Hello guys,

I recently just started playing AGoT LCG and I am loving it so far. I've been playing with a group of four and all we have so far is the core pack and the greyjoy expansion. The few games I've played so far have been Lannister (me), Greyjoy, Stark, and Targaryan. I'm having a really hard time keeping up with all these hard military-hitting houses. Because I usually have the weaker military type characters (if any at all), they end up attacking me and winning undefended challenges and decimating all my characters. What's the best strategy for playing Lannister in a four person game?

Twoface said:

2face: Lanni core isn't easy to win in multiplayer (melee). They are more built for 1v1 (joust). The best I can say is concentrate on drawing cards and creating income. That combo should give you a strong board position. The 'plus' is that you don't have a ton of renown, so usually your opponents should be concentrating on the guy with the most power so maybe you can sneak in. However, with only one core set and one GJ one (I am assuming) you are behind the 8-ball since you can't use nuetrals to shore up your weaknesses.

~get more cards, or play Joust (on these boards, the ~ is sarcasm BTW).

I think your strategy in a four player game with the opponents you have described would be to focus on getting characters with the intrigue icon out and winning challenges to burn peoples hands. On the 3rd turn I would use the plot card valar morghulis and wipe the board, hopefully by this point you have burned some cards by people who seem to like attacking you.

Once you valar, try to play Tywin lannister and then focus on getting lots of gold and drawing lots of cards and build up.

Focus on trying to find ways to prevent/convince people not to attack you.

Consider the following:

• Get the redirect title, or force others to support your title.
• Play uneasy truce and muster the realm to limit military challenges.
• Play summoning season and building season etc and offer to let people search with you in exchange for not being attacked.
• Play people like Bronn and Neutral maester aemon as claim soak.
• Play loyalty money can buy to reduce opponents claim.
• Play with a lannister pays his debts and other "punishing" cards. As you play more games, people might stop attacking you in fear of these cards.
• Play Jaime lannister, who can defend military but not kneel. This removes their free unopposed.
• Play 3x cerseis attendants and threaten to kneel them out if they attack you
• Definitely run valar morghulis plot if you can get a hold of a copy.

Some of these will be more effective than others, but hopefully they give you some ideas. Melee isnt always about the deck, but also about the people and how they play. Try to show people how them attacking you isn't their best plan of action, and make deals.

edit: I just realized some of the cards I mentioned arent core set. Perhaps they will be part of the first few packs you buy.

Fieras said:

Thank all you guys very much for the advice! It seems like (and rightly so) playing Lannister is just as much about the person playing the deck, and the politics of the game, as the cards themselves. Overall I really like playing Lannister because of this, but I definitely think I'll need to invest in a few more packs/expansions if I want to get competitive. Speaking of which, which packs/expansions would you suggest buying for a budding Lannister player?

Also, I've been considering playing Martell as well because it seems they have a similar manipulative, backdoor approach to how they play the game. Is this true? And which would you suggest playing?

Refugees of War (for fugees), War of 5 kings (simply amazing for lanny), ancient enemies is decent.

After that, I'd get the new lannister expansion thats coming out soon.

As for martell, they are the best all-around house at the moment. They have been hit by restricted cards lately, but can still compete. Martell is REALLY good at having those "punishing" cards that make people NEVER want to attack you. From my experience, the difficulty in building a good martell deck, is to build one that can win (instead of building one that cant lose). Its easy to make a deck that always takes 2nd place. Building one that can win is where the strategy lies.

Twoface said:

As far as Lannister packs, the upcoming deluxe expansion looks pretty sweet so far. The entire King's Landing cycle will be nice (Lannister takes advantage of the Shadows mechanic well and gets some excellent cards in that cycle) and Battle of Ruby Ford is great also, featuring Devious Intentions and Castellan of the Rock, both staples in Lannister, even after the latter being added to the Restricted List (although Pyromancer's Cache, out of The War of the Five Kings, is probably more popular currently)

Martell is pretty manipulative as well, but focuses more on direct challenge control and stripping icons, usually via events.