About a week ago I picked up the Core Set Box and we started playing last night (we loved it so much that one of my friends went out and bought his own Core Set Box). The one thing we've noticed, though, is that out of the original decklists the Baratheon house has won every four player game (4, so far). The deck is ridiculously overpowered if left alone - and unless the other players gang up on him (sometimes impossible) they really explode after a couple of turns. Has anyone else noticed this? The other three decks seem balanced within themselves, but add Baratheon into the mix and they always take the cake.

Another thing we're curious about is each of our four player games are taking somewhere in the range of 2 hours plus. We feel we have a well enough grasp on the rules now, but it's still taking this long. Is that normal?

At competitions, they usually give you about 1.5 hours to play melee games, so 2 hours isn't out of the ordinary. To be honest, the addition of new cards (more powerful ones) is what tends to speed up the game; not necessarily people becoming more familiar with the game.

As for baratheon, thats what they do. If you don't worry about the bara player until they are close to winning, you've waited too long. They are the house you need to focus on beating down earlier in the matchup, because they are always a threat to explode for a win.