All men must die, but when? And which men (and women and animals), specifically? That’s our question to you: Welcome to The Ringer’s Game of Thrones Mortality Pool.
This is a game for you to play with your buddies, your coworkers, your family. You think you know Game of Thrones, right? But can you predict the twists and turns this season will take us on? Create a group to compete with your friends and join us in trying to predict who will live and who will die in Season 7.
Here’s how the game works:
Your objective is to pick Game of Thrones characters you think will die, and you’ll get points if you’re right. But, of course, there are some caveats. From our rule book:
- Each player picks five characters to die each episode, and places a "weight" on each selection from one through five, based on how confident they are the character selected will die.
- For each correct pick, a player will receive the number of points assigned to that pick. So the higher the weight, the more points the player will earn if the selected character does, in fact, die.
- Picks must be entered before the beginning of each episode, at 9 p.m. ET each Sunday night. Entries will be locked the moment the episode begins.
- Players can pick each character only twice per season.
- The player that earns the most points in their group at the end of the season is that group’s winner.
That’s it! Sounds easy, but pay attention to that penultimate rule: "Players can pick each character only twice per season." You may think that Jorah Mormont, his body riddled with seemingly incurable greyscale, is a lock to kick the bucket this season. But when? Choose carefully.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What happens if a character comes back to life? Like Jon Snow. Or the Mountain. Or Beric Dondarrion. (You get the idea.) We have a rule for that:
- If a character is dead at the end of the episode, any player who picked that character gets the assigned points. If that character comes back in a later episode, no one is docked points.
Ah, but what if it’s not clear whether a character is dead or not? Like Stannis. Or the Hound. Or Syrio Forel. (You get the idea.) Here’s what we’ll do for that:
- We’ll make a judgment call. (Come on, we can’t have an iron-clad contingency plan for every scenario Thrones could throw at us.)
And just to cover your next question: If a character comes back as a wight, they’re considered dead. Reanimated as a mindless ice zombie just isn’t the same as being alive. The only ice zombie who counts as being alive is the Night King — that dude is basically alive.
That should cover it. Winter (read: summer) is here. Let’s make a game of it.
