I'm growing more interested in this game and I'm planning on buying 2 cores with 2-3 of the House expansions. Which 2 houses are most balanced against each other for 2 person play? In other words, if I get Lords of Winter, and Kings of the Storm for example for Stark and Baratheon, would they play 50/50 against each other or is there a distinct advantage to one? I want to teach it to my friend, but don't want him to get discouraged by having a one-sided competition.

As a side question, which 2-3 of the House expansions do you recommend to start out with? I mentioned Stark and Baratheon but I'm not set on those yet. I was reading the thread for Martell, and they sound like fun too.

Sorry if this is in the wrong section of these forums.

There aren't any Martell cards in the Core set, and in the Martell box each card currently only comes 2x, so you may want to avoid playing them for now. Targ is notoriously hard to build, so it might not be best to start new players off there, and Greyjoy doesn't have great mechanics for Joust right now so you might be best off getting the Core and a copy of the Stark and Baratheon boxes. Stark imo may be the best house to start new players in - their "make M challenges and more M challenges" strategy is very straightforward. If you want some cards to support Lannister builds, I would recommend picking up the King's Landing CP cycle.