Hello Guys

I really need some help with my Martell Deck. Once every Week, I play with my friends Game of Thrones. Most time we are 4 player, sometimes just 3. Losing the most of the time, with never even a chance to win, I think i need some help. Unlike the other players I'm never even close to 15 power in the late game.

My Card-Collection consists of:

Princes of the Sun (House Martell Starter)

Lannister Core Set

Stark Core Set

And some Cards from Booster packs (A Clash of Arms [3,4,5,6] and A Time of Ravens [3,4,5,6]

Booster packs were dividet between us four were I got: Sacred Bonds and The Ravens Song (which isnt really helpful in my Opinion)

And of course we exchanged some cards.

This is my Deck:

Agenda: -

Plots:
Let my Porridge fly
The Red Wedding
To the Spears!
Valar Morghulis
Fury of the Sun
Battle of Oxcross (or frey hospitality, depends on if lannister is in play too)
Building Season

Characters (from lowest to highest cost)
House Dayne Knight1x
Paramour 2x
Myrcella Lannister 1x
Lord Ecric's Knight 2x
Pit Viper 2x
Herald of the Sun 2x
Harmen Uller 1x
Sarella Sand 1x
Ellaria Sand 2x
Ser Arys Oakheart 2x
Former Champion 1x
Vendor of Venoms 1x
House Dayne Skirmisher 1x
Areo Hotah 1x
Darkstar 2x
Arianne Martell 2x
The Red Viper 3x
The Vipers Bannerman 2x
House Dayne Reserves 1x

Event Cards
Red Vengeance 3x
He Calls it thinking 2x
Someone always tells 1x
Blood for Blood 1x
Parting Blow 1x
Wars are won with quills 1x
The Vipers Revenge 1x

Attatchments
War Scorpion 1x
Rusted sword 3x
Taste for Blood 2x

Locations
Lord Doran's Chambers 1x
Dornish Fiefdoms 3x
Palace Fountains 2x
Dorne 2x
Summer Sea 2x
Water Garden 2x
Norvos 1x
Rookery of Sunspear x
River Row 1x

Whats my strategy behind this deck?

With some common Traits (House Dayne, Lady) im able to lower the cost of some characters through dorne. With norvos and Areo Hotah in Play, enemy should think twice before attacking me. Also there is Red Vengeance and Taste for Blood. After Valar Morghulis (which my opponent also has) I try to play Arianne Martell or Ellaria Sand with rusted sword on it. Also the vipers Revenge (epic battle) in combination with plot To the spears! is very nice.

Why do I lose?

My opponents are able to claim most of the power before valar morghulis, which i cant. They have so cheap Characters which are also very strong especially Stark and Greyjoy in military. Barathion has renown on most of his characters, Targariens with their dragons and attatchments and Lannisters can Intrigue 2 times due an agenda.

Well when I already mention it. Thats what my opponents have

Friend 1: All core sets, Kings of the Sea, Queen of Dragons, Lions of the rock
Friend 2: Baratheon core set, Kings of the Storm, Targarien Core set
Friend 3: Stark core set, Lords of Winter, Baratheon core set
me: Princes of the sun, Lannister core set, Stark core set

Thats where i figure out the Problem. Friend 1 has cards beyond reach. Player 2 and 3 have both core set and expansion set of the core, which gives them a variety of characters. eg 2 kinds of Robert Barateon or 2 kinds of Eddard stark. Even player 1 has 2 expansions with targarien and lannister.

But for Martell there is no core set, leaving my with only 1 copy of each character. What i figured out is, that most of the chars in play are from the expansion sets, few from core set. So are the expansions stronger?

Which leads me to agendas. Everyone is playing an agenda except me.
Lannister: The power behind Throne (he can intrigue 2x each challenge phase)
Baratheon: Knights of the realm (if he as more knights than we have, i can draw an additional card) (most time he has)
Targarien, Stark, Greyjoy: Heir to the Iron Throne (no intrigue, but an additional power challenge) (Most of their characters have no Intrigue Icon at all, so no loss)

None of these agendas would work for me: The power behind throne is for lannister only, Knights of the realm -> i have to few knights, Heir to the Iron Throne -> I need my intrigue challenge as well, my Military characters are not as strong as starks or greyjoys

How do I lose?

Because they killing my chars all the time in an instant. Even red vengeance cant help anytime. Which makes taste for Blood and Vengeance chars pretty useless.

So I was looking for an agenda for Martells and i found: Knights of the hollow hill, which would permanent give my 2 influence for red vengeance and 2 initiative. Most time i dont win initiative cause the plot cards I use have very low initiative, but I dont have other useful cards in my opinion

BUT my friend says Knights of the hollow hill is too strong, because we are only at booster pack series 2 and knights of the hollow hill is series 8.

