Rise of the Kraken - Greyjoy Maesters Part 1

Welcome back to Rise of the Kraken, where in this edition I (JCWamma) begin a short series covering the Greyjoy Maester deck archetype. In this first part I want to outline exactly why this is such a potent combination and how the marriage of Greyjoy and Maester produces synergies that make you wonder why in the books the Iron Islanders don't consider using more Maesters, given how effective it clearly is!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This article was written before Roll of the Dice and, with it, Little and Less (ARotD) came out. This event is obviously a huge blow to Maester decks, and in particular Greyjoy decks as almost all the reasons why one would run a Maester deck out of House Greyjoy are responses. However, I'm of the belief that one card cannot destroy an entire deck archetype, even if it does severely weaken it, and so I have decided to proceed with this series nonetheless. In part 2 or 3 I will look in more detail at Little and Less and how to cope with it.

Now I'm guessing that a lot of people reading will already think this, but first I want to establish exactly why Maester decks are so good generally, out of any house, to the point that a non-trivial number of players feel the agenda should be banned, or at least given an additional errata. So first of all let's look at that agenda, The Maester's Path (GotC).

Maester decks are the most popular decks in the game right now and have been since this agenda came out, and it's because the advantage it gives you is three-fold, whereas the disadvantage is almost a non-entity (especially out of Greyjoy, but we'll get to that in a little bit). The first (and some would argue most major) advantage is that of deck-size. A typical Maester deck runs between 6 and 8 chains, and that immediately reduces your deck from 60 cards to 52-54 cards. Some people run all 12 chains solely to get the size of their starting deck down to 48 cards. You'd be amazed how much of a difference that makes to your ability to find copies of your cards when you need them. Every card on the agenda is one less card that you could draw instead of that card, you know, the one you need. Although because of your agenda, that card could well be easily accessible and in play already, and that's advantage number two.

The chains vary in usefulness, but skew towards being some of the best attachments in the game. One of the reasons why is that they all have the Chain trait, and are therefore the only attachments immune to the effects of Tin Link (CbtC), the best attachment removal in the game bar none. Attachments were never that popular to begin with, but this card is one of the big reasons why most competitive decks barely run any attachments and some run none at all. Tin Link basically destroys an entire card type, it's that good. Simple repeatable removal are three words that will send a shiver down the spine of most opponents; simple repeatable draw will produce the opposite reaction for you, and that's where Valyrian Steel Link (HtS) comes in. Pyromancer's Cache (TWot5K) is the closest thing to VSL, and the Cache is restricted. Not only is VSL not restricted (or removable by Tin Link), but if you play Maesters you can get it by winning one challenge. Many of the other chains (I'm not going to run through all of them here for reasons of space along with most people already knowing their power) will help you win those challenges and can be used offensively or defensively, making them both powerful and versatile, and all readily available.

The third big advantage of The Maester's Path is possibly slightly more subtle, but no less important in the early stages - that of cost efficiency. If you had to pay a chain's gold cost to get it off the agenda that would be one thing, but you don't, you get the card for free. Of the 12 chains, 2 cost 0, 7 cost 1 and 3 cost 2. Therefore if you are using all 12 chains, you're getting cards into play for a saving of 13 gold. Of course, by the time you're getting those last chains off it's entirely possible that you won't be so worried about this gold save, but in the first couple of turns this is invaluable. A lot is (justifiably) made of At the Gates (GotC) for the fact that this supposed 3 gold plot is, in practice, a 5 or 6 gold plot (depending on the Maester you grab, of course) which is excellent for a first turn plot with no downsides that guarantees you what is often a key card for your deck. Say you only win one challenge that first turn; often your first chain would be Valyrian Steel Link, for the draw. VSL costs 2 gold and rightly so for one of the best attachments in the game; that effectively ups At The Gates to being a 7-8 gold plot, which is a phenomenal opening play. If your opponent can't keep up, he/she will get ground into the dust before they can get out of the blocks, and it's a reason why by far the most viable rush deck in the current environment is itself a Maester deck, run out of Martell.

For all this advantage, and hopefully by now you're convinced that the advantage is major, the one downside is the condition that you must get all chains off your agenda before you can win. So what? As long as you don't forget to trigger the agenda's Response (which, to be fair, is a mistake that even world champions have made), this basically means you have to win X challenges with a Maester in play, where X is the number of chains starting on your agenda. If you place all 12 chains on your agenda, that's 12 challenges you have to win. Even if your opponent never attacks once all game, you should have to win close to that many challenges to reach 15 power anyway. The only reason you wouldn't is for the worry about keeping a Maester out for all those successful challenges. If you go with the more standard 6-8 chains, they'll disappear like hot cakes. The downside is minimal, to the point where I'd be tempted to say that the greater downside of running The Maester's Path is that it allows cards like Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) and Damon Dance-For-Me (VD) to attain their full power.

