Perhaps this belongs in the metagame subgroup of threads, but I wanted to put it here (since I rarely check the metagame section).

So my question is, how is your meta (playgroup) doing? Is it growing in numbers? Shrinking in numbers? Are you a new meta or a returning player?

As for the Valar Midwest Meta (SW Missouri), we have a core group of 6-7 regular players, plus another 4-6 more casual players. We also hope to be meeting a new player or two from Arkansas here in the upcoming weeks. I'm waiting for the store to order to the recent league kit so we can enjoy it. Overall, I feel our numbers are about the same as last year, except some of the players who were new last year have become part of the core group.

I'm pretty new to the NYC (Manhattan) meta, but it seems to be doing fairly well. There's a mix of old and new players. I'm thinking we might grow the meta a bit faster though if we had more regular play nights (they seem to be a bit ad hoc at about one every 2-4 weeks), but that would probably also mean that turnout on any given play night would be lower. I credit Letsgored with nearly all of the results that the NYC meta has had. His hard work has kept things running - both in terms of larger tourneys and smaller weekday play nights. Honestly, it's tough for one person to do all the work.

When I left DC, the meta there seemed to be growing in large part because of Finite's work. Actually, if you look back three years, there was really only one AGOT player there (me), so considering now that the DC meta has a core group of 4-6 competitive players and then extras (+2-3) that show up on any given night, I think things are going fairly well. It's not a huge meta, but the players there are very involved in the game.

Overall, I find that it's somewhat difficult to grow metas because (1) AGOT is often less visible at brick-and-mortar shops (people aren't usually sitting around playing this game (unlike MTG), so it's harder to connect with other AGOT players), and (2) the people who play AGOT tend to be more mature and, thus, have other life commitments (family/work) that conflict.

Just to add to Twn2dn's good post about the NYC meta (and thanks for the kind words)...

If the stars align, I can see our meetups in NYC hitting about 12 people, but because of the challenges of any given night working for everyone (the "young ones" in our group are college/post-grad age, with ages ranging up from their to people in the forties, many married), a "good" turnout is usually around 6 (our last meetup had 8 I believe). That count includes some Long Island guys who frequently make the trek into Manhattan for the meetups they have dual meta citizenship. There are a couple more LIers who don't often come for meetups, but are apt to make it in for tournaments, so tourneys NY can deliver about 16 players.

Our meetup frequency tended to be about every other week perhaps a year or so ago, but turnout was uneven and the meetup frequency of once every 3 weeks or so seems to be modestly more manageable for folks. Certainly for me; it was just too tiring to argue with my wife for more nights to go to meetups.

We've had a couple new players the last year or so that have "stuck" and become regulars and another who recently seems to be heading that way. And we had one brand new player at our last meetup that I'm optomistic about real natural (experienced CCGer) and really pleasant guy, so I'm hoping he'll be back. We have, unfortunately, lost almost as many one time regulars over that span, although they may return as their absence is more about other demands on their time than a lack of continued interest in the game. Overall, I think the NYC meta (and from what I gather, the Long Island meta as well) is stronger today than it was in the last days of the CCG era.

I agree completely with what Twn2dn says about the difficulty of growing the meta. We don't play in a game store, so the "chance pickup" from someone seeing the game played is virtually nonexistent. These forums and our website do somewhat mitigate that as interested people have been able to find us, but something else has to first give them that spark of interest since they won't likely get it from happening on a game in progress like can happen at a game shop. And while I consider the maturity of the AGoT community one of the game's positives, it does mean the hurdle for entry is higher for such a would-be new player as they probably have a lot of things competing for their time.

I'm in Glasgow (UK) right now and as far as I can tell, there is no meta here. I know there are groups down south in England, but cost/time keep me in Scotland.

I am optimistic, however, as a few friends are at least interested in AGoT and find the game intriguing (though I haven't had the chance to teach any of them the game yet). Moreover, I've got a feeling that there may be an increase in interest and popularity in AGoT (both the books and the game) with the impending premiere of the HBO series.

I'm hopeful that this will help to drum up some interest and I can get a meta going up here.

Is this a "State of the Meta" address?

Currently in San Diego we have about 7 players with 4-5 showing up for weekly Thrones. Most of our players are new to the game, having picked it up a little less than 1 year ago, but were able to jump right in having had experience with other card games. I definitely hope we are still growing since Bronson is promoting the group with flyers and demos.

