All Things Shagga - The Kindly Man

The Kindly Man is the first of the character agendas to be discussed at length here in All Things Shagga. “Why is that?” you ask. Well, because this is the article that I’m going to talk about him, of course.

The Kindly Man (VM) offers quite a bit of flexibility in the game by allowing us to grab non-unique characters in the dead or discard piles of either player which is fantastic for a Jaime player, but the Shagga player is going to focus more on ways to abuse him, and sadly we can’t really control what might or might not be in the opponent’s deck. Instead, the Shagga player has to focus on what is going to be the coolest thing that we can include in our deck to recur into play in and over. So what might that thing be?

The obvious answer to anyone who’s very familiar with the card pool is probably the correct one- The Viper's Bannermen (PotS)! While the Bannermen use up our Restricted card slot, they also bring an absurd amount of card advantage to the table. Conveniently, once one is in the dead or discard pile, The Kindly Man’s ability lets you circumvent the out of house gold penalty to play the Martell Army and each time you bring it back, you’ll net two cards from the top of the deck when you trigger their Response for coming into play. It’s worth noting, however, that due to the end of phase rules, you won’t actually have the opportunity to respond to the Bannermen leaving play at the end of the phase.

Now a deck like this is will be composed of a variety of interlocking cogs that rotate together around a central theme, but in order to really facilitate things, we’re going to talk about the “Kill the Kindly Man” cog to begin with. In order to initially get the deck running, we need to find The Kindly Man as quickly as possible and then find a way to get him killed as quickly as possible. To find him, we’re going to go with the old plot standby of Summoning Season. If you don’t have The Kindly Man after mulligan and Setup, you can use your first plot to get him. It sucks to give your opponent a character as well, but sometimes it’s your best option. Once he’s in play, you have a few choices. If your opponent plays into your hands and makes a military challenge against you, you can choose to kill him for military claim, but rarely will that happen. The most effective way to eliminate your own Kindly Man is to immediately marshal House Umber Berserkers (BoRF). This allows you to kill the Kindly Man as well as forcing your opponent to choose and kill a character, and leaving you with a hefty body in the end. On the off chance that you havent’ seen a copy of the Berserkers at this point, you can instead use Wildfire Assault (Core) as your second plot to eliminate The Kindly Man. Since Wildfire Assualt says that you may choose “up to three characters” you can actually not choose The Kindly Man, and thus let him die, even if you have three or less characters in play when you reveal Wildfire Assualt.

The next cog ties in with our Restricted card of choice. With the addition of the new kingdom locations to the game, it’s easier than ever to splash a handful of out of house cards in a deck and conveniently one of those currently available is Norvos (VD), which will reduce the out of house penalty on our Martell cards by one, as well as reducing any Lord characters that we play by one. This leads us in two slightly diverging paths. On the one hand, Norvos allows us to “hardcast” a Viper’s Bannermen a little bit easier if we need and this points us toward playing a few other Martell cards in order to take advantage of the cost reduction of the location. One of the cheapest, easiest, and most effective options is Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS), which is effectively a walking event to help push through those intrigue and power challenges when you need them. On the other hand, Norvos reduces any Lord we play, and conveniently, Stark has quite a few lords available to them. Hoster Tully (LoW), for instance, becomes a free character with Norvos in play. The Blackfish (LoW) fills in both as a Lord for Norvos and House Tully for Hoster Tully. Roose Bolton (DB) becomes a three cost beatstick with a war crest, and Randyl Tarly (KotS) becomes a two cost beater who has four strength. Ser Edmure Tully (LoW) as well slots in as a Lord, House Tully and features a war crest, which means that he also gets a boost from Randyl Tarly.

At this point we’re again standing at a crossroads as to how the cogs interlock, so we’ll try to tie together a couple disparate paths into one paragraph. With Hoster Tully in the deck, we’re already looking at exploring the House Tully theme for a few more cheap strength boosts from some non-uniques that The Kindly Man can return to play if need be. Knight of the Tumblestone (Core) and Riders of the Red Fork (FtC) bear the trait we’re looking for as well as the war crest, which gives them two different potential strength boosts. With these characters in, we start to realize that the deck is developing an interesting War crest side theme, so it’s worth looking at some ways to abuse that a little further. Die by the Sword (LoW) and The Price of War (KotS) give us relatively cheap and easy ways to really hammer home the impact of our challenges as well as leveraging the war crest. The Power of Arms is an easy addition to our plot deck to provide a potentially large strength boost and a punishing two claim turn. Unfortunately, the events and plot don’t really leverage The Kindly Man as an agenda very well. Fortunately, there’s a great choice of non-unique character that belongs to another house and makes a great target to return to play- Pike Phalanx (QoD)! The Phalanx gives us means to combine with our war crests to really put the hurt on the opponent with high claim.

