As a new player just getting into AGoT I was curious if there were certain Chapter Packs that everyone considers either must have or completely unnecessary. I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to games that I like just because I think they are cool but if a person didn't want to buy all of the available packs what are some that you wouldn't want to miss? Are there certain packs that have especially good cards or is it completely dependent on your style of play?

Sadly, it seems that every pack has at least one good playable card in it. And often times it's a single instead of 3x card in that pack. Here is a list of the items I have in my set, it might give you an idea as to what packs contain cards you'll want to have. I also like to build multiple decks and have them ready to go all the time without having to change cards in and out, hence the several copies of some.

A Clash of Arms
The War of Five Kings 1
Ancient Enemies 1
Sacred Bonds 3
Epic Battles 1
The Battle of Ruby Ford 1
Calling the Banners 1

A Time of Ravens
A Song of Summer 3
The Winds of Winter 2
A Change of Seasons 2
The Raven's Song 4
Refugees of War 1
Scattered Armies 3

King's Landing
City of Secrets 1
A Time of Trials 3
The Tower of the Hand 1
Tales from the Red Keep 1
Secrets and Spies 2
The Battle of Blackwater Bay 3

Defenders Block
Wolves of the North 1
Beyond the Wall 1
A Sword in the Darkness 0
The Wildling Horde 0
A King in the North 0
Return of the Others 0

Expansions/Core Set
Core Set 3
Kings of the Sea 3
Princes of the Sun 1.5
Lords of Winter 0

This kind of question gets asked quite often (though don't feel bad about asking it again - it's always a little bit difficult for me to find the old posts answering it with this forum's search feature and I responded to most of them).

Here are some previous threads:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Usually, people recommend Ancient Enemies (for the auto-include Fury plots), Refugees of War (refugees are useful in most decks), and Scattered Armies (reinforcements are useful in most decks), as well as the two box expansions (Martell and Greyjoy).

Beyond that...King's Landing Edition is pretty balanced across its six chapter packs in terms of useful cards (good cards like Condemned by the Council, Pyromancer's Apprentice, Street Waif, Venomous Blade, Syrio Forel, The Red Keep, Lost Oasis, Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, etc. are spread out throughout the packs). So far I have found a higher density of useful cards in King's Landing Edition than the other cycles and I have found Defenders of the North to be a bit lacking (maybe once the full cycle is out the bulk of the Night's Watch and Wildling cards will become more than just filler).

It's hard to give a general guideline for packs that you need multiples of - that gets into the personal decision of how willing you are to buy a bunch of redundant cards to get a handful of second and third copies of a few key cards. The packs that can be most easily picked up in multiples are A Song of Summer and The Winds of Winter because the plots can be good even outside of a seasons deck and almost every deck can make room for a few Carrion Birds (this is assuming you hate switching a chunk of cards between decks each time you want to play a different - if you don't mind that, you can probably get by with one of each). Beyond that, I think it's mostly personal choice. Certain cards (eg Condemned by the Council, KLE Varys, Syrio Forel, all of the reinforcements) are pretty nice to have in multiples.

The packs I have found most underwhelming are Calling the Banners and The Raven's Song (so much of the pack is rookeries...).

Good input guys. I appreciate you taking the time. I'm sure that sort of discussion has floated around the message boards since the game was introduced but it's always good to hear for inexperienced players like myself.