Hi All,

In another thread over in the deck construction, NuFenix mentioned a little trick I'd never heard of before - there's so many mind-boggling combinations in this game and so many people playing it, there are bound to be plenty of little tricks and minor strategies that we could share and discuss. I'm not looking for rules abuse or anything similar, just post any nifty little play you might've done in the past that you might be proud of. I'll start, obviously, with the one that NuFenix mentioned that inspired the thread:

In this case he mentioned using 'You've killed the wrong dwarf', but I suppose any Any Phase card that you can use early would work. Play you've killed the wrong dwarf in the plot phase, then flip Rule by Decree. Not only has your opponent got one knelt character, but he's now discarding down to four cards! Unpleasant. Even the power you gave him through the card will likely be discarded when you smash him for military shortly aftwards.

My own contribution involves that little rascal, Lucas Blackwood. It wasn't planned, but I had Lucas in play who had been sat discreetly minding his own business for a turn or two in a fairly busy melee game. One of my opponents flipped Battle of Oxcross and I was chosen as the third player of four. I watched the first and second players hammer each other to avoid losing someone to Oxcross, then I threw a power challenge and spent a minute or two mulling over a military challenge and then passed play to the last player saying that my set up wasn't strong enough to break someone, then faked that I'd forgotten about Oxcross after I passed. The player directly after me (Greyjoy, heavy saves) knelt just about everything to break one of the other players safe in the knowledge that he couldn't be attacked. Afterwards, I kill Lucas to Oxcross, run over to the Greyjoy player with Brienne(PotS) and an army and smash through his lines, killing with claim and with Fury of the Wolf! He couldn't even use saves (Thanks Brienne!). Seriously considering putting Oxcross in my own plot deck now... it's so easy for opponents to overlook.

I'll enjoy reading any contributions of others

Sadly, your Oxcross/Lucas Blackwood thing doesn't work. The timing for the game prevents it for two reasons:

1. With Oxcross, you kill the character at the end of the phase. The FAQ states that no "Response" actions may be taken during this "at the end of the phase" timing window. So if you kill Lucas to satisfy Oxcross, you cannot trigger his Response.
2. Even if you could trigger Lucas' Response after killing him for Oxcross, once the "at the end of the phase" window starts, you will never have a chance to initiate the Military challenge Lucas gives you "as your next player action this phase" because you don't get any more player actions that phase !

In the spirit of the post, though, one of the little play tricks I have always liked is using Frozen Solid on a Frozen solid. Since attachments go on characters "unless otherwise specified," using FS #2 to blank FS #1 stops it from being legal on whatever location/attachment it is on, so the attachments are just discarded.

It's not much of a trick, but I have a Kingsguard deck with almost no intrigue icons whatsoever, so when they come in for what appears to be a completely safe intrigue challenge and I play Misinformation I get the power for the White Book, plus I get to trigger Hornvale and Meryn Trant.

Hahah, Ktom, you have crushed my brightest moment in the game thus far! I really need to study those charts...

Myrcella + Parting blow
Hidden Vale Pass + Deadly Clansmen for int and pow challenges.
Hidden Vale Pass + Narrow escape
Lanni box Gregor + Oath of Fealty/YKTWD
Bronn + You swore an oath

The RBD trick works well with Myrish Villa too.

mine has to be forever burning/the titan's bastard. love that combo.

Still like the 2x To Be a Dragon + Street Waif infinite dead pile recursion combo. Visenya's Hill can help get discarded characters out of the way of the combo and ready for recursion at the same time.

This isnt that much of a trick but when I first started running 3x Iron Lore, 3x Summer Sea and 3x Iron Mines I felt like hot ****.

I also love using steel sword in my Martell/Kingsguard for the suprise challenge wins and power.

There's Head of a Dwarf + Slander and Lies too. That's a fun one.

Every time I've tried to build a deck with this in mind it's been too slow, but I think it's a concept worth exploring.

