I have been working on an all Tully deck centered around Riverrun. Most of the Tully characters are cheap, so in combination with Minstirel's Muse I can rack up a lot of power quickly. The problem of the deck is it runs out of steam just as quick - most of the Tully characters suck. I played one game and got to 11 power on turn one - then lost on round 3.

I thought about putting in some better characters, in particular some Bolton characters like The Bastard's Elite or The Flayed Men. I also thought about some cheap direwolves or Hodor. But each of these would reduce the effectiveness of Riverrun for the rush.

Does anyone have experience building a power rush deck, positive or negative? Is the Tully theme competitive, or is it just a fun deck to play? What goes into a solid power rush? Thanks in advance!

I don't think Tully is tier 1, but it is definitely a fun deck to play with. To make it a little more effective I recommend using Den of the Wolf to combo with Minstrel's Muse and/or Riverrun. I assume you are using trips of The Blackfish, thats definitely a good start. Core Catelyn is pretty boss too. What is the list your using right now? And what is the general strategy other than not losing challenges?

I had one that worked with Winter somehow, I had tweaked it a bunch to get it running smoothly. I remember that I had almost exclusively Tully characters for non-uniques and that seemed to be kind of key. Riverrun was ok but the lack of Intrigue icons makes it hard to win all 3 challenges so it was more of a straightforward rush deck. Heir to the Iron Throne?

Winter is really nice with Vyman, and you can use Northern Cave to great effect on defense. They mill you, you defend, then pull out, then use those guys to kneel for the Lethal Counterattack. Or on attack, attack with a bunch, pull out only the ones you need to so your only using just as much resources as you need. If your planning on using Riverrun as the win condition, I would run Narrow Escape to get your weenies back in play post-valar. One copy of Old Nan can be nice too, giving someone the ability to not kneel to attack for a round (Bastard of Bolton, I'm thinking of you). Trident Reinforcements are a must, since they keep giving you card advantage late game.

I'd say a Tully Riverrun deck is not tier 1, but a Tully/Blackfish deck is pretty potent. Defending just doesn't work that well in Thrones, because it's easier to attack than to defend, because attacker wins ties. I rarely put Riverrun into a Tully deck - it's just too mcuh of a target on my back in melee, and too much of a chore to pull off in Joust. I find the best way to play Tully is to use the cheap but plentiful characters to your advantage- strength buffs are key (Riverrun messenger isn't so crap when he's strength 5 from Hoster and LoW Robb), and that getting the blackfish to 3 power is vital. - so lots of standing cards etc. Once the blackfish is at 3 power, it's easy to sweep the board/wreck your opponents' hand/steal power back with a couple of claim 2 plots.

I'm interested in Tully deck building too. Now I play Tully in melee and find it quite effective (but without Riverrun). Here is my deck:

House Stark
The Siege of Winterfell

1x Fury of the Wolf
1x Building Season
1x Take Them by Surprise
1x Summoning Season
1x Fortified Position
1x Counting Favors
1x Family, Duty, Honor

3x Carrion Bird
3x Bolton Refugee
3x Hungry Mob
3x Guard at Riverrun
1x Hodor
1x Old Nan
1x Maester Vyman
1x Arya Stark
3x Peasant Defenders
3x Edmure's Host
2x House Tully Recruiter
3x Knight of the Tumblestone
1x Catelyn Stark
1x Eddard Stark
1x The Blackfish
1x Hoster Tully

3x Northern Fiefdoms
3x Narrow Sea
1x Lord Eddard's Chambers
1x Street of Steel
3x Frozen Moat
2x Frozen Outpost
1x Winterfell Castle

3x Lethal Counterattack
3x Endless Endurance
2x Make an Example
3x Bound by Duty

2x Northern Steel
1x Longclaw
1x Court Advisor
3x Rusted Sword

Would be grateful for any suggestions on improving the deck ( esp. for making use of Riverrun in melee).

Some comments:

1. The deck consists of cheap characters. So they are rarely become a target for opponent's harmful effects and loosing a pair of chars is not a big problem.

