rings said:

Because agenda is not just a card as well. There is a sense in it that agenda cards cannot be canceled. The idea behind agenda card is to get something and loose something instead and change the basic concept of the game. If you think about summer agenda as the same card as Golden tooth mines, then I understand your point, but if you think about Night's watch guys suddenly loosing all icons, then it's stupid. People would stop using such agenda at all, if that is what you want then ok.

Kennon said:

I think agendas have the potential to do it quicker and provides the ability to turn normally lower power cards which have already been printed into cards which you'd actually put in your deck. That would be the advantage of going with them as the solution to the problem. Although it would be best to do both IMO.

I am a huge fan of agendas so I think having many more of them with a variety of abilities would be fun.

 I vote no for this simple reason.  Chapter pack space is precious, there are only so many cards that can be printed in each chapter pack.  If FFG decides to print 30 agendas, and then silver bullet cards to combat those agendas, and then more cards to support those agendas, then how much space is left for all of the non agenda themed stuff?   

I don't really see what is wrong with the direction the environment is going now when it comes to agendas.  For the amount of cards we currently have legal there are quite a few agendas to choose from, obviously some better than others.  My only criticism is that I don't like agendas that are house only, like Heir to the Iron Throne.  It takes away from the number of possible decks that could be built.

Admittedly, I've never been a fan of agendas.  As Rings always points out - they are extremely hard to balance, and I really don't like how they generally cannot be targeted/don't interact with other cards the same way.   And while I like the idea of enabling House X or trait theme decks more - that can just as easily be done with unique loacations & other cards if designed properly - the agenda really shouldn't be necessary.  I honestly fail to see how agendas make the game better or more enjoyable overall - they feel more to me like FFG adding a new card type/mechanic just for the sake of change itself (although really, influence  pay gold effects are kind of like that to - did these really improve the game beyond kneeling a character? - I would argue no).  

However, if we're going to have them, I definitely agree with the statement below:   

finitesquarewell said:

I was utterly shocked to see At the Gates - basically a reprint of Here to Serve - which created a lot of discussion on the very point of in house vs out of house years ago.  

But this seems to be one of FFG's sacred cows (along with Draw - anti draw or effects targeting out of house characters are always costed far higher than draw cards or cards allowing you to play cards from out of house).  

finitesquarewell said:

I can understand where you're coming from here, & may even agree with the sentiment about not creating cards that target agendas/anti-agenda cards (I think a few are fine, but they shouldn't be commonplace).  

You may very well be right that the problem with agendas has been their design; however, your thesis seems to assume that it's possible to design all of these agendas well.  I'm not so sure that it's just not possible to - that agendas, by their nature, are more difficult to balance/design well (which is actually what I believe).  I'm just skeptical of the ability of designers to pull this off/balance everything if agendas actually were ubiquitous.  

rings said:

Agreed.  And those are the kinds of cards/characters/abilities I'd also like to see targeting excess draw, or out of house characters ( you draw a card, but I kneel a character or location to claim a power; or stand a characters, etc)

baragwin said:

So, isn't the problem really Lost Spearman (and auto-include cards like it)?  Just seems to me like flooding the environment with agendas in order to fix this problem is a huge risk.  If the problem is auto-includes, which are cards that probably weren't optimally designed/balanced - what confidence do we really have that trying to create agendas - which are probably the hardest card to balance - are going to fix this?  

Just seems to me like a scenario would be set up similar to introducing a new predator species into the environment to fix one problem/species, where it kills everything off and destroys the ecosystem.  

IF the purpose is really greater diversity - I think agendas are just going to create other problems, and maybe to change which cards are auto-includes, but I don't think they are the best way to address the problem.   

Wrecking Ball: I agree with you that chapter pack space is precious, but for me, that's an argument in favor of printing more agendas.  A non-agenda card has a limited ability to affect the competitive environment, but a new agenda can make a bunch of old cards more playable.  So from a perspective of wanting to increase the number of competitive decks, I think agendas are the way to go.  There is a likely a saturation point at which we could have too many agendas and not enough cards to play with them, but we are nowhere near that point.  On the contrary, we have hundreds of unplayable cards (including entire block-long themes that aren't remotely competitive).

LordofBrewtown: You say that agenda card effects can be just as easily implemented using unique characters and locations.  Can you elaborate on this?  It seems pretty clear that the guaranteed nature of agendas allows for game effects that would otherwise be impossible (maester's path and city of shadows, for instance).  And even those agendas that could be implemented using non-agenda cards would be much less likely to see play (for instance, how much less playable would summer be if the agenda text were implemented on a location?).  So the result of implementing that game text using non-agendas would be to reduce the incentive to play the cards that work with them.  And that would result in less deck diversity.  Do you disagree with this?

