Bara KOTHH post FAQ v2

So I hadn't actually meant to post this as I was working on it and pressed the wrong button but anyone want to help me improve it?

So, recursion of out of house armies with Red Keep as restricted?

I guess I'd start by saying drop the Red Keep, put in more cheap 1 influence locations (as you only need 3 influence for See Who Is Stronger) and go for the Viper's Bannermen. I'd also drop any out of house stuff except the very best big armies. Ashermark Knight for 4 is too much, and hes not worth See Who is Stronger, being an enabler in the deck rather than a result.

As a discard enabler, my pick at the moment is Aegon's Favor, but being out of house for you it may not be worth it, as you'll need to go Conquest Targ, then you'll lose your inbuilt Influence... which is why the next deck I'm building is Targ recursion!

Asklepios,

Thanks for your thoughts. The red keep is in there as a location as a result of wanting to make sure you can Storm the Gates, Favorable Grounds and See Who is Stronger consistently (as suggested by Karma). JCWamma's original version of the deck ran the Bannerman as it's restricted for card advantage but this deck's idea of card advantage is draw from Jamie and recursion from the discard pile via Dale, Cressen, Robert and Blackwater Bay.

Ashemark Knight is part of the discard engine. Being able to selectively discard the armies (or shadows cards) into the discard pile and draw multiple times is very powerful. Other potential discard locations were Ashemark (previously didn't need the gold as I was running Redwyne but may end up going back in) and Fury. Lucky Bones was a possibility but JCWamma pointed out that most of my chars will be bouncing rather than actually sticking around long enough to have an attachment on it.

I was running Fury recently but found that under the new requirement that part of the effects must be triggerable reduced the situations where you could actively choose to discard.

Fair enough.

As another thought, do you think there might be any mileage in a Rule By Decree aimed at yourself?

Possibly, it's a good shout either as a fuel for discard or to target opponents who are outdrawing you. At the moment I've tried to go heavy on the control/reset plots to help me recover at the beginning of the game (all my old tools have been thwarted by the KOTHH erratum - Sansa Stark for toolboxing, Shadow killer for targeted kill and Redwyne Straits first turn for epic gold). But the plot selection is one of the biggest headaches. Similar to RBD. I'm not sure whether to run Art of seduction and Forgotten plans as alternatives to Shadows and Spiders, Muster the realm and Wildfire.

Incidentally, my thought on Aegon's Favor as compared to Ashermark Knight is that it'd be costing you 2 gold as opposed to 4 gold, and will shift 5 cards at no card disadvantage while giving +5 strength, whereas the Knight will shift 3 cards at no card disadvantage while giving more control and an improvement of hand quality. Personally I'd plump for the former choice, though otoh, with KotHH you may be able to afford both.

I'm not sure though, as the control of what is discarded may be more important to you than sheer volume of cards discarded, as you're limiting your recursion to big armies.

Indeed the problem with Aegon's favor's discard is the fact that you're discarding randomly.

Also the knight is still a Str 2 Bicon body rather than a strength boost. I think Aegon's favor to me feels more like a win more card for this deck but I'll have a think whether it could work as an alternative discard engine. Just so you're aware (as you're thinking about recursion) I was also considering running Ghost of High Heart to either target myself early game or my opponent later.

Whilst my experience with Bara KOTHH was a complete train wreck I did find Alester Florent to be pretty useful.