The Original concept behind this deck was to focus on Martell's Inherit trait of punishing their opponent's for winning challenges against them. Pretty straightforward. I also wanted to make it beat other Martell decks, as they are the best house in the game right now.

Agenda

Knights of the Hollow Hill - Offsets the low gold producing City plots. Enables Maester Wendamyr and Red Vengeance.

Plots

At the Gates - Searches out Wendamyr, the Most Valuable Player. Let the snowball begin.

City of Lies - City plot filler. May enable free Venomous Blades/Varys. Mediocre.

City of Spies - Worst plot by far, but more filler is necessary to make the latter half of the game dangerous. [edit] May be replaced with Forgotten Plans.

City of Secrets - Enables liberal use of Red Vengeance and Burning on the sand. My personal favorite.

City of Sin - Kneel before Zod.

City of Soldiers - At this point you can hear your opponent's heart break.

City of Spiders - And this is where you break their back.

(No Valar Morghulis. Blasphemous, I know. I'm not a fan of symmetrical effects, and I don't like being forced to play it after I've got board control)

Attachments - 6

3 Venomous Blade - Lose/Win. Essential for punishing rush decks. Attach to Wendamyr Only.

3 Taste for Blood - Lose/Win. Attach to Wendamyr as soon as possible..

Characters - 36

3 Maester Wendamyr - All 3 are necessary to protect your most valuable asset.

2 Ellaria Sand - Lose/Win. Slows down Renown based decks.

2 Areo Hotah - Lose/Win. Nuisance.

2 The Red Viper - Arguably the best card in Martell. Can't think of a reason not to include him. If FF restricts him, I would Cut him.

2 Arianne Martell - Potentially better than The Red Viper. Two Claim 2 plots makes Arianne a game winning character.

2 Maester of Lemonwood - Attachment control.

1 Varys - Ally Control.

1 Ser Arys Oakheart - More ally Control.

3 Herald of the Sun - Searches for duplicates, or Maester of Lemonwood/Ser Arys Oakheart

3 House Messanger - Card Draw.

3 Dornish Paramour - Card Draw. Can be reused via City of Secrets if you have no better options.

3 Lost Spearman - Best 1 cost character in Martell. I may swap one of them for a Bastard of Godsgrace.

3 Carrion Bird - Season control. Best 1 cost character in the game.

3 Refugee of the Citadel - Conventional wisdom says to play Refugees, so I do. I'm on the fence.

3 Orphan of the Greenblood - I haven't seen why this character is good yet and may remove him, but I'm willing to trust the statistics on him for now.

Events - 12

3 Red Vengeance - Lose/Win. I initially built this deck just so I could play this card. Better than Burning on the Sand.

3 Burning on the Sand - Automatic inclusion in any Martell deck. If FF restricts it, I would cut it over Venomous Blade.

3 Condemned by Council - Location Control. Opposing Lost Oasis' Nullify Wendamyr

3 He Calls it Thinking - Response Control. Slows down opposing Venomous Blades and counters opposing He Calls it Thinkings to protect Wendamyr

Locations - 6

3 Lost Oasis - Amazing card, but not necessary for my strategy, as I prefer to go second most rounds. Might cut it. [edit] On second thought, any card that has an affect on the state of the game and makes your opponent think twice about what they can do is good. More room for mistakes.

3 Palace Fountains - My average cost is pretty low, so I don't need many reducers, but I may include more to boost my Dominance winning potential.

Cards I am considering

3rd copies of Ellaria, Areo, The Viper, and Arianne. - I'm not a fan of losing card advantage with the Herald's but I don't like playing my Uniques without a Duplicate... six of one, half dozen of the other. Widow's Watch is not an option. I don't like playing a card that doesn't have an immediate effect on the game state.

2-3 Paper Shield - Event Control. May be better then He Calls it Thinking.

2-3 Ill Tidings - Attachment control, Season Control, and discards opposing Venomous Blades so it may be better then Maester of Lemonwood

2-3 Retreat - Unique character protection. Possible solution to my first conundrum. Might be a dead card in hand often times though...

[edit] Forgotten Plans - Solution to Fear of Winter.

What I'm looking for from the community, is some experiential advice about some of my card choices. I've played ten games at most, so I don't fully understand all of the interactions.

