My opponent has this deck focusing on Beric Dondarrion, Brotherhood, and power grab. Normally, our decks are evenly matched, and we each win about half of the time. But this Beric deck beats me 5 games out of 6. He keeps his power, he never dies, its ridiculous. Decks I've tried against it:

Stark, Bara Knights, Bara Asshai, Neutral Kill

What decktypes do you think work well against this guy? I know there are certain cards that can take him out (Game of Cyvasse, etc.), but what are some good overall strategies?

Core set Melisandre.

Apart from that, anything that returns a characters to hand to reset his power count. Pulled Under works too.

Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, moving a power onto his house card and then hopefully have a way to kill Beric.

A deck focusing on Beric will usually boost him with plenty of attachments, so maybe Targ could do better than some others.

Lannister might slow him down enough with some heavy kneel.

Admittedly, these are all theoretical to me; I haven't had to play against a Beric deck yet.

I faced Beric decks lots of time. Rush can hurt brotherhood decks. Rush made with starks is what I usually do against him. Frozen to black taste of blood and then multiple military per round with siege plot make you win.

I made also a bolton deck focused on beric problem but that can work also in other games.

Key factors? Nightmare, Marched to the wall,Assault of King's Landing, direct kill events, distraction, scourges. Assault is very good when opponent have beric with dupes. You wait having a nightmare in hand. Blanck him attack direct kill, he cannot save. You detroy him.

Anyway I find rush decks the best against him.

martell

lanni kneel

while targ burn can't kill him it can make it really hard for him to claim power

greyjoy winter can slow down the rest of his deck

anything with milk of the poppy

try using one of your current decks, but slot in forgotten plans in your plot deck

Anything that blanks his textbox (Nightmares, Milk, Foritfied Position) and direct kill. So, as Stark, Frozen Moat + Routing the charge or Die by the Sword. Targ can also do nightmares + burn.

For more specific deck types, Bolton decks actually work surprisingly well against him - just stick dubious loyalties on him and watch as he gets returned to your opponent's hadn every time he tries to attack you. Greyjoy can also drag him down with Pulled Under. CBK/CBD doesn't mean he can't be returned to hand or returned to deck!

As others said, Milk of the Poppy is the easiest way to deal with him, but maybe not the most deadly.

Both Lannister and Baratheon Fury plot go against Martell (the usual house played by Brotherhood players, if they are not going for the Neutral house card), and both are deadly against Beric (one discards all attachments and powers, the other steals directly Beric for one turn, almost allways making you win instantly).

Even the Martell fury plot is good against him, if the other player is running a Lannister or Baratheorn Brotherhood deck.

Any effect that steals chars (like some Bolton's cards) make you probably insta-win when you steal Beric with all the other player's powers on him.

Any effect that blank his text (like milk or nightmares) allow you to kill him (resetting your opponent powers). Milk + Valar is a strategy that EVERY deck can run.

Any effect that puts in some way powers on the opponent house card destroys a Brotherhood deck (like a Bara location named Eastwatch-by-the-Sea).

Any effect that return chars in hand or in the deck (like "A Game of Cyvasse" for Martell or "Pulled Under" for Greyjoy) is great if he has not dupes on him.

Finally, as others said, core set Melisandre is a nightmare for Brotherhood decks, and Jhalabar Xho, while not as strong as her, is a pain too.

In the end, Beric is very strong against an unprepared deck, but a deck that has any of this mechanichs in it (and, as I said, at least milk and valar is very common) can totally destroy the deck, making you win even when your opponent was about to win, like when he has 12-13 powers on Beric and you only few...

When you face Brotherhood, is usually a run against time. Will your opponent claim 15 powers before you manage to deal with Beric? If yes, he win, if not, you win.

Aegìs said:

Note that you can't save from Pulled under.

Rogue30 said:

It's not so much that you can't save from Pulled Under in theory. It is that because of the timing, you'd need FFG to create and some sort of passive save to do it.

I knew there was a reason I was looking at actually using Pulled Under in my attempts to make a passable Greyjoy joust deck!

