I'm not sure I agree 100%. I think milling someone's deck is a dstinct strategy and certainly no more NPE than a rush deck that can consistently work in a few turns, or a control deck that just locks me down where I'm not actually playing the game (I'm looking at you Lannister Hyperkneel). I think that we do need more mill cards, some powerful ones, but not necessarily ones that eat up huge chunks of my opponents deck, but ones which are powerful in how they interact with the board beyond that bite into their deck. Something better than Urchin and Thug to claim power would be nice. Something like Whirlpool would be awesome. Whether it is mill as a result of achieving something in the game, or mill to achieve something in the game, ideally some of each should be added. But because mill != win I just have an issue seeing mill itself being an NPE as long as it isn't wiping my deck out in three or fewer plots. I know I've lost to rush and Aggro in 3-4 turns, and been locked out by control decks around the same plot point. That gives me 3 good solid turns to enact my own strategy while removing whatever mill engine/pieces my opponent is using. If I can't do that then perhaps I deserve to have no cards left in my deck. I still have my hand and my board position. As was said earlier, losing your deck does not mean you've lost the game. I want to be able to build a mill deck that can consistently deck my opponent around turn 6-7, or get me enough power to win the game through mill effects or challenges boosted by mill effects. But outside of classic there is just no place for mill being so fast and so aggressive that it can deck someone in 2 turns. I don't care how good one players luck is and how bad their opponents is. When I want a 10-15 minute game I'll play W:I. Of course I feel the same way about losing to rush in two turns, so I'm biased.

I use Shagga to mean playing fun decks, often based on some weird mechanic or combo that is not very competitive but the idea of winning with it would be just too cool. Like a Nuke Viper dying to your own Valar and doubly wiping out the board to flood it with Sand Snakes douped to combat the impending answering Valar from your opponent while you reveal to the spears or some sort of 2 claim plot and you just go to town. The ability to make this work out in your favor against a competitive deck isn't very high, but the bragging rights that you'd get from it would be worth the dozen or so losses.

One of us! One of us! One of us! One of us!

Deck discard is one of my favorite mechanics in card games. However it seems like all attempts at it have been half-hearted. Is it because way back in the CCG days there was a broken combo that could let you discard a players deck in a turn or two? I wasn't playing back then but I've heard stories. I'd like FFG to really put out some awesome raid effects that make it matter, preferably combo-ed with something else the Krakens do well since decking an opponent doesn't win the game. ::steps on soapbox:: DO YOU HEAR ME FFG?! MAKE RAIDING MATTER!!! *ahem* Thank you.

So what do they need to be competitive? I know the one thing that I fear the most in GJ is negative attachments. Even more than I do in Martell these days (yeah to Lemonwood!). Some sort of attachment hate would be really nice, even if it only targeted my guys. But that is more about filling in a small whole, what do you guys think they need to be competitive?

I like Dobbler's Dating bit. I don't know you guys, but I think now he may be the only voice that I can actively identify on the podcast. Too many people who I don't know and you might as well all be the same person as far as my ability to identify you by voice. I would prefer the podcast to be about 60% AGoT specific information, 20% off topic humor, and 20% relatively relational information (Thrones on HBO, next book speculation, other geek related things that someone who reads the books and or plays the game may also find interesting). There should truly be plenty of funny things that happens when you are discussing the AGoT stuff, as well as other things geek related, so it would keep it from being dry, but what pulls us in, what we all have in common, is AGoT, that needs to be the meat and potatoes. Off topic-humor is what makes it feel like we are all friends hanging out... but when it is all in-jokes it makes it seem like you guys are hanging out and I'm just hanging around. Get the difference? In-jokes for you listeners will develop over time but pulling and repeating in-jokes unique to your meta or your friends just doesn't interest me because I don't get them so they don't seem funny. I did enjoy the show overall and did truly LOL once or twice, but I also felt that the show seemed a bit disjointed, rambling, and under-prepared. Seriously, think about editing. That show could easily have been made better by editing about ten minutes off it. IF you refuse to edit then you need to, as a group, practice some discipline about how long a segment is going to run, who is going to pipe up and how often, and still make sure everything you want to cover is.

