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0
Much and More - Neutral Brotherhood
Jan 10 2013 06:05 AM |
ShadowcatX2000
in Game of Thrones
Small Council Much and More ShadowcatX2000
Anyone who has talked to me about A Game of Thrones knows I've been pretty obsessed with getting a Neutral House Brotherhood deck to work. Maybe too much. But you know, that's life.So let's get into it, this deck is based around 2 things, the first is getting Beric and keeping him on board. But as is well known, Beric has many weaknesses, Ghaston Grey, Game of Cyvasse, house divided, etc. To combat that we have a whole host of location hate in newly made lord and condemned by the council, and cancels in Tom Sevenstrings, paper shield, and hand's judgement. These cards provide a reasonable way of protecting Beric from the most common threats, though search and detain remains a blow out against this deck (and one that brotherhood in general really struggles against unfortunately).
The second thing this deck revolves around is using Hollow Hill and just playing the best characters from each House. This gives us a very strong draw scheme and a very probably the best character base of any deck in the format right now. This, coupled with an aggressive curve helps the deck get and keep board presence. Ironically, despite not having dupes for any of your uniques outside of Beric, Huntsman, and Val, a reset doesn't hurt you too badly as it turns back on your draw mechanism in hollow hill.
For plots, building season and summoning season are unfortunately musts for this deck. Now make no mistake, I hate giving my opponent an advantage with my cards, but it is just unavoidable here. Past that Fleeing to the Wall helps our location hate be even more effective (and gives us a sack outlet in the event that Stark Frozen Solids our Hollow Hill). Fortified position is here exclusively to combat Melisandre (core) because without an out dropping and protecting her makes it impossible for brotherhood to win. We have 2 resets in order to get the opponent to over commit to the board (and wild fire is just really good with Beric), although either of those could easily be swapped out for another plot, as could the final plot, which I have listed as The Grand Melee, but really could be anything.
So really that's the heart of the deck, the basics from Brotherhood, a few counters, a bit of location hate, a great suite of reducers and gold producers, and the best characters in the game.
Total Cards (60)
House (1)
Neutral Faction (IG) x1
Agenda (1)
The Brotherhood Without Banners (RoR) x1
Plot (7)
Building Season (Core) x1
Summoning Season (Core) x1
Fleeing to the Wall (Core) x1
Fortified Position (LoW) x1
Wildfire Assault (Core) x1
The Grand Melee (TGM) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Character (38)
Beric Dondarrion (IG) x3
The Mad Huntsman (ASoSilence) x3
Val (RotO) x3
Tom Sevenstrings (RoR) x1
Asha Greyjoy (WLL) x1
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK) x2
Hodor (Core) x1
Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) x3
Lost Spearman (MotM) x3
Refugee of the Plains (RoW) x3
Khal Drogo (WotN) x1
Knight of Flowers (SaS) x1
Harmen Uller (PotS) x1
Marya Seaworth (KotStorm) x1
Stannis Baratheon (VM) x1
Melisandre (RoR) x1
Lannisport Weaponsmith (Core) x2
Brienne of Tarth (PotS) x1
Lannisport Moneylender (LotR) x2
Pyat Pree (QoD) x1
Newly Made Lord (TftH) x3
Location (13)
The Searoad (KotStorm) x3
The Roseroad (KotStorm) x3
Street of Silk (LotR) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x1
Hollow Hill (ASoSilence) x3
Attachment (0)
Event (9)
Paper Shield (QoD) x3
The Hand's Judgement (TTotH) x3
Condemned by the Council (AToT) x3
One note should be made about the deck however, it may be more powerful as a whole if you removed the brotherhood element and just ran great characters in its place, it would also allow freeing up the event slots as game of cyvasse, etc. won't be such blow outs (and getting rid of the summoning season). If you do decide to go this route I would highly suggest reading through the Things I Do For Win - Breaking the Resource Code and working out exactly what your ATI and ACC are going to be.
- bigfomlof likes this
15 Comments
@FranciscoG. That's why there's an extreme amount of location hate in the deck.
In my oppinion you have to run a combo like first snow of winter + rule by decree or something like that to negate your bad setup. Once you are in play, you can use your combination of total awesome characters to win the game. I may be wrong, but for me it looks to easy to decide the game in the first rounds.
Then again, there will be games where you draw 1 or both during setup and not have to play either plot. Those games will go easier.
Although HH is a good card, IMO its not ideal to have a deck rely on both a single location and character in joust or melee (unless you are using house of dreams) and seeing no one can dispute the significance of beric, i would suggest trying to rework the deck so you can have better setup and therfore not have to rely so heavily on HH. That way building season can be removed.
