Hi,

Over at the Competitive Greyjoy thread, Twenty and I (and others) have been discussing how to build a modular kind of Greyjoy, wherein it has a series of themes that are independently useful. I take the approach here that it must also have an overarching theme in order to ensure that all the cards are useful regardless of what you draw into. I'll go into more strategy after the deck.

Greyjoy Redux

House (1)

Greyjoy

Agenda (1)

Kings of Winter

Plot (7)

Fury of the Kraken

Rise of the Kraken

Retaliation

The Power of Arms x2

Valar Morghulis

Take Them by Surprise

Character (30)

Asha Greyjoy x2

Balon Greyjoy (KotS) x3

Cragorn x2

Euron Crow's Eye (ASoSilence) x3

Maester Wendamyr x2

Scurvy Cutthroat x3

Theon Greyjoy (ACoS) x3

Wintertime Marauders x3

Val x3

Euron's Enforcers x3

Randyl Tarly x3

Location (18)

Aeron's Chamber x2

Longship Iron Victory x3

Sunset Sea x3

Gatehouse x3

The Searoad x3

Scouting Vessel x2

The Iron Mines x2

Attachment (5)

White Raven x3

Milk of the Poppy x2

Event (7)

Die by the Sword x2

To Be a Kraken x3

The Price of War x2

Generally, this deck plays pretty consistently. It has a very high gold curve due to the ultimately very pricey characters that GJ spouts. It is integral to start generating extra income quickly. For this same reason, the plots have a relatively high average gold value (3.2 something). The attachments and events (and agenda) are designed entirely to disrupt your opponent. There's a lot of direct damage in the deck, in the form of Theon, the kill events, and Wintertime Marauders. Remember, they can discard any non-unique card in play, whether it be a location, a character, or an attachment. I'm not going to go into specific match-ups right now, but may add them later if you're interested in seeing them. Instead, for now, I intend to go through the "modules" (i.e. sub-themes) and show both how they contribute to the overall theme while being their own unique area.

Overall theme: Military challenges, power challenges, strong opponent disruption

Sub-theme 1: War crests - The war crest theme in the deck allows me to control the military and power challenges fairly effectively. At the same time, with Die by the Sword and The Price of War, I'm able to take out key locations or characters when necessary and all it requires is, for example, a single Euron's Enforcers win. They have intimidate and a base strength of 4 (3 + they are a raider for +1), making it incredibly easy for them to win a fight. Randyl Tarly is huge here as well, adding an extra str to a huge percentage of characters (7 out of 11) in the deck, including himself.

Sub-theme 2: Disruption - The disruption aspect of the deck comes in the form of White Raven, the Kings of Winter, Wintertime Marauders, Theon Greyjoy, Euron Crow's Eye, Milk of the Poppy, Cragorn, and To Be a Kraken. Euron helps by shutting out their events when he's attacking, thus damaging a huge number of decks that rely on them. White Raven makes it winter and takes a gold from them, while Kings of Winter really doesn't have a downside: If the opponent is playing a summer deck, it's very, very likely that they already have more cards in hand than you, so they won't be drawing any extra due to your agenda, while if you've kept it winter, they aren't going to have a hand at all. To Be a Kraken may be the single best event in the game. The Marauders control their gold locations while Cragorn helps strangle them, and unless they happen to be playing really high-gold plots, they will essentially not have a chance at it.

Sub-theme 3: Character control - Scouting Vessel, Iron Mines, Longship Iron Victory, and Maester Wendamyr can keep the characters you want on the table, while the events + Scouting Vessel + Longship Iron Victory ensure that their characters are leaving the table at a reasonable rate. I'd rather rely on Scouting Vessel than Naval Escort, despite costing an extra 1, because it has potential to completely screw the opponent's challenges phase while being a heckuva lot harder to discard.

Sub-theme 4: Good draw, better gold - With as expensive as many of the cards are, this deck relies on its gold. It has enough in there that you should be able to drop at least one in setup (more if non-limiteds in opening hand), and one every turn for a few turns. This helps keep on the pressure by allowing you to play more characters every turn, even if your plots are more limited in income). Val and Longship Iron Victory are my solid draw, but I could probably use more.

I think that's all I'll write for now. I'm rather proud of the deck, but it does have some holes. I'm not sure about the tournament viability of it overall, but I'd love to give it a shot in an online tournament, despite having published it here.

WolfgangSenff said:

Just a couple things you might want to consider:

-1 Aeron's Chambers

-1 Gatehouse

-3 Searoad

+1 Street of Steel

+2 Iron Islands Fiefdoms

+1 Bloody Keep

+1 Iron Mines (or another Bloody Keep or Fiefdom)

Reducers work better for you with White Raven in play and negate their cost on the turn they enter play.

Aside from that, the only other thing, which may be a matter of personal preference, is that you're running a high number of uniques in duplicate or triplicate. While it increases your chances of both seeing them and duping them, a spread may result in you having a lot of useless cards if the opponent manages to kill one or two early when you can't protect all of them.

I agree with you on the unique characters - but not sure who to go with instead. I like the idea, but don't feel like anyone in there is not good enough to be in there 3 times (if they are). As for the locations, the streets are a good idea. When I first build decks, I tend to try to find ways, however implausible, that others can come at me, and decks that use non-limited locations can run into trouble with the very card I'm using for that. I believe I'll pull 2x Searoad and add in Street of Steel and Street of Sisters. I really don't want to go with Bloody Keep - it's too expensive for my tastes, despite having an immediate benefit, but I think a couple Fiefdoms are a great idea in order to potentially use Maester Wendamyr's text. I'll find a way to make it work.

One quick question: Is Retaliation worth it? Usually, this deck prefers to go first. At the same time, it's just a wonderful card with high gold.

Well Asha can't be saved so I'd cut one of her since she's not crucial to the deck. Tarly might not be either although I like his effect with intimidate, but he's still just blanket force that isn't a real threat on his own and I personally think he's just kitschy for theme decks, but not competitive. But that's just me. If he works for you, he works. Consider Victarion or Dagmer as well as single copy threats since you have some save in the deck. Euron's Enforcers may be a bit expensive at times. I'm playtesting them, but haven't made up my mind, and even then prefer them to a two of and not three.

Regarding Retaliation, I think it's pretty solid if you know you can withstand the challenge phase. I run it out of both my Greyjoy and Martell builds and have never regretted it, although I find it does better in my Martell build.

Two characters to consider: Alaynnys Greyjoy and Wex Pyke.

Both are cheap and disruptive.

I like both suggestions. Do I need more than one of each, though? I can find things to cut if I only add one of each.

Dagmer - pretty efficient war-crest character with deadly, even without warships in your deck

Wex - I love him; there are a lot of characters in this game without crests

Alannys

Tarle - claim soak with no down-side. In a synergistic deck this can keep out the characters you want long enough to do what you need done most of the time.

danach81 said:

The only person here that I didn't add was Tarle. I like the idea of adding him, but he's pretty expensive and only adds a tiny bit of claim soak. I'll consider him. The others, I've found room for them.