Game of Thrones LCG: CD2 -The Champion's Purse Chapter Pack

The second Chapter Pack in the Conquest and Defiance cycle for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game.

Tournaments and the prospect of a champion’s purse attract all kinds of knights, both the scum of the earth and honorable competitors. With such a collection of competitors, even tournaments can quickly become deadly. As you and your opponents compete for the Iron Throne, your struggle for the ultimate prize becomes more dangerous than ever!

Mercenary Motives
The Champion’s Purse continues the themes began in Spoils of War, introducing new cards with the Prized keyword as well as developing the viability of multi-House decks with the new Conquest (Spoils of War, 1) agenda. But even as you battle for the champion’s purse, you may discover a few soldiers of fortune among the contestants. The Champion’s Purse introduces some of the scum of the realm in the Mercenary warriors of the Brave Companions.

Shagwell (The Champion’s Purse, 38) offers his talents to any House, but he’s most useful in the company of other Mercenaries. Shagwell possesses the Deadly and Prized 1 keywords, but his true abilities activate when you use the Neutral Faction House card. If you do, Shagwell gains, “Response: After you play a Mercenary character, choose and kneel a non-Army character.” Although this Response is limited to once per round, it certainly offers an incentive to separate yourself from a Great House, forming a Mercenary band.

No company of Mercenaries would be complete without the infamous leader of the Brave Companions, Vargo Hoat (The Champion’s Purse, 39). Vargo Hoat is a worthy addition to many decks, offering both a War crest and Renown. Vargo Hoat also possesses a specialized skill, however, offering you a way to directly deal with an opponent’s character agenda. When Vargo Hoat enters play, he can both kneel an opponent’s House card and discard a character agenda from that House card, potentially neutralizing your opponent’s intended path to victory.

With his skills for removing your opponent’s character agenda, Vargo Hoat may seem like the perfect leader of your Mercenary company, but you may want to consider another key character in The Tattered Prince (A Journey’s End, 117). Not only will The Tattered Prince allow you to play out-of-house Mercenary characters without penalty, he also lowers the cost of the first Mercenary character you play. The Tattered Prince can help you get your characters into play and a character like the Gold Cloaks (A Time of Trials, 25) establishes reliable draw. Soon, you can be well on your way to establishing a deadly Mercenary host, full of powerful characters like Shagwell and Vargo Hoat.

The Strength of the North
If you prefer the honor-bound Starks to the other Great Houses of Westeros, you’ll find that even by fighting honorably, you still have a solid chance at the champion’s purse. One of the new characters you’ll find in The Champion’s Purse is a new version of Ser Edmure Tully (The Champion’s Purse, 32). Ser Edmure’s traits, crest, and his Deadly keyword all provide opportunities for you to make him a truly fearsome fighter.

Ser Edmure also possesses a powerful once-per-round free ability, allowing him to shuffle any card from a player’s discard or dead pile back into the deck. Whether you use his ability to recur powerful events like To Be A Wolf (Sacred Bonds, 44), or remove an unique character from your dead pile, Ser Edmure Tully’s commanding presence is certain to make itself felt in your deck.

As you lead the armies and heroes of the north to war, you may need to ensure that your opponent will fight honorably, and one way to accomplish that is by using this Chapter Pack’s new version of Needle (The Champion’s Purse, 34). By giving this sword to any unique Stark character, you can prevent an opponent from triggering any effects while the attached character is participating in a challenge, hampering any tricks they might have hoped to unleash. When one of your character wields Needle, you’ll be able to keep your opponents honest in the challenge.

In this Chapter Pack, you’ll find a host of new tools for every Great House, expanding on the themes of the Conquest and Defiance cycle. Whether you take advantage of powerful new cards with the prized keyword or join the Houses of Westeros together to forge a multi-House deck, you’ll find cards to help you do just that in this Chapter Pack, along with new versions of iconic characters like Ser Edmure Tully and Viserys Targaryen.

From Out of Sight
Whether in the intrigues of court or on the field of battle, you make your greatest advantages by surprising your opponent in some way – finding something to tip the balance of battle abruptly in your favor. In The Champion’s Purse, you find new events for your House to get the drop on your opponent, starting with A Taste of Glory (The Champion’s Purse, 23) for House Baratheon.

This event grants your prized characters a sudden Strength boost and renown for a phase. Of course, you need to have a few prized characters to make it worthwhile, but as the Conquest and Defiance cycle advances, you’ll only find more prized characters to include in your decks. A sudden burst of renown for enough characters just might grab you the power tokens you need to win the game.

House Greyjoy, on the other hand, gains a way to drop Warship locations into play in the middle of challenges. When you or your opponent declare a naval attacker or defender, you may play Every Captain is a King (The Champion’s Purse, 25) to put a Warship location into play from your hand. This event works naturally with the Black Sails (Reach of the Kraken, 18) agenda, whether you use the agenda yourself or struggle against it in your current meta.

Bringing a Warship location into play opens additional ways to surprise your opponent and tip a challenge in your favor. House Greyjoy has a host of Warships to sail into battle, and some of your best choices for gaining the upper hand in a challenge are Longship Black Wind (Called by the Conclave, 49) or Longship Maiden’s Bane (A Hidden Agenda, 49). Longship Black Wind can be used offensively, giving one of your attackers the deadly keyword and potentially even killing the character that joined the challenge with the naval enhancement. Longship Maiden’s Bane gives you an immediate Strength boost, allowing you to defeat your opponent when he least expects it.

House Lannister also receives a way to foil an opponent’s plans with their new prized event, Counterplot (The Champion’s Purse, 28). This event bears a Limited Response, which reads, “After an opponent reveals a plot card, kneel a unique Lannister character to cancel the revealing of that plot and move it to its owner’s used pile. That player must choose and reveal a new plot card.”

Although the costs of playing this event – giving your opponent three power and kneeling a unique Lannister character – are undoubtedly high, the rewards are equally lofty. Canceling a key plot is nearly priceless, whether it’s a Valar Morghulis (Core Set, 201), or Melisandre’s Scheme (Reach of the Kraken, 9). If you play your cards right, running Counterplot in your deck could easily win you a game.

Reaching for the Prize
All men, from the lowliest hedge knight to the greatest lord, share the dream of winning the champion’s purse. Now, you too can have your chance at victory. Will the spoils of your triumph help you claim the Iron Throne?

• The second Chapter Pack in the Conquest and Defiance cycle
• Introduces the “prized” keyword, which balances tremendous risks and rewards in deck-building and play
• Features old and new iconic characters, such as Vargo Hoat and Ser Edmure Tully
• Sixty new cards promote the exploration of creative, new strategies

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