Rogue30 said:

Because the Crewman increases the number of cards milled, so you have a chance to get that many more copies of something to gain power.

WolfgangSenff said:

4 cards instead of 3 - no big difference and you still need to guess by name.

Rogue30 said:

Indeed, and if you're milling yourself, you may have a pretty good idea of what's still in there.

That seems like a lot of work for a random chance at power... mill isn't going to make Greyjoy competitive in any way.

Heh, that's why I said it was fragile. I agree though - milling just isn't feasible, and not sure if it even can be without being too powerful.

This might be a complete noob question, and I aplogise if it is, but why is there so little being said about Warships other than LIV?

Greyjoy are my favourite house in the story but unfortunatley the reprint means I wont be starting a proper deck for them for a while but the impression of them I got in the last few months is that theyre a very "Modular" House, as has been said already. I realise spliting your focus between themes/synergy isnt the greatest way to go about making a tourney deck but GJ seems to be the most able for it. I was thinking of running a Warship module (perhaps include Sala's Escort and the stark warship + Refurbished Hulk) with a small mill focus and then just unopposed/intimidate effects. Would that be too unfocused to work decently?

I've been playing around with a modular Greyjoy deck for a while now and I think it's viable, but I've found a few things that are helpful to consider in the build.

First, your cards generally need to be able to do double or triple duty, i.e., work in several different modules. This means that you'll want cards that add versatility to what is already in your deck. One example off the top of my head is Naval Escort, which allows warships to use their stated effects and to be knelt for strength boosting.

Second, I don't think any single module can win you a game singlehandedly. Instead, if you think of the game in two parts: destabilizing your opponent and winning the game, the modules are best suited to the destabilization and if you have several ways to achieve it, you can deal with the randomness of what cards you get (assuming you've built enough versatility into the deck) and what your opponent might be playing (for example, resource denial is harder to pull off against Lannister or a KOTHH deck). This requires that you recognize when you have the right advantage and that you pounce on it. If your opponent got a bad setup and is destabilized in turn 1, you may need to push for the win right away. Also, I find that you generally only have a couple of turns to get the win once you've got the advantage, otherwise your opponent will be able to stabilize. It's a bit like delayed rush, but the modular nature allows the game, your draw and your opponent to inform how you'll get to a place where you want to start the rush.

Third, you need to be very careful with the cost curve. Even if you build a deck with a ton of versatility, you're going to be be in situations where you need to play several characters/attachments/locations in one marshaling phase, either for the final push to the win, or because you've got enough in your hand to fully execute a module. A modular deck is all about being able to do what's necessary when it's necessary, so a cost curve that's too high can undermine everything.

Having said all that, the modular build is really fun to play. It magnifies the importance of every choice you make, as every good choice keeps the deck running and every bad choice becomes obvious very quickly, so it makes you feel less like you're dependent on the luck of your draw and setup and more on what you do with what you have. I don't know if a build like this could compete on the highest level, but you should be able to have some really good games with it.

The modular deck is very fun and interesting. I built one that I imagine is like it and it plays really well and is fairly cohesive - things like you mentioned, with Refurbished Bulk + Naval Escort. Once you've used Refurbished for its purposes, Naval makes it remain powerful. I don't think including other house's ships, however, makes it any better. The problem is that even with Refurbished, they're too expensive, unless you're treatying, but then that's going to cut into the time you have to disrupt your opponent.

Relying on unopposed will lose you games, in my opinion. Having a splash of unopposed will likely help you win certain games while not detracting from the overall power of the deck - it will also make you particularly strong against any deck which gets off to a slowish start, which is nice.

Twenty - right now, my "disruption" aspect relies on Die by the Sword, The Price of War, and To Be a Kraken. May I ask how you built that part into your deck? I use To Be a Kraken with Alannys, of course (who also works to disrupt, in her own way), but also Maester Wendamyr and anyone when necessary. Die by the Sword and The Price of War because I am mostly war-crested characters, and with Raider Euron attacking, the opponent is going to have a lot harder time saving any particular character (plus To Be a Kraken, again, canceling special abilities/what not).

I'm working from the idea that Greyjoy is able to capitalize on a board position advantage extremely well, if only for a few turns. I imagine you're working in a similar way. I'm playing with a winter module that includes standbys like Sam (for draw) and Wintertime Marauders. Throw in some ice fishermen and Cragorn and depending on the draw, you can slow down (not cripple) an opponent's development. Oddly enough, I only tend to make it winter on turn 1 if my hand warrants it - there's not huge value in it if I don't have winter cards, so in about half the games I've played, winter comes in later and in many, I've never actually made it winter. I can get away with this because of a raider module I've built that has nothing to do with milling. New Euron can often win challenges on his own (his value has already been discussed) and the Enforcers can almost always win a challenge. Add in some ambitious oarsmen and now all warships can be used for cost reduction on raiders as well as strength pump and their own effects. With that many raiders, Longship Silence becomes playable to further help with draw and to add a stealth component to the deck. If I've relied on the raiders early, a couple of well timed two-claim plots can really push board position in my favor. So basically, I can usually get to a place where I start the rush for the win through either winter resource denial, or two different, but overlapping approaches to board destruction. There are other Greyjoy standbys in the deck, and I chose them based on what would work best across different modules.

