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Ours is the Fury - Ours is the FAQ
Mar 04 2013 02:55 PM |
WWDrakey
in Game of Thrones
Small Council Ours is the Fury WWDrakey Baratheon
Ours is the FAQToday Ours is the Fury looks backwards, in order to see forwards. Or more accurately, looks at what changes the new FAQ and updated restricted-list brought, and what we can learn from history, especially the pre-TMP meta, to prepare ourselves for this brave new world.
For this week I had scheduled to start a several-piece article about Baratheon Maesters, but of all the Baratheon decktypes The Maester's Path (GotC) was perhaps hit the hardest by the new restrictions. The simultaneous restriction of Highgarden Refugee (RoW), The Conclave (CbtC) and Tin Link (CbtC) leaves gaping holes in some of our TMP builds, and it will take a while to figure out how those decks will have to adapt. I will be returning to them after there has been enough time to have a decent assessment on those changes.
Primary changes for Baratheon post-FAQ
Baratheon Maesters lost quite a lot in efficiency – They are not unplayable or anything like that, but their status as a clear top-tier Baratheon build is definitely more in question.
Our intrigue weakness just got larger – Similarly to it's House Bolton cousin in the north, Highgarden Refugee (RoW) was one of the easiest intrigue-icon cards in the Baratheon arsenal. Thus it's restriction will probably lead to a value increase in cards that can mitigate that weakness. The Laughing Storm (GotC), Margaery Tyrell (ASitD), Watcher of the Nightfire (AHM) and The Bastard of Nightsong (VM) will be some of our first line of defence, together with some of the other Asshai Crew.
Baratheon is now Shadow -friendy – Knight of Flowers (SaS) and Robert Baratheon (TTotH) were the two primary reasons for Baratheon to run without any Shadows, and now that they are restricted, no such reason exists. For your restricted card, there are a lot of better options than including either of these two, so it's probably best to leave them in the binders for the time being. As such, it looks like it's time for most Baratheon decks to embrace some of the control brought by cards like Kingswood Trail (CoS), The Black Cells (TftRK) or Margaery Tyrell (TftRK) and especially the easy recursion from Fiery Kiss (ODG).
We got a large chunk of our saves back – There's an interesting double effect here. The restriction of Tin Link (CbtC) (and A Game of Cyvasse (ACoS)) will allow us to protect our characters from Burn better, while the Restricted list getting nearly doubled in volume means that Search and Detain (HtS) will finally stop being as common as it has been for a while now. Less No Quarter (TBC) won't be a bad thing either. All of these changes, combined with cheap weenies being harder to come by, tend to work in the favor of Baratheon Prevention in the form of saves finally being back on the feast menu. Not only can we start loading up on duplicates almost like we used to, we even get our trustworthy save attachments back.
Negative attachments will be on the rise – It's time to dust off the covers from Maester Cressen (Core), since he will once again be a staple in every Baratheon deck.
Attachments to watch out for
Now that we get to run attachments a bit more efficiently again, I thought it might be prudent to list some of the top choices available, mostly based on what was common in Tourney-worthy decks before the Secrets of Oldtown -cycle exploded the meta.
So, my list of Top 5 Old School attachments would be (in no particular order):
Lightbringer (Core) - Baratheon's very own repeatable save-engine, used to be we would see 1-2x of these in almost every deck. Beneficial things to notice are that it's unique (cannot be hit by Dragon Thief (AE)) and as an attachment, it's slightly harder to cancel than duplicates.
Bodyguard (Core) - With our copious number of Lord and Lady characters, this slots back in perfectly.
R'hllor's Blessing (AKitN) - A self-replacing strength-bump, that helps you thin your deck, while simultaneously teching against Burn. Used to be, you would see 2-3 copies of this in Baratheon decks. With the currently Burn-heavy meta, I wouldn't be surprised to see them being run again.
Fanatic (RoR) and Bound by the Light (DB) - The Asshai answers to Rush and keeping a board-presence after a Valar Morghulis (Core).
Motley (Core) - When you're going second this is often one of the easiest ways of first negating an important character for a whole round, after which it will be a constant drain on one of your opponent's resources... unless they decide to off the character in question, which isn't bad for you either. It's also good to remember that duplicates are also character abilities...
No, I didn't cheat there. Exactly 5 items. Anything else is purely your imagination. Here, have some more of Robert's Strongwine.
There are also two interesting newer attachments that will need to be revisited in this current meta:
Banner Bearer (THoBaW) - The double-functionality of both keyword-spreading and attachment control through your 'No Attachments' keywords can be a good Toolbox-functionality to have.
So, what does this post-FAQ world look like for Baratheon? Better than the old one, I would wager. We lost a bit of easy speed, but several of the other changes will work to our advantage. Suddenly, Old School Baratheon Nobles don't look nearly as bad as they used to, and will be a more viable competitor for Asshai Hand Destruction, Knight/Wildling Aggro and arising new Smuggler/Naval decks.
Antlers down, it's time to charge right into this brawl. No, you're not too fat for your armor quite yet.
- RisingDragon, Archrono, bigfomlof and 4 others like this
14 Comments
For some reason, I think Kingswood Trail (CoS) becomes a pretty decent option now. Yeah it can be expensive, but who cares if it might eliminate Naval characters before they have a chance to be used just for having a POW icon. Plus, there are normally POW characters available to kneel. I don't see this played too often, but maybe it should be?
I think I've run 2+ copies of the Trail in Stahleck both 2010 and 2012, and never regretted them once. So, I'm definitely a fan of the card and think that it fits Bara now even better than it did before.
Night's Watch is a difficult business... For a Non-Control deck, it just tends to be that tad bit too slow, really. Although there are some mitigating factors for it in the current meta. The important one would be their copious amount of No Attachments keywords, which tend to make burning them (especially with The Hatchlings' Feast (ASitD) now restricted) a tough business. They also provide a good pool of weenies now, which can be harder to come by otherwise.
I'd say that, if any House can make NW work, it's Baratheon, since we can fix up the lack of power-gain pretty easily. Getting the build right... can be a bit tricky, but not impossible. Going forward, I think that [GOT=TWoW]The Wall[/GOT] will be the stronger build over the 3x Agendas, but also some interesting decks with just 1-2 of the Agendas can arise.
However, more than actual NW builds, I expect we will suddenly see some more NW characters splashed into decks... Builder of the Watch (ASitD) for example seems almost like made for Black Sails decks wanting to stop their deck from bloating too much, but still wanting to have some ways of mitigating the drawback of an extremely thin deck.
With the FAQ nerfing a lot of T1 builds I could see he NW being competitive with a few shiny new cards.
As well as any other negative attachments like Poisoned Coin (THoBaW), Bastard (LotR),Motley (Core), etc.
You'd normally probably want to use it to get extra deadly or stealth or vigilant, or even melee!
(Or renown, but a lot of Baratheon characters have that already.
It's probably one of my favourite attachments.
And it looks like it just got better with the new faq.
Edit: As far as accepted destiny is concerned, I don't find it hard to win challenges with Smuggler's Cove or Stannis' Stealth, so I guess that it would be better to use cards that get you closer to the win condition, rather than boosting an already good part of your strategy.