First off, complete newbie here, haven't even played the game yet. I've been reading the rules and forums here and at boardgamegeek for a month. My set came earlier this week and all I've done is open it up and glance through the cards. There seems to be a conventional wisdom, after getting into the game a little, is to get a second core set as a second purchase. Why? Do I really want two (and three in some cases) of every card in the core set? Seems I'd want more variety. Please explain your position (if this is your postion) so a true know-nothing newbie can understand.

Thanks

If you plan to play casually with friends, then one Core Set will be enough. There's not a lot of room to customize decks, but then few games allow for much customization out of the box.

Once you get into the game a little more - casual or competitive - you may want to customize your decks, and the 7-card plot decks in particular. According to the rules, you can play with up to 3x of the same card in your draw deck, and 1x of each card (unless otherwise stated on the card) in your plot deck. Unfortunately, the Core Set doesn't have extras of cards, so if you want to run multiples of cards or move cards around among decks, you'll end up having some holes in the decks you take cards from, unless you have a second Core Set.

Although competitive players typically buy 3x of the Core Set so that they have play sets of each card, 2x Core Set is more than enough for casual play. You will be able to make your deck more consistent and flesh out mechanics that you like.

Thank you for your reply. I notice that the Plot cards all come with a house letter in front of their number. Are all plot cards house specific?

The Old Man said:

Well, now I'm going to have to really reveal my newbieness, is that true of other cards in the core set?

Yes, unless they say House X Only they can be played in any house. Keep in mind though that if the card's house doesn't match your house card you have to pay a 2 gold penalty to play it.

Thank you. I think I'd better get some games in this weekend before asking more questions.

Like Columboone more thing, how do you make errata corrections on the cards and rulebook? I just hate the thought of marking them up with a pen.

I think many players just remember them... there aren't really that many erratas. If you need to, print up the relative page from the FAQ and keep it close by while playing; you could also make a seperate list of the cards divided by House, then you know which ones you'll need to keep an eye on for any particular game.

The Old Man said:

BTW that should be, "Like Columbo one more thing..."

Skowza said:

Yea, well mine shoulda said "relevant" page, oh well.

Some other advantages of multiple core sets:

1) It's easier to learn what the cards do when you see the same ones multiple times per game. Adding more cards thru card packs or expansions will give more variety, but while learning this can slow things down as every single card will have to be read over by all players involved, where with multiple core sets you will see the same cards more frequently and learn what they do faster.

2) Multiple copies of the plot cards allows different decks to use the same plots.

3) Multiple core sets will keep all the included houses relatively balanced. Buying expansions or chapter packs may make one or more houses significantly stronger than the others. This can be fixed by buying chapter packs and expansions to boost the other houses, but the cost is a lot higher to do that, especially when you are learning the game.

Now if you are only supplying cards for yourself and all your other players in your groups are buying their own core set, and you each want to only play one or two houses, it is possible you could each buy a core set and split the cards up. In that case, buying expansions for the houses you like, followed by researching which chapter packs have the strongest cards for your house makes sense. But this is a more serious player scenario, and if you boost just your deck and your fellow players are still playing core set only then the game will quickly become unbalanced in your favor.

So especially if you are supplying all the cards for your group, playing with 2-3 core sets gives you a nice stand alone game without too much investment, keeps things balanced between houses, and makes cards easier to learn due to seeing them more frequently every game.

Core sets are $26.99 on Coolstuffinc.com and they have good prices on all the other sets too.

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Karazax how would you decide which cards should go to which decks with two core sets?

On a different note. I just discovered that attachments can be played on other players cardshow do you keep straight whose is whose card? Especially playing with 4 players. It seem the cards would really be getting mixed up.

Sorry one more thing, and perhaps this should be a new thread. How do you reconcile thematically when two or more players are playing the same house? Where is the theme when two different players have the same character? Part of the aopeal of this game is how well it brings out the themes in the book, but when you get into really building decks it seems the theme goes out the window.

I hear your point about when houses fight each other in a mirror match. While the game does mimic the source material (and quite well at times), it's still a game in the end. I don't like mirror matches myself, but they happen.

As far as how to tell what card belongs to who, you can each use different sleeves for your cards. That way, you know what belongs to who by the sleeve. If you don't use sleeves, then you just have to be judicious and make sure everyone has what they came with before you break for the session.

Well the first thing we need to know is are you providing cards for your whole group, or just buying for yourself, and other players are providing their own cards? I am going under the presumption that you are providing all the cards, which if that is not the case can change things.

When building with 2-3 core sets of your own and providing all the cards for your group, most of the cards that are in the house decks will probably stay that way, just with multiple copies of non-unique cards when you first start out. One core set does not give you enough cards to make an official tournament size deck, so you will be increasing the size of the decks up to 60 not including your house cards, plots or any agendas if you were playing with them. When deciding which cards to add, in general you will have one copy of unique cards unless they are really important to your strategy, and multiples of your best non-uniques. Neutral cards are good candidates for swapping from deck to deck to improve each decks abilities. Cards like Street of Steel, Street of Sisters and Shadowblack Lane can all be useful to have one copy in any deck with appropriate icons for example. With experience you will find that some of the cards in each deck are not that good, and should have all copies removed and replaced with multiples of better cards.

If you post some deck lists and explain your card limitations and the goal of making balanced decks for each house then people will help you out with more details, as it has been quite a while since I played with just the core sets.

Learning which cards should be taken out and added is part of the deck building process which is also helped by having multiple core sets, as you can really learn which cards you like and which ones don't seem to be helping you when you see the same cards multiple times each game. If you are providing the cards for everyone in your group, the most important thing is to keep the decks balanced so that no one feels they have no chance just because of the deck they were assigned. If you are designing all the decks, this often means you should offer to take last pick of the house decks each game, which gives you a strong sense of what cards you might want to change in the perceived weakest or least popular deck, or what might need to be toned down in whatever deck your group considers most powerful.

You may want to stick to just these 2-3 copies of the core set until your group really latches on to the game and/or someone offers to help pay for expansions. It can be pretty expensive to keep the houses balanced unless you buy lots of chapter packs and/or expansions at once when you are the one providing all the cards for your group.

When providing all the cards, how many people you have playing with you at once has a big effect on how you should go about your future purchases. With just 2-3 players you could go for the House Stark, House Baratheon and House Targaryen expansions and keep those houses in relative balance. With 4 players you might choose to wait for the 3 copy of each card version of the House Greyjoy expansion. You can also look at buying one of every chapter pack in a cycle and usually keep things relatively balanced, but this isn't always the case. There are some other threads with advice on what to purchase next, but if you are stuck purchasing all the cards I would recommend making sure your group loves the game before you get in too deep, and try to convince them to pitch in on the purchases once they want to expand the game. Also adding too many expansions and new cards too quickly can easily over whelm a casual group.