I have found that to pull the deck off, I need a few more cards than 60 - usually around 65. I don't think it's a liability because of the flexibility built into it, but I'd be curious to know what other experiences regarding modular deck size are.

Twentyft said:

So this sounds hella interesting, I would love to see a complete deck list if you have the time.

Twentyft said:

I'm going about mine fairly differently, actually. I'll elaborate here a little more. While I agree that winter doesn't play a huge part necessarily, I don't use Sam because he's just a weeny if you're not getting your winter cards early. For me, that makes him get cut immediately. I don't use Ice Fisherman, either, for the same reason - they are nigh worthless without it being winter, so I'm not including them at all. I use Val, instead, for more draw, because she's useful no matter what.

I do not use the Enforcers, but I may start - that's a great idea. Despite being expensive, they have the war crest, which is how my deck generally works. You know how we talked earlier about having not only the modularization of the deck, but also an over-arching theme to the deck that is what pushes it to win? The war crest is what I'm using as that theme.

I have updated the deck to use the Enforcers, but it isn't updating on the cardgamedb website for some reason, and there's a terrible lack of copy/paste ability on the boards, so I can't paste it into the Deck Construction forums and put the link here. In general, however, I really like the deck now that I have the Enforcers. I've gotten rid of some more expensive characters as well. Good tip on the Enforcers.

Incidentally, I'm at 60 cards even. I've shaved it down pretty successfully, I think, like a race-horse trying to win the Kentucky Derby.

I'd like to see these decks. It sounds interesting, but I'm personally more of the opinion that competitive builds are best with cards that are less dependent on the play of other cards to amplify their efficiency, which is what WolfgangSenff touched on.

Cards which are just good by themselves, require less setup, synergy with keywords, mass board position, or other conditions, tend to make more straightforward and consistent decks. The more weaker parts needed to develop a stronger play, the more likely one part of the machine breaks down, and modular deck design follows this pattern. Sometimes you wish you could make certain choices but your draw just doesn't match up with the module you want, or only gives you certain parts that aren't useful at the moment, in that game.

Davy Back Fight said:

How I look at it is that it's good to have cards increasing your other cards efficiency, but they should be required to have independent usefulness on their own. Relying on other cards to increase your efficiency while not having a great fit in the overarching theme of the deck tends to cause gridlock in the early game when you're relying on drawing into your cards.

I just posted my modular Greyjoy deck in the deck construction section of the forum for any who are interested.

Sorry to kick this up again - I finally had some time to type of my version of the modular Greyjoy deck. It is far, far different from Twenty's, and in my opinion, is much more tightly focused. I've included a relatively brief strategy section. Please let me know what you think!

You can find it here...hopefully:

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I've read through this post and see a lot of love for Cragorn that I don't understand. I feel like I'm missing something.

What's the big advantage of paying 2 gold to steal 1 gold from the opponent? If he's already knelt going into the Dominance phase, I see how he could steal a Dominance victory from an opponent. Can his ability be used to avoid Valar, Wildfire Assault, etc?

Zap Rowsdower said:

He's good for several reasons. For example, if you have no other use for cost reducers (ones that stay in play), then you reduce his cost and he becomes more efficient. A great card with him is Flea Bottom, making him free, and then netting a gold from your opponent. It all adds up - once you've taken your opponent's gold in other ways, then taking another really hurts, and soon they're completely choked out, even if you only have Sparr and White Raven out. That's three gold disadvantage they have, which you're only paying one for (if not using any reducers, you play for two and steal one).

He's also a war crest, so you plop him down with Power of Arms out, hit them with a bigger challenge, then steal the gold they were intending to pay for their refugee with (for them losing dominance). He's also interesting in that he's probably something you might not feel too bad about ditching to an intrigue challenge, so you use him in order to decrease the chances of them picking something else out of your hand, and taking a gold.

Those are just some of the ways he's strong.

lol @ the 'he's strong cuz he's good for intrigue claim' argument. that's why i run ten towers in all my decks.

dcdennis said:

Hey, if you've never had a desire for your opponent to *not* pick a certain card out of your hand, then that trick is helpful. There were several other reasons listed too.

WolfgangSenff said:

~Yeah, I run a lot of bad cards in my decks so that they don't get the good ones.

Agreed that Cragorn is a relatively cheap intrigue claim fodder due to his ability to return to hand and has other useful and/or synergizing effects (choke, war crest, raider, refugee discard, etc) in the meanwhile.