Greetings, still newbie, Im trying to put together solid Berric deck.

Despite my tries to have other house than martell, well... I ended with Martell... (VB, BotS, ToB)
Base is Berric, Thoros, Angury, Catelyn in memoriam, Oakhearth, Flea Bottom Scav... etc.
But Im not sure in few points. Firstly location antitech. Fleeing the Wall probably, but I even cosidered mance Rayder (solid trico neutral)...ideas?
And attachment control via Maester of lemonwood...but is it enough?
And thirdly...plot cards. Which are "auto include"? Fury is sacrificed for VB... Im not sure about summoning season...finds Berric, but maybe helps opponent too much...

Thanks for suggestions:)

Ulrik_Decado said:

Fleeing to the Wall is indeed a good choice for location control. I also suggest Condemned by the Council (neutral event playable in any house, but since keyed off winning intrigue challenges, a good card for intrigue focused houses like Martell).

Attachment control options include the Maester of Lemonwood and one of my new favorites, Ill Tidings (due to the plethora of maesters in house Martell). Note that Ill Tidings can also be used for seasonal control since it can affect the ravens. If you want to consider out of house, non-neutral options there are more possibilities. One of my favorite out of house options is the Meereenese Brothel from house Targaryen.

I don't like the search plots for joust (though some people do). I also don't like "auto-include" plots but there are some that I see in many if not most decks. "Retaliation" is one of them. Since "Loyalty Money Can Buy" came out it has become ubiquitous and the same goes for "Valar Morghulis". That said, there are other ways one can go as well. The new City plot "At the Gates" seems pretty popular and if one wanted to go with the City plot theme is a fantastic opener. If you are building your deck for melee, go wild with the search plots, since they are good for that format in forging temporary alliances and generating good will with other players at the table.

Other general input would be to consider the "House Messenger". I like them a lot. Some like the "Dornish Paramour" as well. For Brotherhood, I'd recommend you take a look at "The Mad Huntsman". He's a great brotherhood character with a nice ability.

Good luck, and have fun. Hope I've given you some things to think about.

I quit playing my Martell Brotherhood deck b/c I got bored with it, but I don't think I was using any location destruction; Condemned by the Council or Pyromancers Apprentice are probably your best options. Maester of Lemonwood should handle your attachment control needs; Ill Tidings is ok but I could never make room for it with all those wonderful Martell events available. Have to say I disagree on the OOH Meereenese Brothel suggestion since other Houses don't lower STR the way Targ does, so you would need to dedicate valuable deck space to it.
Most of my plots were chosen to help provide gold since you can't discount those neutral characters with Seas... I believe I was using (pre-restricted list) Song of Summer, Fury, Valar, Retaliation, Summoning Season, Mutual Blackmail, and Prince That Was Promised. I agree you could use Loyalty Money Can Buy instead of the Fury plot, I would say the auto-includes are Retaliation, Summoning Season (maybe, split opinion on this one - it will let you find Beric, Lady SH, or Thoros, whichever you don't draw into) and Prince That Was Promised b/c Beric with a Flaming Sword and Venomous Blade and Poisoned Knife when you have an Alchemist's Shop out is an absolute powerhouse.
Is this for joust or melee?

Skowza said:

My Stark direwolves deck lowers strength very well and so takes good advantage of the Meereenese Brothel. I would agree that it may take more work to get it to go off reliably in other houses unless one was willing to dedicate a plot selection to "Threat from the North". In my Stark deck, I'm not allocating any additional resources that I wouldn't already have in the deck to allow the brothel to work, so I feel it works brilliantly.

Thanks for responses, it was really helpful! I forgot to add that its for joust.
I hope I wont be bored too soon:) Maybe I´ll switch after "being bored" to another house... but all those martell events...dunno, its big lose:)

It would work really well in a Direwolf deck, but I wouldn't use Threat From the North in a Brotherhood deck, and I wouldn't choose a plot that is really only being included to make OOH attachment control work. I'm starting to think TFtN is a real liability considering the possibility of lots of Targ burn in the competitive environment since the box came out... I may take it out of my Direwolf deck soon, Direwolves are only effective with TFtN when your opponent attacks (and with Greywind), but as someone who plays primarily Targ, I gotta say I would love to see a non-Targ opponent flip that plot so my Forever Burning and other non-kill burn effects are suddenly providing very effective board control.

Skowza said:

No doubt on your point of non-Targ players playing TFtN, Skowza. I agree with you there. Targ burn is nasty enough with their own TFtN - it can be quite the lethal liability to give them another round of burniness. It's not in my Direwolf deck either. My deck's worst match-up is in fact Targ burn.

Think to yourself: how good is your deck if beric isnt out? Garbage. Put in summoning season just in case.

Cards to run:

Paper Shield, Burning on the Sands, He calls it thinking.

maester of lemonwood, flaming sword, taste for blood

various other martell characters

Soooo, here is first version, feel free to comment, criticize and so on Thanks:)

House Martell 1

Agenda
The Brotherhood Without Banners 1

Beric Dondarrion 3
Thoros of Myr 2
Tom Sevenstrings 2
Lem Lemoncloak 1
Lady Stoneheart 2
The Mad Huntsman 2
Jack-be-Lucky 1
Anguy the Archer 3
Flea Bottom Scavenger 3
Arianne Martell 1
Ser Aerys Oakheart 1
Orphan of the Greenblood 2
Maester of Lemonwood 2
Lost Spearman 2
Pyromancer's Apprentice 1
Ellaria Sand 1
Old Nan 1

Stoney Sept 1
Alchemist's Shop 1
Lord Doran's Chambers 1
Water Garden 2
Street of Steel 1
Street of Sisters 1
Shadowblack Lane 1

Gossip and Lies 3
Whispers from the Hill 2
Burning on the Sand 3
Ill Tidings 1
Condemned by the Council 2

Flaming Sword 2
Venomous Blade 3
Taste for Blood 3
Milk of the Poppy 1
Devious Intentions 2

Valar Morghulis 1
Many Powers Long Asleep 1
Retaliation! 1
Summoning Season 1
The Prince That Was Promised 1
Fleeing to the Wall 1
To the Spears! 1

I don't particularly see a reason why you need 2 Lady Stoneheart based on how she works.

