Now that we've had some time for the dust to settle on the most recent FAQ, I thought I'd ask your opinion.

I threw up a poll, and so far Martell continues to lead by a wide margin. To see the results, click here to vote , and then they will be displayed.

If anything, it suggests that there will be plenty of anti-Martell tech at Days of Ice & Fire.

Twn2dn said:

So this means Vizzini would be playing the anti-anti-"anti-Martell" tech?

Maester_LUke said:

Inconceivable!

its either Martell with their amazing events or Martell with their amazing characters. . . . ..

I have to disagree with the majority here and say that I feel that the game is most balanced than it has been in a long while now. For Martell with their summer build they now have to choose a weakness for themselves as they cannot anymore run BotS, bannermen and VB in the same deck. Now they have to choose if they are going for weenie control with VB (if they don't a weenie can and will crush them most of the time), challenge control with BotS (if they don't they are more vulnerable to rush builds), or godly draw (again if not they can be out contolled by other houses). The curent Martell isn't all that powerful anymore as it used to be thou it will still remain peoples favorite as it did well in the last tournaments and we haven't had yet enough tournaments to show people what is the new 1# deck.

I have had success in building competitive decks for every house now which I'm feeling happy about. This wasn't possible few months ago when the fat Bob MD had his office open and Martell was able to do everything.

The receant tournaments speak for this well iirc we have had many different deck types going very high and even winning some. There is just a lot variety now currently in the format which for me is a healthy thing for this game.

If I had to guess which house is the most dominant I would go with Stark as I have now played with and against of ridiculously stable stark search decks where if you cannot stop them in turn 1 where they are setting up their search, you are doomed most of the time. But with the current enviroment its really hard to guess which house is the next dominant one as they all seem to have something going for them.

Ire said:

Having a choice between 3 amazing cards isn't choosing a weakness, its choosing a strength. Name another house that has such a wide varriety of choice when it coems to the restricted list?

Martell isn't unbeatable, but they are still the dominant house

Great idea with that poll. Why don't we have more polls?

Ire said:

Interesting. Could you provide a decklist or a link to it?

Rogue30 said:

Well with Stahleck tourney coming soon and me and WWDrakey doing some playtesting with different deck ideas I'm not giving full decklists now, sorry.

But I can say that the search decks we have tried for now have used combinations of Widow's watch/to be a wolf and/or wolf dreams with learned characters and Rickon Stark and deck full of effective stark characters with dupes. Noticed that usually it tends to be a not so great in setup, but after the first turn you get your deck rolling to the point where its just running towards victory without much interaction on what your opponent does.

Ire said:

I've been thinking Stark Siege/Direwolf/search might be a pretty strong build now, what with Rickon, the new Maester, and Guardian Wolf now available. Has Wolf Dreams been strong? After talking with the meta this past weekend, I was convinced that the Kennels might be better, as it is harder to cancel (Paper Shield and/or Martell) and more reusable.

Back to the original point, I think Stark has the possibility of being dominant, but until proven otherwise, Martell is still king of the mountain., even with TVB restricted.

Shenanigans said:

If Fear Cuts Deeper than Swords or Eddard Stark stopped Game of Cyvasse, it would go a long way to shifting that match up in Stark's favor.

Ire said:

this is a meta by meta case only but, we have a newish player to AGOT and he has a patented statement about when choosing what house to play. Play martel.

Anything you wanted to do in others houses Martel just does better. the only knock against Martel is location control. On the whole, Martel is the best house, not saying other decks can't be made in other houses that are highly competitive. However, they have the widest derth of playable styles and/or decks.

clu said:

That's an excellent way to lay out Martell's current dominance Jerod.

Another point is that Martell has been able to make great use of many of the best neutral cards released recently. For example(s), Paper Shield adds to Martell's already significant event control; the Maester cycle worked best (arguably) in Martell with its glut of excellent in-house Maesters; Brotherhood ran very nicely out of Martell with TRV and the challenge control; KOTHH's influence is usually put to excellent use in Martell; and Favorable Ground (location control Jerod! ) is (I think) best run out of Martell, as it relies the least on snazzy non-Limited locations and will usually be running enough influence.

