No-Pillage Mill! (2-2 at Harrenhal VII) 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

The pack review for Long May He Reign may be a little late in release, but let me let you in on a secret. The best card in the pack? Not Robert Baratheon. Not Valyrian Steel. Not Mercenary Contract or Bastard of Driftmark either. It's Queen's Retinue. Mill decks have been gaining some attention and traction lately with the Lannister, Greensight Trololololo aka Mill Is Real and Tyrell, Greyjoy The Green Mill, but Queen's Retinue cracks it wide open by not even needing pillage characters. With the help of Unexpected Guile, four gold and an opponent willing to throw intrigue and power challenges, you can force your opponent to draw eight cards in challenges and still keep the squad safe in shadows. That's some nonsense right there.

As is my wont, I hadn't played the deck before the tournament and went 2-2 at Harrenhal VII. I was very excited for the deck but was more than a little worried it would be the new combo and not be any fun for my opponents. That wasn't so much the case. Every match was tight. My two losses could have been wins if I had had initiative on the last round or played my plots better. My second win depended on me winning initiative when down 14-0.

You can divide the cards into five categories: Mill Draw, Multipliers, Good Draw, Counters and Economy

• Mill Draw Rather important as this is the win condition. This includes Queen's Retinue, Glass Candle, Ghost of High Heart, Dragon's Tail, Without His Beard, The Shield Islands, A Gift of Arbor Red, City of Secrets and City of Spiders. The earlier and more often you see these, especially the Queen's Retinue, the better your chances of winning.

• Multipliers These let you play your Mill Draw often enough to make a difference. Lazy Leo, Emissary of the Hightower, Clever Feint and Unexpected Guile all get more out of your Mill Draw.

• Good Draw It's not a flexible deck. If you don't see your Mill Draw and Multipliers, you are going to lose. So you need to draw them. Ghost of the Hightower, Unexpected Guile, The Shield Islands, The Dragon's Tail, Shadow of the Rose, A Gift of Arbor Red, City of Secrets and City of Spiders all get you your pieces. Shadow of the Rose is expensive, but the most important of these as it fetches the most important parts. Arbor Red is solid, too, and can find Economy but kneels the faction card which also Clever Feint's domain.

• Counters This deck isn't winning before plot four, so you need to slow your opponent down. Catspaw, Shrewd Diplomat, Varys, Milk of the Poppy, The Faith's Decree, Fortified Position and Valar Morghulis all help. Not surprisingly, Barring the Gates, The King in the North and Expose Duplicity present some problems, so hold onto a Nefarious Acolyte, Tommen Baratheon, Lazy Leo and Outwit to counter those. Also consider avoiding guaranteed unopposed challenges as they just put more power on your faction card to steal.

• Economy You need gold to play cards and you're not getting that from your plots. Gate of the Gods, Gates of the Moon, Redwyne Straits, The Arbor and The Roseroad help. Play them.

Changes? The first would be to drop the Ghost of High Heart and Glass Candles. Gold was always tight with no plot over five gold, and I'd rather save it for Unexpected Guile. In that same vein, I would definitely add a third Arbor and Redwyne Straits. Testing a new plot line that prefers First Snow, Duel, Valar Dohaeris and the like to City of Secrets and City of Spiders to slow the game down further is worth it. It's definitely not tuned, but the skeleton is there.

Enjoy.