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1st Place Red Saturday (NYC Black Friday) Deck List--Targ Maesters
Nov 26 2012 12:00 AM |
Twn2dn
in Strategy
New York Black Friday Red Saturday Targaryen The Maesters Path Maesters Burn Ambush Twn2dn
John Bruno's success with House Targaryen at the World Championships two weeks ago prompted me to think long and hard about Targaryen deckbuilding (specifically "burn" focused decks). His innovative use of Waste Their Time and Much and More surprised me. After a bit of experimentation, I ultimately did not include Much and More or Aegon's Hill, but Waste Their Time consistently outperformed expectations. While I was lukewarm on the plot’s ability, which was always useful but rarely game-changing, and the statistics (gold/initiative/claim) are abysmal, this is easily the best (unrestricted) Power Struggle plot for a control deck in the current joust environment. With this plot, I was able to run To Be a Dragon, one of the best Event cards in the Game of Thrones LCG.
Targaryen – The Maester’s Path
Plots (listed in order most frequently played)
I have long wanted to play To Be a Dragon in a Targ deck, but pulled it from my decks the day Fury of the Dragon was restricted. Bruno’s World Championship victory a couple weeks before Black Friday 2012 demonstrated the versatility of Waste Their Time. When revealing At the Gates, I typically searched for Archmaester Marwyn, who is immune to an opponent’s First Snow of Winter, as well as the many effects that control non-unique cards (Wintertime Marauders, Seductive Promise, Magister Illyrio, etc.).
Waste their Time
Threat from the North
At the Gates
City of Soldiers
A City Besieged
Valar Morghulis
Retaliation!
Characters (29)
The character mix is designed to provide versatility, with a significant amount of ambush for surprises and to take advantage of the Long Lances ability to stand characters. My primary targets for standing effects were the maesters that held my chains. The cost curve is relatively low, and I found that I typically did not have a problem playing/ambushing multiple characters a turn. With 6 chains, my draw deck was only 54 cards, so that characters comprised a little more than half the deck.
1x Jhogo (draw version)
3x Long Lances
1x Linked Advisor
1x Advisor to the Crown
3x Refugee of the Plains
2x Shadow Parasite
1x Syrio Forel
1x Magister Illyrio (burn version)
1x Varys (neutral shadows version)
1x Khal Drogo (jumper version)
1x Young Griff
1x Horseback Archers
1x Viserys Targaryen (save version)
1x Green Hatchling (non-shadows version)
1x Strong Belwas (saves uniques version)
1x Maester Aemon (neutral version)
1x Viserion (discards locations version)
1x Ser Jorah Mormont (discards allies version)
2x Archmaester Marwyn (Targ version)
2x Dragon Knight
2x Dragon Thief
Locations (14)
One of a Targaryen player’s greatest challenges is managing a dual resource curve. Every resource location in this deck was designed to increase options by offering both gold/cost reduction and influence. The exception of course is Flea Bottom, which was the weakest location in the deck but still useful, especially when used in combination with Long Lances to stand the character that just entered play knelt.
1x Khal Drogo's Tent
2x Great Pyramid of Meereen
3x Eastern Fiefdoms
1x Flea Bottom
1x Meraxes
1x Rhaenys's Hill
2x Mereen Tourney Grounds
3x Summer Sea
Events (7)
As mentioned above, I have long wanted to play To Be a Dragon in a Targ deck. This was an easy addition, but meant that I had to cut down on some of the other non-setup cards I was running—namely burn cards such as Incinerate and Flame-Kissed. Pyrophobia is easily one of the best Targ control cards, and is currently my favorite Targ card. I feel it is balanced, but is easy to pull off, extremely difficult to save against, and can have a crippling effect on an opponent’s economy. One of my favorite burn combos is to play Harried by Dragons, then respond with Pyrophobia, returning an opponent’s printed 3-STR character to hand. Since Harried allows you to respond to playing it from hand, you can easily bounce 4-STR characters as well. And since Pyrophobia returns attachments on the bounced character to their owner’s hand as well, you get to repeat the effect for each Pyrophobia in hand…and then save the attachments later for challenge-phase burn.
2x To Be a Dragon
2x Incinerate
3x Pyrophobia
Attachments (6 on agenda; 4 in draw deck)
The Copper and Tin links were included to help protect against winter (discard White Raven). The Copper Link also proved occasionally useful in giving negative traits to opponent’s characters so that they may be discarded to Ser Jorah, or traits to my own characters to fuel Incinerate or Jhogo’s draw effect.
1x Lead Link
1x Copper Link
1x Apprentice Collar
1x Valyrian Steel Link
1x Bronze Link
1x Tin Link
2x Harried by Dragons
2x Flame-Kissed
The above deck achieved a record of 7-0 (undefeated throughout the event) against Stark Winter, Stark House of Dreams (Bear Island), Greyjoy Winter, Targ House of Dreams (Dragonpit), Martell House of Dreams (The Scourge), and Power Behind the Throne.
Targaryen – The Maester’s Path
Plots (listed in order most frequently played)
I have long wanted to play To Be a Dragon in a Targ deck, but pulled it from my decks the day Fury of the Dragon was restricted. Bruno’s World Championship victory a couple weeks before Black Friday 2012 demonstrated the versatility of Waste Their Time. When revealing At the Gates, I typically searched for Archmaester Marwyn, who is immune to an opponent’s First Snow of Winter, as well as the many effects that control non-unique cards (Wintertime Marauders, Seductive Promise, Magister Illyrio, etc.).
