Holy Hand Grenade

Well instead of Narrow Sea, why not just run Seat of Power? If you are only going to include one, might as well run Seat. You aren't running any other limited that I see, so should be good in that respect.

Another thing I think is that Kings of Winter is a better fit than KotHH. Granted, I have always hated KotHH and the fact that you don't get a set up. In order to catch up in sheer card advantage you need to get your recursion early or you need to get lots of card draw. I understand why people like it, but I just think Winter is the better way to go. You could run a slight shadows sub theme for some extra control and Shadow Enchantress (OSaS). Heck you could even get crazy and throw in Shadow Stalker (ACoS) and Cleansing Light (FtC) for some extra character control. This is probably getting into a completely different deck, but something to think about I guess. I'm kinda excited to see where this deck goes.

Standard Kings package seems to be White Raven (TWoW), A Time for Ravens (ACoS), Carrion Bird (TWoW), and as long as you have the birds flying around one or two Samwell Tarly (TRS) to get some bonus draw.

Would this kit displace too many of the core concept cards?

The concept is pretty interesting, while I would tend to agree partly with Staton (for Baratheon Winter, or even Summer for that matter, would be a more straightforward approach), I can see the case made for KotHH as well.

However, I think there are a few cards that probably don't really suit a KotHH approach in the deck, since the point of KotHH is partly to aim for quality in cards, instead of quantity. In that regard most of the attachments feel a bit odd, especially Black Amethysts.

A huge pile of questions:
- I guess the reason for the Narrow Seas is to have the all-important 3 influence (for Confession and See Who is Stronger), right?
- Is 4 influence providing locations enough for that?
- How has the Targ tech been working for you?
- Is Jorah really worth that one slot, even with the Glamors and Robert?

One thing that I learned from my own Stahleck deck: If there's one card that would really epitomize a John Brunoish approach to Baratheon it's Fiery Kiss, especially combined with Blackwater Bay for a constant stream of characters from your own dead pile. Probably the single thing in my deck that really pulled it's weight. One of my favorite targets for them was probably Royal Entourage... if my opponent elected to not do a military (since they would only kill the Fiery Kiss'd card), I got them moved over to my discard pile, ready to bounce right back into play. In this deck, I feel that a Vigilant Robert would wreak mayhem by replaying several Confessions in one go... and it would also help with not getting stuck with a dead duplicate.

Wow - lots of feedback! Awesome!

@Staton - WWDrakey hit it, the Seas are to power the Influence cards. I'm not actually intending to use those as reducers, but taking a page from my own Targ experience, I'm including those as free non-Limited Influence. So far, I haven't had much gold issue. I've actually considered Renly from your own write ups... just hard to choose!! :-D

@Grimwalker - standard Kings package? Sorry... my Bara ignorance is showing here. Can you elaborate what you mean?

@WWDrakey - Fiery Kiss is something I've really toyed with including. Your idea of a Vigilant Robert is pretty sweet. Now... what to drop...

Regarding Jorah, I've never regretted drawing him. Even if he gets discarded See who is Stronger (KotStorm) gets him into play to do more damage. In fact, I've seriously considered dropping Little and Less (ARotD) to 2X to get that to 2X as well, but the strong prevalence of Martell and Stark Response events in my meta and the overall dearth of draw options keeps me skittish.

Well, the Influence and OOH cards are really why I went with KotHH. I automatically have two out of the three that I need and I only need to draw into 1 more. In practice, I haven't ever not had the 3 Influence required for either card. It just depended on which I had in hand. The +2 gold mitigates the need for some of the standard reduction required. I still kept Amethysts primarily for the Deadly. Once Mel is in play, I've found an Amethyst or two invaluable for the power grab (tends to get me an unopposed or two).

As far as the Targ tech goes - the Aegon's Hill (TTotH) / Much and More (AHM) combo has been a pretty impressive thing, to say the least. Give them their best character and put it into their dead pile. Last night, I successfully got an opponent's Melisandre into his dead pile twice... making her impossible to recur. [EDIT: Also, Waste Their Time (QoD) did NOT work until I went with KotHH]


Biggest surprises for me are how valuable Glamor of Fire (ARotD) + Knight of Summerhall (DB) have turned out to be and just how often I was able to trigger Recursion Bob to repeat one of those critical events.

