I'm a relatively new player, and like most other newcomers to the game, I've been playing Stark predominantly, even though I've been trying out other houses recently.

My main deck is Stark murder/no Agenda with the usual suspects like Meera, Maege, Arya, etc, and that's the one I've been taking to small local tournaments with me.

Unfortunately, I often run into quite a few Targ burn decks each time, invariably with HoD Dragonpit, and I never seem to be able to get anything going with them as a lot of my characters go down to the burn pretty easily.

Since the only shadows cards I have are Meera and Arya, and sometimes Varys, I'm always liable to suffer from the effects of Dragonpit, which in turn makes it hard for me to win many challenges, and basically puts me on the backfoot pretty much from the start.

I put a good part of my losses down to inexperience (making the wrong decisions, not anticipating any responses/cards my opponent might have, etc), but I've looked at several of my losses and even thinking back on it, I don't think making the right decisions would have helped me win the game anyway, only delayed their win for another round or so.

It could be that I just really suck, but before I resign myself to that, I just thought I'd ask for some advice regarding any specific cards I could add to my deck to counter burn, or if Starks are just really susceptible to burn and not exactly favoured to win the Targ matchup?

Thanks!

Being that you're playing Stark, the advice is more difficult as Burn tends to be a bad matchup for chump-heavy decks. But, the standard advice against Burn usually applies: hit their hand and their influence. This usually translates into ensuring you have some beefy characters with intrigue icons or run specific discard effects AND ensure you're running some location control (Price of War or Support of the Kingdom to discard or steal their Influence).

Sorry to say, that's the best advice I can give. When I play Burn (which I play a lot) the things that create problems for me are decks that remove or take my influence locations and destroy my hand. Besides that, the worst thing I encounter is Greyjoy cancel-fest.

I'm relatively new myself and try playing Stark. It's a tough go. There's a neutral card, court advisor that may give you intrigue help and also help draw another card. I've also started using things like Icy Catapult. Don't know of how it would work against a burn deck but I'm toying with the idea of using something like Focused Offense, not to kill cards on the board but to get claim and there are cards like Lethal Counterattack that may help. Problem with Starks is that every card has some catch to it, like you can only use against military challanges, or you have to kneel a noble crest character to remove card of choosing, if you have this or if you have that, or if this happens you lose the decent card ( Bolton characters, Host of the bear). The Court Advisor I mentioned before allows me to run plot cards like Frey's Hospitality. I've been running high Initiative plot cards of late to strike first and often, and I don't play shadow cards currently cause I currently use things like The King's Law. If you get a lot of cards on the board at the start, you might want to consider playing something like War of Attrition to purposelly lose challanges...then maybe use something like Fear of Winter or Valar Morgulis to control the board (never actually tried that combo but tempting)

Do you want a simple answer or a detailed answer?

The simple answer is play Northern Cavalry Flank, Host of the Bear, and/or The Bastard's Elite.

These cards are No Attachments and Str 4+. That pretty much puts a full damper on Targs ability to control you. Also, play attachments. I feel Ramsay's Hunting Dogs is probably an underplayed card for what it is.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. So generally, I should be looking to play more positive attachments, get some location hate going, and have beefier no-attachment characters in there.

RIght now I only have a couple of negative attachments and do have Price of War, but I can barely use the latter since it's hard for me to win challenges.

That said, if I'm going to change out some cards, I'll probably have to look at my gold income curve again, given that it's a winter deck and majority of my locations are already gold providing or cost reducing.

One thing I'm quite wary of overcompensating for Targ burn encounters instead though, as I feel my current deck deals well enough with most other decks I face in my meta (not that I win them all.. but at least I don't feel so helpless), so I probably wouldn't want to make additions or changes that are too specific in targeting burn decks.

mdc273, a detailed answer would be great, if you've got the time. Thanks!

If you're using Maege you could add a copy of Winterfell Castle for the STR boost. The problem is winning a challenge with Maege though...

Another way is to use the immune the events characters (like Damon Dance for Me or Riders of the Red Fork) and slap Nymeria on them. Targ decks often depend on just Dragon Thieves as their attachment control, so a unique attachment like Nymeria is safe. With events immunity, an attachment and a repeatable save it's safe from most things Targ can throw at it. Wolf Dreams can get you both Nymeria and the Riders.

Event wise, Direct Assault gives you a STR boost and lets you steal a location. It also helps you out with your winter economy and puts some choke on the opponent. Dissension should hit most of their characters but may be a dead card against the rest of your meta.

You can also attack the HoD location itself with A City Besieged or Rally Cry. As you're not running too many shadows The King's Law could also give you a turn's reprieve and metas nicely against the new Kingsguard decks.

Hopefully some of that helps.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. So generally, I should be looking to play more positive attachments, get some location hate going, and have beefier no-attachment characters in there.

RIght now I only have a couple of negative attachments and do have Price of War, but I can barely use the latter since it's hard for me to win challenges.

That said, if I'm going to change out some cards, I'll probably have to look at my gold income curve again, given that it's a winter deck and majority of my locations are already gold providing or cost reducing.

