Hello!

I'm new at the forum and also a new player. I loved the House Stark since the biggining and after buying the Core, Lords of Winter was the next aquisition! Because i'm a new player (I just started playing the game a week ago) I followed the Direwolves of the North Decklist to build my Stark deck. However I'd like to do some improvements on it and I was hopping you could have some ideas...

If it helps (I don't know it it is because i'm new or if it is the deck), the difficulties I found playing until now are:

- having robb stark, shaggydog and grey wind in play at once (and when I have them, if the other player can't kill Robb just attach to it or the attachments something to consider the text card as blanket : / )

- defending intrigue challenges, and sometimes power challanges too

- if it's a long game, it becomes hard to have cards in hand (yesterday I lost because of it,I had none!)

- it's hard to play after a valar morghulis from the other players - last time it happened I lost the robb stark, shaggydog and grey wind combo and after that it was very difficult to put a good combination of characters in play: I lost the leverage from the direwolves and I only could put 2 or 3 characters in play with the military and power icon vs. more and more characters on the other side of the table much moore powerful on intrigue and power and with duplicates (the game ended I had Jon Snow and a always-knelt-Ghost with an attachment from the other player that didn't let me use his abillities vs. 6 /7 characters, some with stealth, others with drawing abilities and so on - it was House Lennister).

This is the Direwolves of the North Decklist:

House: Stark

Agenda: The Siege of Winterfell

Plot Deck:

Summoning Season

Storm of Swords

Take them by Surprise

Wildfire Assault

Mutual Cause

Counting Favors

Respect of the Old Gods

Characters:

Brans Stark (core)

Hodor

Jojen Reed

Catelyn (core)

Eddard (LoW)

Robb Stark 3X (LoW)

Arya Stark

Sansa Stark (core)

Knnel Master

Lady (core)

Direwolf Pup

Wolfpack 3X

Summer (LoW)

Host of the Bear 3X

Winterfell Reserves

Qhorin Halfhand 3X

Ghost

Jon Snow

Maester Aemon

Benjen Stark

Rorge

Locations:

Street of Steel

Street of Sisters

Narrow Sea 3X

Northern Fiefdoms 3X

Lord Eddard's Chambers

Crossroads

Great keep 3X

Wolfswood

Winterfell Kneels

Events:

Winter is Coming

Lethal Counterattack

Distraction

Wolf Dreams 3X

Endless Endurance

At Night they Howl 2X

Attachments:

Nymeria (core)

Grey Wind 3X

Shaggydog 2X

Frozen Solid 2X

I forgot...Shaggydog and Grey Wind are from the LoW!

I like Deepwood Mercenary over Host of the Bear for that deck. It can help with attachment control. If you have more than just the core set and Lords of Winter, I suggest adding Jeyne Westerling, Old Nan, Bolton Refugees, Anti-Shadows Sansa, and Ser Jorah. They should help protect your hand more. For draw maybe use a Blackfish, Storm Dancer, Noble protecting Eddard, and Guard at Riverrun. If you do use that Eddard, you can always target him with one of your own effects (like Arya's) to draw. I would also suggest changing a few of the plots also. Definitely need the Fury and the new Stark plot (from Return of the Others).

Just remember to take all my advice with some salt. Remember this is your deck. Make it do what you want it to do. And have fun.

Thank you Young Ranger! Until now I only have 2 core sets, Lords of Winter, A King in the North and The Wilding Horde. I have been finding it difficult to buy other expansions because it seems they are out of stock everywhere ...but I'm just looking for a chance to order them. I liked Jeyne Westerling very much! It's much more useful than Summoning Season because I use it almost just to search for Robb when I need it.

However I have a question...wich Eddard is the one you were talking about? Isn't it the one in the decklist that says "Renown. While Eddard Stark is defending, lower the attacking player's claim to 0."?

I think the Eddard Young Ranger is talking about is the one from the King's Landing cycle.

It reads: If you have a HB House card, reduce the gold penalty to play Eddard Stark by 1.

Response: Cancel a triggered effect that chooses a N character as the only target. Then, draw a card. (Limit once per phase.)

Yes, I am talking about the King's Landing Eddard. More draw and protection for Robb is always good

If you have two Core Sets, I would consider adding another Direwolf Pup and another Winterfell Kennels. The Kennels and a deck full of direwolves help combat the fact that pretty much every other house will be consistently knocking stuff out of your hand on intrigue challenges. I'm running a similar deck right now, and I also have a copy of Wolves of the North in there (Set 6-1, Wolves of the North).

And I definitely endorse KLE Eddard for protection of your Robb and Blackfish.

Oh, that Eddard! Hehe! Thanks! I will give it a try for sure...I'm always without cards in my hand! I also liked very much Wolves of the North. I hope I can buy the other sets soon...at least I already asked for them on the games shop and I'm waiting...

