Card Game DB
Sign In
Create Account
Welcome to Card Game DB
Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!
Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!
1
Beating Targ 101
Jan 13 2016 12:00 AM |
scantrell24
in Strategy
"He will not come," Kraznys said."There is a reason. A dragon is no slave." And Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver's face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy's fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. "Drogon," she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. "Dracarys."
The black dragon spread his wings and roared.
In this article, we’ll discuss why Dany and her dragons are so effective, and then we’ll construct a game plan to defeat them.
Even without any help from the game’s first chapter pack, Targaryen currently leads all factions in win percentage (according to the Iron Link database). But back when Second Edition debuted last August, it was the usurper Robert Baratheon and the red priestess Melisandre dominating forum discussion initially, garnering “negative play experience†accusations along the way to winning several tournaments.
The Baratheon’s top dog status lasted for a little while, until savvy players turned to Targaryen's “stand†and “burn†modules to answer the oppressive “kneel†package. This turning point happened around FFG’s World Championship tournament last November, where the top 16 cut featured 10 Targ decks against just 2 for Baratheon. Most popular among them was Targ Fealty, with a variety of other Banners including Lion, Rose, and even Stag. From my experience Targ Fealty and Targ Lion are optimal.
What Does Targ Do Well?
It starts from setup. The Targaryens boast a low “cost curve†featuring cheap characters like Ser Jorah, Handmaiden, Viserion, and Viserys, and many duplicates. Even with a high count of non-setup event cards (sometimes around 13 to 15), most Targ decks have no problem routinely fielding four or five cards on setup.
They enjoy a great icon spread, with many of the aforementioned cheap characters bringing multiple icons to the battle. Also, among Targ’s most important characters, only Khal Drogo suffers from vulnerability to Tears of Lys. These two factors combined allow for flexibility during the challenges phase that’s rivaled by only the Lannisters.
The Targaryens are resilient. They can take a hit, and then hit back even harder. Thanks to Fire and Blood, any kills scored on Dany or her dragons are only temporary. Thanks to stand from Handmaiden, Magister Illyrio, and Waking the Dragon, targeted kneel from Melisandre or Filthy Accusations won’t reliably keep them down.
Milk of the Poppy doesn’t bother Targ much. You can target Dany to blank her Insight keyword and strength reduction ability, but she still gains her dragons’ bonuses. And if her big brother Viserys doesn’t leave play to clear the Milk, Targ might even use Waking or Marched in a pinch to trade a tipsy Dany for a fresh copy.
Furthermore, only Stark and perhaps Greyjoy can match the Targaryen's thirst for blood. After winning a power challenge, the Plaza of Punishment triggers. It can hit anyone without an attachment, and it lasts the entire phase. If you’re lucky it only kills a non-unique chud, but sometimes Arya, Sansa, Bran, Pycelle, Wendamyr, Caleotte, or Samwell bite the dust. Or, in the nightmare scenario, the Plaza can be combined with other strength reduction to target almost anyone. Next, the Dothraki and Dragons team up to launch multiple military challenges (sometimes with 2 claim from Winds of Winter). Then a wave of powerful events like Dracarys and Tears thins your board even more, before Marched to the Wall cleans up your lucky survivor. Sometimes everything hits in a single devastating challenge phase, and sometimes it's a game-long process of constant attrition.
How Can We Stop Them?
Emphasize strong setups with multiple characters. In first edition, many decks ran around 30 characters, but 35-ish seems correct now. You need to establish board position early, and keep drawing into reinforcements throughout the game.
Do whatever you can to prevent Targ from marshaling Daenerys. She’s unlike any other centerpiece character because she’s both the win condition and the draw engine, so keeping her off the table is a huge priority. Targ players often open the game with Noble Cause to play Dany, or Summons to find her, so consider a turn 1 Naval Superiority (unless the Targ player setup a Kingsroad). You can use a Shipwright or Treachery on an early Kingsroad, hide Dany with Bear and the Maiden Fair, or strip her from hand with Seen in Flames.
Once Dany and her dragons hit the board, you need to break them up. Wildfire does a decent job, except Fire and Blood exists, and any Targ player worth his salt will kill Viserion and Drogon (luxuries) before Rhaegal (essential). So what's plan B? Varys. You can reset the board and then March any character he had duped. Everything goes to the discard pile where it can’t be revived with Fire and Blood. Just don’t make a challenge with Varys, or he’ll be toast.
Ghaston Grey punishes Targ's affinity for duplicates. You can leave Ghaston on the board so Dany is stuck in neutral, unable to attack, or bounce a duped Dragon and then strip the remaining copy with an intrigue challenge or Heads on Spikes. In general, intrigue challenges should be emphasized because you need to discard as many events from the Targ player's hand as possible (although some smart Targ players have started running Rebuilding, a hidden gem).
