Martell

As a general rule you want 30 characters / 15 locations (I like 12 or so reducers) and 15 other cards. Martell's pretty heavy on the event slot so you may find yourself going over there a bit.

Also, if you're playing in a tournament, you have 2 restricted cards (in Joust and in Melee, though its not the same restricted cards) so you'll have to take one out. Personally, if this is for joust, I'd drop the attachments, make an example, scheming on the sand, someone always tells, and the dragon's tail and get some more characters in there. I'm also not a big fan of getting my influence from characters, but I guess sometimes you have to get it where you can.

I'd suggest Refugee of the Citadel (RoW) and Lost Spearman (MotM) for some excellent low-cost characters.

As a general rule you want 30 characters / 15 locations (I like 12 or so reducers) and 15 other cards. Martell's pretty heavy on the event slot so you may find yourself going over there a bit.

Also, if you're playing in a tournament, you have 2 restricted cards (in Joust and in Melee, though its not the same restricted cards) so you'll have to take one out. Personally, if this is for joust, I'd drop the attachments, make an example, scheming on the sand, someone always tells, and the dragon's tail and get some more characters in there. I'm also not a big fan of getting my influence from characters, but I guess sometimes you have to get it where you can.

Thank you. I hadn't even gotten to the point of checking that. I had made the deck with access to the FAQ and hadn't had time to check that yet. I apologize for such a silly mistake.

Shadowcat already mentioned it. Your just hurting yourself by using so few characters, not to mention, most of the characters your using are unique, so if they ever die.....well, your screwed. If a Unique character goes into the dead pile, you can't play anymore copies of it. With 18 characters in your deck, chances are high that your going to draw a unique character that is dead. So, the first thing you want to do is up the character count. My general rule, depending on the deck, is anywhere between 28 to 32 characters. I typically like to have about 30 in Martell since we have so many good characters.

So, here is my general rule of thumb when dealing with a deck that actually uses a setup. I typically like to have about 14 to 16 characters at 2 gold cost or less. This greatly helps your setup. After all, your setup is basically free card draw and the larger setup you get, the more cards of your deck you see by the end of turn 1.

The typical 0 gold characters that are in every Martell deck that has a set up are Refugee of the Citadel, as Sloth just mentioned and Orphan Of The Green Blood. So, That is 6 cards at 2 gold or less.

The next step would be to put 3 Lost Spearman in at turn 1. This card is just great. When you get it on setup, your opponent doesn't have a chance to use their influence to bounce it back to hand. A turn 1 3 Str 2 icon character is pretty good. You can go a couple of ways with your other Turn 1 characters. It pretty much just comes down to personal preference. I personally like 2 or 3 Carrion Birds. A 1 gold 1 military icon character with stealth is actually pretty nice to have in the early game. Ove all though, it comes down to personal preference on what else you want in this gold slot range. This puts you at 11 to 12 characters at 2 gold or less.

2 Gold slot is pretty simple. You almost always want 3 House Messenger. They are card draw that don't count to your draw cap, and after that, they become claim soak.They are also fun to use when your opponent drops a first snow of winter to bounce them back to your hand and use them again next turn. They are just to good of a character to not use in 3s. Beyond that, i don't typically play to many other 2 gold characters. Your sitting at 14 to 15 characters on 2 gold or less now and i've found that that is the sweet spot. However, a Maester Aemon from the core set could be nice for some extra clame soak as he saves himself. Another option would be Maester Kedry. He offers you 2 infleunce in a character. Again, just your personal preference in this area.

Now we jump into your upper curve. There really isn't a lot to say here as this is typically the area where most Martell decks differ. If your planning to use Ghaston Grey to bounce characters back to your opponents hand, then you will probably use the nobles in this area. If you don't want to do that, then there is typically several different ways you can go. I'll just list a base setup and leave some slots open so that you can do the rest yourself.

In the Turn 3 slot, we have a lot of good options here. As you are using Red Vengence, your going to need influence in the deck to use them. I would personally suggest 2 Palace Spies here. These characters allow you to go search for a Influence providing location and add it to your hand. Its great when you can get it turn 1 or 2 after setup to go look for lord doran's chambers or a Kingsroad Fiefdom. Other then that, you will probably want Ser Arys Oakheart as well. Just one copy will do you just fine. Beyond those 3 cards, there are several ways you can go and it just comes down to how you want to play it. Though, the 2 cards i listed just now, i suggest you to use.