2. The deck uses Siege of Winterfell agenda. The best title for it is The Lord Commander. You should try to redirect and win military challenges to get extra power.

3. The plots provide extra draw (together with The Blackfish, Guard at Riverrun and Court Advisor). They give an opportunity to cooperate with other players (e.g. letting them draw a character/location/cards in exchange for their promise not to attack you for the next round).

4. Frozen Outpost and Frozen Moat locations are great helpers in defense (standing + strength + defense from stealth/deadly/other effects).

5. Rusted Sword is a very powerful attachment here. Not only it gives military icon that is so much needed in Siege of Winterfell deck but it jumps into play in challenges phase strengthening your characters unexpectedly for your opponents.

If you try to build totally defensive deck, consider using Rusted Sword (and maybe The Art of Diplomancy) with House Tully Septon. I don't use him here as 3 gold character is quite expensive for this deck.

6. Peasant Defenders + Weapon attachments is a very powerful combination (and cheap at the same time).

7. Arya Stark (Core) is good against chars with stealth (and can get renown).

8. Catelyn Stark (LoW) and Old Nan have been suggested and discussed above.

9. Events are aimed at changing the balance of strength in challenges unexpectedly for your opponents (except for Make an example that can change the whole game balance )).

Flintacs said:

I would lose Eddard for another copy of The Blackfish, lose Longclaw for Nymeria (Core), to fully appreciate Siege you can use Oxcross (it can force them to military you, giving you the opportunity to get power on defense), Storm of Swords and Mummers Ford are pretty good candidates. So is Whispering Wood to help you with some character control later on in the game. I really do think the most important thing is going to be tuning your plot deck a little more towards the agenda, and having 3x The Blackfish.

Mathias, thank you for your suggestions!

I will try some of them. Still I want to clarify some of my choices:

1. Why 1x Blackfish? This deck is much about attempting to be out of anyone's attention. Blackfish (esp. when it has 3 power) becomes one of the first targets for oppnent's effects. The deck does not have any means for protecting him so it can be killed (and other copies can become useless cards).

2. Why to use Eddard? Eddard has protection from effects and can be used to protect Blackfish as well. They are the most expensive and very valueable characters in the deck (due to their abilities and renown).

3. Why Longclaw? The cheapest renown and weapon at the same time. Great to use with Peasant Defenders for free - you get character with renown not kneeling in defense for 2 gold. Nymeria is quite expensive for the deck (usually playing this deck you either don't loose militaries or kill some very cheap characters for military claim).

4. Why all the "draw" plots instead of military supporting ones? The idea of the deck - splashing the table with cheap characters which are strong enough to win militaries. They are "easy come easy go" characters - so you should have steady draw to recover from global kills and keep your strength in militaries.

Fortified Position is a must against some characters like Melisandre (which prevents counting power on your characters).

Maybe some of plots can be substituted with Storm of Swords and/or Oxcross. I'll try.

5. Why not Whispering Wood? It just gives you opportunity to get more power. It does not help you to win the challenges (and killing one character without a military icon won't help you much in melee). Make en example is better for getting extra power.

Just a few quick thoughts...
1. Using 3x Blackfish will provide dupes to protect him. You can't expect to stay under the radar if you have the Blackfish in play, he is going to become "one of the first targets for opponents' effects" anyway, so you might as well have some protection for your 4 gold investment. (not that it applies to your deck right now, but I've always loved using CoS Arya + Red Wedding to get 2 quick power on Blackfish - it works better in joust when you can use targeted kill to eliminate your opponent's Lord/Lady characters, then RW can put 2 power on Blackfish and "kill" Arya back into Shadows)

6. Make an Example is good, but I agree that Whispering Woods would be a better option. MaE requires you to win a challenge by 8 STR, WW allows you to make an extra military challenge and provides some spot character kill... played properly, both will net you 3 power since you can make a challenge during the Epic phase against someone with no standing M characters and get 3 total power off your Agenda. WW is better imho for the extra 2-3 kills you'll get and it is way less situational - it might be difficult to get 8+ STR when you consider that your opponents' plot decks may include Threat from the North, multiple Valars, etc.

