why does the pack has Ygritte as its image but there is not a card of her in it?

1 - FFG is allergic to making new unique Wildlings.

2 - Its Melisandre. Notice the gem at her neck.

3 - It does contain Moqorro but he's the cover of A Roll of the Dice. FFG likes to play with your head.

even if it is Melisandre why there is no card of her, I guess your third option answers it

It may be unusual, but they've done this before. For example, Tales from the Red Keep shows Ser Jaime Lannister, but he is not in that specific Chapter Pack. He actually was in the Tower of the Hand CP.

The Wildlings have typically been Neutral in this game. There are obviously some in House ones, but I think Ygritte would make sense as a Neutral one. Since FFG said there will be no Neutrals in this cycle, I doubt we will see any Wildlings, unless they give them a House affiliation.

This art is part of a larger piece of art, which we know from the prints that were part of the Regionals kit. I suspect this art will be on an event or plot or something, and that we won't have another version of Melisandre. Although, we already have a bajillion Robert Baratheons and Arya Starks, so I guess a 4th Mel wouldn't be unprecedented.

Just because it's a picture of Mel does not mean it's going to be another character. It could be an event, attachment, etc., too.

Oh, and as for the art on the box matching a card in the box, that's never been a given. I'm pretty sure ALL of Oldtown and half of Brotherhood didn't match box to card.

AceManUSC said:

There's a partial spoiler for a new one called the Wildling Bard and its Bara/Stark. You could probably reasonably shoehorn any Wildling into Stark or Bara/Stark.

This is like the 3rd post I've seen on this topic. Have you guys never paid attention to the boxes before? Just look at the boxes from the last three cycles, the cards on the cover are not always in the pack.

I wonder why that is. Shouldn't the box art more accurately reflect the contents of the pack?

I'm pretty certain the box art is on at least 1 card from the cycle. I've confirmed this with at least A Tale of Champions and The Secrets of Oldtown so far.

MarthWMaster said:

Why must it should it reflect the pack when then entire cycle is designed as a holistic product?

The first two cycles were leftovers from the CCG days and as such the way the designers coped with losing 1/2 the card pool (CCG sets were 240 cards) each pack was bundled according to a theme. Thus it was somewhat valid to put a card from those packs on their respective boxes. In stark contrast, the newer cycles have been purposefully built form the ground up as holistic products. There is now little need to identify the individual boxes according to their themes.

There may, however, be a need to present newbs with a reasonable guess that the card with the sweet art that they see on the cover is actually in the pack that they purchase.

Kennon said:

This. For example, I'm really fond of artwork on Cersei Lannister from the King's Landing cycle, as her design closely reflects the character I see in my head when I read. So when I buy a pack featuring her artwork and find the corresponding card nowhere to be found, I get disappointed. Not to the extent that I would consider dropping the game, but just enough that I question the need to do it this way, rather than plan out the contents of each pack first, and then choose box art from there. Unless it takes tremendously longer to print packaging than cards, which seems doubtful to me.

Moreover, I guess I just don't see anyone thinking this would be a bad thing.

MarthWMaster said:

I don't think the Prof. is saying it would be a bad thing if they matched. I think he's just saying it's not a particularly bad thing when they don't.

Ultimately, I'd guess it has more to do with the art design/marketing departments (who designs the packaging) and the game design/development team (who designs the cards and sets the 1-120 numbering order) getting their wires crossed when decisions are made on art, order, design, etc. in the final stages of production.