Hi there guys and gals, I been hiding in the shadows of this forum for a while since I bought the core set about two months ago, the game was a present for myself and the girlfriend both being fans of the series and of board games of any sort, we bought this as a bit of a difference neither having ever played a card game of this sort before. Since then we have bought the princes of the sand and kings of the sea boxes to add in the other houses, which we have both taken to, we have seen a natural split down the 6 houses with myself taking martell, baratheon and targ, and my misses enjoying playing the other 3 this works out since it gives us a range of play styles in our choice of houses.

However now I think we are ready to purchase some more cards to add to our fun, we plan on making tourny valid decks for our houses with these extra cards, not that we will have much chance to play in any I imagine but if we find people in our location then all the better. Now comes up the question of what to buy, I have told her she will have to buy another box of the core and kings of the sea to gather the extra income and reduction locations which will give us doubles of all the starter decks essentially since princes of th sand comes with duplicates already. We also like the look of the lords of winter and the upcoming kings of the storm boxs however have decided to hold off buying those until they are both availiable since then we wont unbalence one of her houses over mine. This leaves us the chapter packs and I am wondering since jumping into the brotherhood cycle seems a great plan this cycle seems very tempting with the triplicates of each card and the way that each pack features a different house as the star. However if we begin buying these new chapters and forget the previous will we be at a disadvantage to those players that do have such cycles? (if we find other players).

What I mean is since we will be missing out on such themes as shadows and seasons will we be lacking things such as devices to stop these themes from dominating the board, will it unbalence games if I do not purchase, if you say no that we will be able to compete just from the new boxes and cycles coming out then thats how we will proceed and hopefully save some money. However if you feel you need to persuade me to purchase the previous chapters then please go for it and I will decide if its worth the extra expense.

Cheers for the help in advance, Disciple.

I would highly recommend getting the older packs as well.

1) The older chapter packs have the "Fury" plots for each house. These are plots that have high gold (5), high initiative (7), and normal claim (1). They all have an ability that targets your opponent if they are using a certain house. These are plots everyone uses, because they are awesome plots. They come out of the "Clash of Arms" chapter pack cycle, more specifically "Ancient Enemies". The older cycles also have many characters that you won't get elsewhere. So for those unique characters that you want to use, you most likely will have to turn to the chapter packs to get him/her.

2) The seasons cycle can add new play strategies for you. For instance, Greyjoy has very good cards that benefit it being winter. Baratheon has some cards that benefit it being summer. Basically it can add some variety to your decks.

3) Shadows is still a very cool mechanic. It adds many control elements to the game, as well as opening more playing strategies. There is a lot more I could say about it, if I had time.

4) The Night's Watch and Wildling cards are all the rage right now. Wildlings are one of the more powerful decks right now, and Night's Watch one of the cooler themes. Again, they open quite a few new strategies for you.

All in all, I would suggest getting as much as you can, simply because it will open up the game more for you.

In my opinion you should just have fun. Don't worry about balance - if you made decision to expand your card pool, then your deckbuilding will become never ending story (in positive meaning). Don't worry before. If you notice that one of your deck loses 15:0 again and again, then think of something new. Besides, chapter packs usually have something interesting for each House. You don't have to buy everything immediately - go with your own pace and need.

If you want to know the game better and quicker at competitive level you can always use OCTGN (this way you learn new cards and current strategies pretty fast and you know what you want to buy next).

If you don't know already, there are some websites with card database - you can check what cards are in each pack/box before buying. One of them is in my signature.

Thank you both for your quick replys, Husemann you surgest a pack from the clash of arms cycle I was under the impression that these were not LCG but rather some sort of older type of cards (I thought I had read here or on BGG) So you say these cards are still usuable even with their blackoutline? if that is so yes those plots do sound very temping and some other cards from those packs will also intrigue my girlfriend especially bear island (hmm not sure I want her having that haha). Thank you for your quick run downon the other cycles of seasons and shadows however I was wondering can a player without any of those themes or charaters stand a chance against a player with shadow cards or cards working from seasons.

You say that Wildlings are some of the more used decks at the moment is that how alot of the cycles work with a new set coming out and decks being made from them so that you have to be more geared towards defending from those new cards over the old. What I mean is at tournys do you still see people playing with older themes such as seasons and being able to compete with these new type decks?

As to rogue thank you for your recomendation to that card database I recently found one on this forum and has been proving very useful looking at all the cards in each packs. However this OCTGN I have also heard mention a number of times reading posts here but have not really understood what it was presuming it to be a way to easily construct decks and see them layed out befor you on the screen, rather than fiddling with your cards themselves. But can you play with other players world wide on it as you would a face to face game? If so are the matches real time or are they play by email type affairs sorry I will look further into it myself aswell.

Cheers, Disciple.

