Let’s have a deep, in-depth discussion about House Martell. This is going to be my primary house with my game group and I really want to get to know this house, its strength, its weaknesses, power cards, must have cards, card synergies, deck variants, everything there is to know about House Martell, let it all out here! If you love House Martell, prove it!

I want to start this thread not only to answer some of my own questions about Martell, but also to collect in one thread all the different strategies and deck variations for Martell. I’ve read a lot of various threads over 3 different forums (here, BGG and cardgamedb.com), but a lot of the stuff is either quick replies about certain deck strategies or cards, very few actually breakdown the deck the author is referring to, list the cards (or maybe just the more important ones) and explain how the deck is played, and they are spread all over the various forums.

What I hope to do here, with your help of course, is to gather all that information here, break it down and discuss it. I’m not looking for just references to previous posts, documents or deck lists, chances are I’ve already read them. If you want to post references that’s fine, but I want to discuss that information as well. Several times I’ve been pointed to a deck list, but when I see it I want to ask “why is it so good?” And I’m not looking to simply copy someone else’s tournament winning deck, I want to build my own, but I want to see why that particular deck is a game winning deck.

For example:

I keep hearing that ‘The Red Viper’ is the centerpiece of a Martell deck, but I quite honestly don’t see why. “Renown. Immune to events and character abilities.” Ok, that’s pretty cool. “The Red Viper does not kneel to attack an opponent who controls more characters than you.” Ok, that’s pretty cool too, but I don’t see how it’s totally epic like everyone makes him out to be. No doubt there’s something I am missing here. Maybe he works well with other cards or perhaps there’s a more subtle strategy that I’m not seeing.

Also, I keep hearing how Martell is a “punish you for attacking me” deck. How is this accomplished? I mean, I see a few cards that have cool effects for that (ie Red Vengeance, Burning on the Sand, Vipers Rage ) but how do you build a deck to make sure you’re going to lose challenges in the first place!? When do I play these cards to their fullest effect? What are some good card combinations, or card play examples even? Share them all here!!

This is a quote from a guy (The_True_Darkstar) in the BGG forums.

In a brief word, Martell punishes other players for winning challenges. Take my Martell deck for instance: I run a combination for which I want to lose all the challenges I can, because 1. there is a chance I will pull one of five cards out of my hand and into play if randomly discarded, 2. I have a character that claims power every time she loses a challenge 3. I run with a lot of characters with the vengeful key word. Vengeful means all cards with that trait stand whenever you lose any kind of challenge. Pairing that with a LOT of cards that have effects only if I lose, all of which punish either all players or the attacking player-- and the Martell deck is very formidable. In a large game, I tend to decide who wins over all, and can turn the tables on all other players in a blink. Invest in Vengeful!

Unfortunately he doesn’t elaborate or give a deck list, and he doesn’t seem to be around there anymore, and I would love for someone to explain to me not only how a deck like this is constructed, but most importantly how it’s played!

So let’s talk House Martell….

It will be kind of difficult in some ways to explain how a deck works if you cannot see the way it combos together by looking at the decklist and being familiar with the cards. I hope that doesn't sound horribly condescending, because that is not my intention at all, its just that if you cannot see the value of some cards and strategies it will be hard to elaborate on them.

gdotbat said:

The Red Viper is indeed the centerpiece of many a Martell deck, and it can be very difficult to get rid of him or control him once he is in play. Since he cannot be affected by events or character abilities, the only real ways to deal with him are attachments, plot cards and locations. Many decks do not feature a lot of attachments or control-type location abilities. Since he has the Lord trait he can be protected by Bodyguards, and Martell has a lot of good draw mechanics which makes it more likely that his owner will draw a duplicate to help protect him from death from cards like Valar, Bear Island, etc. He also has a Noble Crest, which means he can be protected by The Power of Blood. He has all 3 icons and Renown, which means he can frequently participate in all 3 challenges in a given round with the possibility of claiming power for Renown 3 times. Some good Martell cards that combo with him are Lost Oasis and Poisoned Knife , especially since Poisoned Knife can be used over and over if he does not kneel to attack. If you play an Alchemist's Shop while he has a Poisoned Knife attached he is now a 5 STR character that can attack in all 3 challenge types while stealthing and discarding from play multiple characters; if your opponent defends against him they will probably lose a character because he is deadly, and if they don't then you claim power for an unopposed challenge and for Renown. There are a lot of other great combos for him too, but he is a beast all by himself.

