This is perhaps the greatest piece of Game of Thrones news since the LCG format was announced. A whole new expansion set, fixing the "holes" in the LCG environment caused by the early rotation of Five Kings, a truly awesome Greyjoy "house card," a new approach -- and commitment -- to Organized Play...what more could we could ask for. Perhaps Kingdom locations? They weren't mentioned, but without them, Mance Rayder doesn't really have an ability.

Now we can start speculating -- what Traited plots will be see? are we going to get reprints of all the uncommon plots from Five Kings, or will there be some new cards? How about the kings and queens -- will these be straight reprints as well, or more new cards. King Balon, in my book, beats out Five Kings Balon since he has the Ironborn trait. Now, I doubt we'll see Hooked Trident reprinted (though that would be incredibly awesome if it was), but at least this Balon can be saved with the Saltwife.

Martell still gets to play catch-up in the LCG environment, but as long as they are coming before the end of the year, I'll be happy. I'll be happier if they are available at (or before) GenCon.

I wish that the Greyjoy set was coming out this month. That would have been incredible. But at least it is coming.

And one last guess -- Reach of the Kraken:

JerusalemJones said:

They actually did mention them. They didn't miss a thing! I'm so fired up!

I wonder fitting 15 power tokens on that Greythulhu house card is realistic (ie bigger than standard poker size)?

ktom said:

See that was the only part of Yugioh I thought was interesting, the idea of "trap cards" where you could really hamstring your opponent by some careful planning. Not to mention protect your strategy a bit since Shadows is not your hand... though I wonder if it counts as in play or as "in Shadows" when it comes to discard effects (big assumption that you can't kill stuff in Shadows... which begs the question is it only characters that are in shadows, because if it is, I guess they could be killed even there...) So many questions.

and yes that S has to mean something in the gold coin, beyond Shadows, because the previous hints and the like always referred to a Shadow crest which is pretty evident on Varys (and is it me or does it look like the Shadowrun logo?).

ktom said:

Well Greyjoy DID come before Martell in the game, AND in the books... I can live with it coming out in the fall (pure speculation if GJ is early Summer, I expect Martell by early Fall... ~though Martell is the Summer House DAMMIT!

As much as I like this news I still have no desire to play in the LCG format. That might change in time with a bigger cardpool but I doubt it. We will see. I'm going to go ahead and assume this set will cost 40 dollars?

JJ- i was thinking it was either that one or

Ruvion said:

well it looks like the cardboard power counters will nestle just fine in the slot with the power icon on it. As for wooden or glass counters that were old prize support...dunno.

wreking ball - why would you assume that? what expansion (their label not mine) of FFG's costs the same as the actual game itself? Obviously this is going to include less stuff (if not less cards, but i'd wager its less cards too) as it lacks a board/counters/5 other figs and probably will not be in as big of a box (hard to tell from the picture). Sorry you still don't like the LCG (its still thrones though....) but i think this can only be a positive step for the game.

Wrecking Ball said:

Is it simply due to card pool size or are there other reasons? With the Core Set, this expansion, 12 chapter packs out and more on the way, the card pool is starting to fill out nicely.

Wrecking Ball said:

My guess is it'll be more like $20.

Those power tokens are going to be slight crowded since that slot with the power icon is less than half the "house card".

Anyways, if previous boardgame expansion package sizes are any indications, then I'm hazarding a guess that the box for the Kings of the Sea is going to be as big as the coreset. My guess for this expansion would be $30ish or at least $10-15 cheaper than the going rate for the coreset. This price model seems to work for some of their boardgame expansions.

Optimally the card count can be quite high (just speculations here): Nate said each houses will receive a few cards...now if enough were given to players to round out to a full tournament legal 60 card deck per house (assuming just coreset and Kings of the Sea xp)...that means 15 cards per house (excluding plots hopefully).

15 cards x 4 coreset houses = 60 cards plus

60 cards (for GJ) = 60 cards equals

A hopeful total of 120 cards plus some plot cards! That kind of value would be worth $25-30 for me...but who am I kidding, I'd buy this expansion regardless.