Biggest disappointment so far has been the inability to get The King's Ground (IG) onto Aegon's Hill (TTotH). I just never seem to have them in the same game.

I'm still not 100% sold on the KotHH angle... I'm still fairly new to Bara Asshai, but enjoying it immensely.

I just mean that every deck I see that runs Kings of Winter has all those cards supporting it. I'm not sure why it would be a benefit in the HHG deck when there's nothing that makes it Winter or benefits from Winter. I mean, a little choke and card pressure isn't bad in and of itself, but if KOTHH isn't a good agenda wouldn't it be better to just slap House of Dreams or Shireen in since they need fewer cards to support them?

Well instead of Narrow Sea, why not just run Seat of Power? If you are only going to include one, might as well run Seat. You aren't running any other limited that I see, so should be good in that respect.

Another thing I think is that Kings of Winter is a better fit than KotHH. Granted, I have always hated KotHH and the fact that you don't get a set up. In order to catch up in sheer card advantage you need to get your recursion early or you need to get lots of card draw. I understand why people like it, but I just think Winter is the better way to go. You could run a slight shadows sub theme for some extra control and Shadow Enchantress (OSaS). Heck you could even get crazy and throw in Shadow Stalker (ACoS) and Cleansing Light (FtC) for some extra character control. This is probably getting into a completely different deck, but something to think about I guess. I'm kinda excited to see where this deck goes.

I personally think House of Dreams / The Wall (TWoW) would be a better agenda than Kings of Winter. I mean you're already able to devastate their hand.

@Doulous2k: You're really making me want to try them out. Darn you! Must complete own projects first. . . Must complete own projects first. . .

Staton mentioned the Cleansing Light attachment, which made me immediately think of Blackwater Bay (TBoBB) so your not even losing a card to trigger it, but I don't think it fits your over all theme much for the hand distruction.

Eh, probably right on The Wall. I kinda forgot about that. Has anyone made that deck yet?

Eh, probably right on The Wall. I kinda forgot about that. Has anyone made that deck yet?

I did, but I took it apart to make other decks before I ever actually played it. Does that count? lol.

The draw (theoretically) is pretty good in it though, between Samwell and Val.

While the other agendas are solid choices, I think it strays to much from the theme and concept of the deck (hand grenade). Sure the Winter agenda does some work there but it's slow, requires other cards to support it, and would really mess with some of his other fun toys.

I did, but I took it apart to make other decks before I ever actually played it. Does that count? lol.

A variant of this may show up very soon to a store near you!

A variant of this may show up very soon to a store near you!

Sounds good to me so long as I don't have to play against it.

But seriously, if you run it let me know what you think I really want to do it, I just haven't yet. (Like so many things. . . Darn neutral brotherhood obsession. . .)

I thought about Kings of Winter (TWoW) initially due to the hand grenade theme... but then realized if my deck is working, they'll always have fewer cards in hand than I do.

I think tossing Winter effects in would dilute the deck too much. I was actually initially running this deck out of House of Dreams (ARotD) with The Iron Throne (ASitD) for the guaranteed Dominance as it would fuel both Melisandre (RotO) and her power grab capability and Watcher of the Nightfire (AHM) for draw. After about 10 or so games, I decided that while the Dominance was nice, of course, it wasn't really synergizing the way I wanted it to. So, I decided to go nuts and try to run Bara out of KotHH. Added Influence, plus added Gold. Removing setup is a pain, but if I can get the engine running with the extra gold, my card advantage will still be realized through the hand destruction.

Shadowcat... Asshai is fun... c'mon. Don't you wanna try? Just a little? ;-)

Well, I've already added Fiery Kiss per WWDrakey and I'll probably add 1X of the Bay per slothgodfather just to test out a little more recursion.

Anyone know if there's an easy way to update a published deck list?

I think you can just edit the thread now.

You know - I forget that these lists end up as threads. Thanks!

WWDrakey - are there other cards in here that you think don't suit a Hollow Hill build? Really curious as to what I could thin. I have Fanatic (RoR) simply due to the Holy theme, but not sure if they're really paying off (though a Holy Robert is pretty nice - participate in two challenges and then kneel to recur an event).

