I'd like to hear from those folks who have used this with success. I tried using it once and failed miserably (though I had much less deck building knowledge then than I do now). Specifically I'd like to know which plots you think work well with it and if you generally build a cheaper deck to adjust to less gold bonuses.

I think probably Dobbler, the creator of said agenda, will have some interesting stuff to say about this, but my theory with it has always been that you can either go with reducers, or ignore characters altogether and go with reinforcement events; Greg did just that at GenCon last time and took second place with it. It's a bit worse now that Viper's Bannermen and Narrow Escape are on the restricted list together (that was a brutal combo he put together), but I think you can still work with it just fine.

As far as plots, I'm not sure I understand the question. It depends on the type of deck you're trying to build, I would think. Did you have a particular deck type in mind, aside from using the agenda?

Nope, just wanted to hear people thoughts, or particular deck themes that worked well with this (like the reinforcements example that you gave).

I would love for Dobbler to do a segment on 2 Champs and a Chump one day about building a solid Knights of the Hollow deck. I would be curious to hear him talk about what houses it's good out of, and why. And what houses it sucks out of. What does he do to overcome the lack of a setup, for example?

My $0.02, for what they're worth. First, your deck need solid draw, even more so than the standard deck. You're going to be getting an additional 2 gold every single turn, so you need cards (and characters) to take advantage of that. Second, you should have an almost immediate use for the 2 influence the card provides. For Martell, 2 influence can power Red Vengence, which is excellent for a slow first round. For Targ 2 influence can ambush a whole bunch of stuff in the first turn, including a flame kissed or a character like dragon thief.

As for plots, I would think an opener like Loyalty Money Can Buy or Muster the Realm would be good options for stalling out your opponent on the first turn, especially if they drop a first turn Fear of Witner. Forgotten Plans could be good, but it's only 3 gold, which kind of sucks for an opener.

The first thing you need to realize is the agenda is a HUGE disadvantage and should only be used in extreme cases.

Reasons to NOT run KotHH:

• You forfeit 5 gold (which the agenda only makes up for on turn 3)
• You miss out on digging through your deck between 1 and 7 cards (every card should represent a good card in hand or in play)
• You can't use other agendas (this is really an opportunity cost

if you are running a deck that needs extra influence or gold, i would suggest running 3 Kingsroad Fiefdom, 1 Red Keep, 3 Advisor to the Crown. The extra gold can be accomplished with 3 Kingdom of Shadows, 3 in house 0 cost gold producers, 1 River Row, 1 in house chamber, and any applicable streets if you still need a boost. Notice that from this list only 1 location is limited, this allows for highly aggressive set-ups. Most of the time you will be producing more resources on turn three then the agenda will allow AND you will have dudes to back up turn one.

With the streets this totals up to 18 locations dedicated solely to resources. This is above the number I usually run by 8 and makes me vulnerable to Fleeing to the Wall. However, the reason I'm running this many resources should carry the rest of the day!

Reasons to run KotHH:

• Combo to trigger on turn one
• REALLY need the initiative

By starting so far behind your opponent you have to run twofers (for every 1 card you play, you control at least 2 of your opponents). Because of your resources you have quicker access to cards like Westeros Bleeds, Hatchling Feast, and Prince's Plans. Notice all of these need more resources but only 1 as compared to 2. out of house cards become manageable earlier.

I can only think of a couple decks off hand that benefit from this agenda right now; Sandsnakes and hand discard. Not saying that you can't find other good decks, I just haven't as of yet. We may go into a serious location control environment in the near future and KotHH may become more viable, but, I'd rather run a deck that is cheap and reliable in most tournaments. Granted, every rule has an exception... http://www.agotcards.org/deck/v/4676

One note on Plots

You always have to consider running Forgotten Plans. A Fear of Winter turn one is pretty much a deathknell. Valar early, Valar often by using Maester Marwyn.

perpetual noob said:

The draw point is quite true - it needs to be able to churn through the deck fast. That said, I don't necessarily agree with the influence point. I think you could still build a deck without using a lot of influence-triggered effects, and still have it be a good deck with KotHH. An okay example might be a GJ army deck - it could use card Plaza of Purification to use the influence to just help pay for their bigger armies, in a house where otherwise the bigger armies are nearly unplayable. The initiative bonus also helps some of GJ's mechanics go off, though I presume no one actually plays with those except in melee.

I do think, however, that Martell and Targ make the most sense to play it with. They have tons of things that need influence.

I honestly think that, aside from perhaps neutral, most houses can have at least an okay deck with KotHH. It requires some very versatile and flexible thinking, and it has to be a bit more machinely, but I think a lot of houses can make it work.

I have a Targ dragon deck (built for melee) that runs KotHH with great success.

The extra two influence (combined with Kingsroad Fiefdoms and Advisors to the Crown) let you start ambushing out Dragons on turn 1... which makes the agenda basically read " +4 Gold per turn... ha ha ha ". Combine that with a turn 1 'Condemned by the Realm' (or 'Marched to the Wall' if you prefer) and you barely feel behind on board presence by the end of the 1st turn's marshalling.

Long story short, aside from the 'dog to Fear of Winter' argument, if you're running a deck with decent draw then KotHH can be absolutely great.

I have two KOTHH decks, very different, both good and fun:

Deck 1: Greyjoy. Turn one, use Loyalty Money Can Buy, set up some pieces. Turn two, get Maester Wendamyr. With 2 influence, you'll be saving everyone all day. Until he dies. Gives you the ability to run Iron Cliffs x3, since there is no setup.