Now the real important question is...will there be a separate release for the 3D resin coreset House Cards in the near future a la Bag o' Cthulhu?!

Ruvion said:

Hmm. I read that as "each House will be able to use a few cards from the set." That's not necessarily the same thing. After all, the other 3 Houses can use Jon Snow from the Stark deck or Support of the Kingdom from the Baratheon deck.

There are many reasons. Most of them come back to card pool size. All houses in the LCG are a one trick pony, which can be related to card pool size. The houses are very imbalanced. I have had enough experience with thrones to know that card draw wins games. I'm not really into multiplayer which is what the LCG is built for.

I agree this is a great change for the game, but if they knew the card pool was going to be this much of an issue why not create the core set with greyjoy and martell in the first place. Or have a couple more cards in the chapter packs.

What i'm saying here is that this expansion is a bandaid to something that could have obviously been avoided. Is there anybody that didn't see this coming? Seriously!

Yeah...that was the interpretation I was shying away from, ktom.

I found myself reading into the “something for everyone” mentality of the xpansion that Nate mentioned in the article.

Thinking some more...it makes sense for FFG to keep things at 45 count per house, which encourages casual gamers to go out and buy a couple of CPs....and hopefully get them into a "buy, buy, gotta get 'em all" attitude.

I hope the non-GJ cards are not all neutrals.

Ruvion said:

they shouldn't be: "In this product, you’ll find numerous King and Queen characters[.]" I can't see them all being nuetral or GJ

Lars said:

Well, viewing the whole area in reference:

"...we wanted this expansion to have “something for everyone,” even if they’re not at all interested in House Greyjoy. Thus, each House gets at least 1 King or Queen, and the plot deck (with the exception of an important “House Greyjoy only” plot reprint) along with many of the neutral cards were selected as cards that could potentially be useful building blocks in the widest possible array of decks."

I definitely read that as being house specific.

Now THAT'S a DJ (or whatever they are calling it these days).

Very good article, lots of fun facts. I am pretty optismistic these days, despite the very few naysayers. It made sense to hit the reset button with just four houses, and the connotation was always that the houses would probably come back someday - I agree that it wasn't a huge surprise, but I think it is done "right" in a cool expansion. I don't even like GJ and I am excited!

Again we'll be bitting our nails off, waiting for the boat from China to arrive.

I am extremely curious about the reprints. Did they make only new Kingdom locations or reprinted The Vale/The Reach/The Riverlands for instance? Is it more reprints from the blocks before ITE or not? Sounds like they could reprint a lot of cards from 5K because the current Chapter Packs cycles use and expand 5K card pool and were not designed for LCG. So they may try to fill up the lack of the 5 Kings block. A lot of questions in the head...

This is what we get from Nate's text:

The first of these goals was to bring House Greyjoy back into the LCG environment. From this perspective, the expansion consists of:

# a Greyjoy deck that is similar to the “out-of-the-box” decks that you’ll find in the AGoT Core set. With a mixture of both new cards and “old school” Greyjoy reprints (some modified and updated for the LCG environment),

# Secondly, I insisted on using the design of the Kings of the Sea expansion as an opportunity to address some of the context and synergy concerns noted earlier. In this product, you’ll find numerous King and Queen characters, some new Kingdom locations, and a spattering of Military Battle, Intrigue Gambit, and Power Struggle plot cards.

# Additional use (?!) for “crested” characters is also prevalent (particularly Holy and War),

# and a major black hole in the AGoT LCG metagame, a realistic check on powerful locations, has been confronted.

# Third (and not unrelated to the context and synergy discussion), we wanted this expansion to have “something for everyone,” even if they’re not at all interested in House Greyjoy. Thus, each House gets:

# at least 1 King or Queen, (for each House)

# and the plot deck [for each House] (with the exception of an important “House Greyjoy only” plot reprint)

# along with many of the neutral cards were selected as cards that could potentially be useful building blocks in the widest possible array of decks. So even a die-hard Lannister player (there aren’t really any of those out there, are there?) should be able to find something of use in this set.

