Hear Aioria Roar!

Author: Benji

With Lions of the Rock will comes a powerful agenda: Rains of Castamere, designed by Álvaro "Aioria" Rodríguez. It re-introduces in Game of Thrones one mechanic that has consistently being restricted in V1: plot manipulation. Inside this article we will make a presentation of the background over the card, before analyzing the playstyle around it and the Schemes plot currently available.

An atmosphere card

Álvaro is known for being a Lannister player at heart and having designed the alternative format "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", in which a new verse of the song is revealed each turn before plot phase, letting players make their schemes knowing such an impacting effect will affect the fate of marshalling or challenge phase.

This is in essence what we find here: We have a Lannister's background for this card, not only with the name, not only with the illustration, but also with this specialization in the intrigue challenge and the eyeblink toward the Scheme traits in plots, an old legacy of V1 (I was not born at that time of the game). All-in-all, it fits the political atmosphere surrounding the Lannister family in the saga.

What I am enjoying is this possibility to focus the game around the heart of the saga, the political intrigue, and what is one of the pillar of the game: solid plot effects. Something reminding that A Game of Thrones is at first a game where plot effects that you have to guess decide fates of games. The way they are thrown by surprise inside challenge phase before vanishing like the voice of singers in the wind is particularly refined. It is respecting the spirit of both game and saga.

An agenda fitting Martell and... Lannister (surprise)

Despite this card being neutral and thus accessible to all factions, it was designed by a Lannister player and is in consequence mainly fitting their basic family characteristics. Agenda condition could seems reachable, but past experience with Put to the Sword proved myself that winning by a difference of 5 STR when it is expected by your opponent needs to have the kind of massive argument ( Gregor Clegane, as a perfectly fitting example) that let opponents unable to argue, sighing in despair.

As a consequence, activating the agenda condition will require having a strong intrigue icon line-up among characters.  Because successfully playing it will not only require to have the statistical reliability to have intrigue icon, it will also require being reliably able to win by a difference of 5 STR. And because you can't be dependent of opponent's choice, you will search for the offensive power to do it. All-in-all: characters with intrigue icon, high STR and offensively oriented are fitting the agenda.

Looking at a glance, one phenomenon reached my eyes at the start of this V2: while in V1 all decks have a substantial amount of intrigue icon, they are now sparse. Greyjoy, Stark and Baratheon are weak inside of this challenge. Nightwatch has some icons but lack of STR, despite Jon Snow can compensate it. Having said that, since the agenda provides a toolbox (as we will see later), each house has his ways of benefitting from the agenda.

Targaryen are more a polyvalent family than an intrigue one, looking in details you can see that powerful cards that with icon intrigue are: Daenerys, Rhaegal and Jorah. You can add to them Doreah, which is simply excellent for this game mechanics. But you can't consider Illyrio as impressive, and Mirri is in contradiction with the agenda condition since she requires to attack alone.

Tyrell is the second polyvalent family, and is specialized in STR boost. In the novel, the family is specialized in placing her paws inside the wheels of power, thus seeing more Tyrell Scheme plots, or neutral ones fitting family strategy, could be expected. But she has one dramatic problem: her intrigue characters are found between cheap characters with low basic STR, and not on family leaders with high STR. You can only find Olena and House Florent Knight upon them, and they are not particularly impressive. That's at the moment the weakness preventing an efficient use of the agenda.

As a specialized intrigue family, there is House Martell. But they also fail to comply to one condition: since they play a long-term game, their basic STR is generally low. Once it is said, icon removal by Attainted and Nymeria is enough to dominate in intrigue. It is compensation of low STR by removal of opponent's one. Moreover, characters such as Arianne, Tyene and Oberyn are well-fitted for a numerous assault on this challenge. If the plotline has enough initiative, it becomes possible to play the Palace Spearman and is consequent STR (for the family).

But most important, it makes you having one more plot in your used pile. Which is of first importance to swagily taunt your opponent. But who knows, maybe one day it will makes a Knight of the Sun renown in T3, making the Martell player wins 15-14 at the end. Maybe.

Thus, what remains? Lannister. Their Core Set line-up, from 3 to 7 golds, is made of powerful characters with intrigue icon, high STR and offensive orientation. They are the only one with the required characteristic. But I will go in more details with them in an article, thus I stay there at the moment.

The toolbox second plotline provided by Scheme plots

We currently have the following Schemes plots available :

A Game of Thrones

Wildfire Assault

Vary's Riddle

Littlefinger's Meddling

Filthy Accusations

Forgotten Plans

Power Behind the Thrones

Sneak Attack

Warden of the West (Lannister)

The Long Plan (Martell)

Pulling the Strings (Tyrell)

The King's Peace (Baratheon)

Putting outside the in-house plots, we could say that it is a panel of polyvalent effects :

A Game of Thrones, Forgotten Plans are counter to opponent's strategy. Practical matters reveal me A Game of Thrones is less efficient than expected at first glance, I will come back on that latter.

