As I've said many times before, I'm new to this game. And I also tend to be the guy who introduces/teaches the game to others. I'm posting this in order to get some feedback and advice; but I also hope that it would be an inspiration to others. There probably have been other topics like this in the past, but I hope to spark a new conversation / discussion on decks that you can use to teach others about the game.

So I bought the core LCG set, and a couple of different chapters. At about the same time, I found a store that was selling starter decks of the Valyrian Edition (CCG) pretty cheaply, so I grabbed some of that as well. I went through the rules of both versions, and decided that if I was going to teach this game, I'll have to set the LCG "boardgame - cardgame hybrid" aside (big boxes of cards tend to scare my friends / relatives), and work with just the CCG first. I also realized that there are differences between the card layout, and the characters and themes of the LCG and CCG; but once we get to the point of playing the LCG, that may be a refreshing change.

Besides, one of the things I loved about CCGs was the deck-building aspect.

I discover that I got kinda lucky as the Valyrian Edition was when Influence and Agendas were introduced -- and those Agendas (Treaty, Twins, Night's Watch) allows me a bit more flexibility in my deck building. Looking at the cards that came as fixed in every Valyrian Edition (notably Eddard and Catelyn Stark, Renly and Stannis Baratheon, Cersei and Tyrion Lannister), I quickly realize that I can build up at least 3 of the 6 houses as decks with their "main characters" in-force. Having those main characters will be a good draw to my friends and relatives as they like medieval fantasy stories as well. (None of us have read Martin's novels ... but most likely the game will introduce them to it.) After I had gone to a local bookstore to grab Martin's first book, I promised that I'd try getting a Targaryen deck built as well.

I go to ebay and grab a couple of Valyrian Edition decks, and I also find someone who was selling the Valyrian boosters for sale. So now I have 4 starters and 18 boosters, all from the Valyrian Edition; and I've got 4 Draft packs coming, which should help me round out plot decks and basic resource locations. I start sorting through all of these cards, looking for themes that I can work into the 3-to-4 decks I had in mind.

My goal is to build four 60-card decks: Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Targaryen. As a sub-goal, I want to make sure that each of the 60-card decks can be pared down to a 40-card "quick-first-game" deck. My plan is to use the 40-card sub-deck to warm up the new players in an introductory game that only requires 10 victory points to win. Once the players understand the flow of the game, we'll graduate to the 60-card decks; and as all of them have an Agenda, it would be a 20-victory point game for everyone.

We'd stick with the 60-card Valyrian Edition teaching decks for a while, and if I find enough support, we'll graduate to the LCG. And once they're hooked, I hope that we'll be able to grab multiple copies and start building our own decks.

So far, I've ended up with these 4 deck/themes for the CCG decks. If you guys are interested, I'll post the decklists when I find some time.

-- House Stark, Treaty Agenda (w/ Greyjoy) --
A heavy military and power deck, with the Stark's War Room and Audience Chamber giving extra challenge "hits". Greyjoy's contribution is mostly through Warships -- Reserve Fleets and Marine Legions. Asha Greyjoy also gives some much needed "reknown" acceleration.

-- House Lannister, Treaty Agenda (w/ Martell) --
The deck focuses around stealth, thanks to Tyrion, Daggers, and Casterly Rock. Martell's contribution is to fill in the gaps that my Lannister collection has -- Septon of Dorne to cover other challenge types, the Greenblood to shore up Military "defense", and "cannon fodder" of Knight of Starfall and Paramour.

-- House Baratheon, The Twins Agenda --
I think of this as the Ren & Stimpy and the SuperFriends deck ... well, okay, Renly and Stannis ... and the "Super-Frey'nds". Renly and Old Red Priest play defense in the early game while the player builds up to having Stannis and a horde of beefed-up Young Walders and Host of the Twins. Rally to the True King is eventually used to get the "Super Frey'nds" participating in multiple challenges. And of course, reknown will eventually help win the game.

