Hello and Welcome Back, Loyal A Game of Thrones Fans!

This week we continue our previews of the upcoming Secrets of Oldtown cycle, starting with the first Chapter Pack in the cycle, Gates of the Citadel. With a cycle like Secrets of Oldtown, it's hard to know where to start the previews. As you know, Secrets of Oldtown will bring the Maesters into the game with a vengeance. As such, it's tempting to begin and end our previews of Oldtown with the Maesters and leave it at that, but that would be doing the other neat cards that are coming out in this set a disservice. In addition to the Maesters becoming a powerful sub-theme in a lot of decks (or primary theme if, say, you're running a Neutral house card and the Maester agenda), certain themes of the Great Houses will be getting some attention as well.

In an effort to give the other neat stuff in Secrets of Oldtown some attention, we present this card from Gates of the Citadel that is representative of one of the non-Maester themes that will be developed throughout Secrets of Oldtown.

Actually, Widow's Watch is, in some ways, a twofer of an Oldtown card, in that it represents one of House Stark's developing themes - deck searching effects - but also works well with the overall Maester theme of the set. Widow's Watch is very handy for a deck whose strategy depends on a few unique cards*. Normally, you might pack your deck with redundant copies of unique cards so that in the course of the game you are more likely to draw them**. The best case scenario is that you draw your needed uniques early and then later on draw into the duplicates as cheap saves against death and discard. The worst case scenario is that you draw your uniques early (particularly characters), they are killed, and then you draw into their useless duplicates. With Widow's Watch in play, you get your unique card and its duplicate in one shot. Not only do you get your save against death and discard, your deck is also slightly smaller and less likely to give you a redundant card when you'd rather draw something else.

What is doubly cool about Widow's Watch is that you can kneel either it or a Learned character to activate the response. Widow's Watch is unique, so without any Learned () characters in play the effect is essentially limited to once per round. With Learned characters in play - and of course Secrets of Oldtown will introduce a few - you can activate this response multiple times, further slimming your deck and adding more saves to your unique cards. Don't forget: Widow's Watch's effect is not limited to the Marshalling phase. If you can bring unique cards into play from your hand outside of Marshalling, be sure to exploit Widow's Watch or a Learned character when you do it.

So there you have it, this week's new card spoiler and a new addition to the House Stark's arsenal of search cards. Hopefully we've given you plenty to discuss here in the comments and on the A Game of Thrones forums. Until next time!

* Almost to the point where you may consider playing this one out of House if you've got some unique cards that your deck absolutely depends on.
** And you don't want to give an advantage to your opponent by using Summoning Season or Building Season.