Hello everyone and welcome back to the Wardens of the Midwest.
In July, we wrapped up our first cycle review for each faction, with each faction evaluated by a different guest writer (other than the first one, of course). That means that I haven’t really written an article in almost 2 months. So it’s time to jump back on the horse, I suppose.
I’ve been getting/seeing a lot of questions about Jon Snow recently, both in person and just in casual conversations on Discord and Facebook. I’ve been pretty much resolute in my disdain for Jon Snow since, basically, the first few chapter packs of the year. I ran him very early on when I was still running Night’s Watch Banner of the Wolf, but removed him after the 42nd consecutive game where I drew him and was annoyed that he wasn’t better.
So why was I annoyed every time I drew him? He is, theoretically, a good attacking character, right? Well, the first nail in the coffin was the fact that I was running a Wall deck and Jon Snow offers absolutely nothing on defense, but I have a lot more to say about it than that.
Below are the reasons why I think that Jon Snow, as a character design, is bad and will probably always be bad. I’ll even throw in a few suggestions at the end regarding what cards need to be released in order for him to become playable. The easiest suggestions are erratas (changes to his text to make him better), but I’ll attempt to come up with some card design archetypes that would help him work within the Night’s Watch that could be released and work with Jon as he is printed today. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll do it for you guys.
First, the card itself, for those who don’t remember how bad it is:
FFG The Night’s Watch Have No Claim Enhancements.
What I mean by this is, if you have a wide board and Jon Snow out, you can reliably win all 3 challenges. From which you gain…1 power (along with the military and intrigue claims). NW has no modifiers or reactions to make military more painful (Ice, Winter is coming etc) nor do they have anything that makes intrigue challenges more painful (Cersei, Trial by Combat, Tyene) nor do they with power challenges (Superior Claim type effects). So each round, your best case scenario is getting claim equal to the printed value on your plot for military, intrigue and power. If you play Longclaw on Jon, you could possibly get a good amount of renown, but that will often be the number 1 target for confiscation and other attachment control. The Night’s Watch doesn’t even have any reactions to winning on offense at all, like The Reader, The Queen of Thorns or Rhaegal. They have, literally, no cards that trigger off of winning an offensive challenge.
By Himself, He Does Very Little.
When I say “by himself” I don’t mean if he’s the only character on your board he’s useless. That, while true, can be said about a lot of characters. What I mean is if you have 4 characters but are forced to defend a big challenge by your opponent (to prevent a Put to the Sword, for example), keeping Jon Snow standing for your attacks doesn’t help you at all. Unlike other 6 costers like Jaime, Drogo or Balon, Jon winning a challenge by himself is not really anything to be afraid of. Renown is the most common use, but most other 6 costers have 2 icons and have a little flexibility in what challenge to initiate. Jon gets one challenge: Intrigue. The truth is, he is a blank 4 strength for 6 gold monocon unless he has someone to attack with.
Board States Are Only Going To Get Smaller
We had Wildfire Assault in the core set. That meant that, at any time, your opponent can reduce your board state to 3 characters. So, if you are running a Jon Snow deck, you will want to keep Jon Snow and then you get to keep 2 friends to attack with. Most times, you’ll want to keep Maester Aemon as well, if you have him out, so that means you’ll have 1 other character you can save and 2 intrigue monocons. That means that Jon never really had more than 2 or 3 friends to attack with at any given time.
Then, First Snow of Winter came out. All of Jon’s friends like Ser Waymar Royce and the Old Forest Hunter, who Jon used to participate in challenges to which he did not have the icons, would be returned to hand, leaving Jon vulnerable to being killed if you didn’t have a few 4+ costed rangers out to protect him. Due to only having 1 icon, Jon is unable to defend military on a First Snow of Winter turn, meaning he is not helping you protect your board on the turn it is most important to do so.
Now, we have Valar Morghulis coming out in a few chapter packs. Board states are going to be smaller than ever, as your opponent can destroy every one of your characters at their whim with this plot. With so many resets all preventing Jon from having partners to attack with, it’s going to be hard to reliably have 3 to 4 characters to attack with to fully utilize Jon’s ability.
