I am curious which cards make people want to play various houses. I'm not talking about Refugees, which are solid but each house has their own variations. I mean cards that do something unique and powerful that make you choose that house over the others. I am pretty new to the game, so I would love to hear what other people value in each house. In my (limited) experience the best cards seem to be:

HOUSE STARK

Guilty!

Bear Island

Maester Luwin

The Blackfish

Guard at Riverrun

Nymeria

Forever Enduring

Respect of the Old Gods

Deadly Counterattack

HOUSE LANNISTER

I'm You Writ Small

Tyrion Lannister [Core]

Golden Tooth Mines

Grand Master Pycelle [Core]

Lannisport Brothel

Pyromancer's Cache

Castellan of the Rock

Enemy Informer

HOUSE BARATHEON

Lightbringer

Ser Parmen Crane

Ser Eldon Estermont

Salla's Escort Ship

The Iron Throne [TotH]

The Laughing Storm

HOUSE TARGARYEN

The Hatchlings' Feast

Field of Fire

Flame-Kissed

Forever Burning

King's Landing Assassin

Dragon Skull

Mad Kings' Legacy

Dragon Thief

The Dragonpit

Dragon Bite

Flaming Pitch-Tower

HOUSE GREYJOY

Longship 'Foamdrinker'

Longship Silence

Longship Iron Victory

Longship Black Wind

Balon Greyjoy [KotS]

The Iron Cliffs

HOUSE MARTELL

He Calls It Thinking

A Game of Cyvasse

The Prince's Plans

The Viper's Bannermen

Venemous Blade

Thoughts?

This is such an odd question to me. I like playing all houses, and I've never focused on a house because they have a particular card.

Saturnine said:

Oh, I do get it somewhat. There's cards that are so cool you just want to play with them. Apart from that, the above list doesn't seem to be limited to such cards, it looks a bit like a list of cards that Alexander deems to be "money cards" for their houses.

That said, interesting list. Mine would look considerably different. My fingers itch to comment on yours and offer mine, but I don't really have the time to write something up right now. Maybe later today.

Siege of Winterfell makes me want to make a Stark deck

@Saturnine: I think you misunderstand, I want to build decks from all the houses! I like to build "fun" decks and competitive decks. The point of this thread in particular is both to learn about the game, but also to help build better decks for each house. This is helpful for understanding the tournament scene, but also so that when a bunch of friends who come over and want to play but don't want to deckbuild, I can hand them a good deck and they're off to the races.

@Ratatoskr: I look forward to you finding time to scratch your itch! A different perspective is the one I want to see.

@Michaelius: Siege of Winterfell... Build a deck with a lot of Direwolves or good cost ratio armies, maybe a few Epic Battles and try to march your way to a violent victory, killing many of your opponent's characters?

Ratatoskr said:

My list would be pretty different too, but I think you should pick your House based on the House themes, not just a few cards. So if you like the idea of kneeling everything, play Lannister, if you want spot character control that gets around save effects, play Targ, etc. I'm not going to go through every House, but I'd say that my favorite Targ cards (not the strongest, but just fun to use) are Aegons Hill, Rhaenys Hill, Dragon Sight, Street Waif (this is really frustrating for your opponent), Dragon Lore + Balerion, To Be a Dragon, Kraznys mo Nakloz, and virtually anything with Ambush.