Hear the Dragon's Roar - Octgn Tournament 3rd Place

Simulador de robo
Probabilidades: 0% – 0% – 0% más
Derivado de
Ninguno. Éste es un mazo hecho de cero.
Inspiración para
DragonLion 0 0 0 1.0
Dragon with the Lion Heart 0 0 0 1.0

siroma 389

Seeing as how many people just got their core sets and how the octgn league is going to be wrapping up within the next few rounds, I decided to post the deck that I am using for the tournament to help others in their own deckbuilding. It is currently at an 8-2 record in the tournament, and yes I will be using it in the coming rounds.

Gameplay Strategy

Mulligan for 2+ characters with a limited card worth at least 7 gold. The number of cards does not matter, though the more the better. Good cards to look for during setup are dragons, Daenerys, and Tyrion. Multiple dracarys or milks are also good, but you want to prioritize having stuff on the board. Dig for combo pieces such as Tyrion+Illyrio or Rhaegal+Danaerys. Aim to have dragons threatening dracarys out asap. Take control of the game with smart plot play and removal effects, while using cards like Fire and Blood to dominate the board and ignore claim and resets.

Origin of the deck

Fealty gives bonus gold, Daenerys is strong. Dracarys is op. Jorah is super-efficient, Fire and Blood is super-efficient. Due to these reasons, I was once a staunch supporter of Targaryen Fealty. But after a few games against Banner Lannister, and the defensive stance a player took after the game regarding his banner deck after his loss, I decided to make one myself and give it a try. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised and its potential and proceeded to tune it farther. When I compare Banner of the Lion and Fealty, I would still have to say that Fealty is far more consistent with the bonus gold that you get, yet Banner gets an obvious bump in potential power due to the presence of Tyrion+Illyrio and the arrival of other supporting cards like Widow’s Wail.

Why Targaryen Banner of the Lion?

Renown

Targaryen is tied with Greyjoy for having the most potential characters that can claim additional power (3), meaning you can close games when you need to.

Great Icon Spread

Targaryen has probably the best icon spread among its big characters. Only Khal Drogo is hit by Tears of Lys, and there are a lot of cheap military icons such as Jorah and the Dragons.

Dracarys!

This is such a huge card and I cannot emphasize enough how powerful it is. At the very least, its presence in your deck will force an opponent to play passively as long as you have a dragon standing out of respect for the card. It can give you the extra strength to push through challenges, or just straight out kill meddlesome characters like Tyrion and Melisandre.

Tyrion Lannister

Targaryen has a lot of events that can be triggered in the challenges phase, having Tyrion opens up a lot of options and combos very nicely with Illyrio

Stand

Stand trumps kneel, and is critical in dealing with Baratheon decks. Tyrion + Illyrio + power behind the throne can completely turn rounds where you think you might be on the losing end.

Viserys Targaryen

Running x3 Viserys allows for you to drop confiscation for a better plot. Fire and Blood and marched to the wall ensure that you can use him multiple times if you really need to.

Widow’s Wail

One gold for 2 strength is great, not just because it helps you win challenges, but also because it helps pull a character out of Dracarys range in mirror matches.

Threats

Drogo and Plaza of Punishment could each mean an additional kill per turn. That’s a huge threat and most people will have to play defensive to avoid either from going off.

Efficiency

Characters like Jorah and Drogon are just so cost efficient and it means that even if you have fewer characters on the board, the quality of each character often makes up for your lack of quantity.

Key Game Concepts

Board Control

Card advantage is generally thought of the key to winning the game. This is not necessarily true, though it certainly helps. Especially in 2.0 compared to 1.0, maintaining board control is key, as there is no hard reset like Valar yet in the game. In fact, the entire 1.0 game can be said to revolve around Valar, as the very presence of the card shoots up the value of intrigue claim as the board and all the characters could all just be reset through Valar instead of military claim. Thus, because of the lack of good hard reset in the game right now, maintaining a solid number of characters on the board is key to winning challenges, as gold is not exactly plentiful. Because you don’t really see people marshalling more than 2-4 cards a turn in most cases unless they have gotten a lot of bonus economy out, if you are sacrificing board control to gain card advantage (I.e. sacrificing a military challenge to win an intrigue challenge), more often than not I would actually say you are trading down (unless the military challenge doesn’t matter due to duplicates, future wildfire etc.) That being said, power is the key to winning the game. Permanently controlling the board is still difficult, and eventually you will have to go for broke and win using what I consider the most important challenge at this time, the power challenge. There are few ways to strip your opponent of their power at this time, so if you gain enough of a power lead you can usually just push power challenges for the win while ignoring the other two challenges. That being said, rush is not a viable strategy in the current state of the game. There are not enough cards to support it (except maybe in a Greyjoy Banner of the Rose), so having and maintaining board control is still the ‘classic’ strategy for many decks, as it is for this deck. Efficient characters, efficient removal, and the ability to push through and defend challenges is key to maintaining board control. It doesn’t matter if they are hitting reserve cap every turn if they can’t buy enough stuff to win any challenges. This is a key contrast from 1.0 where gold usually outstripped cards past the first few turns.

