I just heard the most amazing words out of the mouth of one of our Stark players tonight.

"I would rather play against Lannister 10 times in a row than play against Martell."

Kennon said:

Uh... thats old news, you want a martel deck that can just make the opponent miserable? Thats easy, you want a martel deck that can win reliably... without ITE Arianne, Locked, Prince's Loyalist, and Winter Viper.... thats hard.

*shrug* After the discussion on this thread in the last week, it just made me laugh when I heard him say that from the next table over.

Granted I've been playing without ITE Arianne, Locked in the Tower, Prince's Loyalist, and WE Viper for quite some time now. Haven't kept an exact track record, but I was undefeated last night and Martell was the only house I played.

I know you love Lannister, but after hearing about your experiences playing Martell on this thread, have you thought about switching houses? Your luck seems to run better in Martell.

Mayhaps the thought has crossed my mind...

*eyes twinkle*

~That may not be a good thing... to play Martell right you need a certain mindset, you have to ENJOY slowing the game down, I mean after all its not the actual player that wins... its the opponent throwing the game because they cant take it anymore :-P.

You know, I have seen that happen once or twice...

How much do you have to slow the game down for the opponent to throw the game?

It doesn't seem very feasible unless you play vs people with the attention span of a butterfly .

And as far as I know, Lanni slows the game down MORE than Martell does

It was a joke.

Hmm... I always thought that a reset-heavy Targaryen (character lite with jumpers, Westeros Bleeds, burns, Valar etc.) would be the deck to cause most forfeit wins as it doesn't really have any good methods of winning the actual game, only prolonging the suffering (or so my friends told me). =D

I think I'll leave the Lannister vs. World battle to others, but I would just like to poke my finger at the Baratheon [no draw, but reducers] question a bit:

I think the reducer mechanic for Baratheon is pretty interesting, but with the current cost-curve of available (and decent) Bara characters it forces the player into a bit of an awkward situation, mostly regarding setup. If you fill your low cost slots with 3-4 gold characters that can be played almost for free on a good day, you end up with not having much to setup with. Only some reducer locations, possibly one or two costly characters. This leaves you in a position where Fear of Winter (no-one plays that first turn, right?) can absolutely devastate you turn 1. All your saves need to be played from your hand in marshalling, reducers aren't much use if you can only play one card and you are never able to setup enough characters to withstand the 2 claim military challenge and you have no draw to replace the hit from the 2 claim intrigue which is bound to follow.

So the reducer-characters (Sally, Entourage) are pretty hard to slot into a Baratheon deck... at least in large quantities. The only real slot I would see for them is somekind of Baratheon that tries to keep the overall cost on characters low (so basically lots of weenies and reducer characters) to have more resources for control (cells, trail etc.). But then the problem with these builds tend to be huge inconsistencies due to no draw. I really can't see the reducer mechanic supplementing draw by having a deck with a much stronger power level, as this would require you to have A) an environment where you can start with a small setup OR B) be able to also setup the reducer characters more cheaply.

...but a special ability for high cost characters that allows them to be setup more cheaply, but you have to pay the full cost if you marshal them normally would be quite fun!

Agreed Drakey - I have been making this point on the Baratheon thread that Staton started. There is no way I can add six more three and four cost cards to slots in my deck - Baratheon is all about the flop, since they have no draw.

What about Bara control running the reducing package of locations/characters, Black cells and the like, and King's Landing for draw. I haven't built it, but I know KL is a good draw machine and Bara has enough extra KL locations that it should do okay on that front.

See....you may be correct. a few playes I really respect keep telling em that a Bara control/lock deck wiht a mid game delaeyd rsuh is more than viable - but i hahven't built or faced one yet. That might be the perfect deck to run Entourage + Sally's Crew and set up a nasty post Valar chain in mid game.

I haven't tried to build it - but I think it could be done. And the new Khal Drogo looks like a greta control card for this kind of deck - he kills lower STR charcters, he has the nobel crest and he has renown.

Wait, I never said Baratheon has no draw, and in fact I think it is a lie to say that bara can't draw. Summer Agenda, Sam x3, Black Raven x3, Carrion Bird x 3. You make a 60 card deck and you are doing great on draw. Although I admit that it looks like this deck might lose to a dedicated Winter deck out of GJ. I haven't gotten the chance to play any though, so don't really know.

