So a few months ago I posted a question about the history of Targ, and Stag Lord mentioned character light decks. What exactly is this? How does a character light deck operate, and more importantly, how do you win the game with a deck like this?
Character Light Decks
perpetual noob said:
So a few months ago I posted a question about the history of Targ, and Stag Lord mentioned character light decks. What exactly is this? How does a character light deck operate, and more importantly, how do you win the game with a deck like this?
I'm not sure Targ has a great character-lite option at the moment. You can run a shadows version with Dragonpit and lots of burn, but that tends to be a bit slower. With the new FAQ that slows down maesters and Martell, it could be decent again though. The main problem with Targ, I think, is that you don't have a late-game finisher that can rush to victory once you've beaten down your opponent for a few rounds with the burn. Core Set Rhaegal is one of the better options, since he helps you thin the deck and can stick around past multiple Valars/kill effects. He lacks renown though, so he's more of the "slow grind" option.
The only character-lite builds I've seen that are fairly competitive in the current environment are based on shadows, and run the shadows agenda with Alchemists Guild Hall, Black Cells, Shadows Tyrion, Venomous Blade, etc. Martell shadows is probably the better build, but Lanni and Bara might have competitive builds as well.
And what I'm referring to goes back even farther than twn2dn's experience with the game. The original character lite deck featured three copies of promo Mance Rayder, a 3 cost tri-con who didn't kneel to attack or defend and plenty of ways to protect and recur him. It was run out of Targ, so it used all those Targ burn effects and reset plots in depth (Rioting x 2, Killing Cold x 2 1 x Valar) To keep all your opponent’s characters knelt or off the board. Mance was usually well protected with save mechanics and there was an event called Feigned Death that let you recur INT icon characters - so you’d get him back with that.
Basically every turn - your characters would be knelt or burned and Mance would hit you three times for unopposed and win Dominance.
Later iterations of character ltie decks revolved around the Tourney of Swords warhorses - horse attachments that could detach form a character during challenge phase to become actual characters until the end of the phase. typically - you would attach them to an opponent’s guys and control the actual characters with whatever effect you liked - typically kneel, icon manipulation or what have you, and then you’d pop the horses off for a series of unopposed.
Greyjoy also had a nasty version using Marine Legion - a location that turned into a 3/3 character for couple of influence. Again - mass removal effects were used in depth to keep the opponent’s board wiped and (like the horses) you would turn the location into a character for a couple of unopposed pops during challenge phase
None of these decks really had more than six or so actual characters - and the original only had the one x 3. Nothing like this is possible right now in the LCG environment (thankfully – these were very much NPE decks on a couple of levels.
Basically every turn - your characters would be knelt or burned and Mance would hit you three times for unopposed and win Dominance.
Later iterations of character ltie decks revolved around the Tourney of Swords warhorses - horse attachments that could detach form a character during challenge phase to become actual characters until the end of the phase. typically - you would attach them to an opponent’s guys and control the actual characters with whatever effect you liked - typically kneel, icon manipulation or what have you, and then you’d pop the horses off for a series of unopposed.
Greyjoy also had a nasty version using Marine Legion - a location that turned into a 3/3 character for couple of influence. Again - mass removal effects were used in depth to keep the opponent’s board wiped and (like the horses) you would turn the location into a character for a couple of unopposed pops during challenge phase
None of these decks really had more than six or so actual characters - and the original only had the one x 3. Nothing like this is possible right now in the LCG environment (thankfully – these were very much NPE decks on a couple of levels.
Brooks (TheKingg) ran a character lite deck against me yesterday by playing GJ shadows. Very interesting deck.
From what I gather, most character lite decks run less than 10 characters. Hell, I am not even sure if brooks had ANY characters in that deck.
thanks guys, this is all really interesting! Stag Lord, you're right that those seem like NPE (at least for the opponent!).