I'm working on building a Lannister non-kneeling deck right now, and I found myself using several Kingsguard characters, including Arys Oakhart, Balon Swann, Mandy Moore, Arthur Dayne and Meryn Trant. I'm thinking of including The White Book, and maybe adding some more Kingsguard. The deck has plenty of gold.

Does anyone have any advice on using the agenda? Kingsguard characters that are must-haves? Any that are overrated?

Any deck construction tips, either general or specific, for using The White Book would be great. Thanks!

Until now I have not seen a kingsguard deck that was any good. I tried them with Stark and Lannister. The power you lose if your attack doesn't succeed is really a huge disadvantage. On the other hand you only get a bonus power if you have a kingsguard on the table. Just not worth it. Maybe you can use two or three of them and enhance them with the kingsguard squire but I think that's the best you can make of them.

I guess I'll have to go it alone on this one. Maybe I should have named this thread "Kingsguard - Total Garbage?" in order to generate more discussion...

Hmm... not sure if Lannister would be my first bet for the White Book, but I'll throw in my 5 cents anyway. =)

I'm thinking that what you want from Lannister are the ample gold and draw abilities, so GTM's, Lannisport Weaponsmith's, Lannisport Stewards are probably self-evident. Tommen also. What you need are somekind of surprises to spring on the attacker, so I'd say I'm You Writ Small and Misinformation would be good choices for events, the latter one also nicely fixes the Kingsguard weakness in intrigue. None of the other Lannister events really help with surprising the attacker (which is really required to get any use out of the Agenda). Distinct Mastery if you get enough crests? (at least Jaime and one of the Kingsguard had War, Cersei has Noble... But this might be a far stretch) Oh, and Nightmares would work, and also provide some on-the-spot location control. Maybe even the Hand's Judgment.

Other Ideas:

- Condemned by the council to combo with Misinformation and to have some more location control

- Toll Gate for some additional control

- Other shadows characters to make Mandon not-so-alone in there: Syrio, Varys and Tyrion come to mind, maybe even Gold Cloaks.

The way I see this deck working, you would need to have very good draw, to get enough surprise events (and Mandon) to win consistently on defense. The gold will help you smoothen out your deck quite a bit, and makes it possible to play the Kingsguards. I'd think about having some deadly characters to get wins on offense, Jaime would be my first bet, maybe Qyburn to have some more shadows or Bronn if you're using Gold Cloaks.

We've been doing some testing with a very gold heavy Lannister-Wildling deck, and found that the Lannister basic strcuture of good draw and plenty of gold is actually pretty flexible and allows for all kinds of quirky decks, so this should also be pretty much doable. =)

Hope this helps!

WWDrakey said:

Thanks for the thoughts. I love the idea of Misinformation with the Kingsguard, seems like such a natural complement to The White Book. Nightmares is an interesting card, but I haven't used it yet - what kind of situations is it best used for?

As you suggested, I was definitely planning on running heavy amounts of gold and draw, with a few shadows cards in there for surprises. Has anyone tried the new shadows army, Mance's Men? It seems like a good fit in a gold-heavy deck.

I've been putting cards together to build the deck, but haven't had an opportunity to test it.. so it is very much still in the process of being built - as a result, any suggestions anyone else had would be completely welcome!

The idea behind Nightmares is to disable all kinds of special abilities from attacking characters, to allow you to block the challenge succesfully... Orell trying to do a number on you with stealth and having to block with two characters? Blank him before he even gets to declare stealth! Underhanded Assassin? No problem. Deadly? Ditto. Intimidate? Yeah right. House Dayne with ludicrous STR? Not House Dayne anymore! Because it even blanks traits, you can get rid of bodyguards from Fat Bob... and then have Mandon cut his head off!

...and so forth. It even functions as some additional location control, for say blanking their Iron Mines before revealing Valar. Or stopping their Wall from doing anything for a turn. =)

EDIT: Oh, and Mance's Men are horribly good in a Lannister-Wildling with gold to spare, and a Tyrion to trigger off them.

WWDrakey said:

That's awesome... I never would have thought of taking Lord away from Fat Bobby.. genius! That's a perfect example of why I love (not bitter!) these message boards. Hooray for Mandon Moore... probably my favorite character in the game.

I have done a White Book deck, albeit I used Martell as my house. It went 2-1 in my local meta the night I played the deck. The only loss was to a Bara Shadows deck. IMHO Martell works the best due to their revenge abilty if they lose on the defense. Just something to keep in mind. On a side note I'm trying to put together a Lanni White Book deck also, but haven't had much time to work on it. Best of Luck.

I do have my original martell WB deck posted on the forum, just fyi.

White Phoenix said:

I also made a White Book deck with Martell. Before I moved away, I was undefeated in joust with it, and it held it's own in melee very well.

Looking back on it, I think I would like it more out of Lannister. I just really wanted a Martell deck and really really REALLY wanted to use the kingsguard.

I tried a KG Martell deck for while, the problem was not the Agenda but the Kingsguard characters. They seem to be rather expensive for what they actually do.

That was my problem with them. They were just so expensive, which is another reason I think they would be better out of Lanni.

The Martell WB is all about leveraging Taste For Blood into a win/win situation. If you win on defense you claim power, if you lose on defense you claim more power.