How do you use Maester Wendamyr with Martell characters?

"Response: Kneel Maester Wendamyr to save a GREYJOY character from being killed or discarded.

Then, you may kneel 2 influence or kneel a "Learned" character to stand that character."

lucarov said:

Maester Wendamyr is greyjoy, so he can kneel to save himself from being killed.

The biggest worry I'd guess you have is burn. Wend is only 1 str so a targ deck is going to quickly have him burnt away with no way to save him. I also think you are going to need more influence production. With the current setup you can use Wend or Red Veng but not both, I think adding in some influence producing locations will help so you can use both of them in 1 turn.

Also what's the plan for if they just stop attacking you and try to win through dominance? Your city plots give you alittle bit of help with this but you have so little military strength and are not much better in power that the average deck shouldn't have a problem marshalling enough people to defend most of your attacks and still win dominance.

I've tested it once against another Martell deck, and had no problems playing Red Vengeance, and activating Wendamyr. I simply have to play smart. I have played a bunch of dummy hands, and never felt that I needed more influence. Very rarely do I need to save Wendamyr twice, and when I did, I wasn't holding a Red Vengeance, which is usually played first in response to a lost military challenge anyways, so I won't have to kneel him. Second, I am playing 3 Wendamyr, so that if he is killed, I will most likely have a duplicate to discard to protect him.

Targ may very well be my worst match, but I can't attest to that currently, and if it is, I will adapt the deck to shore up it's weakness as much as I can without weakening the more common match ups. No deck is almighty, and the top four decks of the regionals tournament were Martell.

If they're clever/dumb enough (I can't decide which it is) to not attack me, all the better. I am going to destroy their hand through Intigue challenges, giving me an edge over time, and they're not going to win fast enough through Dominance alone, and if the game lasts until I reveal City of Sin, City of Soldiers, and City of Spiders, combined with Arianne, Lost Oasis, and Orphan of the Greenblood, I can push through to win.

thx for answers...

tomorrow i'll try this deck... there is a regional tournment report/decklist post please?

I don't know if there are any reports or deck lists. I talked to one of guys that evening that made the top four, all of whom were running Martell. He was running a seasonal(summer) deck, but I didn't ask about the rest.

I am not a huge fan of KotHH in joust. If your opponent has fear of winter, you lose (Since you dont have valar).

Otherwise, pretty cool idea. I think it has some weaknesses though.

1. Fear of Winter is restricted, so most people won't be playing it over better cards for their house. If you play in an area where a lot of the players are using it, you can counter it with Forgotten Plans, which is better than Valar.

2. Every deck has a weakness. If they didn't, the game would be unbalanced, and pointless to play.

Every House has an easy way to deal with him. Stark has targetted kill and a single Bear Island means you're going to have to save MW twice every round... anything that cancels triggered effects will shut him down... He Calls it Thinking, To Be a Kraken, etc. Martell will VB or Poisoned Knife him, Lannister will simply kneel him at which point you have nothing to stand him back up, Targ doesn't even need a card, they just flip Threat from the North and he and all his dupes disappear... none of these are uncommon cards.

I think bear island is uncommon.

No offense, but are you disagreeing with my post or just nitpicking? Bear Island was an example of targetted kill and Stark has plenty of it.

Bear Island isn't too big of a concern as my first priority is to attach a Taste for Blood to Wendamyr, and I usually attach Venomous Blade to him to protect it in case of Valar Morghulis. I also run 3 Condemned by Council as location control.

Three He Calls it Thinking counter opposing response based effects, and if Wendamyr's response is countered, I kill off a character, no big deal.

To be Kraken is annoying, but Greyjoy is the Worst house in the game. It's the most underplayed competitively, and statistically not much of a concern.

Very few Martell decks run Poisoned Knife. It's a mediocre card, and I can save a gold if I see it .

Can you name some specific cards that Lannister might use to kneel him?

If someone really wants to waste the space in their plot deck with Threat from the North, I have no problem with that. First, it only makes me discard Wendamyr, and I will gladly play second one at a penalty of two gold. Second, I have been contemplating playing Forgotten Plans in my plot deck to counter Fear of Winter and Valar Morghulis, which covers Threat from the North.

Even if Wendamyr is neutralized, Martell still has some of the best cards in the game. He's not the backbone of the deck, just a highly effective tool.

