Hello everyone. For the last few years I have been playing Magic: The Gathering fairly heavily. I liked playing Type II Constructed, played a ton of FNMs, went to a regional competition, etc. But, the game has just become outrageously expensive, and I simply cannot justify spending the money that it takes to keep up with the new sets. So, I have come upon A Game of Thrones, and heard that LCGs are more fun, and more affordable than CCGs.

I know that the core set is approximately 40 dollars, depending on where I get it. After purchasing that I will most likely play with one other person at home, or possibly meet with a group of four on occassion to play.

My main question is: If I really enjoy this game, and decide that I would like to play it competitively, how cost intensive is it? Being a serious competitor at a Regionals tourney for MTG.....your deck will probably total at least a few hundred dollars.

How much do you have to spend to play this game well? Honestly.

To be 100% competitive* you will spend $30 a month in chapter packs. Also, you will spend around $90-$120 when a new Core Set or Expansion is released (there have been 2 releases in 1 year so far).

* You will have 3 copies of each card, which is the maximum you can use in a deck. You can be competitive enough without 3 copies of each, though.

Welcome!

I speak as a card games lover and as an AGOT crazy fan ;-)

Eloooooooi is right, but I'd add something...If you estabilish a local playgroup (and it's not impossible, believe me, with a game like this), you won't need to spend that money...

I build competitive decks (so to speak) and I buy just 1 copy of each CP (I bought 3x Core set at the beginning).

Then, I purchase single cards from other players/shops. I know that buying 3-4 singles you can reach a CP cost, but that's not completely true: if you need 3x of a card in a single CHAPTER that's right...But if you want 3-4 singles from different sets, I guess you can spend a reasonable amount of money and be competitive as you want, just getting singles.

Try to be selective, if you can, that's the meaning. ;-)

Another variable is: what kind of player are you? If you like to have multiple decks (like something happens to me ;-)), like "one deck per house", maybe you're going to waste lots of money for 9x unneeded stuff, but if you FOCUS on 2/3 houses, just purchase CPs you need, saving lots of money for extra singles/copies.

Hope this made sense.

For more questions, feel free to ask.

Ah...Enjoy this wonderful game.

However, there is one thing no one is mentioning:

When you "play competitively," what are you envisioning?

This game has not had a well developed and supported competitive play program for about 2 years now. About the only competition to be found is the competition of a local play group. There are very few tournaments above a local level, and even the Gencon events are very small (less than 24 this year). The LCG model promote a much more casual style of game play than what a hardcore CCG player would recognize as "competitive."

It's a great game, but the competitive environment looks much more like competitive board gaming than CCGs.

I am so envious of you DB. I would love to have players in my area. But I've talked to several stores and they will special order it for me but they've had nobody else ask for it. They are reluctant to get into if nobody's going to buy it but me. If I could only play once CCG/LCG in the world, it would be this one. But it is hard for me to justify buying into the LCG format (I just have a couple of hundred CCG versions) without having at least 3-5 more people who would buy, construct and play.

I have posted on these forums for any central Indiana players and gotten no response. Does anybody have any suggestions of other places to try and contact players?

Oh, sorry to derail this thread. But let me say the other people above are spot on about this game. There isn't a widespread national or even regional tourney scene, but it isn't because of the game's quality. It is top notch in every way and especially engaging if you're a fan of the books.

Ktom definitely has the right of this...there isn't much for competitions, at least not large tournaments, these days. I think this is in part because the game used to be CCG, and the transition to LCG was executed too abruptly so that many players lost enthusiasm in the game (and consequently organized play) when it happened. Another major reason is that FFG-supported organized play dropped off a couple years ago as well. (Unlike MTG, AGOT is more of a niche game, and large tourneys tend to rely on FFG support.)

That said, I'm hopeful that organized play may be developing, though it will take some time before it reaches the levels it was three years ago (assuming it can/does reach that.) The LCG cardpool has expanded greatly since the CCG-to-LCG transition was made, and the current "type II" AGOT equivalent is a lot of fun. In addition, FFG has hired (or will hire soon?...sorry I forget if this already happened) someone to oversee organized play. For a decent idea of what a current tournament might look like, see this post http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=785 .

Other than the lack of large-scale organized play, this is a great gamemuch more fun than MTG once you become familiar with the mechanics. (I think the plot phase makes this game very interesting, and the way resources works makes it much less likely that one would have resource issues.)