Plus:

# sculpted “3D” resin House card

# as well as an alternate multiplayer variant called “The Kingsmoot,” in which players compete for six distinctive Iron Islands titles in an attempt to hold all six of them simultaneously.

And the final bit of good news is that Kings of the Sea is already at the printer, and should be available for an early summer release.

And then, we turn our gaze to the South... [sO THEY ALREADY STARTED DESIGNING MARTELL'S EXPANSION?]

Let's say the preconstructed Greyjoy deck has approximately 50 cards, the plot decks for other houses will be 7 cards each (5x7), plus several Kings and Queens (seems like some Houses can get more than one), perhaps around 10 cards. Possibly we can expect around 100 new cards.

For sure the way the Greyjoy's deck is constructed, it will contain "many neutral cards" that can be used by other Houses. Seems like location control cards won't be House Greyjoy only.

The expansion pack looks cool. Can't wait to get it.

Thanks Nate and FFG for listening and answering our concerns.

I agree that the growth of the game and selling out in Spain was great news to hear as well.

I read the bit about plots totally differently. I read it as there will be A plot deck of six cards for all Houses to use, but the seventh plot would be a GJ only reprint... I'm going with Rise of the Kraken. While GJ unoppossed is pretty much relegated to a handful of Intimidate characters, King Balon makes me suspect that there will be some more unoppossed lovin' in the set. What I want to know is will I see some more saves (because it is sad when other houses have more reliable/repeatable saves than GJ (I mean unless we get a substantial number of Ironborn 2 influence for a Salt Wife is not even close to the days of multiple Iron Mines, Zealous Deckhand, and Maester Savedymar out. And what about my much missed mill. Of I'd give a lot to see something that could replace Here is My Husband, Whirlpool, and Veteran Looters.

And a Martell set in the works! Oh that should be fun!

Hooray,Hooray,Hooray!
That is the only think I can say about this. They have heard out our prayers The game is going to be much more intresting now. And I think that all the new players are going to like it more and more. Especially when half of the cards from CPs has now sence with traited plots, Kingdom location, Kings/Queens etc.

I love you, good job FFG (Nate and whoever was part of this). The thing about beeing it printed now suggest that you never forgot about us. You just kept us tense and waiting

I am also looking forward to see the Martell Expansion that will finish shaping the LCG in the final and enjoyable form.

Btw my guess for GJ plot is this: (I like it unless an opponent, plays it )

Wreckingball is right that LCG is unbalanced at the moment - but hey! at least they are trying to fix it. Location control will help bring Lanni back to the pack. There is no sense in looking back and saying "They could have avoided this all alst fall" They didn't and you have to move on. The concerns are being addressed, so why rain on the parade?

enough fo that: my guess on the Kingodm lcoations would be 3 x of the 0 cost ones that keyy off the traited Plots. These are fairly innoccous adn their synergy makes sesne with the plot reprints. There will certainly be some hosue specific cards in teh deck - the King/queen thing makes no sense otherwise - but I doubt we'll see anything liek 15 cards per House or a 60 card greyjoy deck.

I think my wishful thinking took over and I have read the Nate's next as there will be a plot deck for each House. There will be one plot deck with several plots different Houses can use I am thinking now.

Dang it, Nate has to go and write this awesome article and drag me back to the forums. I've lurked on these boards a little but never quite made the switch because of the awful format.

And Martell was most definitely implied, as Max and others have noted. My favorite part:

"And the final bit of good news is that Kings of the Sea is already at the printer, and should be available for an early summer release.

And then, we turn our gaze to the South..."

Here's hoping we get it before Worlds.

The house "card" looks awesome. I'd like to see the original four houses get something like this eventually.

Let me rephrase that...I hope we get more house specific cards than just kings and queens.

As I mentioned before, 45 count per house seems to be the bar that the LCG coreset is set at. Which means, I agree, no 60 cards GJ deck or 15 cards/house, and core houses do not seem to get a plot deck each either...meh. My enthusiasm's a little deflated here.