Things I Do For Win – Breaking the Resource Code

Resources are the backbone to many decks. Resources are a dead draw in all decks. Characters do the heavy lifting in winning AGOT. Resources don’t actively win you anything except the ability to play either more or bigger characters. Running the correct number of income providers in your deck is a delicate balance. The only thing I got out of my poetry class in college is “You can’t break the rules until you understand them.”

API and ATI and ACC
Using three numeric tools you can figure out how many income resources you should dedicate to your deck;

Average Plot Income (API) = gold income on all plots/number of plots (always round down)
Average Turn Income (ATI)= API+R (always round down)
R=total resources in play besides plot
Average Card Cost (ACC)= total cost of all characters/number of characters (always round up)

Note: I am only using characters for these numbers. You can just as easily use the same equation for all cards that need a gold cost including locations and attachments. I’m focusing on characters because most decks solely use characters to win the game; ergo they are the most important card in their deck.

In my article here http://www.cardgamed...or-win-ter-r393, I point out the Average Plot Income (API) number at the bottom of Cardgame DB deck builder. API is based solely on the plots that you choose. What happens when you add resources?
The value of your resources adds to the Average Turn Income (ATI) representing the total average income available to spend per turn. A single reusable resource every turn bumps the ATI up by one. Most resources have a value of one but, they span from gold to kneeling a character to play an army for free.
The Average Character Cost is the easiest concept to figure out. Simply add up the total gold cost of your characters and divide by the number of characters.

What Does Double ACC Mean? What Does It All Mean!
In AGOT each player draws two cards per turn. Assuming they are both characters the goal is to get them into the field of play. This is a simple concept for deck building.

The ATI represents how many or how expensive characters you can play on average during your turn. Most decks have an API around three, excluding Knights of the Hollow Hill decks. Most decks average character cost is just below three, meaning one three cost character can be played on average per turn. Most decks have the goal of a 6 ATI. I’m guessing you didn’t think about that did you?

There are two ways you can approach meeting the goal numbers. The first way is to set your ACC . Then choose plots and resources to meet double the ACC.

The reverse theory is also true. Instead of making the ATI the variable goal, manipulate the ACC. Let’s say you have 7 plots and some resources you will not change, meaning the API is going to be stagnant while building your deck. When choosing characters their ACC should be half of the ATI. The question is now how many resource cards should a deck run to meet that goal?

True Story
Back in the day I was talking with a world champion player about his character gold curve and the plots he was choosing to play. He stated that he never runs a character he can't play with his plot gold (good advice). If his plots didn't have a four gold producer his curve stopped at 3 cost characters. Now that's dedication!

Non-Plot Gold, Reducers, Influence Oh My!
Not all resources are created equal, gold is the best available in AGOT. The problem is gold resources won’t count towards an ATI until the turn after they come into play. However, they are the most versatile being able to pay for in- and out-of-house characters, locations, attachments, and some events. The pinnacle of resource cards is the Lannister Treasury; two gold to spend on whatever you want.

Reducers make more sense in an agro deck so you can use them as soon as you draw them. Unfortunately reducers usually target a limited number of cards in a deck and not all of them are repeatable.

Influence is a whole different animal. Few decks even pack cards that necessitate the need for influence. For this article I am going to ignore it (yes there will be an article down the road focusing on influence).

There will be a White Cloak Arsenal for each house to come.


Breaking the Resource Code
Let’s work with these assumptions:
60 card deck
7 card draw
API=3
ACC=3
Goal ATI= 6

The base idea is straight forward. Given I’m drawing 7 cards from a 60 card deck (Jaime up players!), how many resources do I need in my deck to statistically draw one of them during the setup phase to bump my ATI at least +1. One card out of 7 must be a resource.
If you are not running a 60 card deck (shame on you!) here’s how you figure out how many resources you should run to meet the goal of one location during each setup take the size of the deck divided by the number of cards drawn during setup.

Deck Size/Setup Draw

Example:
65 card deck running House of Dreams or 6 card Setup Draw
65/6=10.83 round up to 11 resources needed
Size matters!

60 divided by 7 is 8.57. I’ll round this up to 9 instead of down. That's just over 1 location out of every 7 cards in the deck or 15% of the deck.* Fifteen percent will be the same number for every deck to meet one resource per flop.

If we assume that every seventh card we draw in our deck is a resource card we’ll need to draw a total of 21 times to meet the goal. Seven of those cards can be knocked out on the setup. Every card dropped face down will count as a draw as well. A safe assumption is four cards during setup. If we don’t have any draw effects in the deck it will be until turn five to draw the third income card.

