I've been struggling for a while to choose a deck theme for my second Stark deck. Currently, I'm running Direwolf, but I'm not impressed. From what I've seen, even with access to other cards that I don't have, a Direwolf deck seems like a novelty theme, and not a serious threat outside of anything besides a joust.

So, I turned my eyes further north towards the Wall and the Night's Watch. But, I don't like that most of the NW characters I've seen require a plot card to be in play to gain an icon to be useful in a challenge, and that said plot cards increase the needed power to win by 2 each.

And I continue to roam until I return to the Boltons. Flavor wise, they are real dicks. But such is the world of the GRRM's creation. I like the flavor the mechanics though. The Boltons dubious fealty to whomever seems to be the most powerful at the moment, and that reflects in game.

Well, and here we are. Does the Bolton theme work? Can you win with it? Or is it too good to be true, waiting to stab you in the back at the most inopportune moment?

I have a Bolton deck that wins more than it loses. Their fickle loyalty can be managed with the right cards, but there is still risk involved with them, as you'd expect from anyone with dubious loyalties.

So does it work? Yes. Does it win every game? No.

I don't play mine in melee. It's only used in joust, and it's fun to play (for me, at least). I like to build thematic decks that are effective and fun to play. Probably not tournament quality, but surely good enough for casual play.

Bolton decks are fun; you get good card advantage, very effective cheap characters, very good war-crest interaction, and with some trait manipulation and Abandoned Fort, have an excellent way to prevent your boltons from getting out of hand (either by recovering nasty boltons, or bouncing problematic characters).

You have to be very careful which challenges you lose or leave yourself exposed to lose, and some challenge control is necessary. Given also that your draw is entirely dependent on characters and you're going to have trouble recovering from resets, I've found that "Narrow Escape" is basically a must.

Winterfell Honor Guard can also be run well out of a Bolton deck... wait til you're making an I challenge with Roose that he is going to win, throw your Honor Guards over to your opponent, then Roose brings em back! Free 4-STR Armies, woot!

Dubious Loyalties + Reek.
Win an intrigue challenge with Reek.
Trigger Reek, steal a character, giving your opponent Reek.
Trigger Dubious Loyalties, take Reek back.

For me, House Bolton works better when I've built less 'clever' decks around it. Cards like Imposter! Terror in the Dungeons and In Ramsay's Name can be effective in the right situation… but why worry about setting up combos when you have such cheap characters with high STR and war crests, and safety from negative attachments? They work great in a war-crest-heavy deck (bonkers good combo'd with frozen outpost or moat)

And don't worry about including every character from the house. Aside from The Deadfort, the Bolton trait is less valuable than the cards it appears on. (I almost never run Steelshanks Walton or Steelshanks' reserves despite their strengths because they add too many more ways the deck can go wrong/implode on itself.)

For melee theres the "merry go round" deck.

be last player, have steelshanks reserves(or 3), play in ramsays name and let the reserves run their course.

for added fun, have the weeping waters and val to play in ramsays name again each time active player changes. CORE Melisandre helps prevent others from winning here.

If you still haven't won/made someone else win, the reek combo claims power twice here...

RobotMartini said:

Completely agree. For me played as above in mind a Bolton deck will win more than it losses in " Joust "

I love mine for melee. I run it with Knights of the Hollow Hill to help ensure I pretty much always win initiative, and kneel cards like Steelshanks that will change sides during my own turn, and fill my board with cheap, strong characters. If I play it correctly, I usually win after running In Ramsay's Name a couple of times when Steelshanks comes back to me after touring the table (knelt, picking up power). It takes some care, because I obviously don't want him joining another player who's close to a win, but when it's running right, I control the table. I bounce my opponent's best cards back to their hands (or just take them outright), give them knelt characters left and right, and generally disrupt their plans.

It's not a joust deck and probably won't ever be a tournament contender. But it's definitely a fun deck, one that creates a lot of chaos (or seems to, anyway; it all makes sense to me).