California is doing pretty well, but we certainly have room for growth. The only existing metas I know of are here in SD, up in the SF Bay Area (2 or 3 different metas around the bay), and up in Chico. They don't have the most activity on the boards, but they are fairly active metas. There have been sparks of interest in the LA area, but no news of tournies or any play groups coming out of that area.

And then there is this big void between the west coast and the midwest.... what's up with that?

Well, considering I live in a town of 5,500 in rural Nebraska...1.5 players is a pretty good meta

I was hoping to find people in Sioux Falls or especially Omaha - but no luck after a few bites I thought. Iowa City has some players, so that would be the closest (and a GREAT store), but haven't made it back since I went with Luke last summer.

~Made it down to Springfield Missouri as well, but they don't have any real talent down there. A bunch of hacks.

I live right outside Oslo, Norway, and me and about 5 friends started playing it half a year ago. I mostly provide the cards for our playgroup, with one other guy owning his own cards. Everyone that have tried the game have liked it a lot, and I think the only thing keeping most of them from buying cards for themselves is the fear of not having enough people to play with. 2 more have just started getting their own card collection (one guy bought basically everything, all chapter packs, 3 cores, all deluxe expansions, after having tried the game twice. The other one is just waiting for his paycheck We also have a few people borrowing a preconstructed deck and playing casually every now and then.

We're trying to nudge our FLGS (friendly local game store) into carrying the game, and we're considering plopping down at a table next to all the MTG'ers and play a game and see what happens. On that note, anyone tried anything like that, to get more people interested, outside just a circle of friends and acquaintances?

swear we've done this before.

We have about 8 regulars. we've had about 8 regulars with about 3 different groups (of the group that i started with only 2 others of those are left). We've had others bounce in and out. its pretty fluid, and we've been at 2 stores.

rings said:

Matt...is that 0.5 player Jesse? He's always been 0.5 of a player!

mathlete said:

Yes, since although he gets the chapter packs, he only really plays decks I have built for him. Using that logic, though, I am probably 0.5 players since I can put decks together, but I usually play them like crap.

Not everyone can be the full-package like the Mathlete!

Our meta is still pretty much the same group as last year, though two regular observers have since become regular players. We're ramping up some demo and bring-back events with the upcoming premiere of the HBO series. Two of the regulars have moved away, but still come up occasionally and play, so we've maintained the same size of 8 regulars.

I think my meta is officially dead. It consists of me and Bloodycelt, and while we're both pretty competent players (in my opinion - shut-up Finitesquarewell ), being as good as we are actually makes it harder for others to want to join in. I may have one friend who would be able to join using only my cards, but otherwise she couldn't afford to play (I don't think she has a paying job - is just a volunteer). There's a very, very small chance I can get my wife to play as well - I'm working on it, anyway. She agreed to play against my decks to test them for tournaments and such, if I ever get to go to one again.

I'd like to talk to Bobby Fisher, err, Tzu-mainn and see if I can get him back in, but it seems unlikely.

If there is anyone else in Boston, MA, let me know and I'll certainly share my cards and what not. Otherwise, my meta is OCTGN, and it's a really thriving meta there.

In the heart of the empire, so to speak - just down the road from FFG HQ - there seem to be a fair number of players on a weekly basis. What's strange, though, is the overall lack of promotion or hype about the game, even here. The locals are all plenty friendly, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of a) organized events or b) new player outreach.

It's bizarre, because just about every time I'm at the Event Center, I see people buying cards - so the audience is out there, yet unless you're determined to find things out by browsing the forums, you wouldn't have any idea there's any play going on. Not even a printed piece of paper saying "hey, play our awesome flagship game!" It's also weird because the game is an absolute winner: virtually every person I've showed it to thinks it's great, even people who wouldn't be caught dead playing Magic or the like.

I relocate for university away from home, but our Meta back home was growing rapidly (I think we had about 12 different people playing casually) with two stores hosting game nights every monday and wednesday in the summer (one night each). The problem was that 95% of people showing up were students so some of us (me) left for university, and those back home ran into the problem of courseload and aGoT. I do hope it picks back up in the summer again though. Over christmas we had 5 people out to our little tournament, I lose every game through the roundrobin but one guy left early so I filled his spot in the top 4 playdown to win two straight and take the title with less wins than losses 2-3 record FTW!

I think its harder to get into aGoT than most other card games like magic, so attracting new players is a little different. In magic you had the 15 dollar premade that two friends could purchase to get playing, its a little different here - you need a 40 dollar down payment.

