Besides the obvious fact that a melee deck should have a bit more rush, and probably a little less control than a joust decks, what are the steps to building a good melee deck? I've heard people say you don't want your board position to look too strong, but in games I've played a strong board position usually serves as a deterant to having people attack you. Any thoughts?

I don't have very much experience with melee, but it doesn't seem like you have to toolbox nearly as much. Like, if Ghaston Grey pops up for some reason, you know that player isn't going to have it for very long anyway.

I would suggest a few surprise power cards for the turn where you go for the win. Make an example, or superior claim? I dunno.

Agendas also get a lot better. The knight agenda is great, because you can pretty much be sure there is always one player who isn't going to have knights, and you'll never have to get penalized drawing 1 card. Knights of the hollow hill is also good, because the first round doesn't matter very much.

Condemned by the Realm also becomes really good, and definitely worth running in your plot deck, as is any bargaining chip type plot like Summoning Season. Resets become less useful, because someone else is probably running one anyway.

Respectfully I have to disagree with some of your points, Rave.
You are correct when you say combos don't work nearly as well since there are multiple players who will try to shut them down.
But I don't think including Superior Claim or Make an Example just because it can help push through the win is good advice, for the same reason combos don't work - there are several other players who can counter them, not just one. Potentially there are 9 Paper Shields against you, not to mention anything else that can cancel events or triggerred effects. I'm not saying those cards don't belong in melee decks, just that they should only be built into the deck if it is appropriate, just like in joust.
Agendas do not "get better" - an Agenda either belongs in a deck or it doesn't. Knights of the Realm isn't as much of a liability in melee, but needing to have more Knights than all other players means it may not help you much either. KotHH probably does work slightly better in melee, but there's also a greater possibility that someone will play Blockade or FoW or something first Round (although, since you mentioned it, Condemned by the Realm as your first plot when running KotHH works pretty well).
I also don't think resets are less useful - if anything, they may be more useful. The ability to Valar then grab a title that protects you during your no-claim low-gold Round makes Valar more useful most of the time; in joust you have to worry about your opponent flooding the board after you've played your reset since you probably don't have another one, whereas in melee most players are not ever going to flood the board with characters for fear of looking like too much of a threat to all the other players, and because they know that more resets are out there. Have you ever played a melee game with no resets at all? I have and I have seen others play them and it is a disaster - a game in my meta last week ended with 60+ characters in play because everyone built plot decks thinking "it's melee, so all the others will have Valar/Wildfire so I dont need to use one."

All that being said, I can't claim to be an expert melee player or anything (in fact, my melee decks suck more often than not). I think it depends on the people you are playing against. GJ is considered a good House for melee because they have so many saves - but what will your group do when facing a GJ player with available saves, will they all avoid attacking the GJ player because "its useless, she has too many saves" or will they all band together and hit GJ with all three M challenges because of a "if we work together we can eliminate all those saves" mentality?
I happen to agree with the people who suggest you don't want a strong board position, mainly based on the fact that I would always attempt to get the three weaker players to join together to take out the person who has board control. I also like to use cards that give me a good amount of control without looking threatening... Kraznys mo Nakloz, for example, is great for melee. Few players will try to remove my Summer, they like the extra gold; futhermore, two of my three opponents will probably be happy when I steal an attachment and weaken someone else. But is Kraznys so good that he becomes a target? Probably not, since few players build decks based heavily on attachments (unless I am facing a bunch of TMP decks) and once he has done his work, the damage is already done, so they'll save their Milks and targetted kills for something slightly more threatening, like, say, AToC Robert.
Another option is to build something that no one wants to attack - a "just leave me the hell alone b/c I'm Martell and I have so many nasty revenge effects" type deck. After the first time you use Viper's Rage on someone and watch multiple players jump on the unopposed challenges, your opponents will be a little less likely to go after you.
Finally, some crossfire effects are always useful - cards that allow you to win a challenge against Player A and then target an effect on Player B. If Player B has particularly threatening characters out, Player A may just go ahead a let you win a challenge, knowing that losing a single challenge is ok if it allows you to kill B's Melisandre in the process. Good luck, hope this helps!

Interesting points!

But I don't think including Superior Claim or Make an Example just because it can help push through the win...
-This is true. I guess my point here is that it gives you an advantage to not have your winning play on the table. If it isn't, people will not be able to conspire against you until that moment. I guess this ties into not having the superior board position.

Agendas do not "get better"...
-They most certainly do. As you said, there is zero liability. If I run a lannister or baratheon deck in melee, I will run Knights before I run no agenda. There is no reason not to. It may not work for you all of the time, but if it works twice, it has done its job.

I also don't think resets are less useful...
-True, you are right with them still being useful. I guess I should have said I don't think they are necessary, so if it doesn't fit into your deck to run them, don't. Decks running saves will definitely benefit from it. And hmmm... very rarely have I ever had the 'nobody has a reset' scenario, this strikes me as very uncommon. Usually someone has something.

