First Tilt - Expanding House Targaryen

Welcome back to your weekly edition of First Tilt! We're continuing our series that explores how to expand the basic recommended purchase (2X Core Sets and 1X House Expansion) into a more competitive deck. We're requiring no more than 6 Chapter Packs, and we're trying to stay focused on the newer 60-card packs. Our goal is to help you build the most competitive deck possible on a budget. One additional rule we've added are the decks can't require the Summer or Winter mechanic due to the near impossibility of finding the Song of Summer or Winds of Winter Chapter Packs (without spending large sums of money).

This week, I'll be focusing on my House of choice: House Targaryen. When most people think of House Targaryen, they think of Burn. While Burn is an exceptionally strong theme, it tends to require a larger card pool in order to build a well-rounded deck that doesn't stray too far from the core theme of burning down your opponents characters. It's also more difficult for newer players to play due to the number of moving pieces and critical timing decisions that are required to play it well. The other strong theme that gets a fair amount of play is Targaryen Dragons in a Rush format. The problem with this deck type is its very difficult to pull off in Joust due to the expense of the primary characters - the Dragons. At 4 gold each, they can really choke a setup hand and you need to tech specifically to overcome the problem... and, again, that tends to take a larger card pool.

One of the things I love about House Targaryen is that we're not limited with regards to options, while Burn (Control) and Dragons (Rush) tend to be the more popular themes, an often overlooked, but powerful deck type is a Dothraki Aggro deck. So, that will be our focus this week - coincidentally, very much in line with what Staton discusses in yesterday's Forgotten Plans article. We developed our articles separately with no intention of creating a similar theme - but I was surprised to discover how nicely this deck exercise complements his article. Now, we're building with a very limited card pool here, so there are cards he mentions that we're not going to be able to use, but I will try to outline those at the end of the article.

Between the Queen of Dragons expansion and the Brotherhood Cycle, the Dothraki theme became really viable. Most of the cards we're going to use for our primary Aggro strategy will come from these two sets. For the Brotherhood Cycle, we'll only be using four Chapter Packs. The other two have amazing cards, but we need a few cards from other packs in order to flesh out the Aggro portion of this theme a bit. The packs you need to buy are Illyrio's Gift, Rituals of R'hllor, Mountains of the Moon, and Of Snakes and Sand.

Basic Strategy

The theme is Dothraki, so we're going to want to fill the deck with as much Dothraki goodness as we can to capitalize on some of the amazing synergies found with these characters. We'll start the deck off with three solid characters that work together on military challenges to gain other types of effects for winning military challenges:

• Aggo (RoR) - grabs power
• Jhogo (OSaS) - draws cards
• Rakharo (IG) - discards cards from the opponent's hand

Each of these characters also has a unique attachment that can add even more effects (some of these we include multiple copies, but remember these are unique, so you can only play them on one character and then dupe the attachment, I only include multiples to increase the chances of drawing the attachment):

• Aggo's Bow (RoR) - allows you to kill a character that kneels to defend (and makes them unsavable if the bow is attached to Aggo)
• Jhogo's Whip (OSaS) - allows you to remove characters from challenges while attacking (2 if it's Jhogo)
• Rakharo's Arakh (IG) - gains strength for every character in your opponent's dead pile (incredibly powerful in Melee)

The next thing we want to do is to take advantage of these synergies by putting additional Dothraki into the deck:

• Bitter Crone (IG) - this is an Aggro deck, so we're planning on military superiority - Bitter Crone is perfect here. She's a low-risk card really because even if you have to fulfill military claim, you can always choose her to be the one who dies first (and then use any saves or dupes for any other claim you might have to fulfill)
• Blood-Crazed Screamer (MotM) - same thing here, with military superiority, this non-unique gives you the ability to perform a second military challenge - he has to participate in the second challenge so make sure you don't kneel him if you want to take advantage of his ability. You also need to be sure he can do this only using Dothraki characters, so it's important to time this well. If you believe you can win the first military challenge using non-Dothraki or few, then do so. We are including 3X of this guy to help ensure you can trigger him.
• Horseback Archers (QoD) - they can jump in on a challenge, or you can pay for them - they're inexpensive and add to the total Dothraki weight.
• Drogo's Horde (IG) - this is an absolute auto-include as you can often get this card in for so cheap your opponent's will want to read this card twice. Remember, you can still use other reducers on the card while taking advantage of the Dothraki reduction at the same time.
• Khal Drogo (QoD) - we'd like to draw him early, but he isn't vital, so we'll include 2. He's just a nice way to get add'l characters into hand and if he happens to be in play during a Valar, all the better to recover with.

That gives us a pretty solid slate of Dothraki characters with some nice effects; however, what I've found is even though the effects are great - they need support. If we look back at the deck, we see three characters with a War Crest. So, a great card that adds benefit to an Aggro deck is Pike Phalanx (QoD). The ability to raise claim during a military challenge can be devastating. You can only do it once per round, but if you're able to trigger Blood-Crazed Screamer as well, you can wipe their field pretty quickly. Do this during a 2-Claim plot and... you get the picture.

