Draft events are a great way to get new people interested in playing a game. In fact I really want to try the game but i don't have a local play group.

The only way to draft out of a single core set would be to completely ignore standard deckbuilding rules. Moreover, the only way for two people to even play a game out of a single core set is to ignore standard deckbuilding rules.

By default, in AGOT, you first pick your deck's faction, one of the great Houses or the Night's Watch.

You may only include cards from that faction or are neutral in your deck. Additionally, you may play an Agenda, which is kind of like your ID ability in Netrunner. One suite of Agendas is the Banner option, where if you run Banner of the Stag you may include Baratheon cards on the assumption that they're allying with your main faction for political or strategic reasons.

However, many cards are "Loyal" and can't be imported under a Banner agenda.

For a single tournament legal deck out of one core set, you need to take all the cards of your primary faction, all the non-loyal cards out of a Banner faction, and almost all the Neutral cards in the box. This gives you a result with 1-2 cards of wiggle room, but not a whole lot of other meaningful decisions. There aren't enough cards in the box to repeat the process with two other factions.

For multiple people to play out of a single box, you have to ignore both minimum deck size and loyalty restrictions. Two people pick two different factions, divide up the Neutral cards, and again, the deck is essentially defined going into it.

To play with more than two people is basically not possible out of a single core set. If you were to try to get around this by waiving even faction considerations, the result would be a rainbow-warrior hodgepodge with no particular theme or synergy. A character that says "Kneel this card to reduce the cost of the next Stark character you play by 1" does you little good if you don't have many Stark characters, or if you did try and focus on Stark but Catelyn and Robb got hatedrafted away from you.

You really need to let go of this irrational attachment to the Draft format. It's a fun deckbuilding challenge but in an LCG, it is not a good way to start a collection or to circumvent the basic product purchases. One reason why drafting out of a single core set is so epically bad is because by design it's a mile wide and a centimeter deep. Literally the only cards in it which aren't 1-per-box are basic resources and a couple of Neutral characters, and there's still not enough of those to go around. People will be hamstringing themselves if they start drafting and trading away important components of the collection.

It's designed for each player to have their own. Preferably two, and probably three for serious competitive play.

I was reading the rule book and it lists 4 full decks that can be played from the cards included and outright tells you they ignore the deckbulding rules witch is pretty common for limited format play.

im thinking 4 players per core set means a $10 draft event. That's an option I'm very excited about.

1 minute ago, TylerTT said:

I was reading the rule book and it lists 4 full decks that can be played from the cards included and outright tells you they ignore the deckbulding rules witch is pretty common for limited format play.

Fairly certain only two of the four suggested decks can be built at any given time because of the content breakdown of the core set. They're just listed to give players ideas about deck building.

I read it again. All four decks can be made from one set to play a four player game.

Im looking againand I'm not sure they are 60 card decks. In fact I'm sure they can't be thanks to 192 draw deck cards in the core.

That means at best they are 48 card decks.

But I think this is still pretty good for a draft format.

It's a terrible idea. Each individual faction has two in-faction cost reducer characters and there is no guarantee you'll get enough of a particular faction to work with them, there are exactly four copies of The Roseroad and The Kingsroad, which normally you'd run two or three of each per deck.

All other cards except for a couple of Plots have exactly one copy per box. You're not going to be able to make any deck building decisions. All it basically does is divides up the box contents more or less randomly and expects people to shuffle up the resultant mess and play with it. The decks will be inefficient, brainless, inconsistent garbage. Whoever lucks into a bomb character and enough gold to marshal it is going to run away with games.

You'd be far better off evenly distributing the resource cards and then picking factions in turn and you get all included cards of those factions.

But then that's hardly a draft, is it? Bottom line, the core set was not designed for this and it's going to be a bad time. They actually sell Draft Packs for AGOT and that's going to be a much better time.

imagine this! a draft pool with 8 players and two starter sets! suddenly there are more copies of each card! what a leap of imagination that was.

or perhaps combine a starter set with a chapter pack or two! OH MY

Why don't you try it and report back?

I think I will try it out. there are a number of curious people in my area that want to try it out but would like to do so in a draft event.

but i have no experience with the game. i was hoping to leverage the experience and knowledge of the forum to find solutions to potential problems.

Currently it sounds like we need 8 players and at least two core sets for a modified anything goes draft format. I think a 10-15 dollar buy in is very affordable.

maybe each player uses a draft starter and pulls cards from the core set?

And they're going to have a hamstrung, lopsided collection for the rest of their tenure in the game, they'll eventually have to buy core sets separately, and they'll have you to thank for it.

Good job! Go nuts.