Turn 4 is also fairly simple. You want at least 1 Ariana, even 2 would be fine. The other one would be Dark Star. There are a couple of tricks you can do to get him onto the board without paying the cost and i'll get to that later. After those characters it again is your choice on what you want to use. I personally find that Areo Hotah isn't my flavor if i play The Viper's Rage. Thats just me though.

Turn 5 Should be 2 Red Viper. The one that isn't effected by your opponents character abilities or events. After that, again, its just up to you.

So, that is 8 characters in your upper curve, bringing you to a grand total of 22 to 23 characters. This leaves you with about 7 to 8 slots to play around with in the upper curve of your characters. This will depend a bit on if your going to play The Viper's Bannerman as your restricted card, If so, you should play 3 copies of it and you will have about 4 to 5 character slots to play with.


Moving onto Locations.

Martel has a lot of really good locations in the faction. You already have a decent start on the locations but your missing out on some of the big ones.

Your doing okay on reducers. You have your 3 Dornish Fiefdoms and 3 Summer Sea, which is a good start. You also have your gold providing locations, which your running 2 Water Gardens and a copy of Lord Doran's Chambers. So, your good in that section as well. The only other thing i would suggest adding is a copy of Street of Steel, which reduces your next character you play with a military icon by 1, Street of Sisters....same thing as steel but it does the next character with a power icon. Finally Shadowblack lane, again, same thing as the other two but this time it does a intrigue icon. I would suggest to not play the Palace Fountains as you do not want to run into to many limited cards that you can't play on the setup. Play these three instead would be my suggestion.

So, this brings you up to 12 locations i believe. Now, since you are playing Red Vengence, i would suggest a pair of Kings Road Fiefdoms. This location gives you +2 Intitative and +2 Influence for 2 gold. Pretty good considering your going to want your opponent to go first most of the time. So, thats 14 locations.

Now we get down to the control part of the locations. If your playing Martell, you have to use The Scourage. The effect of The Scourage is this. Kneel The Scourage to take away 1 military icon, 1 intrigue icon, 1 power icon from a character your choose.......Response: A player may discard a card from their hand to give a character that just lost a icon in this way that icon back. A pair of these is preferable in just about any Martell Deck. So, here is a neat little trick you can do. You can kneel the Scourage to take away the icons from a opponents character, then, you can discard that dark star in your hand to give them back that intrigue icon that isn't going to help them. Since we are Martell and we have a lot of intrigue icons. Now then, the other location you want to run in combo with The Scourage is Brimstone. When your opponent discards a card to give their character back that icon they lost from The Scourage, Brimstone immediatly takes it away because your opponent discarded a card from their hand. Great combo.

This brings you up to 17 locations. After that, its your own opinion if you want to play anymore. I personally play a pair of Ghaston Grey which are great if you play enough nobles to support it.

Now then, Events.

Events are pretty simple. A good round number for Events is about 12. Most of the time, Half of your events are predetermind. Your going to be running 3 He Calls it thinking, and your probably going to be running 3 Red Vengence. Beyond those 6 cards, its up to you. I personally play 3 The Viper's Rage. Incase you don't know what that does, when your opponent wins a challange against you by a total of 4 or more str take away 1 military, 1 intrigue, and 1 power icon from every character they control away from them. So in most cases, it takes all icons away from your opponents characters until the end of the phase. Beyond that, i like to play 3 Parting Blow as my last 3 events. It is a card that replaces itself and it also combos well with Orphan of Green blood.

So, following this layout, not the exact cards. This whould be how your layout looks.

Characters 28 to 30
Locations 17 to 19
Events 12

This adds up to 57 to 61 cards. Don't be afraid to go over 60 cards. 61 or 62 cards really isn't going to make a noticable difference. I personally find myself playing 61 cards a lot of the time to tell the truth. Especially in Martell.

Again, these are just some guidelines i use when i build a Martell deck. It is just what i feel like works out for the best.

Karma - what a great response. Thanks for your input and advice - really helped with my own first Martell build.