00core set
01 A clash of arms
02 A Time of ravens
03 City of secrets
04 Kings of the sea
05 Princes of the sun
06 Defenders of the north
07 Lords of winter
08 Brotherhood without banners
09 Kings of the storm
10 Secrets of oldtown
11 Queen of dragons
12 Tale of champions
13 Lions of the rock

So he is saying the further you go down, the mightier the cards get. Is that true? Would that give me an unfair advantage?

Sorry for the long post. I hope someone can help me build a competitive deck. I love this game but im sick of losing all the time.

I'm not a Martell guy, but the first thing I would do is go to cardgamedb.com. I built my competitive deck by going there and looking at cards I liked before buying chapter packs and expansions so I didn't end up with out of theme cards. I believe they also have a deck building tool, so you can just build a virtual deck and get a shopping list. Do you have an old Princes of the Sun set? I ask b/c mine came with 3 of every card which is good since there are no Martell core cards. My Martell deck, which is just for friendly games, but may help is:

PLOTS

Feast or Famine (Kings of the Storm 54), Loyalty money can buy (Queen of Dragons 53), Rains of Autumn (Core 184), Regroup (KOTS 53), The Power of Blood (Core 194), To the spears (Princes of The Sun 60), Valar Morghulis (C 201)

CHARACTERS (30)

Arianne Martell x3 (POTS 2), Darkstar x3 (POTS 4), Ellaria Sand (POTS 7), Harmen Uller (POTS 8), House Dayne Knight x3 (POTS 11) House Dayne Skirmisher x3 (POTS 14), House Messenger x3 (POTS 10), Maester Aemon (C151), Orphan of the Greenblood x3 (POTS 15), Paramour x2 (POTS), Ser Arys Oakheart (POTS 9), The Red Viper x3 (POTS 1), The Viper's Bannermen (POTS 16)

LOCATIONS (12)

Dornish Fiefdoms x3 (Pots 26), Kingsroad Fiefdom x2 (QoD 42), Lord Doran's Chambers (POTS 27), River Row (QoD 43), Shadowblack Lane (C 144), Street of Steel (Lions of the Rock 45), Summer Sea (POTS 28)

ATTACHMENTS (5)

Bodyguard (C 150), Rusted Sword (POTS 47), Taste For Blood x3 (POTS 18)

EVENTS (13)

He Calls it Thinking x3 (POTS 21), Paper Shield x2 (QoD 46), Parting Blow x3 (POTS 40), Red Vengeance x3 (POTS 25), The Prince's Wrath x2 (POTS 22).

Well, first we need to know if you are playing vs multiple friends at a time (melee) or one on one games (joust). The deck building will tend to be a bit different.

I absolutely agree with Flightmaster I find it much easier to try things and deck build on an online deck builder. The two in use right now are Cargamedb.com and Agotcards.org.

Do you have an old Martel box where you only got each card x2? Or the reprint with x3?

If you are able to purchase a couple chapter packs the first ones I would suggest to a Martell player would be a Time of Trials for the Lost Oasis. Lost Oasis gives you a huge amount of control for very little and since it's location based and can be activated as an action as needed you are not tied to a particular character (like attachments are). I also suggest Refugees of War for well, the refugees, but it looks like you have that.

A big issue is that since you don't have a full core set you are lacking some plot options. Also, as you said Martel is not in the core set and their box is a pretty good starter set but really Martel gets some of it's best cards elsewhere. As I said above Lost Oasis is great. Mountains of the Moon contains the card Lost Spearman. He is a 1 gold character with 3 str and a military and Intrigue icon. You will also find the Knights of the Hollow Hill agenda in that pack which is a popular Martell agenda to run. A Song of Summer is another pretty good pack for a new Martell player. The Kings of Summer agenda provides card draw if it is Summer. Black Raven will make it summer and the Maester of the Sun from that pack allows you to save a Martell character by discarding a card from your hand. This works especially well by discarding a copy of Darkstar.

For what you have now I would suggest:

1. Add in your Orphans of the Greenblood (2 or 3 however many you have) - Orphans are awesome. They are free and they let you shut down a character completely for 1 round. And if that doesn't help they are free claim soak.

2. Remove Dorne - Your deck isn't really focused enough on one or two traits to benefit as much from this as you will from other reducers.

3. Remove Norvos - It's a deterrent yes, but at 3 cost it just is not a strong enough deterrent effect for the cost.

4. Remove the Rookery - You aren't running enough plot effects based on "When revealed" to really make the most use of this.

5. Remove the War Scorpion - This attachment is really only good in certain builds, and I'm guessing you rarely get any use out of this except as a delaying tactic.

