Plot Rehab: Supporting the Faith & Jousting Contest

Welcome back to Plot Rehab, where we attempt to turn your dull, same-in-every-deck plot lineup into something with a little more jazz. This continuing article series looks at the pros and cons of some lesser-used plots to consider whether or not it's time to try one of them for serious.

You can find our first instalment here and, while I haven't yet had a chance to test with either of the cards discussed last time, I may do soon! So stay tuned as I attempt to put my money where my mouth is.

But despite proofing the suggestions from last time, I have had some evidence to suggest that this is a worthwhile endeavour after all - at the UK Team Championships this past weekend, I watched one of my team-mates smack around several strong players with a Greyjoy/Winter deck running (wait for it) 2x Reinforcements. One of those victims was banter baron Dave Bamford. Trying out underplayed plots works!

Naturally, I'm not talking about Reinforcements this week. That card is now obviously tier 1 and is too popular for my attention. So let's press on and rehabilitate two more plots!



SUPPORTING THE FAITH

Why it might be worth considering:

• There are plenty of things that you don't want your opponent to be able to do with gold that they hold back after marshaling. Some of the most vital things include (but are not limited to) Magister Illyrio, Put to the Sword, Tears of Lys, Seen in Flames, Nightmares, Vengeance for Elia, We Do Not Sow and ambushing characters like The Hound and the Burned Men.
• You can't be sure that you'll draw a Hand's Judgment to counter these things, and Hand's Judgment doesn't cancel ambush. Putting a hard block into your plot deck makes this denial available when you need it the most.
• Factions like Lannister and Tyrell, as well as Night's Watch archetypes revolving around White Tree, can routinely end up just casually holding onto four, five or even more gold on multiple turns, which forces you to consider any number of extra possibilities and can put a subtle strangehold on dominance. Nullifying that economic disparity could buy you the headspace and time to even things out in those matchups.
• Six gold ought to help you to set up a stronger board than your opponent going into a money-free challenges phase.
• If you run cards that can gain you gold after Supporting the Faith triggers, your events become almost uncancelable.

Why it's not seeing play:

• Six gold makes it a 'money plot' in many ways, except that the four reserve makes you very unwilling to play it early in the game, when an economic splurge can have the most impact. You don't want to have to cut down on your options before you have to.
• The effect is more likely to inconvenience opponents than really hurt them. Knowing from the plot phase that the forced reaction is coming allows them to plan their marshaling phase accordingly. Much as similar money-denial cards like Loot and Levies at the Rock aren't very good right now, what they can do is surprise an opponent who was holding back gold for a key trigger and flip a round on its head. Supporting the Faith is not quite subtle enough to put opponents on the back foot.
• Even without discussing decks that can counter it, there are major deck archetypes that don't even care about this effect. Stark Fealty really doesn't mind - and the 47-character wall-of-dudes variant that won UK Nationals completely ignores it - while the Night's Watch Wall-defence builds won't really be affected either. In a not-insignificant number of tournament matches, this plot is likely to be a dead plot.
• The biggest reason of all: Tyrion Lannister is everywhere. Many of the decks that utilise some of the key effects mentioned above are either Lannister main faction or Banner of the Lion, using Tyrion to fund their events and ambush packages. Except for fringe cases, where you can ensure that key challenges happen before his reaction can trigger, Tyrion is a hard counter for this plot. You shouldn't play it if he is on the board across from you and you can't see to it that he is glugging some Milk of the Poppy before Supporting the Faith's forced reaction triggers.

Decks that could use it:

• Conversely, your own Tyrion can push the advantage gained from draining your opponent's gold. The best way to leverage him in this way could be in a Martell/Lion build, where you prevent your opponent from using Nightmares on Tyene or Nymeria and then come in with a deadly intrigue challenge with uncancelable Tears of Lys. If you wanted to go even further down the rabbit-hole of jank, this deck could double down on the post-marshaling gold generation with cards like In Doran's Name, the Crossroads Sellsword and Tower of the Sun to fund effects like Vengeance for Elia, Harmen Uller or even Mance Rayder.
• An addition to the above point so juicy that it deserves its own bullet point: Supporting the Faith plus Brothel Madame equals guaranteed no military challenge from your opponent.
• There are other, non-Tyrion ways of generating gold post-marshaling, of course. Fealty and Tourney Grounds can be deployed as pseudo-gold to play those events anyway, which is something that a Baratheon deck might quite like. Bara doesn't mind all that much about having gold in the challenges phase but a little reduction for a Seen in Flames or Ours is the Fury wouldn't go amiss - and Bara certainly doesn't like seeing opponents trigger Illyrio. Denying heldover gold also makes it more likely for Bara's dominance tech to trigger, although that deck probably wants an Iron Throne out by the time that Supporting is played, to boost the lowly reserve, and at that point is unlikely to need any help in winning dominance.
• Night's Watch builds running 3x Old Forest Hunter have a loyal method of gold-generation, albeit only once per phase. The cost of his ability also synergises with the lower reserve. NW decks should also be running 3x Samwell Tarly anyway, and he helps to cover the reserve problem. The question becomes what it is you're actually looking to fund with it - only Fealty or Wolf can give you enough to fund Take the Black on a Supporting turn, while it's debatable whether Watcher on the Walls and Sword in the Darkness are worth trying to build around at this stage. But there could be room for some creativity here.
• Kings of Summer turns this into a five-reserve plot, which is significantly easier to stomach than a four.

