So me and 5 others have recently got into the games in a big way, and in order to spread out costs we were planning on getting a chapter pack each, and then combining. As it stands we currently have all the 'Expansion' boxes, so Lions of the rock etc. Most players have also fallen into one house or another.

The General gist of this is to ask what are the best House boosting chapter packs out there that we could get for house specific boostiness?

Also I already have refugees of war, and while it was good adding in all of the refugees I didn't feel it added much flavour, I guess that also means we'd want packs that added more interesting things, rather than packs to optimise our decks for the tournament scene.

Thanks

It is difficult to really provide an answer to your question because each cycle offers cards to cater to a particular theme.

A Time for Ravens introduces and emphasizes the Summer and Winter seasons mechanic. This cycle is out of the important chapter packs that allow the Seasons, so I'd avoid most of this pack. You already have the Refugees pack, which is a great pack to buy one time.

King's Landing caters to the Shadows mechanic.

Defenders of the North caters to Night's Watch and Wildlings.

Brotherhood without Banners is a multiple theme chapter pack where each house has a particular trait that has a focus on it's own synergy. So, with Greyjoy it emphasizes Raiders, Martell with Sand Snakes, Stark with House Bolton, Lannister with Clansman, Baratheon with Asshai, and Targaryen with Dothraki. The Neutral house card is also introduced and there is an emphasis on neutral Brotherhood characters. You may want to try splitting this entire cycle up amongst all of you so you can each get the themes around each of these traits.

Secrets of Oldtown introduces a lot of Maester synergy among most of the houses and a bunch of decent cards not specifically related to Maesters as well.

A Tale of Champions may also be a decent cycle to split among each of you because it offers a lot of specific cards to be played in the Melee(multiplayer) format only. It isn't the strongest cycle for Baratheon based on popular opinion.

You should try taking a look at www.cardgamedb.com and www.agotcards.org to review some of the chapter packs and maybe you can determine on your own whether or not you want to just split a cycle or go out and grab individual packs to split up. You may have some broken synergies just grabbing random packs, but from the way it sounds, that is less important than just having some diversity. Each CP is not equal and will provide more cards to one house over another, so keep that in mind when taking a look.

I was in your position a few years ago so I still kind of rate every CP I buy on how usefull it would be for a wide group rather than just me and Bomb has the right of it more or less. Defenders of the North and Secrets of Oldtown both focus on distinct neutral themes so while it would add some great cards to each house, youll also find yourselves with a single theme to split among six poeple.

Brotherhood without Banners sort of falls into this category too (with the brotherhood mechanic) but it also supports a central theme or two for each house, that is already present in the Deluxe Expansions (which are the best buy for a new player short of a second core set btw) so if you want more Clansmen, more Raiders, more Asshai etc. these are the packs to get.

A Tale of Champions, just finished, was Awesome, for some houses more than others but in casual play it shouldnt matter. It introduces NO new themes other than 2 new keywords which work fine independantly and has some powerhouse characters for every house so.

Lastly there is King's Landing. To be honest its a very specialised set, usually people who get into Shadows are trying to make a City of Shadows deck which is again, a single mechanic spread across 6 packs. That said it has some great cards (especially for Lannister) and it would definatly not hurt any house to have a few of these.

Still, as you can see, A Tale of Champions is probably everyone's best bed right now, especially if youre looking for lots of thematic unique characters and just simple and effective cards without any new, specialised mechanics to learn or neutral cards to fight over That said, nothing beats doing your own research so yeah, agotcards.org or cardgamedb.com are both excellent research tools for what comes in what pack!

Even if you plan to buy just 1 CP from each cycle each one of you, you 'll be forced to buy several CP many times eventually for the neutral cards. The Secrets and Spies is such a CP for instance, since the KL location is fundamendal in any Shadows build, etc. Your first picks should be the Brotherhood cycle. Buy each one of you the CP dedicated to his house and these, along with the CS and the deluxe expansions will be enough as a basis for at least a couple of decks.

I would say you want the Kings Landing cycle. One or two players may want to make a shadows specific build relying heavily on this cycle. At the same time, the cycle is overall one of the strongest. Every house will get some sort of boost from the shadows cards. If you get the maester cycle, everyone will want to make a maester build, which may not be possible. Brotherhood and Champions are more recent than Kings Landing, but some houses do much better than others. That is especially true of the Champions cycle. Stark and GJ got some great cards, but other houses didn't get much. Every house should have something to get out of the King's Landing cycle.