Hello, I'm looking for other A Game of Thrones players in the area of Los Angeles or Torrance California. I was thinking if I could find enough local players I might try and set up a day to meet to play at 8 Ball, a local card/games store. Or if you folks already have a location where you meet, perhaps I can get some info on that?

Hey there! I know it's not real close to you, but several folks from LA and San Diego will be meeting at Pair-a-Dice games in Vista (North County San Diego) on Saturday, from about noon to 6pm. It'd be a great opportunity to meet other SoCal AGoT enthusiasts. If you can't make it, feel free to shoot us an email at agotsocal at gmail.com and we'll try and get you connected with some local players and also added to the facebook group. Lastly, keep an eye on the forum thread posted below for more events:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=21&efcid=4&efidt=18339&efpag=11

Hope to meet you soon!

James

Yeah, San Diego's a bit far. But i'll check out the forum n stuff. It'd be nice to actually get to play the game after spending all that money on it. Hehe.

I live close to you. I'm in the West L.A. area. I go to Torrance all the time and a, pretty sure that I know where 8-Ball is (on Anza next to the 7-11?). Shoot me an-e-mail at: [email protected]. I have some free time over the next few weeks and would be glad to get together and play.

John

Hey there,

I'm in Redondo Beach and could head over to Torrance. There is also a nice shop in Redondo Beach called the Comic Bug. Let's get together and play. I just got the game and I'm looking to get some games in.

Tiny Grimes

Nice. I signed up for this forum specifically to see if I could find players in the South Bay area, and this is the first thread I saw.

I live in Torrance, and I would love to try meeting up for a game of Game of Thrones. I've played TCGs (non-competitively) for a long time, but I just got the GoT LCG for Christmas.

Kingsguard, mathlete and Tiny Grimes -- are all of you still interested in setting something up? A game store would indeed be the ideal location, but my FLGS (Third Planet Comics & Games is going out of business). The ideal store would be one that actually sells GoT cards. Do 8-Ball and/or Comic Bug fit the bill? My schedule is pretty busy, but I've heard such good things about the four-player game that I'd go out of my way to meet up with a larger group.

Johnny,

I'm very interested in getting a game together. I too just got some cards for Xmas. I'm an avid SWCCG player, but I've heard great things about AGoT. I'm available anytime during the day during the week. If that doesn't work for people let me know and I can free up some time elsewhere. It would be great to get a weekly group together in Torrance.

Hey Gang,

Would anyone be interested in having our first meeting be this Thursday? Feel free to post here of PM me.

'fraid this thursday is going to be a buisy one for me. Other thursdays should work though.

Awesome that I've gotten so many replies. I can't wait to meet up and play some games.

ATM I am good for any day except thursday and 1 saturday of each month.

Just in case there is someone out there not on the facebook page. We are meeting this Thursday at the Comic Bug, in Redondo Beach, from 5 until close (9). Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Darn, why is it that groups for both games I play want to meet on thursdays?

Well it starts a little earlier than my other group. maybe I could at least stop by.

Also a nice location to go play at is a certain Mc Donalds not far from my house I think on...Hawthorne maybe. They are totally cool with people meeting there to play games and have even said they don't even care if we buy any food, stay open all night, and of course if you get hungry, just walk to the counter and order something.

TinyGrimes said:

Redondo? Are you sure? I can only find info about a "Comic Bug" in Manhattan.

Good seeing everybody over there! My other group I meet with on mondays says they want to meet at 7 now so If i get to Comic but by 5 sharp, I'll have at least an hour and a half to play agot!

It looks like the Comic Bug is booked on Thursday, so we are going to meet Wednesday this week. Let me know what time you can make it and I'll be there. 5 works great for me.

5:30 would be the more dependable time for me. I may not have a ride before then. Though yeah, 5 is fine for you folks. I'll just be a little late.

Going to play at the Comic Bug again this Thursday about 5:00. Kingsguard let me know what chapter packs you have and the card you were looking for if you are planning to come. Hope to see you there.

Okay lets see. I have the Core Set, Lords of Winter, Princes of the Sun, The Winds of Winter, City of Secrets, Secrets and Spies The Battle of Blackwater Bay, Tourney for the hand and Where Loyalty Lies.

As well as Street of Silk, a few other cards I'm looking for would be

River Row

Warrior's Sons

Myrcella Lannister (Kings of the Sea)

Ser Balon Swann

Ser Arthur Dayne

Ser Gerlold Hightower (just 1)

Retaliation!

If you have any of these cards, I'd very much like a chance at trading for them.

**** it, I had this whole message written out once and for some reason my computer went back to the previous page when I hit delete. Annoying.

