I remember the first game of AGoT I ever played with Kennon. It was the third round of Melee at Gencon in 2008. I believe he was playing Lanni, I was playing Stark, and our opponents were playing GJ and Bara. Before the game even started, I looked at him and said, “So, which one do you want to keep down? I’ll take the other.”

And that’s what you got when you brought a rush deck to a melee game back then. 9 times out of 10, people would beat down on typical rush houses (i.e. Bara and GJ) to keep them from going off on a power grabbing spree. Its true Tzumainn won melee that year with a Bara deck, but his deck focused on a delayed rush using WED Robert (I believe). I think this shows that delayed rush was actually a great strategy back then as well. Most of us, generally being control players, maybe just weren’t ready to admit that at the time.

Between my Gencon trips (2008 and 2010), delayed rush apparently went from being a good melee strategy to the only melee strategy. At Gencon this year I found myself surrounded by rush decks at every table and, although my Stark defense deck put up somewhat of a fight, at the end of each round I found my deck was unable to keep up. While I was not surprised by this outcome (the same thing happened to me at Kublacon this year), I was surprised that literally every deck I played against was a rush build.

It seems to me that the melee game is being dominated by one deck type at the moment. Stark Siege decks do ok. Viper rush decks can sometimes hang (as long as your Viper doesn’t get Condemned). Bara power grab (I won’t say rush because most players are trying to NOT break out too fast) is more solid than either of the two deck types mentioned previously and quite frequently makes the final table. However, the real winner in this format is currently GJ unopposed.

Recently, at this year’s Calicon, I found my self at the final table playing GJ uo vs. 3 other Bara decks. The strength of the GJ deck is its ability to exploit weak defenses, beat the snot out of the guy who’s down, and to surprisingly grab massive amounts of power in the process for the win. If I’m not mistaken, Gencon 2010, Calicon, and Days of Ice and Fire were all won by GJ decks.

I’m all for GJ having its niche in the game, and don’t mind that it is so dominant in melee. BUT, it seems like there is only one deck type clicking in melee right now. What’s worse is that houses like Lanni and Targ get left out in the cold because their house strategies and card selection don’t allow for such builds.

So, a few questions for us to debate:

1) Does this seem like a fair assessment of the melee environment, and does it bother you? If not, what deck types do you think can counter these delayed rush builds?

2) It is certainly true that power shifts from one house to another frequently in the joust game over time. Do you see this happening in melee as well? Or, is it the nature of the beast that only one deck type will ever thrive in this format, and consequently the houses that can best employ that winning strategy?

3) If you believe this needs addressing, how is that best done? Will player reaction and future deck builds balance this out? How will that unfold? Or, if you feel we need help from card design, what kind of strategies can be designed that won’t throw off the balance in joust?

4) Do you see combo decks making a move to contend with delayed rush decks in melee?

Discuss...

I will go with:

5. It is Melee. Stop talking about it.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~BTW!)

rings said:

lol..... I was sooooo close to putting a remark at the bottom of my post specifically stating that you are excused from the discussion, but it was already long enough

I'll just chime in and say the thought of Narrow Escape and Melee makes my head hurt.

The answer to #4 is, yes. I've built an effective combo deck that has gone undefeated so far.

But of course that's on the hush hush.

Okay, I'll just wade right on in.

I think you're not completely off with your assesment really... GJ unopposed is a really strong contender now in Melee games. But I think there's a more subtle effect going on here. Since different kinds of power grab decks are really powerful, they dominate the environment. And not just because there's more of them, but because a game with 3 power grab decks and one control deck is a really different beast than a game with, say 3 control decks and one power grab deck.

Most power grab decks focus on either keeping themselves running (draw/saves etc.), or purely offensive abilities (Lost Oasis, GJ Warships etc.), but have only very few cards aimed at keeping the other players in check. Thus, in a game where there are more power grab decks than 'controlly' decks there simply aren't enough cards to keep the other power grab decks in check. Now, change this situation around to having three control decks (say one Lannister Kneel, one Targ Burn and one Stark with 3x Frozen Solid, some additional location control and kills) and one GJ unopposed deck. I wouldn't give the GJ deck a snowballs chance in hell in that game really, since the control decks can nicely keep a lid on it, and aren't phased by the strong locations etc. This is also based on empirical evidence over here from the cold north... where GJ wins have been very few and far between.

With 'controlly' decks I mean decks that have a decent amount of control, not necessarily pure control decks, as I don't think the kind of pure control that's viable in Joust can ever truly win consistently in Melee, unless everyone else is also running it of course. A more balanced build with enough strong (preferably permanent, or repeatable) control elements combined with some ways of gathering power would be the way to go. But then that's just my opinion.

