Hi all, I have played on and off for several years going back to the old ccg days and I am looking try to grow a community for the game at my store but i have some questions to help me figure the best way to go about this. If any of you can help me out with answers I would appreciate it greatly.

I am looking at starting an "escalation league" where each player takes a deck from the starter box and builds on it from there, at an identical pace.

1) Are the 4 decks in the core game approximately balanced or is one head and shoulders above (or below) the rest?

2) If a player wanted to play Greyjoy or Martell and bought the appropriate expansion are their decks going to be on par with the 4 from core or are they going to be better? (I assume they will be better)

3) Looking at what chapter packs to "escalate" into, the obvious idea is to get the most recent block and start at chapter 1 and move forward - will this make functional and fun decks? are there cards in earlier blocks that are more important and key to the game? Are those blocks still available?

4) Does my idea of everyone buying the same chapter pack each month make sense to keep the playing field even?

5) Is there a way to get more of the cards in the base game without buying multiple sets of it? Such as additional street of steel/whispers

6) What in the way of support does FF offer for Stores/TO's to encourage players? Obviously WotC sends out promo cards, Cryptozoic does the same as well as playmats and redeemable crafting supplies and badges - does FF have any kind of promo or item support that I can lure people into playing with?

Kaptain O said:

1) for the most part, are you talking about multiplayer or 1 on 1 though?

2) alittle better if for nothing else than having multiples of cards (assuming it is the revised greyjoy xpac at 3x each card)

3) The only problem with moving into the current cycle is that it has a focus on Maesters which isn't exactly super powerful yet. You might want to start with the first chapter pack cycle A Clash of Arms cycle as it has many nice cards which are good for all houses.

4) Sure

5) Not really, but Street of Steel does come 3x in the Lords of Winter large expansion.

6) Current OP Kit

I figure both Joust and Melee, the core game seems very geared toward the multiplayer aspects - do people mostly play one over the other or is it an even split?

Do you know if the Clash at Arms expansions are still available or do older sets go oop?

Would you suggest I handle anything differently in trying to kickstart a community at my store?

Kaptain O said:

Joust is played more generally but melee is extremely fun, I would just suggest taking out the multiplayer geared plots if playing joust though.

Kaptain O said:

They are all available here on FFG's store

Kaptain O said:

Sounds like you got a pretty good system going. Although you might want to make your first expansion a 2nd core set. It contains many cards you'd want more than 1 of and it allows new players to customize 60 card decks without having to figure out all new cards.