Ours is the Fury - Asshai

Welcome back to Ours is the Fury, readers! Continuing a look at different decks that Baratheon has at its disposal, we're going to look at Asshai! Anyone familiar with Asshai know that they can be played a few different ways. There is a Shadow Control build that focuses on having key shadows cards like The Black Cells (TftRK) and Kingswood Trail (CoS) for control effects as well as to power Shadow Enchantress (OSaS). There is usually a small recursion subtheme as well with cards like Fiery Kiss (ODG) and Blackwater Bay (TBoBB). Another Asshai build focuses on just straight hand destruction (aka Holy Hand Grenade, copyright 2012 Doulos2k) with cards like Confession (KotS), Altar of Fire (RoR), and Zealot of the Light (BtW). Extra intrigue challenges is always a huge boon to this deck type with cards like Shadow Politics (CoS) or Citadel Politics (HtS). There's also a delayed rush build that we'll be looking at this article.

Some might also argue that there is a fourth deck that has potential right now, especially with the release of House of Dreams (ARotD), that focuses on getting out The Iron Throne (ASitD) with House of Dreams and winning dominance every round. It would work very well with Melisandre (RotO) and Storm's End (KotStorm). However, I've not really experimented with this deck, so I can't verify its validity. One last thing I wanted to touch on before we get into the actual deck, is that most Asshai decks will actually be a bit of a hybrid of the aforementioned themes. You might have a Shadow Control/Hand Destruction deck, or a Holy Rush/Hand Destruction, or Holy Rush/Shadow Control.

I'm going to be looking specifically at a Holy Rush deck with a small Hand Destruction sub theme, but it is going to be a bit different than most Baratheon rush decks. Most rush decks tend to start rushing from the start, but Asshai are a bit different in that they have to build up some steam before they can actually rush. Two key cards make the build very strong though, The Power of Faith (KotStorm) and Fanatic (RoR). The plot makes it so that you are essentially winning all three challenges the turn you play it. Fanatic let's you get quite a few power by making a renown character, say Robert Baratheon (Core), an asshai and a holy character, letting him reap the benefits from Power of Faith and other asshai related effects.

Now another pretty key element of this deck is Shireen Baratheon (VD). She really accelerates the amount of power that your deck can generate, but in my experience she is a bit inconsistent. If the deck is working well, you are generally only going to have two turns of set up and the deck really is lacking draw. This is the reason that you see so many x3 in the deck. I wanted it to be as redundant as possible to counteract the severe lack of draw, so that you are going to be drawing everything you need in the initial draw. Another balancing factor is that you are going to be able to consistently hit their hand by winning intrigue challenges. I've also put in Confession (KotS) and Altar of Fire (RoR) as some additional hand control to further balance the card advantage.

Now I currently have in Renly Baratheon (KotStorm) over Robert Baratheon (KotStorm). Is that the right choice? I honestly have no idea. I've gone back and forth on this choice like a dozen times. On the one hand, if I use Robert, then I get four challenges during Power of Faith turns. On the other hand Renly let's me just explode the field with asshai. On the other other hand if I use King Robert, I don't get Core Robert, who is a house during Power of Faith turns. On the other other other hand, if I use King Robert, I get double use out of Shireen. Right now I'm using Renly, but I'm sure by tomorrow I'll be using Robert. So take that choice with a grain of salt.

The deck itself plays pretty easily. There isn't going to be too many hard choices, you are mainly just there to stall and keep the other person from doing challenges before you can win. No matter what, always do an intrigue challenge if you can. If you have a choice between a power challenge and intrigue challenge, go intrigue, unless power will win you the game obviously. Also, you typically want to always use Confession when you get it. Don't worry about holding it back if you think they might not have something that good, just use it. You want to get their hand size down as much as possible, so that they are just top decking. I actually had a few more intrigue oriented plots in the deck, but ended up taking them out since they belong more in an Asshai control deck than an Asshai rush deck. The plots are pretty flexible though, so feel free to experiment with them.

Here is the decklist Ours is the Fury - Asshai and as always, if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments. Thanks for reading everyone!