Inspired by the "Basics of Greyjoy Choke" thread and how much much I like Greyjoy (love the warships for some reason) I'm working on a Greyjoy Choke deck.

There's a lot I'm not sure about. Pulled Under looks pretty **** nasty but I'm still too green to know how to balance the quantities of cards like that (especially with it's high cost) out against other cards. This is a 64 card deck that's really weak in draw. There's some cards that could be added that provide some help drawing along with other effects (such as some of the "Longships") but it doesn't seem like the deck has space if it's going to be an effective choke deck. I know Refurbished Hulk would help the location costs but I honestly don't think I have the space for it.

Here it is, feedback would be appreciated. BTW I got some good feedback on my last deck and this is a pretty good community. I love this game.

I'm fairly new, but I think you'd want to max out on Ice Fishermen. Aren't they the core of choke? They need you to win initiative to work, so Overzealous Scout (BoRF) might be worth it.

I think I would remove:

the 3xdragon chasers- Not enough influence to ambush them so they're quite expensive for what they do.

1x copy of Asha- Can't be saved so its no use as a dupe.

1x copy of Dagmer- Not really essential enough for two copies imo.

In their place I would add in some dupes of Samwell for more draw (if you've got 'em) since you have 6 ravens in the deck, another ice fisherman, Wex Pyke and Alannys Greyjoy (both are good and, more importantly for a Winter deck, cheap). Gilbert Farwynd is another good choke card, though if you put him in you might consider either adding more nobles (Balon is the only other one but he is good) or removing a couple of your own cost reduction locations.

I'm not sure if you need blockade what with all the ways you have to remove their income. In its place you could put At the gates to get Wendamyr early, allowing you to remove a copy of him for more space.

Oh and they shouldn't have enough gold to play any really dangerous characters, so I think you could safely remove most or all of the Fishing Nets and Pulled Unders.You could slot in a Support of Harlaw to give your Marauders more challenges. The Frozen Seas could also be cut because they will often only have enough characters to do two or less challenges anyway, giving you space for a Longship Iron Victory for more draw.

I'm not great expert on this deck type, unless you count getting smoked by it, but I can tell you that you have two restricted cards (Fury of the Kraken and Fear of Winter) so maybe consider replacing Fury of the Kraken with Rise of the Kraken, an excellent finisher.

Big mistake from me on the 2 restricted cards, Rise of the Kraken will go in. I know I thought at some point that I should check the list. Thanks, Shenanigans.

Alando, anything that makes room for Longship Iron Victory sounds good to me. I've played Greyjoy before but my first deck was pretty much just to see how some of their combos played, nothing as focused as this deck. If it restricts the opposition as much as say it should I think this will be a fun deck. I guess choke really might choke other players. I might have a hard time parting with Pulled Under and the Fishing Nets but I will make some adjustments.

I would take out the 1x Ahead of the Tide, you aren't likely to draw into it if you only have 1. I would also take out the TTbS in favor of Retaliation! Alando is right about Wex, he's pretty much an auto-include for this type of deck, and about the Dragon Chasers and the dupe of Asha. Using Pulled Under is personal preference, I personally think its too expensive for many choke decks, but I would keep the Fishing Nets and keep using Blockade.

No matter what...cut 4 cards. It amazes me the amount of people that run more than 60. Don't fall into that habit.

Clutch said:

Don't listen to this ^^^

If you get a good build that you like and it happens to be 61 or 62 cards then go with it. Some of the top players in the world often run more than 60 cards in their decks and it doesn't make that big of a difference.

In regard to the deck....

I agree with Alando. You definitely want to cut 1 Asha, 1 Dagmer, the 3 Dragon Chasers, the Ahead of the Tide, and the Pulled Unders. I think the Fishing Nets are still a good choice because you won't be able to choke them of ALL thier gold and there are some characters that are going to hit the board. It's good to put on Carrion Birds if nothing else.

In my opinion there are a few more cards you could cut or replace...

It looks like you have way too many restricted cards...11 by my count. I would take out the Fiefdoms and maybe the Kingsmoot Hopefuls. To replace the Fiefdoms I would go with Street of Steel, River Row, and Street of Sisters for some reduction.

Even though it's a winter deck don't shy away from using some of the really good 4 cost charactrers. I would put in Balon Greyjoy and Victarion for some Lord and King presence. Always good traits to have and they will help close out the game with renown or Victarion's ability. Nute the Barber is also a good intimidate character to consider.

Wex Pyke is definitely a must as is the extra Ice Fisherman.