6. Rusted sword - hmmm, as I see in this deck this card has only one use, drop it onto Arianne and make a surprise military challenge with her. Nice trick yes, but good as it is it may not be worth the space.

Do some fiddling with your plots. A Game of Thrones could be another good rush plot and has a decent initiative.

Consider buy some more chapter packs if you can. Martel sadly is one house that really benefits significantly from the combos and synergies it can achieve from the combination of cards from different sources and sets.

Thank you very much for your help.

I rebuilt the deck now and today Ill see how it works. Changes:

Plots:

Building Season
Mutual Enemies
Fury of the Sun
To the Spears
The Red Wedding
The Power of Blood
Battle of Oxcross (Maybe replacing with a second Power of Blood)

The Idea is to Bring my noble chars through 2 rounds without being afraid of being killed. Also with good timing, I can counter Valar morghulis.

Chars:

The Red Viper 3x
Arianne Martell 2x
Doran Martell 2x
So far my noble chars. Without being afraid of being killed in Valar, I can now play them from the beginning.

Darkstar 2x
Ser Arys Oakheart 2x
Lord Edrics Knight 2x
Former Champion 1x
Those are all Knights

Ellaria Sand 2x
Myrcella Lannister1x
With Arianne 5 Ladies all in all. Good for the red wedding

Areo Hotah 2x
Orphan of the Greenblood 3x
Paramour 2x
All Allies

House Dayne Reserves 1x
The Vipers Bannerman 1x
Herald of the Sun 2x
Pit Viper 1x

Attachments:

Locked Away 2x cost 0 and protects me from strong chars. Definitely better than War scorpion
Taste for blood 3x
Rusted Sword 3x The Idea is, to bring out Doran and attach it during the challenge to a Char (arianne, elaria, doran) so the attacker loses the Challenge.
Dawn 1x Not sure about that, but I have a lot of House Dayne Chars. Too bad i dont have Ser Arthur Dayne

Events:

Red Vengeance 3x
He calls it thinking 2x
The Vipers Revenge1x
Bood for Blood 1x
Make an Example 1x Power boost and could win the game fast

Locations:
Summer Sea 2x
Palace Fountains 3x
Water Garden 3x
Dornish Fiefdoms 3x
Dorne 1x Will be replaced with Lost Oasis when I have it
River Row 1x
Lord Dorans Chambers 1x

I hope removing Icons through Orphan and Locked away will help as much as I hope. Any suggestions? Thx for help

Hello. I guess I should have asked it before, but tommorrow I have first duel play with pre-constructed decks. I play Martell (new edition of POTS+core set) vs Stark (core+KotN). So how should I counter him? I guess its to go for Power of Blood in attempt to counter his Valar Morgulis and then to use Doran Martell+Areo Hotah combo.

"Phantazm said: Published on 7/13/2012 - 17:21:28
I play Martell (new edition of POTS+core set) vs Stark (core+KotN). So how should I counter him?"

Your best friend is Red Vengeance. Most Stark decks run high plot claim (even higher after he plays Winter is Coming). You play Red Vengeance, and all of a sudden he's looking at mass death on his side.

That was my initial plan but first game I was with little usefull characters in hand and second game I was without influence locations. So I've got steamrolled. But the main problem was that the oponent used his "all stark characters cost 2 less to play" and he had around 5-6 characters when I had 2-3. And furthermore he used double Shaggydog (one as attachment, one as char) to counter Areo Hotah. Declaring a challenge with deadly Shaggydog and then reducing his power by 2 so do not trigger Hotah ability.

Phantazm said:

Shaggydog is unique, he can't use both.

Run Wildfire Assault and Valar Morgulis if he's using too many characters.

What you really need is the plot "First Snow of Winter."

Try adding more influence, and some additional influence events. I'm a fan of "When I Woke."

Rules say that you cant have more then one copy of a unique card in play (except for duplicates). Attachment of Shaggydog is not a copy of character Shaggydog, so using both is according to the rules. Am I right?

Phantazm said:

Uniqueness rules are based on title. So even though they are different card types, you may only have one or the other in play at any given time.

But I think the interesting question is whether you can attach one to the other as a copy of the other one. 'cause you can do that with different versions of Euron, Viper, etc. And how does the rule about 3 copies of the same card apply in that situation? Does it mean that you can have 3 copies of Shaggydog attachment and 3 copies of Shaggydog character and play them all on each other as duplicate?

Where is that said? The rules with the core set say exactly about a copy of the same card . The only thing those Shaggydog cards share is the name, since then they are definately not the copy of the same card.

Phantazm said:

Page 19 of the Core rules. Also here is Ktom breaking it down earlier today: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=18&efcid=4&efidt=688686