Was taking apart a Lannister power behind the throne deck last night and I was thinking about possible Lannister decks to mess with and I was surprised by how many different types of decks Lannister now has to choose from.

- Shadows

- Hyper Kneel

- Power Behind the throne

- Knights of the Realm

- Clansman

- Armies

- Gold Manipulation

Is there another house that has as many options in the deckbuilding process?

Martell has:

Vengeful and the different themes that key off of losing challenges.
Icon removal.
Armies/House Dayne
Knights/House Dayne
Ghaston Grey/Noble (Character bounce/challenge manipulation)
Strongest house for Maesters and Maester of War is In House to make Maester decks be able to do MIL challenges too

Pretty versatile house...

you forgot Maester

Seriously though, Knights of the Realm, Shadows, Maester, Brotherhood and NIghtsWatch/Wildling works out of almost any house (bara aint great at shadows unless it runs Asshai, Targ and Greyjoy are crap for Knights etc.) so taking those out you have:

- Hyper Kneel

- Power Behind the Throne

- Clansman

- Army

- Gold Manipulation

With their key characteristic being strong intrigue control and kneel

Compare that to: Targ:

- Heir/Power Rush

- Dragon

- Dothraki and/or Army

- Pure Burn (usually attatchment control centric too)

with their key characteristic being strong attatchment control and burn

and thats just one house, some are more versatile than others obviously but I wouldnt say Lanni is THE versatile-est

Really hard to say. I couldn't disagree with you, but I couldn't agree either. Many houses can do many things - I think GJ does a lot as well. The only two a little lower would be Bara (mainly rush, maybe knights and Asshai) and Stark (mmm...kill...). And even that is arguable.

rings said:

Stark run a mean Tully-defensive deck (Ive been beaten with my opponent initating 2 or 3 challanges) and dont forget Boltons, they might as well be their own house!

rings said:

No love for the Stark Winter CoS build?

I think it all depends on the definition of versatility in the context of deck building.

I figure if they are versatile then they'd have a decent chance to compete against most deck types.

They have very little in saves outside of duplicates and neutral cards. (Or Tyrion in Clansman)

Have very little attachment control, and what exists is not that great.

They don't have much for in-house cancels, except now they have The Iron Throne(which does nothing if another is in play).

I think Lannister is a fantastic support house to make an Alliance deck with if you want to use some of their strengths with a house that is relatively weak in any of them.
For example, Baratheon has poor draw, so maybe if you Alliance with Lannister for simply draw and gold(or whatever else), you will have more success even with the sacrifice of the Alliance agenda.

Another house that I relish the strengths of for support of is Greyjoy. They have tons of saves and have some good ways to cancel effects which could be why you'd want to make an alliance deck with them.

AceManUSC said:

I didn't include Wildlings, Brotherhood, Nights Watch or Maesters because any house can run them

I also have yet to see a Martell deck built around vengeful, i think the House Dayne theme is too weak to run a deck out of right now and there are armies but no built in army support

Where as Lannister as Adam Marband and a ton of gold to really make an army deck run, Maybe versatile was the wrong word but i really believe they have the most options in deckbuilding in terms of themes and thats not saying they are strong in all those decks just that they have a lot of options

... the surplus gold and draw will always allow Lannister to be a House with a wide spectrum of deckbuilding options.