Ok, since we had some talk in the OCTGN -tourney thread about having a separate thread for posting recent tournament decks and discussing them, I thought I'd start it up. This should be useful both for people that plan on attending Regionals, or just interested in 'competitive' builds. =)

My (Baratheon Shadow-Control/Rush), orcIrob's (Stark Anti-Kneel) and perthius's (Stark Aggro) decks can be found in the OCTGN thread here and here. Also decks from the first inaugural OCTGN Tournament can be found here for Twn2dn (Martell Shadow Character-light), Gualdo (GJ Winter) and dormouse (Martell Control/Rush).

As a side note: @Perthius - After a bit of testing with a similar deck, I'm starting to agree with you on not wanting any 2 gold 2 STR chars in that deck. Still like the catapults in there though. =)

Thanks for compiling these!

Longclaw's OCTGN tourney (3rd/4th place) decklist: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=16&efcid=4&efidt=288642&efpag=7

OCTGN Octofinalist decklist:

In the previous OCTGN tourney, I played a Martell shadows build, which combined Martell events (fast control) with shadows locations (slower, sustained control) to lock down an opponent. It was character-light (22 or so characters), and I found that it did well against aggro/rush decks but very poorly against other control builds, which often had enough control to stop the few characters I ran.

To give me more success against other control decks, I went with a summer version that used recursion and multiple resets (Westeros Bleeds) and 32 characters. I was attracted to Westeros Bleeds for three reasons: First, it’s an extremely strong effect that can swing a game…even better than Valar in many respects, since fewer effects save against discard and this hits Bara’s “cannot be killed” nobles when Power of Blood is out. Second, I rarely see Westeros Bleeds played since its influence costs are so steep, and I thought most of my opponents' decks would be unprepared to handle this effect. Finally, Westeros Bleeds can be amazing with Retreat and Regroup, a card that I knew I wanted to play to increase draw in the mid- and late-game.

This decklist had won a previous DC-meta monthly tournament, so I thought it would be fun to try it against other metas. The only losses are to two Lanni shadow decks (Finite’s and Zsa’s) that had A TON of kneel and draw. (I did lose one game against Perthius’ Stark deck, which was very fast, but we played best 2 of 3.)

Decklist: (Martell Summer agenda)
3x Carrion Bird
2x Pit Viper
3x Orphan of the Greenblood
3x Dornish Paramour
3x Refugee of the Citadel
3x Maester of the Sun
2x Darkstar (This guy was an all-star, and I used his ability to play him almost every game.)
1x Ser Arys Oakheart
1x The Red Viper
3x Palace Spy (This was to fetch for The Red Keep. I’m still mixed on him.)
3x House Messenger
1x Gilly
1x Ellaria Sand (She is extremely good, and I’d be tempted to add another copy of her.)
3x Paramour

3x Open Market
1x Lord Doran's Chambers
3x Dornish Fiefdoms
3x Summer Sea
1x The Red Keep
2x Water Garden

3x Retreat and Regroup
3x Westeros Bleeds
3x Red Vengeance

3x Black Raven
3x Venomous Blade

1xA Time for Ravens
1x Fury of the Sun
1x A Song of Summer
1x Valar Morghulis
1x Mutual Cause
1x Blockade
1x The Winds of Winter

Post-tourney evaluation
This decklist was very successful. Unlike the shadows build, this deck doesn’t really “lock down” an opponent, but recursive use of Retreat and Regroup with the Open Market can get pretty close to a lock. During most games, this combo didn’t go off though; instead, multiple Westeros Bleeds (recurred by Open Market) with Valar were just too many resets for the opponent, unless he was drawing 4-5 cards a turn, which is what happened in my octofinals game against Zsa. (In my second game against Perthius, I played Westeros Bleeds three rounds in a row, I think, using Open Market to discard his Brienne with dupes.)

As I suspected, I found that the resets were particularly strong against Bara, a house I was worried about because of the Fury plot (which had not been errata’d at the beginning of the tourney) and the saves/cannot be killed. Westeros Bleeds was not, however, very strong against other heavy control decks (read “Lanni”), which typically drew enough cards to recover quickly.

