By Nate French

A Change of Seasons , the third chapter in the A Time of Ravens Chapter Pack series for the AGoT LCG should be hitting the shelves today. Featured in this release is one of the most innovative cards to ever grace the A Game of Thrones card game: Den of the Wolf.

Samuel Matthias Tham Tham won the 2007 AGoT World Championships at GenCon Indianapolis, and one part of his champion’s spoils was an invitation to take part in the World Champion “Design-A-Card” program that has become an AGoT tradition. Sam engaged the challenge with his usual passion for the game, and a desire to make the most original, engaging World Championship card of all time.

As you can see, Den of the Wolf is an open-ended card with some serious combo-potential. More often than not, you’ll probably want to use it to take advantage of a second challenge phase, but there may be some situations where forcing a second plot phase could drastically improve your possibilities for the round. Or perhaps you’ll find yourself in a situation where a second draw phase, or a second dominance phase could mean the difference between a win and a loss. And these possibilities are only considering the ways in which Den of the Wolf interacts with the core rules of the game, the card becomes even more interesting when you consider its interactions with other card abilities. “Limit once per phase” effects all just got a little more powerful, and cards like the Golden Tooth Mines, The Knight of Flowers, the event cards in the Epic Battles Chapter Pack, and the plot card Snowed Under all get a boost from doubling up on a key phase of the game... and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

It was a pleasure working with Sam on the design of the Den of the Wolf card, and our game is that much better for his efforts.

2008 AGoT World Champion Tzu-Mainn Chen has already submitted some wonderful ideas for his chapter of the World Championship “Design-A-Card” tradition. For your shot at designing an original card for the AGoT LCG, check out the World Championship Joust and Melee events at GenCon 2009.