Deck 2: Stark. Plot doesn't matter. Use Feigned Retreat x3, Lethal Counterattack x2, and other fun Stark cards like King Robb's Companions that utilize influence.

The advantage to running KOTHH is that your average characters will each be better than opponents average characters. The trick is finding ways to highlight this advantage,

clu said:

I think Clu was pretty spot on with his analysis, but I will add a few more reasons to run KotHH:

Reasons to run KotHH :

• You get to stare at the mug of Dobbler game after game.
• Cards which are efficient in use, but which you can't or don't play them on setup, slow down "setups" but gain more efficiency since you don't get a setup anyways. That includes Reinforcement Events, Iron Cliffs, any "come into play" ability, events and attachments in general.
• A lack of reliance on locations for income and resource. Cards like Fleeing to the Wall and Favorable Ground often are ignored by this deck. You don't have to waste deck slots with Kingsroad Fiefdoms, Red Keeps, Advisor to the Crowns and such. You can fill your deck with more potent cards so that at a crucial point in the game your aren't top decking into influence or gold providing locations.

I will also mention that playing the agenda is an opportunity loss of 5 gold and 1-7 cards to start a game, but is not often a real loss of such magnitutde. There have been many games (when not using KotHH) where my flop was 4 gold or less and only a card or two. It stinks when that happens, and I try to design my decks so that it happens infrequently, but it still happens.

Also, I will disagree with Clu that Fear of Winter screws over a KotHH deck. It never really bothered me. It is not a fun first turn, but worse case scenario you just don't marshall a character and lose two cards from hand. But we now have a variety of first turn plots that will greatly mitigate a first turn Fear by the opponent. Search and Detain, Valar, First Snow of Winter, Forgotten Plans (which clu mentions but I personally never run), At the Gates, etc. And in the vein of Valar often and early, I suggest running Valar and WIldfire.

Here are reasons I would consider running the agenda:

Do you have a deck that is already poor at setups? Do you need guaranteed influence or income to start a game? Do you want to ogle my pretty face on a regular basis? Are you a location-lite player?

Heh, seems I'm not the only one to get the white screen of death

Dobbler said:

Sounds like the only reason I run A Pinch of Powder...

LoneWanderer said:

Hmm yeah in melee KoHH dragons are quite nice but when I tiried to play KoHH Dragons in joust they were utterly demolished by Stark Siege (Fear of Winter + Northern Cavalry yay)

I ran a decent Targ burn deck with KotHH for a bit. It was kind of an ultra-toolbox using a lot of influence and jumpy characters, Horseback Hunters/Archers, Queens Knights, Core Khal, Syrio, etc. As far as I remember, I used
Marched to the Wall
Valar
Retaliation
Threat from the North
City of Lies
A Time for Ravens
The two Influence for Targ is basically 2 gold if you build enough Ambush in. Ambush a Dragon Thief or Flame-Kissed in as a pre-plot action, then Rule by Decree as your first plot for some card advantage. Hatchlings Feast becomes playable at any time. Using KotHH makes Maegi Crone look like a pretty decent card; I remember Forever Burning my own Crones a lot for card draw. +1 STR Daeny helps save your Crones and Street Waifs from getting hit by TftN. A bad draw after a mulligan was certain death, which seems pretty standard with KotHH.

Excellent thread folks.

Personally, I think the reason KOTHH is such a fun (yeah, I play this game for fun, what are you looking at?) card is because it opens up entirely new deckbuilding avenues. This in turn forces the meta to be aware of and adapt to those decktypes. At the same time, KOTHH has a big enough disadvantage that it didn't become the new hotness and just dominate the meta (yeah, I'm talking about you, The Maester's Path.)

I think building a strong KOTHH deck out of Martell or Targaryen is pretty straightforward, but what about other Houses? I know Lannister has nearly no use for influence, and Greyjoy, Stark, and Baratheon are close to that, but has anyone run into a KOTHH deck from one of them (or even Neutral I guess) that seems to work pretty well?

goshdarnstud said:

Is this why you're so excited Ghost of High Heart and First Snow are coming back?

As a side note, I think the dude on the right in KOTHH looks like Viggo Mortensen.

Shenanigans said:

Both Greyjoy and Baratheon aren't huge Influence houses, but they definitely have some good effects that need them. Particularly running Holy decks out of either House. I was toying around with a weird KotHH Stark army deck that plays Plaza of Purification OOH to pay for lots of expensive armies, but I doubt that's the best choice. I'm struggling to even think of any effects Lannister has that need Influence.

Stark can use the influence for Feigned Retreat, which would then enable effects that trigger off winning challenges. But other than that or Plazza OoH, I don't see many uses for influence.

King Robb's Companions come with the Plaza's effect built in. And the 2 initiative helps keep Host of the Bear around.

Greyjoy can use the 2 influence for Maester Wendamyr and Salt Wife for a save heavy deck. The lack of setup hurts though when you have so many strong cheap characters to use.

Hmm after Dangerous ground hits the stores will it be huge buff for KoHH ?

First turn First Snow of Winter

Second turn Rule by Decree

Alando said:

Initiative and Influence boost to let you rule the game with Drowned Prophet?

Nah... maybe not.

LoneWanderer said:

Actually doable. Until my opponent was playing the cancel a character ability Targ jump guy...twice. It's awesome in melee, no one takes the +2 influence title. Another great thing about KotHH is Favorable Ground.