Factions
Each house represents one of the main factions involved in the struggle for the Iron Throne emulated by the AGoT LCG. Each house provides different strengths and weaknesses, allowing for various play styles to interact within the same game. Certain cards are restricted to one or two houses, giving each house a unique flavor. Currently, there are eight playable factions in the AGoT LCG. Each is identified by a shield bearing the arms of the house, located in the upper right corner of the card.Great houses
* House Stark, the honorable rulers of the coldOther factions
Some great houses featured in ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' are not represented as individual Houses in the ''AGoT'' LCG, but still appear in the game. House Tully is present in the game as a subset of their allies, House Stark. House Lannister and House Baratheon both feature numerous House Tyrell cards, and several significant House Tyrell characters were featured as promotional cards. House Tyrell also features prominently in the ''A House of Thorns'' expansion, as doesCards
Each player supplies his or her own deck to play the game. A deck consists of a ''House Card'' or ''Alliance'' to represent the player's faction, an optional ''Agenda'' that modifies his faction, a plot deck that consists of exactly seven ''Plot'' cards, and then a main draw deck of at least 60 cards consisting of ''Characters'', ''Attachments'', ''Locations'', and ''Events''.House cards
Each House card represents one of the main factions involved in the War of the Five Kings. Each House provides different strengths and weaknesses, allowing for various playstyles to interact within the same game. The House card selected will often restrict cards allowed in the remainder of the deck, by limiting cards that are marked as being allowed solely for another House. Characters, Locations, and Attachments often have a House affiliation, and often are used in decks running a matching House card. Some cards have no House affiliation, and such neutral cards may be used freely in any deck. Cards with House affiliations other than the chosen House card may be used, providing the card itself has no restriction, but require an extra expenditure of resources to bring them into play.Agenda cards (optional)
Introduced in Valyrian Block, any deck using a House card (but not an Alliance card) may use one Agenda card. Agenda cards either modify the rules for building the player's deck, or grant an in-game advantage, typically at the cost of some other disadvantage such as requiring extra power to win, reduced card draw, or limiting claimed power.Plot cards
Plot cards are generally regarded as the defining feature of ''A Game of Thrones: The Card Game''. Unlike the shuffled and randomly drawn resource deck, at the beginning of each round, each player chooses a new plot card to be revealed, which will have an effect on the round to be played, allowing for a strategic element to an otherwise random game. Plot cards indicate the base amount of gold available for the player to use to bring new cards into play during his ''Marshalling'' phase (indicated by a number within a gold coin), a base initiative value to determine the order of play for the round (indicated by a number within a diamond), a base claim value to determine the scope of the effect that player winning a challenge (indicated by a number in a silver disk), and a text box detailing any other effects or restrictions on the plot card, including any ''traits'' that it might have. Most plot cards are designed with built-in trade-offs, sacrificing high claim for low income, or some other game mechanic drawback.Character cards
Character cards represent the unique characters from the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' novels, such as Eddard Stark, as well as generic individuals and massed groupings (such as armies) that can be found there. Generally, characters are the main focus of a deck as they are the principle card type used to participate in challenges, and thus collect the power tokens necessary to win. Attributes of a Character card consist of a gold cost (generally represented by a number overlaid on a gold coin in the upper left corner), a name across the top that may be preceded by a black flag if the character is unique and/or an infinity symbol if the character is ''endless'', a House affiliation (represented by one or more House shields in the upper right corner, although neutral characters will have a blank shield), artwork depicting the character in the top half of the card, a strength value (represented by a number on a stylized tapestry or a nondescript shield in the middle of the left side), zero to three challenge icons (a red axe represents Military, a green eye represents Intrigue, and a blue crown represents Power) arrayed in the bottom half of the left side, and a text box in the lower half of the card. Within the textbox may be ''traits'', ''keywords'', other game effects or icons, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent roles or groups within the world of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', such as Lords or Dothraki. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group characters together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of characters. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that character, such as No Attachments, which prevents any attachments from being placed on that character.Attachment cards
Attachments are cards that are used exclusively to modify other cards. An attachment may not be in play unless it is attached to the proper type of card, typically a character card unless the attachment itself says otherwise. Attributes of an Attachment card consist of a gold cost (generally represented by a number overlaid on a gold coin in the upper left corner), a name across the top that may be proceeded by a black flag if the attachment is unique and/or an infinity symbol if the attachment is ''endless'', a House affiliation (represented by one or more House shields in the upper right corner, although neutral attachments will have no shield), artwork depicting the attachment in the top half of the card, and a text box in the lower half of the card. Throughout the Winter block, some cards were printed with a black crow icon in the bottom left corner to indicate the attachment is ''Doomed''. It is unknown if such attachments will appear again. Within the textbox may be ''traits'', ''keywords'', other game effects or icons, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent types of enhancements, such as skills or titles. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group attachments together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of attachments. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that attachment such as Setup, which allows the attachment to be played at the beginning of the game unlike normal attachments. Occasionally, game effects can cause cards to become face-down attachments attached to specific other cards. These function the same as normal attachments, except they are treated as having no names, no text, no gold costs, no House affiliations, and are discarded if they are ever forced to leave play.Location cards
