Hi all,

as a brand new player to any CCG or LCG I have to say that this forum and the users that contribute are a great resource for understanding the game. I have a few questions based on only owning the Core Set:

1. What is the purpose of Xaro Xoan Daxos? Why would I want to remove a card I have in play? What cards specifically(remember Core Set only) does his ability synergize with and why?

2. Daario Naharis. If he is in play why would anyone else keep their gold? Is he good enough that I should keep one gold per round?

3. What is the purpose of Infamy? What is an example of a situation where I would rather have influence on a character than on my house card?

that should be enough for now. Thanks in advance!

Egg said:

1. If your opponent puts a "mean" attachment on one of your cards (e.g. Motley, Stinking Drunk), you might want your card back. Also, at 3 cost for a tricon, Xaro could be viewed as very inexpensive, and returning one of your cards is part of his cost. You could avoid this by playing Xaro during setup.

2. Daario forces your opponent to change their gold strategy because of your card. Disruption decks love messing with their opponent, forcing them to change their strategy. He is also undercosted, a 3 STR tricon with deadly. Deadly is amazing on cards that have more than just a Military icon, because its another way of killing characters.

3. Infamy sometimes works with other cards that trigger off having power on your characters, but it also is a possible defense against a deck that uses power challenges to take power from your house. If you have no power on your house, there is nothing to steal. Of course, this is a dangerous strategy, because if the Infamy card dies or is stolen, you lose that power.

1) jm's answer covered it well. I'd just add that there are some cards that have a come into play effect that you might want to get off more then once and that targ has a theme in the chapter packs called ambush where you can play people at different times with influnece instead of gold and he lets you get these guys back into your hand if you want as well.

2) again jm's answer is fine. I'd just add that there might be times when an opponet can't play gold or all of his gold even if he might want to (he might not have enough gold cost in his hand). And yes Daario is worth trying to keep in play.

3) Infamy is rather unsupported in the core set and in the chapter packs at large. Most of the stuff that used it well or combo-ed with it was in the previous set. The only time i woudl use it would be against a bara deck that is going to want to do a lot of power challenges. And just to be clear infamy puts power, not influence on a character instead of your house card.

1. You also have to remember that returning a character to hand is something of a penalty on Xaro. 3-gold for a 3-STR character with all three icons is pretty cheap, even under-costed. So while there are some examples of making it work to your advantage (none of which are really in the Core Set), it is probably just as accurate to think of returning a character to your hand as part of the cost for playing him.

2. Same thing with Daario. The "upkeep" gold is as much penalty as anything else because he is a very useful, very cheap character. The fact that you can use your opponent's gold to pay the "cost" just deepens the decisions everyone has to make.

Guess this belong in the rules section, but I might as well belatedly join it to this thread:

ktom said:

What happens when he's being played during a Marshalling phase, and he's the first character being played by his owner?

Would his own passive effect apply to him and he effectively bounces back into his owner's hand (i.e. he cannot realistically be the first character played by his owner)? Or is he somehow either a) considered immune to his own effect, or b) not considered to be "controlled" by his owner at the point where his effect is resolved?

He is not immune to his own effect. He has to be in play in order for his effect to trigger. He effectively cannot be the first character you play with no one else in play if you want him to stay in play.

1. What is the purpose of Xaro Xoan Daxos? Why would I want to remove a card I have in play? What cards specifically(remember Core Set only) does his ability synergize with and why?

=> Xaro is great and the fact that he costs 3 gold for 3 strenght + 3 icons should convince you I play him in every Targaryen deck, his capacity never hurt me as I often have 0 gold characters (I play 3 Refugees + Brown Ben Pun so no drawback) or 1 gold characters (mainly Viserys of course, so very little drawback). Besides he goes along very well with Dragon Thief for example (discard an attachment when played) and Daenerys Chambers (bring back an attachment from your discard pile whan you play a character). Besides he is the perfect carrier of the Aegons' Blade

2. Daario Naharis. If he is in play why would anyone else keep their gold? Is he good enough that I should keep one gold per round?

=> Yes he is good enough to keep 1 gold, but he is at his best late game, when you and your opponent usually have more than enough gold to play your 2 cards in hand (well Lannister draw 5 but they have so much gold...). Besides he is really great with "To be a Dragon".

3. What is the purpose of Infamy? What is an example of a situation where I would rather have influence on a character than on my house card?

=> I don't play Lannister. Never saw a case in which it was really useful.

Power goes on cards with Infamy not influence.

As to the why... because if you have no power on your house they can't steal any power from you. If you put it on protected characters it becomes much harder for them to get rid of your power. IT is a dangerous game... one which is usually not worth playing against Stark, and Baratheon and Greyjoy Winter decks you should be careful.