Game of Thrones Fantasy League — Week 8

If you haven’t yet watched “No One,” the eighth 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 8, don’t read any further!

Sandor “The Hound” Clegane came off the bench with a vengeance pulling down 65 points, leading the Harrenhal Halberdiers to a rare first-place finish this week. 60 of The Hound’s points were for exacting revenge on certain members of the Brotherhood Without Banners for killing his buddy Septon Ray in the previous episode. He dispatched four with his trusty woodsman’s axe and reluctantly took part in hanging another two, including the short-lived Lem Lemoncloak. Then, he topped all that off with a five-point quip critiquing the dying skill of one of his victims.

But The Hound wasn’t the only scorer for the Halberdiers. The reanimated corpse of Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane (brother of The Hound) earned 15 points with his devastating attack on a member of the Faith Militant when Cersei “chose violence.” Finally, The newly drafted Waif earned 20 points for finishing the job of killing Lady Crane.

The Halberdiers missed out on an additional 25 points by benching the usually ineffectual Varys, who earned 25 points for being wise enough to get the heck out of Mereen before a massive fleet of ships arrived and started laying siege to the place.

The King’s Landing Queens continued clawing their way up the ranks with a 65 point game this week. Jaime Lannister brought in 50 points when he quickly and bloodlessly (weird, right?) took Riverrun away from the Blackfish. Brienne of Tarth brought in another 15 points for just being awesome (seriously, that was the reason given). But the Queens opted to leave the perpetually underperforming Grey Worm on the bench, so they lost out on his 10 points for telling Tyrion to stop talking.

Arya’s Army also brought in 65 points in this week’s game, all of it from their star player, the rechristened Arya Stark. She scored 30 points for bringing down the Terminator-like Waif in a pitch black room (all those points she put into her blind-fighting skill tree paid off), along with 25 points for finally becoming No One (titual line alert). But she refused all that, and capped off the week when she earned 10 points for reclaiming her name and leaving the House of Black and White behind.

America’s Team had this week’s weakest game, scoring only five points for Bronn’s pointed (as in vulgar) comment about Brienne and Jaime.

The undrafted Edmure Tully earned big points (45!) for some bold comments during his confrontation with Jaime and for earning his freedom (kind of?) from the Lannister camp.

Now that we’ve played eight Games of Game of Thrones this season, Arya’s Army is still soundly in the lead. The King’s Landing Queens aren’t out of the picture yet though, while the Harrenhal Halberdiers and America’s Team look to be battling it out for third and fourth place.

Cumulative League Standings

• Arya’s Army … 695 points
• The King’s Landing Queens … 451 points
• Harrenhal Halberdiers … 399 points
• America’s Team … 310 points

We all have high hopes that next week’s “Battle of the Bastards” will be a high-scoring affair, and based on the episode nine preview, we know that Wun Wun will bring America’s Team at least 10 much-needed points.

Check out Emily Yoshida’s episode recap with full points totals and the rationale behind them over at The Verge, and — even with only two episodes left — you can still get in on the fun of being part of a Game of Game of Thrones League. Head over to Fantasizr for details.