Night's Watch Builders: Welcome to the Machine 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

Hey all! I've been playing aGoT for around a year and a half now, and I figured it was about time I actually start taking this seriously. So, for your consideration, I give to you my first attempt at a Night's Watch Builder's deck. Shout out to Patrick Haynes for the deck idea and for pointing out every time that I've forgotten a For the Watch! trigger.

THE FOLLOWING IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I AM BY NO MEANS A PERFECT PLAYER. ANY COMMENTS AND CHOICES ARE BASED ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE.

Plots - The plots are the go-to plots for most NW Defensive lists, with the one change being trading out Valar Morghulis for Wildfire Assault. This gives us access to a minor reset without completely crippling our board state. I have found that the deck, while soft to VM, does not completely fold to it, since the deck runs a low enough cost curve to be able to recover in a decent amount of time. I've considered replacing Time of Plenty with a different economy plot, but have had trouble deciding on one. Trading with the Pentoshi feels unnecessary for the amount of gold it supplies, and Late Summer Feast, while good, has a terrifying downside.

Characters - We have the usual cast (Benjen Stark, Maester Aemon, Ranging Party, Messenger Raven, Shadow Tower Mason) which provide the core of the deck, and you're usually alright with them showing up to fill in holes as needed. Dolorous Edd remains a jumping staple in the deck, and Samwell Tarly and Ser Denys Mallister sit as solid 1-ofs that provide decent value on their own, in the form of Insight and Renown respectively. I would consider the last two to be more flexible of character slots, with Sam being the less likely to be dropped.

As for the builders, I tried to slot in as many as I could. I'd like to make an immediate shout out to Grizzled Miner for being a complete bomb in testing. It is very rare that you'll spend more than 1-2 gold playing him, making him extremely cost efficient for his stats. Being immune to The First Snow of Winter is pure gravy. Sworn Brother and Eastwatch Carpenter provide a needed economy boost, and Castle Black Mason gives us a repeatable Building Orders-effect for the rare board states where we have extra guys hanging out not defending. I have found that CBM tends to sit in my hand quite a bit, and I've considered dropping him for something different, but unfortunately until we get more good builders, we're going to have to deal with it.

Builder at the Wall and Steward at the Wall round out the character slots with good economy.

On characters I did not Include:

Halder: I decided against Halder primarily for his stats. Paying 3 gold for 2 strength is not a great rate, and his effect is mostly redundant with the rest of the deck (more on that later). I have considered adding him back, likely as a 2-of, but I'm not sure what could be dropped to make room.

Craster: This one just came down to a lack of space. In an ideal world he's a 1-2 of in the deck, but unless I'm dropping major things that I need, he's staying out for now.

Arry: This one hurt a lot. Not having an ambush-able defender does weaken the already lacking Challenge, though I'd like to see her return in the future.

Ser Waymar Royce: Ser Denys Mallister does his job better. Moving on.

Attachments - Craven and Practice Blade. Three of each. Both of these provide extreme board control and shore up major weaknesses in a pinch. The Blade in particular solves the lack of icons for the cost of 1 gold and a non-terminal attachment. I will mention that not being able to include Milk of the Poppy was a bit of a bummer for me, but so far I haven't missed it.

Locations - You have the stock locations (Castle Black, The Haunted Forest, The Wall) alongside the builder specific locations (Abandoned Stronghold (the reason we're not running Halder), Brandon's Gift), with some singles to round out the list (Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, Queenscrown, The Shadow Tower). Brandon's Gift has proven to be a good economy card, now that we actually have enough Builders to make it work. I'd likely keep it as a 1-of for the time being, at least until we get a few more solid choices for Builders. Of the 1-of locations, Queenscrown is the one that is most likely to be cut once a better alternative comes along, but for now it provides a good amount of deck manipulation that keeps their board devoid of powerful characters (nothing like spending 3 turns flipping my opponents Asha Greyjoy, Victarion Greyjoy, and Euron Crow's Eye into the discard pile).

Deck Strengths and Weaknesses: I'll be honest with you, this deck can be completely silly. challenges are a joke to defend, and challenges can nearly be ignored. However, the deck is much weaker than I would like towards challenges. While keeping the number of Builders high contributes to this, the few characters that you have tend to make up for it, though Maester Aemon isn't helping your claim when he's defending. Not to mention that not drawing a character is going to end your fun quick.

In Conclusion:

Any comments/suggestions/questions are always appreciated. I'm always interested in ideas and changes that people can come up with, and I'm hoping to improve upon this as we go.