If you get one of your deck's key cards in your setup/first draw, but you have no way to protect him yet....play him, or hold him back (and why)?

It depends on what it is. If it's Blackfish, for example, then I'd probably hold it back. If it's Maester Luwin, though, and I have At the Gates as my first plot, I don't mind using that to grab a dupe and throw it on him. But normally, there should be a lot of things that factor into this.

Its a tough call. For example, in my Tully deck, I run 3 of the Blackfish. So, I can be a little more risky with him when he's in play. I run 2 LoW Robb Stark in my Direwolf deck for the same reason.

I think I'm too much of a gambler when it comes to protecting characters in play. No risk, no reward.

dh098017 said:

Are you scared of Valar I assume? Really I just play the key card. If they want to 1st turn Valar, hopefully your deck can punish him for doing that. Obviously if I have Roose Bolton (1X in my deck) or Robb Stark (3X in my deck) both in my hand, I woudl play Roose on the flop, but if I don't have a choice I don't mind 1st turn Valar's that much.

Placing a 4 gold card during setup is a gamble in itself, unless you have lots of 0 gold cards in your setup hand.

I spent the gold on core set Robert this week and it bit me in the ass.

My opponent playing Lannister opened with the plot which gives all characters -1 STR if they have no intrigue, then he played and knelt Illyn Payne on his marshalling - Robert dead.