Initiative

A mistake many newer players is assuming that going first is always advantageous. After all, that’s what winning initiative is for, right? Unfortunately, the contrary is usually true. Most decks want to go second unless you can leverage powerful claim or other effects that are able to deny your opponent challenges, such as Stark with Ice or 2+ claim. By going first, you may be dealing the first blow to your opponent, but at the same time you are leaving yourself open to their counterattack, and because you have fewer characters standing, you will have fewer ways to counter it. Another important reason is the aspect of information. As first player, especially on the first turn, you often have little to no clue about what your opponent will do. By playing your hand first, you are giving your opponent the chance to make the first optimal counter play while you, in essence, are playing blind. Therefore, I believe that you should strive to go second on turn 1 whenever possible. However, there will be situations where you will want to go first, especially in the latter stages of the game where a challenge rotation can win the game.

Win Condition

Different decks have different win conditions (duh). Right now however, there is really only one, to control the board and hit 15 power before your opponent does. Stall, mill, and control are not very well fleshed out yet, so you want stuff that hits hard and gets you power. When playing, this means that it is OK to not win everything on defense. You should however, aim to deny your opponent power through unopposed power as much as possible while NOT HINDERING your own ability to make impactful challenges. What I’m pretty much trying to say is, it’s ok if he kills one of your guys if you can kill two of his dudes in return. Kind of. You get the point.

Deckbuilding Strategy

My thought process when I build a deck usually goes as follows:

Set a theme, pick a house, identify your winning strategy, identify the key cards to your winning strategy, build the plot deck that supports your winning strategy AND covers its weaknesses, build the rest of the deck around your plot deck and your strategy.

A lot of people pay a great deal of attention to specific card choices, and sometimes gloss over their plot deck. However, your plot deck is your most powerful weapon, and honestly past the plot phase the rest of the turn can become relatively straightforward, as the plot determines the quantity of gold that you have to play the rest of your cards. Therefore, I strongly recommend that people spend time building the plot deck before completing the deck. The deck and the plot deck should complement each other, their functions should not completely overlap.

The Plot Deck

Wildfire Assault

Wildfire is the only reset in the game right now, and in this deck using it to thin out the little guys so claim/dracarys can kill the other dudes is pretty good. Also works well against bara and is a good comeback tool in general.

Marched to the Wall

Marched is one of the strongest cards in the game, but it’s really only good when you’re ahead. Playing it into a wildfire can often leave you in a good position, as you have initiative and they are down a character. In the rare circumstances where they only have 1 character left on the board, it can straight out win you the game.

A Noble Cause

Guaranteed 7 gold. While some may argue that calling the banners is a better alternative, I do find that this is more reliable. The deck is expensive, and without extra income this plot is the only way to buy Jaime and Daenerys.

Summons

Searching up Tyrion, Illyrio, Dany, Viserys, or a dragon can be crucial depending on your opening hand, and it really allows you to dig for your core combo pieces.

Counting Coppers

A great way to refill your hand, generally used when you already have a sizable lead on the board. Playing counting coppers generally seals up the deal, though using it to dig when you’re behind is also a viable option.

Calm Over Westeros

Because there is no valar yet, having a ‘free’ turn to set up all of your expensive characters often proves to be essential. There are so many interactions between Targaryen cards that everything becomes significantly better as you get more stuff on the board.

Power Behind the Throne

An absolutely massive strength swing for one turn. I find this more useful than filthy accusations, since stand combos well with Dany+Dracarys and all of your renown. Also works wonders against Baratheon, the other major threat.

In both AGOT 1.0 and 2.0, I strongly believe that selecting the right plots is what makes or breaks a good deck. The bodies of many decks are very similar and the results of what you draw can be highly variable, but ultimately your plot deck is always going to be static and your greatest weapon. Understanding the plots in the game is critical to making good plays, and knowing what plot to reveal is often the most challenging part in the game. Therefore, if you know what plots are in the metagame, you can play a plot to counter it (such as marched to the wall into a wildfire), giving you a strong advantage from the beginning of the turn.