If you want some extra possible location hate then run Mance Rayder from the Summer/Winter cycle. Being able to steal an opposing bay of ice or Kingdom of Shadows could be HUGE.

If you have room for a couple more events then go with Support of the Kingdom to steal some gold away from your opponent and give you more.

Longship Iron Victory has to go in somewhere for some extra card draw and you can up samwell tarly to 2 by dropping 1 Maester Wyndamyr. Running 3 of him is overkill since targ will just flame kiss him and then you will end up drawing a dead card or two later in the game. Never a good thing.

I'm also surprised not to see Iron Mines in the deck. 3x of those is a must. You could drop the Herald for one, a white raven(since 3 is not really needed), and maybe drop down to 2 Fishing Nets. The more kill saves you have the better.

Hope this helps!

Thanks widowmaker.

I tuned the deck before reading the last 24 hours comments. To my dismay I found out that I own no Sam Tarnly's. I'm going to order some more cards next week and 2 of that expansion will be in the order. Massive brain fart on that. Anyway, I went with 3 Longship Iron Victory since that's my only means of extra draw. There was 1 Greyjoy/Ironborn event that allowed more draws with it's effect. that I can't remember the name of that I;ll look at. It was boardgame night with the wife so the geek time is all used up for today.

Here's the revised deck with the changes I did yesterday. Still haven't checked the restricted list for it.

Oops, did I say too many restricted cards. What I meant was too many Limited cards. Since you can only play 1 per turn you don't want to have more than 7 or 8 in a deck so you can maximize the amount of cards you can play. And you need to get those B&P out ASAP.

Looking at your revisions I can see that It's shaping up nicely. I think the Burned and Pillaged should go back up to 3. That however does put you at 11 attachments. Unless you are running Targaryen(or a gimick deck) you really shouldn't have more than 8 attachments at most. If you find that your setups are suffering from too many attachments or events then I would consider dropping the Support of Harlaw to 2 and the Fishing Net to 2. That would get you to 9 attachments and that might be just fine.

Another choke card that I forgot is Cragorn. You can use him to steal another gold from your opponent. Plus he has a WAR crest which is really good for Greyjoy. +1 Cragorn is a must.

If it seems that you have too many high cost characters then I would consider 2x Scurvy Cutthroat or 2x Stowaway in place of the Drowned Disciple. They are both 1 cost with fairly good abilities.

The Plots look good to go.

~Nathan

Yeah, does look like my character cost is high and I'll mess around with that.

Here's a thought-how about Pyromancer's Apprentice in a choke deck? That would probably mean removing the Distinguished Boatswains from the deck and they might be too good to remove from any Greyjoy deck. No way to save them (Pyromancer's) in this deck either. Too much choke?

I had a question, would anyone play any ooh winter cards in a greyjoy choke deck. like Deep Freeze, Winter Catelyn, Long Winter or Ranger of Winter

also has anyone built a treaty Greyjoy Stark deck built around the winter mechanics?

TakeshiKovacs said:

I use them in mine. But its done very poorly recently.

jack merridew said:

Sounds pretty expensive for a winter deck. Ranger is then a 5-cost Ally and Long Winter is a 4-cost Condition...

I wouldn't bother running any of the OOH Stark cards. Just too expensive. I do like the Pyromancer's Apprentice but if your opponent can't play any cards, chances are that they will have a gold or two to spend so the effect is lost. It's much better in a Stark Shadows deck with Hidden Chambers so that you can bring it out during the draw phase or beginning of marshalling so that they have no gold to spend and the effect is guaranteed. I do however think it is a good card and should maybe be looked at. At the least it has an intrigue icon which is something that greyjoy is lacking. Try it out and see how it does. I definitely would not take out the Boatswain though. And if you run the Apprentice my suggestion would be to only run 2.

~Nathan

Just in case anyone is still interested I tried the deck this weekend. I had 4 decks and got to play them all in 4 melee games. This Greyjoy deck was 1 of my 3 wins. Burned & Pillaged, Ice Fishermen were the "biggest" cards in the deck for choke. Those Fishing Nets I was so worried about including were irrelevant. Character cost was still high, that needs to be worked on.Otherwise I was happy with the deck.

As a quick addendum to plot considerations, you might want to work in the new "Dry Season." It's pretty much tailor-made for Greyjoy choke (shuts down locations, allows Burned and Pillaged to keep working, and is two claim) The only drawback is that your locations are also affected, although many of your best locations are unique.

Yep Dry Season looks good and will go in as the deck gets tuned. Thanks.