First Tilt - Deck Archetypes: Martell

Welcome back to First Tilt, a column dedicated to helping new players learn the strategies that will help them win the Game of Thrones. If this is your first time reading this column, we recommend you start with the New Player’s FAQ which addresses many common questions and provides link to a wide variety of great articles and resources.

This week we continue with our overview of the various deck builds that are commonly found in AGoT, so as to assist new players (and refresh veteran players) on what terms such as Burn, Rush, Aggro, Mill, Choke, etc. signify and mean in terms of deck compositions and playing styles. Because the possibilities are so vast with an LCG that has as large a card pool as AGoT does, this series does not aim to be exhaustive and cover every single deck build and archetype. Rather, the aim is to provide an overview of some of the more common or notable archetypes for each house, so that newer players can understand what certain archetypes look like and how they work in practice..

With that out of the way, let’s move on to this week’s house: the vengeful Martells, whose power grows even as their anger simmers across the years…

KEY CARDS
Almost every unique Martell character in the Martell House Expansion can be considered a key card for Martell. You really can’t go wrong by including just about any single one of them in a deck. Nonetheless, there are a few cards that stand out over the others. We took a look at the key cards from the Martell House Expansion in a previous First Tilt, so some of that earlier advice is reiterated throughout this article:
▪ The Red Viper (PotS) – You really need a good reason to NOT include him in a Martell deck. It doesn’t matter what the theme of your deck is, The Red Viper will always be a welcome addition. He is immune to events and character abilities, is a tri-con with 3 strength, and powers up when you are outnumbered. Oh, and he has Renown. The question is not should you include him, the question is how many copies should you include.
▪ Darkstar (PotS) – At 4 gold, he’s not the cheapest of characters, but his abilities are very nice: Vengeful and Renown are always nice to have. But Darkstar is a card that may find his way onto the battlefield free of charge if you end up losing an intrigue challenge. If you pay for him or get him into play for free, you’ll be happy to have on the field.
▪ House Messenger (PotS) – Not the strongest of characters, but you get to draw two cards when you play him and keep the best one, which is a nice ability to assist you in pulling your key cards more quickly.
▪ Arianne Martell (PotS) – Another expensive character but very much worth the price. Raising your claim by 1 is something you will appreciate in almost any deck build, and with her stealth you can increase the odds of victory by sneaking past the most fearsome character on your opponent’s side.
▪ He Calls It Thinking (PotS) – Not only does this card allow you to respond to your opponent’s events, it also leaves one of your characters stronger for the effort. Pretty close to an auto-include.
▪ A Game of Cyvasse (ACoS) – A very nice card to have. Get your opponent to kneel a character and then bounce another character. There are so many uses here: bounce a renown character full of power, bounce a character with duplicates to discard the dupes, kneel and bounce to expose your opponent to an attack, etc. Just make sure you have high strength intrigue characters!
▪ Refugee of the Citadel (RoW) – Zero cost and the Maester trait, these guys should find a spot in almost every Martell deck.
▪ Lost Spearman (MotM) – another cheap character, the Spearman will help lower your cost curve and adds to military and intrigue (at 3 strength, works well with Cyvasse).
▪ Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS) – More cheapness. The Orphan makes your setup more efficient, as his zero cost allows you to clear your hand and draw more cards. Then once in play he adds some control capacity by removing icons from your opponent’s characters.
▪ To the Spears! (PotS) – Not kneeling any characters to attack is a great ability. Yeah, it ‘s a zero initiative play, so you probably won’t be going first, but with Vengeful you can kneel to defend some challenges, then lose one and stand up again. Pair it with Arianne and her upped claim on attack and you end up with a truly nasty plot card!

Martell also has the most restricted cards, and your choice of restricted card in a Martell deck can be a difficult one. Here are some things to consider when weighing which Restricted card to go with:

▪ The Viper's Bannermen (PotS) - while pricey and restricted, these guys will dominate the field once they come into play due to their high strength and Deadly. They’ll also give you some draw as a reward for paying their high cost. And if your opponent somehow manages to get rid of them? Why, more draw!
▪ The Maester's Path (GotC) – If you are playing Maesters, then your choice is obvious. The Martell Maester build is top tier at the moment, but if you go with this as your pick, then you should go all in with Maesters.
▪ Burning on the Sand (RotO) - If you want to make your opponent have a bad day, play this card on them after they think they’ve won an important challenge. But you don’t gain much advantage from this card, so you’re usually going to be better off with another pick.
â–ª Fury of the Sun (AE) - While all the Fury plots are great, this one has a special ability that is not as useful as its peers. Given the other great restricted choices you have, you should likely pass on this as your pick.
▪ Venomous Blade (TBoBB) - Direct kill with recursion, what’s not to like? Pairs nicely with Ghaston Grey Bounce to knock out your opponent's weaker characters.
▪ Narrow Escape (KotStorm) - If you can’t decide on what restricted card to go with, this is always a good choice. Saving your characters or making your opponent discard their hand, either way you’ll come out with some benefit.

So, with that out of the way, let's look at some of the deck builds available to a Martell player.

