Calls to Arms - the rationale of SEVEN

Now, why 7?

Because there're 7 days in a week? Or there are 7 sins? Why not ten, to facilitate sleeve buying, why not 5? Or for the matter, why not the auspicious 8?

Why 7 cards in a plot deck?

I can understand why there must be at least 5, or the plot deck would be rather thin and the variety of strategies greatly limited.

But why stop at 7? Not 6, not 8, not 10?

What's the rationale in the number 7 for the plot deck?

Well, I have absolutely no idea. So I'll attempt to speculate.

We know that most strategies involve about 3-4 plot cards to pull off, 1-2 with good income, 1-2 with card search, and at least 1-2 with high claims - that ensures that most basic card strategies require a cycling of the fundamental 3-4, or maybe even 5 plot cards to execute. Take the predictable Baratheon Power Rush for example. Probably you'll see like, a Summoning Season first, followed by 2 Power of Blood or something like that, at the minimum, for the Baratheon fella to win the game with those pesky well-known kings and lords.

Most other decks don't have that kind of speed, so 4 plots are needed (usually, and we're talking about melee here) to execute the grand scheme of things, usually starting with a search (Summoning or Building, or the lucky Family support from the Tullys), followed by a buy (high income plot with benefits, say, a Fury), and then the key attack cards, like a 2-claim plot, or victory-related strategic plot such as To the Spears! or Rise of the Kraken. Very often, 2 of such cards are required to pull a chain or secure a win, like 2x 2 claims plot or something like that.

Therefore we can probably safely say that 4-5 plots are actually the norm for pretty much any deck to score a win - and therefore any plot deck must consist of about 4-5 cards dedicated to the primary path of victory - either with Power-related abilities (like Rise of the Kraken) or Power-grabbing facilities (like Storm of Swords for a Siege Stark) or survival for the grabbing of power (like Power of Blood or Uneasy Truce).

The 2 remaining cards will then provide the "Plan B" for the deck. These are usually either reactionary cards meant to level the playing field (especially in Joust), like the famous Valar, disturbance plots to annoy people and improve current position, such as the Blockade, eliminate key threats with the Wedding, or simply bonus cards like the Winter Festival.

But if too many plots are available in a plot deck then the basic "very good to have" plots will appear in every one, like Valar or Winter Festival, so the number 7, I think, is created to only allow a single Plan B, and not enough to allow a Plan C and/or too many goodies to see, say, Winter Festival in every deck.

So I guess 7 is a well thought out number, not randomly pulled from the numeracy table.

On the other hand, it could simply be convenient. Or maybe Mr. Eric just likes the shape of the number 7, or he hates 8.

(o.o)