First Tilt - Plot Strategies

Welcome back to First Tilt! After going through a series of deck building articles, Paladin and I thought it would be good to create some more "nuts and bolts" types of articles to help our fellow n00bs work through how to make your growing obsession more efficient (so you can play, and hopefully win, more games). In that vein, we thought we'd cover some basic strategies regarding the Plot deck.

The Plot deck is one of the things that sets A Game of Thrones: The Card Game apart from other games of this type. Being able to have direct impact over your income, turn order, and challenge outcomes turn by turn gives you a direct amount of control over your game. Of course, your opponent has the exact same control and can thwart whatever you had planned. Suffice it to say that no matter how well crafted your draw deck is, your plot deck can make or break your game. There are many players in AGoT who think the plot deck choices are the most important you can make while others usually put it at least on par with your draw deck in terms of importance. Considering there are only 7 cards in your plot deck, your choices here have to be more finely tuned.

There are three important areas to consider when trying to determine what plots to put into your deck:

• How to capitalize on the strengths of your deck
• How to work with the weaknesses of your deck
• Reading your meta and teching appropriately

Capitalizing on the Strengths of Your Deck
This is the most basic part of determining your plot choices. I would go as far as to say this is the most important part of building a plot deck. You have to focus on your strengths to try and play the game according to your terms. Make sure at least 4 of your 7 plots focus primarily on you getting what you need or capitalize specifically on the strengths of your draw deck.

If you're building a deck that is focused on a particular challenge type, you want to ensure you include plots that either help you push through more of those challenge types or provide a means for you to capitalize more on that challenge type. Some examples are:

• After the Mummer's Ford (KotS) - allows each player to perform an additional Military challenge
• Battle of Oxcross (PotS) - any player who hasn't won a Military challenge must choose and kill a character
• Storm of Swords (LoW) - allows YOU to perform an additional Military challenge
• Frey Hospitality (LotR) - requires the person who loses an Intrigue challenge to kill a character
• Game of Thrones (LotR) - characters you control don't kneel to attack or defend Intrigue challenges
• The Breaking of Oaths (KotS) - allows each player to perform an additional Intrigue challenge
• An Empty Throne (KotS) - allows each player to perform an additional Power challenge

Other ways to capitalize on the strength of your deck and also defend against the strength of other decks that are probably weak where you're strong are plots that restrict what challenges can be performed. These plots tend to require a person to win a challenge of one or more types before being able to make a challenge of another type. Here are some examples:

• Muster the Realm! (QoD) - requires you to control an Army character before you can initiate a Military challenge. Many decks that don't focus on Military dominance will run with no Army characters in the deck. They tend to cost more and also tend not to fit the theme of other deck types. This is very often an early plot choice if you're running a good number of Army characters.
• Shadows and Spiders (LotR) - requires someone to win an Intrigue challenge before they can make a Military OR a Power challenge. A great card for an Intrigue heavy deck because it does double duty as a defensive card while allowing you the opportunity to capitalize on all challenge types that round (since you're likely to win Intrigue)
• Lineage and Legacy (KotStorm) - requires you to win a Power challenge prior to initiating a Military challenge. If you're Power heavy, this can protect you against a Military Aggro deck while potentially guaranteeing you the Power win.

Working With the Weaknesses of Your Deck

It's impossible to build a deck that's strong on every front. You're always going to encounter bad matchups and your deck is invariably going to have a particular focus and in that focus will lie the strength of your deck. Conversely, your deck is going to have some particular weaknesses. Your plot choices can help you combat some of the weaknesses of your deck. What follows are some simple ideas to consider:

A "slow" deck - defined as a deck that either takes a turn or two to get going or just doesn't grab power quickly. Many Aggro decks (except Stark Siege) can suffer from this problem. If you're focused on killing characters, you're looking for unopposed challenges to grab power or events that allow you to grab extra power. If you end up facing a deck that rushes to victory quickly, you may lose the game before you have a chance to even get started. A couple of plots to consider are:

