Preamble:

I have a friend that started playing A Game of Thrones with me. He had never played a CCG before, so we stuck mainly to the Core Set decks. He's picking up the game nicely; he's already beaten me with Baratheon a couple of times. At one point, I threw in the Kings from Kings of the Sea into the decks for fun, but he got a little intimidated when Joffrey Baratheon started to accumulate gold, and his King was already in the discard pile. So we removed the Kings and returned to the Core Set decks.

I persuaded him to buy his own Core Set, which he has. Our games are getting more even now; last night, I managed a very narrow victory of 15-14 running Stark vs. Lannister. It went 7 rounds, and if it had gone an eighth round, he would have won.

His birthday is coming up, so I decided to get him a present that would ease him into deckbuilding and running tournament-legal decks. So I bought him the Winds of Winter + Song of Summer + Change of Seasons. I figure that it will give him the capacity to build both Summer and Winter decks, and if he ever decides to pick up some other chapter packs, he won't get stuck with a winter or summer card that he can't use because he doesn't have the ravens.

I also thought I would see if I could build some decks out of just the core set and those chapter packs. Since he likes Baratheon, I built a decklist for both a Winter and a Summer Baratheon deck, and also a Stark winter and a Targaryen summer deck. I'm going to post these here, each in a seperate thread. My experience in Game of Thrones is actually fairly limited, so if anyone had any advice or feedback on how to build these decks better (using just the materials I've listed), I would love to hear it.

Bara Summer Rush (61 cards total)

Agenda (1)
Kings of Summer x1

Locations (15)
Crossroads x3
Summer Port x3
Narrow Sea x2
Stormland Fiefdoms x2
Aegon’s Garden x2
Streets of Steel x1
Street of Sisters x1
King Robert’s Chambers x1

Characters (30)
Old Red Priest x1
Carrion Bird x3
Maester Cressen x1
Edric Storm x1
Devan Seaworth x1
Knight of the Rainwood x1
Renly's Courtier x1
Selyse Baratheon (core) x1
Renly Baratheon x1
Ser Davos Seaworth x1
Brienne of Tarth x1
Ser Axel Florent x1
Priestess of the Pyre x1
Summer's Champion x3
Knight of Flowers x1
Stannis Baratheon x1
Melisandre x1
Stannis's Northern Cavalry x1
Highgarden Honor Guard x1
Robert Baratheon x2
Ser Barristan Selmy x1
Ser Arthur Dayne x1
Littlefinger x1
Army of the Faithful x1
Host of Storm's End x1

Events (10)
Prosperity and Plenty x1
Distraction x1
Retreat x1
Support of the Kingdom x1
Seductive Promise x1
Distinct Mastery x2
Vigilant Stag x3

Attachments (5)
Black Raven x3
Bodyguard x1
Lightbringer x1

Plots (7)
The Power of Blood x1
A Time For Ravens x1
Counting Favors x1
A Song of Summer x1
Tourney for the Hand x1
Summoning Season x1
Mutual Cause x1

Strategy:

This is a Baratheon rush deck, fueled by Summer. You have 15 gold/discount locations 60% of which are 0-cost. With this, and with the additional draw provided by the “Kings of Summer” agenda, you should be able to get a large force marshaled in very short order. With the Vigilant Stag and Distinct Mastery events, you should be able to attack multiple times per round with your “Renown” characters. With Edric Storm, you have the chance of performing two power challenges in a single round.