We defend the Wall alone 2.0

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i was thinking something similar to this list but i would probably change back trading for feast + iron throne. passive power gain is nice and it slightly improves the baratheon matchup wich is by far the worst.

also what do you think about put to the sword, with so much military stealth it would not be difficult and for one more gold (i know gold is not easy to come by for the night's watch) from milk you permanently get rid of problematic charachters.

lastly with 5 nightwatch attachments and with shadow tower from my experience not always working plus the spoiled location that steals gold and craven around the corner i was thinking about giving halder a chance for dracarys protection since no hands judgements and that +1 can always be helpfull to swing a challenge you really want to win.

and something i forgot, unsworn apprentice > sworn brother. you can never have too many intrigue icons :)

anyway, try it out and let us know how it fares against the field.

@GuardianI love Iron Throne and Feast for Crows, but I love Trading with the Pentoshi even more haha. That 10 gold is so amazing. I had a game yesterday where I set up a Ranging Party, a King's Road, a reducer and a raven. I drew back up to 7 and got Old Bear and Old Bear's Raven. So I decided to just get that combo out, I started with Trading. Then, on turn 1, I top decked the Wall and, because of Trading, I was able to get Old Bear out for 2 gold (King's Road + Reducer + Fealty), the Wall for 4, the Raven for 2 and Castle Black for 2. It was incredible. Voltron online with one plot.

If I were to remove a plot for Feast, it may end up being Fortified Position. I haven't needed to play it in a long time, mainly because its primary counters, versus Greyjoy and Stannis, are relatively low in my meta. Everyone is running Martell and Lannister right now, and blanking them isn't super high on my priorities list, as opposed to Bara and Greyjoy. But I would hate to remove Fortified Position because it can be so clutch in the right scenario.

Put to the Sword could be interesting. I might have to test that. Milk is good against duped characters as well, though, so I'm not sure which one would ultimately be more useful. Honestly, when I am going second, I often times prefer maximizing the number of challenges I can win, rather than trying to do one big challenge. And Power challenges are always my #1 priority. But, you make a compelling case for it haha. It would be nice to PttS a big character after they go all in on me. But, at the same time, Ptts is board state dependent whereas Milk really isn't, so there's definitely some pros and cons there.

I think Halder will get better very soon. I'm not sure he's there yet, because, right now there are really only 6 cards that I would ever consider kneeling for it, but the Craven point is interesting. I guess Craven does still belong to me, huh? Good thinking on that one.

I played the deck 3 times last night and I went 3-0 versus Stark Fealty, Bara Fealty (those tears were money in that match up) and Martell Fealty. It worked pretty much exactly how I wanted it to. Obviously, it'll require more testing, but I'm encouraged by the early results, especially against such formidable opponents.

I added the builders mainly because I wanted to see how much economy I could get out of them. I might change it to 1 builder, 2 apprentices. That 1 gold is just a big difference for set up and board construction. I know I want Aemon out, who is a 3 coster. So my main concern is I don't want to commit too much econ to characters that would return to hand in the event of a FSoW. But last night I did get the 1 Apprentice in two of my games and I still love him, so we'll have to see :).

Ive been waiting for this CP to play NW because of the raven. What do you think of "a song of summer" as a plot. Its pretty good over all as a 5/2/1 but giving everyone +1 strength on top of the wall bonuses seems really strong for landing sword in the darkness.

You might consider Nightmares in place of Milk. You gain versatility at the expense of permanence.

@BergerFettI think it could work. And I think when the Kings of Summer Agenda comes out next cycle, I will definitely be looking to build a NW Kings of Summer deck that would run A Song of Summer. But right now, I think there are plots that I'd prefer to run. But I think it'd be in the top 10 plots for Night's Watch, so it'd all come down to preference. Additional strength on your characters is never a bad thing.

