as I can't see any plot decks with 7 gold income at the start of the phase and I assume not all factions will run + gold cards, other than a set up phase with 8 gold worth to spend it does seem quite hard and prohibitively expensive to marshall a 7 gold cost character, anything I missed? I assume all gold tokens are returned at the end of each phase

"A noble cause" will reduce the cost of a lord/lady by 2 and provide 5 gold. The "Fealty" Agenda provites a one cost reduction for loyal cards, and "Kingsroad" is a 3 cost reduction. Plus the scattered +gold cards can help. 7 gold is expensive, but you get what you pay for.

so I guess being able to put a 7g char into play during set up is a scenario one must hope for

Why would you assume that all factions won't run +gold cards? In the beginning things like Roseroad will be the most common income cards in most decks I would assume. Kingsroad is an excellent card for bringing out expensive characters so there is no reason not to run 3 of them if you have a lot of expensive characters to play. Each fations also seems to have a 1g 1 STR weenie that lowers the next character played by 1 and those also tend to be staples especially with the limited card pool in the beginning.

I see no problems getting the big guys out.

so I guess being able to put a 7g char into play during set up is a scenario one must hope for

I would be pretty wary of putting my 7g character into play during set up. If the other player has Marched to the Wall in his plot deck you are going to be a sad puppy!

The received wisdom is that you want to set up as many cards as possible, because then you will draw more cards off your deck when the game begins. I don't see that changing under the new edition.

Played more than 10 games this week end and i had no problem to enter any "house champion" even without playing fealty agenda.

Noble cause was often used but not every time at all... Further I played most of my games a turbo Daenerys deck who must see and play Dany as soon as possible and there was no real problem to that. Of course i played 9 economy locations (2 neutral and 1 house reduction location) + the reduction peep of my faction (like winterfell steward) in all my decks. Kingsroad was crucial to enter at the right time those expensive peeps.

Of course, the REAL problem is more to ask oneself : is this efficient or powerful to play a 7 / 6 / 5 GC peep where, in most situations, you could have enter 2/3/4 peeps in his slot (in my games, the 2GC 2F double icones peeps of each faction were key characters).

for example in my early builds, i was playing drogo in X2 or X3 in my targaryens decks but now he is only X1 and i hesitated to remove him totally until the first cycle where targaryen will receive dothrakis support. No wrong with him, he is awesome but 6 is simply too much in most of my games where tears, put on the sword, dracarys, warm rain fly every turn !

I have too few games to be a real expert yet of course but 7/6 GC characters are most efficiently played as finishers after turn 4 most of the time. Once the table is well setup with lot of peeps able to absorb claim and more importantly once you have seen duplicates / bodyguard / anti event to ensure that your peep will survive the turn

Played more than 10 games this week end and i had no problem to enter any "house champion" even without playing fealty agenda.

are you still talking about 2nd edition?

Judging by the descriptions yeah, she is. Lucky!!!

With the rules out and virtually the entire box spoiled at this point, it is not at all difficult to construct and play proxy decks.

As khudz said in another post, octgn is nearly ready (and will be during gencon once the last spoils will be out) and i was lucky enought to beta test it So i'm was talking of V2 yes !

But if octgn was not at our disposal, my team would have play with proxys as givenon cardDB for example !

Looks like we'll be getting a 10/2/1 neutral plot in a coming chapter pack:

The when revealed effect must be nasty to get such stats (bearing in mind Marching Orders has a severe limitation for very close stats).