Maybe this belongs in the deckbuilding thread, but I thought some people might have ideas more related to play style, so I left it here. My Targ deck is having a lot of trouble beating baratheon these days, mostly because of Baratheon's plots. In particular, the Fury plot hammers my Targ deck on the first turn, then two of the "can't kill noble-crested characters" plots in a row makes it hard to kill off Robert/Renly/etc. before they win.

Have any Targ players developed any strategies that work against Bara, or are you hoping that the current environment will be hard on Bara so that Targ doesn't have to play against a lot of these decks in tournaments?

(So far, the most effective strategy I have found is to slow play round one and valar on round 2--not exactly a fun way to go and I usually don't kill the noble-crested characters this way anyway.)

Well the current player I've been playing against lately... has a bara deck.

When I do get around to beating him... I'll share. But remember there are going to be bara players at NYC I'd recomend PM'ing.

The best thing I've found against Bara when playing with Targ is to utilize your Ambush as much as possible. Between 3x Queen's Knight, TItan's Bastand and Khal Drogo, thats several characters that can pop onto the table to help with the power challenges. Don't be afraid to use your burn even if you don't kill, in order to lower STR during that challenge too. My Targ deck hasn't lost to Bara, but maybe the Bara players around here play differently, I don't know.

You can easily get 3 influence for Queen's Knight?

3x Crossroads, 3x fiefdoms, 3x sunset seas, 1x Drogo's Tent, 3x Support of the Kingdom (to steal their influence locations), 3x street waif (most of the time my opponent chooses to give me back my discarded Seas, least damaging of all the cards in my discard pile).

So if you have a 60 card deck, and 10 influence providing locations, 1 out of every 6 cards is an influence providing location. Lets assume you only drop 3 cards on set up. You draw back up to 7. Draw 2 during the draw phase. You've now seen 12 cards (3 + 7 + 2). On average you should already have seen 2 influence providing cards. And this is before your first marshalling phase! So no, I don't have a hard time getting 3 influence out, although it has happened sometimes and can be an issue.

I run the same influence setup, and it works for me...I even pull off Westeros Bleeds often enough.

does no one run fleeing to the wall over their dobbs?!?!? Targ has 2 plots that really hurt it (bara fury, and fleeing) in my mind...

Lars said:

Nope. Not really. Want to crush our meta? Play Fleeing to the Wall.

But between the Tent being playable on the house card, and the Seas not hanging around long anyways, I'm not sure how bad it really hurts it. Of course many Targ decks also like to run LDC, Xaro's Home and Flaming Pitched Tower, but smart players manage the game expecting Valar, RBD, and Fleeing to the Wall. He who manages the caretaking of their resources the best in a heavy reset environment often finds themselves the victor.

Personally, Fleeing has never really bothered me though since it isn't a full reset. If it was the Valar of locations, then it would bother me more. But in the specific matchup against Baratheon, I've found Bara needs their locations just as much since their character cost curve is so high.

But every deck is different, every meta is different. Its why I love Gencon, and specifically planning for Gencon and trying to anticipate the metagame.

Check Foxpillows new Targ deck. It is sick. I was giving my control BAra deck a spin seeing what tweaks I had to make. First turn looked brilliant for me and despite my having twice as much power as him the firt four turns, by turn two I saw how his deck was working and knew I wasn't going to win.

My rush deck may have been able to grab the win, but I'm not at all confident about that.

My Targ deck loses pretty rarely to Bara, I use a lot of stealth and deadly power challenges and bounce around Poisoned Wine to keep them from winning important power challenges against me (well actually to keep them from winning anything significant).

I don't Valar turn 2 and I imagine that iif the normal sequence for your opponent is Fury, Blood, Blood, Valar is not at all helpful. I flood the board with weenies my first trun when I can giving them no useful target for a first round Fury. Slow the power rush in turns two and three with burn and opposing, and build your power base more slowly. Outside of Shadow Stalker they lack direct kill while you have a number of ways of killing off their characters, Targ versus Bara is about Tempo control. You are letting your opponent dictate the tempo, trying to play faster than his rush and you will always loose that battle. You need to slow him down. Flaming Pitch Tower is a great way to force him to defend challenges he may otherwise let by as well as Seductive Promise.

Street Waif does a lot to really minimize Fleeing for Targ. Get one out early enough and your opponent is forced to choose between locations, burn events, or discarded characters Not a happy choice.

In standard I usually have trouble getting more than 3 influence (and thats with the kingdom locations...) and I had 15 out of 60. It's why I usually run the Eyrie with Targ decks

In fact I always get location screwed in matchups.

Most every deck is gonna get boned if it is location screwed, though; not just Targaryen. Lannister could probably muster enough gold on characters, I guess. I know when I get no gold, my deck is slow going...hell, when I have gold, it's slow going...

foxpillow said:

With the influence demands that Targ mechanics put on a deck (especially Xaro's Home, Flame-Kissed, and Forever Burning), I find that I use all of my influence. Location control is also becoming more common with the intrigue event, so I'm pretty sure there's now way I'd have enough to play Queen's Knight reliably, nonetheless Westeros Bleeds. That's neat that this mechanic works for you though...I've always liked the idea of repeated ambush, it just doesn't seem to do well in my meta.