• Search and Detain (HtS) - for many players, this has become an auto-include. I think for a slow deck, it's almost certainly an auto-include. The ability to bounce a card off the board back into someone's hand can be devastating to a Rush deck that's focused on one or two Renown characters to acquire most of their power. With this card, provided you win initiative, you can bounce the card with the most Power on it back to their hand - and they can't cancel it. That character loses all of its power and they have to pay for it all over again.
• If one of the reason's your deck is slow has to do with requiring higher cost characters or locations, then something to consider might be The First Snow of Winter (ODG). A lot of decks put a pretty good slate of inexpensive characters in their deck to speed up setup and some decks just completely rely on weenie characters and they can completely overwhelm you with just sheer numbers. This plot can even the playing field a bit and potentially provide you one more turn to try and get your engine going.
• Forgotten Plans (KotStorm) can really help you against a number of cards that speed up other people's decks or slow yours down further. This card blanks any plot effect that would be in effect outside the plot phase itself (barring any limiting text on the plot like Twist of Fate (APS) which cannot be blanked). This works against The Power of Faith (KotStorm) (which is the cornerstone of a Holy Rush deck), The Power of Blood (Core) (which protect Noble Crests from death). and Fear of Winter (BtW) (which can ruin your day if you're already struggling getting your board position set up).
• Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) - this one can save your hide for a turn... especially when you play it against another 1 Claim plot. They essentially have no claim that turn. It's disheartening for them but gives you that little extra space to get some board position.

As mentioned previously, sometimes when you shore up the strength of your deck using plots that make others win challenges that match your strengths before making other challenges can be just enough to give you that needed extra turn to get going. So, those plots do double duty as offensive and defensive plots.

Reading Your Meta... and Your Opponent

This is the most important part of picking plots. You need to understand what's played in your meta, and, if you're playing competitively, you need to keep an eye on the overall meta to see what is popular right now and tech appopriately.

For instance, due to the rising popularity of the The First Snow of Winter (ODG) / Rule by Decree (Core) combo in a Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM) deck AND the very high popularity of Fear of Winter in the more aggressive decks, the plot Forgotten Plans is seeing a rise in popularity. When designing your plot deck, you need to ask whether Fear of Winter (BtW) could hurt you and how you should deal with it. Does The Art of Seduction (LotR) see high play in your meta? Is it played at a particular point? How can you tell and what are you going to do to try and ensure that the plot you're stuck with is one that helps you and potentially hurts the other player.

I can't really discuss reading your meta without talking about reading a player. There are certain foregone conclusions that people make when they see your House + Agenda combination. Stark + Siege tends to run Fear of Winter, Targaryen + Knights of the Hollow Hill tends to run the First Snow / Rule combo, Greyjoy + Kings of Winter tends to run Fear, Martell + Maester's can often run Art of Seduction and To the Spears! (PotS)... if you're playing a predictable plot, what cards might they play to break your stride? I have successfully stuck First Snow of Winter during an Art of Seduction turn and that was a very difficult thing for my opponent to deal with. I've also been unfortunately stuck with a Valar Morghulis during an Art of Seduction turn because I didn't read them correctly and ended up losing the game pretty quickly after that. I've also successfully stuck Forgotten Plans onto a Fear turn and that was awesome, but for the many successes I've had at reading my opponent, they may still out-think me.

As an example, on one game, I had a bad board position and my opponent had solid board position. They were running a Siege deck, so I was almost positive their Restricted card was Fear of Winter. Looking at the board, I saw that the "best" play for them was Fear of Winter. It would lock me down and they'd maintain military superiority for another turn. Realizing this, my opponent instead played Retaliation! (ASoSilence) while I turned up Forgotten Plans making me go first and still getting a two claim plot out of the deal. He played Fear of Winter the next turn and won the game the turn after that. He outwitted me. But there's a lesson there... if you're playing someone you know can read a board position and determine the "best" play - sometimes the better play is to do something unexpected.

The Plot's the Thing

While it's true that the plot deck can make or break your game, it's also true that trying to hard to defend against everything will give you a plot deck that's either practically useless, or slows your deck to a crawl because you haven't capitalized on your strengths. You cannot tech against everything. Let me say that again, you CANNOT tech against everything. What you want to focus on is building a deck that can help propel you to victory sooner and then, take a look at your deck's weaknesses and try to see if there's something you really have to shore up because you could get nuked in an area too easily.

There are some who would say, if your draw deck has a weakness and you need to shore it up with a plot... the problem is in your draw deck and you need to fix that so you can focus your plots. That's a sound philosophy, but since this is a beginner's article written by a relative newcomer to the game, thbbbbt! There are bad matchups and, well, every deck has weaknesses. Play to your strengths and reasonably shore up those weaknesses and you've bolstered your chance to win. Most of the time, that will be good enough.