gdotbat said:

Martell does have a lot of "revenge" events and card abilities, and it is important to know when to play them to take advantage of your board position. You don't need to build a deck to make sure you're going to lose challenges - you can lose a challenge any time you want by just not opposing it. Think about the damage that you could do with The Viper's Rage if you have the Red Viper in play: you could lose a military challenge and kill a character, which leaves you with less characters than you opponent, then play Viper's Rage so none of his/her characters have icons, then make all 3 challenges with Red Viper which will allow you to claim 6 power on a single turn (3 for unopposed and 3 for Renown). Burning on the Sands is probably one of the best events in the game, it costs you nothing to play and your opponent probably knelt a character or two to attack you; it can be used to protect important cards in your hand from Intrigue challenges if necessary, or avoid having to kill a character for claim in a military challenge, it just depends on what is more important to you at any given time.
A good "punish you for attacking me" combo would be Ellaria Sand and Taste for Blood . If an opponent attacks you and you lose the challenge, you can steal a power off of one of his/her characters and claim a power for losing a challenge, and, if knelt, Ellaria can stand back up because she is Vengeful. She can be very useful in slowing down rush decks that get a lot of power from characters with Renown. Losing challenges with Martell also allows you to put Venomous Blade back into Shadows so you can use it more than once per turn.

So put all the aforementioned cards together at one time, and see what happens, i.e. ridiculous example time...
You have out a Red Viper with a duplicate, a Poisoned Knife attached, Ellaria Sand with Taste for Blood attached, an Alchemist's Shop, and a Venomous Blade in Shadows, and a Burning on the Sand and a Viper's Rage in your hand. At the beginning of challenges, you bring out the Venomous Blade and kill a character controlled by your opponent then attach it to Ellaria Sand, she gets +2 STR and Deadly (so she cannot be killed by a single Deadly character your opponent controls). If your opponent still plans on attacking you this round (just for the sake of this example let's say they have a monstrous army on the table - a dozen 4-5 STR characters on the table and they do attack thinking they will have plenty of people left for defense).
He/she makes an Intrigue challenge and you let it go unopposed and then play Burning on the Sand to prevent your Viper's Rage from being discarded.
He/she makes a power challenge with 2 characters that have Renown; you defend with Ellaria so it is not unopposed and lose the challenge which allows you to put your Venomous Blade back into Shadows if you want, Ellaria can stand because you lost a challenge, she claims a power because you lost a challenge and steals a power from one of the attacking Renown characters. If his/her claim was 1, he/she moves a power to his/her house - net power gain for the opponent was 2 - 1 from your house and 1 for Renown, net power gain for you was 2 - 1 from Taste for Blood, 1 from one of his/her characters.
He/she makes a military challenge and you let it go through unopposed, and your opponent gets a power for being unopposed. Your claim can be your duplicate Red Viper, then you play The Viper's Rage and all his/her characters lose all their icons. Ellaria gets a power from Taste for Blood.
Your turn for challenges... you make 3 challenges with the Red Viper and stealth a character each time, unless he/she has 3 gold or influence, at least one of those characters gets discarded by the Poisoned Knife. Assuming your claim is only 1: you've killed a character with your military challenge, discarded at least 1 other character from play, discarded a card from his/her hand, claimed 3 power for unopposed challenges, 3 more for Red Viper's Renown and took the one power he/she got from the unopposed military challenge.
Totals for each side:
Opponent - "killed" your Red Viper duplicate and got 1 power for Renown (on a character that may have been subsequently discarded or killed by you), you lost a Burning on the Sands and a Viper's Rage from your hand.
You - killed/discarded 1-5 of his/her characters, discarded a card from his/her hand, and got a total of 9 power (3 for Renown, 3 for unopposed challenges, 1 from opponent's House card, and 2 from Taste for Blood).
At the beginning of Dominance, you bring your Venomous Blade back out of Shadows and kill another character, attach it to Ellaria again, and you will most likely win Dominance since you have two 5 STR standing characters.
(end ridiculous example)

