I'm new to CCG/LCG games in general, but I'm catching on largely thanks to these forums.

My wife and I have been playing jousts with me as Stark, her as Lannister, both with unmodified core set decks. She ended up decimating me the other night based largely on her Lannisport Brothel card which kept Jon Snow perpetually knelt, but also because of unopposed Intrigue challenges.

Now we're still learning the game, so afterwards I looked through my Stark deck to figure out where all my intrigue cards were hiding and noticed I only had two - Sansa and Catalyn. I also don't have any attachments or card effects that would endow my other characters with an Intrigue icon.

So I've come to the conclusion that the Starks are gimped when it comes to Intrigue challenges (which is great synergy with the books), so I need to adapt my strategy accordingly. It seems like my best option would be to focus on military challenges to try to get rid of those pesky characters with the Intrigue icons. Does that make sense, or am I missing something obvious? Any other tips for either of us (I'm trying to help her learn too, I'm not obsessed with beatng her) that may not be obvious to newbies?

Thanks!

Well, remember that the unmodified Core Set decks are designed to accent strengths and weaknesses of the House. Modification of the decks, even with the neutral cards and plots from the other decks in the Core Set, is certainly one thing to consider.

You are correct that one of Lannister's strengths (and Stark's weaknesses) is Intrigue. The answer for Stark is usually to kill everything in sight. Of course, Lannister is not a complete slouch on the military challenge, so there may be some art to this. Something else to consider is that Lannister is not particularly well-balanced for power icons. It's not quite as bad as Stark's intrigue icon spread, but it's not great, either. So using power challenges to take away some of that power Lannister gets for the unopposed Intrigue is a good plan. Something else to consider is to try to use the Deadly characters in Stark for power challenges more than military. That way, you are more likely to kill thinks in both the military and power challenges.

But yes, as the Core decks stand unmodified, Stark should concentrate on the military challenge against Lannister. Think also about making sure that you win those military challenges on both attack and defense. The other thing to keep in mind is that Stark has the Valar Morghulis plot card. See if you can goad your opponent into over-extending while you hold back, throw the plot "kill all characters" plot and go to town while your opponent tries to rebuild.

And Core Set Robb should be your MVP. He gives you direct and targeted kill and should be used to eliminate Lannis biggest threat cards. Remeber - he works on both the attack and the defense.

Stag Lord said:

I can't argue with that. The kicker is that Lanni has a great answer to Robb: Ser Ilyn Payne (kneel Payne during Marshalling to kill a character with STR 2 or lower). Try to protect Robb from Payne by attaching Nymeria (attachment that gives you a repeatable save) to Robb or getting Winterfell Castle into play (which bumps Robb's STR up to 3)

And since the core set only has so many cards, buy a chapter pack or two...they are not expensive...to shake things up! Stark has a ton of goodies, especially recently.

All the advice here is good stuff. All I have to add to it is looking at killing the characters you can't defend against. If it has stealth, kill it. If it has an intrigue icon, kill it. Chapter Packs will give you more options, but Stark has the ability to win in the Core Set.

Thanks for all the advice - some good insights!

We probably won't buy any chapter packs for a bit because, like I said, we've never done the CCG thing before so we want to have a handle on it before expanding our collection. We've already found cards that we used to think have no purpose or whatever, only to later discover it's actually a really good card. I think that at this point if we bought an expansion set without really understanding the game and the genre, we'd fail miserably at putting together a decent customized deck (not that it matters when we're only playing each other, but still, we're taking it slow).

Any advice for her, then, playing as Lannister? She's not historically a "gamer" so she's got a bit more of a learning curve than I have. It still seems like she does the best when she really goes all-out on me with the Intrigue challenges. It also seems like she has a lot of gold-generating options. She loses military challenges a lot, but I think that has mostly to do with tactics than cards. She tends to be pretty hesitant to kneel a character to defend when she's going to lose the challenge anyways; even though I get the bonus power, she still has a standing card to use in another challenge. This seems like a good tactic if you get a chance to follow through on it (and win some challenges of your own), but otherwise it seems like you're just giving away free power. Is that true?

Thanks for your patience with a pair of total newbies!

OrionsByte said:

Both very true. Note that most of the tactics given to you for Stark need you to hold some cards in hand or to come up with the gold needed to play them (Core Set Robb is an MVP, but at 4-gold, he's an investment!) So Lannister strengths are pretty well fit to poke at Stark weaknesses. That said, we've had people on the boards complaining that the Lannister Core Set deck can't make ANY headway against Stark, so it really does come down to play style and luck of the draw for some people.

OrionsByte said:

She is actually ahead of the game here because not defending when it serves no purpose is something a lot of people seem to have a hard time learning. They defend whenever they can, even if leaving the character standing in order to attack (or defend) later is the better play. The other thing that can be hard to learn is that sometimes, it is better to let your opponent win a challenge you COULD win on defense so that you can attack later (or win a more important challenge on defense).

You have hit on a good observation: If you are going second, the "maybe I won't defend and let them have the bonus for unopposed because I'll more than make up for it when I attack" strategy is pretty good. But if you are going first and have already done all your attacking for the round, there is no reason not to oppose and slow your opponent down. Of course, there are things like Deadly and other effects that "kill a participating character" that you need to watch out for, but in general, if you have no opportunity to do something more with the standing character (and, of course, winning Dominance is a consideration, too), defend. A good example is that if you are going to lose a military challenge anyway and you know the character you'd kill is a dinky little guy with a military icon, there is no reason NOT to defend with it since it is going to die anyway. There is a real art to knowing when to defend and when not to, whether you can win or not, and it sounds like you both have gotten deeper into those questions than most newbies have at a similar level of experience.

In terms of Lannister against Stark, pound the intrigue challenge, lock down their big, important characters with all those kneel effects, make the most of the options all your "draw" effects give you and remember that with enough gold, you can "buy" Dominance each round (since each gold in your gold pool counts for 1 point during Dominance). The other strategy that is often good for Lannister against Stark is to try going first, then use your smaller characters to put them into that position of "do I defend or not." My little Lannister 2-STR guy doing a military attack may not have much of a chance to win, but the Stark player either has to kneel out 3-STR worth of characters (that won't be around to attack me) or let me win and kill something. Really experienced Lannister players have been known to back their opponents into "analysis paralysis" by putting so many options on the board that they think and over-think everything they do. (Kinda thematic, huh?)