Hi everyone, this is my first AGoT LCG, missed the first edition for Call of Cthulhu LCG, Netrunner, then Warhammer 40k annnd X-Wing. I totally fell in love with the 2nd ED AGoT video, ordered mine from eBay and now i'm pretty much swimming in cards with no idea how to build a good, proper, competitive deck lol.

As I read the cards, read some reviews in CardGamesDB.com, watched some youtube videos (from TeamCovenant). I summarized that I need to have these cards in all House decks that I make:

- 2 Little Fingers

- 3 The Kingsroad

- 3 The Roseroad

- 3 Milk of the Poppy

- X copies of Tears of Lys (depending on how many Intrigue characters in my deck)

- 3 Faction based character cost reducer

- 3 Faction based location cost reducer

Are these correct? Do I need 1 or 2 copies of Bodyguard too to help prevent the death of my high cost lord / lady characters?

I'm planning on making a Baratheon deck, splashed with Greyjoy for their stealth btw.

Thanks in advance guys!

2 Littlefinger seems to be a thing. Pretty much no reason not to get the six Roads in.

Milk of the Poppy is a control card. I don't know that I've ever had 3 in a deck, but very often 1 or 2. It depends on whether you have other means of character control/removal--sometimes the best way to blank a text box is to put it in the Dead Pile ;-)

Tears of Lys is a solid include if you have Intrigue.

Reducers are good.

If you did decide to start with this basic resource package as the core of your deck, you're probably not going to go far wrong.

Look at it this way:

You have just named approximately 20 cards.

Do you really think that all 8 factions - and all the Banner alliance combinations thereof - are so similar in theme, effects, mechanics and play style that 1/3 of each and every deck will always be the same?

The thing to notice is this:

- 3 The Kingsroad

- 3 The Roseroad

- 3 Faction based character cost reducer

- 3 Faction based location cost reducer

These are all cards that, through generating additional income or reducing the cost for you to play cards, help manage your cost curve. You have 12 cards here, 9 of which are limited (so you can only marshal 1 each round). Keeping in mind that your main source of income is your plot card, it may not be necessary to devote 20% of your deck to cards that do virtually nothing else than manage your gold. (One of the reasons the character cost reducer is probably a stronger "staple" than any of the locations to include in "every" deck is because it is not Limited and can do more than just reduce costs.)

Point is, before including these 12 cards in every deck you build, consider what you need them to do (i.e., make sure you have enough gold to pay for the things you want to buy when you want to buy them) and make sure you aren't generating so much income from other sources (plots, having relatively inexpensive cards to begin with, etc.) that they become redundant in your deck.

- 3 Milk of the Poppy

- X copies of Tears of Lys (depending on how many Intrigue characters in my deck)

These are control cards - and not necessarily the best control cards for your deck. For example, Milk of the Poppy stops an opponent's character from using its abilities, but it can still attack, defend, win dominance, etc. In a lot of ways, if your choice is between blanking the character with Milk of the Poppy, or killing it outright with some other effect, it might be better to kill it outright (or apply some other type of control that more fully neutralized the character). It all depends on what kind of control your deck prefers or needs help in. For example, since you are thinking of Baratheon, they have a lot of kneel effects. You might not want or need 3x Milk of the Poppy if the characters you would put it on tend to be knelt out by your kneel effects. There usually isn't a need to both blank AND kneel your opponent's characters (although, sometimes there are reasons for that).

Do I need 1 or 2 copies of Bodyguard too to help prevent the death of my high cost lord / lady characters?

Kinda depends. Are you losing so many Military challenges or having so many kill effects played on them that your duplicates aren't enough to protect them?

What the discussion really comes down to is the fact that the personalities of the Factions are different enough, and even the decks that can be built within a Faction are different enough, that there really isn't a "base" 20-odd cards that will fit all Factions and all decks. It is best to think about what your deck is supposed to do, and what you need it to do, and choose cards that fulfill as many of those needs as possible.

That's not to say that the 20-ish cards you have identified aren't good answers to the basic questions or problems that every deck must deal with. I'm just saying that if you start every deck with those 20 card, and consider them immutable inclusions that cannot be adjusted, you are ultimately going to be unhappy with your decks, miss a lot of the dynamic personalities of the factions and the game, or both.

Actually, one of the strongest builds right now seems to be Targaryen Banner of the Lion, leveraging Khal Drogo and Jaime Lannister together for natural synergy, and running Daenerys as 1x or 2x at most.

My build also runs 3x Tyrion Lannister for challenge-phase gold to pay for events like Dracarys and Put To The Sword, so I called it "Two and a Half Men".

One thing to notice about the Dragons is that they're quite moderately priced dupeable board presence even if Dany isn't around. Wildfire Assault is a problem as always, but you can put a lot of bodies on the table out of Targ.