Rise of the Kraken - Holy Voyage

Last Sunday was the London regional here in the UK. I took a Greyjoy deck running The Long Voyage (TPoL), as I think it's a particularly powerful decktype right now - my intention being to talk about it in this article if I put in a good showing. Look forward to a blog from me on how exactly it went down sometime next week, but for now suffice it to say that I didn't win. However, the winning player Marek Ustymenko also ran Greyjoy TLV, and was gracious enough to let me talk about it here today.

Marek's inspiration from this deck came from Ire's 2nd place deck at the Finnish regionals back in April. The basic theory is to commit to a Holy rush, using the agenda along with Greyjoy's saves to maintain the rush for a long period of time. Without further ado, let's get to the decklist:

Plots

Valar Morghulis (Core)
Bungled Orders (OSaS)
Many Powers Long Asleep (RoR)
A Song of Summer (ASoS)
The Power of Faith (KotStorm) x 2
Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL)

Characters (47)

Island Refugee (RoW) x 3
Follower of Two Gods (CD) x 3
Maester Kerwin (VM) x 1
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK) x 3
Ghost of High Heart (WLL) x 2
Maester Wendamyr (KotS) x 2
Apostle of The Drowned God (RotK) x 3
Maester Murenmure (CbtC) x 1
Thoros of Myr (RoR) x 1
Moqorro (VD) x 3
Aeron Damphair (KotS) x 3
Newly Made Lord (TftH) x 3
Priest of the Drowned God (KotS) x 3
Asha Greyjoy (WLL) x 3
Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR) x 1
Alannys Greyjoy (ODG) x 3
Godswood Attendant (KotS) x 3
The Reader (TGF) x 1
Victarion Greyjoy (VD) x 2
High Septon (LotR) x 1
Tarle the Thrice-Drowned (RotO) x 1
Euron Crow's Eye (KotS) x 1

Locations (23)

Flea Bottom (TGM) x 1
Gatehouse (KotS) x 3
River Row (QoD) x 1
Sunset Sea (KotS)x 3
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x 1
Street of Silk (LotR) x 1
Street of Sisters (Core) x 1
The Iron Mines (KotS) x 3
The Roseroad (KotStorm) x 3
The Iron Cliffs (HtS) x 3
Longship Iron Victory (KotS) x 3

Events (12)

Confession (KotS)x 3
Finger Dance (WLL) x 3
Risen from the Sea (KotS) x 3
Support of the Kingdom (Core) x 3

Attachments (3)

Fishing Net (ASoS)x 3


As you can see, the deck is extremely focused on one specific task, that of keeping a constant onslaught on the opponent. Everything is focused on the efficiency of that one goal. Marek wanted the best set-ups possible, using the Refugees as his restricted card for this exact purpose. Despite the variability of The Long Voyage, this deck should consistently be able to set up at least 4 cards.

The meat of this deck is in the focus on Holy crests. We have here all the usual suspects, with 3x Follower, 3x Apostle, 1x Thoros, 3x Moqorro, 3x Damphair, 3x Priest, 3x Attendant, 2x Victarion, 1x High Septon and 1x Tarle making up a total of 23 holy crest characters - over a quarter of the entire deck. It's not at all unreasonable to expect that this deck could have 3 holy crest characters in hand or on the table by the end of the first draw phase. Also note that there are 12 different targets of Damphair's effect.

The true measure of a good deck often isn't just such simple synergy though - it is card advantage. As discussed well, both recently in Crafting the Theory and back in January when I interviewed Stefano Montanari, card advantage is often all-important in a winning deck. So what does this deck have in the way of card advantage?

Well firstly let's look at the direct stuff, draw - the main source here is the agenda, a very popular source right now and particularly important in a house without reliable draw such as Greyjoy, which is why it's a popular agenda for the house (and a subject that we will no-doubt dive more deeply into in a later article). There are also three (count'em) copies of Longship Iron Victory, an old favourite. In a pinch there's Ghost of High Heart, if a dead unique (or otherwise not particularly useful card) is drawn. Finally there's The Reader, although this is the most conditional of the draw sources. Nonetheless, this deck does have the capability to drawcap itself each turn, which is a valuable goal.

Next, there's the psuedo-draw, in the form of cards that fetch others - in this case we are limited to Aeron Damphair, who replaces himself when he dies, and the highly popular Negotiations at the Great Sept. The latter is, as widely discussed elsewhere, a meta-defining card right now, and particularly useful in a TLV deck where variability means a mulligan to 5 can be crucial often.

Then there are the saves. With the exception of some more niche save cards (Sacrificed to Two Gods, Salt Wife, Rhymes With Meek), this deck has 3 copies of every save available except for only having 2 copies of Wendamyr and 1 of Tarle, plus Many Powers Long Asleep which while not a save does, for the sake of simplification, perform a similar function). Iron Mines don't technically provide card advantage being 1 for 1, and Risen from the Sea likewise only provides the extra advantage from sticking around to give +1 STR, but this is nonetheless an important part of the deck's general strategy, keeping its characters alive turn after turn to claim power.

There are also the cards providing card disadvantage for the opponent while also providing another function, be that being a character, gaining you something, or providing you information - the likes of Newly Made Lord, Confession, Support of the Kingdom. I won't go into much detail here, but suffice it to say they are in important part of rounding out the deck.

Finally, the most important part of the card advantage the deck offers is that of the characters not kneeling and therefore performing double-duty. This is, of course, where The Power of Faith comes in. On the PoF turns Marek was able to maintain overwhelming advantage in board presence, particularly with the tricons of Moqorro, Godswood Attendant, Tarle and High Septon. On top of this, repeatable Renown from Thoros, Victarion and Asha allowed him to gain power at an alarming rate.

The most interesting part of the deck to me is Bungled Orders. This was a great choice, allowing him safety when Valaring and also versatility - it protected him from the likes of Fortified Position, Assault on King's Landing, Burning Bridges and Outwit, which could otherwise ruin a Greyjoy player's day when Valaring, with the only downside being the added weakness to Forgotten Plans. On top of this, Valar was not the only potential target for Bungled Orders - Many Powers Long Asleep could be used to bring back a killed Holy Character to upset the board position mid-phase, and more potently Marek could flip into The Power of Faith if the board position was advantageous. In the final in particular, when Marek played Bungled Orders his opponent was incredibly worried about this possibility and played the entire challenge phase around it, allowing Marek to tighten the screw further before Valaring for the win. The other advantage of Bungled Orders in this deck is a simple one - assuming you lose a challenge in the round you play it, it means that you get through your entire plot deck in 6 rounds rather than 7, meaning that a greater percentage of the time you're using The Power of Faith, you're getting to recur Holy characters with Many Powers Long Asleep more and more, and so on.

Finally I want to mention the Fishing Nets. These have always been a tremendous card, but suffered from the fact that they essentially acted as a one-to-one trade-off card-advantage wise - I use a card from my hand to disable the character you played from yours. And in ye olden days when draw was hard to come by, a one-to-one trade-off wasn't good news for the Krakens. With TLV and Negotiations in this new and exciting meta however, we can afford to play it with impunity, and the true power of the card is becoming apparent - in this regional, in the semi-final Marek was on the verge of losing twice, and both times he was able to stall his opponent at 14 power by playing Fishing Net on a renown body (or body who could force through an extra unopposed challenge). The third of his three Fishing Nets eventually won him that game by stopping his opponent from defending, pretty much single-handedly earning him a place in the final.

That's it for this week's Rise of the Kraken. If you have any question about the deck or want to add your thoughts or experiences with decks of this type, feel free to comment below!