LUke, my other claim 1 plot was Wildfire Assault. I know, perhaps a bit strange with me running dups, but I only ever planned to play it defensively if I were behind on the board and didn't want someone to come out of the reset better than me b/c they had saves.

I did have a couple of Price of Wars in my deck, but against Fatmouse I couldn't get off a successful mil with my War crests to trigger it. And he was undermining my Mil claim 2 attacks with Wyndemyr plus influence enough to trigger him twice for two saves.

Old Nan + Carrion is an oldie but a goodie, that said I was leaning away from having her in my deck until Lars encouraged me to do so.

Fieras, my restricted card was Fear of Winter.

So... I think its

Eric - Martell/Summer - Venomous Blade

Me - Martell/Alliance - Val

Anthony - Greyjoy/Winter - Fear of Winter

Dan - Targ/??? - ???? (I didn't play him)

Jason - Stark/Siege - Fear of Winter

Kyle - Martell/Brotherhood - Venomous Blade

Rich - Targaryen/??? - (None I think)

??? - Stark/Siege - ??? (Possibly FoW)

Ryan - Lannister/??? - Castellian of the Rock

Dan/Jason don't you guys have the deck lists to just verify the info?

bloodycelt said:

They were destroyed in a freak fire.

Maester_LUke said:

~longclaw would protest here, having beaten me in game five of the DC regional with his lanni kneel deck -- i've already lost two tournament games this year, off to a dubious start

finitesquarewell said:

noob

@LetsGoRed, I'm thinking Wildfire was quite a good choice, actually. I saw the table getting splashed hardcore in all your games, and it could give you a real leg-up in those games if you hit it just right. I like it better than Valar, not just because of the extra claim, but the extra gold and initiative is useful too. It may be replacing Valar in most of my decks henceforth.

WolfgangSenff said:

As Staglord would say, "Valar is just a crutch!"

kpmccoy21 said:

I'm pretty sure that would be, "Vlaar si jsut a curcht!"

Very funny, Kyle. How charming.

Nontheless - I almost hope Valar doesn't get Restricted. Like someone once said: "then people will see that Wildfire is the superior plot and opposition deck quality will improve across the field."

Stag Lord said:

Heh, sorry. I do hope Valar doesn't get restricted though - it would be a real shame if it did. It's really appropriate in some decks, I think, even with the terrible claim. I'm convinced it's actually all about the claim now, after Erick's deck laid the beats on me with several janky 2-claimers.

Now to build my Targ Heir deck using Focused Offense and Qartheen Rookery...

Wildfire is great for decks that have a decent enough consistent character control that its effectively 3 - 0 chars.

(Lannister Stark, and Targ)

Valar is great for decks that focus heavily on weenies or saving. And don't need claim to grab power (renown, unopposed).

(Martell Summer, Greyjoy, Baratheon)

Threat is awesome for decks that have high str characters and some strength reduction.

(Stark Direwolf, Targ, Army decks)

Westeros Bleeds is awesome for reminding people why IAF style Greyjoy would not be a good thing for the environment. (I am still trying to build a deck that can recursivley bring this card back enough so that I discard all characters every turn of the game... mostly as a proof of concept on just how NPE you can make a deck).

No one will ever convince me that Valar is "great" for anything - except to save you when your opponent has a better start.

i buy the argument that the game is designed so that resets are necessary - but Valar isn't the answer. Sorry, but it takes no skill to deal with Red Viper (say) by flipping a Plot. It is a much more entertaining and challenging agme with Wildfire, Bleeds, maybe a Winter Storm reprint (that would be optimal) - but I'll never be happy with Valar in the environment.

Especially with no counters, now that Narrow is pretty much banned. Gods - I wish Outfox was reprinted. But I don't expect Valar to go anywhere. Teh deisgenrs love it, the control players love it - so it is what ti is.

In case people are still interested, my Targ's restricted card was Narrow Escape. It was fantastic in most games, and merely *good* in a couple games. (@Targplayers: Don't leave home without it.) Though it's obvious, it's worth mentioning that playing NE with the new Drogo is a pretty incredible draw engine on its own. Grabbing 1-2 dupes for Jhogo and an extra Horseback Archers can swing a game against Martell.

