...and why?

My meta and I have some disagreements about which attachments a Targ deck should run and how many of each. Of course, there are many good options, so this is more an issue of which 5-8 attachments (counting duplicates) are best. I know this might vary based on deckbuilds, so feel free to name/briefly explain the deck if that makes a difference. My own preferences are:

Summer deck (with attachment search):

• 2x Flame-Kissed
• 1-2x Poison Wine
• 1x Aegon's Blade
• 1x Rhaegar's Harp (depending on space)

For a non-summer build, I would probably go with:

• 2-3x Flame-Kissed
• 2-3x Poison Wine
• 1-2x Aegon's Blade (only 1x if running Rhaegar's Harp)
• 0 or 2x Rhaegar's Harp (if deck is reliant on the army, king, or dragon trait)

In contrast, other players in my meta prefer to include 3x Bones of a Child. Though I like that card, I'm not convinced it fills in the holes that Targ has. I think Targ requires hard removal to stabilize early on, rather than claim soak, which is is best in the mid/late game when recursion kicks in. Of course, a well-timed Bones of a Child can make the difference early on, I just haven't found it to be as valuable as Flame-Kissed in the first 2 rounds of most games.

Dragon Sight and Dragon Skull could arguably make the cut, depending on the deckbuild, but after limited playtesting I find them to be too slow and/or inferior to the other attachments. My impression is that these cards are costly in early rounds, when Targ struggles the most.

Lastly, the new Tears of Lys looks promising, though I'm not sure that it will actually fill a whole that Targ has. Many Targ weenies (and some of its mid-sized guys) already have intrigue, so the new attachment would typically be 1 gold for deadly. Occasionally you could draw a card off it, but deadly is usually just going to net you unopposed, which isn't all that important to Targ early game. (Late game, Tears could really limit the opponent's choices, but early game it probably won't do much.) Deadly could be helpful on defense, I suppose, but I don't think the threat of deadly is so high that Tears would be worth running over the other attachments mentioned above.

To me 3 Flame-Kissed in every deck. My favorite attachment of the game, fantastic with Daenerys' Chambers and Influence.

I love Bones of a Child too, maybe more than Poisoned Wine. The fact that it costs 1 gold so bounce back in your hand every time you play Vyseris (and it happens a lot) makes it really great. Besides it's great with Pentos too.

So I play:

- Flame Kissed x3

- Poisoned Wine x2

- Bones of a child x2 (I have only 2 of them )

- Aegon's Blade x2 (always great)

- Blood of the dragon x2 (for my Bringers of Law, I may remove them as it doesn't prevent from stealth or deadly)

- Rhaegar's Harp x1 (but i will remove it very soon).

I'm really looking forward Tears of Lys, so I will have a lot of good and cheap attachments to put on my guys (great with Pentos + Daenerys' Chambers). A character with an attachment is protected from some of the most annoying cards of the game so I love playing a lot of them.

I love Poison Wine to bounce around, especially in Melee. Sometimes more than anyone else, I get to decide who wins a challenge.

Bones of a Child. It isn't just claim soak but claim nullification. With Targ's ability to recurse it you can have Aemon, Viserys, and 2-3 bones of a child in a deck and ignore most military challenges, and burn your Bones of a Child to save cards from your hand or power from your House. Great in the early game in that it allows you in a limited way to overextend and not have to worry about blocking a challenge, fantastic in the late game when every card in hand, character on the table, and power on your House counts.

Dragon Skull is fun. I love tossing it into Shadows and using it to kill off additional characters and use it to win dominance later that turn, or even a turn or two later.

Regarding Tears of Lys, I'm not to worried about giving a character an intrigue icon nearly as much as I am about deadly, additional draw, and another save for Pentos. I'm convinced that deadly power challenges is a real strength of Targaryen and this card only helps it. The fact that it can very easily be recursed and matches up with Pentos rather easily it seems like an easy include. I will actually probbly include it instead of the Harp and my second copy of Aegon's Blade.

All the attachements already listed found somehow their way into my Targ decks with the exception of Bones of a child and Blood of the dragon. Additionally Bodyguard is in some of my Targ decks, i like the repeatable save option with LDC.