Even compared to D&D, to get into it you had the free Game Days. You cant really market a card game in the same way, its a lot more costly to have free 40 card decks than it is to give a piece of paper. Premades would be a good way to get people into the game, but then again thats why we have the Core.

Mathias Fricot said:

I think the trouble is that people who buy the product don't make their way onto the forums or connect with players. On one hand, that definitely suggests that FFG has been successful at marketing this game to the casual gamer; on the other, it seems like a failure on the part of the community and/or organized play organizers. I don't mean to fault the leaders of various metas...I think they do a great job. But there is obviously something that we are all missing, whether it's the need for more advertising about play nights or ways to convince people to take the step from "casual player who plays at home" to "semi-casual player who meets up with a group of strangers."

In spain we have very healthy metas. The store tournaments in Marid usually reach 20-30 people and they are quite addict to the game. They orginize a tournament every weekend, and sometimes even two tournaments, one on saturday and the other on sunday. In Barcelona we are not so crazy and we don't play so often, but we also reach 15-20 players in our store tournaments. We also have player communities in many other cities and they are constantly growing. So we can not complain.

I have to agree with Twn2dn. Metas grow through aggressive marketing by the existing player base. In an environment where Magic dominates so pervasively, groups of AGoT players need to work extra hard to get the word out. Other websites, like Boardgamegeek, need to be taken advantage of and flyers should be posted in stores where players meet. Demo nights should be scheduled - not every get together should be advertised as a competition. FFG has, in fact, done a great job marketing the game to casual players, but there's plenty of room for growth in the tournament scene.

The NY/Long Island meta is doing fairly well, I think, although growth is slow. Given everything that AGoT has going for it, along with the other LCG's, I'm pretty sure the growth could be at least a little better if only the game were pushed a bit more aggressively our group.

matamagos said:

@JeffK: I agree that the NYC meta is generally in good health, but I also think that in a city where so many people live in such close proximity, it's surprising that the meta isn't 30+ strong. Apparently if this were Spain, we'd have ~70 players in our meta. So there's definitely room for growth

I personally think the key is the the player community and, of course, the books are very popular here. We have our own forum, which is quite strong, and we are not as competitive as magic players, for example. So we spend a really good time in tournaments, enjoying the game and not really playing to win. I come from Magic and other games, and I notice this is a big change.

In Barcelona we allow to play with photocopies or prints of cards to help new players begin their decks. We still orginize the tournaments by forum, so it's not systematic. Usually new players buy the core set and they get to the forums by chance, or they just see us playing in the store. Later they came to one of our tournaments and they integrate into the group.

If you need new players you can give some publicity to your store announcing this forums and one mail contact. Everytime they sell a core set they can give the publicity to the buyer. They are also interested in selling AGOT, so the community is helping the store and the store also helps the community yo get new players.

Being a relatively new player to GoT, I'm clueless about how the meta is here (Michigan). However, after a year or so of having stacks of cards sitting around with no one to play with, I just posted a message to a local gaming group (Yahoo) trying to find players and offered to teach interested people. We'll see what that stirs up.

Having come from a Magic background myself, the disparity in buzz and popularity between that game and AGoT (heck, all the FFG LCGs) has always surprised me, frankly.

Twn2dn said:

~Well, Spain has 20%+ unemployment right now as well, so a lot of people with time on their hands

Yeah, and we Spanish students don't study at all haha

@Rings: Ouch, but at least that's a pretty good silver lining.

@Matamagos: Great suggestions. The people I play with are fine about using proxies (printed copies, or even written ones) for casual, but I'm guessing that for anything beyond pure casual, players are expected to have the actual cards. Maybe we should experiment with that in our league though....

So, not to hijack this thread, but I thought it might be helpful to start a list of useful, tangible strategies for growing metas. Here's a few items, though I suppose not all are realistic for every meta.

• Play at a game store, or somewhere you'll get visibility with gamers.
• Play regularly, with a fixed schedule. (How important is this?)
• Have brick-and-mortar vendors relay info (word of mouth or fliers) about the local play group to purchasers of the game.
• Be flexible on the rules for new players (let them proxy cards)...not sure how important this is, but I imagine every bit counts.

What winning recruitment strategies am I missing?

The biggest success for our meta was doing demos at kingdom-con last year. If your area has a local con, can't hurt to introduce the game to other gamers that way. A lot of them know the books, so you've got a leg up already.