First, the deck:

Targaryen Maester Burn

The Maester's Path with the following links:

Apprentice Collar

Tin Link

Copper Link

Valyrian Steel Link

Lead Link

Bronze Link

Plots

Rule By Decree

At The Gates

Building Season

Retaliation!

Threat From the North

Forgotten Plans

Valar Morghulis

Characters (29)

3x Shadow Parasite

3x Refugees of the Plains

3x Advisor to the Crown

3x Dragon Thief

2x Shadow Seer

2x Ser Jorah Mormont (PotS)

1x Brown Ben Plumm

1x Jhogo (OSaS)

1x Khal Drogo (QoD)

1x Magister Illyrio (VM)

1x Syrio Forel

1x Maester Aemon (Core)

1x Ser Barriston Selmy (TftH)

1x Horseback Archers

1x Viserys (Core)

1x Black Hatchling (DB)

1x Green Hatchling (TWH)

1x Pyat Pree

1x Varys (SaS)

Locations (13)

3x Eastern Fiefdoms

3x Summer Sea

1x Lady Dany's Chambers

1x Khal Drogo's Tent

1x Red Keep

1x Mereenese Tourney Grounds

1x Aegon's Hill

1x River Row

1x Meraxes

Attachments (3)

3x Flame-Kissed

Events (10)

3x Narrow Escape

3x Incinerate

2x Hatchling's Feast

2x Forever Burning

The inspiration for this deck comes from Twn2dn's Targ Maester deck that won the Black Friday Tournament back in November. As a new player on the receiving end of that deck, I was impressed with its power and synergy and knew that it fit my playstyle. At the same time, the deck is complex to play and it took me quite a while to get comfortable with the deck and to minimize stupid play mistakes (such as forgetting to take chains off of the agenda). As I tested the deck against my meta-mates in Da Wolf Pack, I added a numbe of cards that I think made the deck much better for me. Thanks to Tony (Aegon's Hill), Adam (Rule by Decree) and Brett (Forgotten Plans) for your contributions to the deck.

The strategy for the deck is pretty straightforward; Get a maester out, burn everything that is on the board and start winning challenges. My goal is to get 4 or 5 cards placed in the initial setup. There is also a 50+% chance to get Rule By Decree to go off during the first plot (either through ambushing in a card or using forever burning) which gives me card advantage from the beginning of the match. Building Season allows me to have fewer locations in the deck as I can usually get whatever I need with the plot. Interestingly, I haven't had much trouble taking chains off of the agenda despite having only 4 maesters. At the Gates plus the excellent card draw the deck generates generally gives me the maesters that I need.

The primary weakness of this deck (as with most Targ decks) is its inability to deal with locations. In this case I just try to flood the board with characters and keep winning challenges.

Matches:

Round 1: Mike Grimm (Greyjoy, No Agenda)

In playtesting my deck, the one archetype that I seemed to do poorly against was Greyjoy choke, so I wasn't all that happy about this matchup right off of the bat. Suffice it to say that things did not go well and Mike ended up winning the match. 0-1

Rounds 2 to 4: More Greyjoy!

A funny thing happened after Round 1; all three of my next opponents were playing similar Greyjoy winter/choke decks, and after each match I got more familiar with the Greyjoy cards and a better appreciation for how Targ Burn can deal with Greyjoy. In each match I was able to burn most characters and in some cases get rid of winter through the Tin/Copper link combination. 3-1

Round 5: Matt (Lannister PbtT)

Matt came down from Wisconsin for the tourney. With both of us at 3-1, we realized that the winner would end up in the top 6 while the loser probably would not. Lots of pressure! I felt pretty good about the matchup, as I felt that I could get some extra card draw from his agenda. In the end, I was able to burn most of his characters (including a double-duped Cersei) and take the game.

After 5 rounds, I was seeded fourth.

Quarterfinals: Brian (Baratheon Maesters)

Although Brian is a member of Da Wolf Pack, I haven't played that many games against him and was a bit discombobulated by his deck. He had something like 9 or 10 chains on his agenda and a deck chock full of maesters. I don't remember all that much about the match except that I made quite a few play mistakes given the uniqueness of his deck. I was able to get burn recursion going, however, and ended up winning the match.

