Anyone here?

Well despite the death of our beloved card game in the PH there are still things to look forward to in the lands of Westeros.

The HBO series is firming up and will become reality in 2010. The major cast members have been named and a couple of die hard fans went out of their way to create posters for the yet to be shown series as shown in the link below:

Fan Imagined posters for HBO's upcoming Game of Thrones TV Series

Enjoy!

Updates Updates Updates

It's been a while since anyone posted here. To keep things alive despite the lack of activity in our small community, I've decided to update this blog and post an article or two. Well, let's get it on then...

Finally Tzumainn updated his website! He's posted the complete list of cards for all the chapter packs under the A Time of Ravens chapter. He's also posted updates on the recent chapters of King's Landing and Kings of the Sea. You can check them out at http://www.tzumainn.com/agot/cards/. I must say that the new cards are quite intruiging to say the least. Each house gets something good though I have to say that Stark got most of it. They got another slew of cheap but fairly large characters. Anyways, I'll go into some of the cards that piqued my attention shortly.

A new mechanic was introduced by FFG called Shadow. For anyone who's played Magic: The Gathering, this mechanic has some similarities to the Morph keyword where you pay a default 3 generic mana cost to put a 2/2 creature into play "morphed" (face down). And in order to "morph" the creature at any time as a fast effect to what it really is, you need to pay the morph cost and flip the creature over.

Basically, the Shadow mechanic is similar in that you pay 2 gold to put a card with the Shadow icon face down on your playing field. You can do this as part of the 5-gold setup flop or during the Marshalling phase ignoring the card's out-of-house gold penalty if any; do note that these cards can't be flopped and/or marshalled face up in that they have to be "in Shadow" when they played. Furthermore, these cards when initially played are considered neither "in play" nor "in hand" and are considered to be "in Shadows" instead.

Then it gets fairly tricky after given that this is a mechanic that needs a little practice and getting used to. In order flip the card up and have the card considered to be "in play", you can pay the gold cost indicated. From my understanding, you can only bring only one card from the shadows at the beginning of each phase and this is counted as a player action. If you need to find out more about this mechanic, they have a specific document all to it at http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/agotlcg/support/Shadows.pdf.

One of the upsides playing the shadow cards is that it can't be discarded/killed by normal effects and claim effects. Also, I think that FFG did this to further utilize the treasury/gold tokens mechanic of the game.

Now on to some the cards that caught my eye...

From the Shattered Armies chapter pack:
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Card: Tommen Baratheon (L)
Cost: 1
STR: 1
Icons: P

Traits: Lord. King.

If there is another King character in play, Tommen Baratheon cannot attack, defend, or trigger his character ability. Marshalling: Kneel Tommen Baratheon to draw a card.
*Tommen!!!

=============================
Card: Northern Cavalry Flank (S)
Cost: 4
STR: 5
Icons: M,P

Traits: Army.

No attachments except Siege. Deadly.If an opponent is running an agenda, Northern Cavalry Flank does not kneel to attack.
(War)
*Geez. They really can't get enough of the deadly, don't-kneel-to-attack, friggin' huge armies for Stark. Sigh.


From the City of Secrets chapter pack:
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Card: Tyrion Lannister (L)
Cost: s2
STR: 3
Icons: M,I,P

Traits: Lord.

House Lannister only. Stealth.Response: After a card comes out of Shadows, Tyrion Lannister gets +2 STR and gains your choice of Deadly, Renown, No Attachments, or Immune to Events until the end of the phase.
(Shadow)

=============================
Card: Shadow Politics
Cost: s0
Type: Event

Traits: Small Council.

Response: After Shadow Politics comes out of Shadows, choose a player. That player may initiate an additional I challenge against an opponent of his or her choice as a standard player action this phase.(Shadow)


From the A Time of Trials chapter pack:
=============================
Card: Condemned by the Council
Type: Event

Traits: Small Council.

Response: After you win an I challenge, choose a location controlled by the losing opponent. If that location has the Shadow crest, return it to Shadows. Otherwise, discard it.
*Finally, some location removal for I-heavy decks. A very good thing.


From the Kings of the Sea chapter pack:
=============================
Card: The Price of War
Type: Event

Response: After you win a M challenge in which you control at least 1 attacking War character, choose and discard from play up to 2 non-limited locations controlled by the losing opponent. (Limit 1 per round.)


Well, that's all I have for now. There are a lot of new cards out there and combos waiting to be used and abused. Sadly, access to the cards isn't what it was before. However, I am still hopeful that we could revive this game somewhat...

And Oddly, News...

I know that many of us have let the game slide, and that's not something any one of us can battle singlehandedly. (Ooo. Jaime joke.) But the funny thing is that, even as we see AGOT receding in the rearview mirror, some most unexpected news seems to be coming out of FFG. Nothing earthsdhaking. It's just that there are new Chapter Packs coming out, and they seem finally to be hitting their stride. Not that I don't still miss the old stuff, and certainly the switch to chapter packs, for us over here on the far side of the Poison Water, really hit our ability to acquire the game easily.


But the new packs have me more than ever wanting to put in an order. I don't have the time right now (or the computer know-how) to post the card images, but I'm not even done abosrbing the latest releases (including a fantastic new version of Arya Stark in Cat O' The Canals) and they're starting to talk about the King's Landing cycle with, I swear, hottest Cersei ever.




I'll do it when I can, though , promise. The game has slipped off our radar, but I'm still looking to the skies.



By the way, I'm typing this in between practice DOTA sessions. =)

A question...

We've gotten the new chapter packs.

And yet it is only Richard, so far as I can recall, that has successfully integrated the new cards into his decks.

I personally thought that with the new cards I would find the excitement and drive to build new decks for our beloved game. But alas that was not the case.

With the official demise of UDE's VS system and the lamentations it got from its fan base I couldn't help but wonder at the state of AGOT right now. Especially here in our own little nook.

By last count the only active AGOT players were yours truely, Gil, Richard and Mikko.
Aaron has not really played that much even after getting some cards from the chapter packs. It has been a long time since Icy has played a game and has shifted full time to Bleach.

I myself am guilty of not finding time for AGOT. Like I said in a long gone article AGOT is like a girlfriend with the same enormous demands on a player's time. You cannot casually pick up cards and build decks around it. You cannot expect to win without spending a lot of time testing and tweaking your decks. And with everything going on in my life right now AGOT took the extreme backseat.

I have made my peace with VS. And right now I get the feeling that I should also make my peace with AGOT. What do you guys think?