Dormouse and Ingsve's discussion on the main board got my brain ticking. Obviously, a characterless deck is possible, but is it a viable strategy? That is, can it win games at something close to a 50% clip? I dunno, but I'm willing to give a try as much as I was willing to give Treaty of the Isles a try. So here's my first swing and iteration of a Lannister Characterless deck:

----- Plots (7) avg income: 2.7 -----
The Tides of War x1 Refugees of War F100
A Time for Ravens x1 A Change of Seasons F59
Drunken Allegations x1 Core Set L188
Wildfire Assault x1 Core Set L191
Blockade x1 Core Set L193
Building Season x1 Core Set S195
Valar Morghulis x1 Core Set S201
----- Locations (23) avg cost: 1.2 -----
Aeron's Chambers x1 Kings of the Sea F24
Aegon's Hill x1 The Tower of the Hand F54
Lannisport Rookery x2 The Raven's Song F71
Open Market x1 A Song of Summer F19
Lord Eddard's Chambers x1 Core Set S28
Lannisport Brothel x1 Core Set L56
Golden Tooth Mines x3 Core Set L57
Western Fiefdoms x3 Core Set L58
Queen Cersei's Chambers x1 Core Set L60
The Goldroad x2 Core Set L61
King Robert's Chambers x1 Core Set B94
Xaro's Home x2 Core Set T126
Khal Drogo's Tent x1 Core Set T130
Crossroads x3 Core Set S138
----- Attachments (17) avg cost: 0.8 -----
Taxed Dry x2 A Change of Seasons F42
Demon's Dance x3 A Change of Seasons F45
White Raven x3 The Winds of Winter F24
Black Raven x3 A Song of Summer F2
Motley x3 Core Set B67
Milk of the Poppy x3 Core Set B145
----- Events (25) -----
Confession x3 Kings of the Sea F39
Missing Recruit x3 Scattered Armies F115
Spy in Their Midst x3 Scattered Armies F116
Beguiled Bodyguard x3 Scattered Armies F117
Winter Reserves x3 Scattered Armies F118
Summer Reserves x3 Scattered Armies F119
The Lion's Will x2 Core Set L162
You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf! x2 Core Set L167
Westeros Bleeds x3 Core Set T176

Comments and questions are welcome. I haven't actually played with it yet and it is a bit big (65 cards), but I figure I'll figure out some of the chafe and some of the needs as I play with it. Right now, I'm wondering if Aegon's Hill and the out of house chambers will be worth it; I think it should be okay since it is not as if I'm spending a lot of gold on characters, but we will see. The reason for the chambers is a fairly simple one, they can go on my house card and give me some Fleeing to the Wall protection AND they can fuel Xaro's Home.

what about sticking head of a dwarf in there? make them place power one characters and then smack them with a reset.

I'd drop the three black ravens for it, no need for the +1 gold (and the summer researves, possible too many worng card at wrong time situations there for me) and i think demon's dance works if it goes from blank to winter. You could also stick a carrion bird in there to make it blank again.

Probably a good call on the Head of a Dwarf. I had considered dropping the Summer stuff, too; I kind of like the idea of Open Market getting back a Westeros Bleeds, but I don't know if I'll like it in function. I'd probably drop 2 of the black ravens, the open market and the 3 summer reserves, maybe add a Head of a Dwarf. The reason I'd keep one Black Raven is to possibly bone over Winter Agenda decks.

one's not a bad idea especially w/ demon's dance.

what about Maester Wendamyr OOH? he can save himself from mil claim and your resets and might give a boost either in dom or to attack the hand after a reset.

could be a good call. Aemon too.

foxpillow said:

I've played a couple games with Aegon's Hill, and so far my impression is that it is amazing. I think it should be one of your staples in this sort of deck.

That's kind of my impression of it. I'm just unsure of whether or not the 5 gold is worth the investment. It would be nice to use it in conjunction with Call Their Bluff, I think, but I couldn't find room for Call Their Bluff.

Forgive my ignorance but do decks like this get to 15 power by just winning dominance with gold (before there were Reinforcement events)?

There were a couple of strategies at different times depending on the current card pools. Sometimes locations and such that claimed power or counted for dominance. Greyjoy had Warships that could become characters, then reverted back to warships. Probably the real crowning moment of glory of the character-less deck was the Tourney of Swords expansion. Every house got a Warhorse attachment that could become a character like the current Bara one. Those combined with the "Harrenhal Tourney Grounds" plus some support and lots of reset cards were.... well pretty brutal. Playing against one of these days was certainly a very unique experience.

It was a very interesting experience playing against and then building my own. One of the tings this drove home to me was the concept of alternate card advantage. Most decks devote a fair amount of cards towards character control, be it events, attachments, plots, or other character effects. Characterlite decks turned what was normally a very sound inclusion into a disadvantage. Every time you drew a card that could not target a character in the challenge phase was a worthless card, since the cards that turned into characters almost exclusively did so only during the challenges phase. Character resets ended up being the same thing, and when they came in the form of plots they were next to pointless and just a wasted plot slot.

It was then that I realized that I didn't have to have greater numerical superiority, or draw, or resources if I could weaken my opponents in some fashion. It was really about my opponent having less of eveyrthing than me more than it was about me having more.

Freerider said:

Ya, there was alot of diffrent ways at diffrent times. I started playing the game at Tourney of Swords and I buildt my first characterlite deck before winter had come out. That first deck had only 3 character which was 3 Sneaking Cutthroats. It also had Any Knight can Make a Knight, and Marine Legion. I didn't even have any Harrenhal Tourney Grounds back then.

Then after I&F rotated I tried a version with story events and Heir to the Iron Throne agenda which wasn't that great but it was pretty good at stalling. One game I played three insurrection for a total of 25-30 power from my opponent.

The Defenders of the North agenda made the decktype very useful again because of all the cards it drew. Also there was more and more character control that suited it again. Also Crasters Keep and Westwatch by the Bridge made the decks alot better. Playing characterlite out of Stark became a good option as well at that point.

My favourite characterlite deck however was a greyjoy classic highlander deck that used all possible kinds of cards to help it. It had so much character control and so many ways of making challenges even with only one of each card in the deck. I remember playing the deck against Nates lannister highlander at ChiCon and not letting him get a single power.

foxpillow said:

One question would be how reliable the events are at getting out. The worst part in a characterlite deck is having your opponent pinned down but being unable to take advantage by not being able to do challenges. Open Market can certainly get your cards back from the discardpile but it requires that you have extra cards to get rid of. Some extra type of recursion would be nice if there is any.

Also a plot that removes a single character would probably be better than wildifre assault. You'll probably find that wildire assault will be useless most of the time since your opponent won't have that many characters in play. Especilly since you have both Valar and Westeros Bleeds to clear the board it's unlikely that there will be more than three characters there in the plot phase. (Having looked through the plots in the LCG format there doesn't seem to be a good plot like that. Marched to the Wall needs to be reprinted it seems. At any rate some other plot than Wildfire might still be of more use most of the time).

snowed under works well for spot character removal

Why wouldn't you run a characterless deck as Targaryen? Don't they have better burn and board wipe?