Halt! If you haven’t yet watched “Blood of My Blood” the sixth episode of this season’s Game of Thrones, and don’t want the events of the episode to be spoiled for you in this recap of the Game of Thrones Fantasy League Week 6, don’t read any further!
This week there wasn’t as much action onscreen compared to the previous week, but that didn’t stop Arya’s Army from earning a massive 115 points. Arya herself earned 25 points for escaping the grip of the Faceless Men and Gilly posted 10 points for cleaning up nice, but this week’s big scorer was Samwell Tarly. He nabbed 50 points when he swiped Heartsbane, his family’s Valyrian steel sword, right off the mantel. Plus, he earned an additional five points for a quick quip about not telling his family about Gilly’s Wildling heritage. And just for fun, the High Sparrow earned Arya’s Army another 25 points for deftly playing Tommen and earning the full backing of the crown. I was a bit surprised that Daenerys didn’t get a few points for riding in on Drogon, but I’m also relieved, because Arya’s Army certainly doesn’t need any more points.
The King’s Landing Queens had another run of bad luck this week. They did earn 35 points — 25 for Margery and 10 for Tommen when the Crown and the Faith joined forces. But there were a few hopeful moments for the Queens that just missed. Walder Frey made his first season six appearance, but despite some attempts at being witty he came up scoreless. There was a moment where Cersei and Jaimie might have scored by doing what they do best, but their farewell turned out to be too tame to be worth anything. The Queens benched the Dragons special teams, so there was much relief that the Drogon didn’t earn any points for returning to the show with Daenerys riding on his back.
After last week’s impressive posting, my Harrenhal Halberdiers returned to form with their regular low-scoring performance. I decided to bench the White Walkers and put the Faith Militant special team on the field, and that proved to be a wise play. The confrontation on the steps of the Sept of Baelor wasn’t the battle (or the points total) I was hoping for, but I still managed to pull down 25 points when the Faith and the Crown were declared to be the dual pillars of civilization. But that still wasn’t enough to get me out of third place.
With no appearances by Ramsay Bolton, America’s Team was the big loser this week, scoring exactly zero points. Bran Stark is the highest scoring player in the whole game so far, and you’d think America’s Team would have at least learned this lesson after missing 110 points from Bran last week. Yet they once again left Bran on the bench and missed out on the 20 points Bran scored for his download of the entire history of Westeros. He didn’t get any points for drinking a cup of hot rabbit blood, though.
On the undrafted player side of things, we saw a rare event this week when Mace Tyrell earned 15 points dressing himself up in such a fabulous outfit. Someone may want to pick him up to replace some dead weight in their own lineups. Speaking of undrafted players, in light of some returning characters and some others who have come into prominence since the season started, this week the folks at Fantasizr have introduced some new free agent choices, like Dolorous Edd, Waif (finally), and the newly returned Benjen Stark, as well as a few riskier options.
As for the state of our league, at six weeks into this contest, Arya’s Army is sitting solidly on the iron throne with more than double the points of any other team. Everyone else is withing striking distance of each other, so this is now a three-way contest for second place. As the owner of America’s Team pointed out:
“At this point, the league standings reflect an exact replica of Game of Thrones. We’re all the Baratheons, Starks, and Lannisters, and Arya’s Army is the White Walkers.”
There’s big news brewing for next week: the Blackfish — Brynden Tulley — will be making an appearance, so we’re looking for the King’s Landing Queens to move up the ranks a bit.
Cumulative League Standings
- Arya’s Army … 606 points
- America’s Team … 280 points
- Harrenhal Halberdiers … 279 points
- The Kings’ Landing Queens … 265 points
Check out Emily Yoshida’s episode recap with full points totals and the rationale behind them over at The Verge. A Game of Game of Thrones League really adds an element of fun to an already fun show, and there’s still time to enjoy four episodes if you choose to start your own, head over to Fantasizr.