Obviously you cannot expect this kind of result/combo all the time, but all of that above - that's the kind of thing you want your opponent to fear when playing against a Martell deck! Be creative with it, if your opponent doesn't put down more characters than you and your Red Viper is going to have to kneel, discard an Orphan of the Greenblood or a Dornish Paramour from play to have less characters on your side. In some ways its even easier in a melee game where opponents may often just leave you alone - who wants to lose all their icons and leave themselves wide open or get hit by Red Vengeance and have to lose a character to their own military challenge? And you can usually find an opponent with more characters than you to attack with Red Viper when playing against 3 other people...

Lol, this is what I do when I am at "work"

Wow, awesome post Skowza! That clears up a lot for me, thanks!

So now let’s talk Sand Snakes!

Nymeria Sand + Obella Sand + Tyene Sand + The Red Viper + Blood of the Viper (attached to The Red Viper) OMG!!

That’s 4 characters with all 3 icons, deadly , vengeful and stealth , and 4, 2, 3, and 4 power, respectively. Wow, and that’s with one copy of Blood of the Viper out! Does its effect stack? Can I throw additional copies of that on some other characters that have some cool effects, make them a Sand Snake (giving them all the traits and power)!? Crazy?! Or would this be totally counter to “hurt me, I hurt you” deck because this is starting to look more like a..oh, I don’t know what to call it, lots of units deck (?) for lack of a better term, power house units, Stark like almost?! That combo right there is already 4 units, and there are a few other Sand Snakes I could throw into the mix ( Obara Sand , Sarella Sand , Bastard Daughter ), heck, I could almost build an entire deck around the Sand Snakes! But do I want to? If I have too many units Red Viper will have to kneel. I guess what I want to know is can this Sand Snake combo be used as a killer sub-theme in conjunction with the strategies involving The Red Viper you explained above, or does it take too many units to work well together?

Here are a couple other cards that work well with Sand Snakes too!
His Viper Eyes , No Use For Grief (Oh man, set up phase, put out Red Viper alone + Summer Sea / Dornish Fiefdoms / Lord Dorans Chambers for the influence, play Valar Morghulis in first round, Red Viper dies, play No Use For Grief …and here comes an army of Sand Snakes screaming for revenge!!)

Deck building.

Now, I am still in the deck building mindset of Invasion, so for my key cards, I am auto including 3 copies of each, especially the unique characters since I can attach dupes to them at no cost to save them from perishing. Which quite honestly I find rather insane. I hadn’t read that rule initially and just clarified it for myself yesterday, we’ve been playing with the core decks only thus far so it really didn’t matter for us, now it does though. However, do I want to do that with this deck? Wouldn’t I want to lose some characters to trigger abilities and other cards? So maybe filling my slots with 3 copies of the unique cards may not be a good idea, but then again, I do want to give myself the best possible chance of pulling my key characters don’t I? It’s just strange to me when I look at various deck lists and so many of them have several characters with only 1 copy of that character in their deck.

Ya, I’m getting way excited about Martell! I just need to play more!!

gdotbat said:

Losing challenges doesn't mean you are losing characters. Most of Martell's stuff triggers off of losing challenges, so lose that military challenge but then save the character with a dupe, claim soak saves like Maester Aemon or cards like Maester of the Sun .