Waste their Time
Threat from the North
At the Gates
City of Soldiers
A City Besieged
Valar Morghulis
Retaliation!
Characters (29)
The character mix is designed to provide versatility, with a significant amount of ambush for surprises and to take advantage of the Long Lances ability to stand characters. My primary targets for standing effects were the maesters that held my chains. The cost curve is relatively low, and I found that I typically did not have a problem playing/ambushing multiple characters a turn. With 6 chains, my draw deck was only 54 cards, so that characters comprised a little more than half the deck.
1x Jhogo (draw version)
3x Long Lances
1x Linked Advisor
1x Advisor to the Crown
3x Refugee of the Plains
2x Shadow Parasite
1x Syrio Forel
1x Magister Illyrio (burn version)
1x Varys (neutral shadows version)
1x Khal Drogo (jumper version)
1x Young Griff
1x Horseback Archers
1x Viserys Targaryen (save version)
1x Green Hatchling (non-shadows version)
1x Strong Belwas (saves uniques version)
1x Maester Aemon (neutral version)
1x Viserion (discards locations version)
1x Ser Jorah Mormont (discards allies version)
2x Archmaester Marwyn (Targ version)
2x Dragon Knight
2x Dragon Thief
Locations (14)
One of a Targaryen player’s greatest challenges is managing a dual resource curve. Every resource location in this deck was designed to increase options by offering both gold/cost reduction and influence. The exception of course is Flea Bottom, which was the weakest location in the deck but still useful, especially when used in combination with Long Lances to stand the character that just entered play knelt.
1x Khal Drogo's Tent
2x Great Pyramid of Meereen
3x Eastern Fiefdoms
1x Flea Bottom
1x Meraxes
1x Rhaenys's Hill
2x Mereen Tourney Grounds
3x Summer Sea
Events (7)
As mentioned above, I have long wanted to play To Be a Dragon in a Targ deck. This was an easy addition, but meant that I had to cut down on some of the other non-setup cards I was running—namely burn cards such as Incinerate and Flame-Kissed. Pyrophobia is easily one of the best Targ control cards, and is currently my favorite Targ card. I feel it is balanced, but is easy to pull off, extremely difficult to save against, and can have a crippling effect on an opponent’s economy. One of my favorite burn combos is to play Harried by Dragons, then respond with Pyrophobia, returning an opponent’s printed 3-STR character to hand. Since Harried allows you to respond to playing it from hand, you can easily bounce 4-STR characters as well. And since Pyrophobia returns attachments on the bounced character to their owner’s hand as well, you get to repeat the effect for each Pyrophobia in hand…and then save the attachments later for challenge-phase burn.
2x To Be a Dragon
2x Incinerate
3x Pyrophobia
Attachments (6 on agenda; 4 in draw deck)
The Copper and Tin links were included to help protect against winter (discard White Raven). The Copper Link also proved occasionally useful in giving negative traits to opponent’s characters so that they may be discarded to Ser Jorah, or traits to my own characters to fuel Incinerate or Jhogo’s draw effect.
1x Lead Link
1x Copper Link
1x Apprentice Collar
1x Valyrian Steel Link
1x Bronze Link
1x Tin Link
2x Harried by Dragons
2x Flame-Kissed
The above deck achieved a record of 7-0 (undefeated throughout the event) against Stark Winter, Stark House of Dreams (Bear Island), Greyjoy Winter, Targ House of Dreams (Dragonpit), Martell House of Dreams (The Scourge), and Power Behind the Throne.
12 Comments
In the beginning you are writing about the innovative use of Waste Their Time and Much and More.
What´s the innovative part / the strategy what makes Waste Their Time the best Power Struggle Plot card?
It seems that using Pyrophobia would set the HIll up splendidly for a challenge phase kill. Did you find that to not be in strong on practice as on paper or was the sheer expense of the Hill the reason it had to be cut out?
There were also some other difficult decisions. For example, I would ideally play 3x Flame-Kissed (also excellent with Pyrophobia) and 3x Incinerate. Again, I had to cut something and didn't want to cut too deeply into my character count or resources. The cost curve in this deck is low, but it still requires some consistency of gold and especially influence for me to play everything I need to play.
Nice deck. Would be good if you could maybe find time to go through and give all the cards the scroll-over treatment to help newer players see the workings of the cards easier, although I appreciate that'd be a pain in the hole at this point! Also, you mention you took inspiration from Bruno's deck - given that I'm slightly surprised at the lack of Street Waif (AToT). Was that one that fell in the "difficult cut" area? It seems perfect for getting back your attachments and events.
As for street waif, he just didn't make the cut. Frankly, I think it's very difficult to play him in a Targ deck, especially one in which you play both Threat and First Snow. They are especially bad in the mirror match, where they typically recur only one card (but cost 2 gold, so a total net of 0 cards, with the opponent's pick for the card you get back). But if you get the combo with Long Lances going, Street Waif can be very good. Since I had maesters who knelt to give me card advantage (Valyrian Steel/Bronze Links/Marwyn's recursion), I felt I would rarely use Long Lances/To Be a Dragon to stand a waif.