Over the last 12-18 months or so, it has become evident from tournament results that Lannister is dominating the large scale tournament scene. While not all metagroups may agree that Lannister is that powerful, I think the general consensus on these boards (and from tournament results) is that Lannister is clearly the strongest house. Last year at Gencon, nearly 50% of the field showed up playing Lannister. As much as I hate playing Lannister, I chose to play it at the Minnesota Mega Event since I felt it was my strongest deck.

We've already seen some errata (to Alchemist Guild Hall), but instead of recommending more errata or more bannings, I'd rather discuss what are the best methods for finding a way to beat Lannister.

One of the things that makes Lannister so strong is the repeatable control. 3x Castellan, 3x Flogged and Chained, Lannisport Brothel, and Alchemist Guild Hall form a strong backbone of cards that round after round kneel one or more of your characters until you find a way to remove that card. Add in one time kneel affects like Distraction, You Killed the Wrong Dwarf, Enemy Informer, and the City plots, and you have cards that provide "single-shot" kneel effects to pick off the characters not knelt by the "backbone", and including single shot discard effects like Varys and Arys Oakheart just adds to this effect. Lannister generally has enough card advantage to allow the "single shot" effects to do their job without feeling like they are card disadvantage, and they have enough Gold to offset the lack of gold provided by the City plots.

So what can we do in building decks to de-claw the Lion?

~well the new stannis should help.

I'd say pack as many weenies in there as you can....oh wait they run 2 resets and a targeted kill plot too....

location control works a little better, but you have to have a war crest standing to pick off the AGH and need to win their best challenge to pick off Lannisport Brothel or GTM w/out war crests.....

Rush might be the answer (~at least in europe it is.....right?) but rush really isn't that fast if you are negating at least one character a turn.

Greyjoy works nicely against them, ~especially when lanni is teched for mirror matches, but just provides a different set of characters to be knelt. I've been toying aroudn with some kind of charlite/less deck which crushes lanni's biggest advantage (early and often kneel) but am having trouble finding a way from stopping the 3 unopposed power a turn (maybe it means there is no deck, or maybe it means I can;t build that kind of deck).

Martell is interesting too, lots of cancel, good character mix, their attachments are no longer overly vunerable.

Targ in the right hands (not to toot Dan's horn again, but he is the only one I've seen make targ work effectively every time out) can give them headaches.

Stark depends on the box to come out (~and 2 influence on the board)

and it seems like lanni teched for a mirror match is still the best way to beat lanni.....

Lars said:

I'm thinking Vengeful could have some interesting possibilities as anti-Lanni control.

ktom said:

I was also thinking Martell has the ability to outdraw Lannister, particularly in the early-game stages. Fleabottom Scavenger, House Messenger, Dornish Paramour, (and the Herald of the Sun to go fetch them) all are cheap ways to draw lots of cards early in the game

Hi guys...Came back after a "journey through the dark" (who cathces the input? )

I'm definitely a Lanni player, no doubts about it. But I'm also a "fair" player (I hope so), so I've to agree/disagree.

I DISAGREE with the fact that Lanni are broken/overpowered. They're strong, yes. I've won a little tournament last winter winning 5 matches out 5 with straight Lanni (no Shadows. Lights are better! ).

It's a simple Lanni deck: straight kneel, military stuff, mountains of gold, some "weird" choices to surprise the oppo...It doesn't work alone. It's not a simple deck. During playtesting, most of the time it used to lose for a bad management.

I'm not saying I'm THE player, i'm just sayin' that you've not the idea the deck is like "auto-playable".

Just to say that Lanni works, but needs LOT of effort in playing it.

After that, I'd add that I decided not to play Shadow Lanni from the beginning 'cause in my area it often lost against Greys Winter, straight Greys and Stark. Too much pain.

Lanni are beatable. Are strong, but not broken.

In Warhammer: Invasion we have a similar issue with Skaven...And the solution is coming out...And it started to come out when people quit bothering about teching against Skaven, quit playin' Skaven and started thinkin' about new roads...

I AGREE with the fact that Shadows are too much Lanni centered. Kneel + Lanni's typical shadow effects it's TOO much for a single family. My "disagree" prologue wants to say this....Lanni were pretty strong without them...Know they're stronger in most of the metas.

And I'm absolutely sure that, as I repeatedly said, things would change in a White border only format.

