Agreed. His usefulness is also enhanced with Mother of Dragons expansion and Iron Bank loans, I guess. But it's a totally different game then, definitely not for this thread

I'd personally rank Mace a bit stronger than most comments here suggest. He lacks the outright killing power of Viper and Ned, but I've found that in a majority of cases where I'd play Viper or Ned, my opponent will have a good idea they're going to lose, and play fortifications to block swords anyway. A lot of the times that means Viper or Ned only kill a footman anyway, because at least one sword is blocked.

Mace often gives you the same results, but once you've picked a fight with an army of his that has footmen, there's nothing your opponent can do to stop him (well, the Blackfish can, if you've decided to grow stronger up north for some reason). If simply having a card in my hand can control how my opponent has to maneuver on his/her entire front with me, that's a massive passive advantage I'm getting just for holding the card.
Mace also gives you flexibility with his ability to punish opponents who hold territories with a single footman. In several games I've crippled Martell with this - they muster on Sunspear and move from Salt Shore to Starfall, and I can simply play Mace. It doesn't matter if they Arianne me or anything, On turn one that reduces them to a single land province to get resources from. If you get lucky and can get throne position above them with a clash, you can then use boats to Oleanna whatever order they had on Sunspear to keep them trapped there for a second turn.

Again, most of Mace's benefits are in how he forces your opponent to play. You set up a situation where your opponent either ignores him, in which case congrats, you have a 5 power card i.e. Stannis, that also guaranteed removes a unit, or your opponent plays around him, which restricts their movement options and forces them to keep knights on your borders, which is basically setting up a Loras -> charge retreating units for kills, or just Garland, to get kills that can only be placed on knights.

Last edited by RaisinBran on 2019-Apr-17 20:02, edited 1x in total

@Mace threatening areas held by just a footman- you shouldn't need your 4 to take such an area or get the kill, though I guess if it's a footman that's well supported, I could see the use.

Mace's main downside is his lack of power at sea, which is often where you want your high card to shine, especially in dissuading attacks on your sea since those are not battles you want to lose generally. Opponents being able to play a low card when attacking Tyrell at sea and either win or take not losses is a huge detriment to Tyrell.