Martell Reset Control
Ugh... yes, yes, I know that deck sucked about as hard as... well we'll not go in to such description. Needless to say this should be a great improvement. Your thoughts?
House:
House Martell
Characters: 29
3x Starfall Merchant
2x Arianne Martell
3x House Messenger
3x House Dayne Skirmisher
3x Palace Spy
3x Herald of the Sun
2x Dornish Paramour
3x The Red Viper (King's Landing)
2x Ser Barristan Selmy
2x Benjen Stark
3x Carrion Bird
Events: 15
3x Westeros Bleeds
3x Narrow Escape
3x The Hand's Judgement
3x The Viper's Rage
3x Red Vengeance
3x Burning on the Sand
Locations: 16
3x Summer Sea
1x The Red Keep
3x Dornish Fiefdoms
1x Lord Doran's Chambers
3x Water Garden
2x Norvos
3x Crossroads
Plots:
Valar Morghulis
Fury of the Sun
A Song of Summer
Winter Festival
Retaliation!
To the Spears!
Fear of Winter
Why the season plot and birds when you aren't running either season. Seems like there are better choices. Given your resets Syrio and Shadowcat would be better.
Running some numbers you have 29 characters, 20 of which are str 2 or less
On icons you have 22 intrigue, 13 military, and 11 power.
Your character cost curve isn't bad with 22 at cost 3 or less
The problem I see you having is that although you have a nice weenie deck going and a good amount of resets your benjen and barristan will help your opponents too and even if you drain their hand with Intrigue challenges they are likely to still be able to play their 2 cards per turn and block most if not all of your power and military challenges. I'd consider switching in some more shadows characters, adding some Lost Oasis and perhaps running Winter Agenda/Bird
What i can see is that you say running 15 events ans i count 18 (6x3)
you must have forgotten to erase on of them, otherwise you're running a 63 cards deck, which is possible
But 18 events is much. Choices have to be made
Definitely get rid of Benjen... Song of Summer isn't necessarily a bad choice since a lot of people play summer and it gets you the 5 gold, but I would get rid of the Winter Festival, like Darksbane said, there are better choices. Personally I don't like To the Spears! either because of the low initiative; it would be a much better plot if you were able to attack first. Take Them by Surprise would be good if you add the Lost Oases. I'd also suggest getting rid of the Narrow Escapes to cut down on your events; your character cost is low enough that you should be able to bounce back from an opponent's Valar, Westeros Bleeds, etc - I'd replace them with 3x Venomous Blade, and take out 1 each of some of the other events.
To the Spears! Has excellent synergy with Arianne Martell, helps Starfall Merchant, The Red Viper, and anyone with mulitple icons. As for not having initiative, that's why I run 9 cards that will let me ignore lost challenges. Venomous Blade will usually get discarded when I Westeros Bleeds, or will be subject to an opponent's military challenge if I have too few characters, it also has limited effectiveness. I prefer events. I don't know if 17 events is any better than 18, but Westeros Bleeds and Narrow Escape have a lot of synergy, and I can use Narrow Escape in response to my own Westeros Bleeds, can't I? Not only do many of my characters have synergy with Westeros Bleeds, but to Narrow Escape them and potentially set up the board for another wipe? Beautiful. The 9 challenge loss responses are a way of maintaining control, and The Hand's Judgement('s) usefulness shouldn't have to be explained. Thank you for your suggestions of Lost Oasis, and for pointing out the flaws in Benjen Stark and Ser Barristan Selmy. Apparently, every house needs Valyrian Spirit (lol).
I realize Pyromancer's Apprentice isn't the exact Shadow card that was being suggested, and increases my cost curve, but I'd rather have some way to deal with locations than a 2 STR, stealthing cat.
As for Plots... I'm not sure how I feel about Fear of Winter in this deck. However, the only alternative I could see myself using is The Raven's Song.
I'm not sure how I feel about the changes I made in my locations, and if anyone has any advice on how to do it better I'd be more than happy to hear your advice.
As always, thank you all for your suggestions, and I'd be interested in any further suggestions you might have.
House:
House Martell
Characters: 27
3x Starfall Merchant
2x Arianne Martell
3x House Messenger
3x House Dayne Skirmisher
3x Palace Spy
3x Herald of the Sun
2x Dornish Paramour
2x The Red Viper (Princes in the Sun)
2x Pyromancer's Apprentice
1x Syrio Forel
3x Refugee of the Citadel
Events: 17
3x Westeros Bleeds
3x Narrow Escape
2x The Hand's Judgement
3x The Viper's Rage
3x Red Vengeance
3x Burning on the Sand
Locations: 16
2x Summer Sea
1x The Red Keep
2x Dornish Fiefdoms
1x Lord Doran's Chambers
2x Water Garden
2x Norvos
3x Crossroads
3x Lost Oasis
Plots:
Valar Morghulis
Fury of the Sun
A Song of Summer
Take Them by Surprise
Retaliation!
To the Spears!
Fear of Winter
I think maybe you misunderstand Narrow Escape.
Any Phase: Put into play from their owner's dead piles or discard piles all characters that were killed or discarded from play this phase. Any opponent may discard his or her hand of at least 1 card to cancel this effect.
This means ALL characters, i.e. if you use Narrow Escape it returns your opponent's characters as well. So Westeros Bleeds + Narrow Escape will basically only clear the accumulated power tokens off of all characters on the board or maybe clear out some dupes. As for Venomous Blade, you may want to reconsider using it since a large part of the community thinks it is way OPed and should be banned... if you are worried about it leaving play when you play Westeros Bleeds, just send it back to Shadows when you lose a challenge that round and leave it there.
Nothing wrong with using Fear of Winter - why were you thinking of using The Raven's Song? Is there a particular Winter or Summer threat you were concerned about, or did you just want an ace in the hole in case your opponent is really relying on the season mechanic?
lol, completely misunderstood Narrow Escape! As for The Raven's Song, I just wanted the ace in the hole. I don't like having a situation I can't deal with.
Is it really that broken? I'm not 100% sure I'm going to run it just yet, but if I get some more people preaching towards it's greatness I'll have to reconsider.
House:
House Martell
Characters: 27
3x Starfall Merchant
2x Arianne Martell
3x House Messenger
3x House Dayne Skirmisher
3x Palace Spy
3x Herald of the Sun
2x Dornish Paramour
2x The Red Viper (Princes in the Sun)
2x Pyromancer's Apprentice
1x Syrio Forel
2x Refugee of the Citadel
2x Pit Viper
Events: 15
3x Westeros Bleeds
3x The Hand's Judgement
3x The Viper's Rage
3x Red Vengeance
3x Burning on the Sand
Locations: 17
2x Summer Sea
1x The Red Keep
3x Dornish Fiefdoms
1x Lord Doran's Chambers
2x Water Garden
2x Norvos
3x Crossroads
3x Lost Oasis
Plots:
Valar Morghulis
Fury of the Sun
A Song of Summer
Take Them by Surprise
Retaliation!
To the Spears!
Fear of Winter