And yeah, I totally agree with building decks that are unattractive to attack, like the Martells with the vengeance mechanic. I have seen this used to good effect as well.

the great thing about melee is that you can play it a number of ways and still come out on top, you can win a melee game with a well built Targaryen Dothraki deck by only winning 3 challeneges, you can use a Lannister clansman deck and with 2 burned men out with ill begotten spoils and the empty throne plot to declare 2 power challenges with 4 claim each or use a defensive Seiege of Winterfell Stark deck with frozen outposts and the lord commander title to turn after turn creep your way to 15. Generally you can have more time to set things up while you get ready to make your final push, granted you might have to deal with a valar or 2 but as long as you dont make yourself a target you can form a coherent strategy and execute it. try not to be the strongest on the board and try not to be the weakest and you can use the distraction of someone being a threat and someone being vulnerable to give yourself room to work.

On power grabbing events: I think this mostly depends on the meta...Strangely enough, i have only seen paper shield like... once or twice in our melee environment (He calls it thinking on the other hand...). Its not something for every deck, but i can see a single copy of make an example in most decks. It kind of comes down to timing as well, going last in a round gives your events a slightly better chance of going through because any cancels may have been used on other players in the round.

Agenda's being "better" I can't comment too much on, i don't know how strong/risky they are in joust. but i can say that most agendas have a viable deck in melee. only ones I havent seen work are wildling (mostly because nobody has played them), winter and treaties...

On resets. I dont like the idea of "oh, someone else will have one" because, there have been games where there are no resets and a deck has been unstoppable, and then another where that same deck got hit by valar and could not recover. It is my opinion that every deck should run a reset that is most beneficial to the deck itself.

Having a strong defensive board position is good, because as someone said, you just don't get challenged. Just as long as you don't look like you are going to win. on that same note, having the worst board position can also mean you don't get challenged (unless its free unopposed of course)...

I just posted a really long reply in another melee thread so i wont say more than that...

Didnt want to start a new topic so ill just post here, im building a melee specific deck for each house using the new chapter packs and ran into some trouble with a Baratheon deck every other deck seems to have options and flexibility but my Bara decks just seem weak by comparison, anyone have any success with a Baratheon melee deck

im leaning towards a knights rush just because i cant see anything else worth while, btw the new robert is crap

Rave said:

I completely agree about the importance of not having your winning play on the table. It's just natural to gang up on the player closest to winning. Though as mentioned, defensive decks or playing Martell can deter this. In my melee games when someone hits double digits in power, it's often the player in 2nd place who wins, because everyone gangs up on the player in 1st place.

The trick always seems to be to make steady progress while setting up a big power grab to win the game before the other players have a chance to react.

I also find Valar less appealing in melee because the ganging up aspect tends to keep everyone fairly close in the power count. Playing Valar when losing usually just means I fall behind further from having no claim and 2 gold for a turn. If I play Valar from a position of power (such as having a lot of save mechanics out), that tends to piss off my meta enough that they all gang up on me for the rest of the game. That could just be my meta though . In joust, it doesn't matter if you piss off the other player, but it is a factor in melee.

My experience is that Wildfire Assault is a better option in melee if you're falling behind the pack. Condemned by the Realm is also great. It's usually obvious which character on the board needs to die, so it rarely backfires.

Overall, the biggest difference between melee and joust is that in melee it makes more sense to include cards that are good for you rather than bad for one opponent. In a 4 player game, if you're playing cards to hurt one player while the other 2 are playing cards to help themselves, you're going to fall behind. That's why in melee all of my event cards are save effects, power grabs, etc.

In joust, you can have a strategy of "how am I going to prevent my opponent from winning?" but in melee it's all about "how am I going to win?"

The plot Loyalty Money Can Buy is pretty much an auto-include in any deck in either format, but is critical in melee. Proper timing can prevent your opponents from ganging up on you. I often find this plot to be better for a game-winning power grab than a 2 claim card simply because it's difficult to reliably win initiative against multiple opponents and if you lose, your opponents will make sure they all get a crack at you before you can do anything.

jack merridew said:

This is all pure speculation, but it seems to me like TLS should really help boost Bara in melee, as long as you don't start using cards that make everyone else discard and piss them all off. If you've got him in play you don't need to worry so much about defending Intrigue challenges, you can even make deals to let others hit you with I challenges for the unopposed power. He's not as likely to get knelt by card effects since kneel isnt all that effective in melee, and he probably won't ever be the biggest target on the board since hes not really "hurting" anyone else much, doesn't have Renown, etc.

I'm curious, aside from his cost, why does everyone think the new Robert is so bad? I haven't actually used him yet because I'm not a huge Bara player, but he seems like an excellent way to close a game out... for example, play Retaliation, choose to be 2nd player, play Robert, try to get either the CR title or a STR booster on him, challenge whoever has the worst board to defend a P challenge, get 7 power, play Make and Example or Superior Claim (if possible) if you need the extra power grab. Is this one of the scenarios that sounds good on paper but just doesn't really work?