Nymeria Sand, Syrio Forel, Unsworn Apprentice and Edric Dayne make the deck very flexible with icons. The 3 Noble Lineages also help to make the deck run well and are great for set up.
As I expected, there were economy problems with the previous edition of this deck. I removed 2 Benjens and added 1 Arianne so that she can be reduced by the 3 Martell Reducers and ‘cheat’ Benjen and Syrio into play for cheap.
i am happy with the events. I see them enough to use them, but not enough that I wish I was seeing more characters.
Due to the economy weakness, I overhauled my plots. Feast for Crows has been a staple in most of my Night’s Watch decks and I missed it almost immediately. Not only does it provide great economy, but it speeds the deck up a bit. With no ancillary power gain like I have in My NW Stark deck with Sansa or Chamber of the Painted Table in my NW Bara deck, this deck needs help speeding up the game when it doesn’t see the Wall early.
A friend of mine, many know him by the name Drakk, is trying to convince me that Trading with the Pentoshi is a good include in this deck. I’m not convinced, mainly because this deck relies on its big characters and if Trading is Naval’d, you’re basically done. There isn’t enough economy to recover from a 5 to 0 gold turn. At least with Feast or Noble Cause (in other decks, not this one) is only a 2 to 0 gold turn. Giving them the 3 gold in addition to having none yourself is basically a guaranteed loss, unless you already had the advantage at that time. But with the most common turn to play Trading with the Pentoshi (and the best, according to Drakk) being turn 1, it can be incredibly predictable and relatively safe for your opponent to break out their Naval and see if they can autowin a game.
For these reasons, I added a second Calling the Banners to make sure I could afford everything well that wouldn’t lose me the game if it is hit by Naval Superiority. That makes 4 plots that can play any character in the deck. That should help it along quite nicely. Removing Building Orders hurts, but I think it’s for the greater good.
I also removed Wildfire Assault. Yes, it is strong to nuke your own Bastard daughters and Benjen, but it took up a slot that could be used to further improve the economy. And, as many have told me over the last few months, Night’s Watch doesn’t mind having huge boards.
I disagree, as a smaller board is a more predictable board and a predictable board is how the Night’s Watch wins games.
But in order to adjust the economy and still allow for Summons, I had to remove it. We’ll see if I regret that decision in testing to come.
When the pieces are on the board (Nymeria, Syrio, Edric, Maester Cal), the deck runs beautifully.
Although, because of the core of the deck being Martell, I removed Castle Black. Too often I was foregoing NW characters to play my Martell characters and Castle Black would be a dead card in my hand or play.
I also upped Iron Throne to 3 because I’m literally never upset when I see it. It’s always a good thing to play and it makes Feast for Crows easy to trigger.
Milks become very crucial for this deck because the plots do not allow for a lot of control like in many of my other NW decks. So I increased the milks to 3x. Without Fortified Position to neutralize renown and Balon (Balon still wrecks all Night’s Watch decks), milks are going to be even more important than usual in controlling those irritating big characters that, for whatever reason, FFG forgot to print for the Night’s Watch.
I continued to reduce the cost curve of the deck by adding more reducers, reducing some 5s and putting in some more 2s and 3s etc.
Noble Lineage protects your characters from Plaza of Punishment, which is really nice since Targ is a big weakness for the Night’s Watch, considering they have so much character removal that burns through saves from Aemon and dupes. It also stops Seastone Chair and now Raiding Longship. So attachments are becoming increasingly more important.
After testing the deck, I am trying to decide if this deck, or the reverse banner of Martell Banner of the Watch would be superior.
Ghaston Grey would do amazing things for this deck. And you’d only really have to trade 2x Sam and 3x Messenger Ravens for 3x Greenblood Traders.
Obviously the card draw will be worse, but maybe Ghaston Grey makes up for that by bouncing their renown characters and slowing down their march to victory.
Something to think about for sure.
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This looks very similar to mine. Only differences are-1 Meagre, -1 Milk +1 Longclaw, +1 Will and it's all much of a muchness really.
Also good to note that the icon distribution is closer than what the chart shows due to Obara and Edric's abilities.
Although I'm not too sure about Supporting the Faith. Sure it can shut out nasty events but it will also preclude you from such tricks as Confinement->Tears. Have you gone off the overall blanking of Fortified Position?
I basically took my NW Wolf deck, removed the Wolf cards and added the Sun cards.
I haven't tested it to death yet. I have played a few games and I found Supporting the Faith is best played when I know I'm getting the Wall, but I just need to ensure one of my defenders doesn't get confined, Put to the Sword, Drac'd, or Winter is Coming. Additionally, it prevents my attackers like Sam from getting murdered by Like Warm Rain, or ensures my opponent can't unexpectedly bring Stannis or Rob back into a fight with Ours is the Fury.