There is Very Little in Faction Support for Him
Now, this is, arguably, one of the few things that FFG can quickly fix about Jon Snow. But right now, there are no characters that make attacking with and adding in Jon efficient. Most times, if you are trying to get Jon into all 3 challenges in a turn, you’ll be attacking with just one character per challenge. That means you need 3 characters to attack plus Jon, and then you’ll have no defenders if that is your entire board state. If there was a NW character that had 2 icons and didn’t kneel to attack, that would help Jon immensely. Or, if there were something that could fetch Longclaw from your deck or discard pile, that would help Jon immensely. Or, if you had some triggerable events that made winning several challenges in a single round beneficial, that would help Jon immensely. Right now, all he has are relatively weak characters that are typically strength at cost or below (Ranging parties being the notable exception) who are, generally, inflexible when it comes to challenges. Lots of monocons and no tricons.
He Costs Too Much
I touched on this initially, but let’s expand on it quickly. He is a 6 cost, 4 strength monocon who is not loyal and is not a lord. Thematically, being non loyal and not being a lord makes sense. He is a bastard after all and he’s tried to abandon the Night’s Watch multiple times already. But not having that loyalty or lord trait has made Jon very difficult to pay for. Not to mention, the Night’s Watch do not have reducing locations like the rest of the factions, so all you got are your stewards and your neutral economy locations to help produce gold to play him. Compare him to Old Bear Mormont. When it comes to parallels, Jon and Old Bear are very much in line when it comes to their intentions: They each want to participate in multiple challenges per turn. Old Bear wants to participate in 2 to 3 challenges on defense. Jon wants to participate in 2 to 3 challenges on offense. Since Old Bear is loyal, he is effectively the same cost of 6 gold in a fealty deck. Old Bear has two icons, can achieve his purpose alone and defend two challenges without kneeling if you have the Wall out (which you will). In addition, he has 2 more strength than Jon. So how can Jon be justified at 6 gold when compared to the Bear? And, on top of all that, Old Bear was still considered too weak compared to the rest of the core set 7 costers. So if Jon’s value has trouble measuring up to Old Bear, you can imagine how poorly Jon Snow stacks up against the other factions’ top characters.
He Has No Synergy With the Wall
I touched on this initially as well, but Jon Snow does nothing for the Wall. Now, granted, you may not even run the Wall in a deck that is focused on Jon Snow shenanigans. But that means that all your characters are much less gold efficient, as the Wall brought most of your characters, such as the Unsworn Apprentice, Benjen, Old Forest Hunter, Ghost, Aemon, Sam, Stonesnake, Sworn Brother, Will, Yoren and Halder up to a 1:1 strength to cost ratio. Without the Wall, Jon Snow’s companions are significantly weaker. He does nothing to defend it and without it, your characters are below cost to strength ratio. In games that I have tried to play a committed Jon Snow deck, I still found it more reliable to just defend the Wall. And in those games where I had to flip to the Wall in order to win, Jon Snow did me absolutely no good. In the games that I’ve tried an all out NW Crossing Jon Snow deck, I found it much easier to just defend the Wall to accumulate power rather than actually using Jon to his “full potential.”
The Voltron Can Be Very Plot Intensive
If you want to run him as a centerpiece and Longclaw to get 3 renown per turn, you’re likely want to use 2 plots out of 7 for Summons and for Building Orders. For a deck type that needs a lot of characters out, those 2 4 gold plots can be very difficult to justify. Especially when you probably can’t afford to play him on either of those turns, unless you have 2 of your reducers, a king’s road or a few Rose Roads (remember, Night’s Watch does not have reducing locations). In addition, you probably want to run Here to Serve, since Jon Snow dying is basically the end of the game for you. Or, you can play Close Call, if you really want to as well. Then a filthy accusations or a Baratheon deck comes and just turns him off. You can try running power behind the throne but…really? Are you really going to do that? That would be 3 to 4 plots that have 4 gold or less, which can be hard on your deck economically.
