Here's the deck I've devised. Anyone care to take a gander? (And take that gander and strangle it so we can eat dinner tonight, dangit).

javascript:void(0);/*1296598432361*/

Twentyft said:

Thats the thing, every other theme from the cycle does seem to have decks being built around it. Yes some of them might be slightly gimmicky but the other themes opened up new decktypes and added some interesting new mechanics for the other houses. I just don't see the raiders doing that. They kind of expanded on milling with a bunch of weenie characters who die easily and that seems to be it. I'm not trying to dog on Greyjoy, I like the house, I just think that the cards they got in the last cycle are weak compared to what the other houses got and compared to what greyjoy already had.

The raider theme seems very weak to me. You have a bunch of over-costed weenies and two solid 5 gold cards.

Problem is, there are very few advantages to discarding from your opponents deck (Fishmonger's Square being one of them).

The strongest mill cards are the Raiding Fleet (which costs 8 gold!!) and Frostfang Peaks . I don't see how you could discard a deck by turn 2 unless you were doing some sneaky stuff with Raiding Fleet . And that card is 8 gold and can only trigger its response if it's played from your hand. So as far as I know, put into play effects (such as Narrow Escape ), cannot activate its response.

And to full take advantage of Frostfang Peaks , you need to make it winter, (which restricts your deck building), get more than 1 copy out and cycle through your plots faster. Cycling through your plots faster entails using some pretty weak cards (Rookeries) and two plot cards Bungled Orders and The Tides of War -not the best plots out there. So to have a good milling deck, you basically need to focus all your energies on just getting the discard engine going.

Edit: There's also the event Nightmares in the North that can take a good chunk out of an opponent's deck, but it's very situational.

Winter Greyjoy is still a very good build in my opinion (like Dan mentioned). The pirates can put the squeeze on an opponent like no other, but the Raider theme in the brotherhood series was weak (only saving grace were the sexy Warships , which are a GJ trademark). The only other theme competing in suckyness was the Clansmen theme.

I don't know about that... Sand Snakes were pretty weak too. But I'll definitely agree that Raiders were probably the worst. The problem is that they require too much board presence to fully function, and it's hard to keep lots of characters in play, even with save house.

I think Greyjoy has some pretty solid cards, but would be even better if they had a couple more cancels. I used to run a brutal Greyjoy denial deck in the ccg era that cancelled effects out the yin-yang, saved during resets, and just locked the board for a mid-game power rush. Wasn't the most fun to play against, but was fun to play and took skill to build to actually be able to balance the portion of the deck required to negate, and the portion of the deck required to actually win the game.

Just wondering that is the 60 cards + House figure only version of Greyhound expansion that exists?

In large part I agree. The major card they got (I feel) that really adds to GJ's power is just a good Euron. While there are a few others in my deck that are nice (Island Smuggler, Cragorn), Euron was the only really important one - he adds the extra renown and sick event prevent.

I think something to notice here:

Greyjoy is the current Targ of the environment, so we may have to just let them sit out a spell until either we get enough mill effects that we can actually produce a very unusual rush deck that tries to outdeck and then board wipe the opponent before they can win. Or they throw enough half-baked themes that we can make a weird unusual deck that just takes everyone by surprise (Sort of how Targ is right now.).

You know if icy fisherman and wintertime marauders were not winter dependent... Greyjoy would be able to explore non winter type decks.

bloodycelt said:

Attachment

2g

Snowfall on the Isles

Condition.

No attachments. May be played to your House card.

While Snowfall on the Isles is in play, it is considered Winter for any player with a House Greyjoy House card.

bloodycelt said:

I think Greyjoy remains fairly specialized though. Since mill isn't really viable as a strategy (requires too many cards that do very little other than mill the opponent, which of course doesn't help you win), all that's really left are Winter/choke and unopposed as decktypes. The unopposed deck is very viable in melee, but it probably lacks the control necessary in joust (I could be wrong here).

I think the thing with GJ winter is that even though it requires combos (ravens + winter cards), the card effects are so powerful it's worth it. Wintertime Marauders is the strongest seasonal effect in the game. Moreover, the removing cards from board + choke synergizes surprisingly well with removing cards from hand...you put the choke on the opponent, then pull away the opponent's options. This contrasts with a lot of other seasonal effects that have very little synergy. For example, in Targ you have Followers (characters who stand), Red Warlocks (toolbox search), and the Long Summer (STR boost). In Stark you have a bunch of strange effects, some of which interact with shadows (Catelyn) but most of which are too weak to run winter for. Moreover, the winter agenda is, in my opinion, much better than the summer one, because the downside isn't that big if you play against a summer deck and it happens to be summer all game. (Chances are, the GJ player will have fewer cards in hand than a Targ or Martell player anyway.)

I wouldn't mind seeing other themes filled out...since FFG has devoted so much to mill already, I'd like to see that filled out a bit. Also, it wouldn't hurt if GJ got another 1-2 winter-based cards, and possibly a little bit more cancel. All in all though, I think GJ really only needs a little more draw and some cards here and there before we start seeing players win tournaments with them again.

I'm almost with you twn2dn - but Summer decks can hammer Winter decks - losing the Marauders turn after turn rips the heart right out of a Winter build. I don't necessarily think the winter season is stronger than summer. Other than that - I think you are spot on.

Twn2dn said:

I think I actually disagree with the cancel one. Greyjoy's To Be A Kraken is so ridiculously strong, especially when combined with Alannys. Having said that, I certainly agree with some more draw. I'm trying to use Val and LIV, which I suppose is a standard combination for GJ at this point. Fishmonger's Square just isn't useful enough.