Setup Draw- 7 1-7 1st resource card ATI +1
Setup Redraw- 4 8-11
Turn One Draw- 2 12-13
Turn Two Draw- 2 14-15 2^nd resource card ATI +2
Turn Three Draw- 2 16-17
Turn Four Draw- 2 18-19
Turn Five Draw- 2 20-21 3^rd resource card ATI +3
Total Drawn- 21

Every deck running 15 percent resources has the same outcome. A lot games are over by turn five. Take the same spread of one out of seven cards drawn is a resource card except this time let’s say the first and eighth card are resources instead of seventh and 14^th.

Setup Draw- 7 1-7 1st resource card ATI +1
Setup Redraw- 4 8-11 2^nd resource card ATI +2
Turn One Draw- 2 12-13
Turn Two Draw- 2 14-15 3^rd resource card ATI +3
Total Drawn- 15

Both of the above diagrams are extremes let’s hypothesize the middle ground. One out of seven cards are resource cards drawn starting at the fourth card drawn.

Setup Draw- 7 1-4-7 1st resource card ATI +1
Setup Redraw- 4 8-11 2^nd resource card ATI +2
Turn One Draw- 2 12-13
Turn Two Draw- 2 14-15
Turn Three Draw- 2 16-17
Turn Four Draw- 2 18-19 3^rd resource card ATI +3
Total Drawn- 18

Turn four seems the most likely of scenarios to meet the goal of ATI of 6. At that point every two cards drawn on average can be played. What if that’s not fast enough for me? What if I want to hit the +3 ATI by turn two? Or ATI +3 isn’t enough, I need +5!

Accelerating Into ATI
Looking at number of cards drawn during a game at the end of turn two I will have drawn 15 cards. I want to meet +3 ATI or 3 resource cards, or one out of five cards drawn on average is a resource card. To figure out the percent of cards that needs to be income providing divide 3 by 15. That equals 20 percent of the deck. Now multiple 20 percent (.20) by the size of the deck I’m playing (60) equals 12 resource cards total need to be in the deck.

I will apply the same idea that the resource card falls in the middle of the five card spread and not the beginning or end.

Setup Draw- 7 1-3-7 1st resource card ATI +1
Setup Redraw- 4 8-11 2^nd resource card ATI +2
Turn One Draw- 2 12-13 3^rd resource card ATI +3
Turn Two Draw- 2 14-15
Total Drawn- 13

Success! Oh, well, kinda. We haven’t taken into account the nine other cards in our deck clogging up our deck. After hitting the goal ATI all other resource cards are dead draws. Well, we’ll deal with that in the next article.

Bara Breaking the Code
There are several houses touting great resource management, however, there are none as infuriating as Baratheon. Seat of Power seems like a sucker play. It is not. Single use income cards are not as useful as the zero cost gold limited locations but can add an additional +3 ATI for one turn. From looking at the ACC in most decks that is a whole character on the turn it’s played.

Bara has always been able to jam characters on the board with very little effect. A splash of out-of-house characters is just the trick. Running a high ATI doesn’t always mean in-house high cost characters. Sometimes a little help from the outside can seal the deal.

Even with five characters out-of-house the ACC comes out to 3.05 (4). With the plots I’ve chosen the API comes out to be 3.42 (3). This is an issue for regular decks, I can’t reliably play on average a character per turn.

By my count there are 18 income cards in the deck, a full 30 percent or one in every four cards I draw (3.33). Only 9 of them are gold producers. That being said 9 is the magic number to bump my ATI by one on the flop, giving me a total of 4.42 on turn one, just above my ACC. The Great Hall, Narrow Seas, and Sallador’s Crew is another six reducers for Bara/Stark characters only. I have 27 Bara characters in the deck, so 45 percent of the deck can be targeted. The one combo I put into the deck is Bound by Blood with Sallador’s Crew. Hopefully I’ll get to replay the crew multiple times.

Setup Draw- 7 1-3-7 1st resource card
Setup Redraw- 4 8-11 2^nd resource card
Turn One Draw- 2 12-13 3^rd resource card
Total Drawn- 13

By the end of turn two on average the ATI will be 6.42. The ATI can be accelerated with a turn one Time for Raven to net a Black Raven. There is now a very real possibility of and ATI of 7.42, meaning dropping multiple 3 and 4 cost characters a turn is no big deal.

If I hit everything in stride I will have 14 dead cards after turn two. That’s why I’ve added as much draw as possible that works holistically within the deck. Between the Watcher of the Nightfire, Blackfish, and some others I count 11 ways to draw cards. Hopefully that will pull me through the clogged spots.

While I don’t think this deck is a world beater it is an interesting study in how to make resources work for you in an intelligent manner. The next step would be to combine a high ATI and just playing the best characters in the game regardless of house affiliation.

I’m getting cute with the Bound by Blood and it should probably be replaced with Much and More but I do love some tricks just for a rainy day!

View The Deck: Breaking the Resource Code

*Granted, statistics doesn't ensure you will draw them. 15% is still just 15% chance of drawing an income location. But, in a perfect spread of cards you will be bumping your API up by 1 or 2 depending on the income providing location.