What Trait Will Triumph?

“When the battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made.”
  –Rhaegar Targaryen, A Feast for Crows

For Robert Baratheon, his triumph at the Battle of the Trident began his ascent to the Iron Throne, and had a massive impact on the future of Westeros itself. For A Game of Thrones: The Card Game players, this November's Battle of the Trident special voting event has similar implications: the Agenda card created will impact not only those characters bearing the winning trait, but the entire direction of the metagame for years to come.

Will you heed the summons, and fight for the trait you believe most worthy?
Will you stand with Knights, Armies, or Maesters?

At all game stores that pre-ordered their A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Store Championship Kit for the upcoming season (November – February), a Battle of the Trident tournament will be held on either November 12th or 13th (international locations may host this event later, through December 11th). Players are invited to compete for the exclusive Summons (Core Set, 22) alternate art card, and the tournament winner will receive an exclusive playmat featuring the Red Keep overlooking King's Landing!

Even more important than those rewards, each of these competitors will exert their influence on the future of the game by voting for one of three forks of the Trident River. Each fork leads to a different character trait: Blue leads to Knight, Red leads to Army, and Green leads to Maester. The winning trait will become the focus of a new Agenda card to be printed in a future expansion, opening up new and exciting deck-building options for including out-of-faction characters with that trait.

In addition to the vote each tournament attendee will cast, the winner of each store's tournament adds ten additional votes for their preferred fork. From home, you can retweet both of the November 10th tweets from @FFGames and @FFGOP about your favorite fork. Every five retweets will add a vote for that fork. Plus, fifty additional votes will be added to the most-retweeted fork, and twenty-five additional votes for the runner-up.

Yet the questions remains: which fork will you choose? As the forks cannot campaign for themselves, we asked some experts to speak on their behalf. Please consider these impassioned calls for your support from the opinionated developers of A Game of Thrones: The Card Game.

Blue Fork - Knights
by Matt Newman and Brad Andres

Greetings! Matt and Brad here. You should totally vote Blue Fork in the upcoming Battle of the Trident. Why? Because knights are awesome. Seriously—besides dragons, what’s cooler than knights? Do you want to be a maester? No. Do you want to be part of an army in Westeros of all places? No. You want to be a knight, because you get to wear awesome armor, you probably have Renown, and people look up to you (unless you’re Jaime).

There are almost as many Knight characters in A Game of Thrones: The Card Game as Maesters and Armies combined. That means a Knight-focused agenda will be more impactful and flexible than a Maester or Army agenda. That means more interesting and fun decks and more flowers being given to Sansa. Vote Blue Fork if you like getting fifteen power faster than anyone else. We certainly do!

Red Fork - Armies
by Danny Schaefer

Hi folks! Danny Schaefer here, telling you why you should support the Red Fork in the Battle of the Trident. You’ve been given the option of knights, armies or maesters, and I think the choice is pretty clear. First of all: knights? Really? Come on. There’s already a Knight agenda. It’s called Banner of the Rose. Maesters might seem a bit more interesting at first blush, but who really wants to run a deck full of weak, vulnerable characters? An Army agenda, on the other hand, would bring something truly unique to the game.

Sure, we’ve seen big character decks, but those decks are usually a mix of expensive centerpiece characters and cheap chaff. This agenda would promote a totally different deck type, one focused almost entirely on 4+ cost characters, and bring military challenges and underplayed characters to the forefront. Vote Red Fork for an agenda like nothing you’ve seen before.

Green Fork - Maesters
by Nate French

Hey everyone! Nate French here, to convince you to vote Green Fork in the Battle of the Trident. This is really a decision between knights, armies, and maesters: what type of deck do you want us to support? Which is a pretty easy decision if you ask me.

First—knights? Really? Who do you think you are—Don Quixote? Any knight can make a knight. Knight decks are already possible. An agenda might help them a little, but would it really take the meta to all that different a place? An Army deck might seem novel on the surface, but “big characters” is also already a thing, and do we really want another flavor of that deck? Maesters, though—now that would be exciting. Such an agenda would allow us to take the game in a new direction, one in which nuance, subtlety, and the concept of mind over matter… matters. So vote Green Fork—and you can thank me later.

With such an important decision weighing heavily on your mind, we want to leave you with a summary of the important dates of this campaign:

November 2-6: Store Championship locations will be holding their World Championship Celebrations, and possibly showing the Worlds live stream. Two copies of the World Championship extended art card will be given away, and you can use this opportunity to ask about the two important dates coming up: their Battle of the Trident tournament, and their actual Store Championship tournament.

November 10: Three fork tweets will appear on @FFGames and @FFGOP. You can retweet from each of our Twitter accounts to show your support for that fork, and help to add votes for it until Wednesday the 16th.

November 12-13: The Battle of the Trident will take place at most Store Championship locations. Competitors will cast their votes and win exclusive prizes.
(Note: Due to international kit availability, some retailers outside of the United States may host these events later, through December 11.)

November 16: We will be counting retweets at 12:00 PM Central Standard Time (UTC -6) to calculate votes to be added to the tournament totals.

December 13: All Battle of the Trident organizers need to submit their players' voting results at the website included in the Event Outline by Tuesday the 13th.

December 20: The winning trait will be revealed, and developers will begin work on this new agenda!

November - February: A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Store Championships will take place at locations around the world, beginning two weeks after Worlds!

Make your voice heard this November! Be sure to follow @FFGames and @FFGOP in anticipation of the chance to retweet, and bookmark the Organized Play page for updates and information!