...And Now My Watch Begins. 1.0

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This is my first published deck since I started playing this past summer. I immediately gravitated towards NW and have enjoyed playing Wall defense variants up to this point. I don't have much tournament experience for AGOT but played MTG competitively for 10+ years and love deck building/theory crafting. After seeing the new Night Gathers... event I wanted to expand on the Varys/Yoren combo and this was the result.

The main idea of the deck was to let your opponent build up their board and then use initiative from Calling the Banners to choose to go second and marshal Varys. Next use Ranger's Cache to set up your gold for next turn to play Night Gathers... and use their discard pile as your hand, preferably playing Yoren on the turn you drop Ranger's Cache to get a jump on reasserting board control. All of this is contingent on increasing your reserve value in order to play Night Gathers... hence the 3x Samwell Tarly, The Iron Throne and Northern Rookery. There is always a chance that you won't see Varys or Night Gathers... but after extended testing, most games were won w/o playing either card due to card draw and flooding the board. MVPs for the deck are Ghost, Yoren, Samwell Tarly and Halder with practice blades winning me many games due to ambush and Halder unlimited strength potential with 3x Craven, 3x Practice Blade and Northern Rookery due to its lack of need to kneel for an action. Messenger Raven is probably the most important card in the deck as it allows you to draw into all your control and to make sure you see Night Gathers.... Almost every game that I saw 1-2 Messenger Raven I was able to outpace my opponent. They also have the benefit of dodging Varys and with all the reserve boost I rarely had to discard after bouncing. Next I'll go over plot reasoning.

Building Orders is needed to retrieve any brutal attachment or location needed for reserve boost. The carry over of Ranger's Cache yielding 7-8 gold w/o any other economy is great for regaining the board. The reason for A Noble Cause is to have another option to get Varys out but mostly to play post Ranger's Cache with the lynch pin of Night Gathers... due to the fact that you get to "marshal" cards from their discard pile gaining the 2 reduction to any lord/lady and being 6 reserve value guaranteeing being able to play Night Gathers... as long as you have at least one reserve pump which should have been set up prior. Winter Festival gives decent gold and helps close with the power gain. Calling the Banners is either used for going second with Varys or to have a heavy marshal phase. Marched to the Wall is a no brainer with Yoren and the inevitable increase to their discard pile. Originally the whole deck was based around Varys but with 2x Marched to the Wall, heavy intrigue pulls and your opponents dupe claim from military challenges Night Gathers... has plenty of targets. Varys still helps punch intrigue and reset the board especially if you have more dupes (Ghost) than your opponent.

I would appreciate any feedback and suggestions that any of you may have regarding the deck choices I have made. Feel free to play test this for yourself and let me know what weaknesses you may have found. Lastly I would like to give a shout out to Bambi's Smash n' Grab deck which planted the seed that grew into what this deck has become. Now Your Watch Begins...