New to the forums, first post.

I have been playing games intensly for a few years now, even got a nerdy game called "Erosion" published last year, that was a lot fun. A friend of mine earlier this year introduced me to Warhammer: invasion, and I got hooked right away. I really enjoyed deck building in Magic, but like so many others, the price tag on needed cards was a major turn off.

Then I decided to try A Game of Thrones on my own, and fell into the rabbit hole. I own 3 core sets, 3 KOS, 2 PoS, 1 LOW, and at least one of each chapter pack with some in duplicate. I absolutely love this game.

With that said, I have a question. I recently took the House Tully deck list supplied in the LOW expansion added cards to it. The result seems super strong, but nobody is talking about House Tully so now I am wondering if I am fooling myself.

The whole deck is Stark, so I can use Bear Island with Icy Catapult for removal. The synergy with House Tully gives me a great plot card for card draw: Family, Duty, Honor. Also, Guard at Riverfun is a great for card draw.

Its main strength (I think) is the ability to gather power fast. Tully can rush pretty quick onto the board with cheap cards like Knight of the Redfork (Even the heavy hitter Edmure's Host can come in for dirt cheap if you have enough Tully cards in play). If you get lucky and can defend all your challenges, each Tully character gets a power with the location Riverrun. Blackfish is a big help if he has 3 power, so you can still attack but defend with full strength, the new Catelyn's power to drop out of nowhere to defend Intrigue and Power challenges is great, and I added several events to boost my cards during defense to help in this. On top of that, the new Bran power, though risky and tough to make happen, can grab 5 power. This just seems a great, probably won't happen but could win you the game with 5 power, kinda card.

Frozen Moat also seems like a really cool card to strip an attacker of their powers before coming in, and in my play testing, has been hugely affective. But I haven't seen much discussion of it.

I guess my question is what am I missing, this deck must have a major weakness if noone is talking about it. Come to think of it, Valar Morghulis could really hurt this deck at the right time, but from the little play I have done, it always seems to hurt the other player almost as much. Wildfire Assualt hasn't really slowed ii down in my experience.

Any thoughts, pointers, or comments appreciated.

I don't think you're missing anything. My brother and I recently tried out a Tully deck, and were impressed with how strong it was. The Tully plot and Riverrun are both golden.

That's good to know.

I am still trying to get my feet under me with regard to building a good deck. I looked at House Targ recetnly and just didn't see anything that would allow a solid synergetic deck, and then that deck wins in a major competition. So nice to know I am not totally off base.

House Tully happens to be my favorite Stark sub-theme as well. The LoW expansion was really well received by me, since my favorite Stark deck of the CCG days was also based on Tully goodness. I was hoping the Green and Blue Fork knights would be back too, but so far have just seen the Red.

I've built a House Tully recently and I'm still working on it. I'm new at the game and since the beggining I knew I wanted to play house Stark but I started having second thoughts when I read that the Stark House is far from being one of the betters. Anyway I first tried Wolves of the North and then I also built House Tully and I liked both decks very much.

However, I've been finding very difficult to complete Riverrun in House Tully, much because, as I said in other post, I play a lot against Lannister and a quarter of my characters are always kneeled and another quarter is target of stealth, so intrigue challanges are usually a problem to me and Riverrun doesn't work. Because of that I tried a Winterfell and a Riverrun instead of 2 Riverruns...just to try...and I already know that when it's Lannister on the other side of the table I certainly will look for Winterfell! Although yesterday I was playing multiplayer just with Riverrun and I still won against a Lannister and a Targ, but I belive it was just because it was a multiplayer or I would be screwed with the Lannisters.

But even if I could always complete Riverrun I guess I'd add Winterfell anyway because the 2 of them on the table...it didn't happen yet because I don't have the deck for too long...but I belive it can be really great!

When I looked to Ser Edmund I also wanted to add the shaggydog attachment...and then 1 grey wind...which let me thinking about using the Robb from the Wolves of the North instad the one of the decklist. Saying House Tully trait with Robb's ability it's a second Hoster Tully on the table!

I also liked your addings to the decklist, so I guess I'll start thinking about some new ideas!

Yes, Silent, you will find (if you haven't already) that melee is a different animal than joust. Decks that have no chance to win in joust can still win in melee. I normally build most of my decks for joust and just use them for both.

I agree with you...if you could get Riverrun and Winterfell to fire off, you'd be gathering up the power at a nice pace.