No Seen in Flames or Put to the Torch, or Support of the people, Tears of Lys, or Treachery on my Benjen or Wall (unless they have Tyrion, of course).
I don't have to worry about We do Not Sow, Dracarys, Fire and Blood, Doran's Game, Olenna's Cunning, or Winter is Coming unless they are Fealty.
I am running 5 events that I would like to play, but it's just the con to a large list of pros.
I am currently taking a break from Fortified Position. It has gotten Benjen killed. It has gotten Aemon killed. It forces me to either hold my Ravens for a turn (potentially wasting gold) or risk burning them to death in a wildfire. It loses me a power from Sansa. It makes Arya kind of worthless for a turn. It even makes Veteran Builders pretty bad. And, with Martell now, it makes Edric a blank character, Obara a monocon. It makes Maester Cal tricks not work for a turn. It even makes taking Bastard daughters as claim unattractive.
It is anti-Balon and anti-stealth, but that's it. I don't have enough issue against Stealth and Balon to justify playing it. It's just way too risky.
I still find Will a little too risky to run more than 1x of. There are just too many tricks to get unopposed. I reduced longclaw to 1x because I found I was never all that thrilled to see it, and rarely did I have 2 gold to spare for it unless I had an empty hand and just top decked it, in which case I probably do not want to see it either.
It doesn't improve my board state much from a defending the Wall perspective and the renown is too easy to remove from the table.
Same problem with meager. I tried going down in Milk of the Poppy, but it's just too good for blanking guys like Tywin, Rob and Balon.
Yeah I suppose Supporting the Faith does block more from opponents than it does yourself, I guess I just run into quite a few Fealty decks where it's valueis somewhat diminished.
And yes Fortified position is a double edged sword but I do find it really screws with people's heads but perhaps with Martell, character's text boxes carry more importance. I guess I've just been on the wrong end of Balon too many times.
It's personal preference for Longclaw as most games I manage to get it on a Ranging Party backed up with Castle Black it outright stops a lot of MIL/POW challenges but YMMV.
I usually find there's one "Must Milk" character per faction and it is a hard decision between two or three Milks in decks as the first one most likely will eat a Confiscation so getting the second one is useful but the value of the third one is greatly diminished (depending on the opposing faction).
Unfortunately, Fealty is annoying. But there are still enough dangerous events, especially Tears, Treachery, Confinement, Put to the Torch and Put to the Sword, that I like keeping it in. It has helped me a lot in several games.
Yea, I miss Fortified Position against Greyjoy, but the deck is equipped to manage them pretty well, so I can beat Greyjoy pretty regularly without having to give up a plot slot for FP.
Longclaw is a personal preference thing. I am not typically happy to see it so I cut it down to 1x. There is so much power gain in the deck already, I'd rather see a card that contributes to me gaining that power, rather than giving me one more, less reliable, way of getting a power or 2, especially since renown is unreliable with so many kill cards around (especially Tears of Lys.)
I see milks as minor kill cards. In most decks, I want at least 5 cards that can deal with big characters. I can't use Put to the Sword consistently enough to put it in this deck. So 2 Tears and 3 Milks is a good 1/12th of my deck is tailored to get rid of problem characters, even if just for one turn.
As I said maybe I'm lucky in being able to get Longclaw on a Ranging Party consistently. I find the +1 STR to be very useful as it pushes the Ranging Party to STR 6 (7 with The Wall) which beats out nearly all big hitters if they don't have buffs, and only a super charged Tywin/Robert/Viper etc can beat them with Castle Black support.
I've been brainstorming some ideas for a Martell's on the Wall deck. Can I ask you some questions? Since you are only running 6 loyal cards, 2 of those a one of, do you think switching the House and banners would work better? That way you have access to Martell loyal cards, which could help you stall even more and give you a nice win condition with Doran's Game.
Also, why no Jon Snow in this?
I mainly built it out of Night's Watch because I'm a Night's Watch player. It would probably be a bit better out of Martell, since you have access to Ghaston Grey. But that would be the only significant improvement. Will, Samwell and the Ravens are great for draw, whereas Martell's draw is pretty lacking. I don't want to play Doran or The Red Viper, as they are too expensive, Doran's Game could be good, but I don't know how often I will be winning intrigue challenges by 5 or more and I don't want to bog the deck down with a bunch of events, especially when I already know I want to run plenty of Confinements, Tears of Lys and Hand's Judgments. Areo is a good one time play to win an otherwise unopposed challenge, so that's a nice addition, but expensive unless I'm playing Arianne, which I don't want to do because of her cost.
The Long Plan and Ghaston Grey are definitely worth thinking about it though.
