I really want to start playing this game. So what do I need if I wanted to play it on a tournament level?

You might find this thread has some useful information about getting started with the game. I couldn't comment on tournament play though.

The organized play for AGoT has been spreading out to new places and growing stronger in old ones, but so far it's still more of a patchwork than one coherent whole. So the answer to your question really depends on what level the other players in your area (the ones that you would actually play in tournaments) are at in terms of card purchases.

Here are some previous threads I've posted in regarding card buying:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

I mostly play just with my playgroup and then "compare notes" with people on the internet about deck builds and card choices, but I don't think I have a good sense of what the minimum is that you can get by with and be competitive. Most of the cards are of roughly even power level, so you could put together a pretty well rounded deck with the Core Set and probably around 5-6 chapter packs. Looking at decks with good tournament success, you could build something close to winning Lannister decks with three copies of the Core Set plus 5-6 chapter packs.

schrecklich said:

Great post. Off the top of my head, the only exception to this rule would be if you plan to travel to attend various larger tournaments.

There are fewer large tournaments worth traveling to than 5 years ago, as the transition from CCG to LCG was a blow to organized play. That said, the momentum for larger tournaments appears to be returning, with the revival of local metas that struggled immediately after the transition. For example, the NYC meta hosts a couple larger tournaments each year (Kingsmoot and Black Friday) that pull in 15-20 players, several of whom are very competitive at the national scene. GenCon, where World's is held, also draws a strong contingent of competitive players. Most recently, FFG just announced support for a series of regionals, and I think most the competitive metas will shoot to have at least 10 people attend the tournament, with some getting closer to 20 people. (Because the LCG cardpool has improved a lot in the last year and will likely continue to do so in the next, I expect competitive play to return to what it was in CCG or even better, though this could take another year before that happens.)

If you want to compete with players at these tournaments, you probably need to have access to a wider array of cards, as most competitive players will have 3x of each card in the environment. (In the LCG environment, it's *MUCH* easier to collect 3x of a card, which is a playset in this game, so most competitive players have 3x of each...even of the bad cards.) One thing to note is that people are generally pretty friendly and willing to share cards, so you may be able to show up to a tournament with an incomplete deck and fill in the holes with borrowed cards, so long as you let people know in advance so that they can bring said cards along.

If you want to minimize how much you spend up front (that is, not just going out and buying at least 1 of each chapter pack), you'll have to figure out the formats and types of decks you want to play. If you plan to play joust (1v1) and not much melee (multiplayer), your decklist will look quite a bit different than if you focus more on melee and less on joust. Also, certain houses are geared more towards control, while others have more aggressive builds. If you prefer one type over another, than you can focus on those houses, thereby reducing the amount of cards you buy. (While each chapter pack contains cards for each house, not all chapter packs are equally useful for every house. One might be great for Lannister, while another might have better Targaryen cards. You can target your spending on the packs that help your house/playstyle the most.) In addition, within houses there is some flexibility. For example, the King's Landing cycle (6 chapter packs) that just finished introduced the "shadows" mechanic. The cycle before that introduced "seasons." Though these mechanics are not mutually exclusive, it is typically easier to focus on one mechanic over another (otherwise your deck may do too many things, but none of them well.) Here's an example of what I might buy to build a competitive Lannister deck (arguably the most competitive house at the moment)...

Lannister Kneel (control)

• 3x Core Set for basic Lanni cards/characters/locations (Enemy Informer, Lannisport Steward/Weaponsmith, Golden Tooth Mines, I'm You Writ Small, Insidious Ways, Distraction, etc.)
• 1x or 3x Battle of Ruby Ford chapter pack (for 3x Castellan of the Rock, which is a staple in this deck. I can't remember how many come in 1x pack though, so buy 1x or 3x depending on how many of those characters come in a pack.)
• 1-2x City of Secrets (for 1-2x Tyrion, and the Tunnels are good too if you play shadows. Tyrion is probably the best shadow character in the game, and it's nice to have duplicates, but if you're on a budget, 1x is likely sufficient.)
• 1x Secrets and Spies (for Qyburn, Varys, and possibly Littlefinger. 1x King's Landing location also comes in this pack, and if you plan to play a lot of shadows, it could be worth buying 2-3x of this pack just for those, but they're unnecessary draw if you're playing Lannister only, since Lanni has a ton of draw already.)
• ?x A time of Trials (for at least 2x Gold Cloaks and 1x Cersei Lannister. I can't remember how many Gold Cloaks come in that chapter pack, but I know there are 3x Street Waif, which is an amazing Targ card. If you're on a budget, you can get away with 1x or even none of these packs, though.)
• ?x Battle of Blackwater Bay (for 2-3x Alchemist's Guild Hall. Again, I can't remember how many come in this chapter pack, so you may need to buy 1x or 2-3x, depending.)

Of course, all of the sets/chapter packs above have cards for other houses, and some of those cards are very good. I highlighted Street Waif and King's Landing, both of which I like to play in Targ shadow decks. The above is just intended to give you an idea of how your preferred playstyle might affect your purchasing.

Hope this helps.

^^ Nice post. Just to add on.... You can go to this site to see how many of a card come in a particular chapter pack. Just to clarify a couple things Twn2dn mentioned, Castellan of the Rock, Gold Cloaks, and Alchemist's Guild Hall are all 3x in their packs, so getting everything outlined in his post is pretty close to what I was hinting at with my 5-6 packs plus 3x Core Set to make a pretty competitive Lannister deck (a totally optimized deck might take singletons from 6 or more other packs, but you could probably be fairly competitive substituting cards from the Core Set/chapter packs - you probably want to get Ancient Enemies for the Fury of the Lion plot, though - plots are harder to substitute than draw deck cards).

schrecklich said:

Haha, thanks for that link Schrech...I searched for the link to that site in the various threads for about 10 minutes before I gave up and just said "buy whatever comes out to 3x" of those cards. This link (and any others) should really be up on AGOT's wikipedia post. (In fact, I'm going to add it to my signature so that I personally don't have to track it down each time I need it )

I would like to thank everyone for there help. A friend and I are wanting to start up the game and we will be going to Minnesota to play Warhammer and would like to see if we like this more. I think I like the mechanics of this game alot more, but we will see.

cerebralcortex said:

I'll be up there for the Regionals too CC, hopefully we can meet up.