Deergarden - 1st @ 32p and 26p SC's 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

The following lovely little list is the Tyrell/Stag deck I have been playing and refining for the last few weeks of SC season. The original concept is by Rheece Paice (Stahleck Overall Champ '15), who wanted to use the draw and tutor of , with the stall of to manipulate the speed of the game. The list has been floating around the Cornish Paramours for a while, with each of us making our own little tweaks and adjustments to suit our individual playstyles.

The Deck

The goal of the deck is to stall your opponent, control the flow of , reset often and win through passive power gain. The early game is difficult, you have to make sure your opponent does not reach 15 before the 'combo' pieces are in place.

The key pieces of the deck are Melisandre (Core), Varys, Valar Morghulis, Highgarden, Chamber of the Painted Table and The Arbor. The remaining cards offer utility and make sure you see the necessary pieces. The deck is a blast to play, with a lot of moving pieces and often tough decisions to make (especially in the early game).

The only challenge you should (generally) care about, on both attack and defence is . Losing can be problematic, there is nothing worse than prepping for a Varys only for him to be taken the turn before being marshalled. The excessive draw and filter offers the redundancy to counter this. you usually do not care about. Thankfully, kneel and tools like Highgarden let you control the challenge phase flow to your advantage.

The deck has few bad matchups; another passive power gain deck such as or can be difficult, however they tend to not play (or have the tools to survive) multiple resets which works to your advantage. Location hate from is annoying, though only if the locations are stolen by Euron Crow's Eye.

A lot of refinement and testing went into the final list (see results at the bottom); a card breakdown is below.

Plots

Calm Over Westeros is your solid opener, usually naming as you often don't care about your board state in the early game so is not a priority.

A Feast for Crows, Winter Festival and Heads on Spikes all contribute to the passive power gain this deck uses as its primary win condition. All have solid stats, except the reserve of Feast, however this is often (not always) the last 'power' plot used in the push to 15. Feast can manipulate your opponent into playing the round differently in a struggle to make sure they win dominance. Spikes has the added benefit of limiting your opponents options, particularly good when removing characters due to the multiple resets in the deck. The initiative is also key, as in most games I would make my opponent first and play Varys on the Spikes round.

Trading with the Pentoshi is your go-to econ plot, necessary for those times you want to play The Arbor and still do something else with your marshalling. Also works excellently with the resets in 'allowing' your opponent to increase their board state before punishing them for doing.

Valar Morghulis naturally is a keystone of any deck that relies on small boards. Combined with Varys it allows you to keep the character count minimal, maximizing the effects of kneel and Highgarden.

Close Call is there for those times when Melisandre (Core) or Varys are brutally murdered. Often I'd let an unduped Melisandre (Core) with Milk of the Poppy die to military claim, so that I could bring her back with Close Call and marshall the second copy in my hand, allowing an extra R'hllor trigger. The extra draw on the plot is the cherry on top.

Characters

Melisandre (Core) and Varys are the cornerstone cards, everything else is there to support the stall offered by kneeling and resetting the board. Ser Hobber Redwyne and Lady-in-Waiting are there to ensure you have Melisandre (Core) on the board, and protected, at all times. Maester Cressen helps Melisandre (Core) and Varys kick the opium addiction.

Asshai Priestess offers double duty kneeling and Shireen Baratheon kneels anyone saved on the Valar Morghulis turn.

Fiery Followers and Edric Storm help to make sure you win dominance when facing an opponent with his own copy of The Iron Throne.

Butterbumps and Renly Baratheon (FFH) give some extra draw to find the key pieces whilst Paxter Redwyne helps with The Arbor setups, and makes all 15 events free to play.

Ser Davos Seaworth (Core) and Vanguard Lancer respectibly offer repeatable, stealthy military claim and claim with an inbuilt stall effect.

Brienne of Tarth and The Knight of Flowers were late additions to help in the end stages of a game, to push through key power challenges to close. The extra little bit of Lady redundancy (for Lady-in-Waiting and Ser Hobber Redwyne) is nice too.

Locations

The Arbor, The Roseroad and Ocean Road round out the limited econ cards. No copies of The Kingsroad as the short term benefit offered was not necessary; outside of Varys there are few expensive characters to play. A full fleet of Pleasure Barges allow you to draw the pieces quickly and are offset by 3 copies of The Roseroad.

