Robert Baratheon

By armored_butterfly, in 1. AGoT General Discussion

I am a relatively new player, so pardon me if this question has been addressed in the past.

While looking at the characters of the different factions for the first time, me and my friends were puzzled with one card, in regard to its flavor: Robert Baratheon. I mean, isn't he supposed to be king? He is in the book, and he wears a crown on the picture, and he has a king-related game text... so, is there any reason why he isn't?

From what I figured from the lcg environnement, so far, only Targayen have access to kings and queens, still, Robert's card surprised me...

Any long time player who can explain this to me? Any thoughts?

The Robert Baratheon card in the Core Set is basically an update of the one from the Ice and Fire set from back in 2003. They added the noble crest, but otherwise kept him as is (iirc, don't have the cards in ront of me). At that time, there were no King or Queen trait-ed characters in the game, so no King trait on the new version. It's the same reason Robb Stark doesn't have the King trait, or Cersei Lannister the Queen trait (though, in fairness, it would have been nice to have those traits -- maybe a bit powerful in the Legacy envirnoment, but not in the LCG one).

We may see a Robert card with the King trait in a future Chapter Pack, but right now the only ones that have the trait are the Kings and Queens from the old booster expansions of Five Kings Edition and Reign of Kings.

That particular version of Robert Baratheon is a reprint from a time before the "King" trait was introduced to the game. It is a little surprising that FFG did not update the card with the King trait for the Core Set (they did update it with the Noble crest, after all), but the fact that he's a reprint probably explains the trait. There was a version of Robert Baratheon that had the King trait in pre-LCG era card sets. There were Kings and Queens for everyone, in fact.

Currently, when you factor in all the Chapter Packs that were released both before and just after the Core Set, Targ has both a King and a Queen and both Stark and Baratheon have a Queen. And everyone has a King in the neutral Mance Rayder. But it is reasonable to assume that more are likely to be coming, we just don't know when.

My guess would be Kings' Landing Edition, as it is the first set designed w/o ITE and 5KE in mind.

I don't know. Depends, I think on if they kept what was supposed to be the developement cycle, even as the release cycle was pushed back. If so, then much of King's Landing may very well have been done before that infamous November decison.