First Martell Deck

Martell is an interesting house to build for because they just don't behave like other houses do. Your list is pretty good but here are some of my thoughts/suggestions on it:

Blood debt is only good for melee games so if this is for Joust I would suggest dropping that for a Taste for Blood (PotS) or another Blood of the Viper

If you plan to play with "tournament" legal decks, there are a few too many restricted cards for either format.
Joust: Burning on the Sands & Refugee of the Citadel are restricted - I suggest dropping the refugees
Melee: Burning on the Sands & The Red Viper (PotS) are restricted - If you want to keep Burning, you could switch to either of the other Red Vipers, though only 1 is a noble crest for Ghaston Grey.
- In either format the Refugees are bad for KotHH decks since they are best used in setup and I would suggest dropping them.

These other suggestions are regardless of format:

With Vengeful and not-kneeling to attack I suggest dropping Someone Always Tells and run Words Are Like Arrows (WLL) instead. Also, while looking at your opponent's hand is good, His Viper's Eyes just seems to conditional.

I haven't played with KotHH in awhile but it feels like you don't have enough reducers, especially for Ghaston Grey. Flea Bottom (TGM) is a great reducer for Martell because of Vengeful.

Also, without a setup you are already behind in "card advantage" to your opponent, so cards like Dornish Paramour (TTotH),
House Messenger (PotS), Flea Bottom Scavenger (AToT) and Oberyn's Guile (MotA) are very useful for keeping cards in your hand. Palace Spy (WotN) can be good at getting you more influence cards.

I would also highly suggest putting Valar Morghulis (Core) somewhere in the plot deck.

With only 3 attachments, the Conspirators will likely never get to trigger their ability so I would drop them or switch them for a different army.
Formal Escort (AKitN), Southron Mercenaries (TBoBB) or Starfall Cavalry (MotA) are all good options.



After some play testing be sure to report back how your games went and what sort of problems you had and against what decks.

Hey There!

Thank you so much for checking out my deck. I haven't yet play tested this deck and had not a clue where to start with Martell. I also admit that I accidentally left
Tyene Sand (OSaS) out, considering I wanted to try to run a sand snake style deck.

I actually had intended on taking blood debt out after publishing the deck. I included it solely because it sounded interesting, but with only 1 copy and requiring multiple opponents, the utility does decrease.

Thanks also for the heads up on the restricted card list. I thought I had checked the restricted list well enough, but obviously not . It's a shame that
The Red Viper (PotS) is restricted in melee. I love the ability and the noble crest, vs
The Red Viper (TftRK).

I thought the refugees might be a good offset for KotHH as they are free and could be used as claim to losing military challenges and help trigger some of the other losing effects of Martell. This is also my first time building a deck around KotHH, so I am bound to make a lot of errors hahah. Will maybe look for another cheaper card with a bit more utility.

Will certainly replace Someone Always Tells as Words Are Like Arrows carries a similar theme to Chaston Grey for board control.

I definitely don't have enough reducers and completely forgot about Flea Bottom. Thanks for that one as well!

Finally, VERY good call on the conspirators / # of attachments. I think I would have ironed this out with play testing, but good to have some keen eyes taking a peek at it before hand.

Provided some of the chapter packs we ordered arrive by tomorrow, I will be able to play test this and let you know how it goes! Thanks again for all of the tips and hints! I think I'm going to make the following changes:

1) Remove blood debt for 1 more Blood of the Viper (to improve my chances of buffing my sand sankes
2) Remove burning on the sands and replace with reducers like Flea Bottom
3) Remove refugees and add either house messenger or flea bottom scavenger
4) Remove The Red Viper (PotS) and replace with
The Red Viper (APS) since the The Red Viper (TftRK) loses his ability with agenda and is expensive fuel for chaston
5) Replace Someone Always Tells with Words are Like Arrows
6)Replace conspirators with formal escort, as it is most benefit to my deck's themes
7) replace either forgotten plans or bungled orders with valar.
8) Add Tyene Sand where I can! Will have to change the card numbers around a bit I think.

As it turns out I misspoke on the melee restricted list. The Red Viper is indeed there, but Burning on the Sands is not! Here is the link to the latest FAQ. On page 6.

With KotHH keeping you from getting the gold from Lord Doran's chambers you could look at other sources of influence. Summer Sea (Core) offer influence and a way to get a character played when necessary. If you end up with very many "ally" traited characters, cards like Tyrosh (AHM) could be good as well.

Is this intended for joust or melee?

Don't forget about the other other red viper, The Red Viper (APS). He's actually my favorite. He might not be the best, but I think he's the funnest

Play tested this in a beastly 5 person melee game last night and it performed very well! I ended up winning in 6 rounds. My opponents were:

Targaryan (Kings of Summer)
Lannister (Knights of the Realm)
Stark (no agenda)
Baratheon (House of Dreams)

I made all of the changes suggested above except I did not include a Valar Morghulis plot. I was worried that if I was playing for the long game, I would be forced to valar when I didn't want to. I included Summoning Season (Core) instead to try to grab The Red Viper (APS) and play
No Use For Grief (DB) should I get lucky enough to have it. Miraculously, that all went down in the first round, and by the end of that round I had pretty much all of my sand snake characters down on the table in triplicate! The reducers helped a great deal with bringing more cards out and I got a really lucky break when I lost an intrigue and got to putDarkstar (PotS) into play for free! I managed to get all threeRed Vengeance (PotS) and play them on really critical 2 claim challenges. All in all I had some really stellar draws and actually really dug having the KotHH agenda. I really have to look at my plot cards though, as even though the income and initiative were good, the lack of a 2 claim and too many opportunity based plots made my plot cards relatively ineffective. Looking forward to trying this deck out a few more times and making some tweaks. Thanks again for all of the suggestions!

and @OKTarg, I have to totally agree. He was a fun card to play with for a few challenges until I used him to fuel a massive flux of sand sna

Glad you had fun with the deck! Melee is what Thrones is all about, IMO.

My earlier suggestion to include Valar was kind of under the assumption that it was a joust deck. In melee I agree that you might not want to include it.

To help increase the speed of your game you might try to find a few spots for Make an Example (PotS). It is a restricted card for melee but that shouldn't be an issue if you are using the APS Viper. Also, I personally really like Secret Alliance (TBC). It offers you either challenge control or to get a unique character back from the dead.

@OKTarg - yup! Love the titles and love the amount of crazy timing decisions that come from 3+ player games.

@slothgodfather - Appreciate both suggestions! I could really use Secret Alliance, especially paired withBastard Daughter (OSaS) to try to get dupes out of discard. As for Make an Example, the card is a bit ambigious to me. Is it 8STR in the challenge, or 8 STR in play?

You have to count 8 STR participating in the challenge (this includes applicable bonuses from the titles) but you don't have to win by any particular amount, such as with Superior Claim (KotStorm).

One interesting thing about Bastard Daughter, if you trigger her ability to put into play Dorea Sand (TftH) from your hand, due to timing you are still within the "responses" window and can trigger her ability as well - allowing your sand snakes to not kneel when attacking.

Ah thanks for the clarification! Glad to know it is cumulative strength rather than printed strength.

Interesting aspect on the timing there. We were recently reading through some of the timing windows due to some confusion during the game, and realized just how intense the timing structure can be.

I'll (hopefully) be trying this deck again this upcoming tuesday and will make a few plot changes (unsure at this time) and add in some of the suggested event cards where I can. Will probably take Noyne out as even though it was useful to see what was coming it didn't make as big of an impact as I thought it might.

Also forgot to say in my earlier post that Flea Bottom Scavengers was also a huge card for me in my first game with this deck!