Highgarden is an amazing stall card, exceptional against The Lord of the Crossing decks, and makes sure that opponents big (renown) dudes are kept in check. Also helpful to bluff challenges, then backing out when they declare a large defence so you can win dominance (or another challenge!) instead. Usually the challenge of importance here is .

The filter from Caswell's Keep is used on your own deck in the early game, then once the key pieces are in place, on your opponent to remove any threats or answers. In the top 4 at Reading, I put The Wall on the bottom of my opponents deck FOUR times (yes, a Building Orders was involved to shuffle his deck).

As noted above, Chamber of the Painted Table and The Iron Throne are your primary win condition. The stalling effect offered by the Chamber stealing from you opponent is just absurd in this deck - when all the pieces are in place, a 0-14 losing position can quickly be reversed.

Events

A full suite of Tyrell's draw/filter/tutor events are key to making this deck work. "A Rose of Gold", A Gift of Arbor Red and "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" get you the key pieces quickly, and the last works alongside Caswell's Keep to make your opponents top decks miserable.

Both Nightmares and Seen In Flames offer the utility to deal with a wide range of problems. Other popular passive decks (notably featuring The Wall) can start quicker than you, and Nightmares offers you some breathing room and much needed time to get your own pieces. Likewise, Seen In Flames deals with problems before they hit the table and round out the R'hllor kneel package. Seen In Flames was often used to hit saves (like Risen from the Sea and Bodyguard), trouble locations (such as The Red Keep) and control events (rival Nightmares or Treachery) but very rarely for characters. Varys, Melisandre (Core) and Valar Morghulis usually had those covered.

Attachments

Right there are none. But that wasn't always the case. Originally I was running 3 Milk of the Poppy, generally reserved for renown bodies. However, I found occasionally I was a little short on characters to close out (or I needed bodies to win dominance). So I upped the character count from 25 to 28 with the addition of closers Brienne of Tarth and The Knight of Flowers, and a second copy of Maester Cressen. The influx of NW decks made this decision easier, as Milk of the Poppy is mostly useless in that matchup. It would likely be the first card I'd add back in if room were to appear (deck slots are tight).

Store Champs

I took the deck to two of the biggest Store Championships in the UK, Aldershot and Reading and did pretty well with it. Both tournaments are on Jousting Pavilion if you'd like to see the full results and standings.

http://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/2739 http://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/2756

Aldershot SC

1st Place - 32 Players, 5 Rounds, Cut to Top 8

The only loss of the weekend was a very close game to Adam East in the last round of swiss. His aggressive Tyrell/Winter attacked my hand and board, preventing me laying the groundwork for my own power gain. I hung on through stall effects such as Vanguard Lancer, but one turn too short - if he didn't win during dominance, his 7th plot would have been Valar Morghulis and it is likely in the long game I would have prevailed (he was top decking which I was controlling with Caswell's Keep). A great game, sadly Adam then got the King of Swiss curse and lost his top 8 match.

Reading SC

1st Place - 26 Players, 5 Rounds, Cut to Top 4

I was undefeated on the second leg of the Southern Weekender, going 7-0 at Reading. With the 7 wins the previous day, the deck has a pretty swell competitive record of 14-1.

Testing Results

W: 30, L: 3

• W v NW/Winter
• W v Stark/Fealty
• W v GJ/Wolf
• W v Tyrell/Rains
• W v NW/Fealty
• W v Martell/Lion
• W v Martell/Stag
• W v Martell/X
• W v Martell/X
• W v Stark/X
• W v NW/Fealty
• W v Targ/Wolf
• L v Targ/Fealty
• L v GJ/Rains
• W v Lanni/Rains
• W v Stark/Fealty
• W v NW/Fealty
• W v Bara/Fealty
• L v Tyrell/Winter
• W v GJ/Rains
• W v NW/Fealty
• W Bara/Fealty
• W v Martell/X
• W v Tyrell/Sun
• W v Targ/Fealty
• W v NW/Lion
• W v Targ/Fealty
• W v Bara/Fealty
• W v Bara/Stag
• W v Bara/Fealty
• W v Targ/X
• W v Martell/Kraken