One thing I'm quite wary of overcompensating for Targ burn encounters instead though, as I feel my current deck deals well enough with most other decks I face in my meta (not that I win them all.. but at least I don't feel so helpless), so I probably wouldn't want to make additions or changes that are too specific in targeting burn decks.

mdc273, a detailed answer would be great, if you've got the time. Thanks!

Okay! I'm not sure it's much longer, but I'll add some more.

Targ generally thrives on a couple of things. Ambush, which is influence based, and burn, which is event based. A lot of their burn effects also have a secondary requirement of having no attachments.

There are a few different Targ builds. Some are recursive and some are not. General recursives are location based. Standard location hate like Frozen Solid, Price of War, and the like can help to stall or stop their recursion. The problem is you have to win the challenge for the event based ones. This is where high strength, no attachment characters are very helpful. Or go with Frozen Solid and don't worry about winning challenges.

The next is to increase your characters strength. The best way to do it is to simply play high strength characters, but there are other options. If you have a highly efficient deck where you play a lot of cheap Stark characters, Winterfell Castle might actually be a good card. I'm currently testing it in my Stalwart deck and really liking it. I'm playing strength 3 Stalwart characters with Stealth for 1 gold. I wouldn't recommend playing Winterfell Castle for the most part, though. Endless Endurance is more versatile and can be used during a challenge to boost characters strengths to counteract the reductions, but again it's probably not the best card against non-Targ. Just having a block of high Strength characters with No Attachments is usually enough, though. I would recommend 5 - 6 with Strength 4+.

The last thing you can do is event hate. Stark doesn't have a ton of options, but they have enough. Paper Shield is good, but only if you can keep it in your hand. My deck loses it a lot to discard effects. Maester Vyman is strong as he cancels single target effects, but this won't stop Hatchling's Feast or Flame-Kissed. For those you need attachments. You can just play some good positive attachments like Icy Catapult or you can get a little sneaky with a card like Rusted Sword if you want. They play Flame Kissed, you play Rusted Sword and kill two birds with one stone. Rusted Sword isn't a terrible card, but there are generally better attachments to play, so I wouldn't recommend this. Cancel Eddard Stark is also very good if you have a lot of Nobles, but he has the same weakness as Vyman in that it only cancels single target effects.

The truly best answer to Targ burn is draw (it's the answer to everything) and resources. Harrenhal is amazing. You should probably play 2. Shadows Arya Stark and Ser Kyle Condon should be the core of your claim soak/card advantage as they are very consistent and not particularly expensive. If you have high initiative plots, play Bay of Ice. Guard at Riverrun puts cards in your hand at the end of the Challenges phase if you don't lose a military challenge. There's all sorts of ways to do it. I consistently stump my opponents when I tell them I have no cards in hand during a challenges phase and then after they throw their reset I have 5-6 cards. It baffles them. Draw for Guard at Riverrun, they Valar, trigger Harrenhal, trigger Ser Kyle Condon, Bay of Ice passive, draw 2 cards and suddenly you go from 0 - 6.

So that's basically a more detailed version. Other people have said good things, too, and they might be able to give you insight into anything I left out or that may be considered weak,

Sorry for the late response guys, been having intermittent Internet for the past week, but I've definitely taken your suggestions on board! Have been tweaking my deck a bit, and will be testing it against my meta mates soon.

Will let y'all know how that goes.

Another thing: Try to find place for King's Pavillion, especially together with non-kneelers. Possibly in conjunction with Breaching the Wall. The latter is not necessarily anti-Targ tech, but generally offers good synergy with King's Pavillion.

Another thing: Try to find place for King's Pavillion, especially together with non-kneelers. Possibly in conjunction with Breaching the Wall. The latter is not necessarily anti-Targ tech, but generally offers good synergy with King's Pavillion.

I've always been weary of King's Pavilion. It's really good with Breaching the Wall, but I can't imagine it's effect is good enough as when they become knelt they instantly revert back to normal and are burnable (except Brienne... maybe the trick is to run 3 of her).

Beat burn by assaulting their hand. Nuff said.

Beat burn by assaulting their hand. Nuff said.

I wouldn't say 'nuff said. It's not like you can easily assault their hand. You can force them to play burn cards for fear of losing them, but they can burn the characters you're intriguing with just as easily as any other character. Plus they can get stronger board position with characters if you aren't a threat in Military and blow your board up.

This is funny, because when I used to play Targ burn it was Stark that always gave me the most trouble.

1. Frozen Solid, this card is a must have in a stark deck.

2. S/G Theon with the location discard ability.

3. Hodor and Noble crest ned are big ones.

4. Freezing rain is another good location control card.

Honestly I would actually do high claim and murder the first two turn, just focus on wiping their board and then claim 2 intrigue challenges with their hand. Focussed Offense + Fear of Winter and if possible the Battle of Whispering Wood + 1-2 other murder effects can decimate a targaryen deck, just don't forget to include intrigue. Jorah Mormont, Littlefinger, Roose Bolton, Reek all make good ones.