-- House Targaryen, Night's Watch Agenda --
Sadly, this deck still lacks focus. If I find a Drogon, it will probably mature to a more passable burn-down deck. As it is, the only unique Targaryen characters I have is Jhogo, and the Black and Green Hatchlings. As I had a good number of Young Rangers and Dolorous Edd, running the Night's Watch Agenda helped fill in the gaps. As it stands, I have a couple of Lannister's Hand's Solar to help burn down the opponent, and do some well-targeted "killing" with the Firemages and Eviscerate.

I'll probably be the one playing the "weak" Targaryen deck. The Stark and Baratheon decks will go to the players who like having an obvious strategy. While the Lannister deck will go to the player who would appreciate the "stealthiness" theme.

Your comments / feedback would be much appreciated.

I'm confused though, why deal with the ccg at all? I doubt you will find many people who still play it and not the LCG and the LCG seems more balanced from my experience. It seems like you are adding an unnecessary complication and then trying to find a way to make it less complicated. Just use the LCG core set and you have a perfect teaching platform with some pretty close matched decks.

Darksbane said:

Well, I agree with you in one specific sense: it is kinda complicated to go back to the CCG and try to build reasonably different decks.

However, I'm no longer wallowing in cash ...

... so I'm going to need to convince my friends that the LCG set(s) is worth buying into as a group.

And while I already have one copy of the LCG and a few of the chapter packs; I'm pretty certain my friends will want to customize their deck. We'll probably end up pooling our LCG collections and have each player "specialize" in a particular house...

... but before we get there, I'm going to need a way of hooking them into the game (and I'll be using the same hook to get other players outside my family and friends).

As strange as it may sound, getting that collection of 4 starters + 18 boosters of CCG cards was cheaper at that moment (at least it was cheaper than getting 2 more copies of the core set). Perhaps I managed to pick just the right expansion to do it, and there were sellers who had the items at clearance level prices.

These are the times when I wish the core set included some extra cards ... kinda like a "sidebar", to take a Magic the Gathering term. Have enough cards available for each of the core decks such that you can tweak it.

I like the fact that the LCG format means that I don't have to buy a random booster pack and hope I get what I want; it's just tough to get extra copies of an entire set given the current budget I'm working with.

Darksbane said:

Anyway ... set aside my approach for now. If you were to use the LCG core set (perhaps along with a couple other chapters, or one more copy of the LCG core) ... the question then becomes:

How would you alter the deck composition to make them "easier to use" for an Intro / Teaching game?

One of the reasons I took the CCG route is because I wanted each deck to present a consistent "theme" every time it is played. The LCG core set decks essentially only gave you one copy of each character which pretty much meant that every time you play a game, you won't be certain if Eddard and Catelyn (as an example) would show up. I chose to grab at least 3 starters of the Valyrian Edition CCG so I can maximize my chances at drawing "key cards" like Eddard and Catelyn (again, as an example).

Would you use the same deck-building concept in the LCG?

I think you are getting ahead of yourself. The Core set is great as a teaching set without modifications because they don't have too many themes or force you into a playstyle yet. The house themes are there but not stacked in the deck which is a good thing if you are demoing or teaching the game. If you don't think the core set is enough to get them hooked then what I would do is have some cards from chapter packs set aside to augment the core set decks existing themes. IE. Grab some Bara characters with Renown and noble helping cards, add Lanny characters that draw cards or go well with intrigue, more military and killing characters with Stark, and more strength reducing with Targ. That is basically the house themes (except for Lanny kneeling which I would avoid showing them... ever )

Thanks Darksbane. I might do that as well.

Your comments would be much appreciated on this 40-card deck.

