The FAQ and Tournament Rules for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game have been updated! Head to our support page now, or read on for details from lead developers Nate French and Damon Stone.

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game FAQ (low-res pdf, 1.2 MB)
A Game of Thrones: The Card Game FAQ (high-res pdf, 16.8 MB)
A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Tournament Rules (pdf, 1.1 MB)

Hello A Game of Thrones: The Card Game players!

Regionals season has come and gone, and we now find ourselves a short month away from the Gen Con World Championships. To set the stage for those tournaments, we have prepared FAQ 2.4 and updated the official Tourney Rules document.

The specific entries on this FAQ can be divided into two categories, the first of which is to clarify rules issues, and the second is to address metagame balance as it played out during the regional season.

Among the rules clarifications, the largest introduction is the entry that states that limits on card effects (such as “limit once per round”) still apply if the effect is canceled. We also looked into the confusion that was caused by playing multiple copies of cards like “Ahead of the Tide” and “Compelled by the King,” creating a situation in which all the cards of this event cycle perform in a similar manner.

As the ultimate battle approaches...

Regarding the metagame, we looked into the results of a competitive regional season in which many different Houses and builds performed very well, but we also saw a few tendencies that we wanted to address.

The biggest change here is the addition of Burning on the Sands to the restricted list. House Martell did perform very well in the regional events, and the idea behind this restriction was not to completely cut them down or even take away their best card, but rather to check their power, and place a restriction on the card that is most widely recognized as making them an unpleasant House to play against.

A couple items of errata were also introduced for metagame reasons, the first being the change on the Carrion Bird, so that it can only target printed Raven cards with its effect. Trait manipulation control, primarily coming out of House Lannister, was another major player this regional season, and while the Carrion Bird is an essential card in the Summer-Winter metagame, we did not want this cheap, efficient bird to be terrorizing the game from a completely different angle. And so we moved the card back to performing in the manner for which it was originally designed.

The plot card “At the Gates” was incredibly popular with Maester Luwin, making this an almost automatic opening move in a large number of games. By adding “in-House or neutral” to this card’s search effect, it can still be used to support a deck’s Maester theme or subtheme, but it won’t be the auto-play for Luwin (who turned out to be most useful in Lannister and Martell builds) it was this regional season, and it also allows us to continue to print interesting Maester characters to support a given House’s mechanics in the manner that Luwin supports the developing Stark “search the top X cards of your deck” mechanic.

Finally, we have updated the Tourney Rules document with the legal card pool for the Gen Con World Championships this August. Note that upcoming July releases are not a part of the legal card pool for the Gen Con Championships. This decision was made to ensure that all players participating in this tournament have ample time to acquire all legal cards, and to assimilate them into their Gen Con preparation. This will ensure a level and fair playing field at the World Championships.

Looking forward to seeing you all next month at Gen Con!

Nate French
Damon Stone

Fantasy Flight Games