Anyway, if you wanna go against Lanni, there are several ways to go:

- Baratheon Summer/Shadow (tested a bit against it and that's a bad match up, even if it relies a lot on the starting hand);

- Straight Stark Aggro-Control, with awesome starts and early massive kills;

- Bear Island decks (used to test it...bad matchup);

- usual Winter Greys;

- Targaryen (war crest or burn-centered).

Coming soon: Martell...I guess I'll leave Lanni once I'll found my "martell" way...

I like and use the House Messenger, but I don't like Dornish Paramour because it's a one-shot deal and I have to lose the character to get the cards. Also, to even trigger the ability one has to win a challenge with them first (which can be hard to do when they are knelt). I agree Flea Bottom Scavenger is good early game, but I don't use them because I would prefer some sort of draw enhancement that is useful throughout the entire game, and not just when I have no power on my house card. And since they are only one strength with intrigue icon, they aren't very useful outside of their card draw ability (and one "Threat from the North" will clear them from play as well, along with the other one strength weenies). Maybe would be good to have one in the deck just for the early game, but I wouldn't want to commit more slots than that to them.

Lars was right when he said one strategy might be to pack weenies in the deck, but I think to have the best chance of keeping those weenies in play in light of the reset situation would be to try to make sure the weenies are at least two strength. Martell does have some decent two strength weenies, but along with that extra strength comes extra cost as well, which makes them harder to put more into play at once.

I don't think the Lions are unbeatable, but like Dobbler said in the subject message, they have very repeatable mechanics that make them very consistent from game to game. That is the key for them and why it's hard to beat them on a consistent basis.

Vengeful does indeed help, long as one is able to keep the vengeful characters in play.

Seems like based on the last OCTGN tournament the Martell decks were sometimes able to keep up with Lanni draw, but never really able to outdraw it. Correct me if I'm wrong longclaw and Twn2dn.

I think the Reinforcement character events can work decently against Lanni. They're a surprise attack/defend character that costs 1 gold, has 3 strength, and has renown. It's also pretty unlikely that they'll be knelt (I can only think of You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf, atm).

Response cancel is also important (i.e. Eddard for Noble deck, Starfall Adivsor for House Dayne Deck, He Calls it Thinking, To Be a Kraken, etc.)

It comes down to a combination of anti-kneel/cancel tech and having enough characters to overwhelm Lanni's ability to kneel you out: something easier said than done.

I'm only on lunch break, so I'll post more thoughts later, but as far as the Scavenger goes, I really do think that it's a 3x card and not a 1x. With only one in the deck, your odds of drawing the character too late in the game to use her ability is greatly increased. With three copies my chances of getting one in my hand by first Marshalling are significantly increased and I really feel like dropping 2 gold for a claim soak character and 3 cards in hand first turn is easily worth the chance of drawing a 2 gold claimsoak character turn 4,

I think people have already covered the basics of what works decently against Lannister. Martell's card draw comes in spurts, under condition. Lannister's card draw is constant, regular, with much easier conditions to meet. Without Flea Bottom Scavenger (x3 - Kennon is right) I can't imagine how a Martell deck could even come close to Lannister's card draw on a consistent basis. Dornish Paramour is almost a dead card in that matchup (and against Targ as well) simply because it will get knelt so easily. It's great against other houses. ~Now if only people will start playing the other houses more.

Crone+Waif+Lady Dany's Chambers are all great card advantage for Targ, but their control is not repeatable, and thus sputters and runs out of gas way more often than Lannister's (not that I'd want a bunch of repeatable burn, mind you).

I think we can try to build a deck to beat Lannister, but in the long run, their cards are simply better right now and that means they will win more consistently than any other house.

Take Vengeful, for instance. I love the keyword, and feel it can be good against Lannister, but not great. The biggest problem with Vengeful is I'm You Writ Small. And it's like this with so many answers one tries to field. Lannister's best options that people usually throw in the average Lannister deck take away the best weapons against them. Want more card draw? The two best neutral options - seasonal and King's Landing - Lannister shuts one of those down without even meaning to if you look at the number of King's Landing traited locations they have, and if they are running Shadows (and why wouldn't they be, it's their strongest option), you can probably forget it.

It's one reason why I was so happy Compelled got banned. Lannister should not have the best attachment removal outside of Targ right now with the rest of the environment languishing without any to speak of.

And the idea that Lannister is hard to play is unfathomable for me, sorry. I firmly believe it is the easiest deck to play right now, given its power level. If all this sounds like I'm whining and crying, I'm actually not upset about it. It's just the present reality we have to deal with right now, honestly, and I'm sure the pendulum will swing and another house will rise from the ashes and we'll all be trying to figure out how to attack it. It's the nature of card games, right?