Unsullied? COOL! I want a Grey Worm. IT doesn't say anything about which cards are new does it? Hrm. I guess we'll have to wait until FFG actually announces the release for spoilers.

rings said: Examples of other powerful characters are more helpful, even if they haven't convienced some of us yet - and even more of us are more annoyed by the direction of the card than the actual card (PASSIVE abilities that shut down claim if not specifically controlled). Doctor Penfold says, "Nurse we need claim replacement. STAT!"

I agree, this was what I was trying to say (albeit poorly), that it needs to go through the restore state to be readied, so any effect would say to do so, rather than just play a ready card and assume that it would also restore.

Normally a card can only effect anything when it is in play. You are trying to extend the logic of such interaction outside of the games rules and as such you are going to run into logical inconsistencies. The self-referential bit is what determines that the effect is active before the card has entered play so it necessarily operates by a different rule. Because we have the text telling us the ability affects how this card is played rather than cards like this we must treat it differently. Two separate effects that seem similar on the surface, but are in fact very different.

Correct. The card is only specifying the order of what happens, it does not remove the choice of the domain that the rules already grant, otherwise it would say YOU choose the domain.

It would be interesting to see if someone could make a Sand Snake deck that really is about thinning the deck of Sand Snakes. Certainly not imagining this in a tournament, but in a casual setting, playing the nuke viper to thin your deck of Sand Snakes, your opponent Valars or Wildfires next turn, perhaps you have a NE, maybe you don't. But what you do have is a much slimmer deck to pull out some nastiness and an opponent that has burning his reset plot early and on your terms. Could be fun. Again, definitely not something I expect to see in a tournament, but I like that they are also still printing fun cards.

There is no longer anything in play forcing the game into a state so no, card is gone so is the day/night.

Then again I'm not the best person to explain this to you. Ask the developers.

It has nothing to do with whether something is a constant passive or a triggered passive and lowering cost is not a restriction since it does not curtail anything. Self-referential means in this context it refers to itself directly, by name, not inference of sub-type or faction, or which icons are present. The rules already require us to check on title before playing a card, the text for self-referential is saying what to do with cards with that name. Nothing weak there. The logic is perfectly sound. IT also happens to be the way all the other LCG's work, so it is also not at all surprising.

That is a continual goal for every game of this kind. One which designers will always fail at I should mention. Any game that is dynamic enough to actually be fun to play for extended periods of time is going to have cards that when released into the general environment is going to eventually inspire a player to break some combo ro exploit some rule that the designers and playtesters never saw coming. I should also mention that there is speculation that the LCG's won't use a rotation policy and one of the mentioned alternatives is banning specific cards that become restrictive or warping of the metagame. IF that is the case certain cards despite not being broken, could be banned just because of their continually growing strength. Personally I prefer this to power creep and full set rotation.

A Core Set is enough for two people to play. IF you want to use the same faction is the only time when a second Core Set is needed.

This is one of the nedliest cards to date. Love it. NOw to see if the Sand Snakes can be made into a viable deck. Doesn't matter really I'll build one for casual play if it isn't.

Any thought on getting the designers in for an interview? Well, remote inteview by phone or skype or something?

Never happen no matter how much begging or pleading you did. The power level and design philosophy is just totally different. Darksbane is right though, if you just want to play with them casually you should be able to find them cheap online, on trade forums, etc.

2C&aC - Thunderdome Episode - Two geeks enter, one man leaves! I love your podcast and can't wait to hear it.

I suppose if someone i actually checking the emails today, now is the time to send questions in.

Especially considering the event cards that are self-referential could not possibly work any other way if they were to work at all.

I sent the question in and got a response saying that self-referential cards lower themselves as they are being played, non-self-referential cards effects only operate when in play. Sounds like splitting hairs to me, but there it is. So like I said it is a rule about how CoC templating is meant to be interpreted/read versus how an English sentence is interpreted or read. No idea if it will be put in the next FAQ or when that will come out (though I'd guess sometimes just before regionals at the earliest, and before Gencon at the latest.

I might not have been clear, I was talking about an effect that makes an insane character ready, like Brain Transplant. Not that you could target a character who was insane with a ready effect and skip the restore portion. I couldn't remember any specific effect that called out for it but CardDB succeeded where my memory failed.