Hello you beautiful, beautiful people.

Here's the situation. I got my friend into A Game of Thrones a while ago. He was cool just getting the Core Set and a couple chapter packs, but I strongly suggested that he should get the Stark and Baratheon expansions, which he did. He felt a little overwhelmed, so I suggested a couple of deck builds for him, which he followed.

Jump forward three months later.

I cannot beat these decks (or pretty much ANY deck he runs now). He got good, and I fashioned the very knives he uses to stab me with on a weekly basis. I am tired of losing to these decks, so I've made it my goal to build a deck that can beat BOTH his Bara deck and his Stark deck.

I'm asking you guys for suggestions. Here are the highlights of the two decks:

Baratheon:

He runs Knights of the Realm, so he's generally at a draw advantage from the start of the game.

He runs a lot of influence providing locations, and then he runs Ser Parmen Crane to soak up any military claim.

He runs King Renly (Storm) to get characters out, and then Core Set Robert and Stannis, along with the rainbow guard.

He runs Lordship along with Knighted, so his knights become lords and his lords become knights.

He overwhelms me with Renown-characters and wins.

Stark:

He runs what I call "Lady of the Wolves."

First chance he gets, he searches for Sansa.

Then he proceeds to search out and play every Direwolf attachment on her. This also functions as a pretty efficient draw engine.

Eventually, he's got Guard at Riverrun in play, and with the STR-lowering ability of Shaggydog, it becomes almost impossible to win military challenges, so the Guard takes over as his draw engine.

Add a mix of house tully synergy with Winterfell Castle, and I get crushed.

So what deck can beat BOTH these decks? Bonus points if it's not a Stark or Baratheon deck.

I suspect it's Martell, because that's the only house I can think of that could keep up with Bara's knights. But I don't know how to control Sansa's wolves, and that's a big problem.

If you have any ideas, I'm in your debt.

Cheers,

Nate

Maybe a Martell Brotherhood deck?

My thinking vs Bara Knight:

-Getting Beric out early gives you an unkillable Knight to reduce his draw after Valars

-Edric Dayne can kneel/discard his influence locations and provide a Lord to stop Stannis.

-Burning on the Sands for challenges where he commits a lot of renown characters.

-Ellaria Sand can slow down renown characters.

-Taste for blood, Beric, and maybe the Viper produces a pretty fast power gain yourself

-Fury of the Sun works on Bara, an intrigue challenge should be pretty easy to win and you can return a character with loads of power/attachments to his hand. You have to watch out for his Fury though, and you couldn't use Venomous Blade.

-Game of Cyvasse will be pretty very useful against renown due to his lack of intrigue.

Vs Stark:

-Flaming sword on Beric and other key characters means Shaggydog can't reduce their strength

-Venomous Blade can take out Sansa and the Guard (if you don't use the Fury anyway) and won't be stopped by strength buffs like the wolves and the castle.

-Burning on the Sands stops his key military challenges

-Beric won't be killed by all the military claim.

Milk of the Poppys would also be really useful to blank Sansa and the key Bara characters.

Alternatively, maybe Targ to burn through all the Bara saves and control Sansa's attachments easier?

Alando, I think this is brilliant.

Thanks so much.

Eldil said:

This is exactly the way to get a favourable response from me.

Alando gave you excellent advice already; I'd really like to try to help you out some, too, but first I need to know about the card pool you have at your disposal.

Do you have Queen of Dragons yet? A Targ burn deck running Heir to the Iron Throne would probably handle both of them well. The extra power challenges would help slow down the Bara deck and the burn could easily knock out key Stark characters since it sounds like he isn't just overwhelming you with weenies. Meereenese Brothels can take care of the attachments for both decks pretty easily and Sun Stroke would be great against a Bara deck since it prevents saves and allows you to kill a character if he tries to push through big challenges with renown characters. A Summer Agenda deck with Shade of the Evening would give you some powerful draw too.

Sorry, I should have posted my card pool with my original please.

3 x Core Set

3 x Kings of the Sea

1.5 x Princes of the Sun (3 of everything)

1 x Stark, Baratheon, and Targaryen Expansions

1 x Every chapter pack

Run an intrigue heavy Martell deck

Load up on events and charcters like Underhanded Assassin especially against Baratheon, if hes running crane and a ton of renown he probably won't have many 2str charcters

as for Stark, run a targ attachment deck so you can destroy Sansa as soon as he builds her up

2 things.

