The First Tilt - Knowledge is Your Greatest Weapon

The First Tilt – Entry 2: Knowledge Is Your Greatest Weapon – An Information Guide for New Players

Welcome to “The First Tilt”, a blog dedicated to helping new players get their bearings in A Game of Thrones LCG. We’ll be covering a wide variety of topics, from what to buy, basic strategies and tactics, and getting acquainted with basic themes. For this entry, we’ll be discussing information guides and the best way to increase your knowledge of A Game of Thrones: The Card Game. This blog will be all about getting your bearings, and learning where to look for information about cards, strategies, and rules questions.

If you’re playing AGoT, then you are probably already familiar with Fantasy Flight’s website. Their section for A Game of Thrones is fairly extensive, with a catalogue covering the various expansions (broken up into Core Set, Deluxe Expansions, and then Chapter Packs according to set). However, it might take a little exploring to find one of the most useful tools to a new AGoT Player: The FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions. FAQ’s are great for new players, since they can save you a lot of time by compiling all of the usual newbie questions and official answers to these questions in one place. Why do you want to read the FAQ? Well, it may answer questions you haven’t even asked yet. As a new player (keep in mind I’ve only been playing this game for around six months now), the FAQ was a welcome sight to me. Before the FAQ, I had to resort to answering not only my own questions, but those of people in my fledgling meta, and it was a real headache. I’d scour the FFG forums and ask people there, but sometimes that wasn’t enough for some of our players. One night, my wife and I stumbled onto the FAQ by accident and now it has become our AGoT Magic 8 Ball. The FAQ is broken up into four different sub-sections: Card Clarification and Errata, Official Rules Clarification, Timing Structure, and Frequently Asked Questions. As a new player, I can’t recommend reading the FAQ on your own enough. It could drastically change the way you play, and most times for the better.

But remember how I called the FAQ a Magic 8 Ball? Well, like a Magic 8 Ball, the FAQ has a limited number of questions and responses; and sometimes, you run across a problem you just can’t find an answer for. This brings me to our second information tool for new players: Forums! Forums are places where people who play a Game of Thrones LCG gather and discuss their mutual addiction. AGoT LCG has two primary forums where players can discuss the game, ask questions, etc.: the Fantasy Flight Forums and CardGameDB.com. The FFG Forums offer a place where new players can go to discuss everything from rules questions, upcoming sets, deck builds, metas and events, or anything else that tickles a Throners fancy. The community over at the FFG forums is very friendly (actually, I’ve yet to meet an unfriendly AGoT player...) and extremely useful to new players. The CardGameDB.com site functions in a similar manner but takes it one step further by offering graphs and charts to show what percentage of a deck is taken up by the various types of cards in their Deck Builds section. Both websites are incredibly useful to new players and can not only answer their questions but show a new player how decks are built and played, which is a big deal.

Ok, so the communities are great and friendship is magic, blah blah blah. You want to know about the cards, right? I mean, what’s the point of a card game if you don’t know about the cards? Well, luckily for you, there are sites out there to help new AGoT players to get acquainted with new cards. My favorite is the Dabbler. The Dabbler functions as a search engine. You can search for cards according to House, Trait, Text box, according to set, or any and all of the above. It’s an invaluable tool for new players since it will help them decide which sets they want to purchase and locate specific cards they want to use. It’s also a great way to check out the various themes of each houses; but we’ll talk more about that next time. The Dabbler will also offer errata or rules changes on the various cards. If you are looking for a way to expand your knowledge of the AGoT LCG, the Dabbler is one of the best ways to do it.

Finally, if you’re completely new to the AGoT universe, you may want to learn more about it. The biggest attraction to a lot of players, like me, is the flavor of the game and the story. I was a fan of the books before I began playing, so I know and love the background. But several new players are new to both the game and the story as well. A Wiki of Fire and Ice is a great place to learn more about your favorite House(s) and Characters, as well as expand your knowledge of the setting as a whole.

So, let’s wrap this up. Remember, a new players worst enemy is ignorance, and this entire article is dedicated to help you get your bearings. Below are links to the above mentioned sites, which will be an immense help to you as a new player. Next time we’ll discuss basic strategies and tactics, and how to make the most of your marshaling phase.

Thanks for playing along,

Ben

Links:

AGoT FAQ - http://www.fantasyfl....0_High_res.pdf

FFG Forums – http://www.fantasyfl...efid=10&efcid=4

CardGameDB.com - http://www.cardgamedb.com/

The Dabbler - http://agot.dbler.com/

A Wiki of Fire and Ice - http://awoiaf.wester...x.php/Main_Page