@IcarusrisingI like Nightmares and I've heard other NW players say they use it to great effect. My biggest issue is I don't like that it can be canceled. Milk is an attachment so I know that character is blank for at least a turn, maybe more. Nightmares is something that I can't plan around if they have 1 gold in the challenges phase, which is an uncomfortable feeling. Plus, the only locations I'm really worried about are Raiding Longships, Chamber of the Painted Table and Plaza of Punishment, so I don't know if the versatility is all that required. It is definitely something to test though.

Hi Joe, really like what you're doing with the Night's Watch. The game needs more people investing time into the lesser played factions.

Comments on your deck. My first question I guess would be - why tears? Is it just to have some targeted kill? It feels really out of place here, especially as your deck does not look like it's going to be winning too many intrigue challenges. I'm a fan of decks that really "gel" as a concept rather than try and cover a bit of everything.

Have you considered Support of the People? I've found it to be awesome. Since POW is something you can win reliably and you can use Support of the People on defence, you can run a good few x 1 locations and summon them to the board. I've done Castle Black mid challenge to stand a character, and the Iron Throne on a Feast for Crows turn. It has some great utility.

I'm also a huge fan of Nightmares, especially with the advent of lots of scary locations. I don't use them in place of Milk though, rather in support of. I think certain factions need to run 3 x Milk (Night's Watch, imo, is one of them) and Milk and Nightmares make it... well, a nightmare for your opponent to play out his schemes.

I'd typically run 2 less characters than you to make room for a couple of extra events, but I guess that's entirely down to preference. Would love to know your thoughts.

@action_johnnyI don't think Tears is out of place, really. I think it's just a good old fashioned control card. There are so many strong characters in the game right now that don't have intrigue icons. I find myself winning an intrigue challenge most times when I need to. Except Lannister, against whom it's kind of a dead card. But then, Watcher on the Walls is extremely strong against Lanni, so I have control there as well.

Since I took Wildfire out of the deck, I need some way to control my opponent lest they just get a board state that is out of control. And tears is the most efficient kill card in the entire game. Last night, I played 3 games and I tears'd someone in 2 of those 3 games. Robb Stark against Stark Fealty, Robert Baratheon vs Bara Fealty and, had I seen it in the game against Martell fealty, I would have been able to force an intrigue through to kill Nymeria. It's just a good all around card.

Honestly, I haven't given too much thought to support of the People. I only have 15 neutral slots and I am not sure what I'd take out for Support of the People. It could be very powerful though, especially once that White Tree location comes out in the 2nd cycle. But for now, all 15 neutrals are more important to me.

I hear nothing but good things about Nightmares, so I think I'm going to need to test that out haha. It'll require some reconfiguring of the neutrals though. I'll see what I can do there.

Character count used to be more important when Varys was everywhere, because you didn't want to top deck nothing after a Varys sweep. So I am still kind of shell shocked from those 2 to 3 months. But I could see a few characters be removed to add some impactful events. The problem is the 15 neutral rule. I don't really want to remove any neutral characters, especially since each one has a critical role to play in different scenarios, but maybe there is room for reconfiguration of the neutrals.

Thanks for commenting :D.

Hi Joe, as a lover of underplayed stuff in every games I'm always very interested in your articles, I would love to see you play this deck on camera and upload it to your YT account if you can. Silly question but what percentage of your winrate with the faction would you attribute to your opponent knowing very little about the matchup? Sorry for my english and thanks for your time.

@WeebeyOnce the new chapter pack becomes available on OCTGN I would be happy to play some games with this deck on my youtube channel! :D

That is a somewhat difficult question to answer. Maybe 10%? Granted, I mostly play within my local meta so not many people are unfamiliar with the Night's Watch anymore, as I've been playing them and writing about them for several months now. But when there is a new player or a player that doesn't normally play in our meta, it is very obvious. I had a game last Wednesday where I had two rangers on the board and 1 gold and my opponent still did a big military attack on me. That was just classic Night's Watch unfamiliarity right there. So I wiped his board with the Watcher on the Walls and he conceded.