When it comes to the total numbers it would make a lot of sense to mention the total deck size too. 8-10 attachments are hard to squeeze in a 60 card Targ deck. I prefer to run 60 card decks and so the total number is usually 6 attachments.

There aren't enough lords for me to feel comfortable running Bodyguard. I'd rather the combo of Pentos and every non-lethal attachment in my deck than bodyguard and the three lords and one lady that come to mind.

Blood of the Dragon is awesome combined with Dragon Bite, LDC, and Bringers of Law. You can effectively shutdown their major characters from attack ing you and your stealthy Dragons can walk right through most forces. I made a fun weenie deck based around this. Essentially the three Dragons x2 and Bringers x3, the aforementiond attachments x3 and then crap-ton of weenies. Record was decent, but darn it was fun to play.

With the new chapter, you can nom put Stealth (Aegon's Blade) or Deadly (Tears of Lys) on your Bringers of Law, which make them really really good.

fabest said:

You shouldn´t forward this deck construction suggestion to Lars- i think it will just support his arguments about MwnK being an overpowered card. ;-)

Since i´m usually playing standard format i can´t say much the value of dragon bite in LCG, however in the standard format it doesn´t seem to be more than just a fun concept. Burn is usually much easier and often the big charachter which are hard to burn also have the no attachments restriction.

If i play bodyguard it´s usually once in the deck, it´s correct that there are few lords and ladies in Targ, but some of us (me! :-) ) like Daeny so much that she finds her way thrice in most of my Targ decks. :-D

Old Ben said:

I usually run 6-8 attachments in my Targ decks. I know 8 is getting a bit high for a 60-card deck, but rather than look at attachments, I usually consider the total number of attachments AND events in each deck. For a 60-card deck, I try to keep that total number to about 15, and no more than 18. (I'm really sweating at 18, but I can justify that number if the rest of my gold curve is very low so that the setup phase remains fast and I don't have to run as many locations.) Outside of Targ, I usually run very few (if any) attachments and cap my events at 12-15, though including about 10 is best, I think, to ensure that setup remains fast and there is a nice mix of cheap, mid-cost, and heavy hitting characters.

Dormouse, your idea of Blood of the Dragon with Dragon Bite sounds a bit expensive to me--have you found it efficient enough to play competitively? It seems to me that after a 2-card, 3-gold cost investment, the opponent is just going to choose to kill this character for claim or (if the character is really good), use it to pay kneel costs and/or win dominance. There's no real immediate need for the opponent to get rid of the attachments either, since it' actually receives a STR bonus...and if they play attachment discard, then they can discard the Dragon Bite and keep the bonus. Instead, it seems more efficient, to me, to use other cards...I dunno, just curious what your experiences have been like. (I suppose you could always choose to play Blood of the Dragon on your own characters, so this does give you some flexibility depending on the situation, but it seems a bit expensive for what it is.)

Though I like Bodyguard, I have come to the same conclusion that Pentos works better for me. (It's nice to get the bonus from Aegon's Blade, Rhaegar's Harp, and even Bones of a Child and then discard when needed to save, vs. Bodyguard that can only save a lord/lady.) That said, I don't think Bodyguard is a bad card and could be very strong early in the game, especially if combined with other Targ saves and an early valar to clear the opponent's board.

Oh no... I'm sorry I would never play Blood of the Dragon on my opponents character. I play it on a tricon of my own and Dragon Bite on whoever has renown or is in some other fashion the character that bugs me the most.

Am I the only one who runs Milk of the Poppy in their Targ deck?!?! Its very effective when you can recycle and reuse again and again...

True... Milk has the habit of picking the next claim from a military challenge. Granted, that becomes less the case once you face players who don't use knee-jerk reactions.

