I love Direct Assault (certainly not a rush card, however). But it is good out of Stark too, which makes it hard.

Jeez...I really don't know. I would say King's Hall as the most solid card, and Core Mel as the most bomb card. She isn't as fragile as other 4-costers since if she died you have a plot that brings her right back. KoF is running a close 2nd - he is both a Lord and Knight (and 3 cost) which helps him edge out Robert (which I agree with LoB is really just as good or even better since kneeling doesn't hit him).

the Mel that grabs extra power is the most powerful card. She doesn't make every Bara deck i make (and maybe that's a mistake!) but she sure finishes them. She halves the amount of challenges you have to attack for. Seems unbelievable!

I agree with Stag Lord that a control card really can't be the best card baratheon has since we are lacking the draw that other controls have and if you are running a shadow build the gold can be problem since you can't use one of the best baratheon card (seat of power and also other bara reductions). So the control builds currently arent reliable enough. Also if the Greyjoy choke deck gets more support it will make playing shadows in house baratheon alot harder since it already needs alot of gold.

I think the list people have given is looking good. Knight of flowers, Robert Baratheon, Renly, Laughing storm.. all great cards but still missing something to make the decks go from "works when it feels like it" to a deck that you can run efficiently like any other deck.

To add to the Mel discussion I have noticed that if I know I'm having possibly the fastest rush build, I'm using uo Mel. Now if I have a more slower one I'll use the core Mel so I can outrush other rush builds and slow my opponent down significantly. The brotherhood Mel is great aswell, but I haven't used her enough to give a good opinion,

The list of powerful cards for bara is kinda long, but Parmen Crane, Loras&Robert anti shadows, DoN Mel or ToR Renly really shines.

I think the best card they have isn't a character, though, but a location. Smugglers cove is a top card in any Bara build. And really relates to the best bara event, seductive promise.

Here in Spain this deck is considered a top tier deck. http://ciudadeladeantigua.blogspot.com/2011/05/mazo-baratheon-la-ley-del-rey.html

I think this deck has everything, speed (it's easy to win on turn 2/3). consistency (It wins anyway in 8 plots), more than solid draw, and with 0 inversion (3 bays of ice and an agenda, please compare to cost 2 GTM). If you don't believe it, and some comments refering to the poor performance of the house seems to tell that, just try it. It's in Spanish, though.

@Jef- I played a deck very very similar to this at the chicago regional (at least as far as I can tell based on the Spanish decklist). I did pretty well, but lost to a Targaryen burn deck (in a match that went the full hour) and lost to a mirror match to another Baratheon (who got out a turn 1 TLS w/ dupe). The deck is definitely very solid, and I would say that smugglers cove is definitely the MVP, although I also like to play Massey's Hook with it.

Jef said:

Yes, that appears to be a fairly typical knight deck out of Baratheon. Only thing I couldn't figure out (and Google translate didn't help me either) is what event "por los pelor" is referring to?

Narrow Escape, actually, as Martell is kind of a sure rival in a top, i'd run paper shield instead, this way you can run another restricted card, Fury and TLS both are good options.

Yeah, that one translates out to "by the skin of your teeth" or something similar I believe. Just a Spanish colloquialism I would expect.

I went back and looked at some of the Bara decks I've put together and came to one conclusion. If a card were to be restricted from Bara Old Red Priest and Maester Cressen would be considered from the auto-include stand point. I play Cressen out of house a lot now too.

I think Seat of Power has to be up there. It gives so much rush extra speed and really allows Bara to take advantage of those slightly more costly characters.

King Robert's Hammer.