Anyways,

Well, todays games were.......crushing. I don't mind losing if I can say I put up a fight but jeeze. Today I had thoroughly lost every game by the first or second turn. It really goes far to exemplify how far my decks are from game-worthy.

Seriously? I have to defend 3 intrigue challenges by turn one, each one I lose costs me a character on top of the normal discard from intrigue AND a military challenge on top of that? I have no idea how I can compete with that.

I'll just come right out and say it; I'm discouraged. Part of me is starting to think maybe I should get out of the game before I spend anymore money on it. I'll give it some more time though I suppose. See you folks next week.

Sorry to hear that you are discouraged. I would encourage you to stick with it, though! Our local community is really quite awesome and will always be willing to offer tips on how to improve. If you are not already in the SoCal Thrones facebook group, you should join that, we answer deck building and strategy questions there fairly regularly.

Glad to hear you're not giving up! Imrahil's right about the community... folks have always been real friendly and helpful. I can relate on being discouraged and have taken my fair share of beatings. Pretty safe to say we all have! I remember the plot cycle of first turn Fear of Winter, then Blockade and then Rule by Decree was absolutely crushing me out of Stark. You mean you're going to go first, kill two of my guys and I can only play one card?! Then I get no gold, and then you're going to get me to discard down to 4? Nasty! Or when The North Agendas were popular... 8 strength armies with Deadly for free? Gotta be kidding me!

Reminiscing aside, my best advice is to not let losses get to you. Make the most of them and learn something each time. Ask your opponent about their deck and chances are they'll share what they thought and how they deckbuild. You're coming into the game at a great time. Again, feel free to email me and we'll get you in the facebook group. Or just email me any questions you may have. Otherwise, I'm going to try to make it up that way if you all meet up on Thursday March 1. Maybe we can get a few games in or talk about decks then. Good luck!

Kingsguard, let me start by saying I can certainly understand your frustration. Learning a new game is always difficult, but when done with other new players it is often less frustrating. However, what you should try to keep in mind is our play group is made up of experience, skilled players. One of them is a former world champion and others have been playing the game for a long time. I know for me personally I've met with the group 4 times and gotten obliterated in nearly every game. However, I realized this would happen and have not been frustrated with the situation. I think you need to prepare yourself to learn and have fun while losing with some regularity for a bit. On the plus side, although the players are quite skilled they are also very willing to help. During my games I often talk about the possibilities I have and ask for advice.

One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give you is to use proxies. Remember, the other players in the group own every card. If you try to restrict yourself to only the cards you own, if will be very difficult to make a deck that can compete with one built from every card. For me, the first week we met I brought a deck made from the Core Set and the Lords of Winter. I quickly realized that was not going to cut it. Since then I've been using proxies. Are they annoying, yes. But, are they a necessary evil, again yes. I continue to buy new cards as well, but it just isn't feasible to immediately rush out and purchase every card that exists.

Another observation is the importance of deckbuilding in this game. You need to work hard to craft a really good deck in order to compete. Moreover, as a new player it's important to use resources to help you craft such a deck. I recommend contacting members of our group or looking at submitted decks at agotcards.org or cardgamesdb.com. Also, the newest 2 champs and a chump podcast is quite informative for how good players build their decks. For every deck I've built I've relied extensively on outside resources to help me craft a competitive deck. If this process seems too daunting you could always ask one of the other players to loan you a deck for the night. This is a good way to see what a powerful deck looks like. I know John usually brings a bag of good decks and I've borrowed one on multiple occasions.

Finally, it may make you feel better to know that in the game you are referring to I basically got the perfect flop and opening hand. My deck is designed to rack up a lot of intrigue wins and can kill characters with one of the plots, but it can be hard to get all the pieces going. You basically stumbled into a buzzsaw there.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday!

I tend to try and avoid proxies. The Magic the Gathering group I play with frowns on their use. I suppose they'd be a good help in figuring out exactly how good some of the deck ideas I have in mind but am lacking cards for really are. I'll think about it.

And after giving it some thought, I suppose it wasn't quite as overwhelming as it felt. I mean if you hadn't been able to kneel Jaime, I could have knelt Cersei and only had one challenge from Myrcella to worry about. Or if I'd used the "You swore an oath" plot and played Ser Jorah Mormont instead of Sansa, I could have possibly held the line for the turn. Though I suppose that would have meant I couldn't have played Jaime which means Jorah would have been knelt by that "wrong dwarf" card or whatever it was that you used. So I suppose that wouldn't work. Hmm. I'll keep thinking on it.

Somebody there is a former world champion? Does that mean he's gotten to have his own custom card printed?

Yes, John Bruno (Mathlete) won the 2005 World Championship and got to make the plot card First Snow of Winter.

Oh nice. That'd be real cool to get to see a card of my own design printed.