The Draw Deck

Daenerys is, in my opinion, the second strongest 7 cost character behind Robert Baratheon and is undoubtedly the most useful while milked, as her bonus text gained from dragons are not affected by Milk of the Poppy. Having Daenerys and Rhaegal at the same time is pretty much gaining 13 strength for challenges for the price of 10, in addition to insight and a good ability.

To me, Rhaegal was the most important dragon as it gave you another chance to trigger Dany’s insight and let you use her a second time for massive value. Drogon and Viserion are both solid cards that give very beneficial keywords, but there wasn’t enough space to slot in x3 of them both.

The Tickler is an efficient 2 cost character with an ability that can swing games pretty hard if it goes off. However, it’s mostly used to fill up the fodder slot and because there are no better alternatives to banner out.

Tyrion is probably the 2nd most important character, as the bonus gold he nets you will rarely go to waste and his stats aren’t too bad either.

Originally, there were 3 Gold Cloaks in this deck but their numbers have gradually dwindled down. I realize that they had been sitting in my hand for extended periods of time and though they were ok in the games I did play them I’m sure there are other cards that would have been better in the same situation. One is left because he’s better than the burned men.

Ser Jaime sits at 1 because usually he is nigh-impossible to buy. That being said, he’s also too good to not include a copy of because of the potential strength he brings while the Khal is out.

Drogo sits at 2 because I value him less than Dany, and because there are enough high cost cards and threats in the deck. Since big characters really don’t die unless you screw up horribly or you’re set to lose anyways, I’ve found that having 2 is enough. Plus the Tears vulnerability is rough.

Joffrey has the potential to gain quite a bit of power, and is pretty good while the wail is attached to him. That being said, He certainly hasn’t done much and is a prime candidate to being dropped for something better.

Jorah is too good not to include x3 of. Use him in 3 challenges and throw him away, or just use the dupes as claim soak. Milk him if you really want to keep him once he’s gotten 2 power, or use the treacheries.

Viserys allows you to drop confiscation, which is a big deal. He deals with milks, weapons, and little birds. Fire and blood recycles him. If you’re not running x3 of him out of Targ, something is wrong with your deck.

Illyrio, while kind of weak in fealty, is incredibly strong when comboed with Tyrion and if you have those two out on the board, you have pretty much won the game.

Targaryen Loyalist is necessary claimsoak and economy.

Plaza of Punishment is good at killing little things, but it’s pretty expensive and due to the lack of location control I felt that there was no need to include more than 1 of them in my decks.

X3 Kingsroad, Roseroad, and Illyrio’s Estate are necessary economy.

Dracarys! is OP. Burn motherfucker.

Fire and Blood is super-efficient while you have dragons out, and can essentially make wildfire a very one-sided affair. It’s also decent for countering heads on pikes, and is just good for recycling characters like Viserys.

Because Dracarys is op and also because events (tears, seen in flames, risen etc.) in general are a pain in the ass, I run 3 copies of The Hand’s Judgment.

Tears of Lys offers an alternate way to kill characters (cough Robert cough stannis cough Eddard cough Old Bear cough Randyll cough Balon cough Asha cough Knight of Flowers cough Theon cough Robb, you get the point) without having to rely on Dracarys.

Originally, there were no Treacheries in the deck. Gradually, I’ve come to value gold cloaks a little less than treachery a little more, and they cancel annoying effects like Melisandre, Bodyguard, and The Red Keep.

Widow’s Wail is just really efficient and flexible strength. It’s great in mirror matches and because I have quite a bit of stand, it often sees use quite a few times per round.

Milk of the Poppy is just too good against too many characters to not include x3 of. They can completely neuter your opponent’s big characters and at the very least they force your opponent to play confiscation if they have it, giving you room to plan out your next plot.

What? No Littlefinger?

After playing a couple dozen games, I eventually realized that I was never playing Littlefinger. Summons + Counting Coppers often gave me all the cards I needed, and my gold curve was pretty high already, with Tyrion and whatnot. Yes, you could add in Littlefinger if you really want to, but I’ve felt that I never really needed his effect. The bonus gold is nice, but you would never really play Littlefinger over any other card in the deck if you had the choice.

If there are any questions feel free to ask below. On a side note, I really hope forgotten plans comes back ASAP.

4 comentarios

tradet 1

I really appreciate the lengthy explanation, thanks!

snagwilf 1

Very good write-up. Helped me a lot.

Korppi 9

Thanks for the looooong explanations. I haven't tried Targaryen yet, but after reading this, im definately going to try!

Alexfrog 266

Excellent writeup!
I would definitely go with +2 Jaime, -1 Joffrey, -1 Gold Cloaks, and then swap in one more big economy plot to help play Jaime. Jaime is too strong!