Just picked up the game last week, played one Melee game.

Would there be any value in running mostly (5 or more) claim 2 plots? Really hammer home any advantage you get. Would the low gold / initiative / effects make this counter-productive? I thought with a deck like Lannister who don't struggle for gold you could hurt someone with kneeling and painful challenges.

Absolutely. High-claim plots have often been a backbone of Erick Butzlaff's decks, and he's considered by many (~including himself) to be the finest Thrones player on the planet (or in North America, at least, let's not anger the Europeans) currently. In the end, it depends on your deck type and playstyle how you balance Income, INI, Claim and effects in your plot deck.

Interesting. Will try it out when I design my first deck.

Further to that end... does the rule on the "Power of Arms" plot card (that you can have 2) supersede the general rule on page 24 that you may not duplicate plot cards? What about the same rule in tournaments? I read the 'golden rule' somewhere that rules on cards always supersede rules in the book, so I guess this is an example of that.

Joemanji said:

Absolutely.

Typically people run the following for 2 claim plots

Retaliation
Winds of Winter
Call to Arms
Fear of Winter
City of Spiders/Soldiers if you are running city plots.
Rise of the Kraken (If you are lucky enough to be playing GJ)

Fieras said:

You meant The Power of Arms, obviously.

I've seen most of the others in play, too. The "Mutual..." plots have an effect that only works in Melee, but I've seen at least Mutual Cause used in joust; it has slightly better INI than both TPoA and TWoW.

Siege of Riverrun has even better INI, and there's certain GJ and Stark decks that aren't hurt by the drawback too much, so it sees play out of those houses occasionally.

Respect of the Old Gods is a staple in Stark decks.

Regroup suffers from lower Gold than some of the others, but can be put to good use, especially when you rely on powerful events.

Feast or Famine has its versatility going for it. It seems to be used for the income modifying effect mostly, but sometimes the claim can be used to good effect.

It remains to be seen if Focused Offense, the first 3-claim plot in the LCG will be used with any regularity. Might be worth it to fool around with the Rookeries for this one.

Herding the Masses seems to be less used. It has crappy stats, and its effect can hurt you as well as help you, unless you build your deck around it somewhat - and frankly, who'd want that?

Ratatoskr said:

I've never heard him say that, but in any case, his three regional wins this year don't hurt that assertion.

Retaliation seems to be seeing a lot of play, especially in Melee. Siege of Riverrun is a staple, and if Heir to the Iron Throne decks catch on will be a nearly auto-include.

Personally, I don't think Focused Offense is going to see a lot of play for the moment, what with Burning on the Sand being such a prevalent card.

Shenanigans said:

Retaliation is an auto-include until it gets restricted. The plots for every decklist for me starts with Retaliation regardless of House or deck type. WoW is better than SoR if you are forced to choose between them unless you really need that little bit of extra initiative.