Location cards represent the unique places in the setting of the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' novels, such as King's Landing, generic regions such as fiefdoms, and even mobile locations such as sailing vessels andEvent cards
Event cards represent special actions or happenings from the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' novels that can be used in the course of the game. Certain events may be restricted so that they may only be played by a specific House, and some may only affect cards of a particular House affiliation. Event cards generally have a play restriction or a cost of some type which may be paid in influence, gold, or possibly by modifying the game state of one or more characters, locations, attachments or house card. Attributes of an Event card consist of a name across the top that may be preceded by a black flag if the event is unique and/or an infinity symbol if the event is ''endless'', artwork depicting the event in the top half of the card, and a text box in the lower half of the card. Within the textbox may be ''traits'', ''keywords'', but primarily will be one or more game effects, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent specific types of events such as ''Small Council''. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group events together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of events. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that event, such as Deathbound directing a used event to the dead pile instead of the normal discard pile.Rules
Deck building
Each player participating in an A Game of Thrones game uses two decks: 1) a 7 card ''plot'' deck and 2) a 60+ (40+ for draft) card ''draw'' deck of ''characters'', ''attachments'', ''locations'', and ''events''. During play the ''draw'' deck cards will often end up in other game play areas including the ''discard pile'' (cards discarded from play) and the ''dead pile'' (cards that were killed or are marked with the Deathbound keyword). Typically, players are only allowed three copies of any particular card (as determined by the card name, regardless of card type or game text similarity) in their ''draw'' deck, and only one copy of any particular card, by name, in their ''plot'' deck, but these restrictions can be modified by some other cards, such as the Twins agenda.Winning conditions
A player must earn 15 power tokens between their House card and characters in play to win A Game of Thrones. Numerous cards in the game can change the amount a player or his opponent are required to earn in order to win. Generally, power tokens are earned by winning challenges against an opponent, but some cards allow a player to directly claim power for his House card or characters in other ways.Setup
At the beginning of the game, each player shuffles their ''draw'' deck, and draws the top 7 cards, with an option for a '' mulligan'' given to each player to shuffle and draw a new hand. From this initial hand, each player is able to select up to 5 gold worth of characters, locations, and attachments with the Setup keyword, but no more than 1 card of any type with the Limited keyword, from their hand; these cards are placed face-down until all players are ready to reveal their initial cards in play. Once all cards are revealed, players draw cards again until they each have 7 cards in their hand again.Rounds and phases
The game is played through repeated rounds until one or more players meets the winning condition, or all but one player has met the elimination condition. Rounds are divided into 7 phases, with each phase allowing players to alternate actions that affect the game state in some way. The first phase every round is the ''Plot'' phase. Each player selects one unused plot from his ''plot'' deck, and all players reveal their chosen plots simultaneously. Initiative values from plot cards and other resources are tallied, and the player with the highest initiative chooses which player will go first in each phase of the current round. The textbox effects of plots are then resolved in the order chosen by the first player. In the second phase, the ''Draw'' phase, each player is allowed to draw two cards from their ''draw'' deck. Although divided into turns for each player, the ''Marshalling'' phase is a single phase for all players. At the beginning of each player's turn in the Marshalling phase, the player counts all income from plot card and any other resources available. The player is then able to bring new resources in the form of characters, locations, and attachments into play by spending the gold. Some events and other triggered effects also require the payment of gold, and unused income is not carried over into other rounds, so resource management is important. The fourth phase is the ''Challenge'' phase. As with the ''Marshalling'' phase, each player has a turn to initiate challenges against other players. Generally, players may initiate one each of ''Military'', ''Intrigue'', and ''Power'' challenges each round, but several cards can allow exta challenges to be initiated or deny certain challenges at all. Also, in a multiplayer game, he can either use all his challenges on one opponent or divide them among his adversaries. He doesn't have to use all of them. Challenges can be initiated in any order, and require a player to ''kneel'' one or more characters with an icon matching the challenge type to begin the challenge. Then, the player being attacked may kneel one or more characters to attempt to oppose the challenge. Once all player actions are taken, the player with the highest total strength in the challenge wins. If the defending player wins, nothing special occurs, but if the attacker wins, then the defender suffers losses depending on the type of