The relatively low cost curve is another strength, and it sped up my control effects quite a bit.

Potential decklist improvements
Though Westeros Bleeds was very effective against Bara and other heavy-aggro decklists (when Bleeds is good, it is VERY good), I found myself thinking that in many cases a Game of Cyvasse would have been better all around. (Aggro is still somewhat weak in this environment, and teching against Lanni would have been the smarter move.) I cut Cyvasse from my decklist because I was already running 9 events, and I also worried that the low STR of my intrigue characters would mean that I would lose the “higher STR” stipulation, so that Cyvasse might be a dead card in a lot of match ups. The choice to run Westeros Bleeds meant that I had to run the Red Keep, 3x Palace Spy, and at least 2x Paramours to ensure I would be able to have enough influence when I really needed it. This was a substantial commitment to a single element of control, and in most (i.e. non-Bara) matchups, I would likely have been better off with a few more characters to overwhelm opponents that played control (i.e. Lanni).

Draw was also more of an issue than I thought it would be. I really should have made room for Flea Bottom Scavenger, which was an MVP card in my Martell shadows decklist. I knew cutting that draw could be an issue, but with the Kings of Summer agenda I figured draw wouldn’t be a problem. In most games, draw wasn’t an issue, but in my hardest matchups against Lanni, I often felt a bit behind on draw, which is a problem for a deck that relies on resets to win.

Finally, the lack of location discard was generally not an issue but became a HUGE liability in my Lanni matchups. From now on, I plan to run at least 3x location discard effects to deal with Golden Tooth Mines and Kingdom of Shadows. (I typically run at least 2x location discard, but I couldn't find room to fit these into the deck, and this time around I really did underestimate how potent Lanni's locations are.) Tragically, Martell's best anti-location cards (Condemned by the Council and Pyromancer's Apprentice) don't do much against Lanni's strongest locations, since Condemned can't target the Alchemist's Guildhall and Lanni often has the gold to pay to counter the Apprentice's ability. Still, the Condemned would have been good against the non-shadows locations.

Thoughts on the environment
There was a lot more variety in decklists this tourney over last OCTGN tourney, and I was surprised by the strength of Stark, in particular. (Perthius’ deck really did catch me off guard game 1.) On the other hand, it came as no surprise that Lanni remains dominant, at least in my mind. The fact that Lanni has the easiest access to gold means that they can play shadows without having to worry about the cost curve as much. (Ironically, Lanni also has arguably the best shadows characters, so there is further incentive and better synergy with shadows than in most other houses.) Lanni’s gold means that they can play the city plots without giving up as much, while the focus on kneel means that losing initiative is usually not as big a deal either. (The strength of the city plots is really quite impressive, and the low gold/initiative is really the only drawback. If these issues can be mitigated, the plots become devastating.) In addition, I think that Lanni’s kneel has become somewhat overwhelming with the combination of Alchemists Guildhall + Castellan + events. Finally, Lanni’s very efficient draw exacerbates the above issues and makes Lanni generally very resilient to other control decks. (It isn’t impossible to beat Lanni, of course, and my game with Finite was very close, but it was an uphill battle from the start.)

Hopefully, many of these issues will be tempered somewhat by the introduction of the Stark box though.

Twn2dn, thanks for sharing the deck list and especially for putting together the thorough writeup on it and the current environment. And thanks to everyone else who has similarly shared. That folks are willing to do this is very much appreciated by me since I simply don't have the time to get in the number of games necessary to discover on my own the nuances/insight that you and others who share decklists and thoughts provide, especially on Houses like Martell that I almost never build decks for and play.

Very cool deck, Dan. Much more creative than mine, and still very strong, which is great. Interesting that you echo a lot of my own thoughts on the meta and on choices in a Martell deck (almost word for word on location control). I'd like to give Palace Spy a try, so I'm sorry to hear you were unsure about them.

Very ingenious deck Dan.

Just a small footnote to what you said. In the second game I did not hit any draw until the 4th or 5th turn, so we drew the same amount of cards for most of that game. What made the difference was that I took out both black ravens that you played - and as a consequence you did not have the extra draw, the save from Maester of the Sun, or any recursion from the 2 markets you had out. Otherwise, I'm pretty confident you would have won that game if you kept it summer.

