Hello and Welcome Back, loyal A Game of Thrones LCG players!



This week's card spotlight takes a preview glimpse at a card from the upcoming A Sword in the Darkness chapter pack from the Defenders of the North expansion. We hope you've been enjoying the expansion so far and we think it will just keep getting better as it goes on. As an offering to help tip the scales of your opinion in that direction, we present this week's card of the week, Starfall.

To take a quick step back, House Martell was a relative latecomer to the A Game of Thrones Living Card Game, but with the release of Princes of the Sun and regular additions through the monthly chapter packs, it has been doing an admirable job of catching up with the rest of the Great Houses. Apart from its strong house-wide spread of Military and Intrigue icons, as well as some devious Events, House Martell also has its own peculiar tricks, like the Vengeful keyword and other effects that trigger off of losing challenges. As losing to win turns a lot of gaming thinking upside down, House Martell can be a difficult but stimulating house to play.

This week's card, Starfall from A Sword in the Darkness, has less to do with Martell's vengeance so much as it has to do with the "tribal" trait of House Dayne. All of the Houses have, to a greater or lesser extent, some sort of trait that effect enough cards that it makes a decent backbone for a deck. In a Stark deck that "tribal" trait would be House Tully, in a Greyjoy deck it would be Ironborn, etc. In the case of House Martell, the "backbone" trait is arguably House Dayne and as Defenders of the North progresses, more and more is being added to enhance that trait.

House Martell already has strong unique House Dayne characters like Ser Arthur Dayne (The Winds of Winter, F34) and Dark Star (Princes of the Sun, F4), but what really makes the trait work is the number of basic, useful, "infantry" types that get stronger because of their House Dayne trait like House Dayne Knight (Princes of the Sun, F11), House Dayne Skirmisher (Princes of the Sun, F13), and Starfall Bannerman (A Song of Summer, F13).

In the case of Starfall, House Dayne characters get a little stronger through successful challenges that they are involved in. Note that it does not say "as an attacker" or "as a defender"; neither does Starfall have to kneel in order for its effect to work. Yes, its response can only trigger once per challenge, meaning only one House Dayne character can benefit from it on each challenge, but if you won all of the challenges in a round as both attacker and defender, you could be looking at +6 STR to give out. Also, taking into consideration the fact that Starfall stacks with the ability of Knights of the Sun (A Song of Summer, F15), those knights could become enormous in no time.

Without giving too much away at this time, the "gold on characters"-theme presented here will be getting some more play in future packs. Starfall is one, but there are a few more cool cards coming along the same theme. To give a little bit of historical and design background from designer/developer Nate French: "[The] design philosophy for the House Dayne, gold on cards stuff was to replace the old school 'face down attachment' tech that was in House Martell with new effects that used gold tokens as counters on cards. ... I didn't like the idea of using face down cards as counters -- and clearing them out opened up the way for the Shadows mechanic." Thanks to Nate for that bit of insight into the process.

So that about wraps it up for this week's card(s) of the week. We hope you've enjoyed it and have lots to discuss here in the comments section or in the A Game of Thrones forums. Until next time!

Based on George R.R. Martin's bestselling fantasy epic, A Song of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones: The Card Game brings the beloved heroes, villains, locations, and events of the world of Westeros to life through innovative game mechanics and the highly strategic game play. The Living Card Game™ format allows players to customize their gaming experience with monthly Chapter Pack expansions to the core game.