Then there are cases where my opponent may just forget about something, like For the Watch! I have had players do a big challenge as their first challenge, and then I'll just say "no defense." They start reaching for their power and I point to my plot. In one game on Wednesday, I even said when I flipped the plot "And remember this plot, because you'd be surprised how many people completely forget about it and then waste their first challenge that they actually wanted to win." And then he still forgot haha.

But overall, I think most players at least know all the cards of the Night's Watch. Experience playing against the Night's Watch may be small for a lot of players, but I'm not sure that lack of experience leads to my win most of the time.

I think the more important thing is that, due to the lack of NW players, people don't build their decks to beat it. When Lannister, Baratheon and Greyjoy are played a lot, there are clear ways to build your deck to combat them. Targeted kill helps against Lanni, Stand and dominance power helps against Baratheon. Attachments and stealth help against Greyjoy. But no one builds their deck to beat NW. Because there is a real chance that they won't even see a NW deck in an entire tournament.

I've actually found that, most times, the biggest threats to the NW, such as Baratheon in core set, are off set by other players building decks that push that threat out of the meta, meaning I don't have to deal with it anymore. You saw that with Targaryen absolutely dominating Baratheon before First Snow of Winter knocked Targaryen out of the meta.

Now, First Snow of Winter is a big problem for NW, but those decks are becoming more and more rare because Baratheon came back and are beginning to push them out of the meta too haha. It's a nice little cycle that I don't really have to adjust to very much.

Thanks for reading and watching and commenting and everything! :P

Really like the deck and seeing Old Bear become a beast! I am going to make this and test it out!

@GuardianThank you! I hope it goes well :)

how is the decktesting going? :)

@GuardianIt's been going great! I've played 9 games and only lost 2. The 2 losses were both 15 to ~13 or 14, both of which I made some rather large mistakes. (Note: If your opponent has Fishwhiskers out, and you have a milk of the poppy, use it on Fishwhiskers, not Asha. He is intending to use that Fishwiskers for at least 2 turns, if not 3.)

In 5 of my 8 games, I assembled the Old Bear Voltron (Old Bear, Old Bear's Raven and the Wall.), 4 of which were wins.

Most changes have been very positive. I actually kind of want to make the littlebird a third Old Bear's Raven, mainly because even if I draw the littlebird and have a viable target, I don't want to play it until I get Old Bear out. But I think I am going to leave it in because of those rare occasions where you just cannot, for the life of you, get an intrigue icon out and need to make Benjen a tricon or something similar in order to protect the Wall.

Tears has won be several games. So I think that has been a positive change. Especially now that aggro decks are so excited to go first again, in order to enact their murder sooner, it gives you ample opportunity to get a relatively easy counterattack to kill one of their unprotected guys.

I haven't missed Hand's Judgment too much, but there were 1 or 2 times where it would have been useful.

The Sworn Brothers I don't really care too much about. They're alright, but if I draw them mid game, they may not reduce a single card if I already have the Wall and Castle Black out. I think I may remove them and up the Unsworn apprentice back to 2x and maybe run 1x Halder. He has 5 logical targets in the deck, so it should become relatively good challenge math.

I'm not sure how I feel about 2x Alliser. He's a good 1x, but I'm seeing him a little bit too often and he's only really playable on a First Snow turn. Plus, at 4 gold and kneeling your faction card, he is effectively only reducing his cost to 5 in a fealty deck, so it's not like his reaction is all that economically friendly.

Stonesnake I enjoy. Getting renown is just nice. It's a hard choice between him and ghost when it comes to stealthy monocon, but the fact that he's a ranger and that Ghost only really helps if you intend to make more than 1 challenge (I.E. if you're going second or if you already know you can't defend the Wall), I'm leaning towards Stonesnake still.

