I've been playing this game for about a year now, and until now have religiously stuck to the idea that characters should be 50% of the deck. Recently however, I've begun tinkering with this formula: increasing the amount of characters in Stark, and lowering the amount of characters in Martell.

Assuming that most people begin the deckbuilding process with roughly 50% characters, when do you find yourself varying from this formula? Is it more based on what house you're playing with, or the style of play, or the gold curve? And how often does everyone vary from the 50% ratio?

well that varies for each and every deck. most control decks can and do have less then half of the deck be characters. location heavey or shadow heavy (often control also) can also use less characters.

Also do you count things like seductive promise and the reins events as a character or an event?

its too fluid to have a hard and steady rule of thumb for (beyond first deck ever built).

I wasn't looking for any sort of rule of thumb.. just trends and ideas. I tend to count things like Seductive Promise, Reinforcements, and Khal Drogo as events, since they are vulnerable to an intrigue challenge. How low have you gone and how high have you gone in the LCG era?

I used to stick around 50% for most decks. Now that Valar is legal I find I go just a little above that quite often. I'm also playing 1 or 2 dupes now too, which I never did pre-Valar.

I think I also end up with more characters than I used to due to card draw being harder to come by and less searching options (not a complaint, just an observation). I always want a character in my hand, or to draw two cards in the draw phase and see a character. Especially late game.

Like Lars, I find I go more character heavy in non-control decks. Perhaps that is also because those decks traditionally have had less drawing power and focus more on board control rather than hand control. Non-control decks I try to keep at a tight 60 cards, and have only ever gone up to 35 characters. My control decks tend to be just under 65 cards these days, with about 32 characters, but I've gone as low as 25 in the past.

(~All references to the past are not meant to offend or exclude anyone, relive the past, promote my ways to fix what doesn't need fixing, or kill this thread in any way. Please forgive me if they are seen as such.)

I used to only run about 22 or 23 characters(in a sometimes 65 card deck). Now its seems that since I've been playing LCG that I've been running alot more characters. I don't think I've built an lcg deck with less than 30 characters. I'm usually a bit over that mark actually. Valar probably has alot to do with that, but it also seems that lack of draw or much recursion makes it a necessity. Also, I really wish winter storm would be reprinted. It'd go so well with that bara army that goes into play from discard or hand after you play a lord or lady!

Like everyone else all my LCG only decks have been more than 50% characters for exactly the same reasons, lack of consistent card draw mechanics, and Valar.

Even in control decks - I haven't run under 30 characters in a long, long time. back in the day, with Feigned Death and better dead pool recursion (and CBK) i would go as low as 20 at times - but those days are long gone. Now - with so little draw, its got to be about 50%.

My decks just seem to naturally come out to roughly 50%, but it's not something I'm conciously trying for. Really, what I'm watching more more closely when I build a deck are my numbers of events and attachments because setup is very important to me, and I don't want a ratio that gives me a particularly poor drop.