I think what the unopposed variant lacks is speed. I realize that if it had speed, it would be virtually unstoppable, but as it stands, it's so slow that the opponent has won by the time you get your key cards in play (if you even can - it's a bit like milling in that you need a bunch of cards on the table to really make it strong). I think there's a crazy balance required wherein GJ is not made to be the only melee-playable house, while improving its joustability by a bit.

You (by you, I mean FFG) need to be careful on wanting more mill cards. Losing to mill could be the biggest NPE playstyle you can imagine. If any deck gets to 50% of games milling all cards on the first or Marshalling second turn without a very easy playable counter, then you are going to lose players to it more than any other combo. Trust me, I have won a game (in Classic vs. Dobbler) where I was milled 1st turn (after stopping mill combos twice already!) and it still sucked.

Yes you can counter it by putting more cards in your deck, but without decent search that gets to be a problem as well (you lose games to tight decks, it becomes a rock/paper/scissors type environment which I have never really seen in aGoT thank goodness).

I think being able to mill one's deck by say turn 4 or 5 is OK. It still doesn't say win, but I don't mind Mill being used as a tempo mechanism, that is forcing a player to get board position and win faster.

NPE is when the deck is milled too quickly, and so you feel powerless. If its something that is slow enough that it gives the opponent just enough wiggle room they can do something about it... but also enough stress... its fine.

GJ could also use a card (like a location) that cancels opponent's seasonal effects.

Also, I just want to throw out there that the Raider Euron is an extremely powerful character. Does he cause quite the fear of the Red Viper at the moment? Not really, but His power level isn't far behind. Locking your opponent out of playing events can be huge. He can single handedly shut down most of the tricks that you fear out of Martell, and a couple of the ones you fear out of Lannister. Of course, the real trick is getting Support of Harlaw on him to have that event protection through multiple challenges. Much like getting Taste for Blood on the Red Viper, I see it as very strong synergy. At the moment, I wonder if Greyjoy is just so under played (or doesn't have enough backup) that people aren't giving him much respect.

I don't think so, Kennon. I think plenty of people realize how strong he is. The problem is that him + Support is 7 gold, which will likely have to occur on separate turns. Meanwhile, your opponent has hosed him somehow, or discarded your Support. In the decks that I've been playing with, I've gone a different route, relying on Driftwood Crown on him + The Power of Faith. It's a potent combo for all characters in the deck, though, so that's why I like it.

Driftwood Crown and the Power of Faith is a good direction to go. I may have to experiment with that as well. Add in Support of Harlaw for some of the other characters and this sounds like an attacking force to be feared!

Of course, Support + Euron is only 1 gold more than Viper and Taste, though I wouldn't argue that Support (or Driftwood Crown) and Euron is stronger. I think Greyjoy is just lacking a bit more in the backup department.

Though I agree that GJ has some powerful characters, including Euron, the problem is that I just don't see how it fits into the currently competitive decktype. With winter/choke, the GJ player has to have an extremely low gold curve to put guys out as fast or faster than the opponent. At 5 gold, it's pretty expensive.

In contrast, Martell can play 5- and even 7-gold characters, in large part because they have (1) draw so that they can draw into low-cost guys in the meantime, and (2) events that hold the opponent off until the big characters hit the board. So although I agree that card-for-card GJ has some outstanding 4- and 5-gold characters, I don't really think many of these are playable.

Kennon said:

Not having a Noble crest hurts (even with all the save GJ has).

Not having blanket immunity hurts.

The best thing about the Viper is that immunity. Stops a ton of Marshalling/before Challenges/Dominance actions.

*shrug* Not saying he isn't good, just not in the same sentence as ridin' our good ol' RV.

Yeah, Euron's not bad, but he's not Viper good (which any 5 cost character really has to be for me anyway). Brienne has a similar ability (arguably better) at 2 less gold. Also Euron + Support of Harlaw is 7 gold (5 + 2), not 6. ITE Euron was the best Euron, in my opinion.

I personally like KotS Euron better than the new one. Raider is not that awesome. Maybe if you could make a good deck focused heavily on raiders, the new Euron might be better. The fact that opponents cannot play events is pretty powerful though.

This is one of the rare case where I do not agree with Zsa... I prefer Brotherhood Euron in unopposed decks, Cause the matchup I fear the most is Martell and with this Euron I can go freely knowing that no events (red veng, cyvasse, burning) will kick my ass when I have him declared attacker :-) I find him very good also with the plot 1-8-2 cause winning unopposed with him and other raiders is quite easy.

rings said:

This is a really strong poitn and one that bears repeating. Mill can dominate an environemtn if it is even clsoe to consistent adn creates probably teh msot NPE possible. As a player - you have littl interaction with your opponents,except his effects destroying your deck adn challenge pahse becomes nearly meaningless. R&D has to be very careful in how many effects they design for mill and how hard it is to counter them. Rings is irght - this will lsoe a community players becuase of teh anutre of the effect and how it feels in actual play.

They wouldn't need to add more mill, just perhaps more or stronger card effects that play off cards being discarded from an opponent's deck.

And could someone please explain what NPE means? I gather it means something related to broken/overpowered.

Saturnine said:

NPE = Negative Playing Experience (I think).

Saturnine said:

This is the direction I think mill needs to go. The point of milling should not be to deck your opponent. Instead, I prefer if milling used to actually do something in game (ie. boost cards or effects in play). As Stag Lord said, once the focus of milling becomes decking your opponent, you're no longer envolved in actually playing the game, or doing anything other than slowing the game down enough to reach your goal.