JasonSaastad said:

Forgotten Plans protects against neither Valar nor Threat.

I forgot about that, but the main reason for inclusion of Forgotten Plans is for a solution to Fear of Winter. I still stand by my opinion that Threat from the North is a mediocre plot, and that it should only be used as a meta-solution. Also, it's still just a discard effect and I can still play the second or third copies of Wendamyr. Valar can still be played around by not over-extending your board position.

Ok, I'd be interested in hearing how the deck does after some more games, what your best and worst matchups are.

- City of Spies, + Forgotten Plans

Bad. I wanted it to be City of Spies all night. Losing to Fear of Winter is a risk I am willing to take.

-1 Areo Hotah, +1 The Red Viper

I might have lost a game due to this, as I drew 3 Venomous Blades against a Stark/Siege of Winterfell deck running very few 2 strength characterswhen I could have used Aero to kill many 4+ strength characters, but I think it's more due to my misplaying Burning on the Sand too early, not kneeling a character in the last turn that had Renown when I bypassed another character via Lost Oasis, initiating a challenge with my Carrion Bird when I should have left it standing to oppose a military challenge so my opponent did not get a power on his house for being unopposed, and not understanding the timing of Red Vengeance and claim. So many mistakes...

-1 Ellaria Sand, +1 Arriane Martell

Nothing positive or negative to say here. More testing is necessary. I didn't miss her, but she may be useful against Baratheon, which I did not play against.

-1 Maester of Lemonwood, -1 Varys, +2 Ill Tidings

I didn't play against any seasonal decks, but I think it's the right choice. More testing is necessary.

-1 Condemned By Council, -1 He Calls it Thinking, +2 Paper Shield

More testing is necessary. I didn't pay enough attention to whether or not He Calls it Thinking would have been better.

I played some test games against one Lannister deck with an amateur pilot, so I can't say whether or not I would have won that one with a different player in the seat, but we played 3 games, two of which weren't too difficult, and the third I just flattened my opponent with multiple Lost Oasis.

I lost a game where I should have taken a mulligan for my opening hand, on top of several other misplays against the Stark deck, but I'm pretty sure it's easily winnable.

I easily won my second match against another Martell/Brotherhood deck with another amateur pilot. The build didn't seem optimal either.

My third round opponent played an experimental Targaryen deck with approximately 30 attachments 12 characters including Viserys Targaryen from Kings of the Sea. No useful information came from this match.

Overall, I didn't get too much useful information about the deck. Ugh.

.

- City of Spies, + Forgotten Plans

Bad. I wanted it to be City of Spies all night. Losing to Fear of Winter is a risk I am willing to take.

-1 Areo Hotah, +1 The Red Viper

I might have lost a game due to this, as I drew 3 Venomous Blades against a Stark/Siege of Winterfell deck running very few 2 strength characterswhen I could have use Aero to kill many 4+ strength characters, but I think it's more due to my misplaying Burning on the Sand too early, not kneeling a character in the last turn that had Renown when I bypassed another character via Lost Oasis, initiating a challenge with my Carrion Bird when I should have left it standing to oppose a military challenge so my opponent did not get a power on his house for being unopposed, and not understanding the timing of Red Vengeance and claim. So many mistakes...

-1 Ellaria Sand, +1 Arriane Martell

Nothing positive or negative to say here. More testing is necessary. I didn't miss her, but she may be useful against Baratheon, which I did not play against.

-1 Maester of Lemonwood, -1 Varys, +2 Ill Tidings

I didn't play against any seasonal decks, but I think it's the right choice. More testing is necessary.

-1 Condemned By Council, -1 He Calls it Thinking, +2 Paper Shield

More testing is necessary. I didn't pay enough attention to whether or not He Calls it Thinking would have been better.

I played some test games against one Lannister deck with an amateur pilot, so I can't say whether or not I would have won that one with a different player in the seat, but we played 3 games, two of which weren't too difficult, and the third I just flattened my opponent with multiple Lost Oasis.

I lost a game where I should have taken a mulligan for my opening hand, on top of several other misplays against the Stark deck, but I'm pretty sure it's easily winnable.

I easily won my second match against another Martell/Brotherhood deck with another amateur pilot. The build didn't seem optimal either.