7 minutes ago, Grimwalker said:

And they're going to have a hamstrung, lopsided collection for the rest of their tenure in the game, they'll eventually have to buy core sets separately, and they'll have you to thank for it.

Good job! Go nuts.

It's clearly a bad decision, but I'm comfortable letting him make it. =)

14 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

maybe each player uses a draft starter and pulls cards from the core set?

That's how I would do it. Drives the cost up but for just trying the game one hopes it won't be too terrible.

7 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

It's clearly a bad decision, but I'm comfortable letting him make it. =)

It makes me sad, though. I love AGOT and Netrunner, and he's going to ruin some people's experience with the game.

They should do their draft, then put the core sets back together and buy product like normal people. They'll be better off than a couple of months down the road when Lannister or Targaryen comes out with a bomb card and they can't build a deck for it because they traded away big chunks of cards, then they realize that in order to play all that the game offers, they have to go back and buy what they missed, and now they're mad because it's more expensive than it had to be.

So few people actually own an entire expandable card game. It's an unnecessary waste and barrier to entry. But that's the only option with LCG's because everyone else is playing with a full set and splitting the products is very difficult.

The core set for AGOT looks almost like an ideal product model, very few "wasted" cards when buying multiple core sets to complete a set.

What drafting does is opens up the sub $40 price point to trying a game. as for a player's collection after drafting once or twice and buying a single core a player likely no longer needs three whole core sets to play the decks they want to play.

1 hour ago, TylerTT said:

I think I will try it out. there are a number of curious people in my area that want to try it out but would like to do so in a draft event.

but i have no experience with the game. i was hoping to leverage the experience and knowledge of the forum to find solutions to potential problems.

Currently it sounds like we need 8 players and at least two core sets for a modified anything goes draft format. I think a 10-15 dollar buy in is very affordable.

maybe each player uses a draft starter and pulls cards from the core set?

Hi Tyler. I would say that if you're thinking about using Draft Starters anyway, you should definitely have each person interested buy a Valyrian Draft Pack. A VDP retails for $15. Assuming each person buys their own DS (the DS is reusable) and VDP, that's a $20.00 buy in each. The biggest difference between splitting core sets and buying VDPs that no one has mentioned is that VDPs are algorithmically randomized. The core sets aren't. This means that theoretically, every player has an equal shot at good cards and ability to build a balanced deck. Splitting out core sets won't ensure that and you could end up with some very lopsided decks. There are also specific rules for a successful draft in this game. I have drafted before using the drafts sets and I can verify it's a good experience. I think your play group will be impressed.

Also, I recently learned the cards you walk away from a draft with can be used in constructed play if you decide to get into the game for real, assuming they're not "draft format only". Your percentage of these types of cards will be low, so it's not a bad deal for what you pay for.

That is a good option! If a play group gets established i'm sure it would make sense for my FLGS to stock draft products. I don't think they will stock them unless there is a play group that already really wants to draft. Even the draft starters are difficult to justify stocking for this purpose.

20 dollars is doable but the draft packs lack tokens, rulebooks, and other necessities to play.

Could one of you recommend a deluxe box or chapter pack that has some good basic economy cards we can throw into the pool?

3 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

That is a good option! If a play group gets established i'm sure it would make sense for my FLGS to stock draft products. I don't think they will stock them unless there is a play group that already really wants to draft. Even the draft starters are difficult to justify stocking for this purpose.

20 dollars is doable but the draft packs lack tokens, rulebooks, and other necessities to play.

Could one of you recommend a deluxe box or chapter pack that has some good basic economy cards we can throw into the pool?

Draft starters contain the necessary economy, house cards, and some plots, and they are reuseable between games. Tokens are frankly the least important part of the game experience, and you can just use pocket change, dice, or miscellaneous tokens to track gold and power.

8 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

That is a good option! If a play group gets established i'm sure it would make sense for my FLGS to stock draft products. I don't think they will stock them unless there is a play group that already really wants to draft. Even the draft starters are difficult to justify stocking for this purpose.

20 dollars is doable but the draft packs lack tokens, rulebooks, and other necessities to play.

Could one of you recommend a deluxe box or chapter pack that has some good basic economy cards we can throw into the pool?

Yeah, that is a limitation but you can basically use anything for the tokens. A role of pennies for the gold should cover it. Any kind of matching chit can be a victory point. If you have 8 players 113 is the absolute max you would need but almost certainly not that many. The next kind of thing is an all purpose marker for game effects. Once again, just a different type of chit from what you use for a VP. Last thing is a first player marker. That can be a meeple or whatever.

If you need tokens, I can send you a full set for shipping.