Unless it is an extremely key character 3 copies of uniques is usually going to hurt you. There are too many ways to kill characters in this game and once they are in the dead pile those other 2 copies are now dead cards in your deck/hand. If there is one character you just have to have out then Summoning Season or something like Herald of the Sun are usually better options.

gdotbat said:

Actually, I guess this would take him out of the game completely wouldn’t it? That’s one thing I’m a little unclear on, the difference between the dead pile vs the discard pile and what determines where a character goes. I mean, I understand that once a character is dead you cannot play anymore cards of that character, right? But what determines if a character goes to discard or dead, and if he’s dead is there any way to bring him back or revive him through cards or abilities?

I guess if I went with the strategy above The Viper would just be fodder for a primarily Sand Snake deck, and I wouldn’t be able to utilize any of his cool abilities.

If an effect says the character is killed, that character goes to your dead pile. If that character is unique from that point forward in the game you may not play, put into play, or take control of that character. Some cards like See Who is Stronger , Asshai Initiate , or Lady Stoneheart can get characters back out of the dead pile but they are few and far between.

If an effect says to discard the character, that character goes to the discard pile. There are no restrictions on play when a copy of that card is in the discard pile.

Darksbane said:

So does having a dupe of the character in play save from either of those effects, or just the discard effect?

gdotbat said:

You'll find the answers to many of your rules-related questions the Core Set rules (and the LCG FAQ for further clarifications and details). The documents are available for free download in the Support section of A Game of Thrones LCG here on this website.

Duplicates can be discarded to save your character from being killed, discarded from play, or returned to your hand or deck.

Also I should clarify, when I said "From that point forward in the game" that was assuming the character was still in your dead pile. If something like Asshai Initiate moved that character card to your discard pile you could then play another copy from your hand as normal.

Thanks Darksbane!

Ok, so here is the deck Ive been working on today. It was made on Darksbanes excellent site, cardgamedb.com.

I guess what I was going for with this deck is a combonation of The Red Viper and Sand Snakes, I call it Sand Viper! Im not sure if it actually works though. The basic idea is to have Red Viper out asap, and tool around with all of his awesome abilities and tactics (as Skowza enlightened me to above) with the option of being able to sacrifice him (with Valar Morghulis, or if someone else pulls Valar on me), and immediatly putting out 6 Sand Snakes with No Use For Grief, if he goes down. I feel like I need other characters in there though, to hang out with The Viper if I hang on to him for a bit. Maybe I should bring each Sand Snake down to 1 copy each and add some other characters to play along side The Viper? But then what do I do if I draw some of the snakes, Grief doesnt let me put them into play from my hand does it? Sigh...anyway, any feedback is much appreciated, this is my first official deck build, so Ill need it! Thanks!

Sand Viper

Character
The Red Viper (PotS) x3
Tyene Sand (OSaS) x2
Obella Sand (DB) x2
Nymeria Sand (OSaS) x2
Bastard Daughter (OSaS) x3
Areo Hotah (PotS) x1
Arianne Martell (PotS) x1
Ellaria Sand (PotS) x1
Sarella Sand (PotS) x2
Obara Sand (TWoW) x1
Darkstar (PotS) x1
Flea Bottom Scavenger (AToT) x3
Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS) x3

Location
Alchemist's Shop (OSaS) x2
Lord Doran's Chambers (PotS) x1
Summer Sea (PotS) x3
Water Garden (PotS) x2
Lost Oasis (AToT) x3
Crossroads (Core) x3

Event
Burning on the Sand (RotO) x3
No Use For Grief (DB) x3
The Prince's Wrath (PotS) x3
The Viper's Rage (TftRK) x3

Attachment
Blood of the Viper (OSaS) x3
Taste for Blood (PotS) x3
Poisoned Knife (ASoSilence) x3

Plot
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Summoning Season (Core) x1
To the Spears! (PotS) x1
Retaliation! (ASoSilence) x1
Relentless Persecution (DB) x1
Counting Favors (Core) x1