First, he is probably cheating by lording his knights because that attachment is a title and the knghts (the mayority) are no attachments or no attachments except weapon.

Second, if what bothers you about sansa is the draw machine...you can use her ability too, so you can draw by giving her attachments.

Cheers and good luck.

BTW, i'm running a bara knight too and i can't beat martell. Well, not always anyway (hate the plot of the one on one battle.)

choco said:

Thanks for the feedback; I'll keep an eye out for Lordship, but I think he generally plays it on the handful of knights that allow attachments.

As for Sansa's ability: it's my understanding that since it's a response, it's a triggerable effect, and therefore the card's controller decides whether or not it triggers. So I don't think I can use Sansa's draw ability (unless my opponent allows it).

Cheers,

Nate

Eldil said:

Correct.

Against a baratheon renown deck try the Lannisters. Nothing more frustrating than having all your renown characters knelt constantly. If they're running a knights agenda- who cares- you have the Golden tooth mines and Tyrion. And you have a few knights of your own as well. Jhalabar Xho to cancel renown. Brothel, Cersei's attendants, Lions Will, Lions Law, Informers, Shae to kneel his renown characters. And if he has some characters that aren't knelt -I'm Writ You Small and Lannister Pays His Debts events and kiss his renown character with 5 power from play. If your Lannister against a stark with attachments there's one simple solution- Fury of the Lion. Or jsut let him waste those attachments and then kneel him anyway.

As you allready figured, Martell is probably the best house to deal with them.

Burning on the sand let's you stop Baratheorn when he commits a lot of renown chars in a challenge (and blocks vigilant too), and comes usefull to stop high claim military challenges from Stark too...

Venomous blades will totally RUIN Sansa, couse they consider only PRINTED strenght and not effective Str.

A Game of Cyvasse let's you return in his hand most problematic chars, discarding all attachments and powers on them, and since both Bara and Stark are poor intriguers it should be easy to use too.

Finally, while Martell are quite fast to gain power too, they are also masters in slowing the opponent, thanks to Orphans of Greenblood, Taste for Blood, Ellaria Sand and their powerfull events, so they are perfect for your task.

If not, I thin Lannister kneel would work well against Baratheorn, and Targaryan burn will deal pretty good versus both if builded correctly.

Finally, as allready said, Brotherhood are a great option too.

Trait manipulation out of Lannister should make him cry. Use Lion's Gate to discard his renown power and make the character an Ally, then have Ser Arys or Varys pop in and say "hi". Kneel all his characters. Get rid of everything in his hand with Rule by Decree and heavy intrigue. Throw down Milk of the Poppy to blank his best characters.

I don't think Rule By Decree is very good to run in a Lannister deck. They have a lot of draw and it's more likely to hit yourself. Everything else was on point though.

Depends if the deck is running more draw than the other guy. If it's specifically a magic bullet for his friend's deck, there's a good chance he'll be outdrawn even out of Lanni. Really, it's a just a question of who usually has more cards in hand.

I would put my vote in for the Lannister Trait Manipulation/Hyper Kneel deck. The kneel will be able to keep his characters from attacking you or blocking your challenges and there is nothing he will be able to do about it. Use Lion's Gate with YKtWD and Dissension to get rid of characters easily and Then you can use the Copper Link to make characters Ravens during challenges and shuffle them back into their owner's deck when you win Military challenges with your Carrion Birds.

Here is a list of cards you have to include...

Distraction

You Killed the Wrong Dwarf

Lion's Gate

Golden Tooth Mines

Enemy Informer

Carrion Bird

Dissension

Castellan of the Rock

Ser Arys Oakheart

Tyrion Lannister

3-5 Maester Characters (Aemon, Pycelle, Qyburn, and Creylen are who I run)

at least 6-8 other Shadows Cards to trigger that **** dwarf(Syrio, Varys, Pyromancer's Apprentice, Achemist's Guild Hall just to name a few)

As long as this is there as your base you can fill in the rest however you see fit. Good Luck!