In terms of costs, I think a competitive player will want to have access to 3x most cards. (A playset in this game is 3 of a card.) As someone mentioned above, that may mean buying three chapter packs each month ($30/month). I think it's much more likely that you will want 1x of some chapter packs, 2x of most, and 3x of very fewat least, that's what I find. If you plan to play with a friend, you can also share cards to reduce the costs (just buy 2-3x each chapter pack between the two of you). This is what the DC meta doeswe tend to buy 3-5 of each chapter pack among 3+ people. Because we each have preferences for which houses (equivalent to MTG's various colors) we play, each person has playsets of the cards needed without spending more than $10 each per month.

rickert said:

Well, to be honest, the "thing" I called "meta" or playgroup is not that big...

A year ago I was in your same situation, so I understand you perfectly...But I'm very patient and day by day I began to love the game and demonstrate it everytime I got the chance...Now, I suggest you to purchase one copy of the Core Set and see it like a Boardgame.

Just find a couple of board/card casual gamers and TRY it, if you can do this.

Then, if you'll fall in love with it and if you have enough willpower and time to do some demonstrations, just use the shop as a "weapon", so to say.

It depends on how much you're going to like the game.

I used to play CoC before and I tried to do it for about a year...But when I realized that I had to do 300/400 KM to play and that it was not my game, for some reasons, I stopped.

The AGOT LCG has great chances to be demonstrated to both board and card gamers without problems and believe me: there are people here that are going to play it and those people are just board/war gamers.

Just try, if you can/want and see. After that, it won't be a great damage if you spent just 30/40 bucks. ;-)

eloooooooi said:

@divinityofnumber: this game is very affordable (just one chapter pack release per month). Above expansions mentioned are just House Greyjoy and Martell "starters" and you shouldn't expect 2 expansions per year in the future.

I don't have my sights set on a large playgroup, but if I had 4-5 other players I'd be very happy. I've played in big tournaments against a lot of people I didn't know and while they are enjoyable from a "making new friends" aspect, they aren't that enjoyable from an anxiety aspect for me personally.

This is the only one of FFG's LCGs I would get into without a gaming group already in place for the game. That's because I love the books.

I also should point out that I already know I love the game. I've played it since it came out. I was at the first GenCon at its release and worked the FFG booth doing demos for 4 days. It is probably the best 4 days working at a convention I've ever had. But I lost many of my cards in a basement flood situation a few years ago and haven't yet bought into the game since its LCG conversion.

I would really like any tips from anyone about getting players interested but I'll post that in another thread.

Thank you for the encouragement. I really wish that FFG did something to encourage people to try the game like offer posters to stores to advertise an event, demos decks to use for the store and promo cards to give out to people who try and maybe who buy the game after the demo. But that concept has been shouted down elsewhere on these boards so I won't get on my soapbox here about it.

Thanks to everyone for all of the advice and information.

I watched the tutorial videos for the game, and it looks like a lot of fun.

One of the things that burned me out about MTG was drawing my opening hand, and knowing whether or not I could win. Or, seeing my opponent play their first land and knowing that it was a deck that mine has about 1% chance of beating. In Type II Constructed play (what FNMs and big tourneys mostly are) there is some room for creativity, but there is usually about 3 good decks. And, deck A always beats deck B, B always beats C, and C always beats A.

They also recently introduced "Mythic Rares." I think that there are about 8-20 Mythics per core set and expansion. So now, one in 8 packs has a Mythic Rare, instead of a "Regular Old Rare." So, in an entire booster box, you should get approximately 3-4 Mythic Rares. So, you can imagine how much a playset of a good Mythic can sell for.

If there is competitive play for AGoT, does it involve using your core set, and then whatever the most recent chapter pack is? Or to play good players do I need to buy three of every chapter pack that has ever been released? Do playgroups set bounds like "Core Set and Chapter Packs X and Y only." Or is competitive play typically just " max of 3 of any card ever released" type thing?

divinityofnumber said:

A buddy of mine had a card shop that I worked at for a summer in between jobs a few years ago. MTG was the biggest seller, and I temporarily got into the game a bit and played a lot of Type 2 and Type 1.5. (Both had high costs of entry, but the former was a real money sink.) Opening boxes just for the Ravnica-block dual lands was a real pain, and I'm guessing that's what the mythic rares are kinda like.

