One Crag to rule them all - Hungarian Champion 2025 1.0

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• 1.0

Hi everyone. :)

I would like to share a deck I've had a lot of fun with in the last couple of months. I built it after I landed in Stark for the 8 Regents tournament. The first draft went 3-1 in a Friendly Open event, and I don't think I've changed it much since. In the end I wished we had more copies of this agenda, because it proved to be pretty strong in most matchups. I played it against Lannister and won in 3 rounds, and my teammate Phillip did the same against NW. His game was recorded, and I think it was pretty much a perfect example of how the deck is supposed to work. You can watch it here: 8 RoW 2025 - Game 4.7

The idea of the deck is pretty simple. Start with The Crag in play, and gain power on it as quickly as possible. To do that, it helps to have a King in play, and you have two options for that. The first is Robb Stark (AtSK), who is an absolutely dominant character once he's in play. He makes it almost impossible to lose a challenge, either on attack or on defence, whichever matters to you more in the given situation. And if the opponent underdefends because of him, you can use him on your own characters, for instance to stand a stealth character for another challenge. The second option is The Wolf King, which works best on Robb himself, since his ability only works while he is participating in the challenge. But the attachment is also good on a stealth character like Arya Stark (Core), on Dacey Mormont to have her participate in multiple challenges, or on Greatjon Umber when he can't stand himself anymore. Those characters are basically the core of the deck, along with another non-kneeler in Alysane Mormont.

With several characters being able to participate in multiple challenges, it also made sense to play 2x A Storm of Swords to take full advantage of that. And there is Relentless Assault as well, which can give you a 2nd or 3rd challenge. I guess it might be better with other plots, since The Crag is limit twice per phase. But either way, doing so many challenges can quite easily lead to genuine military pressure as well, especially in combination with Winter Is Coming. That's not the main plan of the deck, but it's a nice bonus sometimes to clear the board, or at least limit what your opponent can do in response.

There are some common supporting characters in this deck as well. Bear Island Scout is quite useful for fetching Alysane or for finding dupes of two very strong uniques. She-Bear is a nice tempo card with so many other useful 3-costers. And Umber Loyalist is nice for some additional draw. Shouldn't hurt you too much, because games don't usually last too long with this deck. Meera Reed is the only icon in the deck, which can sometimes come in handy, but mainly she is here as another cheap stealth character, and to solve some problems if there is a character that desperately needs to be blanked. And I added 2x Last Hearth Scouts as well, because characters jumping in and out too much was pretty unpleasant, and I needed more answer for The First Snow of Winter.

Maybe just a few words about the plots... If I can, I try to open with The Maiden, which then pretty much guarantees I can go first with the two A Storm of Swords in the following two rounds, if I wish. That's if things work out perfectly. But with only a 4-gold setup, sometimes you have to play that Late Summer Feast to get more of a board, especially if you have Robb in hand. You Win Or You Die is also quite useful here, because your hand is usually empty pretty quickly, so you mostly only get the benefit and ignore the downside. And Valar Dohaeris is the reset here, mainly due to the low cost curve. And even if you have Robb, he can still survive it with your most impactful 3-cost character. The last plot is Forced March. My thinking here was that kneeling the chuds to kneel something better on the other side would be a pretty good deal, and 9 initiative is better than 8 when you really need to close the game against an opponent who also played The Maiden. To be honest, Forced March was probably the least played plot across all the games, so I was thinking about changing it for something situationally useful, like Enemies in Every Shadow perhaps. But it did end up being pretty crucial for me in the final of the Hungarian Nationals.

And on that note, let's see if I can remember the games well enough for a short tournament report. :)

Round 1: BYE

There was an odd number of players when we started, so I was awarded the BYE due to winning the Budapest Regional earlier in the year.

Round 2 vs morbiczer ( - Sea of Blood):

I could only set up Dacey, so I had a strong suspicion she would get Marched to the Wall. But my opponent opted for a Vanquish the Unbelievers opening instead. I just about had the gold to marshal Robb, and he and Dacey were able to defend the challenge by 1 STR. After that, Dacey did get marched, but I had initiative with Storm of Swords and a Wolf King on Robb. I also had 2x Winter is Coming in hand, after both copies magically survived the 2-claim in the opening round. That meant Robb alone was somehow able to kill 4 characters, and my opponent never really recovered from that. The funny thing is though, in all of that excitement, I actually failed to claim 4 power on The Crag. :) Didn't matter much though. Win.