Disciple said:

It depends on strategy, but you have chance to win without new cards. There are plenty old staple cards. BTW all cards in chapter packs are LCG.

Disciple said:

Yep.

With 2 copies of the Core set, 2 copies of Kings of the Sea, and 1 copy of Princes of the Sun, you have the resources to build functional 60-card decks out of each of the houses, and since you'll have x2 copy of every card, you've already got some deckbuilding potential.

My recommendation to you: just play.

I think buying the Brotherhood without Banners chapter packs will be a great way to add new elements to your play, to build on House tribal themes and even play with a neutral deck. You'll be able to build some really fun decks with just the core set (x2), kings of the sea (x2), and princes of the sun (x1), and the brotherhood chapters packs. This will give you more than enough to play with, and when you eventually snag Lords of the Winter, and Kings of the Storms, you'll have an abundance of options.

As for previous chapter packs, and the concern that you won't be able to play competitively with other players: don't try to fix it if you don't know it's broken.

If you find other players in your area, and they roll out seasonal or shadows or wildling or other tech, and you get beat, try to build a deck that will win with what you have. If you continue to fail, it might be time to start looking through one of the card databases to see what cards you want to pick up. But I wouldn't recommend pre-emptively buying 4 cycles of chapter packs against the concern that you might play at a disadvantage against potential other players. You've got some great cards already, and the brotherhood chapter packs will add even more. You've got everything you need to build fun, functional decks. Just go and play, and if you find yourself running into a card deficit somewhere down the road, worry about it then.

My two cents.

Thank you Eldil that sounds like some sound advice, I think I may follow that for the time being by jumping on board the cycle coming out at the moment and the purchasing of the already planned second copy of the core and kings of sea, then once kings of the storm comes around we should have a welth by then to play with. I do like your resoning against the seasons and shadows that I can't know how they will effect me so worry about that when I cross those themes.

Cheers, Disciple.

A third core set may even be worth while, as there are quite a few cards that can be useful in triplicate for each house. But over all I agree with the sentiment of adding slowly and focus on trying to keep your decks relatively balanced in their options with out worrying about what others might play (especially if you haven't found any others to play against!). Multiple core sets is definitely the easiest way to add a lot of cards and still keep the 4 core houses balanced. You can also take some of the neutral cards and add to Greyjoy to fill it out if you don't have multiple copies of Kings of the Sea, and the multiple copies of plots is nice so you can both play the same plots if you wish to. You might also want to look at some of the deck lists here for ideas on what cards you might be interested in if you are shooting for tournament level decks.

About 3 months ago I was in your same boat and I just decided to bite the bullet and buy one of each chapter pack. If you don't want to do that though I'd choose 1 of the 4 previous cycles and buy them up. Since there are alot of neutral cards in the Defenders of the North packs you might want to skip those for now. I would say that A Clash of Arms or A Time of Ravens cycles would be what I'd buy in your place. They both have some very nice cards for every house but their sub themes aren't overwhelming.

One other thing to consider is availabilty. I just tried to buy up every set of Call of Cthulhu and some of those packs are totally unavailable as far as I can tell (searched ebay, amazon, and about 10 online stores all out of stock). Mostly stuff from the first 4 or 5 Asylum packs. GoT doesn't seem to have that problem at the moment but It might be something to consider. Grabbing some of the older packs might be a good decision in case they get harder to find in the future.

I too was in the same place you were almost a year ago. After a month or two of magic collecting I had had enough. Then I heard about Warhammer invasion and then Game of Thrones as well, I was starting to re-read the books at the same time. So I was lucky enough to be able to trade in all of my magic cards and get some Game of Thrones stuff instead.

I initially got a core set and one chapter pack, Battle of Blackwater bay , it was the most recent one released. Then I started to get more. I so far have one of pretty much every chapter pack, missing 5 from Clash of Arms. Defenders of the North I have 2 of most as I was ordering in two of each. I initially got 1 Kings of the Sea and 1 Princes of the Sun, I ordered a 2nd kings of the sea on ebay last week to help me build a Greyjoy deck, my Martell cards are pretty much all being given to my friend whose last name is Martell, I only kept one of any of them for my binder. I now also have a 2nd core set which while I was hesitant on getting and only just got, has been proven to be good idea. Maybe even get a 3rd.

So while what you have is a very good start, you will want to get more, but unlike ccg's its much easier to pick and choose what you want. I do recommend the time of ravens set as the season mechanics is very good. I also recommend using http://agot.dbler.com/ as you can see the cards in each pack.

LoW is an amazing expansion and I really like it as it comes with two lists you can build with just LoW and Core set. I have built both decks and been tweaking them somewhat, they are brutal against each other. Kings of the Storm will have the same thing as I suspect will any future ones for Lannister and Targaryen.