Greyjoy Maester (Top 32 Stahleck)

No nightmares?

Nightmares is a great card that I love including in my decks, but I went with Milk of the Poppy instead here for a couple of reasons - firstly, it cannot be cancelled and sticks around for more than one phase, and the main cards I was looking to stick it on were Brienne, The Red Viper (who couldn't take Nightmares) and Meera to stop her bouncing in and out. Secondly, with Bronze Link + Pale Steel Link I could effortlessly recur and jump in the Milk during the challenges phase. Typically (as I describe in my tournament report (plug!)) I actually forgot to use this handy ability of it on account of idiocy in the one swiss game I lost, but it was still useful throughout. The advantages of Nightmares are that it hits traits, which wasn't a major concern for me as this deck has the edge on most decks built around a trait (with the exception of the deck I met in the last 32, typically), and that it hits locations, but between cancel effects and Newly Made Lord opponent's locations didn't really bother me. In an ideal world I would've found room for Nightmares too, but card slots were at a premium so I decided to take the event slots up with save/cancel/defensive cards (plus Dissension, which was money all day).

Oh no, I fully get why you're not running nightmares, I was just making a point.

That's... good?

One less threat brotherhood would have to worry about. Admittedly milk is still pretty bad, but c'est la vie.

After using this at Stahleck, and then Becky using it at Stoke, any there any changes you would make, or cards you question if they should stay?

Congratulations on making it to the top 32 at Stahleck however

Thanks very much!

The biggest problem with the deck was cutting it down to 60 cards (a task I failed at, hence 61!). That said, there are cards that are in there because they're situationally awesome rather than generally awesome, and they're probably the first ones I'd consider cutting - namely, Wex Pyke, Baelor Blacktyde and Archmaester Ebrose. I love all three cards (hence including them), but wouldn't be too opposed to dropping them as long as a good deck balance was maintained. Wex is fantastic against a deck lacking in crests, but one area in which I often fell flat was raw strength on defense, and if I had something more powerful in his spot that would've been less of a problem, and also meant I was running a character less vulnerable to burn. Baelor is superb, and out of any other house would be a great choice, but with 3x Asha, Alannys and Newly Made Lord basically nailed on in the "3 cost, 3 strength" category it meant occasional overkill, and multiple 3 cost cards is bad for set-up and occasionally choked me early. Archmaester Ebrose was there instead of a 3rd Conclave on the grounds that his response is stupid-good if you can get it going; however, that's a big if since with only 1 copy (and it being stupid to put in more) the odds of drawing him early enough for him to be a viable source for chains was slim, and since he's not house Greyjoy the only cards in the deck that could save him would be the Iron Mines (or I guess Aemon if I used the Copper Link to make him Night's Watch pre-terminal effect, but that's not exactly a banker). So in reality for him to be a stable place to put the chains I had to get him AND an Iron Mines early, or else take a chance. In reality I should've put in a third Conclave probably, since the majority of the time they're either as expensive or less expensive, have more strength and more versatility in their response.

Taking those 3 out and putting in a third Conclave does up my gold curve somewhat, though. The extra freed slot would have to go towards cheapening the deck. I'd be tempted to throw in a third Iron Mines, since they improve set-up, save the Conclaves and mean having less characters wouldn't matter so much since the characters I would have would be more durable. That does lower the proporition of characters from 27/61 to 25/60 though, so I can't guarantee it would work. Maybe use the 2 gold efficient cards, Kingsmoot Hopeful (FtC) and (as used in the winner's deck) Sea Raiders (KotS) to help the curve and efficiency? Extra limited cards don't bother the deck too much since the only limited cards so far are the Gatehouses.

Another alternative would be to change Rise of the Kraken for a plot providing better income (especially if I did indeed take out Wex). Or maybe add in some more neutral Maesters so I'm more likely to have characters available to trigger the Gold Link. There's a few different options, I guess, but I'd have to play around with the deck more before being able to definitively declare one option right.

If you were to look at one area and improve it, I'd look at the set-ups - of the 54 cards that start in the draw deck, 18 cards are either unplayable on set-up (Milk of the Poppy, Events) or undesirable to the point where you just never would play them on set-up (Newly Made Lord, The Iron Cliffs), and on top of that Asha and Alannys are okay on set-up but not the awesome match-winners they can be until turn 2 or later usually. A simple change there would be to cut an Iron Cliffs and add an Iron Mines, making it cheaper and actually viable as a set-up card, but otherwise the deck does suffer slightly in the first turn, relying on the awesome card efficiency of the agenda (and to a lesser extent At the Gates) to see it through. Only solution there would be some major modifications, either removing some of those set-up-unfriendly cards (which I'd be reluctant to do given all the events are pretty vital, as is the Milk, you'd be mad not to use the NMLs and the Iron Cliffs are a tremendous source of save for all but 4 of the characters) or lowering the gold curve of the rest of the deck (which returns to maybe cutting Baelor and Ebrose and inserting cheaper cards). Comparing it to the (very similar) deck that won Stahleck, that deck has no Milk of the Poppy (going with Nightmares instead) and 2 less events, using a much lower gold curve on locations. That said, his gold curve for characters is actually even higher than mine (and includes Baelor and Ebrose to boot), so I doubt his set-ups were consistently better than I got.

As far as the other cards go, there's nothing I regret including in the deck. You could maybe play around with the numbers of different cards, but that's really more of a meta call I guess.

EDIT:
As far as cards to add, other than more cost-efficient ones like the ones mentioned above or maybe more location reducers, the only other things I'd be tempted by are Leyton Hightower (GotC) (cut because I like to be able to save my solutions and a 4-cost non-Maester was too expensive for me) and Much and More (AHM) (cut because I needed to improve set-ups, and cutting non-set-up-able cards was the solution, plus I was already wanting to cut Rule By Decree and it made the card slightly worse in the deck since I no longer had the evil first turn combo). I don't know if I would add those specific cards now in retrospect though, especially since I don't think there's anything I'd want to cut in their place.

... Plots?

I forgot them when I submitted the deck. I've edited the first post to include them, but if you click on the "click here to view the deck" link they don't show up.

Just to clarify, there are:

At the Gates (GotC)
Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD)
Men of Pride (THoBaW)
Retaliation! (ASoSilence)
Rise of the Kraken (KotS)
The King's Law (KotStorm)
Valar Morghulis (Core)