7 replies to this topic

[Starshadow88]

I have a question on deck building.  I just played against a friend recently.  We played three games.  He was the Lannisters all three times.  He had changed his deck around prior to us playing.  Before he made the changes he had cards in his deck equaling 6 or 7 additional gold.  After changing his deck around, he then had cards equaling 17 additional gold.  He met the requirements of 60 cards in the deck.

 

But because of how much gold he could possibly get, and the luck of the deck shuffling, he completely destroyed me all three games because of how much gold he got each turn for putting in characters and locations and attachments.  And also for dominance b/c of leftover gold.

 

My question is, is there a limit to how much additional gold you can have in your deck?  It just seems when you do this you are heavily favored to win any match against you.  I'm guessing not but was curious.

[ktom]

What is meant by "additional gold"? Cards with gold bonuses?

 

There is no deck building limit on how many income-producing cards one can include in a deck. 

 

Make sure he is following the "Limited" and "Unique" rules with the income-producing cards. Also, when he plays those weak characters that produce gold, kill them.

[Starshadow88]

Yes, location/character cards that give additional gold to your pool besides what you get from plot card.  We did review the deck and he had 4 of The Goldroad cards in the deck so one more than allowed.  That was the only one illegal we found & it was a mistake, but wouldn't have made the difference.

 

I never had the chance to kill his weak characters b/c 1st game I had one strong character and one weak one.  He had 4 characters and 2-3 locations between setup and first turn marshalling.  So he already had a gold advantage against me.  His character cards & one location card that were key were: Ser Amory Lorch, Brothel Guard, Lannisport Brothel, Shae, and Ser Jaime Lannister (the one from core deck that doesn't kneel to attack or defend).

 

I only had Balon Greyjoy and some cheap one gold character I don't recall.  I had no locations with extra gold.  He killed off Balon in 1st turn.  By end of 3rd turn I had lost 15-1 and he was getting like 5-6 extra gold besides the plot card on that first game.  The 2nd game went about the same as the 1st one and I lost 15-3.

[Starshadow88]

H, he also had Ser Ilyn Payne in play as well in that first game I mentioned above.

 

The 3rd game I switched over to House Stark but still lost 15-7.  Once again luck of the card shuffling for him and bad luck for me.  That one went I think 8 or 9 turns at least.  But he was getting a total of about 13 gold per turn and I just couldn't compete against that.

 

I have modified my decks to add 2 extra locations so I'll have the chance to get 2 extra gold.  I've also added a couple of locations and attachments that either make an opponents location card text field blank, or that I can take control of it. 

 

Hoping that will help.

[ktom]

You may be doing something wrong here.

 

What you describe here in the game where he had: Amory Lorch, Jaime Lannister, Shae, Lannisport Brothel, Brothel Guard and Ilyn Payne out by the end of Marshaling in the first round doesn't seem possible. That's 18 gold worth of cards, not including any cards that were not "key. Given that you can only place 5 gold worth of stuff in setup, that would be about 13 gold counted in the first marshaling phase. That seems really, really unlikely short of stacking the deck. So lets check that a few of the rules related to income-producing cards are being played correctly:

 

- Many of the income-producing locations (Roseroad, Goldroad, etc.) are "Limited." You can only place 1 "Limited" card (total, all cards with the keyword) during setup and can only Marshal 1 during the round. So, if your opponent is placing a Goldroad, a Searoad and a Roseroad during setup, he's breaking the "Limited" rule. I say this because a lot of people seem to think it is 1 card each by title instead of 1 card with the Limited keyword total, no matter what titles they have. 

- You can only have 1 unique card by title in play at any one time. So, for example, you can't have 1 copy of Queen Cersei's Chambers in play as an attachment and another in play as a location. Only 1 total.

- You count and collect income ONCE at the beginning of your turn in Marshaling. Any cards that come into play after you count and collect income at the beginning of your turn don't benefit you until the next round. So, for example, if your opponent is doing something like placing a Goldroad during setup and taking a gold when it is revealed (before the first plots are chosen), or if he is marshaling a Crossroads for 2 (or a Goldroad for 0, or a Lannisport Weaponsmith for 1), then immediately taking 1 gold from the gold pool for the card's income bonus, he is not following the rules for income bonuses and counting income.

 

Anyway, it is really, really hard to get 18 gold worth of key cards into play by the end of first marshaling. If his deck is consistently doing this, I'd venture that some rule is being misplayed somewhere.

[Starshadow88]

I may have slightly misspoken on this. It took him until the 4th turn to beat me.  But you are correct on the Unique part.  We weren't aware that you can't have more than one Unique location or Attachment in play.  We thought it only referred to Characters so that the other character would be a duplicate.  So he had 2 of Queen Cersei's Chambers in play.

 

So all in all, he had 2 extra gold producing cards in his deck that were illegal.  I think on the 1st turn he may have put into play more than one card with Limited word on it.  So that also was a mistake.

 

And he also had Cersei Lannister (the one where she doesn't kneel to attack during intrigue challenges).  So he kept pillaging cards from my hand.  So between losing cards and his luck with getting 0 cost location cards with additional gold early, so I had no chance.

 

But it does sound like we were doing some things wrong that helped him win.

 

He played the following plot cards in the first four rounds: Take Them By Surprise (5 gold, 11 initiative), Hear Me Roar (5 gold, 3 initiative, The Promise of Victory (4 gold, 0 initiative), Blockade (0 gold, 4 initiative).  I'm not 100% positive on the order but it was something like this.  I may have one of those wrong and he played Game of Thrones (3 gold, 5 initiative) in place of one of them.

 

Thanks for the info that definitely helps so we play it correctly going forward, we definitely played some things wrong.

[Starshadow88]

What about the Unique card High Septon?  He's a neutral character.  Can both of us each have this card in our deck and in play at same time?  Or any other card that is unique that would meet this criteria?

[ktom]

Unique Cards

Some cards have a banner icon (*) next to their title. Such cards are unique. Each player may only have one copy of a unique card in play. Thus, you cannot put into play or take control of a unique card which you already own or control 

 

 

So yes, you and your opponent may each have a copy of the same unique card in play at the same time.