Bear in mind... attachments don't work on Knight of the Rainwood... or a surprising (or not so surprising) amount of Bara and Stark characters. I think point and click is good... but bones at least can help when your opponent has a bunch of these immune characters out. Also... dragon skull might cost more, but it also doesn't have the attachment restriction. So depending on how much cards you want to put into attachment removal, it may be a good replacement or supplement to flame-kissed.

dormouse said:

Oh, sorry...I misunderstood your original meaning completely, but now I understand. The +3 STR from Blood of the Dragon is definitely nice on the right guy. Still, even with the availability of the Dragon Bite combo, the card feels expensive. In most cases, I think I would rather kill their 2-STR character than pump my character +3 STR, especially if I have my attachment recursion going. Keep in mind that the Blood of Dragon/Dragon Bite combo is not really removal, and it's pretty rare that a character actually dies to dragon bite. At best, its sort of unreliable control; even if you make Bringers a dragon, which is one of the strongest characters I can think of for this attachment, the opponent can opt to use the Dragon-bit character as a defender rather than attacking with it so that it never participates in a challenge with Bringers.

Twn2dn said:

(+6 STR, not just +3, as a side note.) :-)

And you'll also have regular dragons in play for going on the attack with. And they have stealth. So with a zero cost attachment you can start to seriously limit their options. And if the character does die, Targ attachment recursion can get the 0-cost Dragon Bite back in your hand incredibly easily.

RJM said:

Oops, yeah, thanks for the correction. By the way, RJM, in this case you aren't removing characters, you are just deterring them from participating in challenges. That's quite different, because those characters can still win dominance, trigger effects, and die to claim. So you limit your opponent's choices with this card, but you really don't limit them all that much. (And since they can pretty much control when their character will die, they have time to discard if if they want to.)

Still, I don't think that attachment is bad, it's just that it doesn't really fill in a hole that Targ needs, IMHO. Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I tend to see Targ's attachment burn as a a critical component of the house's character removal mechanic. (Lanni has kneel, stark has direct kill, etc. but without attachment burn, Targ has very few options. With attachment burn recursion, however, Targ's removal is some of the best in the game.) I suppose if you didn't run Lady Dany's Chambers, or if you found a way to incorporate effective character removal without attachment burn, Blood of the Dragon would look a lot more attractive because it wouldn't be taking up an attachment slot.

The bottom line is that even if both burn and pump attachments are good in Targ, attachments aren't playable during setup and can't satisfy military claim, so there's a natural cap (around 5-8?) for how many you can run. That doesn't leave very much room for running lots of both, and when a scary character hits the board (Robert, Stannis, Winter Marauders, etc.) it's usually more advantageous to -STR or kill that character than it is to give your own character +6 STR.

Twn2dn said:

Advantage, Dragon Skull.

I played Dragon's bite and it didn't prove really useful. It should be great in Standard with Daario Naharis (AHoTa).

fabest said:

Unfortunately it isn´t. It´s nice and works sometimes, but the surprise effect isn´t just what it should be. Once your opponent sees or learns the trick Daario is a dead man. ;-)

It should be easier to run some burn attachments and wipe out the big guys by military claim or reset plots (maybe with sky cell if you are playing standard).

Nice point about the shadow cards, they are incredibly changing the setup possibilities of a deck. And one more thing about dragon skull which shouldn´t be overlooked is that it´s a another burn card which allows both, burn effects and attachments on the targeted charachter.

I don't see Targ needing more character removal. They have a fair amount of it. The Bringers & Blood combo is ridiculously strong on its own. The ability to greatly limit my opponents ability to win a challenge against me is invaluable. Dragon Bite on someone who is now only able to defend versus my Stealthy Dragons is money.

I've pretty much moved past trying to burn characters to death in Targ as being too limited in this environment (not enough ways to kill the big guys). Instead I use it to pick off their claim soak at key moments, and rely on things like Poisoned Wine and Dragon Bite to severly limit their ability to win a challenge. If you can't win challenge you can't win the game.

I definitely think play and build style have a lot to do with this. I don't make 60 card decks often. I pretty much always make decks with 30-34 characters in it and 10-15 locations. I usually will balance out attachments and events... except in Targaryen where I usually have 8 or more attachments in the deck. I don't mind flopping three cards and having a few attachments in my hand if those attachments will give me control of the board in ways other Houses can't deal with.

Then again I think whether you play melee or joust more is going to have a lot to do with how you look at it all.

dormouse said:

Out of curiosity, can you explain why you don't make 60 card decks? As a former SWCCG player, where decks are required to be 60 cards, I find it very hard to make a deck size that is bigger than the absolute minimum, in order to help ensure that I get my best cards...

