Stag Lord said:

It is not feasible - it's possible in melee, but hard to get going due to everyone immediately ganging up on you once you have stuff ready to roll. In joust, it's just too slow and relies on too many cards to be out at once. Good thinking though.

WWDrakey does a nice job looking at most of these more in depth!

clu said:

Actually, and someone stop me if I'm wrong, but didn't Twn2dn's Targ Maesters deck crush the Martell decks it faced at GenCon?

Can anyone help me calculate the Nash equilibrium between these archtypes before the Days begin?

WolfgangSenff said:

I don't know if "crush" is the right word, but I think he beat a majority of them. He played 8 rounds, I don't know how many of his opponents played Martell.

~And Jerod, you're just annoyed that _you_ can't find a competitive Targ build.

@Drakey: Very nice write up...I think I fully agree. I honestly am very unfamiliar with the Stark search decks that people are talking about, so it's pretty difficult for me to weigh in there. Same with Lannister...it's been too long since I've seen a top-level player bring a Lannister deck to a tourney, so I wonder if it's a driver-vs.-deck kind of question. My gut tells me there's still a strong Lannister build out there, but none of the Manhattan players who meet weekly like to play Lanni, so it's hard to tell. As for Targ, really summer hasn't gotten any boosts, and while the maester build was hit somewhat with the FAQ, it was hit less hard than Bara/Martell/GJ/Lanni (losing the Killer maester hasn't proved to be a big deal in my games, since most times I find it's nice to throw a chain on the Advisor, who I can kneel at any time with an ambush card).

@Wolfgang: Yeah, my Targ did pretty well against Martell summer at GenCon...3 wins and a modified loss (which I think would have been a win if the rounds were a bit longer). The only outright loss to Martell was to Greg's KotHH Martell deck, which is no longer legal, since the Bannermen are now restricted All four of the games versus Martell summer at GenCon were hard though, and in one of them against Fieras I almost got steamrolled 15-0 on round 3-4, until I managed to gain control.

I expect a good Targ maester deck is an excellent metagame choice, but it isn't obvious or easy. Any number of things can go wrong, from bad setups to overemphasis on locations, etc. I think two people could take the same deck to a tournament, one of them make top-4 and the other go 2-3, just because they got unlucky or made a minor play mistake early in the game (forgot to return Forever Burning, etc.).

Dan's deck has been the best build I've seen in a while and probably should be on the list as Targ Maester Disruption? With the agenda changes I don't know if it's still as consistent. @lucas: Tell me about it, how many Targ decks do I have to build before one works at above 70% against everything!? Stupid New Lord and the advent of popular power rush crimps my current plans!

I think Targ dedicated burn control is still close to the top, as is the big location deck (that Dobbler loves so much). When I build a deck, or see the decks that are doing well, my first reaction is that burn would really put a crimp in that deck's style. Easy attachment control, decent draw, and kills dups/saves dead.

They did take a hit from the Maester Agenda however (although they run it well as well), in that attachment control (traditionally their strength) is now out of every house.

rings said:

They may have taken a hit in that area from maesters, but Lead Link is arguably the best non-terminal burn card in the game, AND it shorts their deck so they get their good burn cards even faster.

rings said:

I have a similar reaction when playing some decks, thinking "Burn would put an end to all of this nonsense" and hoping I can make it so since I am a Targ loyalist.
Then I play against the Bara rush my friend Sandy took to Gen Con and he wins on Round 2 before we even get to challenges. Or I play against a Martell Wildling deck that puts out 3 or more 5+ STR characters every Round that all have Stealth. Or I realize how bad Targ draw mechanics really are when you desperately need combo pieces. And I decide burn just can't handle certain deck types at all. But then I open the new CP and see the new Selmy....

Twn2dn said:

@Twn2dn: you can find a fine example of a Stark search deck here - http://www.agotcards.org/deck/v/2776. It is a deck built by my buddy Stepan, from our Prague meta.

WWDrakey said:

And this is my issue right now, i plan on going to Black Friday but i haven't been able to play against stag and fatmouse (people who are real challenges to me) in what seems like forever, so i play a few games here and there against my friends, except i build all their decks so im not really playtesting against anything that can surprise me. So in all likelyhood i will show up at Black Friday with a deck that is gonna get steamrolled because i don't play aginst Maesters enough to anticipate the problems i will have with them.