Highgarden, the Hound, Ours is the Fury, and other mid-challenge effects can help you unexpectedly win Dany's first challenge of the phase. If she loses, Rhaegal doesn't trigger.
High strength and strength buffs naturally counter Targ’s burn effects. The Night’s Watch, actually, is home to several such cards like Ranging Party, Castle Black, The Wall, and Longclaw, but they don’t like to share – those effects only benefit Night’s Watch characters. Likewise, Growing Strong, Heartsbane, Doran, and Iron Fleet Scout only pump in-faction characters. However, Widow’s Wail and Margaery Tyrell are two efficient and flexible buffs that work on anyone. In addition, Lannister is home to The Hound and Tywin, two characters with high strength that are difficult to burn, which might explain Lanni’s recent surge in popularity.
Be proactive with your strength pumps, and mindful of who gets the first action. Plan your challenge math carefully. You may want to start with a mid-strength intrigue challenge to see whether the Targ player values his hand enough to defend. And don't forget that Dracarys! can do plenty of damage by swinging an important challenge even without landing a kill.
Pack plenty of cancels. Treachery prevents Rhaegal, Illyrio, or Handmaiden from standing Daenerys, and Hand’s Judgement gives some safety against an incoming Dracarys! However, many Targ decks now pack their own Hand’s Judgement primarily to cancel your cancels!
Finally, you could build a “mini-curve†type of deck. Flood the board with interchangeable characters like Bastard Daughter or Arbor Knight, and don’t break a sweat when a few of them die. The one problem with this approach is that Dany’s strength reduction drops 1 strength guys down to 0, rendering them nothing more than claim soak.
The Future
Targ’s scariest card yet, Crown of Gold, is coming soon to a store near you. I’m not thrilled by the thought of Targ players simply paying four gold to insta-kill my Tyrion. This attachment will be a staple until it rotates out in a few years, and unfortunately there’s basically no recourse.
Political Catastrophe might see play in Targ, as they don’t rely on locations other than the Plaza, and they could use help against Greyjoy’s boats.
First Snow of Winter, though it’s still a couple months away, gives us another tool for breaking up the Dany-Dragon machine.
As the card pool expands, it’s likely that more decks won’t rely heavily on specific characters. In first edition, decks ran single copies of most unique characters, with multiple copies of only the most powerful or strategically important, and I expect we’ll return to that norm soon. We already see characters like Cersei, Catelyn, and Theon usually run in single copies, so if they die there aren’t “dead draws†left in the deck. If more unique characters like Asha, Will, and Arianne follow this trend, losing one to terminal burn won’t sting quite as much because instead of a dead draw waiting in your deck, you’ll have something playable.
So, what strategies do ya’ll employ against Targaryen? Do they even deserve to be tech’d against? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
- darknoj, JackCade, TeamK and 9 others like this
23 Comments
"Just don’t make a challenge with Varys, or he’ll be toast. "
Oh how I learned that the hard way...
Diving a decoy character into Daracarys (Theon, for instance) then marshalling a better would-be target next round is what I do vs Dracarys.
Also, play second.
Targ is also kind of poor, so Ghaston Grey and a well-timed Naval or Heads on Spikes can spell doom for them.
I hate Crown of Gold already. Not necessarily because it's overpowered (if it is, they just need to add some mechanisms to counter it in the future), but because the "Limit 1 per Deck" introduces even more luck into a deck.
It seems "1 per deck" is supposed to be a counter-balance to its power, but it balances it out over multiple games rather than the course of a single game. That is, the lucky games where you draw Crown are supposed to be balanced out by the unlucky games where you don't.
Which is just another way of saying, your games become highly dependant on the luck of the draw. Which sucks.
Unless, of course, Crown isn't actually powerful enough to significantly influence the course of the game, in which case its "1 per deck" restriction is over-kill.
I hope the designers are *very* careful with burn, because playing targ can already feel tremendously challenging due to the myriad ways it can kill. The article didn't even go into the banner Lannister PttS extra kill option that has become more popular leveraging Tyrion and Jaime!
I think this multi-kill effect is what makes Targ so difficult to counter. It's just SO hard to keep sufficient characters on the board round over round. You can easily be loosing 2-3 characters a turn, and unless the economy changes rapidly, there's just no way to consistently marshal enough quality characters to counteract this amount of removal. I'm afraid crown of gold is only going to make matters worse...
I don't see what's wrong with that.
So when can we expect the next article "Beating anything that is bannered with Lion 101"?