As for Jon Snow, I don't play him because he's too expensive for what he does. He's 6 cost and only has 4 strength, meaning he can be Confined or Dracarys'd. He only has 1 icon, so he is terrible defending the Wall. Since the deck is mainly defensive minded, the only time he would ever be involved in more than 1 challenge is on a turn where your opponent goes first and leaves themselves wide open for counter attacks. And, every time I drew him, I was disappointed. With no in house reducing locations, he was almost always a dead card in hand, especially since I could play 2 3 costers for the same price and arguably have better defenders for the Wall.
Have you considered running Martel Econ locations + Arriane? I think it will smooth your gold curve but I'm not sure how much? Else I think it is really nice build. I think 1x Longclaw will be required since GJ will be a thing. And you would like to stop those UO granted by the Raiding Longship/Kraken Grasp.
I personally like 1x Dawn simply because it can go on any character whereas Longclaw can go on just Night's Watch characters. I have entertained the idea of adding a longclaw in addition to the dawn though. I wonder what I'd cut.
Maybe cut Castle black down to 1x.
As for Arianne, I am not running Noble Cause, so she'd be another 5 coster. She is easier to get out than Syrio with reducing locations, but I'd have trouble fitting more locations into the deck, so it'd require some kind of overhaul.
I can test it though. I just have to figure out what to cut to make room for those econ locations.
Thanks for the comment
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I've been looking at your character list, and i'm thinking this works better reverse engineered. i.e. still playing as N/W banner sun but dropping a couple of N/w cards and the stewards at the wall and playing the martell reducers.
I would definitely play at least 2 Ariannes (3 if you switch to martell reducers). There's just so many good options for the switch in this deck. As an add on to this Obara apart, Arianne is the only character you can comfortably use for challenges when you are put into bat first.
The other rmajor(ish) change is to add Here to Serve. 2 excellent maester choices, an effective 6 gold. Plus it allows you to reduce your Maester count by 2 or 3.
It may work better reversed. But I'm a NW player
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The question basically becomes do you want to trade Sam and the Ravens for Ghaston Grey.
It's tempting. But I already have plenty of locations in this deck. I really like the card draw I get from NW, so I'm sticking with them for now. Down the line, I may have to flip it, as that is the most common critique of this particular deck. I just feel like I'd be betraying my people if I left NW as just the banner
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If I were to switch to Martell, I think I would consider running some Ariannes. But that's just another 5 coster when all's said and done. That many 5 costers would be horrible for set up, which is something you always need to consider when building a deck.
She would make getting Syrio out easier though.
Hi Hab. When I say reverse engineer I still mean play NW as the main faction, so you have Sam & the Ravens, but have more Martell cards than NW so that you play Martell reducers rather than NW reducers.
I get where you're coming from about running lots of 5's - but that's why Arianne becomes so good. And re set-up you are running very few non-setup cards, On your cost spread,I would be very disappointed if you can't setup a 5 cost, a 2 cost and a 1 cost card the vast majority of times, while still maintaining the ability to get a 5 card setup quite frequently.
Oh okay.
Yea, if I did that, then I could probably take out Castle Black and start to introduce the economy that way.
Tonight is my game night at my LGS. I'll have to test both versions out and see which one runs more smoothly.
Do let us know, because i'm thinking of running this instead of Lanni/Rose at the next Store Champs.
My main concern is not getting full wins. Not an issue in the KO's, but I can easily see it missing a cut because of this. A deck without renown always worries me, that's probably why I'd try to squeeze in a Longclaw.
That's a good point.
Maybe I will add a Longclaw as well.
The deck may be relatively slow if the Wall doesn't come out.
In my other NW decks, I run stuff like Chamber of the Painted Table, Sansa, Iron Throne and Feast for Crows all to accelerate the power gain.
I'm not doing that in this deck. May need a longclaw or two.
That's the way I have went with my deck (posted in the strategy thread) - it is a false banner of the sun. I am not running Castle Black because I don't think there are enough targets.
After playing it, I agree.
Castle Black is not necessary.
It's better to load up on the Martell characters.
I'm trying to decide if I'd rather run it as a Martell main house, to be honest.
Ghaston Grey would do great things for this deck.
A little too Shagga for me.
I think the 3x traders is enough for me, considering you can look at 2 cards and pick the one you need more. It's quasi 2 draw.
The plot deck is too important for NW to spend two slots on that combo, in my opinion.
I played this deck on Wednesday and missed Feast for Crows in every single game. It's just too good in terms of gold and power gain.
Without it and Iron Throne, the deck runs too slow unless you get the Wall out early.
Of course, that is the playstyle I'll be importing from my NW Stark deck and maybe that's not how others will see the deck.
I'm going to post my new version in the strategy thread soon.