Having a tough time versus my friends Lannister intrigue deck. He is running the new Cersei with the Power behind the throne agenda. He uses quite a bit of intrigue characters and is really just owning me with the use of some key plots.

I have two main decks I have been playing against him with, one is a Baratheon power rush and the other is a Lannister Clansmen. For some reason he almost always gets Cersei with a bodyguard or duplicate within the first few rounds. Its not uncommon for him to do the three intrique challenge plot off the bat and cersei wins 3 power, plus usually 3 unopposed and most of my is hand gone in the first turn. I have been playing where loyalty lies to try and slow him down in round one but it hasnt been that effective.

With the plot where he doesnt kneel to attack or defend in intrigue or the one where I have to win a intrigue challenge to do any military or power challenges it seems really tough to win. Not to mention the plot where for each intrigue challenge he wins I have to kill a character lol.

He out power rushes my Baratheon deck as with Cersei he can get 8 or 9 power in one turn and add in Myrcella etc. If I go with my Clansmen, he usually keeps Tyrion knelt and I cant get through enough successful military challenges before he wins due to power.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to best combat the new Lannister intrigue rush deck?

SerArthurDayne said:

Are you looking for advice on those two builds?

On Lanni Clansmen use Paper Shields and the new Iron Throne to keep Tyrion going - and use kneeling effect of your own! Also, try out Red Wedding, it can just kill decks w/ Lords/Ladies. Also effects that work when you have less cards than your opponent are good, and strong card draw + income - a Lanni specialty (if you drop your cards in Marshalling, no issues losing them later).

Bara might be tougher. Obviously The Laughing Storm is good (with Paper Shield). As is the plot where you have to win a power challenge first early on. Red Wedding is again usually a good choice, or just outrushing him with Knight of Flowers + Fat Bob (assuming no shadows, or you go get the shadow discarding Maester 1st turn).

Other builds that will work are Stark Siege (hard to survive that first turn with expensive peeps out), Martell Ghaston Grey (Bodyguard doesn't help vs. return to hand effects), and GJ Choke (hard to get her out with much protection w/o income).

Good luck!

Also, Laughing Storm might help to protect your hand as long as you can keep him standing.

Thanks for the ideas, I'll try those out.

Also, going to try and use some milk of the poppy on cersei and i added x3 diplomat attachment for the intrigue icons ...hopefully that will help!

Good luck!

To add to the above:
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The Motley attachment is murder on non-kneelers, maybe give that a shot? It's free, so it isn't going to impact your powergrab deck too much.

Maybe The Red Wedding your plot deck? I'm sure you have enough Lords to go around. You could add in a few Ladys if you don't have them to give the plot more global use.

Initiative is probably factoring in too. Are you running KL Knight of Flowers, or maybe the KL Robert? If so, The King's Law will suit you well. Try and catch their Frey Hospitality with it.

I have trouble coming against this build too, as a Lannister player even. And it's all due to Bronn's Hireling and his deadly keyword :/

If and if you specifically want to tech against your friend, run the dissention event. It doesn't go well with powergrab though.

~So glad Fieras and Rave read my post, and so thought of Laughing Storm and Red Wedding (and KoF/Robert)...

rings said:

doh, sorry :/

rings said:

TLDR

Build a Stark deck around Bran Stark (intrigue) and see if you can surprise your opponent to a win, throw frozen outpost, endless endurance and compelled by the north in there along with Ice, Catelyn, Meera and Guardian wolf, . . . . .. hey it might work

rings said:

Do you really think Stark Siege is going to do well against Lanni Hyper-Intrigue? Admittedly, I've only played a couple matches against Lannister with my Stark Siege, and that was Shadows/Hyper-Kneel, but it absolutely rolled me. He was able to hold me off well, particularly by kneeling out my big chunky fellas.

If you really get tired of it and just want him play something else, build a Stark Winter Shadows deck around KL Catelyn. His entire deck may fall apart if he can't do Intrigue challenges and from what I hear it is a pretty popular and powerful build in Europe even if we don't see much of it over here.

Bran Stark can work!!!!!

win the first 3 intrigue challenges they initiate and win the game, seriously theres no way a deck like this can work??

you mention a diplomat attachment for the int icon(court advisor?); buut...Generally speaking, tackling a house strength head on, especially when its your house weakness (both bara or stark in this case) isn't really a good idea. Sure you can mitigate the damage somewhat, but don't try and beat them at what they are best at.