FFG hasn't announced a rotation policy for LCG format (that I know of ), so everything Core Set + LCG is fair game, and a typical deck uses a mixture of Core Set and newer LCG cards, as you mentioned. In practice, as with any game, how much of each set you need really depends on what you want your deck to do, but the Core Set provides a lot of the base resource cards and some other decent cards that you're likely to want to include in most decks. In most cases, you'll probably want at least two of each card that was printed in the Core Set (and in a lot of cases three of each Core Set card is ideal). If you don't want to make the investment, you can easily build decks with just one of each card though.

@Twn2dn: Yes, the mythic rares are annoying, but actually not as annoying as the new lands that came out. There were new dual lands released in the new expansion that have never been used before, so they are running about 50 dollars for a playset, and there are 5 different types of those, and other rare lands in this new set also!

I am giving it up, and there are a few other people that I know who are also. In fact, the shop where I have played for the last couple of years, after last Friday, no longer has FNM because less and less people have been showing up for them. And, I believe that it is because the younger players cannot compete, so they don't have fun, and they quit coming. As an adult gamer, I always felt bad beating people just because I had more disposable income to spend on cards. It became less and less about creativity, and more and more about how much you had to spend. There are on occassion budget decks that do well, not all good decks are insanely expensive. But, to really compete, and be able to keep up with the ebb and flow of the game, you need to spend a lot of money.

So, I am going to get AGoT core set, learn to play at my kitchen table with a friend, and then maybe find some others to play with after I am comfortable that I know all of the rules well. A LCG seems like a lot more fun than MTG, which in my opinion has really gone downhill in the last year or so. After watching the tutorial, AGoT looks like a way better game. Like I said, MTG gets very predictable. when I sit down with my deck, I know which cards I have to draw to compete, and what I have to lay down each turn, and in what order, and what decks I can beat, and what decks I can't. Sometimes, I just felt like asking my opponent what deck they were using, and then just conceding, or letting them concede, and spend the 40 minutes talking about life instead of wasting it playing a game to which the outcome was basically predetermined.

Especially if you like the books, this game is the best.

I play MTG and AGoT. I think they're both great games. I'll give you some of my thoughts on comparing them.

To me, it seems like most of your problems with MTG have more to do with its popularity than with the game itself. Part of the reason people with more disposable income win at Magic is that it is a popular enough game to have a vibrant singles market driven by people willing to spend large amounts of $ on single pieces of cardboard. Also, there is enough data collected online about the best decks for a well defined metagame to form and drive up demand on a small subset of cards. This identification of the best decks is what takes the creativity out of deck building.

Personally, I don't really suffer any of those problems because I play MTG casually and often choose offbeat, undefined formats to play instead of the "solved" ones that are pushed by MTG's organized play program (you'll kind of be doing this by default with AGoT since there's not much organized play unless you can convert a bunch of those disgruntled FNMers to AGoT and build up a good playgroup which I think would be totally awesome). One of the nice things about MTG is that that vibrant singles market which inflates the price of a subset of rares also deflates the price of most commons and uncommons and the less popular rares, so you can cherry pick them for pretty cheap.

I play AGoT in a similar way I've only bought one of any chapter pack so far and probably won't change that. I keep a few decks built at the same time and usually loan one to a friend to play against me because so far I haven't managed to get more than one friend to go in on the game. I like the mostly undefined metagame. Also, the accessibility of the cards through the chapter packs is great (though as a casual player, it's not that much different from the accessibility of MTG singles). Still, I'd bet that if there were a more competitive meta for AGoT that even it as an LCG might be too expensive for me to be competitive if it meant buying a bunch of chapter packs and the core set 3X.

As someone who has read the books, I love the way AGoT plays and how well it matches the flavor of the books. MTG has some pretty sweet art and it's cool how they change settings every year, but the actual flavor behind the game always seemed kind of half baked to me (I *hate* the floating stuff in Zendikar. It seems like every setting the do a few goofy things just to make that set stand out more from the other ones). The MTG novels (a few of which I've read) are obviously laughable compared to ASOIAF. I want to mention though that in my experience the game play in AGoT is a more skill intensive than in MTG. This has its pluses and its minuses. It makes playing the game really rewarding when you play someone of equal skill but can be pretty frustrating for disparate skill sets since the better player will win a good bit more often than in MTG. Also, the plot deck, lack of a color system, and two card per turn draw make your deck play much more consistently, which is great in some ways, but might be annoying to you if you find MTG games to be predictable.