challenge initiated. * Military - if the defending player loses, he must ''kill'' a number of characters he controls equal to the claim value on the attacker's plot. * Intrigue - if the defending player loses, he must randomly discard a number of cards from hand equal to the claim value on the attacker's plot. * Power - if the defending player loses, he must remove a number of power tokens from his House card equal to the claim value on the attacker's plot, and place them on the attacker's House card. In the fifth phase, the ''Dominance'' phase, each player counts the total strength of all controlled characters that are still ''standing'', plus the amount of gold still remaining in his possession (unspent). The player with the highest total wins dominance that round, and claims 1 power token for his House, taken from the power common pool. In the ''Standing'' phase each player changes each ''kneeling'' card to ''standing''. With the LCG format came a new phase, the ''Taxation'' phase, in which each player returns unspent gold to the common pool (in the CCG format, players could not use gold outside of their turn in the Marshalling phase).Common game terms and rules
''Kneeling'' and ''standing'' are the two possible game states for each card in the game, although there is a special ''moribund'' state that's further explained in the faq on FFG website. ''Standing'' cards are upright, and are ready for use to pay for effects, or to initiate or defend challenges. ''Kneeling'' cards are rotated 90 degrees to the side, to indicate that they've been used to pay for an effect, or to initiate or defend a challenge. Some game effects are able to ''kneel'' cards (changing them from ''standing'' to ''kneeling'') or ''stand'' cards (changing them from ''kneeling'' to ''standing'') in order to manipulate the resources a player has available. ''Unique'' cards represent the special individuals, places, items, and happenings in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. Unique cards may not be played if the player already has a copy of that card in play, or if a copy of that card can be found in the player's dead pile. Unique characters, locations, and attachments may be placed with copies that are already in play to serve as ''duplicates''. Duplicates may be discarded to save the unique card from being killed or discard. ''Triggered Effects'' are a type of game effect that a player chooses to use in order to change the game state in some way. Triggered effects are indicated by a bold name of a phase (one of ''Plot'', ''Draw'', ''Marshalling'', ''Challenges'', ''Dominance'', or ''Standing'') or ''Any phase'' to indicate when the effect may be used. Another timing word that may precede a triggered effect is a bold ''Response'', which indicates that the effect may only be used in response to another occurrence in the game. ''Triggered abilities'' are a subset of triggered effects, and are specifically triggered effects that are written on cards currently in play. ''Passive Effects'' are game effects that have no bold timing restriction indicated, but instead happen whenever certain prerequisites are met, such as a character coming into play. ''Constant Abilities'' are game effects written on cards in play that have an ongoing effect on the game state. ''Influence'' is indicated on various characters, locations, and attachments in the game by a number on a scroll in the textbox of the card. In the Valyrian block, influence was introduced as an additional resource to manage, requiring players to kneel one or more cards with a specific total amount of influence to pay for an effect. Normally, once a game effect has been initiated, it fully resolves without an interruption. However, once an effect is begun, there is a chance for specific effects to ''Cancel'' the initial effect. If the effect is cancelled, all costs stay paid, use limitations remain, but the effects do not occur. ''Kill'' means removing a character from play, and placing that character in the ''dead pile''. Kill effects only work on characters, including other cards that are currently functioning as characters, but other cards can be placed in the dead pile through various game effects, such as the Deathbound keyword. ''Discard'', when occurring without the modifier ''from hand'', means to take a card that is in play, and place it in the ''discard pile''. Generally, whenever an effect targets a card to be killed or discarded, players are given a chance to ''Save'' the card from the effect, either by discarding a duplicate of the targeted card or by using another game effect. If a card is saved, it is not removed from play, and it is not considered killed or discarded.Organized play
Night's Watch
Fantasy Flight Games has an official group of volunteers that organize sanctioned tournaments for A Game of Thrones. ThePrizes
* Gold dragons are a form of loyalty points that were awarded for purchases and playing in tournaments. The packaging forTournaments
There are several different official tournament types sanctioned by FFG. In the ''Classic'' format, players bring their own decks, which may include cards from any set, as long as the card is not on the banned list. In ''Standard'' format, players bring their own decks, which may only include cards from the most recent blocks. , only cards released since Valyrian block are legal in Standard format. In ''Limited'' format, players instead build their decks at the tournament, using provided draft packs (in ''Limited - Draft'') or starter decks (in ''Limited - Sealed Deck'') and booster packs. Aside from the restrictions on usable card pool, FFG places no limits on how Night's Watch volunteers organize the tournaments.World and Continental Championships
The A Game of Thrones World Championships were held yearly atPodcasts
There are a number of podcasts focused on the ''A Game of Thrones: The Living Card Game'', such as the weeklSets and expansions
When it was released, A Game of Thrones was introduced as a CCG. The cards for the AGoT CCG were organized into numerous sets and expansions that could be mixed together and used interchangeably. A ''block'' consisted of a ''base set'', up to two ''expansion sets'', a ''premium starter'', and often one or more promotional cards. Typically, a base set consisted of 240 cards available in either starter decks, consisting of a mix of fixed cards and a random assortment of other cards, orIndustry awards
The game's first base set - ''Westeros Edition'' - won the 2002References
* *External links