So, now we have two themes developing: Dothraki and a War Crest using Pike Phalanx to raise claim. If we add a few more War Crest characters, we'd be golden. In a limited card pool, that can be hard, but we can easily toss in Hired Swords for a cheap crest and we'll also dig into another older (but recently reprinted) Chapter Pack: Tales from the Red Keep. In there, we'll find the perfect card to support our Pike Phalanx strategy: Daemon Blackfyre (TftRK). He provides a War Crest to every Targaryen character. Yes. Every. Single. One. With this much War Crest stuff going on, we'll definitely put in two copies of The Power of Arms (Core) to buff everyone +2 and provide a potential for a 6-claim military challenge on two turns. (That's a 3-claim buff using Pike Phalanx and an extra 3-claim challenge using Blood-Crazed Screamer's ability because Pike's ability lasts for the phase.) And, remember, if you have Bitter Crone in play, they can't save their characters during Military challenges.

To ensure we have War Crest characters we need to protect Daemon against cards like Bowl of Brown (LoW) or Milk of the Poppy (Core), so we'll add Jorah's Cohorts for an additional War Crest and some nice attachment control (they don't even have to participate in a Power challenge to trigger their ability, you just have to win one). Then, in order to nuke a problem character (like, say, Meera Reed (TftH) who can blank Daemon's ability), we'll dig into our final chapter pack: Valar Morghulis. From here, we grab Incinerate (VM) which, I think, was almost built for a Dothraki deck. This beautiful card can be used to neutralize almost any character when you have a solid bevy of Dothraki in play. For a single Influence, this card is a no-brainer to add. It works on any trait, so I've actually used it with the Army trait when I had a bad draw for Dothraki.

The other characters we're including to bolster our setup and help with claim soak are:

• Hired Swords (QoD) - cheap War Crest character - hard to pass this up
• Brown Ben Plumm (Core) - he's free and he's military... easy include
• Maester Aemon (Core) - saves himself just by kneeling, perfect claim soak card

Rounding Out Your Deck

Between the Dothraki weapon attachments and Incinerate, we have a solid use for Influence in the deck. We want to draw it early and often. We also have some expensive characters, so some additional reduction (which tends to come with Influence) is not a bad thing. The other thing we'd really like to do... is go first. As often as we can. So, we'll add the following:

• Summer Sea (QoD) - while you can discard this card to reduce by two, remember that it's also free Influence, so choose wisely. Early game, you may want to hold onto this unless you draw a lot of Influence
• Eastern Fiefdoms (QoD) - no down side to this card - repeatable reduction for any Targ card plus Influence
• Kingsroad Fiefdom (QoD) - this one was a tough call because it's a 2-gold location, but if you can get them all into play, we have a +6 Initiative, which would be enough on most turns to guarantee you first position.
• Temple of the Graces (Core) - we need some gold, so we'll include 2X of these (this gives us five locations with the Limited keyword, which is just about right - too many and your hand gets clogged because you can only play one per round)
• Khal Drogo's Tent (Core) - cheap extra gold plus Influence
• Lady Daenerys's Chambers (Core) - a simple way to recurse those great weapon attachments, but there aren't many of them, so we'll only include 1X of this card.
• Street of Steel (Core) - free, non-limited military character reducer
• Street of Sisters (Core) - free, non-limited power character reducer

We'll add Maegi's Promise (QoD) to resurrect a dead character and Distinct Mastery (Core) to stand any War Crest character (of which we now have plenty). Maegi's Promise can really help you get a unique character back into play and it can be used to bring Khal back from the dead to do his little death trick all over again - it all depends on what you need at the time. The other unique Dothraki are important, so choose wisely.

This leaves us to choose Plots and an Agenda. Ah, the Agenda. With the Chapter Packs we've chosen, I thought that Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM) was a no-brainer plot to use for this deck; however, in testing, I've found that just isn't the case. With a limited card pool, we can't put enough in here to defend against a first turn Fear of Winter (BtW) or to overcome the lack of setup. Every time I tested the deck, losing that setup made it very difficult to claw back into board position and if your opponent plays that first turn Fear, you're toast without Forgotten Plans (KotStorm) to allow you play characters or The First Snow of Winter (ODG) to potentially return their setup back to their hand. Now, some folks will open with Valar Morghulis (Core) when using KotHH, but in my experience, the downside of that plot is just too great. It makes no sense in an Aggro deck to open with a zero-claim plot. That leaves me with Heir to the Iron Throne as the most viable agenda. We're light on Intrigue, so this isn't a bad hit against us and it enables you to perform two Power challenges every phase. I will say, that in testing, I didn't get to do this much, but when I did, it was a powerful effect to close the game on a two-claim turn and, if you happened to use Pike's ability that turn... well, that's now two THREE-claim power challenges. It takes a perfect storm of cards to pull that off... but man is that devastating (and possibly a win in that turn).

