After having attended two Regionals in two weeks, great players at both (two World Champs) and seeing a variety of decks, something caught my eye.

Over the two Regionals I saw many trait-based decks: Bolton, Knight, Brotherhood, Dayne/Knight, Wildlings and even two Tully-driven decks (one was only moderately so). I've heard numerous comments about Stark Direwolves being fun and possibly brutal with the Grey Winf/Shaggydog combo going off.

So, like last week's discussion, based on the current metagame, card pool and player base, are there any dedicated trait-based decks (NOT trait manipulation!) that can perform consistently on a competative level? Could a trait-based deck, where the trait is the DRIVER, not an incidental component, be a real threat? If so, which one(s)? As before, please give your reasoning.

Discuss!

Maesters are very very good of course.

I too have seen a few trait based decks floating around. I myself played a Lannister Maester's with Trait Manipulation at the TN Regional. Which at the time is probably the best and only way to play an effective Maester deck since that is the best chain attachment out right now.

Boltons can be a fast deck when played with Seige of Winterfell but very vulnerable if you can't keep your characters on your side of the table. So I would not think that they will be a valid choice. Although they are very fun to play!

Knights are looking good and I think Bara and Lannister have a couple good builds out of that tech. Bara obviously being the better of the two. Just not enough people are playing Bara right now competitively in order to get a good idea of what they can do.

Brotherhood is probably better in Melee but can also be dangerous in Joust. I just think there has been too much hate against Beric Dondarrion for it to be a legit choice

House Dayne just sucks. Fun to play casually but not really a solid choice in a tournament.

Wildlings are still good. All that high STR and characters with stealth make them a deck that I still would not want to play against. As you can see from the TN regional which was won by a Bara/Wildling deck(my buddy Wade! Congrats mang!).

Army decks out of Stark or Targ could be a fun deck to play. Obviously Stark would be the better choice due to Seige of Winterfell but I'm not sure how good of a choice it would be to play in a competitive tournament unless you could get some real defense for intrigue challenges going. All those armies make for alot of non-unique characters which could be taken advantage of as well.

Direwolves are fun to play and have been since they came out. They are nasty with the right build. Probably my favorite build out of Stark.

I think the best decks out there that are trait based are Maesters, Wildlings, and Direwolves. The best of those three could be a toss up. I really like Maesters out of Lanny, Greyjoy, or Martell. Wildlings are good out of pretty much any deck and I am partial to a Targ Wildling deck that I have built at the moment. And Direwolves can kill an attacker every challenge or just stop your attacks if they get all their pieces out and keep them out. I'm really excited about Maester's right now but I can see them just being another Wildling fiasco like last year if everyone and their mother starts to play them. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

widowmaker93 said:

the "best and only effective" maester deck? i know you mentioned greyjoy later on in your post, but don't discount how powerful maesters are out of greyjoy. with winter tech they run raven, dragon, and kingdom traits into the ground. with no winter tech they can easily play lions gate OOH and do the raven/ally/merc/refugee hate just as well as lanni.

but getting back to the discussion at hand. currently i'd say it's maesters and brotherhood at the forefront of the trait based decks followed closely by wildlings, direwolves, and dragons. tully still has some gas as does army and nights watch decks, but not seen often in serious decks.

In mêlee, in france ther are two very effective trait-based deck : The Dothraki one, and the Bara Army .

In Joust, it's a bit different, but Night Guard are still effective, and nobody play wildings , so can't know

DIrewolf is an efficient one too.

I'd have to throw my 2 cents with maesters and wildling. (i'd say brotherhood but I don't think Beric is a trait) Both can be run out of any house with different backgournd noise but the same desired results.. For in-house traits, (and I think this is what you are looking for) direwolf beats other traits right now.

I'm building a Trag ?Dothraki/Army deck right now and I'll let you know how it goes!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Asshai/Holy out of Bara. Pretty strong, actually.

Asshai/Holy out of Bara is pretty strong. Altar of Fire.

Lol, but in all seriousness, it is. With the Black Cells, Kingswood Trail the shadows Asshai characters, Shadow Enchantress, the new attachment to give deadly combined with Blackwater Bay so you get the cards back... it works out nicely. Plus, the kill Mel is nice. OOH Lady Jenna or w/e it is to go on intrigue challenges if you lose them, shadow politics, the not kneeling to attack jazz with Power of Faith.

I've seen some Tully hit the ground pretty hard, and stark has a lot of control elements often looked over. I hate Knights because I think the agenda is lame. It isn't a downside if you will always have more knights because your running a knight deck. The only time it will matter is the mirror, and that will cause a one sided game with a difference of two cards every turn being drawn. Should at least be drawing one less when you have equal number of knights.

I think trait based decks are a result of the last three chapter pack cycles - they were all trait themed. Wildlings/NW, Brotherhood/Asshai/Raiders/Dothraki/Bolton/Sandsnake/Clansman, and Maester. When that builds a deck for you that works well, people will use it.

ktom said:

I just hadn't posted yet. I love this combo.

