If any of the computer-folk wanna help me out on that, it'd be appreciated! But, moving on). The card was Joffrey Baratheon from ITE, the dual-House Baratheon/Lannister version of the much despised, premiere front-runner for the Most Likely To Be Assassinated By Soon-To-Be Family Members fellow that we all hate so much.


Well, this version of Joff costs 2 Gold, has 2 Strength, the Power icon only, the Lord trait, a Noble Crest, and the game text: "Response: after a Small Council event is played, kneel 3 influence or kneel a (Noble Crest) character to choose and discard from play a character with 1 or more power on it." In addition to this, he also has renown, which of course is what caught my eye. I thought I'd pretty much gone over all the renown Baratheon characters, but here was one I'd missed! 2 Gold isn't too much, so I figured I'd toss Jofffrey into the deck.




I was far too tired when I got home around three that morning, so I went to bed with plans to pull the card out of my collection and slip it into a sleeve the next day.






SO: the next day I pulled open my current Lannister deck and went looking for ITE Joffrey. Only thing is, it wasn't there. I was a little dismayed, but not overly so: I also have one other Lannister deck (just one; they're not Stark, for God's sake, for which I have easily four working decks at any given time) so I figured I had at some point or other moved the card there. I could even, very clearly, remember the day I moved ITE Joff out: it was when 5KE came out, and I was putting together a new Lannister deck and trying out the new reducers that work doubly well if you control a King or Queen. Since Lannister has access to a decent King amd an excellent Queen, I figured it was worth it to sub out Renown Joffrey for King Joffrey. The memory was clear in my mind, so I figured I'd go to the other Lanni deckbox and be done with it.



Well, it wasn't there either. It wasn't in my current Lanni deck, nor in my older (but still Standard-legal) Lanni deck. It wasn't in my Lannister card stacks, or in my Classic Lannister cards. (When we rotated out Valyrian Edition, I bit the bullet and went through all my decks, and indeed cards, and separated the Classic cards from the Standard ones, thus bidding a soft farewell to the Valyrian cards that had served me so very very well. Farewell, Blackfish! Goodbye, Edmure's Host! Adieu, Tullys in general! Hoster, you came out one rotation too late to be any damn good at all.)


(Note that I had no fond farewells for my rotating Lannister cards. S***w them, I say. I never cared if the scum lived or died. Hey, I PLAY them, I don't LIKE them.)



But, I was bound and determined to put this renown-puppy in Matt's deck, and I KNEW I had one. How did I know? Because, again, I had the clear memory, this time from when ITE came out, of seeing Joffrey Baratheon's game text and You Killed The Wrong Dwarf together and thinking, what an awesome combo! It's like they were made for each other! I'm going to build that deck! (My deckbuilding skills rarely see beyond the Painfully Obvious.) It turned out the deck didn't exactly fly, and even though I dutifully threw in every Small Council event I could find (Hidden Chambers! Make Way For The Queen! Hand Of The King, for God's sake!) I eventually had to let it go. But, the point is, I KNEW I had one of these ITE Joffreys. Somewhere.



Long story short, I tore my collection apart. I searched trade binders, storage binders, deck boxes, card storage boxes, booster packs, everything. EVERYTHIIIING!!!! My room looked like a rain of flat cardboard had fallen on it. I went through Targaryen decks, Classic Greyjoy cards, Martell, Stark decks (ALL my Stark decks--- Seven help us), my two boxes of ITE, the loose packs that I had bought over the years, everything. I had become obsessed. As happens --- as so often , OFTEN happens with me --- when I get a card stuck in my head, man, I just can't let it go. It will bug me until I track it down. And the worst thing is, in the process of searching, I'll uncover all sorts of OTHER cards that then catch my eye and become part of the mega-search. Stuff that either I never really tried out, or has recently developed a new interest because other cards or developments in the game have given them a possible life.



And so it goes. Once the process begins, it has to play out. If I know I HAVE that card, i'll hunt it to ground no matter what. At the end of the messy, degrading ("Why haven't you bathed today?"), upsetting ("Get out of my room, Rich! You don't HAVE any cards in here!"), and unexpectedly revealing ("Wow. I used to play Heresy?") undertaking, I have a stack of cards that I decided were worth a second look, a room that was unlivable... more than usual, and.... one. ONE copy of ITE Joffrey Baratheon. I found it in a booster pack that had been in the box that I got when I redeemed my Gold Dragon certificates.



That in itself was a mystery. I know I had built a deck around that card, so I definitely had taken it out of the pack it came in. Had I returned it to a different pack for some reason? Had I had two, and kept the spare in the ITE box in case I ever needed a second? Had I traded away the first? Did I still have it hidden away somewhere with a pile of crap cards that had somehow gotten misplaced?



These, I cannot answer. Exhausted and mystified, willing to accept a technical victory but still perplexed and somehow feeling that I had missed something, somewhere, I dragged myself over to Matt's Pokemon deck tin that carried his Bara deck. It was still open. Optimistically, I had been in mid shuffle when I began my mad quest. I shook a new sleeve out of the pack, and placed the latest addition to the renown rush in among its new kinfolk.