These last days I've been also trying the other decklist, based on House Tully characters and Riverrun ( "At the end of the challenge phase, if you have not lost a challenge this round, each House Tully character you control claims 1 power."). I also liked this deck, but because intrigue challanges aren't still easy to defend it's very hard to complete Riverrun's ability.

House Tully Septon, Endless Endurance, Jumping Caitlen. Kill off their big intrigue characters, leaving them a choice of killing off their little ones for claim or their bigger characters without intrigue icons.

Yes, but against decks as Lannister it's still difficult to win those challanges...a quarter of my charecters are kneeled and another quarter can't defend because of stealth and I don't have always Catelyn in my hand. I tried Winterfell instead and I liked it better. I also tried shaggydog (attachment) with ser Edmund and it resulted very well.

Silent, do you use Maester Vyman from the Winds of Winter CP? If not, give him a try. He helps against a lot of that pesky kneeling nonsense (and other triggered effects) as long as you aren't playing an opponent who likes to bask in the sun of Summer. He's one of my favorite Stark cards. And if he doesn't need to use his ability for a round, he's still useful to a Stark player because he has the intrigue icon and he's not too expensive, so doesn't hurt one's gold curve (he's only 2 gold).

In fact no...but for sure I will, thank you very much! It's great...2 gold, 2 strenght and it's ability brings me the solution for many problems...and it's also a Tully with an intrigue icon! I've already thought about adding Brienne but it wouldn't do all the job.

The cards I ordered arrived 2 days ago, I'm still reading its abilites but I really hope Maester Vyman is there! (I ordered so many chapters that I don't even remember the ones that already arrived! ) At least I know the anti-shadows Sansa and Ser Jorah have already arrived!

I would play the core set Sansa, she's a good character to toss direwolves on instead of Robb, at least you draw for doing that.

Also playing direwolves attachment doesn't force you to play direwolves characters, don't feel oblige to, you can play other characters that have a better range of icons.

I would also play it with winter and the long winter to help grey wind killing str 3 characters, the plot winds of winter helps too and you could even try threat from the north.

Silent

Out of curiousity why no Feral Direwolf?

I suspect it is because when she created the deck list her collection was:

Silent_Winter said:

Or beacuse Feral Direwolf is from A Reign of Kings which is legacy. Unless he means Feral Pack from A Clash of Arms set. Then I can understand why he is confused for it not being in the deck. However, Feral Pack is only useful if you do not neutral characters out and you are not planning on having other characters with Deadly.

Yep I misspoke I did mean Feral Pack, although I do miss Feral Direwolf.

I do have a question, why are the Night's Watch characters included in the Direwolves of the North deck ? What's the reasoning for it ?

Toqtamish said:

You're speaking of Silent's deck or the one that comes listed with the box? In the first case I think it's a matter of lacking in chapter packs to complete the deck and put more appropriate cards in. In the latter, it's because they only built the deck with one copy of the LoW box and one Core Set. It says so in the deck explanations they make in the flier that comes with the box.

Ah so on the printed list it was for lack of better options. Okay, time for some tweaking maybe, I just put it together today.

Okay I picked up LoW on Monday and put together this deck, have not had a chance to play it but already looking at some changes, like losing the Night Watch characters, need them for my Nights watch deck anyway. I think this deck needs some more Direwolves in it.

Now currently cards wise, I only have one pack from Clash of Arms, I have all but Winds for Time of Ravens, I have all Kings Landing and all Defenders of the North, LoW, PoS and KotS and one core set currently. I was thinking of adding in Direwolves of the North and hopefully getting a second core set and adding in Direwolf Pup. How many Direwolves of the North should I add if I get another copy of the pack or two ? Two or three, was thinking two as it is fairly expensive card.

For quests I have and was going to put in The Minstrels Muse from DotN, Fury of the Wolf and After the Mummer's Ford from KotS, not sure about Fury as it is kinda situational based on your opponent, but the Init. number is awesome.

I agree that this needs to be adjusted Toqtamish. I like the idea of adding direwolves and adjusting the plots. This deck should be kill, kill, kill from the get go then. Make sure your plots reflect that with high claim and multiple military challenges. Fury is a solid plot card for several reasons: 1. More gold lets you play more cards, 2. A chance for an extra kill, 3. A chance of you deciding who goes first. You should also consider using epic battles to add more military challenges. Make sure your direwolves are ripping apart your opponents' field.

I have made the plot changes already, put in The Minstel's Muse, which I realized was useless with Siege of Winterfell, but the high INit was nice, Fury of hte Wolf which worked very well as first plot when my opponent was playing Lannisters, and After the Mummers Ford, second plot I have that allows a second military challenge. I won the game on turn 3.

Any thoughts on Siege of Riverrun? Good stats, 2 claim, and the drawback (can't declare Intrigue challenges) probably won't matter for this deck.

elwe said:

Sorry... it's been some time since my last post here! :$ Now I have much more cards and I have many new options. I already have thought about play with winter, as elwe said...although I haven't thought too much...so I didn't notice the great long winter - grey wind combo...lol! It's a great idea, thanks!