Since Pike Phalanx is a Targaryen card, it’s worth considering the brand new Kingdom location that reduces the out of house penalty on Targaryen cards, Pentos (CD). To get maximum use out of the location though, we should consider the trait that it reduces, much like we considered for Norvos. Amazingly enough, it reduces Army characters, which you may have noticed in the deck already. Pentos reduces the central Viper’s Bannermen, as well as the recently added Pike Phalanx, Riders of the Red Fork, and House Umber Berserkers. With the cost reduction in place, a strong use for war crests, and a prevalence of agendas in the environment, Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) will fit right into the deck with the potential to be a tooth on nearly all of the cogs we’re looking at. With the growing number of Army characters in the deck, and the impact we get from 2 claim plots, the new Manning the City Walls (CD) gives us a strong option to be effectively a four or five gold and put the hurt on in the challenge phase.

To round out the deck, we’ll look at a few odds and ends that help screw the whole build together. Knight of Harrenhall gives us an easy out to discard one of our non-unique lynchpins in order to start recurring them with The Kindly man. As well, Wildling Bard (CD) lets us discard one of the choice characters from our hand without relying on the opponent to make an intrigue challenge against us, and can give renown to a non-kneeling Northern Cavalry Flank to close out a game. Lucas Blackwood (GotC) can give us a surprise military challenge after playing or recurring a House Umber Berserkers, which is just painful on top of the forced kill from the Berserker’s ability. Likewise, Meera Reed (TftH) can return to Shadows and prime to blank another card after you kill your own character for The Berserkers and Ser Kyle Condon (APS) lets us repeatedly recur the Berserkers without suffering a crippling loss of characters each turn.

Now, the truly astute readers may note that there are several cards in the deck that I haven’t mentioned or only skimmed over. Mainly, these cards are general fillers to make the deck run like reducers, but you’ll notice that many of them connect to at least one of the cogs that we discussed above. I have to say that out of the various decks that I’ve designed for All Things Shagga, this Kindly Man deck is probably one of my favorites so far. Exploring the various interlocking themes that the natural progression of deckbuilding lead my toward is fascinating, and the final product is probably one of the most integrated builds that I have ever put together. There are certainly a few more possible teeth to these cogs, so if you have some thoughts or ideas, be sure to let me know!

Total Cards (60)

House (1)
House Stark (Core) x1

Agenda (0)

Plot (7)
The Power of Arms (Core) x1
Breaking and Entering (LotR) x1
Manning the City Walls (CD) x1
Respect of the Old Gods (LoW) x1
Retaliation! (ASoSilence) x1
Wildfire Assault (Core) x1
Summoning Season (Core) x1

Character (39)
The Kindly Man (VM) x3
Hoster Tully (LoW) x1
Randyl Tarly (KotS) x1
Roose Bolton (DB) x1
Ser Edmure Tully (LoW) x1
The Blackfish (LoW) x1
House Umber Berserkers (BoRF) x3
Knight of Harrenhal (TBC) x3
Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) x2
Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS) x2
Pike Phalanx (QoD) x3
The Viper's Bannermen (PotS) x3
Riders of the Red Fork (FtC) x3
Catelyn Stark (LoW) x1
House Tully Recruiter (Core) x3
Knight of the Tumblestone (Core) x3
Lucas Blackwood (GotC) x1
Ser Kyle Condon (APS) x1
Meera Reed (TftH) x1
Wildling Bard (CD) x2

Location (15)
Norvos (VD) x2
Pentos (CD) x2
Flea Bottom (TGM) x1
Great Keep (Core) x3
Narrow Sea (Core) x3
Ocean Road (WLL) x1
River Row (QoD) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1

Attachment (0)

Event (6)
Die by the Sword (LoW) x3
The Price of War (KotS) x3