I'm thinking about building a shadows Targ deck with the City of Shadows. I've got a list of cards, both shadows and non-shadows, which I think will work but have a couple of questions about building this deck.

1. My feeling is that shadows is an expensive mechanism. I plan to counter this with Summer and locations. Is that a good way to go?

2. How many shadows cards make a shadows deck? It might seem silly but, looking at the cards available, you could build a deck with the majority of the cards having the shadow crest; alternatively you could take just a couple of the really good ones. My thinking is that (a) all shadows just wont work, being too expensive; and (b) too few cards would not really be a shadows deck. So .... ?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Guy

I tried but to no success. You are definitly going to need to find a balance. Your right about it being exspensive. I don't know what you play more joust or melee but I usually play joust and it just didn't work. It might work better if you play melee. Honestly I think that the mechanic is horrible anyway. Well, wish I could help you but good luck anyway.

Githanas, I'm hoping that making it summer, money locations and the twilight market can help this but it will be difficult. I'm even taking Little Finger to try to help boost this.

I mainly play melee, not a huge fan of joust, so would hope for occasionally getting Master of Coin but wont bet on it. Have had a few tactical ideas but it is going need money all the way.

I'm thinking of half and half for the shadows/non-shadows cards for the first run, and then tweak for there.

cheers

Guy

Do you have a decklist? I would like to see what you decided on.

I'm convinced it can work. It will need LOTS of playtesting and swapping of cards. I think largely focus on Targ and Neutral shadows with one or two out of house.

Have say 15 shadows cards in general (mix of all card types). City of lies, City of Spiders and lots of high gold plots, maaayybe make it summer. It will give opponents a massive benefit.

I may run one of these in a while, after I have tried with some shadows in my current Targ-saver deck.

In the meantime, my thinking is that this idea (a City of Shadows deck using mutli-house shadows cards) is not viable due to the very high cost of playing the cards which would make it worthwhile. For example, the mercenaries are very good BUT you will be paying 7 gold (2 into shadows and then S4 + 1 to bring them out). For that gold you can marshall a lot of other cards, each with their own benefit; all you lose is the ability of popping cards in to play outside the marshalling phase.

cheers

Guy

I've been playing around with the city of shadows the last few days, with house lannister, making it sort of work with core tywin for those phases where you don't have your income cash yet, and sticking in 3 of each of the lannister gold characters and some gold generating locations. Cash isn't really that big of a problem, with me collecting 9-10 gold each round, plus the implicit 4 gold out of the city of lies/spiders plots. I've yet to focus the deck on any specific mechanisms, so it's a bit of a hodge-podge, but it should be workable.

One thought, though: How about playing baratheon, using the Blackwater Bay to put cards into shadows from the discard pile, along with Golden Tooth Vaults to get gold for filling the discard pile. Add in things like Royal Entourage and Greedy Councilor, and you can get a lot out of it. You can recycle A Pinch of Powder without paying the influence cost. If there's some way of standing Blackwater Bay, you can really get things rolling.

And of course there is! The King's Ground gives Vigilant to the location it is attached to.

Make it Winter, stick in Hidden Chambers, and you can have a rather efficient way of using shadows, while hampering your opponents.

Hm. I somehow missed that you have to win a blue challenge to activate blackwater bay. Still, maybe possible to abuse it with plots like an empty throne and blue epics.

What I know to work very well for Targ with shadows, is using the wildling agendas to play undercosted wildlings, and so having more gold for shadow cards. This can be very efficient if you use the shadow cards to fuel Kings Landing for a lot of draw. It´s still a little expensive and there are a lot of cards effects that you´ll have to keep in mind when playing, but it´s a real fine control deck.

Hi there Guy,

I don't know if you remember my glacially slow Lannister build (with a healthy dash of shadows) from the last London meeting. Just like Boerta, I found that the cash-money part wasn't a problem because of the handy little +Gold wenies that Lannister has so many of. Personally, I suspect that if you're going for a build that runs the best shadow cards from each house, then Lannister + The Shadow Enabling Agenda is the way to go.

On the other hand, if you wanted to stick with the Dragons, would a Targ shadow deck benefit from running the Knights of the Hollow Hill Agenda? It gives you the gold bonus that expensive shadow cards crave, as well as freebie influence to continually blast the board with Westeros Bleeds and Hatchlings Feast. Those two cards (combined with other shadows related kill effects like Kings Landing Assassin, Aegon's Legacy, and/or Dragonpit + Threat from the North hi-jinks) might be enough to hold quicker decks in check until you could get your shadow-engine firing on all cylinders?

That said, on the subject of engines, the one thing I don't see in a Targ Shadows deck is an obvious win condition. Baratheon / City of Thingy Agenda decks get to use Queen of Thorns to turn shadows into power, but without that I don't see any obvious power-grabbing machines enabled by shadows? So far as I can see, Targ uses Shadows to enable kills, then has to find some other way to scrape together the win. That said, killing lots of stuff, then cracking Rhaenys's Hill isn't a bad way of winning games... or so I've been told. Or alternatively, wiping the board with shadow-enabled burn, then stomping up and down on your opponent with self-standing mercenaries and renown characters would probably do the trick.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say here, in a long and rambling fashion, is this: I reckon that KOTHH would be brilliant in a Targ Shadow deck. Shadows gives you rubbish setups, so the drawback is minimal (and, as this is built for melee, it means that you get to avoid all of the Turn 1 'Condemned by the Realm for everyone!' pain). But on the other hand, the plot gives you freebie influence and gold both of which really help a Shadowy concoction get rolling, without giving your opponents any kind of benefit at all.