Especially with all their deadly Intrigue. You winning means you are still "losing" since Bran's Response is in a defensive role only. All your INT icon chars will be getting torn apart by all the Deadly. Dead Craster, dead Boltons, dead Septas and Septons, dead Maesters, etc etc

I am having trouble against lannister with my stark siege deck as well. The plot that says you have to win an intrigue challenges before making any other challenges combined with misinformation is destroying my 2 claim plots. Is paper shield/hands judgment really the only way to counter this?

SirDuck said:

I do think the Lanni Intrigue build will be really strong until other Houses find a way to deal with it. Unless you feel like dedicating some cards to teching specifically against the build (um... Forgotten Plans maybe?) there isn't much you can do about it. Depending on your plots, Core Bran might be helpful, but only situationally. Not that he's a bad card in any deck, just always situationally useful unless he is a major part of the build. I'm hoping to see some more anti-Intrigue cards soon; its really easy to tech against M challenges (you could build most of a plot deck against it if you really wanted to) but there's virtually nothing that hampers Intrigue challenges.

Do any current Stark builds run that direwolf that takes deadly away from everyone and gives it to all direwolves? That sounds like it would be useful against the agenda.

SirDuck said:

No, those cards will not stop that plot in any way shape or form. The only way to cancel a plot effect is with a card that says it cancels a plot effect... and since that plot is not a when revealed but a straight passive, there aren't anything that will actually cancel it. What you need is the plot that blanks other plots outside of the plot phase.

Penfold said:

I think he's saying that Misinformation is abusing him when he actually has a shot at winning the Intrigue challenge.

Is that what the issue is? Blah, Stark shouldn't even bother trying to win INT against a deck like this. IF you have an easy win go for it, but trying to work it and devout card slots and brain power to it? Forget about it.

A Stark Military based deck should just attempt to murder everything in sight as fast and as thoroughly as possible.

Penfold said:

Potential problem is Lanni can tech against that pretty effectively. Shadows and Spiders, Uneasy Truce, L&L, even Muster the Realm could all easily fit in a Lanni Intrigue deck, start considering Events too, Wars are won with Quills, etc and it seems to me like the Lanni player has a distinct advantage.

I was referring to the event misinformation. I might play stark siege a little differently than most, but I find it quite easy to fit some solid intrigue characters into my decks. So often if I got second and the lannister player has already hit me with 2 intrigue challenges, provides of course they did not have Cersei I can win an intrigue challenge without much issue. I would much prefer to just military challenge and kill as you put it, but when plots completely make me unable to do so, I have to try to improvise.

SirDuck said:

Maybe a plot like Forgotten Plans or Calm Over Westeros would help. Otherwise I keep finding crap in Greyjoy or Martell only that can help.

Forgotten Plans and Calm over Westeros are great choices (FP I mentioned obliquely earlier).

I'm not saying don't make intrigue challenges just don't worry about it too much about it.

Stark Murder control is extremely strong. Frozen Solid, kill events, kill abilities, searching for the answer you need, Meera Reed, Frozen Outpost and Frozen Moat you should not be fearing their challenges. Toss in some Hands of the Kind and/or Paper Shields and you shouldn't be getting rolled by their deck.

If you find yourself really getting yourself beat up by this one specific deck I'd really recommend looking at putting The Raven's Message in your deck with something like the Red Wedding. One turn of that and you could completely turn the game around. Kill off Cersei or Jamie with Red Wedding (and if they have neither a lord or lady you can still reveal the plot for no effect) and then kneel your weakest Power icon character to kneel all their Intrigue icons. Then you go across with a military challenge with Rob, raise the claim toss out a couple of kill events off that challenge or in dominance. Losing a major character (or two or three) and a couple of weenies for claim soak plus you claiming 2 power if you can get Red Wedding to go off. Pretty significant swing.

Just want to get a quick elaboration here. You said they needed to have 'neither lords nor ladies' for Red Wedding not to work. Does that mean that if there is only one type on the table (lord or lady) then something still happens? Because I always thought it needed both or it fizzled.