I think I understand what you're asking but if I'm mistaken hopefully you will correct me.

• Yes, it is entirely possible for two opponents to sit down across from one another playing the same faction--both players could be playing Stark. This has no impact on the game, they just play their decks as they normally would.
• Yes, it is also entirely possible for one opponent to be playing Tyrell, the other playing Lannister, and both of them running the agenda "Banner of the Wolf" and running Stark cards. Just as before, there is no effect.
• Your Unique cards don't impact my Unique cards in any way. We could both play our copies of Ned Stark and use them normally. If my copy of Ned got killed and was in my Dead Pile, it wouldn't affect your ability to play your copy of Ned.

You also have to keep in mind that card effects that would normally only haven an effect on your own Ned will not have an effect on your opponent's Ned. If there would be an event card in your deck that says "If you have Ned Stark in play, he gains +2 STR", only your Ned will gain that modifier, not your opponent's.

It's true that this concept kind of sucks in regards to story reality, but it has to be done this way so that you can show up with any faction you like at any tournament and still be able to compete, even if one of your opponents plays the same faction. Beside that, during a tournament, you're probably too busy trying to win to think about story.

If you find it too distracting, you can easily invent a house rule for your group of players, something like this: Immediately after ending a game, the winner chooses the faction he wants to play next time first, then the player with the second highest power score, and so on, with already taken factions not available to the players choosing next.

Ok, thanks for the information. It doesn't really bother me, I just wanted to know how the rules specify this situation.

I thought there would be something like each player has to have two decks (build of two different fractions). Flip a coin and the winner decides which fraction he will be playing, the loser must choose another one, even if his "Nr. 1" deck would be the same fraction; [this would make the whole buying too many core sets thing explode though]. Maybe we will run with this method in our little circle, as we're not going to be highly competitive. But I think there's a great chance that it's not even as annoying as it sounds right now, or that it doesn't even happen that often.

Another reason why someone would want to buy multiple Core Sets etc is to be able to have more decks buildt at the same time. I played during the CCG era and I always bought lots of cards. I always tended to have lots and lots of decks built to always try out various themes and to have fun with the game and that required me to have 10-15 copies of certain powerful cards since moving cards between decks is tedious and I don't like playing with duped cards. At one point I had something like 25 different decks built at once.

I'm coming back into the game now with ed2 and I expect I'll be buying quite a few cards once again.

Depends on the number of players. We are up to four, two of them with just one core set, so they'll have to use their Banner Agenda, which means that six different factions will participate in the melee. Chances of a double are rather large, it seems.

In general with any deck building game of this kind, the more cards you include in the deck, the less consistent it will be in terms of spitting out the cards you really want to see each game. A tighter, focused deck (in other words, the minimum) is better.

In general with any deck building game of this kind, the more cards you include in the deck, the less consistent it will be in terms of spitting out the cards you really want to see each game. A tighter, focused deck (in other words, the minimum) is better.

Ya, I the only reason to have more than 60 cards would be if milling became really good and popular in the local meta now that there is an instant defeat if the deck is gone.

Does anyone know if a single core set will actually support more than 2 players or will it be 2 players per core set due to plot card numbers or some other limitation?

This is answered on several other threads in various places:

There are not enough cards in the box to create more than one Tournament Legal deck at a time. So, ideally, this should be one Core Set per player. (More core sets will enhance customizability.)

There are tutorial build decks out of a single core set for both 2 player and 4 player games which are smaller than tournament standard. If you're happy playing the game on that level, no problem! Based on the parameters given, you should be able to mix it up a bit with different deck builds under those guidelines.

Edit:
There *are* 28 plot cards in the box, which is enough to give 4 players a full 7 plot cards, and this is surely deliberate. The real limitation is the overall card count:

x 28 Plot cards

x 20 Stark cards

x 20 Lannister cards

x 20 Baratheon cards

x 20 Greyjoy cards

x 20 Targaryen cards

x 20 Martell cards

x 20 Tyrell cards

x 20 Night’s Watch cards

x 31 Neutral cards

x 1 Fealty Agenda card

x 8 Faction/Agenda cards

x 6 Melee title cards

Ya, I the only reason to have more than 60 cards would be if milling became really good and popular in the local meta now that there is an instant defeat if the deck is gone.

