Martell KotHH Valar Midwestis

No, you were playing Dark Star. The two cards you forgot in the list was Ghost of Highheart and a Darkstar. I remember watching you Ghost yourself and discard a Darkstar to draw a card and get him into play. So, those are the two cards you were playing. You weren't playing Street of Silk either, because we were talking about it in the parking-lot after i got those Pyromancer's Cash from you. You said you didn't know why you weren't playing it. It looks like you were playing 62 Cards in total.

Anyways. As for the Switches to flip it into Orphan, Dornish, and Parting blow build....Lets see what we can hash out here.

So, we know 3 Flea Bottoms are Coming out and 3 The only game that matters.

-3 Flea Bottom Scavanger
-3 The Only Game That Matters.

Without Flea Bottom scavanger, I don't feel like Flea Bottom as a Reducer is Needed.

-1 Flea Bottom.

Ghost of High Heart was another one that i don't care for in the more aggressive control. Dropping that would bring you down to 61 cards again.

-1 Bleeds as we both agree on that.

I've personally got myself down to 12 reducers and thats how i played through out the tournament. Didn't have a problem playing Bannermen at all. So that would give you a extra slot there.

Between the Street of Silk and Flea Bottom coming out, you should be down to 12.

I'm also not a huge fan of playing all the armies you are. I'd still play the 2 Starfall Calvary as they are amazing. Maybe a third one.

So, lets see what we can get it to look like after this.

60 Cards

Character (25)
Starfall Cavalry (MotA) x2
Orphan Of The Greenblood x3
The Red Viper (PotS) x2
Doran Martell (TGM) x1
Arianne Martell (PotS) x1
Dagos Manwoody (TBC) x1
Edric Dayne (IG) x1
Dornish Paramor x3
The Viper's Bannermen (PotS) x3
House Messenger (PotS) x3
Craster (WotN) x1
Palace Spy (WotN) x2
Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS) x1
Darkstar x1

Location (18)
Kingsroad Fiefdom (QoD) x2
The Red Keep (TftRK) x1
Dornish Fiefdoms (PotS) x3
Ghaston Grey (FtC) x2
Palace Fountains (PotS) x2
Summer Sea (Core) x3
The Scourge (ODG) x1
Street of Silk (LotR) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
River Row (QoD) x1

Attachment (0)

Event (17)
The Prince's Plans (TIoR) x3
Westeros Bleeds (Core) x2
Parting Blow x3
Red Vengeance (PotS) x3
A Game of Cyvasse (ACoS) x3
He Calls It Thinking (PotS) x3

It is down to 60 cards now. You could add in a third starfal Calvary if you wanted to.

You're right, I was playing ghost + Darkstar and sans street of silk. Maybe I wasn't playing River Row?

And that looks very, very good. I like it a lot.

Drop 1 Parting blow, add in 2 Condemned by the Council. I'd try and fit a Nightmares in there, too. I've found going up to 63 to not be too detrimental to this deck.

Drop 1 Parting blow, add in 2 Condemned by the Council. I'd try and fit a Nightmares in there, too. I've found going up to 63 to not be too detrimental to this deck.

I'm not as big a fan, personally, of condemned by the council, where as I love me some challenge control. (Although on the flip side a condemned would have helped this game secure the win, but c'est la vie.) I don't think doing that would be the wrong call, but I'm not sure it'd be the right one either.

Nightmares has a great effect to, but honestly, it is just nightmares who does this deck need to blank? Mad Huntsman? Westeros Bleeds. Beric? Game of Cyvasse. Core Melisandre? Ghaston Grey. It has enough answers to characters. (Which I suppose could be an argument to adding in the condemned by the council, but on the flip side, those are generally long term solutions, parting blow is a first turn solution.)

I have to agree with shadow. In my experience of playing this deck, i'm a lot less worried about my opponents locations then their other hand. Once you have their characters under lock and their hand down to 2 or 3 cards, there just isn't much a location can do to you.

This deck looks great, I'd like to try something like this with a few changes. Just one question, why only 23 (or 25) characters? Does it work well? Personally, I feel very uncomfortable playing with less than 30!

It works very well. KotHH can get away with running fewer characters than most other decks because they run such powerful characters. (You'll notice no refugees, nor any 1 drops. KotHH's gold curve isn't nearly as important as it is with other decks.) Martell is also especially suited to running character light because they have such powerful events.

