I never got into 1st edition, but my friends were pretty big into it back in the day. Though I didn't play, the faction colors really bugged me. Green for Baratheon? Yellow for Lannister? No. So I'm thinking of giving 2nd edition a shot when it comes out later this year, and was delighted when I read the following blurb from the Nate French's letter...

"We decided that there was room in the game for more than 6 factions, and are expanding and adjusting the color pie accordingly ."

As we've already seen, card color for Tyrell and Baratheon will be green and yellow, repsectively. It looks like the Night's Watch will be black. Presumably Stark will be white or gray (I'd prefer the latter), and I'm guessing Greyjoy will be some shade of blue and Martell will be orange. That leaves the Targaryans. They were the culprits behind the messed up house colors in the first edition. Barateon had to be green because Lannisters were yellow, and Lannisters were yellow because Targaryans were red. I'm thinking they'll be the something else so that the Lannisters can properbly be red this time around.

So the question is, what color will they be? We'll find out eventually, but for now I'm guessing they'll be...tan? That's Essos enough, even if it doesn't fit a strictly Targaryan faction. So yeah, that's going to be my guess.

"Color Pie" refers not to graphic design colors but to the various abilities and specialties like Rush, Aggro, Control, Damage, Removal, Recursion, et cetera. So we can expect to probably see some realignments of which factions do what things. Maybe Lannister becomes the military aggro house, Baratheon gets kneel, Targ gets card draw, et cetera. Who knows?

But, since he said he was going back to the books to decide which abilities go to which houses, it's safe to assume Ned Stark will not repeatedly come back from the dead.

But, from what I remember of seeing the box back, Tyrell is green, Bara is yellow, Stark is a light grey, Greyjoy a dark blue, Nights Watch a dark grey. Lannister, Martell, Targaryen, are unknown.

The answer to my question came sooner than I expected. Targaryans card colors are black with a red text box and Night's Watch cards are black with a white text box.

Thanks for the clarification on the color pie, btw. I never realized it referred to mechanics.

I'm actually trying to think about the color designs myself, but mainly from a sleeving perspective. I like to sleeve all my decks with the color of their faction, and unfortunately the 8 factions here present a challenge:

Stark - White

Baratheon - Yellow

Lannister - Red or Yellow

Targaryen - Red or Black

Tyrell - Green

Greyjoy - Blue

Martell - Orange

Night's Watch - Black

So I either have two factions that want Black sleeves, or two that want Red sleeves, or two that want Yellow. Haven't figured out a solution yet.

Stark - White

Couldn't Lannister be gold (as opposed to yellow)?

Think I'd go with Targ art sleeves if I went that route; I was much more of a Targ player in 1E than Lanni, that'd probably stay the same in 2E.

I haven't used FFG's art sleeves. I mainly use Ultra Pro sleeves, though I did once buy some FFG plain sleeves (in black), which I found to be annoyingly a little bit too big, a bit too tall compared to the cards, it made shuffling and handling them difficult. (I've used those FFG sleeves mainly for stuff like agendas.) How's the fit on the art sleeves?

As near as i can figure the quality and material of FFG's art sleeves are identical to Legion's art sleeves. Meaning, a little big compared to Ultra-Pro and Dragon Shield, but better than Ultra-Pro penny sleeves which are positively baggy.

Though those card backs are smexy, I may invest in clear sleeves.