What is it? The card shows a balanced starting stance meter, the player's guide shows a conservative dominant stance meter.

This is by no means an official ruling, but I'd go with the actual card (2 & 2). It makes sense with their rotating seasons concept, and how some of their cards are stronger conservative rather than reckless.

Also, unless noted in the errata, we usually stick with 'the card'.

The guide is supposedly printed with all errata from all expansions from SoF and before, so i would "THINK" the guide would be what you would go by.

well its what i would use in my game if the situation ever came up.

First, I urge you to look at the cards. Overall the abilities on Conservative and Reckless are somewhat different, but over 50% of them favor reckless (particularly in the case of Winter spells - which is all of them).

Secondly, consider that the WoM set has been out and errata'd for over 6 months, whereas the players guide is new and we're still cataloguing the majority of its problems, many of which are based on the cards.

Now use common sense.

While I think the new books definitely clarified and expanded some rules, I would not rely on their card-prints personally. It is of course your choice.