Zsa said:

Hmmm, that sounds right. I remember that you had quite a few locations early (4 or 5 after round 2 marshalling, I think), and I thought one of them was a Golden Tooth Mines, but I guess I misremembered. (That just means several of the rest were kneeling my characters...yuck!) When you did hit your "draw" though (4th plot, I think), the game went downhill extremely fast...I just can't compete with 5 cards a turn. (It was even worse our first game, where you had your draw engine out round 1 and drew 4-5 cards every turn that game! )

Good point about the ravens. That hurt a lot, though I think it was mid or late game when you discarded the second one (I'm pretty sure I got at least 2 rounds of draw from the agenda), and by that time, you were already sprinting ahead. Discarding the second raven was just the last nail in the coffin, since none of my removal touched your locations. (Again, that's the last time I make the mistake of not running any location hate.)

Really nice job...that was a fun game, even if it makes me cringe to think of all that kneel.

I had lots of fun playing with you too Dan. You don't see 2 valars and 2 westeros bleeds in 6 rounds every game

And yeah first game I drew from the beginning. You were quite unlucky that game since from two discards I managed to take out 2 westeros bleeds which was one of the main cards of your deck. Also the element of surprise from the mass discard was gone at that point.

Lannister pure kneel deck, no agenda.

Characters:
2 Gold Cloaks - good working with Bronn
1 Tyrion Lannister (Shadow) - the Monster!
1 Tommen Baratheon - card draw
3 Mountain Refugee
3 Carrion Bird
1 Ser Jaime Lannister (Core Set) - I still like this verions
1 Chella, Daughter of Cheyk
1 Bronn
1 Jhalabar Xho - against Baratheons
3 Enemy Informer
3 Cersei's Attendant - like combo with Parting Blow:)
3 Lannisport Steward
3 Lannisport Weaponsmith
3 Castellan of the Rock
1 Ser Aerys Oakheart - Renown? Kill?
1 Joffrey Baratheon (PotS) - once used his ability, but still weenie with renown
1 Qyburn - Deadly and useful ability
2 Scavengers of King's Landing - against Lannisters, did good job sometimes

Locations
3 Golden Tooth Mines
2 Western Fiefdoms
1 Queen Cersei's Chambers
2 The Goldroad
3 Sunset Sea
1 Street of Steel
1 Shadowblack Lane

Events
2 Condemned by the Council
3 Insidious Ways
3 I'm You Writ Small
2 Parting Blow
3 You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf - could knnel my charater to win:)

Plots
1 Fury of the Lion
1 A Song of Summer
1 The Winds of Winter
1 Mutual Cause
1 Wildfire Assault - especialy with Parting Blow and Cersei's Attendand
1 Blockade - with Stewards and Weaponsmith?
1 Valar Morghulis

I lost against Lannister heavy location control...

Very interesting decks!

@Kuba: This is just the kind of deck I was very afraid of running into pre-tournament... and would probably have been floored by. =) Terrible, just terrible... in a horribly powerful sort of way. =)

@Twn2dn: Okay that's something I'd never have figured out. The Open Market, Retreat and Regroup combo with Westeros Bleeds is simply inspired. Makes me think I haven't been thinking enough outside of the box as I've been trying to fit Westeros Bleeds only into Targ. Next someone will get the idea of running it in Baratheon pseudo-rush with To be a Stag...

And I also have to agree with Twn2dn on the environment, Lanni still rules the field. I think the number of Lanni decks in the top 8 and top 4 of the OCTGN tourney pretty much speaks for itself, especially if you compare it to the amount of Lanni decks actually played in the tourney. They're not impossible to beat or anything, but just so very consistent and solid... and the kneel is really overwhelming nowadays. Below that it's starting to get much more interesting however... =)

By the way, there's a pretty good discussion about Martell going on in the thread where Longclaw posted his decklist: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=20&efcid=4&efidt=312724&efpag

I sort of hijacked the thread with some comments on Targ in my most recent post (sorry about that), but the rest of the discussion gives some good insights into Martell deckbuilding.