For plots, I like Here to Serve. I wish it were 4 gold. But it has proven invaluable in this kill first meta, so I think I want to keep it. Getting Aemon duped prior to a First Snow turn doesn't seem to be working out and rebuilding the deck has made it more resilient to First Snow anyway, so I may drop Aemon to 2x and add in something else that can help in another way. We'll see.

I am on the fence between Calm over Westeros and Forgotten Plans. I really like Forgotten Plans for First Snow, but it doesn't help me all that much against any other plot, for the most part. The 1 gold is a big deal and the claim reduction on Calm can really solve a lot of headaches. I'm testing both, but I find a lot more scenarios where Calm is probably more useful. But, at the same time, I haven't tested against First Snow all that much yet. Only 2 of the 8 were running it.

How has it run for you?

@Joe From Cincinnatistill waiting my ravens ta arrive unfortunately.

Hi Joe !

A question about Old Bear: do you think he's worse his price ? In some MU, I feel like he becomes totally useless, especially vs Martell ( so many icon removals + milk), and Bara ( kneel). I played NW a lot, and recently, I chose to drop him and his raven because he becomes to often a giant Iron Throne :)

Thanks !

@ShunSokaroMartell, obviously, is not an ideal match up for the Old Bear. The icon removal attachments hurt and can make him too often not useful, but there are ways to mitigate this.

I run practice blades, Syrio and Alliser so that, even if they remove his military icons, he still has some during defense (from Alliser) or via the practice blade/Syrio. Old Bear's Raven and Littlebird can be stacked on him to keep intrigue icons on him. Rattleshirt's Raiders are great for removing those attachments, as very few factions have a better military presence than Night's Watch. And Confiscation is great for removing the one you really need not to have on him.

I think Old Bear is one of the most underrated characters in the game and the one true voltron available in the game.

Against Bara kneel, I would recommend just not playing Old Bear, as they are the one true silver bullet for NW in this game. Ideally, we'll see some targeted stand in the next cycle for NW, but until then the Bara match up is just not going to be pleasant, regardless of what you do.

Obviously, it's all preference. I have had Old Bear out there against Martell and yes, it's annoying that they put an imprisoned on him and then use Nymeria to remove his power icon and then use Caleotte to remove his intrigue icon, but if he weren't out there, they'd just be doing that to Benjen, or Alliser, Or Will, or whoever. You're not getting away from it, unfortunately.

I personally think the deck runs much better with Old Bear and his Raven in it. They're just extremely powerful, even if it is as a magnet for negative attachments haha.

Thanks for your quick answer. Indeed, I should give a new chance to Old Bear, 'cause I really like this character ( I love playing defense).

I should give a try to Stonesnake, it seems you like him well. I never thought he could be a good character ( 5 non-loyal, monocon). Same for Alliser, I tried to use him, but 6 for his effect seems to much.

@ShunSokaroI like Stonesnake. He is only a 1x because, as you say, a 5 cost monocon is not ideal. But he is good in Baratheon match ups or games where they just have a lot of stealth that makes it so you know you won't be able to defend the Wall, then you can go on the offensive a little bit. I still only keep him at 1x because of his limitations but he isn't a terrible card by any means.

Alliser is also good, but I find myself wishing he cost 5 gold. His ambush is unreliable and once another good 4 to 6 cost ranger with 2 icons comes out, I'd probably replace him or reduce him to 1x. But, as the game stands now, he is good to have out there on a First Snow of Winter turn, as he gives all your defenders military icons, something that can really save you on that one game defining round.

I'm looking forward to seeing what characters we get in the second cycle. Another bicon would be super nice :).

Have you ever considered Night's Watch/Banner of the Dragon? Is Mirri a big enough deterrent that if you go second, your opponent was to really decide how much they want to commit to challenges or risk Mirri killing their favorite characters. If they under comit you have the sword in the darkness, if they over commit mirri does what mirri does. with illyrio and some other stand, she can potentially kill 2 people that turn, 3 if she also Milks.