It just gets frustrating since they've been on top for so long, I think. But given time, and more card choices which arrive for the other houses, I'm sure we'll see it start to shift. Martell is close. Targ is close. Stark may be closer than those two with their new box. Greyjoy is so explosive and can crush anything given the right draw, but they need a lot of the right cards in hand to be able to do that, and I just don't think it's consistent enough right now to rely on. First turn Marauders+White Raven+Distinct Mastery is usually what it takes to get a fast jump on Lannister, and this can lead to an overwhelming win if they can get a Support of Harlaw on the Marauders quickly. But that's assuming a lot of things, not only an optimal draw. It assumes there's no first turn Blockade, no event kneel in the Lannister hand, etc. But obviously it can happen, and likely we've all seen it happen, but Lannister doesn't need that kind of optimal draw to win. Sure they are beatable, but if they win that matchup 60% of the time (and here I'm being conservative), I'm going to play the odds. If you're a gambler who loves a slight long shot, Greyjoy Winter is a great deck for you right now.

Seems Fleas are more popular with others than they have been with me. Perhaps I should give them a go and see if I like them better after playing with them in the deck a few times. I'd feel much better about them if they allowed draw with something like six or less power on the house card. It's just I usually have at least one power on the house card after the first round and I don't like dead cards in my hand (yes technically they would not be "dead" at that point, but they certainly would not be efficient for the cost/str ratios). Getting one in hand for the first turn would be a nice boost for sure long as I didn't get RBD'd the next round.

I agree with much of what Longclaw said, especially that other decks are certainly strong (or even situationally much more potent), but that Lanni tends to be more consistent because its control is repeatable and draw/gold keeps the engine going.

If I think back at the times that I really crush a good Lanni deck, it usually involves the following:

• Remove Lanni's gold advantage. This usually means both targeted character removal (Venomous Blade is great for this) and targeted location discard. Because Lanni likes to run the city plots and Lanni players are likely to draw a lot, hitting the gold often breaks the link between card advantage and board advantage. Unfortunately, targeted character and location removal is still somewhat lacking in the current environment for most houses.
• Get a fast start. It's hard to guarantee this, but a low cost curve helps a ton to speed up the game and keep the pressure on the opponent.
• Keep Lanni's draw down. This can be impossible, but because much of Lanni's control involves one-time effects (especially events), cutting off draw can bring the deck to a standstill. Honestly though, the times where I've been most successful at this have a lot more to do with my opponent drawing into relatively little of his draw than with me discarding draw locations, killing Tommen, stopping Insidious Ways, etc.

Of the above bullets, I would say the first one is the most important, though all three are complimentary. I have seen very competitive Lanni decks come to a virtual standstill because the gold required to sustain the deck just isn't there...though the same is true if their draw is cut off. (This is why Lanni players really hate playing against Venomous Blades, I think. Because they're used to having gold, many Lanni players don't have a lot of gold-providing locations, instead relying on lannisport stewards/weaponsmiths. If you kill these, their ability to play their own characters/shadows cards can be constrained.) As I point out above though, it's pretty difficult to cut Lanni's gold supply, given the general lack of location control and targeted character removal. Because much of the most efficient (or devastating) location removal is based on winning challenges, it gets even harder to pull it off reliably.

To sort of recap, I would say a deck that can remove Lanni characters at will and discard the most problematic locations (Kingdom of Shadows and Golden Tooth Mines at the very least) stands a good chance. As Longclaw pointed out, marauders during winter can be extremely effective at this if all the pieces are in place. I think other houses (Targ and Martell) can also be decent at it, depending on the draw, as well.

I'd say that all the recent tournament results pretty nicely support the hypothesis of Lannister simply being the most consistent of all houses. Sure it's not unbeatable, but in the long run it will always win more than the others. As a reference to the other thread, I'd say that the powerful draw is one of the biggest reasons for this.

I pretty much agree with Twn2dn's analysis (and all others as well) on the general ways of beating Lannister decks, but would also like to point out one specific card: Fear of Winter. We've had some interesting success with GJ decks that have a good amount of weenies (with M and I) and saves, and pull a first turn Fear of Winter on Lannister. This generally helps at least thin down Lannister's character based gold production, gives an opportunity to hit their hand from the start and stops them from starting up their draw efficiently. Against Shadow Lannister this is especially ruthless, if they start up with City of Lies. The huge disparity in board advantage is harder to take away from GJ (good saves), and helps in having enough cards to make your location control do it's thing. (As a side note, Veteran Marauder is surprisingly good against Lannister after the removal of Compelled by the Rock, and it helps to have additional location control cards). I think this pretty much coincides with the three points Twn2dn was making. Of course, as all Thrones is local, your mileage may vary. =)

I'd rate the abilities of the houses versus Lannister in descending order: Lannister (duh), Greyjoy, Martell and finally Targaryen. The other two really don't fare all that well, especially Stark.

