Three is the New Two

Translation: Benji

The game has changed more than it appears.  A thing attracting attention is that the cost of cards (especially characters) has substantially increased compared to previous version, as well as plot gold revenue. It could look like the system is balanced (3 more golds at setup, many plots which can provide 7 or more golds), but in practice it does not look as a certitude.

I made a comment for last version on this article that an increase of one gold cost has not the same impact  from 0 to 1  and from 1 to 2 in a economic scale going up to 4 or 5 according to decks. Today we have more cards at 4,5,6,7 gold cost, so this effect is even bigger than before.  Any first edition player can appreciate that we are hardly able to play more than three cards per turn.  It looks as a symptom of the non-correlation between the increase in plot gold revenue and card costs. Plots provide 1 or 2 more gold, while characters with minimum quality now cost at least 4 (while we previously had way better quality characters at cost 3).

It’s a small introduction to the real topic of this article: the terrible number 3 in this second version.


In first version, 3 represented the mean and was a good number: a plot with three gold revenue was neither good, neither bad. A character of cost 3 (or STR 3) was protected from Flamme-Kissed, Dragon Skull, Venomous Blades, First Snow of Winter, etc. Resuming, from the amount of “hate” creating a separation line between the “poor” (less than 3) and the “solid” (3 and more), in term of characters or plots. For attachments and locations, this follows a different rule.

Consistency started with 3 gold cost, which were protected from negative effects and started to be solid characters in challenges phase (almost able to win alone in attack and the same in defense against weenies). But today, this is not the case anymore, for different explanations:

• They are now considerate as weenie. Much cost 3 characters have STR inferior to their cost, are monoicon or have poorly efficient abilities. They are that kind of characters that satisfy military claim, but they are too expensive to consider it.
• The old hate that cost 2 characters suffered is now the one of cost 3 characters. First Snow of Winter or Ser Ilyn Payne are cards announcing FFG’s policy: three is the new two.
• Challenge phase is no more dominated by STR 3 characters. Value increase is an overall phenomenon, and now STR 4+ characters are the most valuable ones. It’s a rare phenomenon that cost 4 or 5 characters do not have cost/STR equivalence. When it’s not the case, they are tricon, have a keyword or an ability of great impact toward the game (Eddard Stark CS, Asha Greyjoy, Tyrion Lannister CS, etc). Nowdays, FFG politic seems to state that cost 3 character doesn’t need to be “balanced” and, in my opinion, there are so many suboptimal ones.
• They are inconvenient for setup

I want to extend this last point. The general increase in cost leads to different consequences. 0 or 1 gold cost characters almost disappear from the game. Most of the decks play six 0 gold cost cards, few of them having more than six 1 gold cost cards (playable at setup), apart from Greyjoy. Thus, setup must make the full use of the 8 gold cost provided, since almost no cards are free of cost. Despite all the game changed, setup remains the same: it’s the start of a good or a bad game, and good setup starts at 4 cards being played.

My definition of a good setup is the following (but we are all free to have our own):

• One limited card (preferably a Roseroad)
• Have a +1 gold income ( economical location or card ability)
• Have more than 1 character (Marched to the Wall)
• One character has a gold cost equal or higher than 4 (First Snow of Winter)

Between the different cards combination that fit the requisite, many are possible but few are probable:

The possible setup of 4 cards fitting the anterior requisite:

0 – 1 – 3 – 4 
0 – 1 – 2 – 5
0 – 1 – 1 – 6 
1 – 1 – 1 – 5 
1 – 1 – 2 – 4 
0 – 2 – 2 – 4 

These are the combinations, plus any one  including duplicates or two cards of cost 0 that are not limited.

Upon the last combinations, only three of them are trully realistic (possible to reach frequently):

0 – 1 – 2 – 5 
0 – 1 – 1 – 6 
0 – 2 – 2 – 4 

Thus, 3 gold cost cards make difficult to reach this “optimal” (according to my criterions) setup: it’s very difficult to obtain a setup of 4 cards, using the 8 golds provided, with a character of cost 4 or more, having inside a 3 gold cost character.

Said otherwise, 3 gold cost characters are like this Tetris pieces:

My conclusions are:

• 3 gold cost characters should be considered as weenies.
• They are too expensive to fulfill this use: in almost all circumstances, three cost 2 characters or one cost 6 character are better than two cost 3 characters.
• They worsen setup
• If possible, it is better to avoid them in decks (especially characters, it’s much tolerable for locations).
• It’s better to don’t include more than 9 cards of this cost, and more convenient to have less.