@Shenanigans - I'm pretty well convinced that Beric just can't be run anymore. In any competitive deck, he's instantly the target, and with there being so much Martell still out there, Game of Cyvasse and Ghaston Grey are just too much. Since dupes are effectively useless against He Calls it Thinking, I just don't think Beric is worth running in any deck these days. (The reason dupes worked so well for Bara Maesters was that there were just so many that there weren't enough Cyvasses to get over the hump of 'em, whereas you can't dupe Beric at all with Loyal Guard.)

I went with Martell Summer, although it's probably not what I'm going to be running at any upcoming tournaments - I don't like the fact that the Raven is too easily discarded by Maesters, and I'm expecting both Targ Maesters and GJ Maesters out the yin-yang. It's so disappointing, but I think Maesters have effectively eliminated all other attachments from the game. To be fair, though, I think the Stark deck that everyone is talking about has a build that is sick-nasty, and it may be what I'm bringing. Take that, metagamers!

WolfgangSenff said:

I think you're completely right Wolfgang; I was referring more to Brotherhood in its heyday.

Twn2dn said:

Yeah. Dupes don't help against Lanni kneel either. Anyway, good luck at Stahleck!

Out of interest, could somebody link me to a good Greyjoy Maesters decklist?

... and, if you're feeling particularly generous and time rich, a decent Martell Maesters list as well?

Perhaps your metas are different but at CaliCon it was definitely Bara and Greyjoy being most dominant.

People only think Martell is top of the hill because they have not witnessed the Greyjoy Choke with dedicated location hate through our new Lord friend. Sorry GG. Sorry Bear Island. Sorry Smugglers Cove. Sorry Lannisport Brothel. Sorry Scouting Vessel. GJ Choke is taking it. It has the Marauders, and theres nothing your green boys or old men can do about it.

I'll have to mirror Ire's thoughts on the environment being one of the best it has been in a long time, with most Houses being able to wield at least one competitive build (or what I'd call a 'candidate' deck, which is something that clearly seems competitive, but is not yet exhaustively proven to be competitive and might have a clear weakness against another competitive deck). And one of the best indicators for this state of the environment is the very existence of this thread. People are having to actually guess and wonder at what will work.

Here's how I see it, for some of the most popular themes (YMMV):

Martell Summer - Now, while I'll gladly admit that Martell still has access to some of the best cards in the game, their ability to wield a deck made out of only 'Tier 1' cards has clearly been hampered. To add to this, some of their best cards don't function nearly as well against the currently popular Maester-heavy decks: Venomous Blade gets hit by Tin Link too easily and Game of Cyvasse is a harder to pull off against the Conclaves. Further, their newest power cards either don't slot into this deck nicely (Prince's Plans needs some hefty influence, which is hard to fit in smoothly) or are not good meta choices (Oberyn's Guile with all the Maesters? Would need the Prince's Plans as backup and then we're back where we started). If anything these decks have gotten weaker lately, while others have been growing stronger and people know both to expect them and have experience of playing against them.

Lannister Kneel - Lots of reliance on locations (and thus weak to location hate), lots of low strength allies. These decks were strong, when other houses couldn't draw nearly as well as Lanni, but now they're mediocre if anything. Too slow against Maesters as well.

Maesters - Now I'll classify these as one clump, since that's how I see them. Solid card advantage (out of any House), strong character base (especially out of Targ or Martell), fills out any Houses weaknesses (no draw in GJ/Bara? No problem). Strong against Season builds (Martell Summer, GJ Winter). Really solid overall, but there are some meta choices that can easily tech against them without losing efficiency otherwise (mainly Targ, but Stark as well). Only house I wouldn't run them out of is Lannister. And that's just because Lanni doesn't bring much to the equation.

GJ Winter Choke - This build is getting really strong, but it does have a definite weakness for Maester builds both due to reliance on attachments (Burned and Pillaged, White Raven), the sheer speed with which a Maester build starts (Agenda with the free chains and At the Gates) and some of the chains providing resources (Gold and Pale Steel Links).

