Announcing the Final Chapter Pack in the Wardens Cycle

It was cold in the cell, the wind screamed night and day, and worst of all, the floor sloped. Ever so slightly, yet it was enough. He was afraid to close his eyes, afraid that he might roll over in his sleep and wake in sudden terror as he went sliding off the edge. Small wonder the sky cells drove men mad. Some previous tenant had written on the wall in something that looked suspiciously like blood, the blue is calling.
   –George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce The Blue Is Calling, the final Chapter Pack in the Wardens cycle for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game!

The Eyrie rests high above the lands of the Vale, home to House Arryn. The words of their House are “As High As Honor,” but despite this noble declaration, there are still horrors to be found in the Eyrie. The sky cells and their jailor have driven men mad with terror, and in The Blue Is Calling expansion, you can turn this mindless fear against your opponents with new House Arryn characters and attachments.

You’ll find new ways to pursue the Iron Throne beyond the bounds of the Vale with the sixty new cards (three copies each of twenty distinct cards) included in this expansion. The Blue Is Calling brings the Wardens cycle and its focus on House Arryn to a triumphant conclusion and expands the possibilities for your other trait-based decks, including Baratheon’s Rainbow Guard, Greyjoy’s Raiders, Lannister’s Clansmen, and more. You may race with the Dothraki across the plains of Essos, plot revenge with the Sand Snakes, or solidify your hold on the Eyrie with the unorthodox prisons of House Arryn.

The Sky Cells

For the first time in A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, The Blue Is Calling gives you the chance to condemn your opponent’s characters to the terror and imminent death of the Eyrie’s prisons. Sky Cell (The Blue Is Calling, 119) is a free attachment that you can attach to any character with a printed cost of three or lower. As soon as you imprison one of your opponent’s characters in a Sky Cell, his mind begins to succumb to madness: the controller of a character with Sky Cell attached must select his next plot card at random. The ramifications of a random plot selection can easily change the course of the game. A plot like The Power of Blood (Core Set, 194) could be wasted by using it at an inopportune moment, but revealing Rule by Decree (Core Set, 206) or Valar Morghulis (Core Set, 201) at the wrong time may completely ruin your opponent’s position.

Once the madness of a Sky Cell has begun to fester in the consciousness, there is only one escape: a step outwards, into the blue! A player with a Sky Cell attached to one of his characters can take an action during the marshaling phase to kill the attached character. This character cannot be saved, forcing your opponent to choose between being able to play that character for the rest of the game, or being forced to choose his plots at random as long as the character lives. Since you can target characters as powerful as Daenerys Targaryen (Ancestral Home, 76) or Ser Edmure Tully (The Champion’s Purse, 32) with the Sky Cell, you can be certain that you’ll give your opponent some very difficult choices whenever you play it.

The sky cells can drive your opponent mad with terror, and the brutish jailor who oversees them can be equally dangerous to your opponent’s plans. In this Chapter Pack, you gain access to Mord (The Blue Is Calling, 118). Mord has one Strength and a military icon, but his most effective use can be found in his Response, which reads, “After you win dominance, choose a character with printed cost 3 or lower. Shuffle that character into its owner’s deck unless its controller moves 1 gold from his or her gold pool to Mord.”

By preying upon your opponent’s characters, you may quickly deprive him of expendable servants, forcing him to put his more valuable characters into danger. Shuffling characters back into your opponent’s deck also denies him the chance to recur them from the dead or discard piles with tricks like Melisandre’s Scheme (Reach of the Kraken, 9). The only way for your opponent to escape this fate is to pay a bribe, moving one of his gold dragons from his gold pool to Mord. Gold on Mord can be spent as though it were in your gold pool, granting you an additional source of income that cannot be taken in the taxation phase.

Into the Blue

You can enact the justice of House Arryn and turn the sky cells against your opponent with the cards included in The Blue Is Calling. Expand the plots of the Arryns and claim the Iron Throne in this expansion and the other Chapter Packs in the Wardens cycle!

Look for The Blue Is Calling in the first quarter of 2015.

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