Right now i feel most comfortable with Stark Search, Baratheon Asshai and a wierd Lannister deck i made that is mostly intrigue and infamy

so yea im probably gonna get rolled

rings said:

Huh? My gencon decks hardly had any locations in them. I think my joust deck had 9 income locations and 4 non-income locations. My Melee deck only had 6 locations total I believe.

I think you are confusing me with someone skinnier.

You had more than 5 locations, that is location heavy to rings.

jack merridew said:

Honza said:

This looks more like a standard Stark Winter deck with Widow's Watch added. Am I missing something? Or is Widow's Watch that powerful that you really don' t need much else.

I built a Stark deck last night closer to the one I was imagining, but won't have time to test it out until tomorrow evening. (Ugh, just realized I left Jorah out of my deck list...time to make some swaps.)

NOTE: Apologies for the double post...I forgot to respond to this the first time around, but given how terrible the quote system is with these forums, thought I would just post a second time. (Who says nerds can't be technologically impaired!)

Twn2dn said:

No need to worry, sounds like you have atleast somewhat samekind of build that we are running and yes the point of it pretty much is to use a lot of search and 2-3 of each uniq (mostly 2 to avoid dead cards if you go against burn). Not sure for myself what it should run completely, to go direwolf way or more heavily characters and the likes, still testing. The more you test the more you can optimize and make it feel like the way you want to play your decks.

Dobbler said:

Why? Have you gained weight since you played that location-heavy Martell/Shadows control deck at the LCG days regional?

And Twn2d, didn't the latest FAQ preclude the use of Glover with effects that only searched the top X cards of your deck?

jack merridew said:

Fatmouse and I will be down at Game Table tonight, as per yesetrday's email. I can squeeze in a game before my Advanced Squad Leader match if you can get there. After I start - if you wnat to play Fatmouse adn keep him form irritating me with sideline commentary- that would be appreciated.

Twn2dn - I may well see you tomorrow night aroudn seven.

Stag Lord said:

@Luke: Seriously?...ugh, I missed that errata. That's going to put a damper on my Glover shenanigans. I'm not sure he's really worth playing just in the off chance that I can trigger the Kennels to search for a Riders.

Two other rules questions about Galbart...how does the timing work with To Be A Wolf? Do I have to tell my opponent which pile I'm searching before s/he names the card type I can't search for? Or do I just get to search either pile without having to say anything? Also, in cases where the search event specifies I shuffle my deck, would I shuffle my discard pile, my deck, both, or neither?

I love locations. They stay there after you valar.

Twn2dn said:

My Stark Search Engine deck I played at CaliCon had all those cards and was probably like you imagine but I never playtested it before and it flopped horribly (only Jeyne Westerling after a mulligan). It didn't perform efficiently at CaliCon (except in my first 2 games), although with some tweaks now its much smoother (of course with no tournaments coming up out here in Cali). It is a very fun deck to play though and the right build can be competitive IMO.

Twn2dn said:

Since the type naming happens before the search, I guess you don't have to tell the other player before choosing. As for the shuffling, all such events are worded "Then shuffle your deck", so if you have searched your discard pile instead of your deck, that part doesn't activate because you didn't search your deck If they were worded "Search your deck for X. Shuffle your deck.", I guess you'd have to shuffle your deck regardless.

@Twn2dn: I see i am not familiar with the idea of the Stark search decks, but i played against this one couple of times with my Targ summer killers (something i put together after the latest FAQ). He used Rickon and Watch early in the game to get the winter birds, then got John and Ghost out, backed them up with dupes, then Carrions backed up with the master, screwed up my summer and won. Haha. A tough deck to play against. For me at least ).

Twn2dn said:

I'm pretty sure that you don't have to say anything at all to your opponent about which one you're searching at any point. You might for courtesy when you actually pick up your discard pile to look through it, much like you might mention that you're drawing a card for Golden Tooth Mines when you draw a card off your deck, but I don't see anything that would mean you'd have to announce it to your opponent before they chose what to name.

One question that did pop up in my head, is whether it's strictly and either/or sort of choice. If I have Galbart in play, do I search the discard pile or deck only (ie. I search the deck for another copy of a card, then realize all of them are in my discard pile, but I've already searched my deck so his "instead" text keeps me from also searching the discard pile.) or do I effectively get to search both discard pile and deck as if they were one entity?

Honza said:

I'm curious about the strategic intent behind running Jon and Ghost in this particular build?