Crimson and Gold - Lannister Big Money

When people talk of Lannister Big Money decks they usually are speaking of combo deck centered around the idea of buying the victory with gold during Dominance phase. Their decks usually are very combo-oriented with a splash of rush in them as in the case of Lannister Big Money we are not dealing with a lockdown combo, but a game winning one! With Big Money it is all about what kind of flavor do you want - Will you go full all out combo with Sitting the Iron Throne (AToTT), Tywin Lannister (LotR), Daven Lannister (GotC) and then repeat a dominance phase with Den of the Wolf (ACoS) for very satisfyingly huge power gain in one round. Or will you just be splashing Sitting the Iron Throne (AToTT) in your deck without going too far on the combo ground.

In this issue of Crimson and Gold we will take a look at this decktype and a deck that is somewhere in between. There are heavy combo elements supported by The Maester's Path (GotC) agenda, but we are not relying on them for our win.

The Usual Suspects

Sitting the Iron Throne
When you play the Game of Thrones you can only win with power. Sitting the Iron Throne (AToTT) gives you the perfect way to actually just buy the throne for yourself by being a repeatable effect that takes you closer to your victory total. This card gives you an option to build your deck to be more combo oriented and skip challenges as you have a good source of power even without ever winning a single challenge as an attacker. StIT single handedly is what makes Big Money arch-type viable. Sitting the Iron Throne (AToTT) also has that nice Small Council trait which synergises well with Joffrey Baratheon (PotS) giving Big Money decks a way to get rid of problematic characters. You should most of the time be able to trigger this event 3 times, so that is 3 power a round from one card. The unfortunate downside of the card is that the more you draw copies of them the more useless it will be as you only need one copy of it.

Tywin Lannister (LotR)
Stuff Tywins mouth full of golden dragons in dominance phase and watch how he will conjure you some power out of it. Again we have a card which doesn’t need you to do anything else than have gold and win dominance. This means that you can win the game outside the challenge phase which also means that you have to concentrate less on your own challenges. Tywin Lannister (LotR) has amazing synergy with Sitting the Iron Throne as he only is looking for your gold and not spending it. So when you combine the two you are looking a possible staggering 7 power swing into your favor just in one phase! (1 for dominance, 3 for Tywin and 3 from Sitting the Iron Throne). Tywin has some more things going for him than just his ability, he has very good stats. With tricon and 4 strength you are bound to get him through one challenge and also closing in on power with his renown. He also makes a fine defender with that 4 strength of his. He also has one thing on top of this all which increases his survivability - Noble crest. Coupled with Power of Blood plot you have few turns when you have extra breathing room for your Tywin to get to the needed amount of power.

Daven Lannister
He is vulnerable and risky, but he can outright finish the whole game in Dominance: by triggering his Response: of “After you win dominance by 4 or more total STR, pay X gold to claim X power for Daven Lannister (GotC). X is the number of power currently on Daven Lannister (GotC). (Limit once per game)”. Daven is probably the most tricky part as he needs some power building on him in order for you to trigger his ability. He is also more vulnerable than Tywin as he is lacking noble crest and has the Knight trait which can be a liability against Targaryen. Sitting the Iron Throne funnily has anti-synergy and synergy with this card. You can sit Daven on the Iron Throne so that he will have more power, but since his ability will be needing plenty of gold it might stop you from gaining the maximum use out of that event.

Gold Weenies
Lannisport Weaponsmith (Core), Lannisport Moneylender (LotR), Lannisport Councilor (RotO) ,Lannisport Steward (Core). You will usually see plenty of these gold producers in Big Money decks, some even go as far as running all of them. They help you accelerate your most important resource -gold. They also lend their little money filled hands in making small challenges and dieing for the military claim in case you need to sacrifice someone from your side of the board.

Taking the Iron Throne to Oldtown - Gilded Maesters

Maesters and their Links
Since we are dealing with a combo deck taking it to the Maester combo engine just seems natural fit even when it is hard to not use one of the Lannisters own restricted cards. The biggest reason to go into The Maester's Path (GotC) here is to gain access to the Gold Link (TIoR) which makes it more likely for us to always have the gold dragons we need to pay for our Dominance: shenanigans. Maester’s Path also gives us the ability to make a smaller deck which will make it easier for us to find the combo pieces we are looking for. While Gold Link is the best one for our deck the others will go a great way in supporting our deck theme Iron Link (MotA) should be one of the first chains you get out of your agenda as it makes it easier for you to win challenges and it makes it complicated to your opponent on the challenge math part. House Lannister also has a good set of Maesters to be used. You should always try to make one Maester harder to kill either by using At the Gates (GotC) on a Maester you already have in your hand so you can dupe it. While that is the safe At the Gates use you should be picking a Maester that is good against what you are up against. Against burn and Martell that could be running Venomous Blade (TBoBB) you should stick with Maester Creylen (FtC) as he is hard to burn and gives you power gain so that you can close in the game faster. In case of Martell or Stark you might want to go for Grand Maester Pycelle (Core) to discourage their reveal and search use since they will be giving you card advantage with their own effects. Last but not least probably the most powerful challenge Maester you can get in House Lannister -Qyburn (SaS). Don’t be afraid to use At the Gates for him, especially if you have Kingdom of Shadows (KotS) in play as then you will have an easy to stand deadly Maester pushing challenges probably unopposed and getting Chains on himself just to make him even harder to deal with. As an added bonus, all of these Maesters oppose being Enslaved (THoBaW).