Crown of gold is I suspect going to be a lot loss scary than people think. Due to the 1x limit and extremely limited tutor effects (top 10 cards) The chance of drawing it in the first 30 cards (I've found my games end by then at the latest) is 50% (Compare this to an 88% chance of seeing at least one Dracarys when played 3x), with that decreasing as the game ends more quickly. As an exclusive Targ player in 1.0 and now in 2.0 the evolution of burn as we see fewer dupes of powerful characters will likely be very irregular, shifting in and out of the meta. Until then, Lannister and Martell both do well against Targ, albeit for different reasons.
This type of deck will also love to play against the new FREY agenda. It is almost suicidal against Burn!
I've been thinking about writing something talking about strategies against top meta decks, so this is extremely timely.
Kennish above indicated the key piece, in my opinion - you need to "face check" the hand of the Targ player, to borrow a Netrunner term. This is best done with a character that is nasty enough that the opponent would want to kill them, but not so serious that it will ruin your game plan (Cersei's a great example). Similarly, identify which characters are most important to you, and take your precautions to protect them. You can't save everyone.
I cannot emphasize enough that the priority order on dragons to kill is Rhaegal --> Drogon --> Viserion. The stand and renown will lose you a game a lot faster than the stealth will.
Plaza of Punishment is _devastating_. If you don't have cancel or location destruction, you will likely need to focus significantly more on winning power challenges against the Targ player. If they can eat claim soak or critical low strength characters in addition to taking power, you are not long for the game.
Just wondering by what would you consider best anti-targ deck ?
Ironlink suggests Stark wins 2/3 of games against Targaryens but that completly doesn't reflect my experiences - I'd say I have much harder games against Lannisters and Bara Fealty (if they got strong start), Stark was mostly a coin toss if they can win first turn and use Ice or not.
I find stark to be an easier match-up for Targ to be honest. Targ have the strength to contest those military challenges (Drogon + Jorah) banner of the lion has treachery for Ice and opening with calm slows down the big first sneak attack. Plaza eats Sansa, Arya, and Bran. All in all pretty favourable.
Great article, Steve. Nice work.
Probably Lanni/Rose, or maybe a fast Greyjoy deck.
On the contrary, you throw a chump challenge first, and then you can actually free up your Melisandre/Tyrion style characters to actually participate, safe from Dracarys - while before you couldn't risk them.
I agree with this with one caveat - if Crown is balanced but not "balanced by variance" - as you and I both seem to dislike, it's possible that what's gained by the limit here is the knowledge that you won't face a second one *that* game.
Rebuilding is a thing for Targ with Shadowback Lane! If they played a Dracarys and the Crown its not bad to shuffle them back and get a decent shot of finding / Drawing that Dracarys again, the Crown is horrible variance but hey its still upside.
Great article and thanks for the shout out to TheIronLink. It will be interesting to see if this has any impact on their win % or rate of being played (currently 57.7% win and 17.45%) over the next couple weeks.
In my experience the only things that really threaten my Targ/Lanni deck, aside from other Targ decks, are Stark if I didnt draw enough duplicates turn 1, or baratheon if it gets both Red keep and good kneel. Maybe Greyjoy if it gets Balon + Seastone Chair.
Seal of the Hand should be considered a must to fight Targ, but Targ is probably also playing it so you cant rely on them.
I think Lanni is generally a difficult match up for Targ. They generally run Hand's Judgement and Treachery that can cancel Dracarys/Plaza etc, they have Intrigue icons on virtually all their good characters to protect from Tears (The Hound doesn't but he can often be bounced before the poison hits), they can have a good military presence especially when Tywin is out (making Put to the Sword hard to trigger), and they have good draw with Pycelle and Lannisport, and have plenty of gold so can easily afford to run Counting Coppers (compared to Targ's poor draw options, especially if you can't get Dany out).
It's been happening already for some time. Anecdotal evidence for sure but I see more people picking them up for local tourneys.
Great article. I wrote a longer post, but
my dogthe Internet ate it.Just wanted to mention Targ/lion is actually underperforming according to the Annals. In TTB-legal tournaments with at least 14 participants, Targ/lion has only reached the top 25% seven times out of 35. Fealty is doing twice as well with 10 out of 25. Targ/rose even has a 100% score, albeit with only 4 entries.
I agree Targ/lion is potentially optimal - but probably only in the hands of an expert. Fealty and /rose seem much more forgiving.
And if her big brother Viserys doesn’t leave play to clear the Milk, Targ might even use Waking or Marched in a pinch to trade a tipsy Dany for a fresh copy.
Made me laugh for a few minutes XD