I've been thinking on this quite a bit after Stahleck, where I ran into quite many GJ decks. The Melee games were Kingsmoot, so really different from your usual Melee games, but there's some effects that could easily be seen there that would be very similar in normal Melee as well. There was one game at Stahleck, with one pure Targ control deck with plenty of resets and Hills, two GJ unopposed -type decks and me with my control-oriented Stark Siege -deck (pretty few actual rush or power grab cards, some renown, but mostly control with Direwolves: Shaggydog + Grey Wind (A Viper's favorite pair of friends!) on Robb, Borderland Keeps for cancel, 3xFrozen Solind and of course Bear Island). The game was possibly the best, and longest, one I had at Stahleck, with the Targ control ever so slowly able to start running the game... with a pile of frozen solid boats helping him in that regard pretty nicely. Of course, one Borderland Keep is all it takes sometimes...

2) It is certainly true that power shifts from one house to another frequently in the joust game over time. Do you see this happening in melee as well? Or, is it the nature of the beast that only one deck type will ever thrive in this format, and consequently the houses that can best employ that winning strategy?

Hmm. I'd say many über -cards (like Val) have less of an impact on Melee than Joust (they're just targets for the first Milk in your hand), so in that way the environment changes more slowly. But then it's much more prone to these kinds of swings from one play-style to another, leading to the whole way of playing the game changing. Many more interactions in the game, and much harder to control or predict them beforehand.

For example, I'm pretty sure that if people started playing more Dothraki (which on paper seems to be pretty hot for Melee), the whole environment would change all together. Suddenly due to the crones (and burn on the side) saves would be almost obsolete, and a whole pile of cards in GJ unopposed decks (Tarle, Iron Mines etc.) would become pretty much dead in several games (if we also take into account that Dothraki decks would run Narrow Escape, for example). Thus the whole environment could change completely, and fast, if enough people would swing that way.

3) If you believe this needs addressing, how is that best done? Will player reaction and future deck builds balance this out? How will that unfold? Or, if you feel we need help from card design, what kind of strategies can be designed that won’t throw off the balance in joust?

I think the answer here is pretty complicated... Partly the answers are already there in the cardpool, but most 'solutions' are of the kind that if only one player runs them (out of four), then he/she probably won't win. I'm hoping player reactions (and new interesting themes such as Dothraki, which may create them) will have an impact on the environment already. What really needs correction is to give more varied abilities to certain houses (mainly Lannister) that don't have enough viable strategies for Melee (kneel really doesn't work in Melee, and Clansmen doesn't sound that much better on paper...). In Joust it's enough that one player starts playing differently, for the environment to change (just look at what finite's X-agenda deck caused), but for Melee to change, the change needs to come with more players reacting. But then, I also think that the environment is starting to be ripe for the addition of more repeatable control again, and the addition of that will affect both Melee and Joust.
4) Do you see combo decks making a move to contend with delayed rush decks in melee?

Yes. The cardpool is starting to become wide enough for really strong combo -decks, and I can see them contending with delayed rush in the future.

EDIT: Quotes started going awry, so I removed most of the quotation parts here.

WWDrakey said:

This is true, and I really noticed this shift between my Gencon experiences. In 2008, I easily expected to sit down with at least 1 (if not 2) other control decks, making rush a poor choice at the time. Since then, it seems people have begun to figure out that decks with more control elements to them really are more dependent upon what your opponents are playing, and don't do much specifically just for you at the end of the day. I can't hurt you to help me like I can in joust. Instead, I can only hurt you to help everyone else. And, if I do hurt you, chances are the other rush decks can exploit that better than my control. This has created a very noticiable shift (for me anyways) where people have decided to focus more on rush due to the independent nature of those decks. Combo decks are also very independent, and so I expect them to thrive as well in the near future.

The problem I have with this shift, is that I like tactical games with lots of interaction between players. When the table is full of rush/combo decks, it seems more like a race to see who can go off first, or at the right time. It seems like people are playing more against their own decks, and less against other's. That may be just what some people like, it's just not my favorite. But, it is what it is. Melee just isn't an enviroment for control heavy decks.

I don't see people reacting to this shift by going back to playing more control focused decks simply because they would need to convince others to do the same in order to be effective. However, if we see an increase in combo decks, perhaps people will begin to slip more control elements into their builds. We'll see how Targ works out (I think they have some combo potential), but Lanni really has nothing I can think of that even remotely helps them in melee.

I like Dirsruptive Decks. While not necessarily a true middle line between Rush and Control, more like a deck that contains some very offensive control elements meant to disrupt the key cards or challenges an opponent needs while putting forward a strong offensive presence through its own character make-up.

I Think Dothraki are going to change the way Melee decks are played and possibly built. I also think Clansman decks strength lies in melee... they require you to have fewer cards in hand than an opponent, or knelt characters... two conditions easily faced in melee, and getting benefits from these states is an easy choice. If someone can find the right balance of this and moderate kneel and challenge control I think Lannister may be able to put forward something really interesting.

I think that Clansmen decks do have some potential in melee. However I think one of their main bonus, in addition to the benefits from being knelt is the claim manipulation. However, with 3 opponents out there, and you bring out the Burned Men, you should just waive a flag that says please gang up on me to eliminate them. Unless you are using the hidden vale pass and you can surprise them for a challenge but then they just become a limited lanni version of Winter is Coming. Same goes with Ill-Begotten spoils, paints a giant target on that character (that being said its sort of nice on Tyrion's Enforcers)