The KG are not the most cost efficient characters, but they aren't bad. What I did was utilize a very minimal character presence and use The Red Viper and Ser Arthur Dayne as my heavies. Lost Oasis, Toll Gate OOH, and various other challenge control tricks, and a plethora of cancels helped protect them. It was a very fun deck, and faired pretty well in Joust and Melee (where there was almost always someone who controlled more characters than I did, but was susceptible to my challenge control).

Lannister, has the same general ability, control the challenges with Toll Gate and your kneel effects so they cannot effectively beat you on attack or defense...

The problem is that Lannister really doesn't have enough aggro to be able to run this deck as Martell does, and their Kneel and Shadow decks are just much better.

My thought with taking them out of Lanni, is the more consistent drawing and more gold production.

I agree there are many things in Martell that I like when I'm using them. But couldn't you effectively get the same control out of Lanni using a few shadows cards? If you played a more defensive Lanni deck, then your KG could be your meat and potatoes, with a good amount of just general Lanni control to fill it in.

I'm not sure which version I would like more....

I don't like defensive builds as a general rule unless it is out of Stark where they can really leverage it into a win. Lannister could get something going with Writ for surprise defense wins, but greater gold production and greater draw don't really afford much if the pieces of the deck aren't going to get the job done. If you want hardcore challenge control then you can do so aggressively kneeling out their characters before they ever attack then you don't have to worry about your opponents events changing the conditions of the challenge, which means the KG are no longer really adding much because the Agenda isn't really doing that much for you.

If Lannister had more aggro characters, non-kneelers, deadly, stealth, renown, high strength for low cost, you could really build something competitive there. Lannister is currently a hard-lock control house though and the WB agenda is for Aggro or soft-lock control decks.

I see your point.

I agree that Martell is probably the best house for them right now. Though I wouldn't know how to run them in any other house.

I don't see them working in Greyjoy well at all. Targ maybe? Stark they work well in, but they are more of a side thought than the main part of the deck. Baratheon I just dunno about. They are more offensive than defensive.

They could work in Greyjoy, but what is the point? If you want a defensive wall in Greyjoy you are better off with a couple of Bringers of Law with a couple of Seafarer's Bows, but why defend at all when you can just Stealth and Intimidate your way to victory in three turns? Bara could make sense if you were not running a rush deck but instead a delayed rush deck, but again Bringers of Law with a couple of Hunting Spears does the job so much better.

The WB Agenda really works best in a house where Military and Power icons are not necessarily your strong suit on defense, or you want to focus the non-KG characters on the attack with a few special ways to put you into the winning of challenges that you should have lost. Martell is so clearly the best house for the agenda right now because they can leverage their revenge effects to punish the opponent when they do win against you on their attack, as well as the Agenda benefiting you when they can't get through.

Martell is best because you have more "surprise effects" like rumors of war (works on neutral), game of cyvasse and rusted swords. Myrcella provides a nice INT icon and the needed stealth to be able to defend. I even played around Arys oakheart (3 of him) to play lost oasis to give him stealth. Last but not least, you have the cheapest knight that can be knelt easily for muster to fetch your important characters. However I didn't try since the new daynes cards that could help with Arthur.

The main problem of kingsguard is their lack of icon, even POW is few, not even speaking about INT. No easy way to save your knights against valar, no protection against control (once knelt you can't defend) ...

Ok, this will be my first deck, and I'm not even finished putting it together so this may a really bad idea: Basically a Lannister/Kingsguard deck like this one(though I'd already started, not trying to copy this), except for one distinct difference. That difference is The Wall, figured it was important to surprise your opponent, and with some big Night's Watch Characters like Mormont, you should be able to turn defending challenges to your advantage. Only problem is that they can see you have The Wall out, and given I haven't even played a match before I'm not sure how it would work out. I'm of the opinion that it could work for 1 on 1 matches but would probably fail with 3 or more players.

And I just realised how old this is

Lannister gives you access to Arys and Balon Swann.

The downside is that the agenda sucks. Losing power and kneeling your characters when you lose a challenge? well, with the instant victory events I wouldn't be too keen on that. Plus, the best kingsguard is Trant, and hes Str 2, which means hes going to get hosed by Dragon Skull and Venomous Blade. Your relying on defense to win. If you lose initiative you will just have to go first, which means your strategy falls apart before you even marshall.

If you really like the KG characters, then run them in a Bara knight deck and use the knight agenda. They all have the trait already, and you will have some other trait support for them.

Yeah, gotta admit the Agenda just sucks. We need more solid Kingsguard characters to make it viable.

its great in casual play; but the risk-reward relationship just isn't there for competitive play.

You do get the added benefit of running a kneel supported deck though. If you are kneeling out your opponents strongest characters you should be abel to control a lot of what they do, especially if you run Toll Gates in addition. Your kneeling for losing on defense is easily offset by your ability to kneel their own characters, extra easy if you are using flogged and chained in your deck. Your kneeling for losing kneels one of their own characters as well.

I'm not claiming you would have a tier 1 deck, but it would be a fun Nedly deck with some Shagga overtones.

One of my buddies made and has been relatively successful with a targ "true Queensguard" deck, but I have yet to coax the complete composition from him, and have been too lazy to sit there with pen and paper and record the cards he plays.

I tried making a Lanni Kingsguard deck, too, with mixed results (i've been out of deck building practice for about a year). I'm curious as to what you've come up with overall.