It has been exactly one week since Game of Thrones: Kingsroad launched its first season. Players have been busy pledging their houses and carving out their legacies, and the results are finally in. Let’s take a look at how the landscape has shifted.

House Hornwood Claims Victory in the Opening Week

In the inaugural week of the Banner Selection, House Hornwood secured a victory with a cumulative score of 591,705, followed by House Umber and House Manderly. Honestly, this was an expected result, as House Hornwood boasted a 50% selection rate from the very first day of the update.

If you are playing for the rewards, House Manderly is the most pragmatic choice right now. While the entry requirements for the Master rank are fairly uniform across all three houses, the gap widens significantly once you reach the Greatsword rank. House Manderly currently offers the most accessible cut-off for that tier. Achieving Greatsword rank nets you the 'Sealed Maester's Scroll' alongside a host of weekly rewards. Just keep in mind that scores and population distribution can fluctuate depending on your specific server.

Starting on the 22nd, the 'Banner Duel Festival' will commence at regular intervals. It offers a variety of rewards, including the seasonal token, 'Coastal Sentinel's Iron Shard'. While parrying is disabled in these zones, the combat difficulty is lower than the 'Raid Defense' missions, so it’s well worth a try.

The Rise of the Underdogs in the Rankings

Last week, we noted a growing chasm between the top and bottom of the rankings. Following the 'Banner Re-assembly' event, which reshuffled the ranking groups, that gap has narrowed dramatically. The cut-off for the top 100 has climbed to 172,033, while the margin between the top 10% and bottom 10% has contracted to 51,118. Whether this is a genuine surge from the lower-ranked players or simply a byproduct of the group reshuffle is something we’ll need another week to determine.

Looking at the class distribution, the recent balance patch has had a negligible impact. While the number of Knight players in the top 100 Momentum rankings dipped slightly, the endgame 'Altar of the Abyss' rankings saw a massive surge in Knight representation. Conversely, the preference for the Mercenary class has notably plummeted.

This trend suggests that the balance adjustments failed to address the core requirements of Mercenary players. While the reduction in skill charge times was a positive change, the buffs applied to 'Earth Slam', 'Shield Sweep', and 'Charge' missed the mark, as these remain niche choices. In practice, there has been no meaningful shift in how Mercenary players set up their skills, with none of the three buffed abilities managing to surpass a 30% pick rate.