I like the Robb cards, so it's often hard to choose which one to use in a given deck. I normally build around the one I want to use (if I plan to use a lot of armies, I will use the Robb that lets me play armies for free), if I'm playing a deck focused on winning military challenges, I like the Robb from the Core Set with the targeted kill (though it's often overkill in a deck built for killing). And then there's the new one you mentioned which seems to have some good versatility. He's nice, because he can fit in a Tully deck just as well as a wolves or nobles, or whatever other theme one wanted to build their deck on.

Well, House Tully decks seem to be pretty strong, pretty underrated at the moment due to it being quite new on the scene. A few points come to mind however...

In melee games (and this will probably vary by play group) the deck will probably cause in interesting reaction. Hereabouts this kind of deck seems to draw quite a bit of fire from all kinds of control effects, as it's hard to keep in check through challenges. So venomous blades, burn, kneel and icon manipulation are often the order of the day. Also, people will abstain from making challenges against a defense -deck, until they have some kind of surefire way of getting through (Turncloak Mercenaries, Underhanded Assassin, Orell the Eagle with Desolate Passage...). In melee especially, I think you would want Winterfell instead of Riverrun, as one is a red flag which encourages other players to get challenges through at you... and this can be a very bad thing in multiplayer. I do think that some kind of quick power gain (events or other cards) are needed in melee with such a deck, to have a way of pushing those last few powers while other players are stopping you from winning - Make An Example and Formal Petition come to mind.

A few thoughts on decks like this in Joust: I don't remember if the preconstructed deck had Frozen Moat ([Defenders of the North - CP 2: Beyond the Wall] - Can be used to blank the text box of an attacking character) in it, but that's definately one card I would have 3x of in a Tully deck. A very versatile defensive control location that helps with the Stark weakness on stealth and can be very powerful when used right. I'd say it's much better than most of the strength-pumping defensive locations, as strength boosts are always better when they come as a surprise (events and such). Personally I'd be pretty wary of putting too many < 2 STR characters in a deck, as around here Venomous Blades and Burn are pretty usual... so CS Robb doesn't really seem that hot to me. Nor does 5-power Bran. I'd take either of the two other Robb's any day of the week, especially due to the renown (it's good to have an active way of getting power, to supplement the power gain from defense). =)

I would also want to point out that there's two core ideas that can work behind a defensive deck, and you should really be aware of which one you're aiming at... If you want a deck that wins on defense and gets goodies for doing that (Storm Dancer, Winterfell), you shouldn't have many "does not kneel to defend" cards, obvious visible STR pumps or anything like that, but rather all kinds of surprises to spring at your enemy (events, bouncing Catelyn, and so forth). Unless of course you have some kind of red flag that will force you're opponent to try and attack you... such as Riverrun, Guard of Riverrun etc. But still, the surprises are what's really needed, not the fixed defenses. A good example would be Bound by Duty ([King's Landing - CP 1: City of Secrets] - event that lets a knelt character act as a defender). Now the other idea behind a defense deck is to create a huge impassable wall, which forces you're opponent not to attack. In this case what you need is characters that don't kneel to defend, STR -pumps and all that. But then you also need to have a way of getting through on offense and gaining power that way. The deadly armies from the Scattered Armies CP should help with that, or just giving your Tully's deadly with Northern Steel (CP 6 of King's Landing) could help with that. And renown characters will help with getting the power to win - that Eddard with the cancelling ability for one.

...just some random rambling, hope it gives you some ideas. =)

Well...it's much information you posted WWDrakey. Thanks! I followed your thoughts. It's very usefull to read this kind of knowledge that experienced players have, it helps us to develop our abilities for deck building and playing strategies. However I have to think about all of it "step by step" with the stark cards in the desk. For now I can only say I specially like frozen moat.

You were saying (and I understood why) that events and "surprise cards" are better in this deck, however frozen outpost has been a headache to the opponents...Until now I like it better than endless endurance because I can use it much more times (and until now I couldn't return endless endurance to my hand to use it again) nevertheless I have the 2 of them...

On the other hand, yesterday my boyfriend played with the deck against a Greyjoy and frozen outpost was kneeled everytime. He was also thinking about adding Condemned by the Council to his deck (and this stark deck is what it is much because of winterfell/riverrun and frozen outpost)... I didn't want to improve my decklist in a way it's only very good against 1 or 2 decks that are the ones I play more times against, but I also don't want to feel that the deck isn't working as I wished (I know this may sound as a newbie dilemma! ).

On other post where I also talk about this deck it was suggested to me about adding maester vyman and I liked it very much! However, considering that (as far as I noticed) if with Greyjoy I only have to avoid frozen outpost being kneeled , against Lannister I have to avoid my charecters being kneeled and my locations from being discarded and I don't know if maester vyman is enough. That is where I start thinking more powerful events are good instead of depending so much on the locations. On the other hand, the idea I have until now is that locations are much of what makes this deck as good as it is and I don't know what to do to depend less on them without hurting the deck (dilemma 2!).