Honestly though its a very nice deck concept and ill give a variation a try myself. Thanks for the article.
Much and More (AHM) is probably a really good event to try and use for this type of deck if you are significantly dependent on Hollow Hill and Beric.
I know that attachments are very fragile, but I think Flaming Sword (DB) is generally a very good attachment especially when it's on Beric. In addition to that, it will protect him from Search and Detain.
Instead of a plot slot, you can alternatively use Nightmares (LoW) on Melisandre (Core) if she is keeping you from currently winning. In addition to that, Nightmares won't backfire like Fortified Position might. Nightmares will kick a Maester in the groin and protect you from locations you didn't discard, like Ghaston Grey, for at least 1 round. It's such a versatile card it will never be wasted.
I think that this is the type of deck that would really be able to use Craster (WotN). Not only can he help you with intrigue, but you can use him to help protect you from Game of Cyvasse. He is so cheap that he would be totally worth it.
I don't really think The Grand Melee (TGM) is a good fit in this deck because I am struggling to envision you having a strong board position with the amount of high cost characters you have. If you are stuck on this plot, I suggest removing Refugee from the Plains and replacing them with all Vale Refugee (RoW). Not only will they be 0 cost in Setup(unlike Refugee from the Plains at 1 cost OOH penalty), but they can participate in every challenge type which would be a better for The Grand Melee.
I think that if you remove Summoning Season and Building Season and add 3x Much and More, you should have a much better chance to get both Hollow Hill and Beric Dondarrion in round 1. I'm not sure you'll be able to maximize your use of The Hand's Judgement with your high gold curve and inability to use it before you start Marshaling cards, so maybe replacing that with Much and More and Nightmares could work....
Just some things worth considering if you are open for it. :-)
EDIT: When I mention Much and More replacing Summoning and Building Season, I didn't mean your chance to get the key character and location has increased compared to using the plots. What I meant was, your chance to get them without the plots has increased quite a bit. The plots are clearly superior choices, but I think you might be able to find some more functional plots and be able to get the job done using much and more.
(and I want to say: I really like the deck idea
Second, the only decks I know of that can end the game in the first round or 2 (especially considering that while it does have a bet setup, it does get a setup and thus can defend at least 2 challenges a round) would be rush decks, and as a general rule they're weak enough that no one plays them.
Third, yes, you could use vale refugees in place of the refugees of the plains, but that's another 3 neutral characters that will never let you draw, and they're 1 strength which effects 6 out of your 7 plots (7 out of 7 if you change out TGM, which would be my first change). All so you can have a slightly better setup? Meh. Beyond that, setups really aren't that bad with this deck, you have 10 cards that cost 0 during setup, 6 that cost 1, and 13 that cost 2. That means 29 cards in the deck are pretty setup friendly, despite having so many out of house.
Fourth, this deck is not playing "a ton of expensive cards." Outside of setup (and possibly the first turn) the deck isn't suffering the +1 gold penalty on ANY of its characters.
I believe this is correct...
Out of a 60 card deck assuming you have 3 copies of the desired card the probability that in a 7 card setup of getting the card you want is 31.54%.
If you have a perfect flop and play all 7 of those cards down during setup and then redraw 7 more cards then the probability of you getting 1 of the 3 copies you are looking for increases to 55.64% (assuming you didn't get the card during the setup draw).
If you didn't get your card in the setup draw, decide to mulligan and properly shuffled the deck to randomize as much as possible and then redrew 7 cards the probability you get the card you are looking for is 53.14%
As a point of comparison; if you only get an "average" flop of 4 cards and redraw (so a total of 11 cards are pulled out of the deck) the probability of getting the card you want is 46.14%. If you get a near perfect flop of 6 cards and redraw (so a total of 13 cards are pulled out of the deck) the probability of getting the card you want is 52.62%.
So if you don't get the card you want in your initial setup hand and you absolutely need it to open the game then mulligan unless you can do a perfect flop. This, in principle, supports Shadowcat's intuition since perfect flops are exceedingly rare.
I'll gladly stand corrected if the math is wrong.
Please let us know how the deck plays out.
Anyways, bomb, i think you were forgetting that the neutral house card reduces all out of house characters by 1 and so does hollow hill. So, by searching for hollow hill with Summoning season if he has to. He now pays the base gold cost of all of the out of house characters on turn 1. That along with the draw would make me feel pretty comfortable with playing Summoning Season in melee.