@BergerFettThat's a very interesting thought. The only problem would be then you'd have to work your plot deck to always go second. As a Night's Watch deck, your opponent will never want you going second, so the only way to get there is to win initiative each turn. Mirri may end up being a heavy investment on your side that doesn't help you get to your end goal of defending the Wall. Targeted kill is powerful, but in a deck that is trying to do too much, it may become unfocused and ultimately ineffective.

You should try building it though and let me know if it works. Decks that flex between offense and defense have always been interesting to me. I haven't been able to make them work yet, but at the same time, I'm not a great offensive player in general (no matter what game I'm playing :P)

Also, @Weebeyif you haven't checked my youtube channel recently, I have posted a few games with this deck now. You can check them out :D

www.youtube.com

www.youtube.com

any room for arry / whitetree in a NW deck? does whitetree + meager give NW a form of control/denial they were missing?

@BergerFettThere is absolutely room for Arry. I want to run at least 2. She is the best card NW has gotten since the core set. Right off the bat, you can remove Chett and Stonesnake for her. I've made a few tweaks for this deck that I intend to post soon, once I actually get some play testing in with the new cards to make sure the changes are right.

As for Whitetree, I'm not sure. In test runs I am not really too happy to see it. Truth is, unless you've built your plot deck for initiative (which I haven't) you'll be forced to go first maybe half the time at least. While taking 1 gold from your opponent is nice, it only helps you if you have events you want to play in the challenges phase and 1 gold, especially late game, doesn't really impact your opponent too negatively.

It falls into the same trap that Meager Contribution does. It's great early game and gets progressively worse. So, unless you're willing to run 3x, it's a relatively low chance that you'll see it early game. And even if you do see it early game, you are going to prioritize the Wall and the characters protecting the Wall.

That makes Whitetree bad early game and bad late game for a Wall deck, in my opinion. So I'm inclined not to include it at all.

It does, however, make a brand new deck possible. A choke type deck that leverages Meager, White Tree and a few reserve and gold lowering plots/agendas, such as Rains of Autumn, Wraiths in Their Midst and the yet to be released Kings of Winter.

i want to play NW for this cycle and have been playing a NW/Mirri deck. i just find it doesnt compete with lanny/sun or martell in general. so may go to fealty or possible kraken for iron mines and some denial / stealth protection

@BergerFettYea. While it sounds like a fun idea, I suspect Mirri takes up an entire turn's economy while not helping to defend the Wall at all. Kraken is a good idea, especially when Valar Morghulis comes out, as the Iron Mines will be priceless. The Stealth protection is just bonus.

Ultimately, I think the top NW decks right now are NW Fealty and NW Lion. Nw Lion merely because of the gold efficiency that Tyrion brings, especially now with Arry coming out. You could pop her into play, pick her up and draw and play her again with very little difficulty.

Plus, Tyrion enables Take the Black, which is going to be a very good card in the near future, especially with the Pyromancers coming out, but also because several factions are running some good non unique characters now: Bara City Watch, Greyjoy Drowned Men, Lanni Brothel Madame/Burned men (especially on a First Snow turn), Martell Knights of the Sun/Palace Spearman etc.

@Joe From CincinnatiArry is definately going to be 2x

as for Chett and Stonesnake i really like Chett for getting back my Old Bear's Raven which is insane on Old Bear Mormont and my Messenger Raven if i overdraw and Stonesnake has given me some games with his "renown" so it is a difficult choice of what to remove.

NW seems to be branching into choke and defense. Are the two separate ideas or will they go together? My first thought is to experiment without the wall and use e new winter agenda, winter plots and the choke tools but I'm not sure it will be a full idea any time soon. I'm always interested in your thoughts on NW - I look forward to seeing your new ideas. Can't wait for Arry!

@GuardianI haven't had much success with Chett haha. Too often I find that if I see him, I don't see the Old Bear's Raven. And I'm not the best with discarding my messenger ravens because that's one less turn with the draw, since you discard them after the dominance phase and can't pick them up until the next dominance phase.