Stark + treaty-Greyjoy

Storm of Swords

Clash of Kings

Counting Coppers

Even Handed Justice

Preemptive Strike

Ready as We'll Ever Be

Securing Support

Eddard Stark x3

Asha Greyjoy x3

Winterfell War Room x2

Whispering Wood Raiders x2

Marine Legion x3

Reserve Fleet x2

Thirst for Power x2

Tavern Bard x3

Catelyn Stark x2

Court Archivist x2

A Greyjoy's Ambition x1

A Stark's Duty x2

Appointing the Hand x1

The Only Game that Matters x1

Hostage Rescued x2

Kingsroad Farmstead x2

Kingsroad Inn x1

Kingsroad Keep x2

Northern Fiefdom x1

Iron Island Fiefdom x1

Crossroads x2

At a multiplayer game I played recently, I allowed it to start out slow. I built up the resource locations first and only had mostly Archivists and Bards out for the first two rounds. The other two players (Lannister and Baratheon) saw each other as threats and were focusing on each other. War Room came out unnoticed on Round 3, and then Eddard and Warships came out on Round 4 along with my Storm of Swords. I managed to eliminate much of one player's characters on that Round. In Round 5, Asha arrived and then it was just a matter of collecting power with renown.

Forgot to mention -- these are still the Valyrian Edition CCG decks that I was talking about earlier. I've yet to pull apart the core decks and see about adding some chapter cards into the LCG. So right now, I'm teaching using the CCG cards.

Here's the other two decks

Lannister + treaty-Martell (Stealth)

Game of Thrones

Clash of Kings

Blockade

Preemptive Strike

Ready as We'll Ever Be

Securing Support

Taxation

Tyrion Lannister x3

Dragonbone Hilt Dagger x3

Dornish Caravaneer x3

Gullible x1

Ser Jaime Lannister x2

Cersei Lannister x2

Elder Septon x2

Septon of Dorne x2

King's Men x3

The Greenblood x2

A Martell's Pride x1

Tyrion's Chain x1

A Lannister's Ruthlessness x3

An Enemy Disgraced x2

Kingsroad Farmstead x2

Kingsroad Inn x2

Kingsroad Keep x2

Crossroads x2

Wealth of the Rock x2

Baratheon + the Twins (Frey Big Armies)

Clash of Kings

Storm of Swords

Blockade

Preemptive Strike

Ready as We'll Ever Be

Calling in Favors

Counting Coppers

Stannis Baratheon x4

Renly Baratheon x4

Dragonstone Dungeons x2

Old Red Priest x3

A Baratheon's Charm x1

Rally to the True King x2

The Winning Side x4

Walder Frey x1

Toll Collector x1

Host of the Twins x5

Young Walder x3

Flame Reader x2

Crossroads x4

Kingsroad Farmstead x4

I've got a 4th deck built up now; and hopefully I'll get a chance to use it this weekend. It's drastically different from the other 3 decks since I don't really depend on the Targaryen unique characters. (I guess I managed to focus the other 3 decks around their "house characters" thanks to the starter having 2 house characters for Stark, Lannister, and Baratheon ... but none for the other 3 houses).

In fact, the star of this particular deck is a neutral clansman (well... clanswoman, really)

Here's what it looks like:

Targaryen + the Twins (Frey Big Armies)

Alliance
Wildfire Assault
Securing Support
Taxation
Blockade
Clash of Kings
Storm of Swords

Chella Daughter of Cheyk x3
The Hand's Solar x3
This is the "big combo" of the deck. The Hand's Solar pretty much nullifies the strength of everyone who kneels ... so just about all challenges will have reduced strength. Chella can stand back up, so she keeps her strength.

Bringer of Gifts x2
Firemage x3
Eviserate x3
Poisoned Wine x1
These are the other "combo" of the deck. Reduce opponent's strength, and kill them. It combines well with The Hand's Solar as well.

Defenders of Qarth x1
Kings Men x2
Host of the Twins x5
The Good Masters x3
Green Hatchling x1
Black Hatchling x1

Only Death Can Pay For Life x2
Eastern Fiefdoms x3
Crossroads x3
Recruiting Grounds x2
Recruiting Hall x2

The deck is army-heavy (I'd put in more Kings Men if I had them). But with the number of resource locations in there, I feel that the deck can come out on top after Wildfire Assault hits, which I would follow up with the Solar + Chella combo.