looking at buying this game but have a few questions.

The core set seems pretty balanced regardless of what hous you play. When buying expansions do you have to buy equally so that one house doesn't overpower all the others.

I'm looking to get this so I can play with different houses. I don't want to have to buy multiple expansions just so all houses are equal, are there expansions that provide cards for all house or is each expansion set for one house only?

Thanks

The "deluxe" expansions are house-themed, so "Lords of Winter" has a vast majority of Stark cards (with a few neutrals, some nice plots). "Princes of the Sun" is martell themed, along with a few neutrals and multi-affiliated characters.

However, chapter packs include cards for every house, although one house might get a better deal (or be better at exploiting the mechanics offered in that chapter pack).


If you're looking for what cards are available in which expansions, I suggest this list http://www.agotcards.org/card (you'll need to log in).

The core set gives you a starter for the four main houses: Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon. To play the other two houses, you'd need their respective expansions: Kings of the Sea for Greyjoy, Princes of the Sun for Martell. These both come in two versions - new reprints with 3x of every card, and the originals with 1x or 2x. - Get the new ones, MUCH better value for money.

As Istaril said, there are also deluxe expansions for the original four houses (or there will be once the Lannister box comes out, hopefully in the next month) If you're wanting to keep balance for now, probably best staying away from these.

Chapter packs come in cycles of six. Every chapter pack will generally have at least some cards for every house, plus some neutrals that could go anywhere, but obviously some house get better deals in some packs than others. To begin with, it might be worth picking a cycle, and getting a few packs from that, rather than one each from several cycles - often there are new traits or mechanics that come with a particular cycle, and aren't really viable until you've got several cards for them.

As said, look around at the lists of what's in each pack - cardgamedb.com does a similar job, without requiring a login, and work's with Internet Explorer. agot.dbler.com is also good, although not quite up-to-date.

Four of us at work bought the Core Set so we could play at lunch time. Each of us chose a house and played it consistently. They seem balanced - wins were split; until one of the guys bought the Targ expansion set and now things are off kilt a little. I'm getting the Bara set in the mail tomorrow and another guy is waiting for his Stark deck. The guy who plays Lannister well he's kind of out in the cold until the new one comes out. Hopefully he doesn't have to wait too long.

Lannister set should be out within 2 weeks

OK THANKS,

If you by the expansions from one particular cycle (not the deluxe expansions) do you have to customise the decks or do the extra cards just fit in nicely with original game regardless of what house you decide to play with?

Cheers

sorry, meant 'BUY', not by!!!

Well, you never "have" to customize the decks... but you should. Even the original core set decks are fairly poorly optimized; there are characters in there that only become very good with later mechanics, etc, and the plot decks are a bit of a mess. If you bought a full set, like "King's Landing", you'd find that many of the Stark cards, for instance, are greatly aided by "Winter" mechanics (from another chapter pack). If you bought "Brotherhood without Banners", you'd find a stark sub-theme (Bolton), which plays very differently from traditional stark and definitely requires you to build your deck around it. So as a general rule, I'd say that every chapter pack gives you more "options" on how to build your deck, but isn't necessarily a great choice to pad an existing core deck. The deluxe expansions (house themed) are less mechanic-specific.

If you want to start customizing decks without introducing too many new cards or mechanics, the best thing to do is buy a second Core set. Then you can have a little more flexibility; is it worth running 3 Robert Baratheons or stay with 2? Do I want a duplicate of "Cersei" , or is she not worth the bother. You essentially just take the parts of the deck you like best and focus on those, and dump the cards you don't like or don't use!