On your comments about trying to balance agendas: I talked about this issue in a couple of my previous posts, but I think the most important point is: over the past two years, as we've seen more agendas introduced into the game, the balance of the game (the number of different competitive decks) has risen.  Even when the completely overpowered wildling agenda was legal, there was still more diversity than there had been previously.  I attribute much of this rise in diversity to the increasing number of agendas.  Look at the current competitive environment: summer, maesters, city of lies, winter, wildlings, brotherhood.  Do you think we would have this much diversity without those agendas?  I contend that, without the agendas, we'd all still be playing lannister.

The problem with Lost Spearman isn't the card itself.  There will always be cards that are the best (or better than most other cards)... that's just the nature of any game.  But agendas can change that rule.  An agenda can guarantee a changed game state such that a card that is normally great becomes mediocre (my example above about all refuges being +2 cost).  An agenda can force a deck builder to evaluate a card in a completely different context.  The result is more options about what cards to play with.

 Hmm, without specific examples of what these new agendas would look like, this discussion feels a bit too theoretical for me.  The diversity of viable decks is more a matter of balancing the power level of various strategies.  The reason why all the Martell decks look the same despite agenda is not because the current set of agendas is not diverse.  It's because those Martell cards already form one of the most powerful strategies before the agenda is tacked on.  

Looking at the progression of themes that FFG has supported in the LCG (Seasons, Shadows, Wildlings/NW, Brotherhood, Maesters) it seems like the agenda card type is already being used to support different strategies.  I think it's just hard to keep more than a few strategies balanced at a time (this goes for all card games, not just AGoT).  If FFG came out with 30+ new agendas, why wouldn't it be the case that three or four of them (probably the most control oriented ones) would rise to the top and most of the others would lapse into unplayability?

Schrecklick: I agree that without specific examples, it's difficult to form an opinion on the idea in general.  Off the top of my head, here's an example of what I'm advocating for:

"House Stark only. You may only play characters with the Lord, Lady, or House Tully traits.  Your House Tully characters cannot have their strength reduced or be knelt by opponent's card effects.  Each time you successfully defend a challenge with a House Tully Character, draw a card."

Is this overpowered?  Underpowered?  Who knows.  But answering that question brings me to your second point: I agree that it is impossible to have a large number of different decks all be equally competitive.  And I agree that the amount that new agendas expand the competitive environment is reduced as more agendas are printed.  But, even keeping these things in mind, there are two strong arguments in favor of printing more agendas:

1) Although the competitive community may eventually form a concensus about what the best decks are, that is a difficult and time-consuming process (and also a fun one) and is by no means guaranteed.  And adding more agendas makes this process more difficult (and more fun), increasing the chances that people will come to different conclusions.

2) As I've said before, there is a point at which printing more agendas would be unlikely to yield more diversity.  But there's no evidence that we are close to that point.  And given all of the unplayable themes and cards we currently have in the game, there appears to be quite a bit of evidence for the need to make existing cards more playable.

I'm very much torn on the idea of trait-focused agendas, and especially house-specific trait-based agendas. As I mentioned in my post above, I think it's very difficult to balance these...what typically happens is the agenda becomes underpowered (Kingsguard), cards with the trait are neutered (Night's Watch), or both. The Maester's Path is a good example of a combination that could ultimately prove a bit too strong, while the chains themselves may prove too weak to run (at least most of them) without also running the agenda. In my mind, this is pretty much the worst of both worlds...though at least this agenda, unlike the Kingsguard version, is playable.

Despite my objections to trait-based agendas, it's pretty clear that the design team has already wasted a lot of cards on trait-based themes that won't see much play going forward. Night's Watch, Sandsnakes, and Kingsguard are all examples, but I imagine you could add Clansmen, and even non-character cards like reinforcements or bannermen. Even dothraki and House Dayne are ultimately pretty lackluster, considering all the support they've received.