Why is jack be lucky in the deck? Not a huge fan

Why no red viper?

Otherwise not too bad.

Lady Stonehearth... well, to be sure to draw her soon enough. I have Summoning Season, but with my luck I would begin with Lem and Maester... So first choice would be Beric... And second copy protects her from returning to hand. I rather see her dead than returned and paid again! )

Jack is experiment. I added one to see if I really need/ will use his ability. Problem is that community here is really small and I havent enough games to play...

Red Viper... 5 looks to me pretty expensive and without added protection, he is to simply valarized. And to be honest, my first deck are Martell with RV star and Im a little bit tired of him:)

I was considering neutral Loras Tyrell, but his non-kneel need for power and no renown isnt enough. Maybe I could add Preston Greenfield (TTotH) and Southron Mercenaries (but no attschments is maybe a little drawback with ToB)

I dropped Shield Paper, because we are not sure if at closest tournament will be targ expansion legal.

Dorne was really helpful in my deck. You do want 2x Lady Stoneheart, better chance you will draw into her, and she might get discarded from hand or from play (Marched to the Wall, Varys, Ser Arys, etc). If you aren't using Summoning Season, the deck better be able to hold out until Beric shows up... I always thought of my deck as a tripod, with Thoros, Beric, and Lady Stoneheart being the base of the deck. I built it to drop Beric or LSH in setup, and hopefully have one of the remaining 2 characters in my hand after drawing the first Round. If not, I should have Flea Bottom Scavengers to get the draw engine going, and if I put Beric down in setup and had Thoros in hand, Summoning Season for his dupe. By the time I got all 3 characters on the table I was usually pretty safe and the game ended pretty quickly.
To be honest, I got bored with it b/c it never lost, and because I hate Eastwatch by the Sea. I'm not saying it was a tier 1 deck or anything, but I won every melee I played with it, one game a Bara deck even discarded my second LSH from play on the same turn that he Furied my Thoros away and used him for claim when another opponent did a M challenge and the deck still just rolled over everyone a few rounds later. This may partially be due to lack of Milk among my meta... I was usually playing against 5 Milks total in a 3 or 4 player game... does everyone still think Milk is an auto-include?

Eastwatch by the Sea? It "cancels" effect of Brotherhood agenda? I thought that each time you move power to house card, you relocate it to Brotherhood char...?

Eastwatch-by-the-Sea lets your opponent move power to your house card, Brotherhood Without Banners only deals with you claiming or moving power to your house card.

Yea, you pretty much have to have reliable location destruction to take care of Eastwatch or pray you don't end up playing against a Bara player who is using it, I don't know how often one would see Eastwatch being used, it seems like Bara isn't seeing much play at regionals. But once the power is on your house card, it's really hard to get it back off... off the top of my head, Besieged Shipyard and Orphaned Recruit are the only options. I was using the Orphans, but toward the end I was trying to slot Stoney Sept into the deck so I could bounce the Orphans to control Eastwatch effect a little better.

Darksbane said:

Well, first play went... to hell.

My friend/ opponent was lazy and just copies some pre-restricted Lanni shadow kneel deck that won World Championship (as he said)...ad well...it was soon cleared.

Lanni kneel is boring as hell and this one was... He got early Castellan, Beric got Fury-ed and knelt all the time and when I played Valar to win with Anguy, he luckily chose City of Soldiers...

But I learned... Old Nan is too expensive and useless, Jack Too. I need MORE location control, more gold providing locations. And I need to explain him that restricted mean restricted...:/

Any other ideas how to stand those kneeling bastards?

Well first off, ask your opponent to play a legal deck. Honestly, though, that should help quite a bit.

The only addition I would make might be Cannot be bribed, cannot be bought, but it is a bit specific. Otherwise, focus your utility on his kneeling effects; Arys and Venomous Blade on characters, Pyromancer's Apprentice on locations, Burning Sands on challenges, etc.

Ulrik_Decado said:

Boy, that seems fair... your newb version 1.0 build (no offense ) vs a tourney winner that he copied off the forums.

Ulrik_Decado said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but power on moribund characters still counts toward victory... therefore if you play Valar and he plays City of Soldiers, the "when revealed" effects go off in the order determined by first player, and Anguy can claim power even if he is Moribund (I think) and you would have won even if Anguy was in a Moribund state...
Have you considered Summer for the additional gold? Would also let you use Maester of the Sun for some additional saves.

Ulrik_Decado said:

For Neutral characters? Not much help available there. Obey the King if you can get some power on them. He Calls it Thinking and Paper Shield can cancel some of his kneel.

Shenanigans said:

Few day after, I must say that game changer was the Fury. I lost Taste of Blood and he was short of any other attachment control. In final, I could have 6 power from Taste and with Anguy I would win... Castellan was boring and annoying but killable...

And I need more gold production/ cost reducers. And maybe second Milk of the Poppy.

SKOWZA: Oh, none offense taken, you are right:)

One rules question - If I bring Lady Stoneheart in dominance phase, her STR counts, doesnt?

Ulrik_Decado said:

No, you have no opportunity to take player actions before Dominance is awarded; you can bring something out of Shadows at the beginning of the phase, but that's the only opportunity to put a character into play and have its STR count toward Dominance.

Skowza said: