All Things Shagga - Civil War

Here we are with our first post fifty installment of All Things Shagga. This time around, we’re going to take a brief look at another play variant for A Game of Thrones. This time, it’s another official variant by FFG.

Civil War is a variant that first appeared in the house Martell deluxe expansion box, Princes of the Sun. You can find the official rules here, but the gist of the format is that all players play out of a single oversize deck. This has a few interesting side effects. In a joust match, skill is really emphasized because players are not able to tailor their decks to particular overpowered strategies or combos, and due to the large deck size, the ability to field particular combos within the deck is also lower. In melee, this works out nicely as well because it brings the emphasis further down to focus on intelligent decisions in the challenge phase and careful posturing, planning, and table talk, rather than explosive rush potential. Thankfully, the variant scales well to melee with the 100 card base deck adding an additional 20 cards for each player past the initial two in the game. As well, the special standing of uniques as true singletons in the large deck really adds an extra dash of powerful flavor to the game.

Now, the official rules say that each player should construct their own plot deck and bring that to the game, which is a perfectly enjoyable way to play, but in my group, we like to spice things up a little more. We’ve handled this in two different ways before. For both methods, you’ll need one central pool of enough plots for each player to field a full seven.

One particularly exciting way is to then shuffle and deal out all of those plots at random so that none of the players know what they’ll have until you’re ready to play, and none of the players know what anyone else has. For random craziness, this adds a great deal of excitement with things like the always possible fear that one player winds up with all of the reset power, leaving the others to scramble for their favor. Part of my personal enjoyment in this method is that it complements the more random feel of the large draw deck and forces players to compensate for some really unusual situations and push the boundaries of their play.

On the other hand, players could draft the available plots for use in that game. To do so in this format, I would roll a die or use another random method to determine a first player. That player should look at the entire pool of available plots and select one privately, then pass the rest of the pool to the next player. Choices continue in a circle until you reach the last player in the circle, who chooses two plots, then reverses the pass back the other direction. Continue this cycle until all of the plots have been drafted. This method allows players some control of their strategy over the course of the game, while still allowing you to minimize abusive situations by controlling the starting pool of plots. This is probably my favorite method to play Civil War, though, because the mix of random draw from the communal deck and careful choices from the plot pool was the closest I could get to the rush of classic full on draft for a long time prior to the recent launch of the new draft kits.

If you’re looking for a melee fix or want a bit of that draft rush, but are unable to get the draft packs or one reason or another, this second Civil War melee format is probably some of the most fun that I’ve ever had in AGOT. As well, if you’re a long time player like myself with a large collection of mostly useless CCG era cards, Civil War allows you to breathe new life into those old cards by building fixed Civil War decks that you can pull out at a moment’s notice to share with other players without having to tie up LCG era cards that you have a more limited number of and which you may want for a constructed competitive deck.

When building a deck, there are several things to pay attention to, though many are similar to building a normal deck. One is that you should keep in mind the semi-standard ratios for normal 60 card decks. If you scale them upward, you should still have a good starting point for your Civil War deck, similar to what we saw with The Long Voyage decks last Regional season. Secondly though, you’re essentially building a draft-like limited environment that will be contained within that deck. In that regard, it’s good to make sure that you offer a wide variety in the deck from bomb characters to kill, to attachments, to location control, etc, etc. Not every card has to be a top tier monster, and in fact I would caution you to include a range of cards in along the quality scale so that you can create more interesting situations in the game. You never know when you might be able to find a diamond in the rough because you just had to work with what you have at hand.

In light of those considerations, I think that Lannister is my favorite house for Civil War because they are the most well rounded in terms of card effects so that we can round out the pool with a little of everything, though a little neutral splash helps round it out. As well, intra-Lannister fighting seems like a pretty solid Nedy nod as well. Behind Lannister, I’d probably choose Baratheon now on the back of the very strong Nedly connection to the brothers declaring themselves king. They have a much deeper pool of cards now than they did a year or two ago, and some judicial neutral choices for things like draw could really make for a nice Civil War build.

That said, here’s my example of a 4 player Melee Civil War build (with 10 extra cards in the draw deck, because I like 150 better than 140).

Lannister Civil War

House (1)
House Lannister (Core) x1

Agenda (0)

Character (80)
Arbor Guardsman (TCC) x4
Ashemark Knight (FF) x5
Bronn (LotR) x1
Castellan of the Rock (BoRF) x2
Cersei Lannister (LotR) x1
Chella, Daughter of Cheyk (Core) x1
Doubting Septa (LotR) x5
Enemy Informer (Core) x5
Gold Cloaks (AToT) x5
Grand Maester Pycelle (AHA) x1
House Payne Enforcer (MotA) x3
Janos Slynt (THtW) x1
Joffrey Baratheon (Core) x1
Lady Genna (CbtC) x1
Lannisport Councilor (RotO) x3
Lannisport Weaponsmith (Core) x3
Lannisport Moneylender (LotR) x3
Littlefinger (SaS) x1
Margaery Tyrell (AToTT) x1
Qyburn (SaS) x1
River Bandit (RoW) x2
Ser Amory Lorch (LotR) x1
Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS) x1
Ser Gregor Clegane (WLL) x1
Ser Ilyn Payne (Core) x1
Ser Gregor's Dog (FF) x5
Ser Jaime Lannister (Core) x1
Ser Kevan Lannister (LotR) x1
Ser Lancel Lannister (TPoL) x1
Shagga Son of Dolf (DB) x1
The Hound (PotS) x1
Tommen Baratheon (SA) x1
Tyrion Lannister (CoS) x1
Tywin Lannister (TK) x1
Watchful Servant (CD) x5
Pyromancer's Apprentice (TBoBB) x2
Ser Meryn Trant (TK) x1
Ser Preston Greenfield (TK) x1
Ser Boros Blount (TK) x1
Varys (SaS) x1
Painted Dogs (IG) x2

Location (32)
Alchemist's Guild Hall (TBoBB) x2
Casterly Rock (LotR) x1
Darkened Hallways (LotR) x2
Dockside Brothel (THoBaW) x2
Golden Tooth Mines (Core) x3
Kingdom of Shadows (KotS) x3
Lannisport Brothel (Core) x1
Lannisport Treasury (LotR) x2
Queen Cersei's Chambers (Core) x1
Sunset Sea (Core) x5
Sweet Cersei (AToT) x1
The Goldroad (Core) x5
The Iron Throne (LotR) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x1

Event (26)
A House Divided (WLL) x2
Bought and Paid For (TGM) x2
Double Bluff (LotR) x4
Harry the Riverlands (FF) x5
I'm You Writ Small (Core) x2
Terminal Schemes (LotR) x4
You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf! (Core) x5
Condemned by the Council (AToT) x2

Attachment (12)
Devious Intentions (BoRF) x2
Enslaved (THoBaW) x2
Ill-Begotten Spoils (ASoSilence) x2
Milk of the Poppy (Core) x2
Bodyguard (Core) x4

Plot (28)
All the Gold in Casterly Rock (LotR) x1
Cersei's Scheme (TPoL) x2
Hear Me Roar (Core) x1
Battle of Oxcross (PotS) x1
Breaking and Entering (LotR) x2
Before the Black Walls (VD) x1
Counting Favors (Core) x1
Frey Hospitality (LotR) x1
Game of Thrones (LotR) x1
Holding the Trident (Core) x2
King's Landing Coup (AToTT) x1
Let My Porridge Fly (PotS) x1
Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) x1
Marched to the Wall (LoW) x1
Men of Pride (THoBaW) x1
Mutual Cause (Core) x1
Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL) x1
Relentless Persecution (DB) x1
Regroup (KotStorm) x1
Retaliation! (ASoSilence) x1
The Red Wedding (PotS) x1
Threat from the East (QoD) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Wildfire Assault (Core) x2