Lannister/ally used to win everything not so much ago .

As someone said, BH is almost hard to really consider, but I think it qualifies. Anything that has an agenda is usually going to be pretty good - I still think Wildlings, BH, Knights, and Maesters are at the forefront for this reason.

Generally, trait based decks are somewhat hit by all the trait manip going around.

I agree with ktom about Asshai, they can be really good.

I don't really consider Knights a trait-based deck; they don't have that much (good) knight synergy beyond the agenda.

I can't imagine why it wouldn't be possible to put together a decent Dragons deck. Raider/Mill is gonna be fun in the future, although I'm not sure about their competitiveness. Tullys can be decent, nothing more, nothing less. Not convinced abouth Dothraki, Clansmen, Sand Snakes. Many people seem to be able to put together strong Direwolf decks, but somehow I never could. NW can be fun, Boltons can be fun, a combined NW/Boltons deck can be even more fun. Had such a one, couldn't win with it, but really enjoyed playing it.

Brotherhood is still good, I guess, but took a knock with all the anti-Voltron tech that has entered/is about to enter the environment.

Maesters are gona be insane. The new Wildlings, and I don't think I'm loking forward to it.

The Nick-ler said:

I did not mean that Lannister is the only house to run Maester's out of. I simply meant that since the best chain out is the Copper Link that trait manipulation Maester decks are the best and only way to play a Maester deck until more chains come out. I too have a pretty solid Greyjoy Maester Trait Manipulaiton Winter deck that I'm liking right now. I just hate Gayjoy so Lanny is my preferred house to run that out of.

Yeah - I think Knights decks are pretty strong. The Agenda gives Baratheon that little accelerant they need - which can sometimes be enough. You just have to have reduntant draw in case you lose out on the knight count - so Cache makes a really good restricted card to choose.

Its like rings said though: anything with an Agenda to back it up is going to be good. Its starting to look like Maesters might be wildling level good - they amy be pretty much all you see for the next little while. I really wish they'd give the agendas a rest at this point.

At the springfield regional, one of the top 8 Joust decks was a very nasty Summer Dragon deck, as well as one of the final Melee decks being a different take on the same concept. Their burn options are very strong, along with the attachment control provided by Targ to keep trait manip or Horn of the Dragons from being too big of a threat.

I think by the time that we finish the Oldtown cycle, Maesters are going to be one of the top tier decks. It'll be a matter of balancing out the number of chains on Maester's Path though.

Nerdcore said:

I think particularly with the Maeste r trait/agenda we'll see some similarity in decks across houses, like with the City of Shadows agenda. I was originally thinking Maesters were going to get overpowered, based on how quickly the ramped things up by the end of Regionals... but I think there's a surprising amount of balance. Of course, I've been known to be wrong.

I don't think the Maesters will be able to pose a threat vanilla Martell will not have an answer too. Why? Because vengeance only comes in one colour - red.

Honestly though, thrones competitive play is in small pockets everywhere. Look at a card like the Honor Guards - some people (me) might swear by them in multiplayer, and some might not even consider them playable. In France you see Stark as tier one, here half the meta is Martell and we look at each others winning lists and go "how could you win with that?" I truly think the strength of the Maester deck will be like everything else in this game; dependent on the composition of the playgroup. I will just have to daydream up some trollery tech for GenCon that can deal with them.

I've already started another article on this for cardgamedb actually

Mathias Fricot said:

I would totally play honor guards in my Martell Melee deck, but alas, martell is the only house without an honor guard.

Stag Lord said:

Amen!

LordofBrewtown said:

Agreed! On one hand, I enjoy the choices that they give us. But boy are they hard to balance.

rings said:

thats why i hate knights

I have to agree with the sentiment that we have enough agendas for now. I'd like to see more focus on other parts of the game for awhile and to leave the agendas alone. I'm also hoping no new mechanics will be introduced for awhile. I'd rather see existing ones enriched before another new one lands on the scene.

I agree completely. I'd much rather see existing mechanics and deck themes fully fleshed out before more stuff is introduced. I think there are plenty of mechanics and themes that need some love right now.

Mathias Fricot said:

Is that because somebody's playing a House Dayne deck? Or is nobody building one to meta _against_ a Bara or Lanni Knights deck?

I dislike knights because the agenda's downside really isn't a downside unless your in a mirror match. If your running the agenda, it is because you have a high enough concentration of Knights in your deck to warrant it. Now, this will (essentially) never make you draw less cards, unless your playing (a) the mirror, or (b) another deck with lots of knights. But, that non-mirror deck with a lot of knights will realize "hey, i have a lot of knights" somewhere in the deck building process and decide to use the agenda - making the only time your agenda doesn't work the mirror match. When this mirror match happens, you have off the bat a draw difference of two cards a turn, giving the player who gets more knights on setup and draws into some save tech/NE leagues of advantage.

An agenda's drawback should be a true drawback against the average deck, not just another deck running the same agenda.