I've also won a game or two on the back of Stonesnake's renown, but for every time I was happy to have him, there was 6 or 7 times where I felt like I didn't get anywhere near enough value out of his 5 gold. Replacing him with Arry not only makes the cost slot one cheaper, but also gives me an additional icon for my trouble, a complete upgrade in my opinion. I couldn't really come up with any characters that I would rather remove.

@MeatLoafXI think they're pretty exclusive of each other. After the Whitetree was fully spoiled, I made some proxies and ran some test games with it and what I found was if I saw it early, I wouldn't play it for several turns because I was paying 4 gold for the Wall and then I had to get at least 3 defenders (preferably more). So for turns 1 through 3, there were better cards to play in order to secure my win condition (the Wall.) Then, by the time I finally played it, my opponent was only playing 1 or 2 cards per turn and always had the gold to spare. There was one game where I played it on turn 1 because I didn't have the Wall and then proceeded to go first for 3 straight rounds because I kept losing initiative. It's nice removing the gold from your opponent, but I was seldom able to use the gold for my marshalling, which is where I would ideally want to use it. With no other choke cards in the deck, 1 gold per turn didn't make all that much difference for me or my opponent on most turns.

Now, the NW Kings of Winter choke deck sounds very interesting to me. You're right that it likely does not want to run the Wall. I can see it with 3 Whitetrees, 3 Meager Contributions, Rains of Autumn, Wraiths in their midst as well as any future choke that I'm hoping to see in the next few chapter packs. With the agenda, white tree and Meager Contribution, I could be stripping my opponent of 3 gold per turn. If I run Rains of Autumn and they play an average plot of 4 or 5 gold, they could be looking at 1 or 2 gold for that turn when all's said and done. I think it'll be a very interesting deck that could become very good, depending on what we get in the next few packs.

@MeatLoafX meaby somethin like offensive choke with Jon Snow + Longclaw for big challenges and Varys + Yoren + Night Gathers... with removals?

@Joe From Cincinnati my initial thought was to cut the second copy of Samwell Tarly and Littlefinger or even the third copy of Unsworn Apprentice but with Unsworn Apprentice i maybe cutting too much of my icons since i am at 10 at the moment. testing is required :)

@GuardianI thought about the final Unsworn Apprentice, but then I played in a tournament yesterday (10 person tournament, lost in the final because of the stupidest mistake of my gaming life) and he just came in so freaking handy haha. He is very strong against Martell still.

I've actually made a relatively large number of changes to the character line up since this version, so I had already taken out the 2nd Littlefinger by now. I think I'm decided on Stonesnake. I just really hate seeing him whenever I draw him. Almost as much as I hated seeing Jon Snow back when I still ran him. Chett still has a chance. He's still a 3 for 3 intrigue icon, which is nice. I still have never used his ability though haha.

Why Here to Serve if you have 3 Aemon's? I would put 1 Aemon in and flex 2 cards somewhere else

@GIMMETHEL00T I've reduced it to 2x in my most recent list, which I haven't published yet. The reason I'm not going down to 1x is I do want to either dupe him to keep him on the board for first snow of winter or, if he is marched or otherwise discarded, I want a second chance at getting him. He's just too good to drop below 2x

@Joe From Cincinnati 2x Maester Aemon is the place to be. Also about Unsworn Apprentice i was refering to my deck list witch still runs 3 of them :) if you need to cut something cut Sworn Brother i never liked them, i would run Halder before them. And update your list goddamit :P :P

Do u have an updated Version of the Deck with Called to arms? Craven Really Good.

@manson0815I do, I wanted to wait until after the next wave of card releases that are coming out in about 2 weeks, mainly because if I release it this week or next week it would quickly become outdated. I can send you the list that I am currently running personally though, if you'd like.

That would be great if u can send me the list by mail. Simon.neumann74 (@) gmail.com