He has No Keywords
This will be a bit of a re-hash, but it bears repeating. How could they make him so gold inefficient? Not only is he 2 strength below his cost, but he also doesn’t even have any keywords to back that cost bump up. If he had intimidate, sure, I’d understand the low strength to cost ratio and lack of icons. Hell, if he had a worthwhile keyword I’d be happy to play him, as the potential for using a keyword such as renown, insight or intimidate multiple times in one challenges phase would be delightful. You can obviously give him renown with Longclaw, but, as we’ve discussed above, there is a lot of hoop jumping required for that.
The Night’s Watch are Not Built to Use the Lord of the Crossing Agenda
Jon Snow is probably strongest in Lord of the Crossing decks. It is the only agenda that actively rewards you for doing all 3 challenges every round, something that Jon, ideally, would love to do. Unfortunately, the NW has no support for them. Being compelled by your agenda to do 3 challenges per turn in order to gain your agenda’s benefit means you’ll be leaving yourself wide open to unopposed challenges a lot. Because of your all-out offensive strategy, your opponent will be gaining a good amount of unopposed power against you. For this reason, the factions that run crossing successfully have to have some sort of way to accelerate their victory faster than their opponent. Arguably, the factions most geared towards Lord of the Crossing are Tyrell, Greyjoy and Martell (I’m not including Lannister because, while they are a very good crossing deck, it’s not because of the agenda. It’s mostly because they’re just an awesome faction that can win with any agenda. The agenda just lets them win a little faster). Each faction has their own unique way to accelerate their power gain. Tyrell has Lady Sansa’s Rose and can take advantage of the +2 strength on the final challenge to trigger their +5 win cards. Greyjoy has the Great Kraken and all of their other unopposed shenanigans such as Rise of the Kraken. Martell has Doran’s Game, the Boneway and The Red Viper, who really takes advantage of that final challenge to gain a lot of power very quickly. On top of all that, Tyrell and Greyjoy also have a few renown characters to further accelerate that goal, and Martell just got its first officially printed renown character in this past chapter pack.
NW Crossing only has Longclaw for Jon Snow. That’s 3 cards that have to be attached to 3 other cards in order for the entire deck to run. And, if you get one of those 3 cards on the other 3 cards, Confiscation can just remove it and there’s nothing you can do, save duping or replaying it, to stop that. They have no other renown. They have no additional power gain for winning challenges by 5 or more or for winning challenges unopposed or anything. The NW Crossing deck relies 100% on getting Jon Snow, getting Longclaw on him, keeping Longclaw on him and winning 3 challenges with him. And one kill effect on Jon can wipe several renown off the board in one fell swoop. And you thought Lady Sansa’s Rose was putting all your eggs in one basket…
You Cannot Control His Participation
My good friend Dave Bamford asked me why I did not include a section on this. I did not include this because I wanted to focus on reasons why Jon Snow sucks in general, regardless of who you’re matched up against. But, since he mentioned it, I figure I may as well spread the word.
Jon Snow has to participate in any challenge that you declare with a Night’s Watch character. So, if you are playing against a Targaryen player, they can, essentially at will, Dracarys Jon Snow, which will ruin your entire strategy. If you only have Night’s Watch characters out on the board, and Jon Snow is only 4 strength (no Wall or Longclaw), and your opponent has a gold and a dragon, you are risking Jon’s death in every single challenge you make. This match up is especially bad if you are running NW Lord of the Crossing. I had two games against a Targaryen deck when I was first testing NW Crossing and in each game, I was pretty much stalemated from the first turn because Jon Snow, even with a Longclaw and practice blade, was still only 4 strength when he was forced to participate in the first challenge and Daenerys was standing. In both games, my opponent had a Dracarys! and ended the game within the first few turns.
In addition, if you are playing Martell and, as in the above example, you only have Night’s Watch characters on the board, you cannot declare a challenge without Jon Snow joining in. If the Martell player has Ghaston Grey, Jon is going back to your hand, along with any renown he may have collected if you did give him Longclaw.
This kind of thing will happen to him against any faction that has an ability that effects participating character. Like Warm Rain and Watcher on the Walls are similar examples.
I’ve tried adding neutral characters to the deck to try and combat this, but then you’re kind of…defeating the purpose of his game text. If you have him out and then only neutral characters he’s, once again, completely useless.