I'd say that the Blackfish and Riverrun are probably the only reason to run a Tully deck. A lot of the Tully characters aren't particularly cost-effective (except for say, Catelyn or Edmure's Host), and I'd say the key to running a potent Tully deck is one with as much protection for the Blackfish as you can get - King's Landing Ned, Triple Crown of Winter, nymeria to protect him from events and character abilities, Frozen solid, deepword mercenary etc. to get rid of nasty attachments on the guy.

The other way the Blackfish won't be a target is if he's the ONLY Tully (apart from, say, Catelyn) in your deck - but that's kind of defeating the point of running a Tully deck.

My point is that a deck built around Blackfish is one of another sort.

1. It would be slower.

- You are to put Blackfish into play as quickly as possible. 4 gold character in the beginning of the game means that you don't have 2-3 cheap characters instead. Usually I don't play him on 1-2 round.

- It takes time to fulfill all the needs: to have Blackfish + 3 power on him + defensive means + some Tullys.

- It needs huge investments in protection (2 gold attachments, 3 gold characters etc.)

2. Sometimes it would be worse in militaries (esp. in the beginning). Protection means use slots needed for military support.

3. It breaks "easy come easy go" strategy. More characters provide more options for fulfilling claims, participating in challenges and paying for Lethal Counterattack.

4. It is more fragile. Defending against 3 opponents is not that simple. Roughly speeking they have 3 to 1 chance to trigger offensive effect when you don't have one of yours to defend. Don't forget that you need to keep other Tullys alive to get much from Blackfish. Global resets will do a huge harm to this strategy.

On the other hand Blackfish deck has some advantages.

It can become strong in offense from 3 (sometimes 2) round if you manage to keep Blackfish and other Tullys in play.

Providing that you claim militaries 2-3 challenges in a round - it can bring you a lot of power with Siege of Winterfell (you will need cards for additional militaries).

Just having characters not kneeling in attack don't give you much advantage when they don't have renown.

Skowza said:

It's not a problem for this deck to have 8 STR in military. Apart from many characters you often have a Lord Commander title (+ 3STR) + bouncing Endless Endurance + Frozen Outposts + ... And this event is unexpected for your opponents while Epic phase is known beforhand.

It's very important when you lack only few power tokens to win. Make an example can be a game winner card as no one can prevent you from winning beforehand.

As I said, if you're just going to build a weenie deck, there's no point building it with Tullys- they arent' particularly cost effective characters, and while Robb and Hoster have the potential to make your Tullys nice and powerful, they both take a while to set up. But to each his own.

Tomdidiot said:

All characters I use cost 0-2 gold to put them into play (except for Edd and Blackfish). At the same time they are not so weak with support of locations/events/attachments. I just can't find a better theme for such deck. What would it be? Boltons?

Tomdidiot said:

I think this is a key point on Tully decks - they're pretty expensive characters for what you get. Keeping the Blackfish around will definitely require some tool-boxing, slowing the rush ability of Riverrun and getting a bunch of cheap characters out. But on the other hand using the Siege Agenda along with Blackfish should net a few power each turn, and using Riverrun could net a few power every now and then (in Joust anyways). So maybe slow and steady should be the method used.

I also think maybe a few surprises should be used instead of obvious stength buffs such as frozen outpost. If I can get an opponent to under-commit on attacks it will be easier to win. Distinct Mastery x3, Endless Endurance x3 are probably must haves. Or possibly To Be A Wolf instead of Distinct Mastery. There's also Widow's Watch from the new chapter pack, which will help find dups of key characters like Blackfish and Robb.

I think there's potential, but i'm still not sure the Tully's have enough umph to get around a well-tuned control deck like Martells.

Skowza said:

MaE only requires you to win a challenge in which you have 8+ STR in the challenge, you don't have to win by 8. I use it in my winter refugee deck. 2 refugee+LoW Robb +MaE= quick and easy power.