What a deck running this plot might look like:



This plot was a toughie and the deck that we get out of it is almost certainly the least viable that we've proposed so far on this series - all the more so for going all-in and running Supporting at 2x to emphasise the synergies that we're trying to use - but it should be able to press home an advantage against decks that aren't running the admittedly common counters. It's leaning pretty hard on Tyrion's gold generation so getting him out and protected are the top priorities.

Ultimately, though, I suspect that what this plot needs to become a really viable option is a potential restriction or errata for core-set Tyrion at some point down the road.

What's next?




JOUSTING CONTEST

Why it might be worth considering:

• If you're excited by thematic Knight tech that rewards attacking or defending alone, such as Lady Sansa's Rose or Mare in Heat, then Jousting Contest is a way to more easily facilitate those triggers.
• It's much easier to control opponents who attack with one character than it is when they attack in swarms. Jousting Contest makes Highgarden into even more of a powerhouse, for example, turning an already-powerful effect into one that can completely shut down your opponent's most dangerous challenge.
• If you time it to avoid their Wardens of the North, this plot could get some purchase against the disgusting Stark wall-of-dudes deck that runs Winterfell Castle to compound the advantage of having multiple characters participating in challenges... and not many decks can say that they have answers to that matchup. Other decks that go wide rather than tall may also find this plot frustrating.
• Lanni/Dragon can't abuse the Mirri Maz Duur/The Hound interaction while this plot is revealed.

Why it's not seeing play:

• Its stats are fine but far from spectacular and it can be hard to balance that out by making the effect count for much if you aren't holding a Lady Sansa's Rose with the requisite characters on the board at the time of use.
• This plot's most obvious synergy is with Lady Sansa's Rose, but the most convenient character for triggering LSR and keeping the gained power until the end of the game is the Knight of Flowers. And this plot doesn't do anything that Loras doesn't already do himself.
• Mirri is a 3x in many decks that you can expect to face at tournaments, and this plot makes it harder to prevent her from doing her wicked work.
• It's a plot which demands that combos be built around it, thereby making it an inherently inconsistent proposition and harder to justify precious slots in your plot deck over effects that will be powerful whenever you most want to use them.

Decks that could use it:

• Tyrell is by far the most obvious home for this plot. It offers some redundancy for triggering LSR if your Loras gets Milked or Cravened and it dramatically ups the value of Mare in Heat. As discussed, it also turns Highgarden into something that your opponent absolutely must answer. Strength-boosting effects like Growing Strong and the newly released Crown of Golden Roses also, erm, grow stronger when challenges get smaller. Indeed, this plot may even suit more control-oriented Tyrell builds better than it does the Knight rush archetype, for which Tourney for the King is the more likely centrepiece plot.
• Night's Watch decks looking to exploit Jon Snow (Core) - probably NW Crossing builds - should pack at least one Jousting Contest, as Jon does not need to be declared as an attacker to be considered as participating. However, not even this jank-loving column can recommend trying to build around Core Jon.
• Night's Watch or Banner of the Watch decks looking to defend the Wall, however, might like this. Tyrell/Watch could combo this plot with Highgarden to get an easy Sword in the Darkness trigger or lock out a second dangerous attacker with the Shadow Tower. Even without Tyrell, though, reducing the number of stealth characters who can attack you in each challenge makes it easier for the Watch to avoid being caught out by the likes of Syrio Forel and anything running Greyjoy cards.
• Remember that thing I said about it being harder to defend against your opponent's Mirri when you flip this plot? You could always just flip this plot with your own Mirri.
• Jousting Contest doesn't offer a very good initiative value but, if you can go first with this plot, Raiding Longships become incredibly potent. Be vigilant about We Do Not Sow-ing the attachments on your opponent's board so that you can get guaranteed unopposed challenges during a Jousting Contest. A Greyjoy player running Ahead of the Tide to compensate for the bum initiative might be tempted to try this one out.

What a deck running this plot might look like:



This control-focused Tyrell build loves Highgarden's interaction with Jousting Contest to help defend its board while it uses a plethora of draw and filtering effects to set up for a strong finish.

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Visiting hours at the rehab clinic are now over but Plot Rehab will return! In the meantime, please direct your comments to the forum thread here - I want to know if you've thought of any other applications for these cards or been inspired to try them yourself! Thanks to chem2702 in the comments on the last article for suggesting Supporting the Faith - I'm open to further requests if there's a particular plot that you'd like to see come under the microscope.