Slightly different deckbuilding direction, but here's my decklist. I use the Knights of the Hollow Hill agenda so I can always trigger Red Vengeance. Best card ever. Between the Vengeance, and Burning on the Sands, opponent's challenges become an exercise in futility. I just added in the Veteran Spearmans recently, to combo with the Red Vengeance, and for sheer intimidation. Part of the fun of Martell is holding a hand full of cards, and having your opponent squirm in his seat wondering what nasty new event you have planned for him... :-)

Plots: Prince that Was Promised / To the Spears / Power of Blood x2 / Valar / Wildfire / Summoning Session

Characters - 30
0 - 3
Orphan of the Greenblood x3

1 - 5
Myrcella Lannister
Lost Spearman x3
Obella Sand

2 - 7
Veteran Spearman x2
Maester of Lemonwood
Flea Bottom Scavenger x2
Dornish Paramour x2

3 -6
Ser Arys Oakheart
Harmen Uller
Edric Dayne
Sarella Sand
Silent Assassin x2

4 - 4
Darkstar
Arianne x3

5 - 3
The Red Viper x3

7 - 2
The Viper’s Bannermen x2

Attachments - 8:
Venemous Blade x3
Taste of Blood x2
Bodyguard x3

Locations - 5:
Alchemist's Shop x2
Lost Oasis
Sea x2

Events - 17:
Red Vengeance x3
Burning on the Sands x3
Rumors of War x2
He Calls it Thinking x3
A Game of Cyvasse x2
A Gentle Prison
The Viper’s Rage
Condemned by the Council x2

gdotbat said:

A few thoughts. You NEED at least two copies of Venemous Blade. The card is so good it will make your opponents cry. I tried adding Sand Snakes to my Viper deck and didn't have much success, but let me know if you find otherwise. The problem is that you need a bunch of Snakes out to really go nuts, but your Viper wants to always have less characters than your opponent. Tricky balance.

Personally, I think 3 crossroads and 3 lost oasis will slow your deck down too much. Others might feel differently. Poisoned Knife is cool, but is also pricey. I would also consider at least one copy of The Power of Blood to protect your Viper. Put your power on him, then use your plots to protect him.

Thanks for the input jmccarthy! Much appreciated! You’re deck definitely looks pretty slick, in fact I did take some pointers from it, and you’re suggestions, and I may make some changes to my deck. I have a question though, if Valar Morghulis and The Power of Blood come out in the same round, I assume Power of Blood supersedes Valar because of its initiative?

gdotbat said:

Power of Blood would protect the noble characters but not because of initiative. Power of Blood's effect is a constant effect so it is in force already when the when revealed part of Valar goes off.

gdotbat said:

Some considerations:

25 characters is alittle light. You are usually going to want to hang out in the 30 range. More draw characters would be nice since you want to get NUfG asap. Dornish Paramour and/or House Messenger would help.

12 events and 9 attachments is alittle much, I'd try to get it down to 15 total between the two and increase from there if you see that the deck can handle it. Running too many events/attachments means your setup can get really screwy, and a bad setup can really really hurt.

Remove the Crossroads in favor of Dornish Fiefdoms . They cost less, net you the same number of resources, and can be used on the turn they are played for a net 0 gold cost.

You're missing 1 plot. Some good choices Fear of Winter , The Power of Blood , or The Prince that was Promised

Ok, I cant say that I am terribly comfortable with this setup, but of course Im a newb and dont have nearly as many games under my belt as you guys. Whats bugging me is with this build, I dont have an real gold generating locations, will that be a problem for this deck?

Character
The Red Viper (PotS) x3
Tyene Sand (OSaS) x2
Obella Sand (DB) x2
Nymeria Sand (OSaS) x2
Bastard Daughter (OSaS) x3
Areo Hotah (PotS) x1
Arianne Martell (PotS) x1
Ellaria Sand (PotS) x1
Sarella Sand (PotS) x1
Obara Sand (TWoW) x1
Darkstar (PotS) x1
Flea Bottom Scavenger (AToT) x3
Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS) x3
House Messenger (PotS) x3
Underhanded Assassin (TWoW) x3

Location
Alchemist's Shop (OSaS) x2
Lord Doran's Chambers (PotS) x1
Lost Oasis (AToT) x1
Dornish Fiefdoms (PotS) x3