Additional side comments: Fleas are much better in practice than they look on paper. Vengeful seems like a good idea against Lannister, but except for Darkstar, the cards themselves aren't that hot, and take away slots from other (better) cards. Venomous Blades are essential. Targ recursion is too hit/miss to be viable against Lanni. Martell can almost keep up with the draw (although in odd spurts), so they are one of the best houses to use against Lanni.

ktom said:

I agree w/ this - I LOVED the 4-cost tri-con Viper w/ Deadly, Vengful and the jump in ability (plus he was a Noble). I beat Tzumainn's Lanni kneeling back then using him mainly...but Martell needs some better cards w/ this ability IMHO.

Lanni just does a lot of things well. My 3rd place deck last year wasn't even a kneeling deck (nor was it meta'd vs. mirror, like the 2nd place deck was).

Like people said, it isn't unbeatable, and really I don't think anyone is saying that (Dobbs won last year w/o a deck remotely meta'd vs. Lanni). It is just easily the most consistent, and the erratta's don't really change the fact that they probably have the best overall strengths in the current environment (draw, income, kneeling, intrigue which is harder to go to a 'neutral' source for).

I seem to recall something of this from eric and dobbler. Negative Card Advantage.

3x Alanys Greyjoy

3x Support for Harlaw

3x To Be A Kraken

... just saying.

-

Another idea.

Run as many resets as you can, and favor blocking their unopposed rather than reserving someone to get a challenge. The few times I have beaten a lanni deck is to first just focus on not letting them have anything, dont try and win till turn 8 or 9, just exhaust them. Martel seems to be a good fit, as does targ with ambush. It's harder for them to kneel a queen's knight or dragon thief.

I should also point out that if you draw a game out like this... many players will begin to get impatient and make mistakes. Psychological warfare is as important to the game as anything else.

My best successes have come from House Martell against Lannister, but I think the basic strategy can be applied to most Houses. For me, the key seemed to build a deck with lots of low cost characters...the more icons the better (Vale Refugee MVP). Overwhelm the Lannister players ability to kneel out (at least for two rounds) with sheer numbers. As someone said earlier, just bait them with numbers and chump block all you can...keep the power totals low. Save your characters that make a significant impact (Renown/Vengeful/High STR). This is not true of all Lannister payers, but many that are focused on the control through kneel strategy will choose to play a reset early in order to better manage their opponent's board. This is good, because once they play their reset you can start to play more offensively. And Martell should not be underestimated for their offensive punch. A surprise MIL icon on Arienna at the right moment with the right plot can instantly swing a game and cause a board wipe...if this takes place after your opponent played their reset...well, that's game 8 times out of 10.

Also, keep Lannister's numbers down. I always seem to play better against Lannister when we both have just a few characters on the board. Venemous Blade may be the best card out there for repeated destruction of troublesome low STR characters. If you can get two of them working together in tandem...well, you know.

I also think Stark can put up a fight as well.

3X Cat of the Canals

3X KL Eddard

Forget winter, the key is having a good setup with as many characters as you can which is not hard to achieve (Bolton Refugee, Vale Refugee, Angry Mob).

Put in lots of kill effects (kill for your king, guilty, ice catapult, winter is coming) and ride the lion early on (Fury of the Wolf, Fear of Winter). Put in 3X to be a wolf as well and 2X Northern Steel. You should be able to get 4-6 kills in the first two rounds and 2 of them should be targeted kills.

Once you get northern steel on Cat you'll have a monster of a character that he will be able to do ABSOLUTELY nothing to kneel or kill.

In addition, you can run blockade as well as rule by decree to negate his big card advantage.

As lanni player, the family I fear most when playing control-decks are the Targaryens. Jumpings characters (is it correct to say "jumpers" for that ?), To be a dragon, Fairweather followers, Rhaenys' Hill and so are as many options to have standing characters in the challenge phase. Lannister control decks have no many options to control characters during the challenge phase. There is the excellent "You've killed the wrong dwarf" and you can use some characters abilities like Cersei's or Jaime's if you've got the initiative, but that's not enough against the ambush characters and the other jumping characters like the bastard or the Khal.

