Okay, I've seen a bunch of direwolf decks so far and I admit the military they offer is like a hell to opponents. However, when I built one and gave several tries, I found a SERIOUS problem:

How would you do to defend opponents' power challenge, especially in a melee game (joust game has this problem as well though). A direwolf deck is mainly focused on direwolf but these beasts have no power icon at all. Okay, you may win a few military challenges and grab power very quickly at first few turns, but what about following when opponents attack you back with their evil Renown characters with **** power icon? Then there you go, you lose your power and at the end, you lose the game.

Also, there are many plots that will prevent you from initiating military challenges, such as the plot saying 'a player can only initiate military challenge after he wins power challenge'; another example 'if you don't have army, you cant initiate military challenge'. Wolves don't have power and they are not army, sigh.

Intrigue challenge is fine for direwolf deck and because at least we have some techniques to draw cards. Now, for direwolves, how would you guys resolve the power icon issue?

I've had similar issues with a Direwolf deck I was quite fond of for a while. I was using 3x Blackfish, jumping Catelyn, KL Arya, Brienne, and LoW Robb & Eddard to help deal with this issue. Old Nan can make anyone into an Army or make LoW Eddard into a Direwolf so he'll gain stealth/deadly when you have Feral Packs or Wolfswood out. The biggest issue I ran into was everyone in my meta started using Uneasy Truce, Lineage and Legacy and Muster the Realm which often meant I couldn't get a M challenge off for several rounds. One strategy is to grab the title in melee and redirect M challenges to yourself for some power on defense too. There were a number of Siege decks in the melee at Gen Con, but I don't know if anyone was using Direwolves.

I'm not really sure how to run a Stark Maesters deck yet, but Maester of Last Hearth will obviously be useful for wolves, and you can try running Citadel Law to make your opponent reveal a M friendly plot if necessary.

Oh, and At Night They Howl helps a lot with the Shaggy/Grey Wind pairing.

Basically, I'm exactly having the issues you mentioned above, trying to figure a way to handle it...

I'm a big fan of Epic Battle plots for Melee SoW decks.

The basic idea is that since the usual loss in power during the challenges phase as between 3 to 5 (uncommon for all other players to reveal 2-claim plots), the power gained during epic battles will help to overcome this problem.

Combined with plots like After the Mummer's Ford and Storm of Swords, you should be able to safely gain about 8-9 power each turn for one EB plot, or 11-12 power with 2 EB plots.

Also, plots like Loyalty Money Can Buy also help to migitate the power loss.

Always remember to run non-Direwolf cards in your deck to provide you with the power icons necessary to fulfill the requirements for Lineage and Legacy. Uneasy Truce is not hard to get around, though Muster the Realm is unfortunate, but it's not something you can help.

the1andonlime said:

I'm also fond of Stark's strong military. I think the EB plot you mentioned is EB event (it's event card). As you said 'safely gain about 8-9 power each turn for one EB', but the question is: Can Stark keep winning military like this? For example, in a plot card like Storm of Swords, and I play an EP event, which means I can initiate 3 military challenges in this turn, and for each of them, if I win, I gain 3 power, and that's 9 in total. But this is all based on the premise that I can actually win all of them. How can make sure of that? I mean how many characters in play do I need in order to achieve that? I don't think putting to many characters in a row is a wise choice because next time any player may reveal a clearing-board plot to kill all of characters and then I'll lose my strength immediately.

So, could you give me some hint such as how would you normally do to quickly grab power like you said? Also, for direwolf deck, how many direwolves do I need?

Thank you very much for your help.

ktei2008 said:

Yes. Events. I probably shouldn't be replying when half asleep.

In Melee, you get the luxury of picking and choosing your targets (to a certain extent, at least). Wolfswood should provide you with enough stealth to get past most defenders, and you can throw in CS Arya to remove stealth as neccessary. Valar is unfortunate, but you generally cannot afford to keep cards in your hand, since it will be extremely difficult to defend against Intrigue challenges. Usually, I play what I can, and rely on Counting Favors for times whn I really need to refill my hand.

Thank you, the1andonlime. You gave me much instruction on direwolves. Now I think I know how to build my deck and use strategy like you mentioned. Gonna give a go this weekend.