Also, I agree that Sally's Crew is probably too expensive of a card to be playing in the type of deck that I built. It just doesn't fit. Also, I get let's say a four card flop. This is what I've been averaging, with I'd say a quarter of the time I get five card flops. Let's say the lanni guy get's two cards into shadows. One of them will be AGH just to give him the edge. Let's say I have Stannis a seat of power and a sea, so only a three card flop. We'll give him a cersei's attendant or something plus a gold road and a sea too. His one card will be an enemy enformer let's say. My one card will be Eddard. How do I lose a two claim mil? I mean I just don't see how a lanni deck gets that much benefit from using Fear of Winter first turn. They have a bunch of weenies for the most part. And let's say they lay out a big dude like Jaime. I still am going to have the advantage because he didn't use his one card to kneel someone. He played a character. and now I still have the character advantage. and sure he can play stuff pre plot but what any phase kneel is there? Wrong Dwarf? has to be a non noble dude. I just don't see how I'm doing so much better against lanni than you guys if you are using the same exact deck.

dormouse said:

Eh. I wouldn't mind trying this deck out. My only problem is that Bara doesn't have other forms of control to supplement the black cells and KT. Nor does it have the gold to be popping cards out of shadows all the time while playing a few dudes a turn.

I was thinking the control would be the other side to the delayed rush. Just enough control to supplement your other effects until you are ready to reset with Valar, use a marshalling chain to dump a number of characters and end the game in a turn or two while still maintaining your control elements.

As to Shadows characters I was thinking of the more utilitarian characters, Syrio, Shadowcat, Sisters, Pyromancer's Apprentice, things along those lines... like I said I haven't attempted to build it yet, I just have this feeling that it can be done, and if not yet then it is right on the cusp of a viable build. Baratheon needs a boxed set. We've got Greyjoy, Martell, Stark... I think it is safe to assume Lannister will be last, and given the past tournament rankings I'd expect a Bara deluxe set before Targ.

Hmmmm you might be right there. I especially like the zero cost shadows dude fueling the black cells. Well, its off to build up a deck! I'd love to see your version of this deck. Maybe we can compare notes and actually get this deck rolling. God knows I'd like to try and build a non rush deck. Feel free to email me, dormouse.

Staton said:

replace enemy informer with milk of the poppy. save enemy informer for next turn when lanni flips blockade (after taking 2 cards from your hand btw) you are minus a sea, lost your cancel and facing 2 kneel effects (at least)....

or replace enemy informer with river bandit and you lost seat of power and your sea, here comes the blockade

or replace enemy informer w/ castellan and he gets two kneels next turn (leaving AGH in shadows till he needs it)

or go with your jaime theory....how do you stop the 2 claim w/out having either eddard or stannis die to deadly? do you flip power of blood and watch as valar pops up turn three?

you are still basing it on a shadows kneel. what if he flops lannisport brothel instead of AGH eddard can;t cancel the brothel so he kneels stannis for next round (and eddard too if his one card was flogged and chained...)

as bara you basically are saying i'm doing this and only this. lanni says ok, nice i'm going to do a-z and stop you.

Right, but my reasoning was that I don't think I'll lose both my dudes to a two claim mil. Which means that next turn I am dropping dupes/bodyguard/loyal guard or any combonation of the three. I'm not saying that I'll not be behind a bit, but I won't be characterless with nothing on the board either. And why can't Eddard cancel the Brothel?

I would say a bara winter deck with confession, black cells, kingroad something (it kneels a character), motley,

and some delayed rush would do well. Seat of Power and a few other cards enable a bara choke build.

Staton said:

because for gameplay purposes the brothel does choose anything so eddard can't cancel the effect if it doesn't choose a noble

and being a bit behind against lanni is a baaaaad position to be in

oh dang. touche. Well good to know for future games! Weird that I never noticed that.

Also, I don't think it is as bad as everyone thinks it is, but that's the whole point of this thread.

Lars said:

Isn't it the other way around? You wanna keep em where you can see em. Unless you like getting it from behind (which to be fair, I can't fathom that being a good thing within the CONTEXT of the game.)

Thoros visited the thread to review the discussion on the logical validity of Draw = Win. The forums ran red with lolz that day.

On a related note, suck it to everyone who said that Noble Rush couldn't beat Lanni Shadows that regional season!

Man, I think I'm gonna have to go back and read through everything again to remind myself of how awesome I am.