Grejoys always are some strong match up too. Winter+icy fisherman can kill the shadows part of the control decks.

And Distinct Mastery is always good against us

Just my two cents

This of course falls flat if lanni players begin to simply include more "limited" resource locations and just threat or valar early and have a second reset.

i was playing greyjoy recetnly at our nationals, and lannister was the house i welcomed most as opponent ;-)

here you can have a look at a few details:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Oh, and congrats for your victory! Playing four games against Lannister, and not losing one is no mean feat. =)

I have to agree with GJ Winter being one of the best Anti-Lanni decks out there, especially against shadow decks.

Man - its amazing how even though Shadows are resource intensive, and the City Plots produce nearly no income, Lannisetr just rolls along wiht this build and can still shrug off lcoation control and small charcter control.

Really not seeing a lot of weaknesses to the Shadows build - except that tis a little lsow. Given the right cards, you cna rush it, but that menas you need to draw and flop really well.

Is Fleeing to the Wall mandatory?

Stag Lord said:

In some ways yes, and in other ways no. Yeah, it can get rid of a bunch of locations, but by the time you run it often feels like too little, too late; unless your deck happens to also be a control deck, and/or the game is going to drag on for at least a few more rounds. Running Fleeing is not going to stop your opponent from beating you if he or she is already on the path to victory. It's more of a "let's slow things down a bit" or "let's stop building your momentum" plot. If you're winning the match so far, it can help you. If you're losing, it can actually hurt you in the short term when compared to other plots you could have ran instead. Fleeing is not a let's start things over card like Valar Morghulis is. I say this because even after Fleeing, your opponent will still have his or her 3 most important locations; with respect to Lannister, Castellan and AGH are now both Limited Responses, so getting rid of AGH isn't a tough choice (I'm not saying this as a complaint, just merely pointing out a fact).

If you're running a control deck or think your games will/can be dragged out to over 7 rounds, Fleeing can/should help, as not having those extra locations after a few rounds can certainly hurt your opponent. Plot cycle (i.e. Rookery's) may make Fleeing more viable. If you can remove a couple more locations after Fleeing (i.e. Price of War) that can make it much better to run. Running it when you have the upper hand is helpful as well. Otherwise, I always feel like I'm giving up a plot when revealing this 3-3-1 during the plot phase because it's not a immediate game-changing reset that your lead to believe it will be.

well....yeah. That was sort of my question: is Fleeing a must for non Lanni control decks? I agree - it is too slwo for a rush deck, by the tiem it will be efeftcive you ahve already lsot. Its hsould outright own Lanni and competitive Targ though.....

I don't know if it's a must for non-Lanni control decks, but it can certainly help give you a chance (sometimes the only chance) in a grueling match against a Lanni player. I'd imagine that Fleeing would have a more immediate impact on Targ, but The Red Keep never really goes away. I would definitely consider running it when building a control deck, but keep in mind that it's really not the ultimate location control that it appears to be. Other location control effects will be needed if you really want to shut down the lower half (or upper half for you, Chris) of your opponent's field.

I think Fleeing can be pretty good, but I don't think it's always good. In fact, sometimes it's downright awful. I've considered playing it in Targ decks, but it's only ever great against Lanni and some Martell/Targ decks; even then, it's only good if it's a surprise. If my opponent knows I play it, then he'll choose to keep most of his locations. If the opponent is playing shadows heavy, he can choose the shadows cards. That way, even if I draw into my condemned, I can't really hit his shadows cards (or I can, but it doesn't do much). This, of course, can still hamstring an opponent; but given that lanni has lots of gold-producing characters, it's no guarantee, especially if the opponent chooses to keep 1x King's Landing and still has +4 gold producing cards in play. (In that case, Fleeing is pretty crappy.)

Since Fleeing isn't a guaranteed "silver bullet" against Lanni, I don't think it's worth playing, unless you think at least half the match ups you play will be against Lanni. The stats are pretty miserable; so while you play a 3-0-1 that has little effect, the opponent will play his 3-1-1 and kneel two of your guys, then choose to play second and kneel the strongest guys you play that marshalling with Castellan.

The bottom line with Fleeing is that you really need to pair it up with other location removal to make it most effective (a one-two punch), but since most houses can't effectively play PoW, you still can't take care of shadows locations. And houses that can play PoW probably don't need/want to play Fleeing, since it's stats are so bad (and those houses...GJ/Stark typically want to play first and/or with high claim).