Summary
To sum it all up, Jon is bad because he is too expensive for what he does. He does not have the flexibility of multiple icons, meaning he does nothing when he’s alone or the last attacker standing. He doesn’t have any keywords that would make winning three challenges worthwhile. He doesn’t have any support from the rest of the Night’s Watch, whether that be additional power gain opportunities, reactions that trigger off winning challenges or characters that are efficient attackers, such as Jaime or the Blackfish. He relies entirely on gaining a board state advantage, maintaining that board state advantage and participating in challenges while not adding anything to the challenge other than 4 strength. He is nothing but win more.
Ways to Improve Jon Snow
So, I kind of touched on the ways to improve Jon in the above sections, but I’ll add a little section here at the end to discuss what the Night’s Watch would need if they ever want Jon Snow to be a valuable character for the faction that can be relied upon as anything other than an “emergency plan B.”
The first, and most important thing, is to have cards that trigger off of winning challenges. Give me a reason to want to win challenges on offense. I would say they could tie into a theme surrounding the aggressive Night’s Watch decks, but there currently is no theme, so I have no basis for what the reactions can be. My first instinct would be something that makes winning by 5 or more intriguing. Obviously, you can pack your deck full of Put to the Swords and Superior Claims if you really want to. But any faction can do that. If you want to improve Jon Snow decks, it needs to be something unique to him and his faction.. Give me a character that, when I win a challenge with him, I can steal additional power. Or give me a character like Stonesnake, but instead of putting the renown on himself, let me put it on Jon. Give me some reason to want to win more challenges on offense.
The second thing would be to give me more efficient attackers. If Jon Snow is going to ever be a reliable character, he needs to have partners who can initiate multiple challenges. With board states getting smaller due to the variety of resets being released, Old Bear Mormont became extremely valuable because he could defend several challenges without kneeling. Give me a character that, when Jon Snow is on the board, he does not kneel to attack. It can be Grenn or it can be Pyp. I don’t really care who it is, honestly, but they would need to be 4 gold or higher and have at least two icons. This parallels Old Bear in that he needs the Wall in order to become efficient. Make those characters need Jon to become efficient. If Jon is truly supposed to be a centerpiece of a deck, other characters should be able to trigger off of his presence, as many do for the Wall in the current defensive deck.
The third thing, in my opinion, would need to be something that either goes and finds Jon Snow or goes and finds Longclaw. I really cannot afford to run both Summons and Building Orders in my plot deck without it crumbling when those two plots miss. I would need something that actually searches the deck itself, not just the top 10 cards. The Night’s Watch, on the whole, have a general reliance on their attachments. So maybe an event that says after I win a challenge by 5 or more, I can search my deck or discard pile for an attachment and bring it into play. This can be synergistic with Jon Snow by allowing me to win a challenge, use this event to search for Longclaw and put it directly on Jon Snow. Then he’ll gain renown and claim renown in that same challenge.
I told myself that I would keep this section general, as I am not a card designer and I don’t have the testing capabilities to ensure these cards are not overpowered or imbalanced. But alas, the ideas just came out. Sorry about that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. What are all your guys’ thoughts on Jon Snow? Am I being too harsh? Does he have a niche that I am missing? Let me know what you think in the comments and, as always, don’t hold back. I love having discussions about this game, whether you agree with me or not (most people don’t ever agree with me, if only out of principle.)
I keep two copies of Jon in my NW deck. I find that he really helps in keeping my opponent guessing. That being said, if he were only 5 cost, I’d be able to play him more and go very aggressive.
