Shift in Deck Styles?

By scarletnite, in 1. AGoT General Discussion

Posted at

Based on the results of the big tournaments from last weekend (and my local events from the last month or so) and even GenCon, I've noticed quite a shift in deck styles being produced. Especially for decks that make the top 8 -- harder to say for everyone else because deck details have been limited.

I say shift because there seems to be much more variety. During regional season, the question seemed to be "Are you playing Martell Summer?" or "Well, what's your plan for playing against Martell Summer?" Some of the early wins were (nearly) identical Martell/Summer decks.

Now -- (from Calicon) the top eight consisted of Bara/Maesters, Bara/Martell, Lanni Hyperkneel/Shadows, Targ Dragons, Stark Siege, Greyjoy/Lanni, & Greyjoy/Winter. It just seems to me that things have taken quite a turn.

I think partly this is a testament to FFG's attempts to balance to the game through a diverse card pool (I always find new things each time I look through all the cards) and controlled erratas/restrictions.

And personally, I think it's great not to have one unbeatable deck. Reminding how happy I am this isn't Magic.

What do you think? Has variety increased?

Posted at

I think the variety has been there before too. It was just the few changes that evened up the chances for every deck archetype to win. I think at the moment the following decks are viable:

Stark: as kotr, as tmp, or as shadow agenda and always with a lot of search

Lannister: well either brotherhood & trait manipulation or classic kneel

Baratheon: the usual rush stuff with out without the agenda

Greyjoy: choke decks look very promising, maybe not reliable enough to actaully take the big win

Targaryen: dragons and maester decks were good before the faq 3.0 and there wasn´t much changed about the way they are played in the faq

Martell: still has half a dozen viable decktypes without being too much over the top at the moment

Neutral faction: that tmp and archmaester wrath decks seems to be at least cool and brotehrhood could still take a surprise win against all odds of meeting gg and other bounce cards

Posted at

scarletnite said:

Based on the results of the big tournaments from last weekend (and my local events from the last month or so) and even GenCon, I've noticed quite a shift in deck styles being produced. Especially for decks that make the top 8 -- harder to say for everyone else because deck details have been limited.

I say shift because there seems to be much more variety. During regional season, the question seemed to be "Are you playing Martell Summer?" or "Well, what's your plan for playing against Martell Summer?" Some of the early wins were (nearly) identical Martell/Summer decks.

Now -- (from Calicon) the top eight consisted of Bara/Maesters, Bara/Martell, Lanni Hyperkneel/Shadows, Targ Dragons, Stark Siege, Greyjoy/Lanni, & Greyjoy/Winter. It just seems to me that things have taken quite a turn.

I think partly this is a testament to FFG's attempts to balance to the game through a diverse card pool (I always find new things each time I look through all the cards) and controlled erratas/restrictions.

And personally, I think it's great not to have one unbeatable deck. Reminding how happy I am this isn't Magic.

What do you think? Has variety increased?

I agree. the variety has always been there, just not with the same amount of success. There were at least 3-4 people running martell at the tournament at Calicon, but that % is definitely way down from a couple months ago.