A Game of Thrones LCG - Second Edition

A Game of Thrones LCG (Second Edition) is Fantasy Flight's rebuild of the original, launched right as the HBO show hit Season 5 and the brand was at maximum cultural saturation.

The game

Designed by Nate French and Damon Stone and released in 2015, Second Edition keeps the Great Houses, the three challenge types, and the 15-Power victory condition but rewrites almost everything else: card frame, action timing, plot-deck structure, and the way House characters interact with each other. The plot-deck mechanic, where every round both players flip a pre-chosen plot card, is the signature system and the clearest departure from First Edition.

The context

FFG rebuilt Second Edition specifically to be competition-ready after First Edition had drifted into a meta nobody could rescue. The revised rules launched alongside the global LCG boom and ran for six years before Asmodee retired the line in 2021.

The collector angle

The Core Set plus seven full deluxe-expansion cycles (Westeros Cycle, War of the Five Kings, Blood and Gold, Dance of Shadows, Flight of Crows, King's Landing, All Men Are Fools) make up the complete Second Edition print. World Championship and European Championship promo cards (alternate-art Tyrion, Cersei, Robb, Daenerys) are the prestige pulls. Full-playset collections are easier to assemble than First Edition because every card was fixed-distribution, but the last 2020 cycle is already scarce at retail.