Join us for a special early release of this week's podcast. We're so worked up about the changes in the game, we just couldn't resist putting out the next part of our talk a little early!

Episode 103- Cast: Will and Greg. The FAQ and Restricted List analysis continues. We discuss the value of Jaime/Shagga archetypes and take a look at where the houses stand now. Josh Woodward, Celestial Aeon Project, and Manuel Gertrudix

With regards to the "ideology" section of the cast, I'm going to have to agree with Greg on several counts:

Creativity *is* limited by competitivness. You build a deck with the goal of reaching a win condition. You can build your shagga deck ignoring the restricted list, if your only goal isn't competitive play - but the minute you enter competitive play ("organized play"), you're acknowledging a desire to win which constrains deck building. I do think you're right in saying the restricted list won't spur a great deal of creativity; people are equating a little more variety at the competitive level (at least until the waters settle) with creativity.

I also prefer using the Restricted List to errata. I follow your argument, but I dislike anything about a card I have to remember that isn't printed specifically on the cards. I think that's a burden (especially to the new player). Restricted lists are information outside the cards, but they're at the deck-building point when you have time to double-check, and not "on the table", mid-game information you need to remember.

Also, I apologize, I'd been trying to not the relative SFW to NSFW scale of the episodes, and I let that slip. This episode should be SFW aside from one brief Shagga/manhood exchange during the creativity debate.

Yup, I'd go ahead and build awesome Shagga decks ignoring the Restricted List if the people I play with would let me. Unfortunately, they keep crimping my style by catching me when I play two restricted cards and then complaining pretty loudly, so your mileage may very on that one. Of course, if you follow along with Greg's logic, you could play LotR solo and be as Shagga as you want because you don't have the opponents to worry about. Of course, I can attest that the temptation to cheat is pretty huge there. I could be wrong here, but I think that part of the appeal to doing these crazy things as a Shagga player is that you're pulling off something cool/amazing/pointlessly repetitive within the rules rather than breaking them. Since the Restricted List is a part of the official rules, I think even most of us Shagga players feel a certain compulsion to comply with those rules. If we ignore any, why not ignore them all? Sure, that starts getting a bit tangential, but where would we end up drawing the line?

As for remembering errata/restricted list, I'm probably just biased due to personal circumstances.  I can't ever recall not knowing an erratum screwing up a deck or game that I played, but I can recall times that I goofed on restricted cards. It was only by sure dumb luck that I wasn't disqualified from the event entirely.

Ah, I was hoping to hit this episode on my way home from work today, but it looks like its not on iTunes yet :(

-Istaril said:

100% Agree.  I think my own play-style exempifies this.  I would often play Ned decks or some new/different theme deck, but, they wouldn't do well.  Then, eventually I'd get tired of the smackdowns, and build a deck that conformed more with the 'hot'/dominant cards or deck types of the period, and start winning a lot.  But, I often really didn't/don't like the play styles of the Jaime decks as much, and then wander back to Ned/Shagga decks - & then the losing starts again until I get tired of the smack downs, & go back to Jaime style decks.  It's a giant circle.  

First podcast I've listened to in a long time.  Interesting take on everything - especially the point regarding Winter/Summer agendas possibly getting better by being restricted.  

Best comment - "Maybe all agendas should be restricted".  

Now we're talking sense.  

2 nerds 1 geek. That should be the name of new podcast.=)

Re: creativity…

Here's how I see it. Merriam-Webster defines creativity as "the quality of being creative," whereas creative is defined as "marked by the power or ability to create," and create is further defined as "to bring into existence" or "to invest with a new form." So it logically follows that any parameters that facilitate the "bringing into existence" or "investing with new forms" are boons to creativity.

As applied to the competitive AGOT environment, inclusive of the meta game, creativity refers to that which stimulates new forms. In this case, I would personally add as clarification that "new forms" can refer both to new, competitive deck builds and new ways to play old cards, AKA innovative gameplay.

I would make one final assumption: since we are talking about competitive play, I am assuming that the players are attempting to compete in order to win. This is not to say they will compete at all costs, but that they will make some sacrifices to win. In other words, the player I imagine will frquently opt to play a card that is popularly considered to be powerful above another card that has less versatility and is generally considered less powerful. (I realize we can debate whether popularity of a card makes it more powerful, and no doubt there are some hidden gems that are underplayed, but humor me on this point.) I suspect that this assumption is where Greg and I agree and Will and I disagree. In short, I believe competitive players on some level want to win and tailor their decks in order to do so.