Event
Burning on the Sand (RotO) x3
No Use For Grief (DB) x3
The Prince's Wrath (PotS) x3
The Viper's Rage (TftRK) x3
Red Vengeance (PotS) x3

Attachment
Blood of the Viper (OSaS) x2
Taste for Blood (PotS) x3
Venomous Blade (TBoBB) x3

Plot
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Summoning Season (Core) x1
To the Spears! (PotS) x1
Relentless Persecution (DB) x1
Counting Favors (Core) x1
The Power of Blood (Core) x2

It isn't a problem that you dont' generate much gold, however it is a problem that you only have 4 cards which either generate gold or reduce the cost of cards you are going to play. As an example, Viper which is key to the deck is impossible to play unless you get one of those gold/reduction locations early. With only 4 in the deck it is a big risk. A higher income plot like Fury of the Sun would help but you'll need to sacrifice some of those events for producing locations.

A general rule of thumb to go by in most decks is:

30 characters

10 locations which either reduce cost or provide gold

0-5 locations that do other stuff

Some combination of events and attachments to make up the difference.

Ok, I made a few changes on the Locations, Attachements, and Events. I took out The Viper's Rage, because I actually dont even have those cards yet, Alchemist's Shop, and 1 Taste for Blood and added Water Gardens and Summer Sea.

Location
Lord Doran's Chambers (PotS) x1
Lost Oasis (AToT) x1
Dornish Fiefdoms (PotS) x3
Water Garden (PotS) x3
Summer Sea (Core) x3

Event
Burning on the Sand (RotO) x3
No Use For Grief (DB) x3
The Prince's Wrath (PotS) x3
Red Vengeance (PotS) x3

Attachment
Blood of the Viper (OSaS) x2
Taste for Blood (PotS) x2
Venomous Blade (TBoBB) x3

Looks better, now my only question is if you are going to have enough influence production to reliably use the Viper react on NUfG. That will take some playtesting though I think to see. If it turns out you need more or need it more consistantly Palace Spy , Paramour , Starfall Merchant , and The Red Keep might be able to help.

Argh! I forgot I took out Paramour! I guess well have to see. Its like a dance isnt it!? Deck building...

So I played this deck on Saturday, and it played really well. I didn't win but only because I played The Red Viper wrong, the Baratheon player had Melisandre in play and I forgot to ignore her "power on opponents characters.." effect, so I wasn't counting Red Vipers power.

The deck that won was a Core x2 Lanni deck. Baratheon was doing really well for awhile (core x2) once the player picked up on the strategy, but I pretty much shut that player down. This deck is definitely good at controlling the flow of the game!

I did have issues with getting enough influence into play, so I didn't get a chance to play Grief when two Valar Morghulis got dropped at once and wiped the table (including dupes). Otherwise, it played quite well and quickly became the hated deck in the game and halfway through the game the guys pretty much gave up on messing with me. I gotta say, Orphan of the Greenblood , Burning on the Sand , The Prince’s Wrath , Red Veangeance , pretty freakin awesome!

I tightened up my deck a bit after playing the game. I decided to some characters (down to 21), since I pretty much want to focus the deck around The Red Viper and Sand Snakes, so I could add a few more Events/Locations/Attachments. I added Palace Spy to help out with Influence rather than adding more Influence locations. I was fine with income locations but I loved Lost Oasis , especially when used with Red Viper, so I added 2 more of those. I also added The Viper’s Rage , Poisoned Knife , and Alchemist’s Shop .

The Red Viper + Venomous Blade + Poisoned Knife + Lost Oasis + Alchemists Shop = Ouch!

And if for some reason Red Viper gets killed, No Use For Grief , and bam, instant Sand Snake army!