Semifanals: Zach (Tararyen KotHH)

Zach has a much better description of our match on his blog at Team Covenant, but suffice it to say it was clear that I drew much better than he did. I just kept burning as many of his characters as I could and kept adding chains to Maester Aemon in order to boost his strength with the Apprentice Collar (at the end of the game he had 6 collars and 8 strength). As long as Zach did not have too many characters on the board, I knew that it would be difficult for him to burn Aemon with Incinerate. I was also able to use Aemon to draw 2 cards every turn as well as bring back a flame-kissed, allowing me to keep alot of burn in my hand at all times. Overall an excellent match and opponent.

Finals: Brett (Baratheon KotHH)

I have played quite a few games against Brett and he always has a unique deck that throws me off. The other thing about Brett is that he is a master at revealing just the right plot at the right time. Again, I was lucky to get my burn and burn recursion early and was able to get to 15 power after a long and hard-fought battle.

Overall, I had an excellent time and all of my opponents were gracious as well as being top-notch. I was surprised at how much Targaryen there was at the tournament (6 out of 20 decks) as only one of my 8 matches was against Targ. On the other hand, I played against 4 of the 5 Greyjoy decks.

A special thank you goes out to ktom. I understand that he used some FFG credit that he had to purchase the Regional materials and passed the savings off to us (the entry fee was only $5). Furthermore, ktom provided the booster packs that were used for the draft at no additional charge. Thanks ktom!

Fantastic deck (I like the updates with the new cards!) and nice report. A couple of questions:

1. Did you see Targ burn (mirror match) as a threat going into the tourney? I've been worried that the addition of Incinerate basically renders other Targ maesters decks less effective. In other words, my "guesstimate" is that Targ KotHH is a better metagame decision, mostly because of the mirror match but to some extent also because of First Snow of Winter. Apparently you beat at least one Targ KotHH deck, so just curious what your feelings were now, as well as what you may have found in testing.

2. A couple of card choices are a little different than what I've been running. Rule by Decree is a good example…how useful have you found that plot in your games? (Which match ups does it help you win that you wouldn't otherwise win?) Also, 3x Advisor but no Linked Advisors, which I tend to like in the mirror match. Did you find the mixture of maesters to be the right balance?

Upon further consideration, I think you make an excellent point that you can keep Incinerate in check by killing the opponent's characters. Embarrassingly, that isn't something I considered very closely. I'm now thinking that Targ maester may remain the dominant build (had thought it would be KotHH above), so long as you run Apprentice Collar.

Thanks again for your report, and look forward to your thoughts on the above questions!

Twn2dn,

Thanks for the response and compliments. As for your questions:

1) To be perfectly honest, I wasn't too focused on Targ, mainly because there are really only two of us in our meta who play Targ consistently. I think I did receive pretty lucky draws as I only played one of the other 5 Targ decks at the tournament. At the same time, I was aware that burn could hurt me and that is why I have the Apprentice Collar which I bring out as early as possible on whichever maester I get out first. If I can do this, then my main concern is going to be Incinerate, and as you noted, if I can kill most of my opponent's characters, incinerate isn't going to hurt me too badly. Also, if my opponent is using all of his burn on my maesters, he is going to leave my other characters alone, and some of them are not going to be ones you want to see on the table for too long (e.g., Pyat Pree, Jhogo). The goal is to overwhelm the opponent with threats and make him react to my moves.

As for KotHH builds, I playtested one before the Regional but it just seemed slower, more clunky and less consistent to me, most probably due to not having an initial setup. The Maester build regularly sets up with 4 or 5 (sometimes even 6) cards, which means that I will have drawn 20% or more of my deck before the first turn even starts. This deck can be extremely aggressive, and if I can force my opponent to Valar on turn 2 and I have a Narrow Escape in my hand, I will be happy.

2) As for Rule by Decree, it has turned out to be a great addition to the deck. I figure that I can force my opponent to discard down to 4 cards around 50% to 60% of the time. This is helped by the fact that the deck only has 55 cards in it rather than 60.

