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1
All Things Shagga - Dobbler's Tulsa Deck
May 09 2012 05:00 AM |
Kennon
in Game of Thrones
Small Council All Things Shagga Kennon
Welcome back, loyal readers, to another installment of All Things Shagga!This week, we embark on new frontier for our column. No, I’m not abandoning my promise from last article to bring you another look at a different possible Laughing Storm deck. But what I am doing, is examining a deck designed and played by another player! Who will we be studying this week, you ask? None other than Greg Atkinson (Dobbler) Two time World Champ and most recently, Tulsa, OK Regional 2012 Champion.
Since several of the card interactions are the same, I likely won’t detail some of the similar tech like Val and See Who is Stronger. The important question for this article, is what’s different?
The main thrust of this deck is to attempt to luck into an extremely powerful first turn combo, which is necessary to achieve all of the cards to pull off during Setup. Now, how do you do this you might ask? Of course, being a Laughing Storm centric deck, you need to have him in your Setup. Along with that, you need either one Maester character, or an Apprentice Collar put on any second character that you can play along with The Laughing Storm. Aside from these, you need one copy of the event Citadel Law in your hand once you’ve drawn back up to 7 cards after placing for Setup.
Once you have these in play and hand, your plot deck takes over to help brutalize the opponent. First, you opt to take an action during the Pre- Plot Reveal action window of the Plot Phase. During this phase, you kneel your Maester character to play Citadel Law, which allows you to immediately reveal Rule by Decree as your plot. Since you played a card, your hand is now 6, and your opponent must discard 3 cards before revealing their plot. Next, you move on to the standard Reveal Plots step, wherein you reveal Threat from the East. With Threat revealed, you choose for each player to discard 3 cards first, and then draw 3. Unfortunately for your opponent, your portion of the discard effect fails due to The Laughing Storm (though the opponent does still discard) and since you could not discard for the first portion, the second half of the ability following the word “then†does not resolve. What does this do in the end? It strands your opponent with 1 card in hand before the game even really gets rolling.
Of course, this combo is reliant on several moving pieces, so we need to maximize our chances of getting them all on Setup. Since the deck already wants some Maester characters, Greg further increases his odds by using the Maester’s Path agenda with 8 chains to lower his effective starting deck size to 52, which is a huge boon as he tries to assemble this monstrosity. As well, the variety of chains provide for a variety of powerful utility effects to push the deck through the mid to late game as Greg wins challenges to move them from his agenda.
Of course, even if you pull off the combination on the first turn, there will still be two more copies of Citadel Law left in the draw deck, so here Greg chose to maximize the potential for further plot changing shenanigans by running several of the very powerful City plots which grow in strength as more are in the used plot pile. By triggering more than one of them per turn, Greg accesses a very powerful form of control. On top of that, he chose to include a couple copies of Bran Stark as a repeatable way to cycle himself through the city plots: a choice well worth the two gold to play him out of house.
One of the most efficient City plots is City of Lies, which is effectively a 7 gold plot if you have two Shadows cards in your hand! Add in the relatively high 6 initiative and the standard 1 claim to have one of the most conditionally awesome plots in the game. Of course, in order to meet that condition, Greg plays a variety of Shadows cards. Some, like The Black Cells and Margaery Tyrell, provide strong, repeatable control which help Greg run the board through whatever meager defense the opponent can draw into after the initial destruction of their hand. Some, like Syrio Forel and Sister of Truth, serve as repeatable triggers for the more potent controlling Shadows cards. And of course, we can’t leave out a small nod to a former All Things Shagga Star, The Queen of Thorns, who can be used to close out a game in short order when necessary.
The rest of the deck consists of a handful of resources and other utility cards. In particular, Salladhor Saan is quite vulnerable as an Ally with 2 strength but is often worth it to affect the board immediately by discarding any location. Multiple turns of use from him can truly dominate games. Maester Cressen provides some obligatory attachment control. And if all heck breaks loose and the Shadows gameplan doesn’t pan out or stalls out completely, The Knight of Flowers provides a very quick clock to close out games.
Here’s the list, and I hope you all enjoyed a look at someone else’s deck.
