Quill & Tankard Regulars - Issue 28

Unnh.

By tha Seven, wut happened?

That was bloody horrible. Whose brilliant idea was it again?

Unggh!

T'wasn't me! Ye all ken that!

Hold on, let's get right back to the start. So the first thing that happened was that...

Scribe's Heart - Beginning a game

Scribe's Heart is a series of articles delving deeper into specific topics, from game mechanics to specific types of card effects and beyond. An effort is made to explore the discussed topics in-depth, in order for these articles to function as important study material for both apprentice and acolyte.

Usually, the beginning of a game of AGoT is quite a leasurely affair, even in the case of official Final matches in larger Championships. The players sit down at the table, toss their House and Agenda cards onto the table, shuffle and start doing their Setups. Unless one player is aiming for some pre-plot shenanigans to go for an early Rule by Decree (Core), the First Player is rarely even decided before the first plots are chosen.

Now, this leisurely approach to starting the game is usually a good thing, since it speaks volumes of how AGoT is a game meant to be enjoyed, instead of something to be approach with excessive hostility.

However, with four Agendas - The Maester's Path (GotC), House of Dreams (ARotD), Alliance (QoD) and Heir to the Iron Throne (QoD) – offering important choices for players long before first Plots are chosen, it would be good for players to at least be aware of how all of those beginning of the game timings are supposed to go. Combining information from both the Core Set Rules and Tourney Rules, we arrive with the following procedure:

Melee Only: Setup Melee board, titles and tokens – This should be quite self-explanatory, although it should be noted that some Tourneys may only use the title cards, instead of the board and titles.

Separate your House and Plot deck – This should be simple, unless you've done the classic 'pro move' of shuffling your Plots into your deck. It's not a coincidence that many AGoT players employ different sleeves on their actual deck and other cards (plots, Agenda, House). It makes separating them out a lot easier!

Randomly decide First Player – For Joust, a coin toss is usually the standard method here, while for Melee a d4/d6/d8 die is handy. In casual Joust or Melee games this can also be done by randomly drawing a card from one player's deck, with the player receiving the highest gold cost starting... but in competitive games this is highly unadvisable, since it reveals hidden information about a player's deck! It should also be noted that the player randomly chosen is the First Player, instead of having the choice of choosing the first player.

Declare House and Agenda – Now here's where it gets really interesting with House of Dreams (ARotD). Starting with the First Player, each player announces (reveals) their House card and agenda (if any). Since announcing your Agenda is the condition for the ability on House of Dreams, that player also immediately searches for his/her HoD location and puts it into play.

What makes this part especially interesting, is that depending on who got chosen to be First Player, a player running HoD may or may not have information of what Houses/Agendas he is playing against. While many HoD decks may not care about what they are facing, there are several important ones that do. For example, a Bear Island (AE) player will most assuredly want to switch to Harrenhal (ODG) when facing off against another Stark player, while a The Dragonpit (TftRK) deck might consider
Meraxes (TBC) when facing off against City of Shadows (CoS). Note that this is also the step where the Hold is separated from the deck if you’re running the Black Sails (RotK) agenda. Since the opportunity to take a Mulligan comes later (see below), you’re stuck with your Hold, even if you don’t like its composition.

Shuffle decks – The condition for The Maester's Path (GotC) is 'before shuffling your deck', so it happens here. Thus a TMP player will always have full information of what Houses and Agendas they are facing, and can tune the number and type of Chains to run on their Agenda correspondingly. The players first shuffle their own decks (employing a combination of shuffling techniques). Next, they offer their decks to each other for additional shuffling. Returning the deck back to it's owner means that you are satisfied with it's randomization. If an opponent has shuffled your deck, you are allowed to make a single cut to it afterwards. It is highly advisable to always shuffle your opponent's deck at least a bit, just in case.

Draw your setup hand – Interestingly, the conditions for the abilities of both Alliance (QoD) and Heir to the Iron Throne (QoD) are 'before drawing your Setup hand', so players running them will get to know Houses, Agendas, HoD locations and even the type of Chains in their opponent's deck before making their choices. Once this is done, each player draws their Setup hand (usually 7 cards, but only 6 with HoD) and then starting with the First Player chooses whether to mulligan or not. If any player chooses to mulligan, they reshuffle their deck following the same procedure as before.

Place setup cards – Only once all players have decided whether they will mulligan, do the players start placing their setup cards. This means that players have no information on their opponent's setup when choosing to mulligan. Starting with the First Player, each players may place 5 gold worth of cards (3 gold with HoD) face down into play. This may not include attachments (with the exception of those with Setup), more than one Limited card or any duplicates. Any card with the Shadow Crest may be setup for 2 gold into Shadows, while attachments with the Setup keyword require you to have a legal target for the card within your other setup cards. This means that Setup attachments cannot be placed on your HoD location. It should be noted that cards placed in setup are not played or put into play, and no 'when entering play' effects will trigger. Once all players have placed their setup cards, they are all revealed simultaneously.

Draw opening hand – Once setup is complete, each player draws until they have 7 cards in their hand.

Pre-Plot Action Window – There is an action window before first plots are chosen, which tends to see quite active usage both in The Siege of Winterfell (LoW) decks running Epic Battle events, and with decks wanting to cripple their opponent's hand early on via Rule by Decree (Core). Naturally, the randomly chosen First Player gets first choice of either performing an action or passing.

Antti Korventausta (WWDrakey) is a self-proclaimed Finnish AGoT philosopher and nitpicker, who also used to practice Quantum Mechanics, but found that it paled to AGoT in both interest and complexity. As a Stahleck regular and judge, he sometimes has oddly vivid dreams of understanding portions of the game. In AGoT, he'll play anything as long as it's suitably twisted... often ending up with something that has horns on it.

Helmut Hohberger (Ratatoskr) started playing AGoT in September 2010 and has never looked back (although his wife has, longingly). As a German, he loves rules - and I mean *loves* 'em. Try triggering a Response at the end of a phase on his watch, and he'll probably invade your country. He has actually read the FAQ, and was made a judge at Stahleck and at various other events. He sometimes answers rules questions on boardgamegeek and the FFG rules board. Some of his answers haven't even been contradicted, corrected or expanded upon by ktom - there is no higher accolade for a rules board morlock.

Every Maester needs a Raven on his shoulder. As a Finn, Iiro Jalonen (Ire) got pulled under the waves by Krakens years ago, and has never looked back. A self-inflicted Shagga and active member of the global AGoT community, he has always strived to know the rules of the game, in order to make them do ridiculous things.

James Waumsley (JCWamma) started playing Thrones in January 2012. Although he’s not got many links on his collar just yet, he’s a fiendishly competitive player who delights in making sure the rules are upheld, so that his opponents have no excuses (or in practice, so that he has no excuses himself).