If you can't deal with him directly, take out his support. Beric by himself is nice but isn't really a game winner without the supporting characters. I assume you're using the Old Nan and Carrion Bird combo in the Stark decks?

Or, if you can keep her alive, just use Old Nan to remove his Brotherhood trait each round. You might still have to deal with his 2x Renown from Flaming Sword, but at least your opponent can't stack all their power on him then.

Lars said:

Aegìs said:

Which is why the brotherhood deck I run is Targ based, most common way to get rid of Beric, as you mentioned, is through the use of Milk of the Poppy, and Targ can deal with that. As for events, there is Tom Sevenstrings to contend with, dealing with him is important if your planning to kill Beric with an event, Myr can be stopped with 'anti-save' cards but Tom just cancels any event. If your worried about Beric, I suggest A Pinch of Powder. It's usable in any deck, doesn't require a combo, it's cheap, and if you have the Influence it can be reused. Only problem is 3 str win requirement, but if you time it right, that shouldn't be an issue. Not a popular card for some reason, but it seems like the best way of dealing with Beric IMHO.

Blank text box + kill/discard
Return to hand

Lion's gate/Old nan/Rhaegar arp + carrion bird

Blank text + anything

Fury of baratheon (playing vs martell)

Fury of the lion (playing vs martell)

Fury of the sun (playing vs bara o lanni)

Syvasse game

etc...

I faced a nasty beric deck that didn't use the brotherhood agenda.

Instead it was Beric + Devious Machinations + Taste of Blood.

I won against him once using the shadow location bara has (the one that kneels a char for pow) and brienne to prevent taste of blood going off.

The second time he was prepared and uh won. (He saved his milk just for brienne).

bloodycelt said:

<card reference jerk vest on>I'm assuming you mean Devious Intentions?"</> As much as I would love the chance to DevMach some of the new cards.

Maester_LUke said:

Fairly sure he means what he said, otherwise there would be no point in it not having the Brotherhood agenda. It is a CCG card though, so he presumably saw it in casual play.

PS: found it amusing when someone commented, and merely mentioned 'blank his text box or return him to hand' without any elaboration, even though that had already been established. No offence if that was you, it just seems a bit redundant.

Gargoyle said:

I can assure you that bloodycelt meant Devious Intentions and not Devious Machinations . I should know since I was playing the deck

You... bastard. For that I will next face you with an uber Martell torture NPE deck.

= (It will either win in 45 minutes... or force a draw HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HA!

(seth mcfarlane repetition of "HA" until it is no longer funny.)

) ? : ;

Gargoyle said:

In your answer, I'm not sure what you meant re: "no point in it _not_ having the Brotherhood agenda." Using DI and its addition of Infamy, there's no need for the agenda. Adding it only makes the power on Beric susceptible to claim. And while I can imagine using DM to multiply the power from Taste for Blood, it's actually a little slow to make for a winning play. Unlike the old Iron Throne or other multiple power effects.

The deck doesn't win fast Devious Intentions just puts all the power on beric. And just sits there... and TfB allows the player to win. It's what makes it so annoying is as an opponent you just sit there seeing the win, and knowing it might take him 7 turns, so all you can hope is you get Brienne of Tarth or Milk of the Poppy, or something else to break the combo. (Oh and Eastwatch doesn't work against infamy).

(I think its clear I meant Devious Intentions... considering just how long a game could be made due to rules arguments over cards like Devious Machinations, Edict of the Prince, etc... that alone makes them not good for the LCG).

bloodycelt said:

And it doesn't matter that rulebook says "when you move power to your House"?

Rogue30 said:

You are correct,sir. I forgot the "you" in infamy. I am immediately adding eastwatch to my deck, thankyou. (Unless ktom knows something we're missing?).

Does "Condemned" (2 gold cost neutral attachment) make it so Beric can be killed?

#Attached character loses all Traits and immunities. If you win dominance, kill attached character.

I don't know if the can't be killed or discarded counts as an immunity.