My third round opponent played an experimental Targaryen deck with approximately 30 attachments 12 characters including Viserys Targaryen from Kings of the Sea. No useful information came from this match.

Overall, I didn't get too much useful information about the deck. Ugh.

.

- City of Spies, + Forgotten Plans

Bad. I wanted it to be City of Spies all night. Losing to Fear of Winter is a risk I am willing to take.

-1 Areo Hotah, +1 The Red Viper

I might have lost a game due to this, as I drew 3 Venomous Blades against a Stark/Siege of Winterfell deck running very few 2 strength characterswhen I could have use Aero to kill many 4+ strength characters, but I think it's more due to my misplaying Burning on the Sand too early, not kneeling a character in the last turn that had Renown when I bypassed another character via Lost Oasis, initiating a challenge with my Carrion Bird when I should have left it standing to oppose a military challenge so my opponent did not get a power on his house for being unopposed, and not understanding the timing of Red Vengeance and claim. So many mistakes...

-1 Ellaria Sand, +1 Arriane Martell

Nothing positive or negative to say here. More testing is necessary. I didn't miss her, but she may be useful against Baratheon, which I did not play against.

-1 Maester of Lemonwood, -1 Varys, +2 Ill Tidings

I didn't play against any seasonal decks, but I think it's the right choice. More testing is necessary.

-1 Condemned By Council, -1 He Calls it Thinking, +2 Paper Shield

More testing is necessary. I didn't pay enough attention to whether or not He Calls it Thinking would have been better.

I played some test games against one Lannister deck with an amateur pilot, so I can't say whether or not I would have won that one with a different player in the seat, but we played 3 games, two of which weren't too difficult, and the third I just flattened my opponent with multiple Lost Oasis.

I lost a game where I should have taken a mulligan for my opening hand, on top of several other misplays against the Stark deck, but I'm pretty sure it's easily winnable.

I easily won my second match against another Martell/Brotherhood deck with another amateur pilot. The build didn't seem optimal either.

My third round opponent played an experimental Targaryen deck with approximately 30 attachments 12 characters including Viserys Targaryen from Kings of the Sea. No useful information came from this match.

Overall, I didn't get too much useful information about the deck. Ugh.

.

Ignore this post.

I played a few games today against very competent players.

Game 1 was versus a Greyjoy/Maester's Path deck

Control versus control. His deck did some neat tricks, but in the end wasn't able to put enough pressure on me or assemble his shenanigans fast enough. I feel like Greyjoy is not a house worth playing in Joust right now. They lack the oomph and cohesion that the other houses have, and annoying save effects can only do so much.

Game 2 was versus a Targaryen/Heir to the Iron Throne deck.

Another control versus control match. Without burn, I don't think Targaryen is worth playing either. Their high priced dragons are what win the games, but they need to buy time with the burn to really win from my (limited) experience.

Game 3 was against a Targaryen/Kings of Summer deck with lots of removal.

I made a few play mistakes which allowed him to snowball his way to victory. I was playing catch up after the third round because I chose the wrong plot. It's not impossible to beat, but definitely in their favor. I am going to play around with some higher strength characters to see if I can make it more resilient to burn, sacrificing some of my ability to fight off aggressive decks. I underestimated Threat from the North.

Perhaps

-3 Orphan of the Greenblood

-3 Refugee of the Citadel

+3 Southron Mercenaries/The Viper's Bannermen

+1 Shadowblack Lane

+1 Street of Sisters

+1 Street of Steel

I finished off the day with a couple of four player Melee games with the same list. A few mistakes in the first game cost me the ability to compete. The second one was very close with lots of house power exchanges. In the end I won with all three of my opponents at 14 power. It was a great game.

I'm still learning the intricacies of each of the houses/agendas and rules/timing.

Orphan of the Greenblood are one of the best characters in the world ever, I strongly recommend not removing them from your deck.

I understand why everyone likes them so much. He is useful for nerfing a character for a round, and is great at making The Red Viper a GOD for a round, but in my testing, he is no more than claim fodder. He is a good character, just not a great character. In my experience with card games, threats are always better than answers, and The Orphan of Greenblood falls under the latter category. All I'm saying is that he shouldn't be an auto-include into every Martell deck. That kind of thinking is what leads to a stagnant, uncreative metagame.