Here’s the updated deck list:

Character (21)
The Red Viper (PotS) x3
Tyene Sand (OSaS) x2
Obella Sand (DB) x2
Nymeria Sand (OSaS) x2
Bastard Daughter (OSaS) x3
Sarella Sand (PotS) x2
Obara Sand (TWoW) x1
Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS) x3
Palace Spy (WotN) x3

Location (16)
Lord Doran's Chambers (PotS) x1
Lost Oasis (AToT) x3
Dornish Fiefdoms (PotS) x3
Water Garden (PotS) x3
Summer Sea (Core) x3
Alchemist's Shop (OSaS) x3

Event (15)
Burning on the Sand (RotO) x3
No Use For Grief (DB) x3
The Prince's Wrath (PotS) x3
Red Vengeance (PotS) x3
The Viper's Rage (TftRK) x3

Attachment (8)
Blood of the Viper (OSaS) x2
Venomous Blade (TBoBB) x3
Poisoned Knife (ASoSilence) x3

Plot (7)
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Summoning Season (Core) x1
To the Spears! (PotS) x1
Relentless Persecution (DB) x1
Counting Favors (Core) x1
The Power of Blood (Core) x2

Its getting really short on characters at this point. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that, but any deck that has about 20 characters would be considered a "character-light" deck and would probably need an awful lot of control mechanics or would need to be really fast. There are some discussions about character-lite decks somewhere on the forums, here is a good example with an explanation of how the deck works, though I think it was being played before the errata on Alchemist's Guildhall.
Some of this is covered in the thread above; Martell is a good house for a character-lite deck since their events are so nasty. I would suggest the following...
Lose the 2x Blood of the Viper, of all the characters in the deck it can really only be played on The Red Viper and it's not a great attachment, imo.
Lose the 3x The Prince's Wrath, either replace it with more characters or with Game of Cyvasse or with He Calls it Thinking if you have enough Intrigue icons (Craster is a great character to use with He Calls it Thinking).
Lose Lord Doran's Chambers - a personal choice on this one really, but you have 9 discount cards already, and it cuts one more card out of the deck. You could also replace some of your discount locations with Street of Steel, Sisters, or Shadowblack Lane (whichever icon or icons are heavily featured) since they are not Limited locations.
Add some characters with control abilites, like Ser Arys Oakheart and King's Landing Varys (he can go in almost any deck, a 3 STR character with 2 icons and Stealth that discards an opponent's character for free for 3 gold? yes please!) both are characters who are well worth their cost. Syrio Forel is also good in many decks, and he can go back into Shadows to reduce the number of characters you have out so TRV doesn't kneel when attacking. Darkstar is a good choice since he has Renown and Vengeful; Arianne Martell is very useful. You don't have much in the deck to give you additional card draw, so working in 3x Dornish Paramour might also be a good idea.
I agree with Darksbane that Fury of the Sun would be a good plot choice, probably in place of Relentless Persecution or Counting Favors. Personally, when making a plot list for almost every deck it begins with a Fury plot, followed by Valar (when appropriate, which is most of the time), followed by Retaliation! because its just a great plot and almost an auto-include at this point. If you do keep Counting Favors, try to give it to a Lannister player or another player who is likely to hit the draw cap anyway so as to limit the advantage you are giving an opponent.
This is all assuming you have a large card pool; what CPs do you have so far? Ancient Enemies is a great CP just for the Fury plots...

I think this is a ktom question: does TRVs text allow his power to be counted even with Melisandre out? My reading would be that you still don't count power on him because he's not being affected by her text, you are. I could be wrong, though.

Lethuin said:

I agree. The way I see it, Melisandre doesn't affect the Red Viper, it affects the game framework (namely the rule that power on characters count towards the victory total). His immunity doesn't come into play.

Saturnine said:

Actually this thing was interpreted totally different in the past, however currently we got it in FAQ:

(3.19) Scope of Immunity
Immunity only protects a card itself. Peripheral
entities attached to or associated with a card,
such as attachments, duplicates, power counters,
gold tokens on the immune card, and also
including triggered effects originating from the
immune card, can still be affected by cards of
the type to which that card is immune, as long
as the affecting cards do not target the immune
card.