I have a friend who plays a Seige of Winterfell deck that utilizes several epic battles early in the game. His deck is heavy with Direwolves that come out cheaply. On the first turn he can amass between 9 and 12 power. He usually plays At the City gates to get his learned crest Measter and then follows up with an outwit second turn to stop the inevitable Valar. By second or third turn he hits 15 power. Does anyone have a good idea to combat this?

Response/triggered effect cancel can stop outwit and the effects of siege.

First Snows of winter bounces back alot of direwolves before he can challenge you.

Valar Dohaeris kills everything that's standing in the dominance phase so unless he has stand effects he can't attack during the epic phase.

Shadow and Spiders, Lineage and Legacy and Desolate Passage can limit his option as well depending on your deck.

An Uneasy Truce, Muster the Realm would also limit his options.

Playing characters that do not kneel to attack or/and defend mil challenges could work as well. Especially if you're first player.

What house do you play?

I have been playing targ burn (not a great one cause Im missing cards) and a version of martell bloodthirst. My issue is more that he consistantly attacks me with 3 MIL attacks first turn with beefed up, sometimes fully stealthed dire wolves. He uses at night they howl to stand the wolves. The response cancel effects are really difficult to have in hand by second turn. I kind of outsmarted him on second turn when we played last and didnt Valar. He still beat the snot out of me. Although Valar Dolaeris would work against the Outwit. The issue is the extreme power behind the seige/epic combo. There fact that the epic cards are not restricted, and that you can create multiple epic phases is simply overwhelming. Especially when you see the restrictorama that happened in the last FAQ to stop the combo heavy Martell and Greyjoy decks (which btw have more inherent weakness than the Stark Epic Seige)