Since we've been having discussions on there possibly existing some kind of elusive competitive Shadow-Control build for Baratheon, I thought it might be useful to move the discussion here to the Deck Construction section, since it's usually only populated by people posting their deck and getting a little feedback on them, and maybe we can find some clue as to whether such a build actually exists. (I possibly took ktom's idea of it just taking skill to find the proper Bara build a bit to heart... )

I feel that the basic core components of a Bara Shadow-Control deck are pretty well defined: Black Cells, Kingswood Trail, Margaery, Queen of Thorns

Additionally there are a few neutrals that work well with these cards: Syrio Forel, Kingdom of Shadows, King's Landing, City of Sin and Varys

And of course the usual auto-includes: Refugees, Carrion birds, Robert's Bastards...

The problem lies in what else to build into these decks, without the end result being too cumbersome.

The options that quickly come into mind are:

1. Rush components (renown, standing, vigilant)
2. Winter tech (Burning swords, Shadow Stalker)
3. Summer tech (More resources and draw to balance the high costs)

At least a few attempts at option 1. seemed to have faced problems, possibly because the rush elements in Bara aren't well developed enough yet. And also as people indicated, finding good events for such Bara decks is almost impossible. This may of course change in the future. Option 2 sounds appealing because it would add removal to the control, but the high gold cost of all the cards seems a bit in opposition to this. Option 3 would help the biggest problems (high gold curve), but the inherent weakness in running summer decks (due to the Agenda's hindrance) does cast a bit doubt on this one as well.

I actually came up with a fourth option for this yesterday. A sort of Asshai-Control. Since the control cards are pretty high costed (3-4 gold) the deck really needs some cheap cards to offset this, preferably ones that you can play in setup. How about running both of the Asshai weenies (Zealous Collector, Old Red Priest), the new Zealot of the Light and possibly some more Holy characters (Melissandre, Selyse (CS)...) together with Confession, and Army of the Faithful (to make use of all the Asshai). The Zealot together with Confession and a good amount of intrigue should be able to hurt the other players hand quite well, which would nicely complement the control on the table. Confession would also work quite nicely together with Valar to make sure the other player can't recover as well as you, while having draw with King's Landing would give this deck the edge.

Some other options that could be added to this: Robert Baratheon (KotS) to allow re-use of Confession (and Distinct Mastery), Priestess of the Pyre (which would probably make it more of a Summer deck), Jack of All Trades (for more Holy), Silent Sisters (to hit after Valar) and so forth.

So what do you think? Which possibility (or what else) do you think would make the most competitive Bara control deck? Why? How would you go about building it?

I like the bara shadow tech I really do. However I like it so much more in martell or lanni w/ the shadows agenda. I don't like bara with the shadows agenda because it only has 2 in house shadows control cards. Also, while QoT is in the decks I don't really see her as fueling the shadows control theme, I guess she triggers maegry but she doesn't really add anything.

option 1) rush:

I've discussed my efforts about this in the other thread, its just too scytzo.

option 2) Winter tech:

I think this is the best bet. That being said I still don't like it all that much. It is a very slow control build and its key components are very expensive. Shadow stalker at 4 in bara is tough because of the resource base (compare w/ wintertime mauraders at 3) and kingswood trial costs you a gold everytime you want to use it. so it means winter is -2 gold for you. Also the support for winter outside of shadow stalke isn;t that good. No wintertime Armada to push through, no summer tax to draw and lower win condition, no war crest to run price of war, no arya for claim soak, etc.

option 3) Summer tech:

theoritically fine, pracitically just too big a risk. -1 draw is too big a possibility and giving some decks that are either faster then yours or can outdraw you even w/ the agenda an extra gold is just a bad idea.

"seceret option" 4) Asshai:

good luck winning a Military challenge. Confession is tempting, but right now the asshai's are very combersome and don't really give you anything. If more support for holy crest comes down the pipe then maybe I'll re-exmine this.

A control deck with no means to drawing is doomed to failure, IMO. Even adding ravens, samwell, gilly and 3x king's landing, that card provide a draw that simply isn't sufficient , or better "costant enough" to fuel a control type of deck. So... don't do it Still, if you want to try, I would humbly suggest a look at the abandoned forge: if you can't draw, at least you can reveal... but what ? Next step is to add weapons that helps the theme: the only ones that i see usefuls are Venomous blade with the Shadows agenda and lightbringer. But to be sure to fetch them, you have to play multiple copies of Abandoned forge and spend gold... then the other copies are almost useless, but still it's a "nice" effect.

The bonus of adding the Venomous Blade - Shadow agenda is that you can afford Alchemist's Guild Hall and some other OOH goodness. Still, i don't see how a Baratheon Shadow agenda is stronger or more playable than the same deck with Lannister (more gold and draw) Martell (Venomous at 0 cost) or Targaryen (recycle instead of draw)

I'd also try a Winter Alliance with the isle theme, with Assassins and Wintertime Marauders, but givin 5 powers to the opponent isn't exactly what a control deck wants... As Someone already appointed, too much themes in the house, so you cannot really afford no one, sadly. Maybe in the future, with more cards to play with...

So.... I'm actually toying around with a Bara Shadows deck right now in the US OCTGN tourney.

The idea was to run Black Cells along with shadow hoppers like Kingswood, Venemous Blade, and Syrio. I'm also using these, along with the many King's Landing locations in Bara, to fuel King's Landing for draw. I was counting on any residual Bara rush abilities to just be icing on the cake.

I admit I suck, but I'm 0-3.

The deck can draw nicely, but it takes quite the investment in time and gold to do so. With all of the pricey characters on top of the cost for Shadows cards, the gold curve just ends up being way too high to keep up. There's just too many expensive working parts.

Deathjester26 said:

yeah i've found that these decks are killer about round 8 or so

...the round 8 sounds awfully familiar...

I built the Asshai -version, and it pretty much played out as Lars suspected... too clunky and heavy. Maybe if there was somekind of Asshai reducer, just maybe... Only thing that I found to work was using both Kingdom of Shadows and Bay of Ice in the deck, and putting in the Zealous Collectors - supplemental draw and attachment control. It seemed to also work better with two resets (wildfire and Valar). I ended up trying to fix it by having 13 1-gold chars in the deck (carrion bird, bastards, collectors, old red priest, Sam), but then you got decent setups, but it still didn't get going fast enough and was only losing military challenges.

I'm however pretty sceptical about getting the Winter Version to work properly either, the cost curve is totally out of hand then. And you can't really add any more resources since you'll soon be hitting 20+ locations. Even the addition of Bay of Ice was hard to fit in, with all the other locations. And since Shadow Stalker is 4-gold...

Two other options I thought about were:

- The deck would need more s0 cards to trigger off (silent sister, the kitty), and just putting in the shadow reducers. Then you could more comfortably build into the shadows and concentrate on wiping the board with Valar and rebuilding from there.

- Since the deck is already running many shadows, it will always have gold in hand in Challenges... Fitting in refugees and MwNK might make an interesting addition to it.