Hello and Welcome Back, Loyal A Game of Thrones Fans!
This week we lead off with an announcement: for those of you who didn't get a chance to make it out to our World Championships at Gen Con Indy 2010, you can now view the decklists of the Top 8 competitors in the Joust and the Final Table of the Melee by visiting our A Game of Thrones Support Page. Replay the great matches of Gen Con, or crib some ideas from the top players for your own deck!
Moving on, this week we will be taking a look at the next Chapter Pack in the Brotherhood Without Banners cycle of expansions, Rituals of R'hllor. While there will be a little something for every House in every Chapter Pack of Brotherhood Without Banners, each pack will also focus on a particular House. Rituals of R'hllor will expand on the Asshai trait for House Baratheon.
As we don't often spoil plot cards in these articles, we thought we'd give you a quick peek at Rituals of R'hllor's plot card, Many Powers Long Asleep. Technically this card isn't of House Baratheon - the right Greyjoy deck could do well with this plot card, too - but given the holiness of the Asshai, this plot card should fit right in.
From our developer Nate French: "This plot card is a focal point for Holy-based decks. It also allows you to build a deck around a key character like Melisandre. It is probably best to plan on playing it late but not last (rounds 4-6), so that you can bring your character back an additional time when the plots recycle. Baratheon has this tendency to start fast and fizzle late and this gives them some nice late game resilience." [ Thanks, Nate! ]
To round out today's spoiler, we present the aforementioned Holy-crest character that you are most likely to want to pull out of your dead pile. Of course, there are plenty of excellent Melisandres already, but this particular incarnation makes a pretty compelling argument for itself especially against renowned, infamous, or Brotherhood (with the agenda) decks. While your opponent has characters in play with power on them, Melisandre essentially has double renown during intrigue challenges, with the distinctly deadly bonus of being able to kill characters if she takes the last power on them.
This Melisandre is basically a massive handbrake for speedy renown decks so long as you can keep winning intrigue challenges. Of course, she doesn't have to go it alone and there are plenty of other Asshai with intrigue icons ready to back her up, with more to come as this expansion progresses, as well the ones coming very soon in Kings of the Storm.
So there you have it. We hope you've enjoyed this week's card spoilers and have plenty to discuss here and in the A Game of Thrones forums. Until next week!