Oddly enough, the true power of eliminating characters from challenge resolution based on their STR is probably best illustrated by Stark. Wolf Stalwart is a staple of most Stark decks I see. Of course, Wolf Stalwart was part of a cycle, but let’s be honest; the fact that he can render an opponent’s 3 STR characters useless (all the rest only dealt with 1 and 2 STR characters, which tend to be controlled by other means) made him far and away the best of the cycle. By breaking the 2 STR threshold, he proved to be the 1 card in the cycle that rose to the top while the other 5 descended to realtive “coaster-ville.”

Now, there are some serious differences between Intimidate and the Wolf Stalwart cycle. Most notably, Intimidate only works when you are attacking. Also, it is based off of total STR rather than printed STR. So in many ways, the old Kraken Conqueror is superior to the new Ironborn Enforcers (even before factoring in the “No Attachments” thing…) and Intimidate leaves very little to get excited about.

That is, until you factor in And Rises Again. Currently, it is the only way to PERMANENTLY grant one of the new keywords. And as a save, it slots right into existing Greyjoy decks. As such, it supports the Greyjoy “unopposed” theme without requiring additional resources or cards to really make it work (like most Stalwart cards, for example). You can make ANY Greyjoy character, assuming it’ll take attachments, into an Intimidate character, potentially overcoming that 2 STR threshold that keeps Kraken Conqueror (and the other two Intimidate cards) from being a no-brainer staple in GJ-unopposed. Play this on a 4-STR character and you have your own Wolf Stalwart, at least for attacking. Throw in a couple of buffs, and perhaps Azor Ahai Born Again, and a lone GJ character can run the board.

But boy, can it be card intensive to get the most out of this card, or even Intimidate in general. It’s not the keyword’s fault, really, so much as the fact that it supports a very tricky theme. You see, GJ unopposed has always had a rather noticeable flaw; your opponent doesn’t defend, leaving all of their characters available for the attack. As a result, even though your opponent loses challenges, they tend not to lose much in the way of board position. That means you have to really capitalize on your unopposed challenge or find ways to stand your characters, which usually means a lot of support cards in a House that is not particularly awash in draw power. Said another way, unopposed decks almost need to be rush decks because after you are done hitting your opponent, you are almost certainly going to get hit back. You have to make sure you can take their punch better than they take yours.

At first, I was really excited about Intimidate because it seemed to help address that “flaw.” The idea was to sucker people into committing high STR defenders against (relatively) low STR Intimidate characters, buff them, and reap the benefits of both unopposed challenges and knelt defenders. Sounds good, huh? Well, in practice it seems to be proving harder to pull off. First, the card intensity simply shifts from “unopposed capitalization” to “buff.” And if you are already winning, buffs tend to be dead cards. Further, a lot of GJ’s buffs are locations and attachments. That means your opponent sees all the pieces of your plan lying out on the table and doesn’t commit the defenders, leaving you right back where you started.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some good unopposed decks out there, both with and without Intimidate. But those decks are a lot harder to build and play than it seems they should be. So while this card looked like it was going to help GJ run away in 5KE, my experience is turning Intimidate into the proverbial judgmental book cover.

CotW contributed by ---ktom---