My friend has built a deck that in my head just doesn't make sense and I can't see how it works, but it just does. I'll post the decklist and if anyone can see any counters to it I'd love to know!

House Stark

House of Dreams agenda (gates of winterfell)

Plots

Stoic Resolve

Desolate Passage

Loyalty Money Can Buy

The Minstrel's Muse

Manning the City Walls

Regroup

Wildfire Assault

Characters

The Blackfish (x3)

Jaqen H'ghar (Shadows version that imitates recently killed character)

Midnight Sentry (x3)

Knight of Harrenhal

Robb Stark (trait naming one)

The Bastard of Bolton (x2)

Arya Stark (HoBaW)

Deepwood Mercenary

Riders of the Red Fork

Peasant Defenders

Hodor

Fleet from Wolf's Den (x2)

Follower of the Many-Faced God

Reek (x2)

Jojen Reed

Bolton Refugee

Roose Bolton (x2)

Wyman Manderly

The Bastard's Elite

The Flayed Men

Steelshanks Walton

Meera Reed

Rickard Karstark

House Umber Berserkers

Catelyn Stark (x2)

Banner for the North

Old Nan

Winterfell Honor Guard

House Tully Septon

Ser Kyle Condon (x2)

The Hound (stark/lanni affiliate)

Varys (core)

Eddard Stark (core)

Maester Luwin

The Bastard's Boys

Knight of Harrenhal

Locations

Narrow Sea (x2)

Northern Fifedoms (x2)

Crossroads (x2)

Lord Eddard's Chambers

Great Keep (x2)

Harrenhal

The Dreadfort

Abandoned Fort

Gates of Winterfell

Attachments

Court Advisor

Poisoned Coin (x2)

Needle

Grey Wind

Winter Cache (x3)

Events

Distinct Mastery (x2)

No Quarter

The Price of War

Terror in the Dungeons

Split Loyalties

Confession

Lethal Counterattack

He plays HoD on the gates of winterfell and plays it every marshalling to try and bring in free characters.

Everything about this deck just seems to scream against everything I know about deck building. But he's played it several times and it just seems to work.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

I can see how this deck works and based on the card listings i get the mechanics but i have the following question :

Do you play one particular house or is it all house that struggle ?

Do you have access to a complete card pool ?

The majority of houses seem to have an issue, except Targ burn I've found, but the guys I play with don't like me playing targ burn cos they "don't have any fun" in those games so I rarely get to use it.

Complete card pool? Umm... have all expansions and about 40% of the chapter packs, but I've no issue printing proxies and ordering new packs.

Apologies for the delay in getting back. I have looked at this and can't really understand why it is causing such problems and as such i would be interested to see what decks you were using to combat it.

It appears to be quite sparse on resources and by taking initiative you would be able to take control.

Am i correct in stating that it is getting success in Melee ? This would make sense as it could slowly build and combine combos whereas i would imagine in Joust it would get blown away.