As for Linked Advisors, they could be OK but I found that the Advisors to the Crown work much better due to the Influence they provide. I haven't found having only 4 maesters to be too limiting, and in most games I find it relatively easy to get the chains off, although I agree this could be very problematic vs. other Targ decks. I would be interested in your thoughts as to what card(s) you think Linked Advisor could replace.

The other thing that I really like about this deck is the card draw. Between Jhogo, Khal Drogo, Meraxes and Valyrian Steel Link, I had card advantage in almost all of my matches.

As for Maesters or KotHH being the dominant build, I don't think one can say that either is dominant (although I do believe that both are dominant to most other current archetypes). I truly believe that whichever deck draws into its burn first will have a significant advantage and will most likely win. I also think that the Maester build gives one a higher probability of drawing into burn more quickly.

One strange thing to note regarding this tournament: I never once played Magister Illyrio nor did I ever get Syrio Forel into the game. I also can't recall using Incinerate more than one or two times; Flame-kissed and Forever Burning (recurred over and over) did most of the work. Also, there were at least two matches where I thought I had no chance of winning, but was able to pull them out because was able to use burn to get back into the match.

Really good thoughts…a couple follow-ups:

On RBD, did you find that you wanted to play this round 1 over At the Gates? It didn't bother you to wait an extra round to get influence/maester into play? In cases where you waited, did you find RBD was still effective later in the game?

How are you liking that Khal? I always loved him, but more recently have moved away from him. I'm not at all convinced, however, that cutting him was the right move and may actually go back to running the "search" version in my Targ decks. Were you pretty happy with him?

Did you ever consider running Hrakkar's Pelt? I originally didn't, but in the past six months or so I have become a convert, and try to fit 2 into any Targ maester deck I build. Obviously they aren't necessary, but it's nice to ensure you win dom + get the extra draw during dom.

Regarding your question about Linked Advisors, I'm not sure what I would cut. Honestly, if Targ isn't popular in your area, then Linked Advisors are probably a waste in your deck, unless you want to run Outwit. The extra intrigue is nice, but not nearly as useful as having the influence (I played only 2x influence maesters). More to the point, if you aren't playing against Targ burn or Stark, then your maesters are going to be pretty safe. I've played Targ maester decks with as few as 3 maesters and never had a problem, except against Targ (and certain Stark builds).

In almost all cases I had a Maester in my initial hand and if I did not, I just used At the Gates for my second plot. I calculate that with a 4 card flop, the odds of not having one of the 4 maesters in my hand after the draw phase of the first round is less than 33%. Those are pretty good odds and I am more than willing to take the chance to reduce my opponent's hand down to 4 cards right off of the bat. I remember the first time Adam pulled Rule by Decree on me; the psychological impact was worse than the actual game impact. As for RBD's effectiveness when I did not use it Turn 1, I had to be very careful that it did not hurt me instead of my opponent. Most times, if I used RBD late, it was simply a plot with good gold and initiative values.

Khal Drogo was OK, but I have to admit that I can only recall using his ability once or twice. 4 cost characters and locations can really slow down the aggressiveness of the deck, so I can see how adding a 3 cost or an s2 shadow character could be better in this build. On the other hand, Khal Drogo is great to have around as a hedge against Valar Morghulis, and getting Horseback Archers is particularly attractive in this deck with Magister Illyrio.

Haven't really looked at Hrakkar Pelt, although I think its Cantrip ability is cool. I think Meraxes is a better and more efficient way to get dominance and card draw in the deck. I would be more than willing to try it, but the question is what two cards do you exchange out of the deck for two Hrakkar pelts?

I agree that Linked Advisor is great against Stark and Targ builds, and I did try to include one or two in an earlier iteration of the deck, but there were just so many other cards I wanted to include in the deck. One of the key advantages of the Maester's Path is that it allows you to reduce your deck size, and I tried to stick as close to 60 cards as possible.

The fact is that with all of the great new Targ cards coming out recently, there are multiple viable ways to construct a Targ Maester deck. Look at the cards that have come out since we played on Black Friday; Mereneese Tourney Grounds, Meraxes, Incinerate, Magister Illyrio, to name a few. All of them are great in the Targ Maester build (or any Targ build for that matter).