For plots, looking at the deck, there's a solid number of inexpensive Army characters, so Muster the Realm! (QoD) is almost a no-brainer here. The ability to potentially hold off a military challenge against you for a turn is just too great. I've already mentioned the 2X The Power of Arms (Core). I include Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) as another great plot to protect you against claim. Another plot that will have zero actual effect from its text is Mutual Cause (Core). Why include it? Simple - it's a two claim plot with decent stats and no downside for you. Mad King's Legacy (Core) aids in attachment control, and finally, we use Wildfire Assault (Core) as your reset. Why not Valar Morghulis? For the reasons I stated above, if you need Valar with an Aggro deck, you're probably going to lose anyway. Wildfire helps you to thin a clown boat style deck (lots of cheap characters) without removing your claim.

Some might also wonder why I didn't choose Retaliation! (ASoSilence), considering I'm pulling so much from the Brotherhood Cycle. After testing it a few times, I felt that having Incinerate in the deck did far more and Retaliation! requires you to buy a fifth pack from the Cycle just for that card. It's a great plot (usually), but this deck really wants to go first and, while it is a two-claim, you'll find you're either having to fulfill claim or you're kneeling too much to block a challenge which leaves you with little to actually initiate a challenge when your turn comes around - which can waste the two-claim.

So, without any further ado - here's the deck (again, I list suggested purchases after the list):


House (1)
House Targaryen (Core) x1

Agenda (1)
Heir to the Iron Throne (QoD) x1

Plot (7)
Muster the Realm! (QoD) x1
The Power of Arms (Core) x2
Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) x1
Mad King's Legacy (Core) x1
Wildfire Assault (Core) x1
Mutual Cause (Core) x1

Character (32)
Aggo (RoR) x2
Jhogo (OSaS) x3
Rakharo (IG) x2
Bitter Crone (IG) x3
Blood-Crazed Screamer (MotM) x3
Horseback Archers (QoD) x2
Drogo's Horde (IG) x3
Khal Drogo (QoD) x2
Pike Phalanx (QoD) x3
Daemon Blackfyre (TftRK) x2
Jorah's Cohorts (QoD) x2
Hired Swords (QoD) x2
Maester Aemon (Core) x1
Brown Ben Plumm (Core) x1
Syrio Forel (TftRK) x1

Location (15)
Summer Sea (QoD) x3
Eastern Fiefdoms (QoD) x3
Kingsroad Fiefdom (QoD) x3
Temple of the Graces (Core) x2
Khal Drogo's Tent (Core) x1
Lady Daenerys's Chambers (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1

Event (8)
Maegi's Promise (QoD) x3
Incinerate (VM) x3
Distinct Mastery (Core) x2

Attachment (5)
Aggo's Bow (RoR) x2
Jhogo's Whip (OSaS) x2
Rakharo's Arakh (IG) x1

Cards You Should Consider

What this deck is really missing is targeted kill. There is one card that is an absolute must to try and get - Die by the Sword (LoW). The problem is that you have to purchase Lords of Winter (the Stark Expansion) to get it. That's a lot of investment for that card, but with the War Crest theme, it's an absolutely perfect card for this deck. Win a military challenge, they have to fulfill claim and then you still kill another character with the event. I'd pull one Maegi's Promise and Distinct Mastery to put in 3X of this card.

Bloodrider (MotA) is a great card to add to the Dothraki theme because it adds what Targaryen has little of - effect cancel. I'd pull Hired Swords to get him in there 2X.

Another great card to add would be The Price of War (KotS) for some solid locations control, but it suffers from the same problem as Die by the Sword. You need to buy another expansion - this time it's Kings of the Sea, the Greyjoy Expansion. Now, this also gets you Siege of Riverrun (KotS), which is a perfect plot choice for this deck since you can't make Intrigue challenges anyway. If you get this expansion along with Lords of Winter (for Die by the Sword), then I'd pull Maegi's Promise completely and Rakharo's Arakh to get 3X of this in there as well. That would make your events, 3X Die by the Sword, 3X The Price of War, and 3X Incinerate and that's just about perfect. Targeted kill in spades and serious location hate.

Obviously, if you can get Refugees of War, Refugee of the Plains (RoW) is always a nice add. If you do have them, you'll need to do some tinkering, but they're worth it. I'd pull Syrio, Aemon, and Plumm. All good characters, and it's a hard choice - Syrio and Aemon are repeatable, Plumm doesn't require Dominance (or gold) to stay in play.

In Conclusion

While this deck lacks a few key cards, remember that you're trying to build a solid deck that can compete in your meta with a limited card pool. The great thing about a Dothraki build is that it's easy to play and it tends to be unexpected. If you're able to add just three cards, this deck becomes a powerhouse. It's performed pretty solidly in testing ever since I changed from Knights of the Hollow Hill to Heir to the Iron Throne. You can run the deck agendaless if you want to still be able to make that Intrigue challenge as the agenda doesn't give you much except the ability to grab more power, but don't take that too lightly. Against some decks, the ability to make two power challenges will be amazing.

Finally, props to Nathan (widowmaker93) and Buz (OKTarg), my buddies from TeamCovenant for your last minute help in reviewing the deck! You guys rock! So, as always, feel free to comment and let me know what you'd do differently!