One thing you should be doing often is use your Chains (especially gold link) during pre-plot if you think an opponent will have a plot that will disturb your combo. This will give you a good amount of gold and you might have some Copper Link (GotC) tricks ready to be used in the pre-plot as well. Since this will be done often using Gilded Plate (Core) becomes an easy choice as we will have gold in case of Valar Morghulis (Core) and most importantly it is one of the only things in Lannister that can save your characters from being discarded.

The Big Money
Apart from the Maesters the other characters of the deck are here only to support our gold hoarding or to help us with our power grabbing. This means that we have the array of our helpful Lannister gold weenies here to feed Tywin and his Maester friend Creylen. We are only running two copies of Tywin Lannister and Sitting the Iron Throne as they are not completely vital for our victory and having multiple copies of them in our hand will usually be something we don't want to see Kingsguard Squire (PotS) coupled with Copper Link will help us in several of these goals. Either he is standing our Maester to use Gold Link more than once a round or if we have enough money he can be used to stand one of our renown characters so that we will gain more power.
As power is the only thing that matters we are using several renown characters so that we can hit the 15 power mark faster than Big Money combo usually does or possibly even rush for the win in few turns.

Challenge Support
By using Maester’s Path we have a weakness which we have to overcome. That is winning challenges at the beginning of the game to get the chains off and get our combo going. This is what we are fixing with our events. A well placed Distinct Mastery (Core) will mean a challenge win, renown power and one chain off of your agenda in the best case scenario. It is also flexible enough to be used to stand our Creylen and has nice synergy with Rich Lands and a Keep (LotR).
Since the most common icon we have is intrigue it is easy for us to use the The Only Game that Matters (LotR) for the purpose of winning a challenge we couldn’t.
In Lannister we have the option to start the game with Cersei's Scheme (TPoL), but if that is the case we need to have a Maester on the board and a way to protect it. Cersei's Scheme can help us get some fast unoppose power as well as easy way to get chains off our agenda.
Arbor Queen (TGF) is the best pure challenge trick we have at our disposal. Lets say we are in a situation where we have 3 gold in our gold pool, standing Arbor Queen and Standing Maester who has Gold Link and Iron Link. These cards together mean that we have the ability to suddenly boost the challenge with 7 more strength just by kneeling our maester and the Arbor Queen. The more you have Chains at your use the more complicated things will become for your opponent to keep track of.

Slight modifications
Depending on meta you can alter this deck several ways.
It can be made into more protective by adding 3th copy of Gilded Plate in and also a Pale Steel Link (FtC) so that once you use your Gilded Plate you can use your Bronze Link (FtC) to get back to your hand and placed on the character immediately after that. As good addition as a Pale Steel Link is you might want to add Black Iron Link here for better challenge control as well as making your Only Game That Matters even more great!

Problematic locations? add in more copies of Pyromancer's Apprentice (TBoBB) in the deck. In this deck they will often work as well as a Newly Made Lord (TftH) would, even better since their location destruction ability does not have any limitations. Remember that we have access to gold when your opponent doesn’t have it yet so you can make sure to trigger the shadow Response: on them.
A lot of character abilities in the meta? add in copy or even two of The Iron Throne (LotR), no the card is really that good. I would do this as well in case if your meta has someone who likes to run Baratheon House of Dreams (ARotD) The Iron Throne (ASitD) since that deck will completely destroy your combo as you will be unable to gain dominance wins which you need.
Whatever the change is you will often have to balance between the speed of the deck and the protection of the vital parts.

Total Cards: (60)

House:
House Lannister

Agenda: (1)
1x The Maester's Path (GotC)

Plot: (7)
1x At the Gates (GotC)
1x Attack from the Sea (PotS)
1x Cersei's Scheme (TPoL)
2x The Power of Blood (Core)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)
1x Wildfire Assault (Core)

Character: (28)
1x Cersei Lannister (LotR)
1x Ser Jaime Lannister (LotR)
2x Tywin Lannister (LotR)
1x Archmaester Ebrose (CbtC)
2x Grand Maester Pycelle (Core)
1x Maester Aemon (Core)
3x Maester Creylen (FtC)
3x Kingsguard Squire (PotS)
2x Lannisport Councilor (RotO)
2x Lannisport Moneylender (LotR)
3x Lannisport Weaponsmith (Core)
2x Oldtown Scholar (FtC)
1x Pyromancer's Apprentice (TBoBB)
2x Qyburn (SaS)
1x Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS)
1x Tommen Baratheon (SA)

Attachment: (11)
1x Valyrian Steel Link (HtS)
2x Rich Lands and a Keep (LotR)
1x Iron Link (MotA)
1x Gold Link (TIoR)
2x Gilded Plate (Core)
1x Copper Link (GotC)
1x Bronze Link (FtC)
2x Apprentice Collar (GotC)

Event: (8)
2x The Only Game that Matters (LotR)
2x Sitting the Iron Throne (AToTT)
1x Ill Tidings (IG)
3x Distinct Mastery (Core)

Location: (13)
2x The Roseroad (KotStorm)
1x The Iron Throne (LotR)
3x The Goldroad (LotR)
1x Shadowblack Lane (Core)
1x Queen Cersei's Chambers (Core)
2x Kingdom of Shadows (KotS)
1x Flea Bottom (TGM)
1x Arbor Queen (TGF)
1x The Citadel of Oldtown (GotC)