Baratheon Knights/Aggro - Probably not a bad choice currently. Solid, can stop Maester builds from winning challenges (and thus removing chains) early on due to the fast starts. Doesn't lose much if it's not running any attachments. Decent location-control. Seductive Promise hurts Maesters. Not bad against choke either due to Seat of Power.

Baratheon Rush - Like other aggro decks, these are on the rise again (partly due to Martell losing efficiency and not playing BotS that much). Has many of the same strengths as the knight builds. Probably worse against Martell Summer, but maybe better against Stark/Targaryen. Rush is always a bit of a rulette: You can win any single game, if the pieces slot into place, but don't count on getting through the tournament with a clean streak. (It'll always misfire on you at least once, hopefully this happens in the Swiss rounds)

Stark Search - Seems to have very little chance of the deck critically failing on you. Sets itself up on turn 1, and then steamrolls at it's own pace. Once it gets moving it seems to be quite hard to fatally trip. Good card advantage (as odd as it sounds to say this regarding Stark) and control for both attachments (even against Maesters - just wait with the frozen solids until you see a tin link) and locations. Direct kill and trait blanking is always a nice boon against attachment heavy Maesters as well. Probably has a weakness against Targ -builds (due to the duplicates), but the good location control seems to balance this out quite a bit. In a way this and the Bara Knights have quite a similar 'feel' to them, but Baratheon is a bit faster to start and easier to trip. I think the Stark deck that just won a tournament was something in between these two.

Stark Direwolves - Even though Stark has some solutions to Maesters, I would still be a bit apprehensive in running that heavy attachments (Tin Link, Targ).

Targaryen/Summer - Summer isn't the nobrain draw engine it was a while back, since Maesters and Winter can both cause some issues. Of course Targ should be good at keeping it Summer, but I'm not convinced that it's as automatic or no-brain as it seems. Easily gets quite reliant on Locations as well. Still, Targ is a good meta-choice if you're ecpecting lots of Maesters. Burn is good if there's lots of duplicates being played, but I still feel that Targ decks tend to misfire more than say Maester or Stark decks due to the issues with several moving parts. (Summer for cards, influence for burn, attachment control for Maesters, higher strength characters to not get VB'd to death, recursion for season fights... too much) I'm guessing that Twn2dn's analysis of Targ Maesters being better than Targ Summer pretty much still stands. Location control is still an issue (even though there are some solutions to that finally).

Brotherhood - Wouldn't run right now, to be honest.

Decks from outside of this - Are cool & creative. May work, if you get all the ingredients correctly, playtest rigorously and estimate the meta well.

What about Targ dragons/aggro rush? Too mnay pieces to the combo to set it up reliably? (Assume you have answers for Cyvasse, kneel etc.)

i'm just wodnering if it is economically feasible/fast enough to set up.

WWDrakey said:

This is a good analysis.

Only thing is the Maester's Tin Link can't do anything about the White or Black Ravens which are immune to non-Raven cards.

@Stag Lord, Targ Dragons rush seems to work better in melee than joust.

Tin Link + trait changing link can discard ravens. It's very easy to set up and happens all the time.

Laughingtree: Yeah: that's kind of been my experience as well. I suspected as much.

I'm not saying that other houses can't have dominant decks. they do and they're great. Greyjoy Maester Choke is sick as hell. However, Martel can marshal several competitive decks. And when I say competitive I mean world beaters. There are several other builds for these houses that are fun and are a card or two away from being top tier. I really like dragon maesters and clansmen but they feel too clunky in the current environment.

In fact, I don't know of any tried and true Targ deck that is a proven top tier deck. That's what I'm going to be playing in MN but it doesn't feel as competitive as any of the Martel decks. Feel free to disagree but you have to admit that the Martel list is much longer then any of the other houses. In fact, with the next cycle of chapter packs i bet martel has a killer knights of the realm deck.

Martel
Maester Power Rush
Maester Control
Ghaston Grey Control
Princes Plan + Westeros Control
Brotherhood (i still like it!)
Wildling
Greg's Reinforcement Deck

Bara
Maester (shadowbob without shadowbob)
Knights Power Rush?

Greyjoy
Clownboat
Choke

Lannister
Shadow Control
Weenie Kneel

Stark
Direwolf Search
Knights Control
Weenie Beatdown

Targ
?