US Nationals Joust Third Place 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

The Deck:

This deck was largely inspired by my attempt to put some new cards to use. First among those, Ser Jacelyn Bywater and Fair Isle. The instant I saw Jacelyn, it seemed like a potential huge boon to Lannister's card advantage, which has traditionally been rather weak on at least the additive (draw and the like) side of things in 2E. With him in mind, I went straight to The Queen's Assassin as one of the largest value plays available as we can keep playing it and generating negative card advantage (kills) for the opponent. This also lead straight to Marched to the Wall, which was initially a 2x in the plot deck in order to maximize my ability to hurt my opponent while discarding QAs that could then just be ambushed again.

Fair Isle of course allows me a much easier way to trigger the "more cards in hand" requirement on the QA and the gold bonus is nice to help smooth some of the issues that Lannister has had with gold intensive ambush and shadows. Speaking of shadows, one of the other key negative card advantage cards is Ser Mandon Moore who can shred opponent's hands and boards in short order. Fair Isle also plays well here as you can send an opponent on 3 cards down to 1 in order to force a kill from Mandon.

This led to the usual shadow package of Ser Robert Strong, The Regent's Guard, Cersei Lannister (DitD), Clever Feint, Bowels of Casterly Rock and even The Iron Bank Will Have Its Due to maximize our uses of Mandon as well as generally providing some strong negative card advantage effects of their own. Indeed, not only does TIBWHID often give us an extra use of Mandon by returning him to hand but that play also generates 4 gold, which is the amount needed to ambush in QA or The Hound (TtB).

A bit of utility rounds out the rest of the deck with things like Lionstar which of course is versatile with The Hound (TtB) but also shadows characters that can then be returned or ambush characters that can be brought back with Jacelyn. Don't forget that Gold Cloaks even discard themselves, so they're prime surprise challenge fodder via Jacelyn. Some cancel in The Red Keep (R) and Treachery cap things off.

Now, the agenda choice here may surprise people when they look at the full content of the deck. Initially this was conceived and played as a The House With the Red Door deck choosing Fair Isle, however, I became aware of some strong Stark Battle of the Trident decks coming to the event, so I was wary of Frozen Solid. This lead me to two changes at the last minute before the tournament - I dropped one Marched in favor of Confiscation and I dropped HRD in favor of The Many-Faced God, figuring that the ambush reduction would be similar in play to the gold boost from starting on Fair Isle and figuring in the occasional pinch that the icon/keyword gaining might be useful.

Play Advice:

This is a slow, grindy, control deck. Be aware of your time limits and make sure you don't leave yourself exposed to an opponent in the power lead at time. Marshalling for you will often be very quick as you want to save nearly all of your gold for challenge actions. That said, your challenge focus should generally be on military first with intrigue as a second. Power should usually come as an afterthought if you have spare resources in the early stages of the game. Instead, put your focus on the challenges that really up the negative resource advantage both in gold and draw, but truly, the most important here is the gold differential. Ambush and shadows are expensive, so the more you kill, the more you can offset this by forcing your opponent to spend out to replenish. Most of your effects are kills as well, so these become cumulatively more powerful as the game goes on, something that intrigue lacks once you've emptied their hand initially. Still, you should be able to grind out their hand and board and once you can rack up the unopposed challenges, close out the game very quickly if they don't just straight concede.

Changes: Now that I've played with those last minute tweaks, there are a few things that I would certainly change about the deck. On the plot front, Confiscation can probably go if you're not anticipating much Stark. I'd go back to double Marched in a heartbeat in most situations. However, I also found myself disappointed in Summer Harvest which turns out to have been an opening plot substitution for many players with the banning of At the Gates. Another possible route would be subbing it out, possibly for another copy of Time of Plenty to shore up your own draw a bit.

As well, I must admit that I was woefully unprepared for the true power of The Many-Faced God, which Tyler showed me in in our match in the final round of Swiss. Being able to give your opponent's characters traits so that they can be hit by Bribery (R) or Dissension is hugely (and possibly abusively) powerful. And that fits right in with the negative card advantage theme! A real underperformer turned out to be Ser Addam Marbrand, who was just too expensive to take time off to play even though I was looking forward to some card advantage through triggering him as Ser Mandon Moore entered play repeatedly, so that is certainly the first place I would look to free up some room.