Lanni White Book - top cut at Worlds 2019 1.0

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• 1.0

Some people have expressed an interest in how a White Book deck made day two - I'll call some of it luck, but in any case I really like the way this deck plays.

I've always had a fondness for characters who don't kneel to attack - it allows you to throw a challenge you don't care about at your opponent, just to see what they end up committing to defend it, without having to actually "spend" any strength on the challenge. White Book seemed an interesting way of adding to that theme with the one free stand, and being able to add Barristan and KoF for more renown helps with the win condition.

White Book allows for two extra ways to cheat out big characters - there are six cheap lord or ladies you can sac with Heir to the Iron Throne (and King Joff - if you've already used him you don't care about keeping him around all that much). White Swords is amazing in Lannister - ditch a Barristan to draw a card with Gold Mine, then get a free Barristan next turn in the plot phase. This is a HUGE telegraph to your opponent so they might just play Barring, but it's the decks that don't run Barring in the first place that you most want a free Barristan.

With all the Targ SoB hanging around, I probably should have played Gregor at 3x. Probably cut a Tyrion and... I dunno, maybe the Sword Tower, it didn't do much all weekend. Another Barring would probably be good in place of Return - I don't need to fear a reset as much, I just need to stop KoS and SoB from dropping me down from attrition. I'd also probably swap the Lay Wastes for Lay Siege - Waste didn't do much for me, but I saw some excellent uses of Siege over the weekend.

Strategy's pretty straightforward, get out big guys and win challenges. Prioritize defense over offense when possible, you can still rack up renown.

Here's how the games went:

ROUND ONE - vs. Jerrin Wagner, Stark Crossing (LOSS)

I wasn't fast enough to get out enough strength to stop his third challenge each round, my VM hit his Return, and I stabilized riiiiiight before he hit fifteen power. Deck might be a little slow for this matchup, but i didn't get enough playtesting in to be really confident with my plot choices overall.

ROUND TWO - vs. Xander Hintz, Bara KotHH (WIN)

I\m afraid I don't remember a lot of this game - I think I basically got a wall of big guys out and kept claiming renown steadily until I hit 15. This isn't a rush deck by any means, but it can get inexorable if the deck it's against isn't aggressive enough.

ROUND THREE - vs. Jessica Thompson, Targ SoB (LOSS)

After a mulligan, Ser Preston was the only character I could find with a MIL icon the whole game. That's just not gonna cut it. I scooped for an early lunch.

ROUND FOUR - vs. William Segletes, NW Summer (WIN)

I think William got four characters out on setup, including Halder and Hobb - I hit him with a Valar turn one or two to clear them off and got into a bit of a staring match. I weathered his resets and kept a wall of big guys out, claiming power here and there when it made sense to commit guys. He couldn't find the Wall til way late, at which point I didn't really care. My Red Keep typically allowed me to force through one challenge a turn through his Abandoned Strongholds and Castle Black triggers etc, and I won shortly after we exhausted our plots.

ROUND FIVE - vs. Hisham Masri, Targ SoB (WIN)

The polar opposite of the last SoB matchup. By the end of turn one I had three Great Halls, Gregor Clegane as my only lord, and Lancel. I even added Barristan to it later. If I remember right Hisham wasn't able to force through a single challenge after that. This is the game that makes me want to go up to 3 Gregors.

ROUND SIX - vs. John Taggart, Greyjoy Fealty (WIN)

John got two Silence's Crew out on setup, which made me somewhat relieved since they'd need to get lucky on some pillages before becoming much of a threat. He quickly added 7-drop Asha and was able to push through some challenges, but wasn't able to stop me from making mine, usually a couple each turn with renown and such. I don't mean to downplay this one, it felt very close right up to the end where we were bumping up against time.

So at this point I've made day two and have exceeded my expectations, so the weekend is a win for me already. During day 1b, I played in the melee, with almost the exact same deck (taking out the Lay Wastes for Bodyguards and swapping a few of the plots - including Forced March and Coordinated Attack as potential finishers).

I won two of three tables - one by maxing out Cersei triggers and claiming like nine power in one turn. This was only possible because if I didn't win, the player in third position would have won by beating the crap out of the person in fourth position - as such, fourth position helped me win to prevent himself falling down the standings.

The other game was insane - we went into the last turn at (I think) 12, 11, 11, and 10 power. I won initiative. The Tyrell player to my left claimed two power with Mace before we got to challenges. He had Wardens out and a few renown, so it was clear he'd win if it got to his turn. I tried desperately to figure out a way to help the player in fourth position get into second place, in exchange for his help winning, but couldn't come up with anything. I did some math, and was pretty sure that if I threw a military challenge at him with Gregor, he'd have to either let me claim renown, or kneel out enough guys to allow me to win a power challenge (although there were a LOT of strength pumps on the table so I may have messed up the math).

However, my opponent realized that if he DID block, he'd go up to 14 power through renown. If I then won without taking any power off of him, he'd finish second. He blocked, leaving me at 13 power (Cersei had claimed one earlier when another player whiffed with Heads on Spikes). I then threw a power challenge at him, he left it unopposed - however if he allows claim to go through, he'll drop to 13 power and tie for second. As such, before the challenge resolved, he used Crown of Golden Roses, allowing my Cersei to claim an additional power - meaning the game ended BEFORE we got to claim, leaving him in second place after I got the unopposed bonus. A hell of a weird game.

TOP 64 - vs. Eric Swanson, Lanni KoS

We were able to see each other's decklists in the top cut, so I can see all the BS I'd have to deal with (and he could see all the cancel and defense I run). First turn we both played At the Gates, and I think we both had Red Keep out as well. My plan was to Lay Waste his Keep in Dominance, and make him play around my Keep, but he pulled it from my hand in intrigue instead of one of the six other cards in my hand I didn't care about. It may not have mattered that much, as he would've been able to grab Bowels with it. Hard to say.

At the end of turn one he brought out a Nefarious Acolyte, to defend against my Barring next turn. As such I played King plot instead, and killed his Acolyte in Marshalling with King Joff. That allowed me to Barring turn three and keep him under control.

However, I hadn't been able to claim enough power to threaten closing yet, so it was far from over. He was able to bring out a bunch during turn four, and started to catch up. I cancelled his Clever Feint with Hand's Judgment, but he played another during the standing phase, which hurt a lot.

I think it was the fifth turn that time was called. We were incredibly close on power, but in the end I lost because of Robert Strong - Eric named him with Iron Throne, preventing me from bringing him out of Shadows that turn, and then killed my Hound with his OWN Robert Strong, winning him a power challenge with Renown. That tied us on power, and his Rob Strong gave him dominance for the win.

EDIT - it's been brought to my attention that Iron Throne should have prevented BOTH of our Robert Strongs. It's possible I'm misremembering the order of things here, though I was fairly confident it was accurate - if this is how it played out, I'm sure Eric just missed that interaction himself, I'm certainly not attributing anything to malice at this point. Just sucks that it's possible I was eliminated on an illegal play. Ah well. END EDIT

All in all I'm quite happy with the result - I decided not to netdeck even though I'd only been able to play half a dozen games with this deck before the tournament, and I still managed a top cut finish with an agenda most people didn't think was viable. I'll make a few changes and see how it goes.

Let me know if you've got any questions!