Old Ben said:

But its the synergy with the 5KE dragons and ambush hatchlings that really make it work. I'd say it was clearly designed with those in mind. Daario is just a bonus that let it work the other way around if you get the chance. Plus Heritage of the Dragon can make even more characters dragons in the standard environment.

Anyway... wrong place to discuss a 'standard' format. :-)

Stupid forums, double post, post too short! Bah!

can't get the unread post to go away. thats my favorite targ attachment

I prefer versatility and redundancy rather than narrow focus. I could eliminate some of my cards to cut down, but then I end up with a card x1 which means I have to search for it and it needs to actually work (not be canceled or discarded). IF I want to control challenges I'd rather have three diferent ways of doing it represented by five cards than one way x3 or three ways x1. 60 cards with decent draw gives you a better chance of seeing your "best" cards... but I try to build decks that are all "best cards." What I'm left then is am I getting a card that is immediately useful to keep my dominant position or to reverse my opponents? The answer on decks that I'm happy with is almost always yes.

Then again part of it agains is my play style. I look at th eidea of card advantage from a very different perspective than a lot of players. I force my opponent when I can to have to fight from an uncomfrtable position.

Here is my current Targaryen deck, still being tweaked as I find what works best against my meta. You'll notice it does not fit into my previously stated mold, nor does it use Bringers or Blood. Not that I didn't find it helpful, just that I play a lot of melee, and he becomes the instant target of hate in a melee here because after three or four gaes where no one could beat me in any challenge while I had him out with Blood all direct effects starting coming my way. So I dropped them. My meta has been hangong on to effects I suspect waiting to use them against the B&B. When they start letting them fly more, I'll probably work it back in unless something presents itself as being a better inclusion.

The Only Game That Matters - Targaryen (Kings of Summer)

Plots

Fury of the Dragon
Counting Favors
Building Season
Time for Ravens
A Song of Summer
Power of Arms x2

Characters (26)

Disgruntled Mercenary x3
Refugee of the Plains x3
*Brown Ben Plumm
*Viserys Targaryen x2
Dragon Thief x3
*Maester Aemon x2
Red Warlock x3
*Daaro Naharis
Warlock's Servitors x3
*Khal Drogo
*Drogon
*Rhaegal x2
*Viserion

Locations (18)

Summer Sea x3
Temple of Graces x3
Xaro's Home
Eastern Fiefdom x3
Khal Drogo's Tent
Crossroads x3
Lady Daenery's Chambers x2
Flaming Pitch Tower x2

Attachments (13)

Dragon Bite x3
Black Raven x3
Dragon Skull x2
Dragon Sight
The Long Summer
Flame Kissed x2
Poisoned Wine x2

Events (9)

Seductive Promise x3
Dragon Attack x3
Foever Burning x3

Total Cards = 66

With Aemon and Little Vis I find I don't need to worry about claim soak as much so don't need a lot of characters. With my direct kill attachments to take care of their weenies and Poisoned Wine and Flaming Pitch Tower to control their more powerful characters I don't have to much problem getting my own challenges through to a strong effect.

I have a lot of 0-cost cards which tends to give me really good flops which balances the 4g characters and all the attachments. It is pretty commong for a 4-5 card flop without having to mulligan.

The "hidden" strength in this deck is the deadly and stealthy power challenges I put forward which often gets me a win by four condition powering up the Flaming Pitch Tower and Seductive Promise. Nothing as awesome as grabbing 2-3 power with a kill and a character steal all from the same challenge.

The deck is far from perfect, and it has been tweaked to take advantage of my meta's build choices and play styles.

Thanks for the decklist Dormouse, and great timing. I was just working on building a similar deck on Monday night, and its very interesting to compare. I appreciate the help.

Never a problem.

I miss doing it. I can't wait until we actually have a deck builder again. Going through my decks after I've built them and separating the cards out and then typing everything up is just too time consuming. When tzumainn's was updating I'd create a couple decks a week do some test draws, do some tweaking some more test draws, and then build the ones that performed up to expectation and then copy the list and post it. Now. It just takes too long.