Ok, here we go. This is the Baratheon deck I played during this year's Stahleck Joust Tournament. It's definately not the best (or else I would be European Champion now, and not Gualdo ), but it seems to work rather well.

The idea behind this deck is to control the opponent's hand with "Confessions" (which can be recursed with Robert Baratheon [KS]) and the Altar of Fire, and controling the cards already in play with the Black Cells and Kingswood Trails, while collecting power using your Queen of Thrones and unopposed Intrigue and Power challenges with Melisandre [DN] in play. Summer is used to get card some draw and optimaly for the Priestess of the Pyre in order to pay for your "Confessions" and "Lord of Light, Protect Us".

House:

Baratheon [CS]

Agenda:

Kings of Summer [TR] (card draw)

Characters: (27)

1x Robert Baratheon [KS] (recursion for Confession, Nightmares, Distinct Mastery, Summer Reserves)

2x Melisandre [DN] (Holy char, together with the Black Cells and Kingswood Trails, unopposed I and P should not be too difficult)

2x Queen of Throns [KL] (faster power)

1x Margaery Tyrell [KL] (text blanking, very effectif against Skinchangers and the NW armies (no trait = no icons))

1x Maester Cressen [CS]

1x Army of the Faithful [CS] (renown, cheap if you have some Asshai char on the table)

3x Priestess of the Pyre [TR] (Holy char, surprise standing, and optimaly paying for Confession ("Con") and Lord of Light, Protect Us ("LoL"))

2x Zealot of the Light [DN] (Holy char, faster hand discard, paying for Con & LoL; I actually never used his ability)

2x Wicked Seductress [bB] (char control; only two copies because it's pretty useless against Martell and Lannister)

3x Acolyte of the Flame [DN] (cheap Holy char, surprise +1 STR with a Distinct Mastery ("DM"))

2x Old Red Priest [CS] (cheap Asshai Tricon)

2x Highgarden Refugees [TR] (claim soak)

1x Varys [KL] (ally hate, stealth)

1x Syrio Forell [KL]

2x Carrion Bird [TR]

1x Gilly [TR] (card draw)

Attachments: (5)

1x Lightbringer [CS]

2x R'hllor's Blessing [DN] (card draw, +2 STR against Targ burn, attachment against Bear Island & Castellan)

2x Black Raven [TR]

Locations: (18)

2x Altar of Fire [bB] (hand control; 3 copies is overkill)

3x The Black Cells [KL] (char control, very effectif against Rattleshirt's Raiders; combo with Valar Dohaeris)

2x Kingswood Trail [KL] (char control, repeatable shadow)

1x King's Landing [KL] (card draw)

3x Seat of Power [DN]

2x Aegon's Garden [CS]

2x Narrow Sea [CS]

1x Kingdom of Shadows [KS]

1x Shadowblack Lane [CS]

1x Street of Sisters [CS]

Event cards: (10)

1x Summer Reserves [TR] (cheap deadly 4STR Tricon, triggers the Priestess of the Pyre, recursion with Robert)

3x Confession [KS]

2x Nightmares [LW]

2x Distinct Mastery [CS]

2x Lord of Light, Protect Us [bB] (good against Old Bear Mormont, Maester Aemon, etc...)

Plot cards:

Fury of the Stag [CA] (5 7 1)

A Song of Summer [TR] (5 5 1)

A Time For Ravens [TR] (4 2 1)

Uneasy Truce [CS] (4 0 1) (the deck is pretty weak in Military)

Many Powers Long Asleep [bB] (3 5 1) (to get back a Holy char, preferably Melisandre or a Priestess of the Pyre)

Valar Dohaeris [DN] (3 0 1) (combo with Black Cells; little trick: kneeling Robert to recurse a Distinct Mastery to stand an opponent's crest char )

Valar Morghulis [CS] (2 0 0) (if you have 1 Black Cell (in hand or in play), this can even be a very effectif way to "cancel" a Fear of Winter)

[CS]: Core Set, [KS]: Kings of the Sea, [PS]: Princes of the South, [LW]: Lords of Winter, [KI]: Kings of the Storm

[CA]: Clash of Arms, [TR]: A Time For Ravens, [KL]: King's Landing, [DN]: Defenders of the North, [bB]: Brotherhood without Banners

Seeing this deck in action at Stahleck (thankfully not on the recieving end ) I can vouch for it being pretty effective at what it does. I'm surprised that it runs as smoothly as it does with only 7 Holy characters, but I guess that's largely due to Priestess of the Pyre.

Did you get any draw out of King's Landing? I was running a shadow-control Baratheon in the OCTGN Tourney a year back, with pretty similar shadow cards, and I found that it was not usually worth the effort. Costs me too much to play at the start of the game and this kind of deck really needs to have decent amounts of gold to get the control running.

Gotta say I really like this deck! Will have to try and come up with my own variant

...like Shadow-control Balerion-rush in Baratheon?

Actually it's ten distinct holy cards (9 characters). Most of the time I had one on the table.

I once encountered the problem of not getting enough shadow cards to keep the black cells alive.

The biggest issue actually was not getting any/enough gold/reducer locations. Happend twice or three times. 1st turn blocade is not funny either, since the deck is pretty costly. If your start hand is ok, and you have a location, keep it. If you mulligan, you'll end up without a location and you won't get one until the 4th round (if at all) (or does this just apply to me?).

But normaly, due to the draw effects, I got what I needed most of the time. King's Landing was usefull. Of course not as effective as in a "real" shadow deck, but in a "worst case" scenario, when it's summer and you have Gilly, you still get 1 card through KL. The other option was to add Samwell, but he's not reliable enough for me, and I'd loose 1 shadow card, leaving me with only 9. 10 is already quite low.

Of course you also need one-two turns to set yourself up.

Jekothalep said:

i like the Theme, and also like the description behind the Cards for what purpose you put them in.

nice Deck