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 Winter Defenders (61)

Agenda (1)
Kings of Winter

Characters (30)
Old Red Priest
Bastard of Robert
Selyse Baratheon (core)
Maester Cressen
Edric Storm
Devan Seaworth
Knight of the Rainwood
Renly's Courtier
House Tyrell Guard
Renly Baratheon
Ser Davos Seaworth
Brienne of Tarth
Ser Axel Florent
Robert Baratheon x2
Stannis Baratheon
Melisandre
Stannis's Northern Cavalry
Highgarden Honor Guard
Robert Baratheon
Shadow Stalker
Host of Storm's End
Army of the Faithful
Maester Aemon
Carrion Bird x3
Benjen Stark
Jon Snow
Ghost

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

Attachments (9)
White Raven x3
Burning Sword x3
Bodyguard x1
Lightbringer x1
War Horn x1

Events (6)
Support of the Kingdom x1
Distinct Mastery x2
Vigilant Stag x3

Plots (7)
The Power of Blood x1
A Time For Ravens x1
Counting Favors x1
The Winds of Winter x1
Building Season x1
Summoning Season x1
Noose and Swordpoint x1

Strategy:

This is a winter-based Bara deck. Its objective is to get “the Wall” location into play as quickly as possible, and to make it winter. The lower available resources will slow down the game, but with the added advantage of not having to kneel to defend, any opponent should have a difficult time winning challenges against the Baratheon. Ideally, in this deck, Baratheon will want to go second. Meanwhile, if you can get the Shadow Stalker into play, it will represent a grave threat for your opponent. With an intrigue icon and stealth, most houses will have a tough time defending against the stalker, and that will mean a repeatable, directed kill. If you can get Lightbringer attached to the Shadow Stalker, you’ll have your opponent on the ropes. Use the “War Horn” and “Support of the Kingdom” to further sap your opponent’s resources.