Can someone help me with building a Greyjoy Holy deck?
No one in my group plays Greyjoy and so we are completely clueless about how they work. It seems like they do well in joust with unopposed decks and in melee with mill, especially winter mill, but I haven't come across a lot of other builds. I feel like between Damphair and Tarle there should be enough saves, and if I am running Many Powers Long Asleep I can kill Tarle and get him back and I was planning on running at least one copy of Power of Faith. Drowned Disciples seem kind of weak for their cost and not all that useful unless I am planning on putting a lot more mill in, Godswood Attendant and Drowned Fanatic seems slightly more useful and I suppose I can use Practical Believer out of house for standing my holy characters when I save Damphair, but I can't really seem to see anything that would tie the deck together and make it competitive. I'd like to figure out a way to use KotHH but for now I'm sideboarding that and I'd just like any feedback on GJ Holiness possibilities.
I have multiple copies of Kings of the Sea and duplicates of many of the CPs so my card pool isn't restricting me much... any advice would be helpful. Thanks everyone!

I played a pretty basic (yet fun) "war"- themed GJ deck in a 3-player game a few weeks ago. Did well with it (used a lot of nuetral/OOH "war" crested characters and did a standard "unopposed" challenge strategy), but I'm still pretty new and don't have all that many CPs yet. I would have thought that GJ "unopposed" strategy would do very well in melee - even better thaj joust - seeing as how you would have more options for picking out targets to challenge "unopposed" (although I admit I'm not sure if that holds true at the Tier 1 tournament level...).

Anyway I was toying around with a "Holy" GJ deck, too. Eastwatch-by-the-Sea would come in very handy, I would think, for helping out Tarle. Triple "Confessions" would be a must, too. I agree with you about "Drowned Prophet" maybe not being that useful for his special ability, but with his "Ironborn" keyword, Holy crest, and 3 Int/Str stats he would still be a useful and fairly priced card in a GJ "Holy" deck (especially if you run multiple "Powers of Faith). RotO Mel might be fun in an "unopposed challenge"-based GJ deck, too. Expensive, yes - but wow you could collect some serious bennies from your unopposed challenges!

Good luck with the deck!

Here's my suggestion:

Power of Faith = Freaking Amazing. Run two copies.

Driftwood crown = Put on renown characters like Balon, Asha, Euron, watch them go nuts with Power of Faith.

Add stuff like Thoros, Holy with renown.

That's just my suggestion of what I would do with Greyjoy Holy. Right now I'm working on Baratheon holy.. can you tell?

Out of House Altar of Fire might be worth it. I'm toying with a neutral holy deck, I just don't like having to run it as a brotherhood deck to get Hollow Hill to work.

Darksbane said:

I was going to suggest that, too, but figured the "Confession" event card might be more efficient (no OOH cost, not requiring a won INT challenge), although I realize that the former requires one to kneel a character, so I guess it really depends. Which one do you think is better?

(And to COMPLETELY hijack this post - @DARKSBANE: PLEASE add a search to your database by artist if you have the time! How else am I going to vote on the other thread for my top five artists???)

I toyed around quite a bit with this idea a while ago... the results weren't anything really spectacular, but I can tell you what worked.

What REALLY worked:

1) 3x Aeron Damphair.

- Can be used to first either defend or play Confession, and then sacrifice him for claim, and you now have another standing holy character for challenges. Play another copy of him again next turn, and there you go again.

2) 2x Power of Faith

- Like jmmcarthy said, this is what really makes the deck click. Getting to do all three challenges with a group of characters that don't kneel is just way too good to pass. Works also good with holys with stealth (Aeron, Drowned Disciple)

3) 3x Confession

- One of the strongest control elements in the game really...

4) Valar Morghulis

- Even more-so than most GJ decks, Valar really works here. You can first do Confession with Aeron to remove their Narrow Escape, then hit with Valar.

5) 2-3x Tarle

- obviosly.

6) 3x Iron Mines, 2x LIV

- Almost auto-include in most GJ decks, and this one is no exception.

Other thoughts:

- I would pick Drowned Disciple over Drowned Fanatic, just to get the stealth for all three challenges (and 1 or 2 STR doesn't really make that big a difference).

