Hi all, thanks for the last batch of answers. To keep you occupied, here are some more potentially dumb questions :

1. Obara Sand' s card from the Winds of Winter chapter pack (F31) talks about "mulligans". I can't find mention of a mulligan in either the rules or the FAQ. Have I missed something?
2. Honor Guards : If played during the Challenge phase does the gold cost still need to be paid? I'm guessing that it doesn't because you might as well just marshall them instead if it does. Although, hmmm... maybe they're a little more versatile if you can play them into an ongoing challenge...?
3. The Titan's Bastard : when would the Bastard's second Response (" after a card is placed in an opponent's dead pile, return The Titan's Bastard to its owners hand ") be useful? The only time which springs to mind is maybe if there's a nasty condition on the Bastard which renders him pretty useless and you want to get rid of that condition. Any other suggestions?
4. Bran Stark : I've chosen a plot card ( Valar Morghulis let's say) and I reveal it. That plot card's effects are resolved (so all characters are killed by Valar Morghulis). In the subsequent player action window I kneel Bran and choose/reveal a new plot card. Let's say for my second plot card I choose Mutual Enemies . This second plot card also has a "when revealed" effect. Does the effect of the second card also get resolved when I reveal it? I'm thinking here that I've used Bran in the second player action window, but plot card effects are resolved in the preceeding framework action window. Hmmm... to resolve or not to resolve, that is the question! Now that I've revealed my new plot, does my gold and claim value for the round get taken from the new card? I'm guessing it must. I'm also guessing that any change in initiative is irrelevant since the First Player has already been appointed. Does that sound about right?
5. House Stark : the predefined deck in the core rule set seems to be getting turned over quite easily in the (admittedly few) games I've played so far. Is the general consensus that they're a little underpowered without any tweaks, or have they just been unlucky and/or badly played? Last time out I had a shocking starting hand so they got out of the blocks slowly and never really recovered, hence the earlier question about mulligans.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

"Mulligans" are a concept completely embedded in tournament play. So the only thing you have missed is reading the Tourney Rules document. The "mulligan" rule for competitive AGoT and organized play is that if after drawing their original 7 cards before Setup, a player can decide they don't like them, shuffle them back into their deck and draw 7 new cards. They can only do this once. If they don't like the second 7 cards, they have to play them anyway.(Suddenly, Obara makes more sense, huh?)

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Note carefully that "play" and "put into play" are two completely different things. "Play" means you pay a card's gold cost when it is your turn in the Marshaling phase. "Put into play" is an effect that gets a card into play by some other means. Using the "Challenges" effect on the Honor Guards is "putting them into play," not paying them. So you follow the effect, not the game rules for playing cards. The effect does not SAY that you pay gold, so you don't.

You actually CAN put them into play during an ongoing challenge. However, the would still need to be declared as an attacker or defender. Note also that you put them into play under the control of an opponent, so the whole timing thing doesn't really make them any more useful.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Do you play with plots like Valar Morghulis or Wildfire Assault? You could bounce him back to your hand during the Challenge phase of the round before you reveal one of those cards so that he's safe in your hand instead of killed. Or if you time it right, you can defend with him, use his second ability to return him to hand, then use his first ability to put him into play. He'd be standing when you return him to play, so you get more challenges out of him. All sorts of stuff like that depending on your deck.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

First, how did Bran survive Valar? When your first plot resolved, Bran should have died before you could use his ability.

Second, why would you think that the "when revealed" text on the second card wouldn't activate? It's a passive effect activated by revealing they plot card. You revealed the plot card, didn't you? "When revealed" plot text happens when you reveal the plot card - HOWEVER and WHENEVER you reveal the plot card - not just in the Plot framework window where the game tells you to reveal a plot card. Think of it this way: There is a framework window in the Draw phase that lets you draw cards. Does that mean that effects that let you draw a card only work during that window? Of course not. Same thing here - whenever "when revealed" is true for the plot, the passive effect activates.

Oh, and yes - things like the Gold, Claim and Initiative on a plot card only matter when they are referenced. So yes, the new initiative has no effect on choosing the First Player because the choice has already been made. You can't go backwards and re-pick. The old gold and claim have no effect because you only look at your revealed plot card when you count gold in Marshaling or check or resolve claim in Challenges. The first plot is in the used pile by then.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

All 4 of the pre-made Core Set decks have their problems. Stark's is that they can be slow to start and they can get smacked upside the head with intrigue challenges - tending to have precious few cards in hand. However, your experience is not necessarily typical. We've had people on the board say that the Lannister deck can't stand up to the Stark deck to save it's life! (Stark will tend to roll over Lannister in military challenges.) So some of it may be bad luck or a poor match between player proclivities and pre-made deck strategy. And some of it may be that the holes have been more prominent than the strengths to this point in your group.

Thanks as usual ktom. Some good, full answers there.

ktom said:

Oops, good point. I was just trying to give some examples and I'd not mentally considered that Bran wipes with everyone else!

ktom said:

Only because the second plot card is revealed after the FRAMEWORK ACTION segment which states that '"when revealed" plot effects resolve'. I just wanted to be 100% sure that the effect of revealed plot cards outside of this segment still get resolved as normal. I was taking the FAQ's flowcharts a little bit too literally. Now, I just need to figure out why Bran's ability would prove useful. He doesn't seem to have much else going for him! Maybe with Summer (the wolf, not the season) he could be handy to have around...

ktom said:

You could've written the script! Once my big hitter with Intrigue, Catelyn Stark, was annihilated by Valar it was lights out for the Starks.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

The FAQ flowchart is a bit too literal there. The best way to think of that extra framework event is that it indicates the "when revealed" passive effects from plot cards will always take place before any other passive effects activated by revealing a plot card (like Golden Tooth Mines ).

Bran's got a couple of things going for him that have a lot to do with timing. Remember that you can use him before any plots are revealed, too, not just after. So you can use his effect to reveal a plot, then reveal a second plot when all players normally reveal them. In the Stark Core set deck, it's a good way to reveal Valar, kill everything off, then reveal a plot card that has more gold (and claim) so you can actually rebuild the same turn. These sort of things become much more pronounced once you start customizing the decks a bit and getting more plots that work together a bit more.