I like using Meera and Frozen Solid to Freeze things that are otherwise No Attachments.

Also, regarding Lucas Blackwood, just use House Umber Berserkers to kill him.

Ser Osmund kettleblack + Frozen Outpost.

Nobody expects him to become an 11 strength defender when they see the lone 3 strength knight all by himself

Hmm I would have to say that the combination of herding the masses + ahead of the tides has given me good results

"ok only uniq may defend now... oh and I will attack first"

dh098017 said:

Toss an Icy Catapult on him first for even more carnage; I also like to have a Direct Assault handy to use on the HUB since your opponent may have no characters left to kill at that point...

Fun with shadows:

• epic battles (military) and Syrio Forel
• Queen of Thorns and Sister of Truth (preferably with 2 Hidden Chambers)

First turn Rule by Decree is fun, too (possible with epic battles or even worse, the event that kneels a Maester to reveal a plot - the opponent needs a cancel).

Threat from the East and The Laughing Storm.

Try this:

Run Varamyr Sixskins out of a Targaryen Dragons build. Trigger his ability and put one of your dragons into play. Then, cancel the effects of Varamyr's ability with a Bloodrider .

What happens? Bloodrider cancels the effects of Varamyr's ability, i.e. the take Varamyr back to hand part and the Creature gets discarded at the end of the phase part. But get this: the cost of the effect does not get cancelled, and in this case, the cost is putting the Creature into play. So, for the cost of 2 Influence, you get to keep Varamyr, you get to keep the creature you put into play beyond the current phase, and you have Bloodrider in play. And if you have the Influence to pay for it, you can repeat this as long as you have Creatures and Bloodriders in your hand.

If you want to get crazy with this, you can run lots of OOH Direwolfs in excess of the Dragons, search them with Wolf Dreams and use Varamyr to get them in play, too, because the OOH penalty doesn't work on put-into-play-effects. Add three copies of At Night They Howl , and you're set. You can use stuff like The First Snow of Winter , A House Divided , Search and Detain , Ambush from the Plains and others to get more uses out of your Bloodriders.

And before you're ask: No, you can't trigger Balerion's Response that way, because it responds to him being played from hand, not to him being put into play.

Walder Frey.

Attack, wait for the defence, Walder jumps in on their side and he counts as your dude with deadly.

Whizzwang said:

seriously?

jack merridew said:

Yeah. Walder is still a character you control, so even if he is participating on the opponents side, he will count toward your Deadly count.

"If you control the most participating characters with the Deadly keyword...".

well ill be damned it amazes me how i have been playing this game for over a year and yet i still know so very little

It certainly makes him a little more interesting knowing that, but I still find it difficult to want him in a deck. Maybe if they make House Frey more relevant in an upcoming chapter pack or deluxe expansion, there could be enough synergy to want to use him.

jack merridew said:

It's not surprising you wouldn't think that would work, because it makes absolutely no sense. But sometimes this game is like that. You just have to roll with the punches.

Bomb said:

This isn't as cool as you would think.

Yes, you win, and yes deadly goes, off, but the opponent can just kill walder for deadly, since they need to choose a defending character to die.

My favorite little trick has to be blanking Hodor with Meera.

Fieras said:

No because as Bomb said you 're not controlling Walder Frey, and you cannot kill for deadly or claim a character that is not under your control.

He's just participating (adding his strengh) on your side.

Besides that he could be helpful in a Martell deck, when you need to lose by 4 and play The Viper's rage... Oo

Kordovan said:

During a challenge, if the attacking player controls
the most participating characters with the
“Deadly” keyword, the defending player must
choose and kill a defending participating character
after the challenge resolves.

I guess it depends on the definition of a "defending participating". It certainly doesnt say "participating character controlled by the defender" I would consider Walder to be both defending and participating in that example, plus I am pretty sure thats how they ruled it in the rules forums a while back.