A few other Targ cards that are underrated:

--Unburnt. Erick may attest to this one...it was pretty funny to watch his reaction as I repeatedly bounced guys to hand and replayed them (My favorite is carrion bird + samwell, but urnburnt on refugees with LDC in play is pretty fun too, especially when Xaro's Home is also in play.)

--Rakharo's Arakh. This is one many people will disagree with, but I find the 1-influence (typically) 3+ STR boost pretty useful...often much more so than Horseback Archers. Post-Valar, the boost is usually at least 5 STR...all for 1 influence (often ambushed in as a surprise). Really not that shabby.

--Advisor to the Crown. I originally had two of these in the Targ deck, but bumped it to 3x after DC regionals. Honestly, this is the best source of influence Targ has, especially when combined with At the Gates. And it's also pretty neat that you can kill him when he's kneeling, then play NE to get him back standing and ambush a second card.

Im curious did you run any kingsroad fiefdoms? or Red Keep also did u run Jhogos Whip or any Bones of the Child?

sry but my interest is piqued whenever someone runs a Targ deck that isnt garbage like every targ deck i design

jack merridew said:

No, didn't run any of those. A few basic principles when running non-summer builds (summer is obviously a little different):

Manage the resource curve

Run cards that *can* use influence but don't always need it. For example, Myrish Villa and Horseback Archers are now Targ staples as far as I'm concerned. They're solid cards that provide a use for the influence you have, but don't sit in your hand if it takes you longer to get to the influence. After playing with a lot of resource allocations, I now apply the Magic The Gathering resource guidelines to AGOT influence: Basically, count up all the influence costs you have (1x Dragon Thief = 2, 1x Horseback Archers = 1, 2x Hatchling Feast = 6, etc.), then divide by 2. The final number you get is a good target for how many 1-influence locations you should be running. A deck with 2x Thief, 2x Flame Kissed, 2x Forever Burning, 3x Archers, 2x Hatchling Feast would need ~10 1-influence locations. You can reduce this a bit if you play Red Keeps or Advisors...probably to the tune of swapping out 3x 1-infl locations for 2x multi-infl cards. (So the net result might be 8-9 influence-providing cards, with 7x 1-influence, 2x multi-influence.)

Make sure you have a strong draw engine

Outside of summer Targ and shadows, I still think the draw engine is the single hardest thing to get working in a Targ deck. But to give you an idea, in most of my games, I was outdrawing the lannister players. Unfortunately, I had to commit A LOT of cards to draw to make sure it was reliable, so even when you outdraw the opponent, you may not be gaining *real* card advantage. Anyway, I based my draw engine on attachments. Xaro's Home is pretty fantastic, now that there are more uses for 1 influence (namely Myrish Villa and Archers), so adding a couple extra fiefdoms isn't necessarily a bad thing. I played 3x Eastern Fiefdoms, 3x Summer Seas, 1x Tent, and 1x Shivering Sea, plus 3x Advisors. Xaro's Home gets even better with Unburnt + Lady Dany's Chambers, which I think is the optimal way to play it. Of course I also played 2x Jhogo, 1-2x Drogo (Targ box), and 1x Samwell, which was really cool with Unburnt + Carrion Bird. Altogether, I think I was playing 9 attachments, though two were "chain" attachments that started on my agenda.

What I found is that my draw engine was extraordinarily robust (more so than any Targ deck I've played since CCG), but it could be disrupted. Unlike a Golden Tooth Mines, which pretty much just sits there unless an opponent has a location discard effect, my Targ draw drew me a storm of cards at times and close to nothing at other times. Overall though, I was very satisfied with it. (Playing Narrow Escape also helps a lot to maintain card advantage, in those situations where it takes longer to get out your draw.)

By the way, it's worth noting that in my semi-finals game against Erick, I had a terrible setup...just 2 cards, by far the worst of the 11 regionals games I played with that deck. The game was still close (not in terms of power, but in terms of board position), despite the fact that Erick had a 4-5 card setup with Martell, drew into VB early (round 1), and played Viper's Bannermen, Red Viper (I think), and other power cards. I think this is pretty revealing...Targ is powerful and could have beat Erick's Martell deck, but it's also a lot less consistent than Martell and craps out much more frequently.

