1. Can I have multiple cards with different abilities for one unique character in my deck? For example can I have the Robb Stark card found in the Core set as well as the Robb Stark card from the Lords of Winter expansion? In the Core set Robb is strength 2 and in Lords of Winter he is 3

2. If so can these cards be in play at the same time or would one be considered a duplicate even though they are different variations?

I assume that if they have the same name it would be a duplicate but just wanted to clarify

Also what about the Direwolves? Many of them are attachments in the Core set and Characters in Lords of Winter or vice versa... Can I have Summer in play as both an attachment and a character even though both are unique cards with the same name?

The card restrictions in a deck are by title. So to answer your question Yes, you can have different cards with the same title but with different abilities as long as you abide by the limit of 3 max per deck.

Just remember that the moment one of those cards comes into play, the others will become dupes and have their text boxes wiped (as long as they are unique cards).

As for your second post... I'm not exactly clear on how that would work. Maybe someone else can answer it a bit better.

You can only have one copy of a unique card in play at any one time. So while you can indeed have different versions in your deck (up to a maximum of 3 copies by title), whichever one you play first is the one you are limiting yourself to. You cannot, for example, play LoW-Robb, then swap him out for CS-Robb (unless LoW-Robb leaves play without going to the dead pile).

Because dupes are identified by title, not by card text or even card type, you can dupe any version of a unique card with any other version of the same unique card with the same title. This is true for different unique card titles with different card type versions. The attachment Grey Wind can dupe the character Grey Wind, and vice versa. Again, you cannot swap one version for another that is still in play, and it's not like duping character Grey Wind with the attachment version will give him the powers of the attachment, but the dupe rules don't care about card type.

ktom said:

Just to be clear.

So if I play a direwolf that's an attachment and I have the same named direwolf in my hand but it's a character, I can dup the attachment with with the character? But can't play the chararacter?

I'm new to this game, but I kinda wish you had a choice of either replacing versions of the character or have a dup. But I'm sure this has it's it's reasons and works out in gameplay just fine.

When it comes to deck building, you are most likely going to have copies of 1 of the 2 types only in the deck depending on ability you want to use in that game. If you don't care which one it is you get first, then having both is fine, but you probably want to remove the attachment from the deck if you would prefer to have the character instead.

Duplicates are there to protect your unique cards in play and the rule is in place to keep the powers of each copy from being in play at the same time, which I assume is because in combination can be too powerful.

Imagine having the CS and the KoS versions of Robert Baratheon out in play at the same time. Scary.

warpi9 said:

warpi9 said:

Situations like that are probably why the game rules say that once you play it, that's the version you are dealing with. After all, you can replace the versions by using a card effect to remove the first one from play (without sending it to the dead pile), then playing the second version. But I think a "free" exchange would be too easy to abuse.

ktom said:

I see. I haven't played a game yet, and like I said I'm sure there is a reason for not being able to swap out versions. You have pointed out that reason. Thanks