Forgotten Plans

Hello readers, and welcome to the first installment of Forgotten Plans! Each week I’m going to discuss some themes, combos, or just a card in general that I think has flown under the radar so to speak. This week is going to focus on the Bolton theme for House Stark.

Now at first glance these cards seem to be awesome! Let’s take a look at The Flayed Men (DB). At two gold and five strength, it’s one of the most efficient characters in the game. When you add in two icons and a war crest, it’s looking like a must for any Stark deck. Then you notice its ability, but that’s alright! I mean sure if you lose a power challenge you lose the character, but how are they going to win a challenge against you when you have a five strength army out? Well, that’s kind of the problem with Bolton cards. You have to make sure you don’t lose any challenge on defense, while still having enough strength left to make your own challenges. This is where most people just kind of shrug and toss the Boltons aside, but if you’re smart about it you can make them work.

One option is to play around their weakenss by including some initiative boosting cards, like Bay of Ice (KotS) and Karhold Rookery (CbtC), to win initiative every turn. This way you can make your opponent go first and force them to have to challenge first and potentially over commit to a challenge. If you can’t win the challenge then just defend with the Boltons you might lose and get them back during your own challenges. You only play enough characters each turn to maintain a dominant board position. You’ll still want to layout at least one or two characters though in order to draw off of The Dreadfort (DB). This way you have board advantage but still have characters left in hand to come back from a Valar Morghulis (Core). This plan can backfire if your opponent has enough stealth though, since they can simply stealth past your Flayed Men during a power challenge and then use them to win a military challenge or defend your power challenge. You might want to include Frozen Moat (BtW) to take care of any stealth or other character abilities that could potentially keep your Boltons from defending. Roose Bolton (DB) also comes in handy for getting back those Boltons that forget who they are supposed to be following. Some other cards that you’ll want to include in this build are Frozen Outpost (LoW) (so those Boltons can pull double duty on defense and offense) and Abandoned Fort (RoR) (so you can return any Boltons that you might have lost.)

Option number two is a bit more reckless, but I find all the more fun! This strategy doesn’t try and play around the weakness so much as it ignores it. Instead of a steady one or two characters a turn, you laying out as many Boltons as you can to just overwhelm your opponent. You’ll still want to make sure you have at least two characters in hand. The object here is to bait your opponent into an early Valar, and then throw down Narrow Escape (KotStorm) to basically ignore the reset. Your opponent could potentially discard his hand to cancel the event, but then you’ll still wind up with a board advantage again due to the fact you have characters in hand and they don’t. This approach is severely hindered by builds that include a lot of saves. Once again, however, if you are smart, and get a little lucky, you can play around it. You’ll want to lead out early with some high claim plots like The Power of Arms (Core) and Retaliation! (ASoSilence). Force them to either give up characters, thus giving you an even bigger board advantage, or burning some saves. The event card Die by the Sword (LoW) also comes in handy in this situation. It’s pretty easy to use since The Flayed Men, Roose Bolton, The Bastard's Elite (RoR), Steelshanks Walton (OSaS), and Steelshanks' Reserves (ASoSilence) all have war crests.

Any Bolton deck you build is going to be risky, but is a lot of fun to play! If you are still feeling a bit nervous about them, just try splashing some into your next Stark deck. Just throw in a few Flayed Men, or a few Bastard’s Elite. One turn of spending four gold for a combined ten strength and you’ll be hooked! That Greyjoy Choke deck? Psh! It’s more like Greyjoy Tickle! You’ve been outdrawn by those Lannisters and Martells? Well the Boltons draw all day e’er day with The Dreadfort! So go out and give the Boltons a drive, because Reek (MotM) really needs a friend. That’s all for this week, but stay tuned later in the week when Will Lentz gives you the rundown on the Melee version of the Boltons! As Roose would say, “Stay bloody my friends.”