Maesters at the disco 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

First of all, I was really hoping to name that deck M&M's, but sadly it was already taken.

Last cycle was really bad for non-shadow Tyrells. Ofc undoubtedly Unexpected Guile is amazing and The Queen's Retinue is absolutely crazy in mill decks, but in general, there were also a lot of crap. Also Tyrell cards from the Targ box aren't amazing, but as we all noticed, it brought us one amazing plot: At the Palace of Sorrows. Synergy with House Florent Knight is obvious, but I wanted to abuse it more. Therefore came to my mind one of probably worst (on the first glance) Tyrell cards in the entire cardpool: Show of Strength. Well, with the Gran Equalizer it's like unexpected mass Nightmares, isn't it? Or, in the other words, Fortified Position? But, there is no point in setting strength 3 and blanking all our characters unless they don't care too much about it. So, a group of small, low-strength characters that don't care that much about text in challenges phase... hm... here comes The Conclave!

Perhaps the worst agenda (or at least definitely one of the worst) in the game, so it's perfect for a player like me who likes to play underdog decks. Also last cycle brought us several good maesters: (Gormon, Mullin, Kerwin and Archmaester Marwyn singlehandedly makes the Conclave WAY better. Having second hand full of cards immune to discard is amazing, equalizing maesters strength with all big guys makes actually Conclave possible to trigger and Oldtown is designed especially to work with that kind of deck.

Another game mechanic, which works amazing with the Grand Equalizer, is dragging out of the challenge. With 3STR on everyone removing from challenge forces opponents to overcommit when they want to attack and allows to drag out our character if opponent defends with more characters. Not only Highgarden (a little bit forgotten card, I think) works good here, but also Septa Nysterica and Maester Ballabar are amazing, when everyone has the same STR and it's lower than 4.

Finally the deck needs a win condition and as far as Oldtown is great, it isn't enough. Here comes good old Mace Tyrell (HoT), who fits perfectly in the strategy: replay House Florent Knight, gain passive power, and don't lose anything if blanked temporarily during challenges. Yay!

Last few words about some other card choices: Here to Serve is ofc amazing here since it allows to bring in Maester Kerwin to save Mace Tyrell (HoT) on possible Valar turn or Maester Cressen to remove Milk of the Poppy. A Game of Thrones is very good to stop SoB or Crossing decks, two Valars are also necessary to slow down aggro decks and maesters are quite resilient. Citadel Archivist is probably cuttable; it was put here to prevent mill, but good mill will just cancel him. Several 1-of Tyrell characters are all good, however I can perfectly exchange them for other; just remember, that Mace needs some Tyrells and deck should be somehow able to survive The First Snow of Winter. Glass Candle are useful giving insight to our maesters (even blanked) and work also good with Oldtown if other methods aren't available. The Citadel is latest inclusion and probably second Highgarden would be better, draw is already fine here. Lay Siege is very good now to remove Gates of the Moon/White Tree/The Iron Throne (LMHR) and other cards are probably quite obvious. Some people would probably expect Outwit here - but I really dislike this plot, the cost is really high with poor plot statline and there is rarely a situation when we want to block opponent's reset. I also didn't consider My Mind Is My Weapon even for a while - if I want to play more military challenges, I just wouldn't use maesters. Maybe there should 1 tricky copy of it, but, well, meh.

How it performed: well, in online playing, surprisingly well. It's definitely jank deck and really isn't nearly half as powerful as SoB, KoSh, Valyrian Steel or literally-every-NW-deck-with-Bound-and-Yoren, but I've beaten all these archetypes with a little bit of luck. It has good economy and draw, target removal, it's quite resilient and of course it benefits from the surprise factor. Having probably about 70-80% of wins in online playing, I also took it to the small tournament in Cracow - and in real life it worked ok, but that's it. I've lost to:

• Lanni/White Book, having very slow start without economy and struggling for it, VD and Show of Strength slowed my opponent a lot, but not enough; also VM was pointless here due to dupe on The Knight of Flowers (AtG) and White Cloak on Hedge Knight to save Cersei Lannister (LoCR).
• Martell/Valyrian Steel, quite close game with a lot of turning points, but my opponent - who also knew this deck quite well - managed to remove duped Mace from the table with a combination of The Fowler Twins + Attainted + Southron Messenger + Patience + the same Southron Messenger on Trade Routes turn. Also, with Ser Gerris Drinkwater he was able to play 3x TR in a row - hard to deal with that kind of economy boost.
• NW/Kings of Winter, also quite close game where I was fighting till the 8th plot despite really hard circumstances: t1 duped Clydas stole me ~10 money before I was able to remove him, also t1 duped Three-Finger Hobb + Eastwatch-by-the-Sea gave my opponent 3 additional cards per turn (21 cards in whole game!) and there was also duped White Tree on 3rd turn I believe + all 3 Meager Contributions. Therefore I didn't have gold for too many Mace triggers, but still fought until 8th plot having 9-10 power. Grenn with some other ranger made a difference in the end. Meanwhile I won with Greyjoy/Crossing (tbh, it wasn't very fair game - because I've built my opponent's deck also and while I think it was quite ok, knowing all his plotline and other tricks gave me the upper hand; but even if I wouldn't have this advantage, it was manageable to stop him with early A Game of Thrones and HFK removed both Euron Crow's Eye (KotI) and Asha Greyjoy (KotI). Another won scored against NW/Kraken choke, thankfully I was waiting with LSF and played first Valar Morghulis to kill Clydas along with Recruiter for the Watch asap and then A Game of Thrones to build some board while my opponent missed his Naval Superiority; also Lay Siege hit his White Tree right after he played it.

I think that the deck is fun even besides HFK/Sorrows combo (maybe not for opponent though... Mace is still a beast and definitely he should stay on RL) and as far as it isn't probably even the best Tyrell non-shadow deck, it's playable enough. Also I think that Show of Strength with the Grand Equalizer may be a good starting point for way more broken deck, maybe some mill - 3 turns with no text on characters is high-level troll play. Definitely worth considering. Thanks for reading and now I will move to some other stupid combo - I look at you, Mathis Rowan!