For cards like this that are already printed, I don't have any problem going back and making a trait-specific agenda that will make existing unplayable cards more playable. Going forward though, I'd prefer if trait-based mechanics were strong enough to stand on their own, like direwolves, ironborn, and kings/queens. Then looking forward, agendas would resemble something closer to Knights of the Hollow Hill or Siege of Winterfell, tying together a *strategy* or mechanic rather than a trait.

baragwin said:

baragwin said:

Part of the problem I have with agendas is the 'guaranteed' nature of them.  I don't understand why they/certain effects should not be targetable or guaranteed (maybe this is another topic, but by their very nature, Agendas seem to me to be a 100% Jaime type player card - at least as they've been designed).  I just get the feel that some players are looking for/want that automatic lock/guarantee (I want to be able to draw 5 cards per round and have certain effects guaranteed).  To me, what makes/made this game great/fun is that nothing is guaranteed (in that respect - house balance aside - I honestly preferred much of the game feel during the beginning/Westeros block).  Furthermore, my personal opinion is that things like Agendas and Shadows put a lot more emphasis on the deck building than the actual playing of the deck (I'd much prefer the other way around).  

baragwin said:

I don't agree that the release of the agendas is what has led to/the 'cause' of more deck diversification.  The card pool itself has grown considerably in this time period - it's a tremendous leap (IMO) to pick out those agendas as the reason for more diversification.  I'm not ruling them out as a factor; but, I'd need a lot more convincing that they are the main cause.  

Dan: I think the problems with trait agendas that you highlight are largely solved by putting a restriction on the agenda.  In my example above, the fact that you can't play non-lord/lady/tully characters means the designers can still print a good House Tully character (that is playable in other decks) without worrying about it being overpowered in a Tully agenda deck.  A player then has to decide whether they'd rather get the benefits of the agenda or the benefits of the additional characters.  The problem with existing trait agendas is that they don't force this decision... they just let you play with characters having that trait along with all the other good cards you'd normally play with (see maesters).  The result is the underpowered agendas (kingsguard) and cards (chains) that you describe.

That said, I agree with you that trait agendas should only be a small part of the puzzle.  I think you'd agree with me that there are plenty of non-trait-related possibilities for new agendas.

LordofBrewtown: I think you're right that much of our disagreement just boils down to personal preference.  For me, agendas are a great way to reduce the you-got-your-golden-tooth-mines-and-I-didn't-so-you-won aspect of the game.  I'm fine with luck deciding a game here and there, but the randomness of card draw is a real problem in the current environment.  I see agendas as the best way to solve that problem.

On your second point, you're definitely right that non-agenda cards have contributed to the expanding diversity.  As an example, we've seen an increase in the number of competitive martell decks because martell now has enough good cards to build a deck out of.  But now that we have enough good martell cards, how much can a new martell character (for instance) really add to the diversity?  In general, a good new martell card will just get slotted into all the decks we already have.  Whereas a new agenda can take existing martell cards and force us to re-evaluate and use them in different ways (and for the reasons offered previously, you can do things with agendas that you can't do with non-agendas).

baragwin said:

In theory, I'm not completely opposed to trait-based agendas, but I think you're understating how manageable the balance issues are. Your example of the Tully agenda (+ lords/ladies) sounds great on face. However, swap "Tully" for "ironborn," and I think you suddenly have a potential balance issue...restricting a GJ player to only lords/ladies/ironborn is a lot less restrictive than Tullies. On the other hand, swap "Tully" for "Clansmen," and the agenda is pretty poor.

With these examples, I don't mean to suggest that every trait needs its own agenda. The problem is more fundamental - the traits that would gain the best from this specific agenda are those that already have the best support (for example, ironborn). To put this another way, the agenda would only really remain balanced so long as the designers decide not to significantly expand the number of options for that trait (ie designers avoid making more Tullies). If FFG decides to go and release a whole set based around the Tully trait, suddenly the restriction of "only house Tully" is pretty moot; meanwhile, you still get all the benefits of the agenda. In the long run, I think trait-based agendas thus more often tend to reduce design options rather than expand them. (If you can find a way to avoid this though, then I'll definitely jump on board for a trait-based agenda.)

This is also the problem with existing trait-based agendas. If FFG ever wants to print some extremely powerful Kingsguard, Night's Watch, or Wildlings...the kind we'd hope to see in a tier-1 deck, they are limited by what those cards can do in combination with the trait agenda. I also don't expect to see many "chain" attachments after this block...though it might actually be pretty cool for a World Champion to create his/her own "chain" attachment that can start out attached to the agenda. Similarly, since brotherhood was designed around the agenda, I'm going to guess that there will never be a brotherhood character that has the printed infamy trait...and even printing too many in-house Lanni characters with infamy runs the risk of giving Lanni an unequal advantage to run brotherhood.