Quill & Tankard Regulars - Volume 2, Issue 7

Quill & Tankard Regulars - Volume 2, Issue 7

This’n tha ‘un!
… Uh huh.
Juz’ ye wait!
… Indeed.
Wager ya!
… You already did. Three times. And no, I won’t take your robe as a bet. Nor yer Chain. I won’t bet against your livelihood.
Der daft birdie!
…The Raven? Ok, deal. I’ll bet you 10 gold dragons on it.
OK FOLKS, HERE HE GOES AGAIN! HOIST HIM UP FROM THE ANKLES, LADS.
THE WAGER’S ON A PINT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE MUG WITHOUT SPILLING, WHILE HANGING UPSIDE DOWN!

Backroom Rumours
Backroom Rumours brings up various timely topics related to current developments in the game and specifically rules matters.

Obviously Store Championship Season is in full swing, and there’s a lot of activity with Tourney results, winning decklists and whatnot.

• For those not aware of it, beside other content, The White Book Podcast collects and lists winning decklists
• The Annals of Castle Black has graduated from being a Google Docs sheet into actually having a snazzy web interface. The new site can be found here (at time of posting, down for maintenance)
• And finally, there has been some discussion here and here on FFGs new Tourney Rules for Store Championships for AGoT. This elicited this response from FFG, notifying us that we will get an update later on the format for Regionals.

The Raven’s Message
The Raven’s Message exclusively reveals and discusses an up-and-coming, either mechanically or rules-wise interesting, card. The cards are from future products, and have been obtained directly via raven from the Archmaesters at the (FFG) Citadel.

With the increased gold costs on events, following what events your opponent can afford to play has become an integral part of the game. On the flipside, as a combination of the gold costs and the smaller cardpool true surprise elements have become quite a rare occurrence.

While in Fealty decks, it has always been possible to bluff 1g Loyal events with just your Faction card, for all other cases events with the perfect gold cost of zero are the key to being able to provide actual surprises. With the introduction of In Doran’s Name we saw Martell gain the ability to start substituting gold costs with Faction card kneeling, and this time around we have another new upcoming event combining Faction card kneeling with the perfect gold cost.

After all, when it comes to being surprised (or competitive success in Tourneys, it seems!), any true Lannister should know the words: “I Never Bet Against My Family”.



In many ways I Never Bet Against My Family is the ultimate surprise event… in that it’s never quite sure who’s the one getting surprised. Could this be the gambling element Nate French referred to on this week's Beyond the Wall? As it puts a unique Lannister character from the bottom 5 cards of your deck into play, apart from a Bear and the Maiden Fair you usually have no idea who (if anybody) you can call upon. On the other hand, getting a surprise Tywin or The Hound without a single gold can seriously alter the flow of the Challenges phase. And of course if The Hound was hiding on the bottom of your deck, you likely want to win a Challenge with him to bounce him back to hand...

Due to the similarities, it’s almost impossible to talk about the card without doing a comparison with Hear Me Roar from the Core Set. Where Hear Me Roar is more free with it’s targeting (working on any Lannister card), it’s not the kind of card you want to see while top-decking or with an empty hand, as that temporary character costs you 2 cards from your hand. Meanwhile, I Never Bet Against My Family is much more straightforward tempo advantage in not requiring any resources and only costing a single card… but also demands much more from your deck-build (a good selection of unique Lanni characters for one) and doesn’t play nicely with either Shadowblack Lane or The Things I Do For Love.

There are some curious rules quirks that come to light with the card as well. One would be how it interacts with putting a duplicate into play. This one is quite straightforward, and has already been answered with Hear Me Roar here, with a synopsis being that a unique character from the bottom can be put into play as a duplicate, and if the duplicate you put into play is still in play at the end of the phase, it gets discarded (but the original character doesn’t).

Another fun little aspect of this card is the ability to put into play an “Immune to Events” character. While no character with that immunity exists, if ever you manage to snag one of these with “I Never Bet Against My Family”, not only will you have gained a character for the phase, but when the delayed effect “At the end of the phase…” initiates, it won’t be able to affect the character - and you’ll keep them in play!

There are also questions on how this interacts with other end of phase effects, say a Tears of Lys. The ending of a phase is actually one of the most commonly referenced steps in the game, currently in one of 3 different ways (you can apply the same rules to “the end of the challenge” too). Rather than break it all down, let’s just go over a simple way to remember the order; the acronym IUD. No, not that kind of IUD.

• “Interrupt: When the X phase ends”. Example: Varys. Remember that interrupts resolve before their triggering condition (the phase ending) does, so these will always happen first. The FP has the first opportunity to initiate such an interrupt.
• “Until the end of the phase” (a lasting effect) or “During the X phase” (a conditional constant). Example: Growing Strong. As the phase itself ends, these effects end with it. In every case in the game so far, the expiry of the effects can happen simultaneously; so Growing Strong and Dracarys! end at the same time and an affected character doesn’t die. The FP doesn’t enter into it.
• “At the end of the phase” (a Delayed effect) Example: Tears of Lys. Delayed effects initiate (and resolve) in an order decided by the first player - regardless of the order the effects that created them were played. In the case of I Never Bet Against My Family and Tears of Lys, the FP would decide whether that Unique Lannister wound up in the dead pile, or the discard pile.

After this, reactions to the phase ending (or to that poor, poisoned character dying) proceed in the usual order. Note that this means that Joffrey, reacting to a Tears of Lys, is doing so outside of the challenges phase (but not yet in the Dominance phase). You could imagine that creating all sorts of strange situations, but the RR seems to have some insurance policies built in, like this little gem on p12.

Any “until the end of the X” effects that would initiate after the end of X (via the resolution of an interrupt or reaction ability to something that occurred at the end of X) would expire immediately without affecting the game state, and therefore fail to initiate.

Finally, a short quiz question:

There is a reason why you would not necessarily ever want to run I Never Bet Against My Family as 3x in your deck. Not unless you are running specific plots. What could be that reason... Let us know in the comments below by answering with one of the plots we are thinking about. The first one to answer correctly gets… a firm but appreciating nod from a bearded Maester.


Antti Korventausta (WWDrakey) is a self-proclaimed Finnish AGoT philosopher and doomsayer hermit, who used to practice Quantum Mechanics, but found that it paled to AGoT in both interest and complexity. Having played and judged for more years than he would like to admit, he has found himself on the winning side of rules arguments more than he would expect. In any game he plays, he has a tendency of playing anything he considers to be off the beaten path, whether it makes sense to others or not.

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. He is the quintessential rules board morlock. While the others played and frolicked about outside, he sat by candlelight in a remote corner of the library and tried to get a grasp on the intricacies of the 1st edition rules. He even thought he did not do too bad at it, but then the Call of the Three-Eyed Crow drove him into the darkest depths of madness and despair. But he’s all better now, honest, and looking forward to new challenges.

Iiro Jalonen (Ire) Started AGoT in 2009, got pulled under the waves by Krakens years ago, and has never looked back. While not an Oldtown local, he has often been spotted in the Quill & Tankard Inn making sure that the rules of sportsmanship are maintained with the traditional finger dance games. 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) is a first edition veteran who has judged at multiple large tournaments including the European championship of Stahleck. A renowned loudmouth and pedant, he will shout about the rules loud enough that he can be heard by those north of the wall.

Alex Hynes (Istaril) co-hosts Beyond the Wall, writes articles for FFG, created and curates the Annals - and even tried to fill in ktom’s shoes in the big ktom drought of 2013. When the Regulars asked him to be an honorary member, he, of course, refused and said he didn’t have the time. Or should have, anyway. Still, how much work can being an “Honorary” member be?