Round 3 vs Dennis Luke ( - Battle of the Trident):

This was not much of a game. Dennis opened with Naval Superiority, which left me 1 gold short of being able to marshal She-Bear with Arya. Instead I did basically nothing, and I didn't draw anything impactful to marshal with Late Summer Feast the following round either. Dennis just dominated all the challenges. I tried to stall it so that he would at least have to play The Mad King's Command at some point, but he was able to get rid of it by revealing it with the agenda in the challenges phase. Loss.

Round 4 vs saraaa ( - The Faith Militant):

I knew I had to win this one really quickly, before there is Imprisoned on every character and I am left with no icons. The Crag got some early power, but The Faith's Decree slowed it down a bit. And I got quite a lot of prized from Desert Raider, which had to jump in and out to oppose all the challenges. It looked like I might be a little bit short, as Sara had a bunch of cards in shadows and Late Summer Feast revealed, but I topdecked Last Heart Scouts just in time, and I went second to dodge the Milk of the Poppy. After that, there was not much Sara could do to stop me getting to 15 power. Win.

Top 4 vs Dennis Luke ( - Battle of the Trident):

We chatted with Dennis after our previous game, and I told him that the dream setup for me would be Alysane, a reducer and an econ location, and that's exactly what I got in this game. :) That meant I could open A Storm of Swords to get around Naval. I was expecting Dennis to switch tactics and open something else, but he still gave Naval a shot. Wasn't much of a game though, because I think I also had She-Bear into Arya, basically followed by everything else I needed. I just did the challenges and kept the pressure on, while Dennis had a pretty terrible draw right from the start. Equally one sided as our first game was, only this time it was in my favour. Win.

Final vs Sassanid ( - Battle of the Trident):

Probably should have lost this game, but somehow I managed to get over the line. The start was pretty terrible, as I had to set up She-Bear and not much else. I knew there would be The Warrior and Robert's Rebellion early on to try to kill me off, but the only thing I drew was an army of chuds. I think I played out about 6 or 7, to be able to survive the 2-claim plots pretty well. The only problem was, I could not really compete on the board, and of course my hand was quickly reduced as well. Then Robb got hit by Heads on Spikes, which looked like it would be the final nail in my coffin. On the plus side, I basically played without any power on my faction card, thanks partly to my opponent opposing my challenges, so there was still quite a long way to go. I don't remember exactly, but I probably played Dohaeris at some point, and I remember Bara had Robert Baratheon (LMHR) in play after that, looking to get over the line. But I had a pretty wide board and I topdecked Dacey, who was big enough to stop the challenge. With some power on The Crag and finally some challenges pushed through from my side, I was able to get back into the game. Then came the inevitable Mad King's Command, but here is where my Forced March saved the day, as I basically forced my opponent to keep some knelt characters and mostly waste the round. In the end there was also Ser Andrew Estermont in play and a real danger of just winning by claiming Robert and saving him, but I was also close to 15 power at that point. My opponent missed the window for The Faith's Decree, or rather gambled that my one card in hand probably wasn't Winter is Coming, but a 2-claim power with Dacey's renown got me to 15. Win.

And that was kind of the end of my "Stark era" this year. Really glad I was able to finish it with a national title and secure a BYE at Stahleck, and I did it with my favourite deck as well. :)

Still legal after the latest Restricted List actually, so I might play it again at some point. It's generally pretty good against midrange decks, against other rush, and sometimes against aggro if you get dupes or Robb to successfully defend military. Against more controlly decks, it can win pretty quickly if they try to play without a board early on, but it can also hit a wall if you can't push the challenges through. A little bit of kneel, icon control or removal from challenges, and you could be in trouble. And when I played it in the Friendly Open cut of Season 16, I got Frozen Solid on The Crag in Round 1, so there was really not much I could do. That's why I think the Forced March could be another plot that counters those tricky decks a little better.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. ;) As always, any comments or suggestions are more than welcome. :)