Bilbo Baggins in the Lord Of The Rings said, it's a dangerous business, going out of your front door. You never know where the road will take you. I have realized that even if you stay within your own home, your searches can take you to places unknowable. As I finally droppped off to sleep, the ghosts of cards still marching behind my eyes, I was borne down below by one final haunting thought.....


("...all that effort for freaking Joffrey Baratheon?...)

there yah go rich! gratz on the first post. I added the joff pic as requested -- head editor ron

I want this

If anyone has this for trade... i wants

A round of applause

Finally light at the end of the tunnel or in this case possibly new cards in the next few weeks.


Thanks Ser Gil for facilitating the chapter packs procurement.

Ordering Chapter Boxes and Packs

Greetings, sers.

We can move forward with purchasing chapter packs! Whoot! It will cost a little bit more as compared to the previous transaction that I tried to do but it has a better guarantee. As such, the cost per chapter box (containing 6 chapter packs) would be PHP2,500.00.

Given this, I would like to verify everyone's orders are still the same:

Rich and Meeks: 1x W5K chapter box
Rich and Meeks: 1x Ancient Enemies chapter box
Ron: 1x W5K chapter box
Ron: 1x Ancient Enemies chapter box
Gil and Aaron: 1x W5K chapter box
Gil and Aaron: 1x Ancient Enemies chapter box

If you guys can bring the money tomorrow (Saturday, May 23), that would be great. Or you can pass by the shop next week on Thursday to give the money to Edge. He will be making his order for Bleach within that week and if we want to hitch a ride with that, we need to order and make payment now.

Do note that the Sacred Bonds and Epic Battles chapter boxes are already out. If you would like to add those to the order, let me know.

Thanks.

GIL

Chapter Packs and Then Some...

Greetings, sers...

Yes, it was a supreme disappointment when I found out (after making payment, of course) that the online store I was purchasing cards from wouldn't accept my PayPal payment given that my billing address, as it is here in the Philippines, could not be verified. Now how annoying is that? They want a US billing address. Sadly, I don't have one and I don't think that anyone in our small but solid community has one either.

And to make things worse, my card was charged after I submitted my paypment through PayPal. Fortunately though the charges were reversed after a week of them (the online store) refunding the payment. Well, that was a hassle to say the very least. And we weren't able to get our cards!

Be that as it may ("nevertheless" in a geek's language), we have another option that we can use as mentioned by Edge last weekend. Since Edge orders Bleach from a friend in the US, we can hitch a ride so to speak and order AGOT stock. It'll be a little more costly though but nothing that would turn a man into the decay of Philippine society. Hehehe. I guess we (or I at the very least) can discuss this with Edge over this weekend. And I will post the verdict here. On the bright side if one would care to look in that direction, we can order all three new chapter packs instead of just the first two.^^

Well, enough of that for the meantime. I'd like to sidestep into another topic. What happened over the weekend, that is. Unfortunately, Ron called in sick. But we still managed to get a few games in with Matt, myself, Meeks and Rich. I know that Rich wanted to write a bit about Matt's Bara deck but I'll steal a little of his thunder.^^ I did promise that I would tweak the deck and tweak the deck I did. I just took out something like 12 cards from the initial 73-card deck given problems with the flop and the draw. And here I thought I was the only one making decks with card counts above 70! Suffice to say, the deck became more brutal. Faster and more brutal. And to a certain degree, I regret tweaking the deck as it has become more consistent (especially winning or at least getting to that point). All that aside though, I'm happy that I was able to help make a deck, particularly a Baratheon one, more efficient. I'm actually thinking of copying it and adding a few more tweaks.^^

And on that note, Meeks ended up playing that Bara deck in our multiplayer game. Suffice to say, he loves the house. Ah, who wouldn't love power rushing and ending the game quick with all that renown. You just need to make sure that you remember that Melisandre's ability can be triggered even if the character with renown claiming power isn't your own. Tsk, tsk. Such is the way of Martell players. :op

Anyways, I think I've done a little bit of my writing. It's early morning and I think I need to hit the sack. Or download porn. Or sleep. Either way, both ideas are good. Or I can do both! Duh. Hehehe.

Until then, let's keep the fires burning bright at The Wall even if Winter is Coming. Daybreak (what a crummy card though) will eventually come to those who can wait...

Wow! I wish we had chapter packs right now!

From the "Sacred Bonds" chapter pack:

* Jaqen H'ghar (S/L/B/G/T/M)

Cost 5

STR 3

M,I,P

Ally.

Stalwart. Infamy. Vigilant. Intimidate. Ambush. Vengeful. Jaqen H'ghar gets +1 STR for each power on him.

(Learned)

wow!

can a character have more keywords in him.

wow!

and while we are at it some Greyjoy lovin:

Herald of the Sea

Cost 2

STR 2

P

Herald.

Response: After you play Herald of the Sea from your hand, search your deck for a character, reveal it, and shuffle your deck. Then, put the revealed card on top of your deck.

Build it and they will come

Ah our recent plans to procure Chapter packs went down the drain.

Hopefully there will be alternatives.

No new cards is death to any card game (except poker, and even then you break open a new pack every so often).

Hopefully we get new cards soon.

-o0o-

In other thoughts, I think that the blog is still the best solution to the "lack of forum" problem. The community isn't big enough to support a full forum.

hopefully the adage "build it and they will come" will prove true in the long run.

Winter is coming.