House Baratheon, Fealty 1.0

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• 1.0

Were you ever able to Ambush the City Watch or did you just pay for him normally? How did you like Ser Barristan Selmy?

On the day I ended up never seeing City Watch. In testing, Baratheon is a house that has a very easy time of meeting the ambush reduction. Between Chamber of the Painted Table being a part of your dominance package's win strategy, and Vanguard Lancer's incidental power stripping.

Ser Barristan Selmy is better than I thought he would be. I initially tested him because Baratheon has a weakness at their top end, really it's just Bob and Stannis and Stannis is pretty narrow focus and can sometimes hurt you more than help if you can't get a good board lock going, or your opponent gets around it with jumpers or stand tech. In practice he's a big body that commands your opponent to do something about it. Six strength is really an important number because he defends against characters like Ser Jaime Lannisterby himself, and on offense forces your opponent to commit a lot to stop a challenge win, which brings me to my last positive, especially with Lightbringer. Having three targets in the deck for this attachment instead of two makes it a more consistent card. If I thought the economy could bear it City Watch would be a second Ser Barristan Selmy, but I'm not that optimistic.

Do you have any problems against instant kill effects like Ser Ilyn Payne, Mirri Maz Duur, Tyene Sand, or Put to the Sword? I ask because I end up getting nixed by PttS pretty regularly, and against Lannister, even Bodyguard doesn't help with a well timed Treachery.

My deck has a lot more protection, with Bodyguard and The Hand's Judgment. Do you find being more aggressive negates the need for them?

For character based kill effects, your kneel package is very good at handling them. During the Hamilton Regional I faced Tyene several rounds, and she never once declared a challenge against me. Mirri is the same, she's a priority target for your kneel package. It's not uncommon to get at least one kneel effect per round so you should be able to lock up whatever the highest priority target is. For Illyn this is where initiative control is important, as being First Player you have the chance to marshal R'hllor, Consolidate, or Even-Handed before he can axe a character. Beyond that, your low end curve is pretty disposable. If they want to kneel out a 4-strength intrigue icon in the marshalling phase, I'm usually pretty okay with that. Especially with Stannis on the board, the more my opponent kneels, they're really just doing my work for me.

For events like PttS or ToL, Seen In Flames is your deck's answer. You snipe potentially dangerous cards, and even when you don't hit one of these events you see their hand and can therefore make your challenges with perfect knowledge of your opponent knowing if you even need to defend the military or intrigue challenge. This is also why I don't run The Hand's Judgment because I have the potential to remove problem cards proactively rather than reactively cancel them.

Also never discount Selyse Baratheon. She does two things for you: 1) it's harder for your opponent to win intrigue when you can give out icons on demand, and 2) even if they can win now your best characters are ineligible for Tears or Tyene. She's not a powerhouse card that's going to win you the game by itself, but the ability to give that icon in particular is very strong.

Took the list unchanged to a GNK on Saturday. Went undefeated to win the tournament. Still debating the final plot slot with Calm Over Westeros and Close Call. I've had games in both tournaments and testing where I'd want one over the other. At this point I believe either are perfectly acceptable and it really comes down to how much targeted kill you'll face, among a few other factors, as a meta call.