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I know very little of the game, I never heard of a "LCG" -Living card game, but what grabbed my attention besides its the Game of Thrones is that there are no booster packs, am I correct?

In other card games such as Pokemon, Magic the gathering, Yugioh, etc. They can pretty much be unbalanced IMO, which is why I gave all those up. There are the rich, and the poor, and the rich will always dominate the card game unless you sink in alot of money into it to even it out...For a piece of cardboard.

But I want to know, is the GAME balanced and what makes it different than the rest?

Ok, I know about the LCG concept because I play Netrunner.

Each "expansion pack" is sold all at once in one block with a set of non-randomized cards in it. You buy the "insert name here" pack and get the cards listed on the back, which are 100% of the cards printed for that expansion.

That way there's no such thing as "rare cards". Everybody has equal access to every card in the game just by buying the expansions.

As to what makes that game different, no idea. I saw some card previews in a catalog (again that was in my Netrunner box). I kind of hung my head and despaired when i read "kneel target card. It does not stand in its controllers stand phase."

 Sharps wrote:
I know very little of the game, I never heard of a "LCG" -Living card game, but what grabbed my attention besides its the Game of Thrones is that there are no booster packs, am I correct?

In other card games such as Pokemon, Magic the gathering, Yugioh, etc. They can pretty much be unbalanced IMO, which is why I gave all those up. There are the rich, and the poor, and the rich will always dominate the card game unless you sink in alot of money into it to even it out...For a piece of cardboard.

But I want to know, is the GAME balanced and what makes it different than the rest?

I've played GoT card game off and on since 2007.

as mentioned, there are no booster packs, there use to be but FFG took over the game. Instead there are chapter packs that are released each month. There are 6 chapter packs to a cycle, each cycle has a theme(s) to them that make each set dramatically different that add a new component to the game. Such as Naval enhancement or shadow cards.

The game is very balanced between all 6 houses represented.

The game can be sort of expensive at first needing to purchase a starter, house box set and various chapter packs. Long term it is far, far cheaper. 15 bucks a month for each chapter pack, assuming it has something you need. Every chapter pack has something for every house.

I would recommend purchasing the starter at 40 bucks to see if you like the game play. From there you can add to your collection. If you are only look into playing 1 or 2 houses, you could use the card game data base to see what cards you want for the type of deck you want, and buy singles on ebay or other site.

So a deck you want to build by purchasing each pack may run you 400 bucks.

But purchasing singles may only cost 80 to 100 bucks.

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What makes it different?

First I will state there is a meta game just like any other game, but as I mentioned one house isn't dominant that others, depending on your play style, some houses may be a bit more dofficult to play with.

The game it self generally comes in big swings in attacks, rather than chipping at each other throughout the game.

Each turn you draw a plot card that impacts the round and how you play. The card may allow you to attack more than once, prevent your opponent from getting gold, reducing claim or increasing your strength.

In GoT lcg, there are "reset" (valar morghulis wild fire, westeros burns) cards in the event you are in a big hole, you can clear the entire field of opponent's characters with plot cards to give you a chance to come back.

It's not a game where who ever has the most attacking strength wins the game. Your opponent can have the largest military might on the field and lose it all. There are 3 types of challenges a character can perform if he bares the icon

Military (allows you to kill characters)
Intrigue (discards from opp. hand)
Power (claims power - how you win the game, 15 and you win)

any of these go unblocked you claim a power from the pool.

SO you are rarely in a rut just because your opponent has the numbers game.

Other things assist you as well such as event cards which act like spells, instants or trap cards, there are location cards that boost income or give you abilities that help you in the game.