I like the idea of tempo control against Bara, but that means waiting a long time until I can kill something good--assuming they play Fury, Blood, Blood, I have to wait until the 4th plot before I can take out Robert/Renly, which makes me a little nervous.

Lars--Just curious, how well does Flame-Pitch Tower work for you? I always loved that card, but I find that I can rarely use it. (I suppose if you play with enough deadly characters it could be good, as it forces your opponent to block.) Whenever I put that card in my deck, I usually don't get a chance to use it.

You make a good point about the new location hate and I'll admit I haven't really run up agains that yet, but the waif should help a little (not a lot, but a little), and I'm thinking some discard recursion could help: I run both Stormcrows and Barristan in my deck, and it's untested, but I think the Stormcrows/Waif combo could be good. I may consider changing a plot over to Building Season too; I just despise giving my opponent search...

Twn2dn said:

It was awesome in my standard melee deck. It really gave me global control that i could exploit a weak player to make sure it went off (it also gave me a nother bargning chip). I was never able to make it work as reliably in joust in standard and its never made any of my decks in lcg. IN Lcg how many deadly does targ have? one maybe 2? and is tears plus this worth 5 gold? (general questions, i don't have an answer.)

Lars said:

This was my conclusion too. I think after the GJ expansion comes out, assuming there are many more kingdom locations (to power that +1 STR kingdom card) and/or some neutral pumps, I may take another look at Flame-Pitch Tower. In theory it would be good, but I think you gotta have the ability to pump a 2 STR guy to 4 STR to make this work.

well, isn't the fact that they're wasting attackers to defend part of the bonus? I guess I wouldn't know since I don't actually run FPT, but I hate 3 cost locations in general. I do however think it is worth the 3 gold, just because of the options, it's just hard for me to find a slot for it, really. I run dupes of Pentos, Xaro's Home and LDC already...so I'm kind of location heavy. The burn is nice, but really, the "no attachments" clause hurts it against bara, I think. Stupid Bob's and Stannis' with their bodyguards and fiery swords...we need a reprint of Throne of Meereen >=)~

Targ has Daario and Warlock's Servitors, which could slot up to 4 plus 3 Tears of Lys. When you run Pentos and LDC it develops a really strong synergy. Targaryen can be extremely dangerous House to defend against.

dormouse said:

I dunno, basically that means you're playing 3x Warlock's + 3x Tears + 2x Pentos + 1-2x Flame-Pitch Tower for the mechanic. To make the Flame-Pitch Tower mechanic work (which requires deadly or some sort of +STR pump), you're essentially investing 9-10 cards. Granted, you also get saves out of this, a couple more intrigue icons, and possibly some draw, but I'm still not sure this is the most efficient way to incorporate a strong control element. The cost curve is also a bit high on this...do you find that gold is a problem?

As much as I like the idea of the Warlock's Servitors, I find that these slow down rounds 1-2, which is sort of a gamebreaker for me. Flame-Pitch Tower doesn't really work well until round 3-4 when you have a lot of STR on the board, so I'm just curious, what do you play to balance out the costs of the deck to make sure that you don't get hammered rounds 1-2?

Usually Viserys, Aemon & Bones of a Child give you time to build in the first rounds. Magister Illyrio is quite helpful too (but quite expensive). Just hope to draw them early. Or an early Valar can even things out.

The best start would be Viserys + Bones of a Child + LDC, which is not too difficult to get, especially if you play "Building Seasons", maybe the Herald x2 or x3 and the Warlock that searches for an attachment. It's a lot of cards but with that you have a great defense/protection (+ Viserys, Aemon and characters with Bones of a child survive Valar).

You are looking at it as a mechanic/gimmick, and I look at it as a sound force. Attacking with deadly power and intrigue challenges is either uo or another kill against pretty much every house other than Targ (Stark has some decent armies with deadly and the power icon but I don't see a lot of Stark Army decks... I expect that to change with the new Robb). If I'm getting UO power challenges then I don't need much in the way of a STR boost to trigger FPT. IF they chump block your deadly power to prevent the FPT then you still get a kill. If that kill was by way of Tears you also get draw and can just play it again next turn.

It isn't about a combo nearly as much as it is about synergy. All these cards work well together. When I can recycle attachments like Bonesand my Flame-Kissed LDC is nearly an auto-include. If I have LDC Tears becomes very nearly an auto-include. If I have bones, and Tears, Pentos becomes very nearly an auto-include. And yes it does take up 10-15 cards of my deck (I run 64-69 card decks), but they work so well together I rarely regret drawing anyone one piece of this set-up no matter the round.

As to what cards I'm playing to keep FPT and Servitor's clogging my opening gambit? I run Brown BEn Plumm, the in house refugees x3, and the Disgruntled mercs x3. I'm not saying everyone else needs to use this kind of build, just that it works for me in my meta.