Martell Summer
With a Summer deck, you are accelerating your resources through extra card draws from your agenda, Kings of Summer, and extra gold from the Black Raven who makes it summer. The other key cards are similarly focused on expanding your resources to amass large forces to vanquish your opponent. Check out this article for a breakdown of a tournament winning build (albeit from a year ago).
â–ª Carrion Bird (ASoS) - If you have the cards to make it summer, then you likely have these little guys, and they are cheap and synchronize well with your other cards.
▪ A Time for Ravens (ACoS) - You won’t get any use out of your agenda until you make it Summer. This is the key plot, and likely your opening plot if you did not draw a Black Raven. If you did draw a Black Raven, hold this in reserve or use it for a Carrion Bird.
â–ª Gilly (RoW) - A zero cost character that becomes amazingly useful during summer. No reason not to include her if you are playing a summer deck.
â–ª Samwell Tarly (TRS) - Where Gilly goes, so goes Sam. You are likely going to have at least 5-6 Ravens (3x Carrion Birds and 2-3 Black Ravens). Sam will net you an extra two cards every time one comes into play.
▪ Maester of the Sun (ASoS) - a crucial card to your Summer deck. He saves characters during summertime by discarding a card. And if it is summer, you will be drawing extra cards, so that cost shouldn’t be a problem.
▪ The Viper's Bannermen (PotS) - with the cards and income you’ll be pulling in this build, the Bannermen are a logical choice for your Restricted card. Their high cost won’t be too big a problem with your accelerated resources, their strength will help you close out the game, and their card draw goes well with your expanded resources strategy.

Ghaston Grey Bounce
The Martells have access to a wide variety of tricks, but Ghaston Grey is one of their most useful. When it first came out it was sort of neglected, but eventually its power (as written) came to be recognized as amazingly useful. It became such a dominating card that errata had to be added to limit its power, but Ghaston Grey is still a highly versatile card, though you do need to be deliberate in choosing particular cards to support the strategy. Basically, you throw in a number of noble crest characters, led by the cheap Myrcella, who can then be used to bounce opponent’s characters, especially those with dupes, attachments, or renown. Combine it with some challenge control cards, such as the Orphan or the Scourge, and you have a deck that allows you to run over your opponent any time you want. See this previous First Tilt article on Martell for an affordable take on a Bounce deck.
â–ª Ghaston Grey (FtC) - The amount of character control it gives you is simply superb.
▪ Myrcella Lannister (ODG) - if Ghaston Grey is your character control engine, Myrcella is the cheap fuel that you’ll use to keep it running. She has the requisite noble symbol, and at two cost will keep the bouncing affordable. But that affordability also limits your options. Which brings us to...
▪ Doran Martell (TGM) - perhaps a tad overpriced, but it’s hard to pass up a vengeful three strength character that makes your opponent discard cards when you lose a challenge and who also has a noble symbol to trigger Ghaston Grey.
▪ Edric Dayne (IG) - three gold for a two icon, three strength character is not great, but his ability can be quite helpful. He’ll slow down your opponent’s ability to tap into his influence locations, and if he dies you get the chance to knock out an influence providing location. He has the noble symbol for Ghaston and at three cost covers most characters that Myrcella cannot.
â–ª Dagos Manwoody (TBC) - Vengeful, melee, tri-con, noble symbol at three cost, very nice to have for the bouncing and also covers more characters than Myrcella.


House Dayne/Sand Snakes
Martell can also has two neat sub-houses that can form effective deck builds.

▪ House Dayne relies on Starfall (ASitD) to accumulate gold tokens on its Dayne characters and thus build up their strength every time you win a challenge. That’s the main strategy. Further supporting the Daynes is the Starfall Healer (RotO), who can use those coins to keep your Dayne forces alive, and the Starfall Advisor (TWH) who can use his coins to cancel events and character abilities. Starfall Bannerman (ASoS) will further boost your characters.

The Daynes have useful knights in their ranks, such as the Knights of the Sun (ASoS), so Knights of the Realm (KotStorm) is a good agenda for this build. King of Summer is also a good agenda, as the extra summer resources pair well with the gold reliance of the Daynes. Ideally, a House Dayne build will be one that grows stronger and stronger with each victory!

â–ª For the Sand Snakes, your goal is to get a major combo off: first, you trigger:
-No Use For Grief (DB) - Kill the Viper to bring out some more Snakes.
-Then try and trigger Dorea Sand (TftH) to make them not kneel (note that she does not need to be in play the moment the Viper dies to get her trigger)
-And also make sure to get in A Nest of Vipers (TftH) for some renwon.
-Be sure to bring out or have in play the following, if you can:
Tyene Sand (OSaS) - Add intrigue and stealth to your other snakes.
Nymeria Sand (OSaS) - Add military and deadly to your snakes.
Obella Sand (DB) - Add a power icon and vengeful.

Pull off this combo with these snakes, and what do you get? An army of tri-con stealth, deadly, vengeful characters with renown! If timed right, you can win the game with game in a single turn.

Martell Maesters
This has been the hottest deck on the tournament scene for a while now. Numerous articles have been written extolling its virtues and decrying its amazing power. Given its prominence, we won’t cover it here, but see this article for an analysis of a tournament winning build.