1st place - Czech National Championship 1.0

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• 1.0

This is the deck I used to win the Czech National Championship.

The deck is a lot of fun to play and it has a lot of small tricks here and there. I also believe it has very few (if any) really bad matchups and can win against probably anything. At the same time however, it is 76 cards and sometimes you're just gonna lose to the increased varience of your own deck.

When the tournament was announced, I knew I will be attending but had no idea what I'm gonna play. As most people, I haven't really played in the past year(s). I still follow the new releases and occasionaly jump on theironthrone to play few games with my old decks but playing online is not much fun for me. When deciding what to play, I put a lot of time and thought into trying to guess the meta and trying to pick a deck for it. Much more time and thought than into building the deck afterwards. Looking at thejoustingpavilion, I saw there weren't many tournaments and most of them were very small, so judging the meta from there did not seem like a good idea. Instead, I just looked at all the new cards and started thinking what would be the decks to be scared of. First thing I considered was the ban of At the Gates. In my head, that meant KotHH decks got a great boost. I remember from the last World Cup they were very strong even with AtG around. Without it, they must be even stronger. Also, Aloof seemed more appealing than ever. From the new cards, Mad King's Command stood out the most. It just seems like such a meta-changing card - the same way both Valars are. You can't save against it, it not only hits the board but your hand as well, it has high initiative and if your deck is not built around it while your opponent's is, you are probably gonna lose. If you don't have ambush or similar and you are relying on characters, Mad King's Command and raised claim is gonna make your day miserable. If you are relying on locations, Mad King's Command is like better PD, since the locations cannot be saved and it will almost never be a dead card (unlike PD). Trying to play the resource game and have a lot of cards in hand? Well, Mad King's Command does help even there..

So anyway, MKC rant aside, I was trying to find a deck that can play against Aloof and big characters (mainly GJ), Targ KotHH burn and at the same time not lose to Mad King's Command.

First, I was considering NW/Allience/Rose/Qohor. Inspired by the deck Kostas used to win UK Thrones War few years back. I had it built for the last WC and it had Cravens and Milks for big characters, could play PD against control, was reasonably grindy with all the draw from Seasoned Woodsman and Hobb, had a lot of str boosts and saves against burn and Mad King should not hurt too much. It could also close games pretty fast with Jon voltron or Randyll. The problem was economy. Losing AtG meant your econ was not very good for 75 cards. I gave it a few tries on theirothrone and it was still playable but felt way worse.

So I went to my second comfort pick. NW/Wolf. The deck I used in two tournaments with a 12-3 record. Running Annals of the Castle Black, Iron Bank, Unbridled Generosity and Flea Bottom alongside all the other stuff you would expect from a NW Wolf. It also lost AtG but with 60 cards and Iron Bank, it didn't feel that bad. Iron Bank and King's Landing made PD (and Mad King's Command) salvageable. It had some worse matchups but overall felt really good and for a long time, I thought that was the deck I would run for this tournament. Until I noticed Griffin's Roost.

When I realised you can use Griffin's Roost with Oathkeeper and Queen of Thorns, bringing anything non-tyrell on board for free, I knew I had to at least try to build it. And yes, the dream combo is three cards (Support of the People/Roost, Queen and Oathkeeper) plus you have to win by 5, but all of these cards are good on their own. It's not like I'm putting bad cards into the deck. So the deck started with an idea of a 3 card combo but I soon realised it fits all the categories I wanted. Shadows are amazing against Mad King, shadows allow me to run this very aggresive plot lineup that no Aloof player will be happy to see, The Arbor and Redwyne Straits are great against PD (and Mad King), while Aegon, Oltown Undercity and Oldtown makes the deck very good against control as well. I even added Sparrows to help with the grindy matchups.

I started with Tyrell/Dragon and when I put all the cards I wanted into a deck, I was around 70 cards. Hopelesly trying to find what to cut, I had an idea. What if I instead added more cards and played Allience with Free Companies? It allows me to run Iron Bank to help Arbor and Redwyne Straits, allows me to run Flea Bottom which is an amazing card, and makes Aegon+Golden Company cheaper. It cost me TIBWHID and Gifts for the Widow package but I think it was 100 % worth it.

There are lot of synergies within the deck. Almost all cards will be connected to at least one other card in the deck and the rest are either generally good standalone cards or situational one-of's that can be fetched either by Aegon, Oathkeeper or Support of the People depending on the situation. There is the obvious Aegon package - I think Aegon is the best card in the game ever since Golden Company was released. Pair him with The Father and Unexpected Guile and he's a beast. You almost never run out of stuff to put into play because of new Tyrion. And he can fetch Hired Assassin if you ever face another shadow deck. Unchecked Hired Assassin with Guile will win you the game against shadows on its own. And if you hit Robert Strong, there aren't many ways to stop him.
Oathkeeper will look for Aegon most of the times but Varys (either version), Begging Brother and Sparrows are all options in certains matchups/boardstates. Jaqen is definitely the 76th card that should be cut, but I love Jaqen and there are so many tricks in this deck how to trigger him that I couldn't bring myself to cut him from the list and instead played with 76 cards :D . There is the obvious strenght boosts but also some tricky stuff like him+shadow character and Guile mid challenge. And my favorite - him+Queen of Thorns who brings Shrewd Diplomat out of shadows.

The scary matchups: I think GJ can get pretty scary. This plot lineup is nightmare for GJ but so is having your Arbor blown up turn one. Let alone stolen. They also have DGF who can cancel some important trigger. Other than that, this deck has no answers for opponent's locations. So some location heavy deck with passive power grab could be a problem. Maybe some Wall defense decks could be scary. You still have a lot to win on board against them though, plus Sparrows and Oldtown to match their passive power gain.