I will say that having basically 22 characters like the deck Karma posted (when we consider orphans as events rather than characters) is right at the edge of what I'd be willing to play (outside of decks that are purposefully character light, which is a deck type I plan to write about in the future). I'd even consider going up to something like 62 just to fit a couple more characters in. (Perhaps a 3rd cavalry and Harmen Uller.)

Sounds very interesting! Actually, I can't wait to read about this article you're mentioning. I'll definitely try a Martell KotHH with not so many characters, that would allow me to add some more events... nasty

Cheers.

Yeah, there was a version of this i played for a local tournament that ran 23 characters ((including orphans)), if you say orphans are events then it ran 20 characters. Deck ran just fine, had no problems drawing into characters. Actually ended up finishing 2nd while Shadow got 1st.

I really like CbtC, mostly because early on I'm accumulating card advantage and hate having stuff plucked by Aegon's Hill or killed (since there are so few) by Bear Island. Even if I'm just nailing their gold producers so they can't play anything they do draw, it works great for me. A few questions though...

Why Good for the Gander not Art of Seduction or Forgotten Plans? Why Muster the Realm, not Loyalty Money Can Buy? Is Craster more useful than Marwyn? I've ditched the Messengers for Scavengers and Paramours - I love hitting that draw cap constantly.

I ditched Nightmares, but now am considering Paper Shield because Narrow Escape has been just destroying me. Any thoughts? Have you considered Milk of the Poppy? I have major issues with Attachments (they aren't in my meta, but they're all over TCO) and they wreck me. Suggestions?

Muster was because he was playing so many armies. That and its a 5 gold plot too. Craster was for Game of Syvas. Goods for Gander was for the Rule By Decree turn so that you could hit your opponent with one as well. Don't see a whole lot of Narrow Escape here but even then, your opponent can only have so many of them. Honestly, we just don't worry to much about blanking characters. Don't need to really when you have the ability to bounce them back to the hand. The only big characters that are a problem are things like Bearic and you can bounce them with Ghaston or Syvas.

I like Marwyn for copying the RBD or Valar (as necessary). If you can get him off on a Valar turn copying a RBD... it's awesome.

Karma covered the relevant points, if I had it to do over I probably wouldn't run good for the gander but I'd definitely keep the Muster the Realm in. As for art of seduction, it is an amazing plot, don't get me wrong, however I'm not as good at using it as some. Good for the Gander would probably have become shadows and spiders. I love controlling what challenges my opponent can and cannot make.

I'm not a fan of flea bottom scavenger and paramour in the same deck. Dornish paramour requires you to win a challenge to use her ability, and with only a strength of 2 she's probably going to have to get unopposed to win, which turns off the flea bottom scavengers.

RBD doesn't need to be copied, IMO. The way the deck draws you're going to be very hard pressed not to be ahead on cards the majority of the time. I've used Marwyn before but he's never done anything for me other than be a 4 strength intrigue icon, and I'd rather just have craster in that role.

I really like CbtC, mostly because early on I'm accumulating card advantage and hate having stuff plucked by Aegon's Hill or killed (since there are so few) by Bear Island. Even if I'm just nailing their gold producers so they can't play anything they do draw, it works great for me. A few questions though...

It's difficult to say for sure, but I'm willing to bet that in the future it'll become increasingly rare to see Bear Island and (to a lesser extent) Aegon's Hill outside of HoD decks, in which case Condemned can't touch them. The reasoning being that, in the case of Bear Island, you're hamstringing your deck significantly by removing all non-Stark cards from it and the deck therefore needs to be built around Bear Island, and so it makes a lot of sense to make it a HoD deck to guarantee you can get that effect from turn one. Likewise Aegon's Hill, it's a nothing card if you draw it late on - can often win you the game near-singlehandedly if you can get it on the table before the first challenges phase, but there's nothing more annoying than drawing it turn 5 or 6 when you're looking for a character. Why take the chance when you can run it using HoD to make sure you can use it?

As a result, Condemned isn't as good as it was (although it's still a great card, don't get me wrong). I certainly wouldn't want to try to find room for it in a deck like this, where all the events about controlling the challenges and character base of the opponent.