What about just paying 3 gold for a pyromancer's? with recursion you have some fairly safe draw and it nets you two cards if Dany is in play.

Just a thought.

And Shade of the Evening is fun.

I find the "easiest" draw engine in Targ is:

Summer Agenda and Ravens + Gilly + Sam + Vaes Dothrak (replace with mereen if using more dragons) + Shade of the Evening

Then recusion with LDC and Street Waif (Considering he is useable when you play him... view him as pay 2 gold to get something from discard... if its a summer sea he pays for himself, with LDC to grab attachments... it should give you more cards).

I also like To Be A Dragon (if you can fit in the power struggle plots). Its a no influence net 2 character advantage gain. And the new warlock which comes back. And with the waif... you might even get that event back.

I find the best draw Targ has is playing Lannister

lol jokes jokes

I agree with bloodycelt, especially with To Be A Dragon. Street Waifs need to be kept alive to keep the recursion of events/attachments going, and To Be A Dragon lets that happen. Then the Street Wait keeps the To Be A Dragons coming. Its a nice little moving cycle of happy fun time with Targ.

I'm a little surprised with the lack of Red Keep though, but I guess with lower cost influence providing cards its smoother? There is also a recognizable benefit to having 3x 1 influence cards than 1x 3 influence card (it lets you pay in exact change, and thus get more out of your influence every turn). But is it worth the lack of recurring TRK in an environment with Price of War, the new location Bleeds, and Fleeing seeing more and more play?

Rage at double post

bloodycelt said:

I *love* LDC, but I'm a lot less of a fan of Street Waif. Obviously he has a strong ability, but he's incredibly fragile AND doesn't help you get to the answers you need. Early game, he recycles the options you've already drawn, and late game he gets you the crappiest card in your discard pile. He's definitely not an auto-include, and the more I play with him, the more disillusioned I've grown with his ability. He could make a comeback though, depending on how the environment evolves over the next 6-12 months.

To Be A Dragon is another great card, but hard to fit in without running the Fury plots. Obviously great with Red Warlock, and even Street Waif (though I still don't think that makes Street Waif much better). Unfortunately, with Red Warlock, you're running summer, so you need an extra 2-3 attachments, plus some other cards you wouldn't otherwise play. You also have to run an additional plot, that you may want to use on the first round. So To Be A Dragon is really hard to fit into a summer deck, in my experience.

Hmm, other than uniques that are dead... most of your discarded cards should be useful.

Consider a 30 character, 15 resource, 15 other deck.

The 15 others could be:

3x Forever Burning, 3x Shade of the Evening, 3x Lady Dany's Chambers, 3x Flame-Kissed, 3x To Be A Dragon.

So your discard pile is filled with discarded characters, summer seas, and cards from the set above. So yes if you have a refugee sitting in there then you could get that back... but thats +1 claim soak, so whats the problem with that?

Try this deck out then:

Agenda: Summer
Plots (7):
Fury of the Dragon
A Song of Summer
A Time for Ravens
Mad King's Legacy
Valar Morghulis
Threat from the North
Spending the Winter Stores

Characters (30)
3x Horseback Archers
3x Blue-Lipped Warlock
3x Refugee of the Plains
3x Dragon Thief
3x Carrion Bird
3x Red Warlock
1x Jhogo (QoD)
1x Danaerys Targaryen (SoO)
1x Khal Drogo (Core)
1x Pyat Pree (QoD)
1x Jorah Mormont
1x Viserys Targaryen (Core)
1x Drogon (Core)
1x Rhakharo
1x Aggo
1x Titan's Bastard
1x Gilly
1x Samwell Tarly
Resources (15)
3x Black Raven
3x Eastern Fiefdoms
3x Summer Sea
3x Red Keep
3x Khal Drogo's Tent
Other(15)
3x Lady Daenary's Chambers
3x Forever Burning
3x To be A Dragon
3x Flame-Kissed
1x Shade of the Evening
1x Rhaegar's Harp
1x Crown of Meereen