Greg's Tulsa Deck
House (1)
House Baratheon (Core) x1
Agenda (1)
The Maester's Path (GotC) x1
Plot (7)
City of Soldiers (TBoBB) x1
City of Sin (AToT) x1
At the Gates (GotC) x1
City of Spiders (TftRK) x1
City of Lies (CoS) x1
Threat from the East (QoD) x1
Rule by Decree (Core) x1
Character (29)
The Laughing Storm (GotC) x3
Val (RotO) x3
Oldtown Scholar (FtC) x3
Advisor to the Crown (QoD) x2
Carrion Bird (ASoS) x2
Bran Stark (Core) x2
Maester Cressen (Core) x1
Sister of Truth (KotStorm) x1
Margaery Tyrell (TftRK) x1
The Conclave (CbtC) x1
Syrio Forel (TftRK) x1
Salladhor Saan (KotStorm) x1
Maester Aemon (Core) x1
Ser Davos Seaworth (WLL) x1
Knight of Flowers (SaS) x1
Maester Pylos (KotStorm) x1
Maester Lomys (CbtC) x1
Varys (SaS) x1
Marya Seaworth (KotStorm) x1
Ser Mandon Moore (TBoBB) x1
Location (17)
Narrow Sea (Core) x3
The Black Cells (TftRK) x3
Aegon's Garden (Core) x3
Street of Silk (LotR) x1
Massey's Hook (ASoSilence) x1
Flea Bottom (TGM) x1
King's Landing (SaS) x1
Kingswood Trail (CoS) x1
The Citadel of Oldtown (GotC) x1
King Robert's Chambers (Core) x1
Kingdom of Shadows (KotS) x1
Event (4)
Citadel Law (MotA) x3
See who is Stronger (KotStorm) x1
Attachment (10)
Apprentice Collar (GotC) x2
Black Iron Link (MotA) x1
Valyrian Steel Link (HtS) x1
Tin Link (CbtC) x1
Bronze Link (FtC) x1
Lead Link (CbtC) x1
Steel Link (TIoR) x1
Gold Link (TIoR) x1
Iron Link (MotA) x1
- OrangeDragon and Voidy like this
20 Comments
Also, Luke, I'm not certain which plot he would "pin." In our game, he didn't really get the deck doing a whole lot until the very late game, but even then, he'd never gotten the plot cycling stuff together; he just reached a point where he finally had enough shadows control to lock me out.
For instance, first turn I may have Citadel Law and a Maester, but no Laughing Storm on the flop. So I would go ahead and use Citadel Law to rotate into At the Gates and then reveal RBD. By third turn I often had TLS in play, and would obviously use Threat from the East as soon as I had TLS on the table. I ALWAYS choose "discard then draw 3". Neither of us would get to draw 3, but if I had Val, I new I would be drawing 3 real soon, thus an effectual 6 card advantage.
It is nearly an autowin if you pull off the combo during the very first plot phase, but as long as you get the pieces over the course of the first few turns, it is still exceptionally brutal.
Doubling up on plots through one method or another, (
Bran Stark (Core) the various Rookeries, or plots like
Bungled Orders (OSaS)orThe Tides of War (RoW)) is enough fodder for another article entirely.
Citadel Law (MotA) is probably still probably my new favorite. If anything, triggering
Feast or Famine (KotStorm) and Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) is the same round (although begging for a reset like
Valar Morghulis (Core) or The First Snow of Winter (ODG)) is one of many interesting uses.
http://www.fantasyfl...=4&efidt=480976
It is explined how the ruling has changed from considering each players action as separate, to the decision where the 2 discarding parts were considered a joined action for the "then" part to happen. The result is going from a disruptive but acceptable plot, to a complete nonsense. If you join the tfte nonsense with maesters shenigans then you end up with situations where you have 1 card in hand before starting playing. Does this benefit the game ?
And the complete sequence requires a maester in play and and event in your hand. Not that hard either when setup is done with 50 cards. But the point is that any new player can pull the combo and put you on your knees. No skill required, no planning, no strategy. Just a bit of luck. I call a combo crown of Azor Ahai and demon's Dance. Something that need to be played skillfully. Not something that any average player can play brainlessly.
More over to get the full combo off the deck puts 10 cards on the Agenda, which is a huge amount and a real liability. Clearly while the combo should go off in a tournament, as shown it can miss often, which means the deck needs to be built to play the game without it hitting. The plot manipulation requires alot of skill to manage correctly as does the shadow control.
This deck plays no more brainlessly then many other decks. A monkey could play a Stark Murder deck that gets off a good setup and refreshes into NoQuater/Die by the Sword and Price of War. Martell Maester auto pilots itself with a good setup and Conclave filled refresh.
Even with the combo hitting this deck take no less of a brain to win with then those other decks. Without the combo hitting it actually take a quite deft hand to win with compared to many other decks.
Because spamming every topic that it is mentioned in is both annoying and not productive. People seem to view it as a non-problem.
im changing threat from the east to the new location kneeling city plot) but no clue what to do with val and how to add some draw