- I was also running some mill in my deck, since Priest of the Drowned God + Kraken Tattoo is a nice combo - especially powerful for uo with Power of Faith, and Aeron helps get the Priest if you don't draw into one. I think I was running 3x Priest of the Drowned God, 3x Kraken Tattoo, 2-3x Drowned Disciple and 1-2x Fishmonger's Square for some added draw from the milling.

- I would include some other control elements in this build with To Be a Kraken, maybe also River Blockade.

- I agree with Thoros being a good idea, also other renown characters might be good to help speed up power gain... Asha at least, maybe Victarion or Balon.... even OOH Mel could be decent

- The cost curve on this deck is a bit tricky, so you need to look at decent cheap characters to offset all of the 3-4 gold holy cards and the decent draw from LIV + fishmonger's square... GJ has a pretty nice selection, so that shouldn't be impossible.

- Many Powers Long Asleep is not actually nearly as good in this deck as it is in Bara Holy decks... Tarle and Aeron don't tend to die that much.

Good luck with the deck!

This is the deck I run with my group in melee, it works well so far I have found. I am not where my deck is right now so I can't list all my deck but I would say that running westros bleeds and valar is great due to all the saves in the deck I can constanly have holys on the field. Melisandre (DotN) works great with rise of the kraken, even though her price is steep, with many powers long asleep you can bring her back out for free if she does die.

Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of Disciple's Greyjoy Holy deck and it's a bit of a beast.

The card that I found particularly irritating, but which I haven't seen mentioned so far, is 'Salt Wife'. While not a holy character herself, she does help to keep many other Holy dudes (who are, coincidentally, also Ironborn) in the game. Without her around to blunt military challenges and to cancel direct kill effects, I feel as if Disciple's deck would have been significantly easier to punch a hole in.

I'd recommend giving her a whirl in your builds, mainly because she's just such a goddamned headache for everyone else at the table.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I was definitely going to use 3x Damphair, and think I will go ahead and use Drowned Disciple even if I think he costs a bit much; after all, he doesnt cost anything when played off of Damphair's death and I like the idea of endlessly killing Damphair to get Disciples who then go back into the deck if they die. If I am including him I guess I will also include Fishmonger's Square since I'll be using several mill cards even if the purpose isnt really for milling. I had thought about Thoros but I forgot he had Renown - hes an auto-include now!
Disciple - I thought about using Westeros Bleeds but it discards characters and I think Tarle and Damphair can only use their ability when killed right? (dont have cards in front of me, cant get to databases due to internet filters here at work)
OOH Mel is so expensive without Alliance, should I really dedicate a plot to just 1 character? If it was a purely unopposed theme I would say yes, that's a no-brainer but I'm not so sure about it with the Holy theme...

If you're not doing a heavy "unopposed" strategy, then no - I don't think OOH Mel is worth it. I do, however, think the Eastwatch-by-the-Sea for Tarle support is!

As an alternate to Thoros, what about "Jack of All Trades"? Depending on what your influence curve is like, he could be a bit more versatile then Thoros (e.g. non-unique, tricon, cost 2). Of course, JoaT isn't renown and doesn't have the permanent holy crest going on, so Thoros may very well be better suited for your needs.

(On second thought, maybe there's not really enough "holy" synergy to make JoaT worth it for the limited duration and cost of gaining him that crest...)

Sorry I had forgotten quite a few elements of my deck that made such cards work, I run it with the KotHH agenda which I find great with greyjoy due to their expensive charaters, this made Mel more feasible and since shes also renowned its great when you use her on your power of faith turn. KotHH also made it possible to play eastwatch by the sea to use with Tarle which I found great. The agenda also ment I could focus on some of greyjoys great non-income locations such as their warships and mines.

Disciple said:

Excellent, like I said I really want to use KotHH... GJ characters seem expensive compared to other houses (maybe not Baratheon). Glad to hear that it can be done effectively.

if you run 3x aeron and 3x drowned disciple (which i really recommend) maybe you want to add something that shuffles your deck.

there are some plots, but i dont think there is space in your plot deck (building season might be worth to get some draw location early). septon cellador would be a nedly alternative. ser barristan selmy could help as well (benjen stark is no good choice probably).