I don't know if it's just me thinking about these issues or if there is anyone else... But maybe you and other experienced players can give me (or us) some useful advices...

My best suggestion against House Lannister: you probably won't win the battle of events and tricky things... they just have to many, along with draw, to keep up with. However, one thing a Tully deck can do is flood the board with characters, using the House Tully plot, cheaper characters pumped by Hoster Tully, and perhaps added to with Val (newest CP). Control and kneel becomes a lot less useful when your deck focuses less on one or two key characters. Just be careful of reset plots!

I find that Tully decks are very flexible in what they can do - they are powerful on the attack (thanks to the Blackfish + el cheapo characters like Knight of the Red Fork and Edmure's Host) but also quite good on the defence (frozen outpost, House Tully septon etc.) I like playing a deck that is almost completely Tully, and revolves around strength-buffing (Winterfell Castle + LoW Robb Stark + Hoster Tully = +3 STR to house Tully characters during the Challenge phase, +2 otherwise). An almost completely Tully deck allows me to play Knight of thE red Fork without significant penalty as a cheap and quite decent character/scrub, and allows me to put Edmure's Host into play for very little. I can usually have 6+ characters in play most of the time, almost all of whom would eventually not kneel to attack once the Blackfish grabs 3 power. I tend to play LoW Eddard as well and use him to defend durign power challenges or military challenges, and I prefer Core Catelyn because her ability works brilliantly with Riverrun/Winterfell, especially with an insane amount of House Tully strength buffs. House Tully Septon, and Guard at Riverrun or two absolute must have cards - they give you a lot of much needed defence against intrigue and draw respectively.

I find that Tully decks do revolve around one or two key characters - the Blackfish, Hoster and LoW Robb Stark, though those are relatively immune to Lanni kneel as their abilities can still be activated when knelt, though the Blackfish might have trouble getting 3 power. I'm considering playing Devious Intentions out of house, or Bound by Duty in order to get more power on the Blackfish earlier so I can use his ability even quicker. I find myself running 2 duplicates of the Blackfish and at least one duplicate of Hoster and Robb Stark to protect them.

Tully decks definitely don't fare particularly well against reset plots (especially when you have 10 characters in play!)- and I find that one card that is quite good is Maester Malleon's tome. While it is quite expensive (4 gold!) and it needs to be winter, getting rid of Valar Morghulis/Valar Dohaeris isn't to be sniffed at + you can give Eddard Intrigue to protect your hand.

I play both Riverrun adn Winterfell in my deck in joust, though I take out Riverrun in Melee. It's too much of a "Kick me" sign, and while you might not have to suffer the effects of military challenges (thanks to Shadow Arya). In Joust, however, Riverrun is great, even if you don't complete it, when you pair it with Winterfell - you might not win all the challenges directed against you (so you won't complete riverrun), but you are still getting power from all your succesfully defended challenges, and hopefully not suffering the consequences of losing challenges thanks to LoW Eddard. And, well, if you do complete Riverrun, you'll probably win very soon (Generally, I have 5+ Tully characters out in play). Frozen Outpost also works quite well when defending, especially with LoW Eddard.

Overall though, I'd say Tully decks are probably better in joust than in melee. In fact, in melee, I find myself getting beaten down and attacked a fair bit (though I still managed to pull off a win once or twice) even without the massive "kick me" sign painted on my back by Riverrun.

always save riverrun in your hand untill you have a better board position that your opponents. its a late game card for sure.

I was looking the list to see if I can build this as well as my Direwolves deck with what I have and I noticed an error with the Tully list. It says Power of the blood x 2 for its plot deck. With only 1 core set and 1 LoW as these decks are supposed to be built you would not be able to do that as only 1 Power of the blood comes in the core set, has this been noted already and replaced with something else, any suggestions ?

You will need more than one core set to build anything uber-competitive.

divinityofnumber said:

I disagree.

You could build an easy Martell uber-competitive deck, (which is one of the best right now), without anything from the core set. Sure, it helps, but the expansion boxes are really nice for not having to take that initial 120 dollar leap into getting 3 of each core set card, to build something really nice.

Maybe for Stark this is true, which may have been your intention, but in general, it differs.