Wildfire Assault is both offensive and defensive. Of course, as a reset, it allows you to come back from a losing situation at the board. But it could also be used offensively, by reducing opponent table before killing his characters (Tear of Lys, Military claim, Put to the Sword, Trial by Combat,) and finishing it with Marched to the Wall.

Filthy Accusations and Power Behind the Throne well represent the consequences of the political game, with kneeling and standing effect. Since the agenda is aimed at being triggered in attack, they will probably be used in an offensive manner.

Vary's Riddle is aimed at being triggered on Counting Coppers, Summons or Building Orders. Since every competitive deck plays one of them, you could be sure to activate it. If your normal plotline is running two of these plots, you can keep only the most important one and free one slot. Overall, it's a card advantage plot.

Littlefinger's Meddling is the offensive part of the toolkit. Reducing each event by 2 is a different way to say : stabilize your use of Put to The Sword and Trial by Combat. In this kind of intrigue offensive decks, it is also useful for Tears of Lys. I did not reflex more at all the possibilities it opens.

Sneak Attack is tricky. it could makes sense for a Trial by Combat with Cersei Lannister (CS). Rest of the time... it is a claim 2 in intrigue, and you stay in defense after.

Considering in-House plots,  experience turns out that Warden of the West is poorly efficient and in five slots I don't choose him. Pulling the Strings is an improved Vary's Riddle for Tyrell, since you can trigger it more flexibly. The Long Plan is extremely interesting since it is an economic plot poorly efficient in marshalling. His interest rely on challenge phase, and it's now possible to use uniquely for that. I don't play enough Baratheon to judge, but The King's Peace never made sense for me in plot phase since your opponent will fully plan it. Being only a challenge phase effect also make him more powerful.

Without any knowledge of your deck, i will say that " intrinsically" I would choose this five one :

1°) Wildfire Assault  2°) Varys' Riddle 3°) Filthy Accusations 4°) A Game of thrones/Power Behind the Throne

5°) Depend on your strategy. Littlefinger's Meddling his excellent in an offensive orientation, Baratheon and Martell will place their in-house plots.

All-in-all, what Rains of Castamere provides you is a toolbox with one-shot effects in challenge phase. We will now look at the limitations of the agenda.

Not automatically triggered, gamemaker effects (if you forget Cersei & Trial by Combat)

On contrary to V1 plot manipulations, you have to take into considerations your opponent. Few games in Lannister with the agenda reveals myself that a difference of 5 could be impossible to reach even if your opponent is a Baratheon or... a Greyjoy! (Ok, he had Euron + Iron Fleet Scout, but I find the example speaks by himself). Against Martell, I gave up triggering the agenda: icon removal made it impossible or too involving. It was basically playing in No Agenda, but with a deck fitted to the use of his second plotline.

Or you could have the STR difference, but at the cost of kneeling your table while your opponent only put one character in order to oppose the challenge. It leaves you poorly efficient in other challenges, and you offer unopposed to your opponent. For your reward being a one-shot, not gamemaker effect.

Moreover, your plots will not necessary be efficient. The best example is A Game of Thrones: You have to be first player to use it efficiently, thus forget about using it against Greyjoy while it would have been super efficient has a normal plot. The recent Gossip and Lies reveals in a more evident manner this weak point of the agenda : the impossibility to play Schemes in the normal plotline. In addition, winning the challenge in attack could be so involving that you will only have the minimum amount of STR in your standing characters to defend opponent's intrigue gambit (assuming you can even defend). Game state just increased a bit in your favor. A kind of same reasoning occurs for Filthy Accusation: It's less efficient if you're second player, and kneeling a good part of your table to just kneel one opponent's character could not be that worthy.

Wildfire Assault, Littlefinger's Meddling and Vary's Riddle are requiring specific game states to be triggerable, the last one being particularly sensitive to the precise opportunity window in which you can use it. Perhaps you will not be able to pass the challenge in that window, or perhaps another plot will fir better the situation.

That are my conclusions after my Lannister experience. All this constraints will make the agenda accessible to everyone, but only excellent player will be able to extract the best of it.

You have several opportunity cost reducing the efficiency of The Rains of Castamere : kneeling the house card prevents you from playing more than few cards requiting this condition. The possibility of playing another agenda, which is of importance in a match-up where you can't trigger The Rains of Castamere. Not only because you would have benefit from another effect, but also because it reduces the overall performance of your deck : you designed it to be played with the second plotline, and you suddenly can't use her.

As an overall conclusion, I think that we have a card that is not only extremely ambient, not only impacting the game in the way Alvaro deserve,  but is also perfectly balanced (if you forget Trial by Combat) with the multiple constraint on  timing, game states and opportunity cost ( kneeling faction card, loss of efficiency if not triggering the agenda) involved.

And what is so exquisite in the fact that it is a card that will please every player, but rewarding only the excellent one for their vision of the game.