Magic: The Gathering has long had milling as an alternative win condition (if you have to draw from an empty deck, you lose). It's never been competitive in all the years it's been around - I don't see how that would change in AGoT.

As someone that has never actually played GoT against a real opponent, I'm planning a Greyjoy deck and I'm intrigued by the plot card Naval Superiority (and to a lesser extent Heads on Spikes). Greyjoy seems like they benefit from having fewer characters on the board so that stealth can more easily lead to unopposed challenges.

With that in mind, would you ever play Naval Superiority first turn or is that just crazy? It has the potential to completely whiff, but a successful Naval Superiority can really lock down the board state and let Asha or Theon rack up the power and get unopposed kills. My theory is that people are likely to play plots like a Noble Cause, Reinforcements, or Taxation first turn (all of which would be cancelled by Naval Superiority), but I haven't played before to see if my theory is true at all. On the flip side, if it whiffs you are left with only 2 gold and no other benefit, which could screw your game pretty badly.

As someone that has never actually played GoT against a real opponent, I'm planning a Greyjoy deck and I'm intrigued by the plot card Naval Superiority (and to a lesser extent Heads on Spikes). Greyjoy seems like they benefit from having fewer characters on the board so that stealth can more easily lead to unopposed challenges.

With that in mind, would you ever play Naval Superiority first turn or is that just crazy? It has the potential to completely whiff, but a successful Naval Superiority can really lock down the board state and let Asha or Theon rack up the power and get unopposed kills. My theory is that people are likely to play plots like a Noble Cause, Reinforcements, or Taxation first turn (all of which would be cancelled by Naval Superiority), but I haven't played before to see if my theory is true at all.

It's not crazy at all. It will really depend on how both you and your opponent's board states look after having placed and revealed your setups. A well-timed Naval Superiority can lock down the opponent in any given round if they are starving for characters to be in play.

Does anyone know if a single core set will actually support more than 2 players or will it be 2 players per core set due to plot card numbers or some other limitation?

The short answer is, yes. A single Core set will support a 4-person game.

There are likely to be slightly modified deck-building rules in order to do it well (kind of like FFG has published modified deck-building rules for their Kingslayer tournament) and those "single Core" melee decks would not be viable in a "multiple Core" play environment, but you do NOT have to buy a bunch of Core sets in order to enjoy a game with 3 of your friends.

Ya, I the only reason to have more than 60 cards would be if milling became really good and popular in the local meta now that there is an instant defeat if the deck is gone.

Magic: The Gathering has long had milling as an alternative win condition (if you have to draw from an empty deck, you lose). It's never been competitive in all the years it's been around - I don't see how that would change in AGoT.

Yeah, I'm essentially new to the game with 2nd edition, so I may be totally off base, but it seems like most games will be well over before someone's deck could be milled. I'm wondering if pillage will be ramped up over time, or if it's mainly intended as a way to facilitate other effects, like the one on Euron (taking a location from opponent's discard pile) and hopefully discarding some of the other player's 1 copy uniques. That kind of thing.

Let's say that Mill ends up becoming some kind of a competitive deck focus. Perhaps there will be a number of decent cards that benefit off of your own discard pile, thus making Mill effects be more risky to use against opponents. Some card effects can be made to turn a discard pile into a gigantic hand for you to pick and choose cards from. There may even be cards that trigger FROM the discard pile, sort of like a pseudo Ambush or whatnot.

We will just need to see what a lot of the new cards are before really being worried about the direction of this game.

Ya, I the only reason to have more than 60 cards would be if milling became really good and popular in the local meta now that there is an instant defeat if the deck is gone.

Magic: The Gathering has long had milling as an alternative win condition (if you have to draw from an empty deck, you lose). It's never been competitive in all the years it's been around - I don't see how that would change in AGoT.

Yeah, I'm essentially new to the game with 2nd edition, so I may be totally off base, but it seems like most games will be well over before someone's deck could be milled. I'm wondering if pillage will be ramped up over time, or if it's mainly intended as a way to facilitate other effects, like the one on Euron (taking a location from opponent's discard pile) and hopefully discarding some of the other player's 1 copy uniques. That kind of thing.