The King's Ground (IG) is really only there as a potential devastating play in addition to Aegon's Hill (TTotH), but I'm tempted to drop it because, in practice, my opponent will either play out their hand of all characters if possible or my hand destruction engine gets going and they really don't have anything in hand, so a Vigilant Hill does me no good.

Okay - made some edits. Removed The King's Ground (IG) and reduced Fanatic (RoR). I also took a few other suggestions to heart. I'll be playing this Saturday night before our local end of year tourney. I'll let you know how it goes!

So if you took out the King's Ground, is Aegon's Hill really worth it? If you took that out you could free up a lot of room by taking out the two Aegon's Hill and the targ reducing location.

I guess one idea of looking at pure single card quality is to think about worst case scenarios: If I were stuck in a situation where I had very little both on the table and in my hand, would drawing this card help me keep a foothold in the game?

Basically, the more pigeonholed a card is, the larger the probability that it will become a liability. Really, one of the reason that Baratheon hasn't been doing all that well competitively lately is that our dear House is the one most reliant on synergy, instead of individual card effects... and the decks specializing in interrupting opponent's decks have a much more drastic impact on such decks. And those decks have really gotten a LOT of over-efficient tools lately, without Baratheon obtaining equal tools to combat them.

What does this mean in practice? Positive attachments are a classic example, in a way, since they rely on: you having characters, being able to keep them in play and them not being controlled. If your opponent can control your characters (one way or the other), playing a positive attachment on one gives them a 2-for-1 deal. I think the direction you've already taken with them is pretty good, King's Grounds were really the most fickle of the ones you were running (only work with a very exact combo). I think Fanatic is probably a good card for the deck, since while it has the usual 2-for-1 problem, it also helps solidify the Holy synergy (improving the chance of being able to trigger Altar of Fire, Confession etc.) and even helps combat two forms of character control on the side if played on a Holy character (kneel through Vigilant and Burn through the +1). Personally, I'd probably drop the Amethysts, but that's maybe just me being overcautious.

From a Hollow Hill stand point, there's two more cards that I would reconsider: Bearer of the Light (KotStorm) and Army of the Faithful (Core), for two really different reasons.

Bearer of the Light is one of those cards that's usually awesome when you get it in Setup, but not something you'd want to draw late game... and with KotHH, these are exactly the kind of cards you should be a bit critical with. If you need cheap characters, Old Red Priest at least gives you a good icon spread (but can screw with Aegon's Hill if you're not careful). One copy Ghost of High Heart (WLL) could also work fun with your other hand control synergies.

Army of the Faithful on the other hand is a card built for synergy decks with a wide board... and KotHH decks rarely end up in this situation (only a few characters, but those matter). I'm guessing you'll not get that much mileage out of the price reduction (especially without the Bearers) and these aren't even able to take your positive attachments. I'd maybe look at replacing them with some of Baratheon's 3-4 gold uniques? Personally I'd much rather run 1x of either Ser Davos Seaworth (Core) or Ser Davos Seaworth (WLL) (lovely with Glamor of Fire btw) for added resilience (newer one also gives stealth for the Cove) and Brienne of Tarth (PotS) for anti-Martell hate.

There, those are the aspects I would look at, hope it helps!

Oh, and one more thing that came to mind. You're a bit light on location control (only S&D), so if they do manage to set up a card advantage or control location, there's not much you can do about it. I'd maybe even look at Salladhor Saan...

Fiery Followers (SB) x2 - they are too expensive
Watcher of the Nightfire (AHM) x3 -i actually never drew a card with them

Altar of Fire (RoR) x3 - overkill in hand destruction - not worth it
Smuggler's Cove (KotStorm) x2 - in combination with Massey's Hook (ASoSilence) pretty sweet but not worth 3 slots

Fanatic (RoR) x2 - no impact - too slow
Black Amethysts (MotM) x2 -i can see this if u play with a setup but definately not with this agenda

Glamor of Fire (ARotD) x2 was not able to cast that once

See who is Stronger (KotStorm) x1 too little influence and u get ur knights a lot easier back with Shireen Baratheon

most of the time those listed cards did nothing , where stuck in my hand or overpowered by opponent characters on the board.

i also had the problem, that i was not able to play enough creatures. i always had very little board presence. thats why i added 3 * salladhor's crew and 3 times seat of power... this allows u too also play some creatures... the deck felt a lot better afterwards but i am still very unpleased with this baratheon approach.