3-1 GNK (2nd): Your Mileage may Varys 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC79Av7aU9fKrKSx2HZKL-TQ

This deck started when I realized I had never really seen anyone lose after playing a Varys. The ability to concede the advantage on board and attack your opponent’s hand, only to take away that advantage with a single card is incredible. I decided to try and build the best Varys deck and see what I found, and honestly after building this I felt I was onto something.

Why Martell / Banner of the Wolf?

Stark has a compliment of incredibly powerful and inexpensive unique characters. Arya plays very well both pre- and post- Varys by coming in with a duplicate for free, as well as having Stealth to win the first few key military challenges after a clear. Sansa is a great 2 icon character that injects power into the game, helping you close out games quickly, as well as win games where you don’t sweep the board. Bran Stark protects your Varys, and is simply a powerful effect on his own. I personally feel that the 2 cost 2 icon characters are almost all very good, and Tumblestone Knight is no exception.

Martell simply works well with Varys, it tends to be fairly intrigue heavy, and Bastard Daughter and Greenblood Trader are both incredibly good cards when you’re trying to play the card advantage game and sculpt your hand. You even get Ghaston Grey to discourage duplicates.

Plots Your first 3 turns will almost always be some combination of Summons and Calm over Westeros in an effort to get yourself into position to sweep the board. Then you follow up with either Marched to the Wall or A Feast for Crows and throw several characters onto the board. Confiscation lets you get rid of any Milk of the Poppy that make their way onto Nymeria. Counting Coppers let you continue to apply pressure post sweeper, or search for a Varys / Tears of Lys / Ghaston Grey in a pinch. If I were to adjust the plots it would involve me finding space for either a Game of Thrones or a Winds of Winter. Game of Thrones as just another way to delay and sculpt your hand, Winds of Winter being an especially brutal follow up to Varys, when you will often win 3 challenges on that turn. That being said I’m fairly happy with the plots as they are.

R1 vs Greyjoy / Sun (win)

I cast a Varys on turn 3, destroying roughly 20 gold of my opponent’s characters and maybe 8 or 9 of mine. I had already reduced my opponent’s hand significantly by winning intrigue challenges every turn and when I cleared the board my opponent had 3 cards in hand to my 6 or 7. They unfortunately saw far too many locations and after one clear the game was fairly trivial.

R2 vs Stark Fealty (win)

I end up taking a mulligan and have a slightly awkward setup. Fortunately I have a Varys in my opening hand and don’t have to go looking for it, and when I cast and activate it on turn 2, the board ends up becoming my milked Sansa vs his Sansa with Lady. Unfortunately at this point he spends a lot of gold to bring in an Eddard with Ice, which matches up poorly against my follow up Nymeria. A Marched and a military claim later and I have a fairly unbreakable lock established and I win the game a turn or two later.

R3 vs Baratheon Fealty (loss)

Playing against the boogeyman of the format I’m actually feeling quite great until my Varys gets picked off by an early intrigue claim out of a fairly large hand. Then I can’t find either of the other two after both Summons and the Counting Coppers. I could have played differently this game, and I think the biggest thing I learned was that when you already have all your pieces put together, simply play your Calm over Westeros naming intrigue. You don’t need to try and maintain your board presence at that point, you just have to set up for your next big turn.

R4 vs Lannister / Sun (win)

This was a great game that was unfortunately marred by a misunderstanding of the rules on both our parts. I simply hadn’t played too much against Treachery and hadn’t realized that removing Varys from the game was part of the cost of the effect, and a Treachery didn’t simply leave Varys in play. As it was, I had a second Varys in hand that I could have simply played instead, but when someone explained the interaction to us a few turns later it did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

Conclusions

My R3 opponent ended up winning the event, and my Lannister / Sun opponent drew with the other 2-0 in round 3, so I ended up coming in second with 15 points.

In Doran’s Name was surprisingly impressive, I had expected to be disappointed but found that just gaining 2-3 gold was already good enough, you just wanted to be able to translate your card advantage into something tangible on the board faster. It also let you more easily cast a Varys after a Summons.

I do have some changes in mind after the event, as is I felt the Dornish Paramour and the Edric Dayne were both unexciting, and the Sunspear and The Iron Throne were merely okay. I would cut probably shave 1 of each (leaving just the single Edric) and likely adding 2-3 Hands Judgment, another Littlefinger, and probably an Arienne (or some other 4-7 gold character that helps you play the fair game).