As always, great in-depth review. I’d like to counter and/or disagree, but hard to do. When flipping through the core set cards (and even most of the releases since then), he is stands out immediately, not because of his great hair, but because he is the only character in the faction with an ability based in attacking. The rest of the entire faction is based on defense, which I think is a cool niche in the game for the faction. Also, until I read your article, I didn’t even realize the inherent issue in his ability regarding the consequences of participating in a challenge. That issue alone is worthy of errata (in my uneducated opinion.) I would like to see something that plays off his indecisive (or maybe waffling is better) nature. Something that would allow you to include him as an attacker after you’re opponent has declared defenders. Force your opponent to choose between over committing or holding back, especially if you have cards that trigger off winning challenges (as you mention above.) Given that FFG made Mirri a Targaryen, the Boltons a Stark, and the Clansman a Lannister, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to make the Wildings part of the NW faction. This could have played into a Jon theme about having to choose (defend with the NW, or attack with Wildlings), and there would be a lot of room in the game to make Wildling cards aggressive, attacking characters that could give the core set Jon some stuff he could do. Off-track a bit, but in my sandbox of Wildling NW characters, a character that would, after attacking, allow you to kneel Jon to stand the Wall, that’d be pretty sweet. Or how about Tormund, Pyp, and Grenn that give Jon abilities the way Dany’s dragons do for her???
This comment somehow got lost in my email. Sorry about that. But anyway, yes, I totally agree that Jon stands out in the faction. I am very hopeful that the next deluxe box in Night’s Watch. If so, I really hope they print some support for Core Jon Snow. More than likely, however, is they are going to print a 7 cost Jon who actually works. I agree that he could very easily be a guy who could attack or defend. If he had some text about Wildlings, that would be incredible. As you said, if they print characters that augment him, there is a remote chance that he is worth playing somewhere down the line. But, as he stands today, I think it’s much more likely that they’ll just reboot the NW Jon in the deluxe box and pretend this evergreen Jon never even existed haha.
No worries about the comment delay. A Night’s Watch deluxe would be sweet. The formula for the deluxe boxes seems to be to give players a different way to play with that particular faction (or at least to sharpen the theme.) Stark with the Sacrifice and Tully power. Lannister is getting Tryion with the Clansman and a sharpening of the intrigue (scheme). With the Night’s Watch at this point in the game, it is heavily focused on defending the Wall. I see in your latest article that Night’s Watch choke is becoming a thing. With the idea of a deluxe format, willing to speculate as to the directions they could take this faction that offer player’s something other than defending the Wall? A 7 cost Jon and Night’s Watch faction Wildings that attack? Or do you think the Night’s Watch faction is better served to maintain a highly defensive niche?
I think the two formats for NW will come down to 1 of 2 things:
Wildlings or Military attacks. Maybe a combination of the two.
FFG is not hiding the fact that they love giving NW military icons. They have a weapon that provides it to them, they have almost as many military monocons as they do bicons of any kind and they have Alliser Thorne who hands all defenders military icons. An agenda or location/character that rewards winning military challenges seems like a good path for aggro decks, especially since Qhorin already is adding a death on top of claim to any military challenge he wins, on offense or defense.
And Wildlings just slot perfectly into the theme.
I imagine choke would fit perfectly into that deck, as Mance already loves winter plots, so maybe they’ll expand on the choke a bit as well (but hopefully not too much! We don’t need a deck that can take 4 to 5 gold per turn from you haha).
There is also, I think, a variant on defensive decks that I think FFG will likely expand on in the deluxe box. You see a theme forming with Bridge of Skulls where you can punish your opponent for NOT declaring certain challenges. In the case of Bridge of skulls, you are making them choose between doing a military attack or losing a card from their hand. If they decide to attack with the intention of losing, you have the Shadow Tower, Qhorin, The Sword in the Darkness and Thoren to punish them for losing challenges on offense. If they try to win it, you have Watcher on the Walls to punish them for over committing.
I could see them expanding on that theme of “lose lose” situations for your opponent when they’re on the offensive. Or maybe make it so that if they don’t declare all 3 challenges against you per turn, something bad happens to them, increasing your chances of winning challenges on defense. After all, Thoren is nice, but if your opponent is able to just abstain from any challenge they cannot win, Thoren won’t provide a whole lot of power. By compelling your opponent to attack even when they don’t really want to, you can increase the value of Thoren and Shadow Tower.
Just some off the cuff thoughts on where they could go, based on the cards we know of in the rest of this cycle :).
But I think they’re just going to abandon Core Set Jon. If they print even one more card that supports him, I’d be quite surprised.
Jon’s done more than Dany has, he’s the one that leads, while Dany is the one that shouts and whines to those who are following her or want an alliance.