The Small Council

Welcome to the Small Council.

By now in the article, I’m sure that you all as readers have some questions. I’m going to take a leap of faith here and guess that the majority of those questions can probably be divided into two categories:

• What’s the Small Council?
• Haven’t you been doing this for more than a month already?

Well I have good news for you. I’m here to answer both of those questions today.



Who We Are:

In George R.R. Martin’s novels, the Small Council are a bit like the President’s Cabinet in the modern day US- the high ranking officials that do more of the day to day running of the kingdom than the King actually does. If you’ve read the novels or watched the HBO series, you’ll know this group starts out consisting of people like Lord Petyr Baelish, Grand Maester Pycelle, Lord Varys, and Lord Eddard Stark, but that seats and roles are likely to change at a moment’s notice though the titles may stay the same.

Here are CardGameDB, the Small Council is taking on a similar role in the context of the A Game of Thrones card game that we all know and love. We’re a group of players (some long time, some relatively new) who were eager to step up and take charge of the day to day running of the AGoT discussion realm. While this certainly isn’t the only place to do so, and competitors like the official FFG forums are great, we wanted to present a more organized web magazine like experience for our readers and the community at large.

To that end, our crack team of writers presents the following regular columns for your enjoyment:

Forgotten Plans (Monday)- Brought to you by Josh Staton, Forgotten Plans is a weekly column bringing you the best in currently overlooked cards and themes according to the current meta. Each week, Staton walks through his thought process on why these things are overlooked and how they might best be applied to make a surprising comeback.

The First Tilt (Tuesday)- Still wet behind the ears, Ben Stark is uniquely placed to bring us a new player’s perspective on the game. If you just recently watched the series or started the novels, Ben will be analyzing many of the same questions that are common for those to the LCG realm.

All Things Shagga (Wednesday)- Written by yours truly, All Things Shagga is most likely to explore the outlandish side of A Game of Thrones. Exploring things near and dear to the Shagga psychographic I (Kennon- Will Lentz) will be talking about the best combo decks that AGoT can muster, bomb cards, alternate playstyles and anything else that screams “bright and shiny to me.” All Things Shagga holds the dubious honor of being one of the two articles to be on a set bi-weekly schedule.

Beheading Ned (Wednesday)- Alternating with All Things Shagga on a bi-weekly schedule, Beheading Ned explores themes and decks that best represent specific characters, events, and situations from the novels. Every other week, Mathias Fricot brings you daring tales of Westeros in the most flavorful and evocative manner.

The Grand Melee (Thursday)- With the release of the LCG a few years ago, FFG also gave the Melee format prominence as a fully supported tournament format. Each week, Firefox will be exploring a different aspect of the multiplayer game. From decklists, to player psychology, to working the table, check back on Thursdays for a taste of the complicated web of Machiavellian antics in melee AGOT.

The Things I do for Win (Friday)- The final classic player psychographic to be represented, Jerod Leupold, rounds out or week with his insights into the cutthroat world of the Jaime player. Look here for regular updates on the current metagame and a variety of tips and tricks to hone your deckbuilding and play to a fine edge.

What Else is There?

This isn’t to say that the above listed regular columns are all that you’ll see here. We have some ideas and plans in place to continue expanding your coverage of the only game that matters in all the best ways we can accomplish.

Along with the usual suspects above, we’re currently nailing down a schedule for a new column named Forging the Chain by Tiny Grimes. Once finalized, you can check back regularly to follow his journal style entry following the path to knowledge in the game as a common peasant becomes an Archmaester.

The Free Iron Throne is a community newsletter covering the events and meta in Greece and offers wonderful insight into a different meta for those outside the country.

Crafting the Theory will be a monthly feature article once again by yours truly examining some of the higher end theoretical issues in the game. Rather than the nitty gritty of deck construction and tournament reports, I’ll be examining the bigger picture issues on why the game works the way it does, and just possibly the way that we as players work the way we do. The first entry goes up this Wednesday, and you can check back the first week of each month for more.

Along with these projects, we’re going to put together reports on tournaments that we attend, and analysis of any of the top decklists that we can get our grubby little hands on, review new chapter packs and more. Combined with the 2 Champs and a Chump podcast and the new Summer is Coming cast, we look forward to making CardGameDB the premier place on the web to analyze AGOT.

Which is not to say that we’ve thought of all the possible angles to cover. If you’re interested in becoming a regular contributor to the Small Council and feel that you have an interesting and different viewpoint to provide on the game, don’t hesitate to contact us. I’d be happy to talk over any ideas or suggestions you have. And if nothing else, remember, sometimes life gets the better of us, and there may be an opening for a regular column author on down the road, so it never hurts to get in touch.

Grand Opening

So there you have it folks, a little insight into what’s coming. Those of you that have been following us over the last few weeks know that we’ve gone through a couple awkward patches, but we believe that we’ve worked out the biggest kinks and it’s time to let folks know and kick things off here with a true Grand Opening.
To really open things in style, we’ve determined that the first week of each month will be a “theme week” where you can expect all of the regular columns for that week to tie in to some particular topic in their own unique ways. This is good for coherency with the audience, and great for us as writers as a writing prompt.

The topic this week?

You guessed it.

The Small Council.

-Kennon
Hand of the King