Husemann said:

He means a house tully deck. I played one against him in melee yesterday and won in the 2nd plot. Here is a decklist to be nice (why do people not post decklists?):

Plots:

1x Take Them by Surprise

1x Fury of the Wolf

1x The Minstrel's Muse

1x Family, Duty, Honor

1x Winter Festival

1x Rains of Autumn

1x Rule by Decree

Characters:

1x Jeyne Westerling (Just solid)

1x Hoster Tully (One is enough)

3x House Tully Recruiter (Absolutely necessary, if you only have one steal them from your friends)

3x Knight of the Red Fork (Meh, Tully)

1x Sansa Stark (Kings Landing) (If there are no cards in shadows, 50-50 chance, she will dominate on defense)

1x Cat O' the Canals (May be better as a Craster)

1x Maester Vyman (Meh, Tully)

3x Guard at Riverrun (Meh, Tully)

3x Knight of the Tumblestone (Meh, Tully but you must have 3)

3x House Tully Septon (Meh, Tully)

3x Riverrun Messenger (Meh, Tully)

1x Catelyn Stark (Core Set) (Best of the Catelyns, and also a tully, this may need to be maxed out to 3)

1x Ser Edmure Tully (Terrible Card, but a Tully)

3x Trident Reinforcements (Meh, Tully but you must have 3)

3x The Blackfish (Great alternative win condition this is your Plan B)

3x Robb Stark (Lords of Winter) (Helps Plan B a little bit, this may be better as defensive events or Catelyns)

3x Edmure's Host (Great Card, try to draw as many as possible)

Events:

3x Distinct Mastery (Easy one for standing Blackfish and other Characters)

3x Bound By Duty (Tricky event that lets Catelyn defend in almost every challenge)

Locations:

3x Great Keep

3x Narrow Sea

1x Street of Steel

1x Street of Sisters

1x Lord Eddard's Chambers

3x Northern Fiefdoms

3x Riverrun (Three is necessary, you must have one in your hand by Turn 2)

1x Winterfell Castle (Should probably be Endless Endurance)

1x Winterfell (Should probably be Endless Endurance)

Game should go like this, flop 3 - 5 cards. Play Minstrel's Muse, play defense and win dominance stealing power where you can. Hopefully you should have 4-5 tullys in play. Turn 2 play Family, Duty, Honor. Throw down your entire hand and play Riverrun and defend like no ones buisness. You should be able to avoid resets if you keep your number of characters below 5 on the first turn and you did not play Riverrun. Only play Riverrun the turn that you are going to win. Preferably Turn 2, and Turn 3 at the latest. If it gets to Turn 4, you lost and just have fun at that point

That is a **** good deck.

But, also in general, it is likely, at least at this point in the LCG's development (it may change after a few years go by and there are thousands and thousands of other non-core set cards), that a deck of any house would benefit from having 3 of at least some card from the core set (even if it is only one).

divinityofnumber said:

That may be your opinion, but it is not what I was talking about. The list as its written in LoW is DESIGNED to be built using only 1 Core set and 1 LoW so obviously this is an error with the printed list that comes with LoW as it cannot be built as designed due to only one Power of Blood plot per copy of the Core set.

Read my follow-up posting. I qualified my argument very heavily.

Again, not my point. The list from the LoW box clearly says, 1 copy of Core set and 1 copy of LoW is all that is required, however, it asks for 2 Power of Blood in the plot deck which is not possible with the aforementioned products only. Therefore there is an error with the list as created by FFG.

Husemann said:

You can find the core sets for significantly less than $40 per copy at online dealers such as here .

Sure, I could. And don't get me wrong, I support helping players get their cards for prices they can afford, but I support FFG sales first. Spending that extra bit to get the cards from them, supports changes like the new chapter pack design.

The more we get from FFG, the better the game can become. Like I said though, I do support players being able to afford the cards they need.

Also, many websites that offer the core set, or any other product for that matter, at prices below 40 dollars, are failing to mention that there is 5-10 dollars in shipping fees once you actually add the item to your card and proceed to check-out.

If there are savings, they are often so minuscule as to not justify the wait; just go to your local game store and buy it. Now, if you can snipe one for a great deal on eBay, that might be a different story. But, from what I have seen, core sets on eBay for prices significantly lower than new are few and far between.

Very true, I bought Winds of Winter and a 2nd Kings of the Sea on ebay, after shipping and then conversion I didn't save a thing. Only reason I did it because I have not been able to get Winds of Winter otherwise.

You really won't save money on eBay when it comes to Thrones. You have to go to a discount site to see significant savings. Depending on the site, you can usually get free shipping if you spend somewhere between $75-150. I usually order with friends to qualify for free shipping, and we're able to save quite a few pennies.