Indeed, I agree with your main points. I don't really have a problem with MTG, I do enjoy it, but perhaps am just a bit burnt out, and ready for something new. During the time that I played heavily, I always thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if this was like a set of baseball cards, and I could just spend 50 bucks for a box that had 4 of each card in it." That is the type of game I have been seeking. I think that MTG would be more fun if ALL players had easy access to ALL cards. It would foster greater creativity and competition. Watching the younger players spend 5 hours every Friday graciously accepting defeat from my and other players' 300 dollar decks (I got them for less by sitting on eBay 24/7, trading, and sinking money into packs, but they retailed for easily that much) was disheartening. I want to play a game where players have easier access to cards.

I am going to pick up the AGoT core set this Friday, and spend the weekend leisure time having fun learning to play. At some point in the future I may once again play MTG. It has potential to be very fun, and I have had countless good times playing it, but, like I mentioned, I am simply burnt out for a while. And for some reason, I don't have any fun playing MTG casually. The thrill of the big competition is fun, and FNM is fun, but playing around the kitchen table I have found to be pretty boring. I would much prefer a LCG to play with a small local group.

divinityofnumber said:

Well, Game of Thrones does have more interesting decisions while playing than Magic, largely due to the plot deck and the complexities of the challenge phase. Which also means that games often take longer, though things get going right from the first turn (because of 5-gold setup at the beginning, plot cards, and no summoning sickness).

One thing you should know is that the decks in the core set are designed mainly for multiplayer. You can play with two and it'll still be fun, but they're balanced for multiplayer and a few cards are just stupid with only two players. There aren't many cards like this in the chapter packs though.

What do you mean by "stupid." Do you mean stupid as in they make the game unfair and easy to win when only playing with 2 people? Or more that they have effects that don't seem relevant when you are playing against one other person?

Just some cards in the core set that are a lot worse with only two players, nothing that's overpowered with two. For example, there's one plot called Condemned by the Realm. You choose an opponent, and then both you and that player choose a character to kill. In two players, that pretty much means you both lose a good character. In multiplayer, it's a lot better and has some interesting politics with it.

Kzer-za said:

That wouldn't be that stupid. This plot is worse - you are killing your character.

But this shouldn't be treated as a flaw of Core Set. If you play a joust, then you can (you should) customize plot decks.

Haha, you're right...I got the card mixed up with Building Season and similar plots. You don't choose to kill a character, only the opponent does.

After my post above, I started thinking more about the comparisons between MTG and AGoT and tried to come up with the right analogies between MTG colors and AGoT houses. Here's what I think

Lannister: Blue/White lots of draw and "fair" control (things kind of like Pacifism).

Stark: Green/Black big guys and lots of character kill

Baratheon: White lots of knights and aggressively minded cards

Targaryen: Red/Black lots of burn and recursion

Martell: White/Blue I can't say too much about Martell because I've never played them (that will probably change once Princes of the Sun comes out). They seem to have a lot of reactive cards (if someone does something to you, do something worse back to them), which reminds me of white (the "fair" color) and blue (the "tricky" color) but I don't think Martell would feel like playing white/blue in MTG.

Greyjoy: Red with some blue/black this house doesn't translate very well. They have some resource denial and a subtheme of unopposed attacks which kind of reminds me of aggressive red creatures. They also have lots of saves which kind of remind me of black's reanimation in MTG. There's not much of a blue feel, but they are all sailors : )

By the way, divinity, where are you located?

I don't think you can really compare AGoT houses to Magic colors. The game plays too differently to translate it like that. Also, while houses have their strengths and weaknesses, their abilities aren't as strictly defined as in Magic.

Kzer-za said:

Hmm, well, I think the first four I listed are reasonably close.... The colors in Magic are not that restricted in abilities either. Obviously, the connections don't map one to one, but I think the connections I listed give a sense of the how it feels to play the house compared to playing the MTG colors and could be helpful for someone first coming to AGoT from MTG. Obviously the games play out quite differently though (though I'd say in recent years it seems like they've been trying to push MTG into being more of a board position/attrition war game like AGoT is).

schrecklich said:

Minneapolis, MN - USA

divinityofnumber said:

Cool, you might check out the metagame forum there are definitely other players in Minnesota who post here though I'm not sure if any of them are in Minneapolis (it seems like some are in Cambridge at least).