So, I know what you're thinking - James, you've made a (hopefully) convincing argument for why The Maester's Path is a powerful agenda, but that's been done before on this site, and elsewhere besides. What makes it so special out of House Greyjoy? Well, let's look at that downside again - you have to win X challenges with a Maester in play. As anyone who faces Maester decks on a regular basis (so, most competitive Thrones players) will tell you, the key to beating a Maester deck is to stop them from keeping Maesters on the table - it's possible to beat the deck without accomplishing this (particularly in rush decks, although the third advantage outlined above means rush decks tend to struggle against Maesters anyway), but it's far from optimal as it's allowing the Maester player to get the plentiful advantages their agenda offers without exploiting the one downside. It doesn't matter how, but as long as your Maester player can't keep a Maester on the table, that Maester player can't remove chains off TMP; as long as that Maester player can't remove chains off TMP, that player can't win the game, whether they hit 15 power or 50 (or any other arbritary number, for that matter). It's possible to accomplish this through trait blanking, but broadly speaking the two main methods by which keeping the blighters off the table will be accomplished are kill/discard and bouncing them back to hand/deck. So I guess it's convenient that Greyjoy not only is the best house at preventing these methods from happening, but arguably the most prominent in-house cards that can stop Maester removal are... your Maesters themselves.

Maester Wendamyr (KotS) is, simply put, the best save in the game. He's not the only repeatable save, but outside of Night's Watch decks he is the only repeatable save that can target any in-house character including himself, is entirely unconditional (other than not being knelt, of course), saves from being killed or discarded from play (rather than just one), and can also stand the character to boot (and that can work on himself if you want to stand him to save someone else, for instance during the resolution of that little known plot card Valar Morghulis (Core)). It's obviously not a cast-iron deal, but if you fetch him turn one with At The Gates you should be able to spend most of the game stopping your Maesters from dying, and anyone else besides. I'll get into details about how to contest specific threats from other houses in part 2, but I will briefly state that against certain types of decks you will find one save per turn isn't enough; thankfully Greyjoy has a ton more save, from the repeatable such as Moqorro (VD) to the limited use such as The Iron Cliffs (HtS). Or The Iron Mines (KotS). ...Or Risen from the Sea (KotS). I hope I'm not blowing anyone's mind when I say that Greyjoy has a lot of saves. In the form of Moqorro and Risen from the Sea it also has the only two cards in the game that can successfully save from Targaryen burn, the latter being particularly successful as it attaches to the character, making that character immune to the effects of Flame-Kissed (Core) or any subsequent use of Targaryen's other "no (other) attachments" style burn. In short, no other house can protect their Maester cards from being killed or discarded quite like Greyjoy, and with the possible exception of Martell running Summer and Maester of the Sun (ASoS) none get even remotely close, to be honest.

So that's save covered, but what about effects that return your characters to the hand? First of all, the cards that activate during the marshalling phase (including the particularly Maester-unfriendly A House Divided (WLL)). Let's say a warm hello to Maester Murenmure (CbtC), your one-stop shop for all things "mess up your opponent's control of you in the Marshalling phase". Depending on the state of play (and your opponent's deck), that response is either a tremendous way to disrupt their plans (through cancelling a trigger of a Narrow Sea (Core), say, or a Seat of Power (WotN)) or a reliable way to cancel their disruption of your own plans (the aforementioned A House Divided, for instance). In any case it will inform every decision your opponent makes during the marshalling phase, even if you never use the cancel itself. This of course only covers the marshalling phase, alas, so be prepared to still have to deal with your opponent's use of A Game of Cyvasse (ACoS) - unless you use Seasick (KotS) of course. Or Finger Dance (WLL). ...Or Alannys Greyjoy (ODG). .....Or To Be a Kraken (SB). Or Greyjoy's third and final in-house Maester, Maester Kerwin (VM) (obviously this one suffers from only working on effects targetting an Ironborn character - you'd have to use Copper Link (GotC) or something to get round that, but unfortunately Copper Link would require you to use a Maester deck... oh, right). All of these cancels except for Finger Dance work on any triggered effect rather than just events, so this is also an answer to another popular form of removal in the form of Ghaston Grey (FtC) (to which we can also add River Blockade (RoR) and Longship Red Jester (AHM) to the list of available cancels).

In summary, Greyjoy is the perfect house out of which to run the already-terrifying Maester's Path deck. It might lack the rush capabilities of a Martell Maester deck, but it is more stable and, with the likes of Asha Greyjoy (WLL), can amass power quickly enough on its own - although we'll get to that (and more) in parts 2 and 3. Join us next time when Gangle will be discussing the finer details and mechanics of unopposed rush in all its glory.