With all that said, the reason I believe that limits on card pool may lead to more creativity in the game is that new limits reduce the efficiency of decks. This (a) spurs the use of alternative cards or old cards played in new ways to substitute for the more efficient versions that were restricted, and (b) forces players to reevaluate the meta as a whole, thereby stimulating new strategies and tactics into existence. The old recipes are out, and for the time being, players search for the new "optimal builds."

i freely admit that once new "optimal builds" ate discovered and shared (net-decked), creativity will plateau once again. But for the time being, and for the immediate and unforeseeable future, the restricted list is resulting in new ideas and innovation. 

Agreed about having Greg on the show. Zeiler and I agree on this more often than not, and so it can be a little difficult to have as stimulating of a discusion.

Aside from that though, I think the argument is largely just one of semantics due to what I find to be an error in terminology. Here's a copy and paste of most of my comments from a recent CGDB reply so that I don't have to type the same idea out again in a different way:

"I think that the issue is really just one of terminology. I would argue that creativity is increased by an expanded card pool due to the additional possible permutations of card combinations. There's not really any way to argue against the math of the greater numbers.

The issue then is what the FAQ expands. Now that I've had a little more time to articulate in my head, I would argue that what the FAQ expands is efficiency variety. While the total number of permutations has gone down, the number of permutations that have a roughly equivalent efficiency has gone up. This creates greater variety at a tournament level due to more similar levels of options but doesn't inherently mean that more creative builds are possible.

This is due largely to the fact that no single player is 100% any of the established player archetypes (Ned, Shagga, Jaime). If you're bothering to play in a tournament at all, you've got at least some quotient of Jaime in you, or you wouldn't be worried about the event at all. If you have some Jaime, then efficiency starts entering into the equation.

The interesting things is that once you have a greater variety of efficiency some of the creative builds have a greater relative efficiency compared to their standing previously. This gives the appearance of greater creativity, but is in reality Jaime competitiveness rather than Shagga ingenuity."

Restricting cards decreases creative freedom.

Jamie players > Shagga players. 

There we go! That's some terminology that I can get behind.

Sure, FAQ/Restricted List/Tournament Rules updates are really only for the Jaime players, so I don't really expect them to cater to Shaggas. New cards cater to Shagga. Good thing we didn't see a huge and unreasonable delay in new cards.

Oh wait…..

Lol, color me confused. I'm more used to our praise just telling us how awesome Darryl is. :p

Kennon said:

+1

This is pretty damn spot on.

Kennon said:

It is one of terminology but not the way you think. Greater number of permutations is not the same thing as creativity. Any half decent composer can tell you that learning how to create and be creative within a restrictive form like blues form or waltz form forces you to find new ways of doing things, of challenging assumptions to get what you want out of it while having no restrictions can frequently lead people to just putting down notes on the page. Listen to some of the avant-garde or free jazz and you'll get what I'm talking about.

More options != Creativity.

I'm not saying they are mutually exclusive, just they are not equal. The question is one of degrees also. How many restrictions are there? In Star Wars your restrictions in the Core Set are huge. The resourcing mechanic as well as the pack style of deck building and the limited number of packs all create an enviornment that is almost hostile to building unique decks. This will change greatly in a couple years. I expect to see Star Wars deck building to show some very interesting elements. I also expect it to reveal that the game is much more about play ability than deck building ability (assuming the packs continue to show a reasonable balance).

Another nail in the coffin of this debate is the difference between restricted and banned. People seem to be focusing on the idea of "soft-banned" rather than at it as the use of this card gives me these options rather than removing the others. This is of course perfectly understandable, we've been taught to build from a very large pool of powerful and efficient cards. We are now being challenged to build with a pool every bit as large, but with more delineated choices. 

To show what I mean about this, how many people complain about not being able to have three of a specific plot in their deck? What about two? One is the norm and that means when we get an opportunity to run two we view it as a positive. Every time we select a plot we chop down the number of other pltos that can go into our deck and there is rarely complaint about this.

That said. Why isn't KotHH on the restricted list? And I'm thinking all agendas on the restricted list might be a damn good idea.