I've wanted to toy with a Lannister Clansman deck, but I'm still very unexperienced with regards to deckbuilding, so I would appreciate some input. I've assembled a deck list, but it feels like the deck lacks focus and is rather vulnerable (lack of control). With the clansman abilities to still attack/defend while knelt (still waiting for Shagga), the idea is to dominate the challenge phase, forcing the enemy to overcommit against high-claim challenges and then still be able to attack/defend again (Battle of the Bay, Storm of Swords).

Song of Summer is a relic of when I was thinking of making it a Summer deck and run OOH Open Market for recursion, figuring the 2 discard wouldn't hurt as much as I'm trying to have less cards in hands than my opponents, but I'm reluctant to commit card slots for summer without using more cards that make use of the season. Anyhow, kept Song of Summer in the decklist because it has nice gold and initiative, but am open to alternatives, of course.

Another note on my meta: I play with a group of friends, and attendance varies, but usually we play a custom 2 vs 2 variant (15 power at the end of the dominance phase for win) that's been working well for us. Also, because some players had CCG cards and did not want them to collect dust we allow CCG cards. I have a bunch myself, but I'm currently trying to use only LCG cards, which is a bit of an uphill battle

Characters

Painted Dogs x3

The Burned Men x3

Timett son of Timett x3

Tyrion's Enforcers x3

Ser Jaime Lannister (Core) x2

Chella, Daughter of Cheyk x2

Greedy Councilor x3

Ser Balon Swann x2

Ser Lancel Lannister x2

Tommen Baratheon x2

Locations

Golden Tooth Mines x2

Hall of Heroes x2

Hidden Vale Pass x2

Lannisport Brothel x2

Queen Cersei's Chambers x1

Sunset Sea x3

The Goldroad x2

Western Fiefdoms x2

Event

Battle of the Bay x2

Rise of the Mountain Clans x3

Tyrion's Thug x3

Attachments

Devious Intentions x3

Ill-Begotten Spoils x3

Tyrion's Thug x3

Plot

A Song of Summer

Take Them by Surprise

Battle of Oxcross

Fear of Winter

Fury of the Lion

Storm of Swords

Rule by Decree

Sorry for the formatting, this forum's editor is abysmal.

"Tyrion's Thug x3" in the Events category should be "Mountain Tactics x2"

First you NEED Gold Tooth Vaults. It's a way to limit your hand size plus give you the resources necessary to recover from Valar and just help out your gold reserves. I'm not sure if you need as many Devious Intentions. For one, you aren't that keen on taking that many cards out of your opponents hand considering you want them to have more than you. For that same reason your opponent will probably not go after you for intrigue that often either. AS a wise man once told me, you should have at least one Lannister Pays His Debts as spot character removal is important and what's the cost? Kneel a Clansman you say. Why thank you. You should probably have a couple more characters, the refugees perhaps. They help with set-up and they are clansman so bonus.

Just because you aren't playing lannister kneel doen't mean you can't throw in a Castellan or two, the card is still awesome. Also the vagabond is another card black hole to make sure you have less cards in your hand. Remember you can give him an icon he already has if necessary. I like the Vale scavenger attachment for more card draw.

Thank you for the input!

I wanted to use Devious Intentions for Infamy and stealth, not really the intrigue. Put the power on my infamous clansmen, and Timett should keep it relatively safe; the stealth helps me push my high-claim challenges through.

As for adding the Refugees and Castellan, I like the notion what would you take out of the deck to make room? A Lannister Pays His Debts was in originally, but got cut when I was slimming my deck down. Will probably reconsider and take one or two of the other event cards out.

Saturnine said:

Its personal preference of course, but I don't like running 2x of any unique character... go with 1 or 3 to prevent drawing "dead" cards. So I would take out the dupes of Ser Balon and Lancel and maybe Jaime, possibly try tossing out 1x of each attachment too?

I'd dump Balon and both Hall of Heroes. Again, not worried about intrigue challenges and I don't like the 2 reducers (just personal pref). The nice part about this deck is that no card is true useless even if it is a dupped unique sitting in your dead pile. You can always use that card to get gold with the vaults or give icons and stand a character. So go ahead and run multiples!

I've been playing clansmen recently. Effective use of your Claim 2 plots and Burned Men and Ill Begotten spoils can make the difference in a game. I've had Claim 4 power challenges that I've won, then used rise of the mountain clans for claim 4 military. I've gotten claim 7 power challenges before as well. Just remember to play aggressively. I kinda like Shagga myself. And Echo the sentiment about the Tribeless Vagabond.

My Clansmen deck has changed a bit now. I swapped some cards in and out, but the biggest change is running it with a proxied Heir to the Iron Throne agenda, and it is definitely a boon to my deck. Played it for the first time yesterday with that agenda in a 3-way multiplayer. Had a slow start against two Stark decks, as I just couldn't push much military through and didn't get my draw going, but then I made 10 power in one round by making two power challenges with claim 3 plus renown and unopposed for a close win.

Heh, I've been focusing so much on Bara with that Agenda that I never even considered Lannister Clansmen. Glad to hear it is working well.

I played a Dothraki deck with the agenda yesterday as well. I didn't win, but I got close (14 power). The agenda's probably not as effective here as it is in the Clansman deck, but I think I'll probably keep it in. Need to test it some more.

Everyone's focusing on how powerful the agenda will make Baratheon (and some of the concerns are probably valid). I don't even have a Bara power rush deck, but I just love how the agenda opens up new possibilities for some of the other themes like Clansman and Dothraki, which are more melee oriented and perhaps are still lacking some consistency.

Saturnine said:

That sounds like a perfect description of Dothraki to me; I'm hoping the box fleshes them out a bit.

What I'd really like to do is run Clansman and Dothraki with the old War of Five Kings agenda. It's a shame the reprint, T he Siege of Winterfell , has the house restriction. I think the agenda would do *a lot* for the Clansman and Dothraki themes. But I suppose they wanted to keep military rush as a Stark only theme.