Yes, with the current cardpool then there is certainly no way of milling your opponent before the game is over. For milling to be a viable strategy there would have to be a lot more powerful milling effects. I haven't played during LCG 1ed and people seem to say that milling wasn't viable there even with more cards to support it but way back in the CCG days a friend of mine had a deck that utilized Palace Gardens and a heap of influence that could put your entire deck as face down attachments on one of your characters in a matter of 3-4 turns.

I really really really hope milling is not a thing in and of itself. Milling as a way to power effects, sure. Milling as a way to accelerate the game clock, maybe. But just to grind the opponent's stack into tatters, no.

As of now you can legally have 8 cards with pillage on the table at the same time if you include "the tickler". Assume 4 cards hit the table during setup, that's 11 total pregame draw. If you assume 5 pillage effects per turn (accounts for standing for multiple challenges and the tickler) plus the 2 for card draw (with no help from opponent) that's 7 cards a turn gone. You would mill someone on 7th turn. If someone comes into the game with card draw of their own, you could knock that down to 6 or 5th turn. I think there will be easier victory conditions but it's doable out of greyjoy or even a deck with lots of stand capability.

Personally, I would love to see a mill deck in a competitive format. I am new and will be starting up in 2E, so I am not sure how possible that would be, but I feel like playing with that pressure you get from mill decks in other games like netrunner and magic is kind of exciting. I am most interested in House Baratheon. Does anyone have any guesses on possible Baratheon deck types based on what info is out there?

I'll throw this question in here since this seems to be the topic for new player question. Since I'm new to AGOT deck building, I'm wondering if there are any general guidelines for deck building in AGOT regarding ratios. Obviously, there will probably be many decks that don't follow these guidelines, but sometimes it's helpful to know the general practice before deviating from it. Specifically, I'm wondering:

1) What is a good rule of thumb for ratios between characters/attachments/events/locations? I assume a good chunk should be characters.

2) What is a good rule of thumb for copies of each character? I know that the new duplicate rules will probably change this a bit...

1) What is a good rule of thumb for ratios between characters/attachments/events/locations? I assume a good chunk should be characters.

It's really hard to know for 2.0 because there has been so little play experience at this point. Even in 1.0, all guidelines were amazingly fluid because cardtype doesn't necessarily tell you anything about what that card does. For example, there were locations and events that acted like characters, so you didn't necessarily need characters (or as many characters) to win challenges. Or there are characters that increase income and/or reduce costs, so you don't necessarily need locations to help boost and/or manage your cost curve. Further, character abilities run the entire gamut, so there are lots of characters that are used like events/attachments (i.e., for their effects) rather than as a means to attack/defend challenges. And this is even before you start getting into variations based on deck strategies, etc.

It's that fundamental lack of correspondence between cardtype and role in a deck that makes this question difficult to answer. However, I think most people would break it down this way:

- 50% means to attack/defend in challenges (usually characters)

- 20-25% means to boost/manage income/cost curve (mix of locations, characters and attachments; probably heavier on the locations). NOTE: Coming from other games, this might seem shockingly low. But remember that the primary means of income is your plot deck, not the cards in your draw deck. Depending on the plots you choose, you will always have some income.

- 10-15% "strategy support" - i.e., things that make it easier for you to win (mix of locations, attachments and events; probably heavier on locations and attachments)

- 10-20% control cards - i.e., things that make it harder for your opponent to win (mix of locations, attachments and events; probably heavier on events)

Very rough rules of thumb, and they will change drastically based on strategy and plots, but it's a place to start.

2) What is a good rule of thumb for copies of each character? I know that the new duplicate rules will probably change this a bit...

Again, this will completely change based on the role that character plays in your deck.

Usually, on non-unique characters, you're going to include 2-3 copies because you want to improve your chance to draw them, and they will be playable whenever you draw. The characters that fill utility slots and are easy to play will be 3 copies. The characters that are "interesting, but not essential" will be 2 copies, sometimes 1.

Unique characters need to be balanced between improving your chances to draw them and the fact that they are useless cards if you draw copies after another copy is killed.

- If the unique character is the center of your deck, 3 copies (draw is important, and dupes to help protect them; plus, if it dies, drawing useless copies will probably be the least of your concerns).

- If the unique character is important and particularly useful, to the point that the deck runs better if it is in play, but doesn't fall apart if it's not, 2 copies.

- If the unique character is great to have on the board, but not something you live or die by, 1 copy.

Thanks ktom! Very useful and exactly what I was looking for.