Rise of the Kraken - Raiding Fleet

Nope, sorry, this doesn't feature the actual card Raiding Fleet.

Amongst all the buzz about new mechanics, new agendas and new FAQs one little thing has gone pretty much totally unnoticed as of late--the last two cycles have slowly but surely added more support to Greyjoy's raider theme, originally introduced way back in the brotherhood cycle. Victarion's Reavers (CD), Iron Fleet Captain (CD) and Ironborn Marauder (TGF) have all joined the card pool as completely reasonable characters with the raider trait and this very last chapter pack gave us yet another powerful raider character, the Raiders of Orkmont (AToTT). Likely a greater boost than any of these characters, though, has come in the form of a location, and it will be the focus of our column's deck today: Longship Grief (CD)

Raiders have never been competitive and raider characters that saw use did so because of their text, not because of the trait; however these new characters in combination with House of Dreams and Longship Grief finally gives the sub-theme a shot at coming into its own. It should be noted that Grief doesn't just apply to raiders, but also to Captains. This is an exceedingly rare trait which is only possessed by two Greyjoy characters, but both of 'em are a doozy in this deck. Victarion Greyjoy (RotK) claim-raising abilities remain nice and consistent with naval characters still being quite rare, and Fishwhiskers (CtB) is basically a unique boatswain.

It should also be noted before we dive into our options and final decklist that we're going to be ignoring completely one of the main mechanics associated with raiders, that of milling your opponent's deck. While many raider characters possess abilities that do this, only a couple are serious considerations for this deck. An unfortunate characteristic of mill characters is that they often trade efficiency for it, and so mill lends itself to an entirely different kind of deck dedicated to the mechanic. This one will focus on character efficiency and winning challenges instead.

Some of the more notable crewmen in the Greyjoy raiding fleet:

Bloodthirsty Crew (OSaS)--At first glance this card looks pretty mediocre with its 3-2 stats, but it can be forgiven for a deadly intimidating raider with an intrigue icon. Its deadly means that its intrigue challenges will rarely if ever be opposed, and with some of the strength-boosting locations available it can be made more or less unblockable through intimidate. Don't forget to trigger the mill if you don't have Alannys/Asha online yet.

Iron Fleet Captain--A raider trait, solid stats, stealth that we can use for two challenges, and a power grab ability that's quite easy to trigger.

Ambitious Oarsman (RoR)--This is one of two ways we have to get even more mileage out of our agenda location. With Grief in play from turn 0 he might as well have a printed +1 gold boost, which makes him good even if he didn't have the potential to be worth plenty more than 1 gold a turn.

Euron Crow's Eye (ASoSilence)--The big man himself, designed perfectly to support raider aggro. Giving everything stealth is nice, but the real business is his event prevention which stops everything from Red Vengeance to Misinformation to Lethal Counterattack. Another character who can make a non-kneeling intrigue challenge is also very welcome. After all this, it's easy to forget that he even has renown too!

Along with Greyjoy standby Newly Made Lord (TftH), these are the raiders we'll be making use of in our build here. A more army-focused raiders deck with the Reavers and the Raiders (of Orkmont), and maybe even the Enforcers, is definitely possible; but the thing to note about all these cards is that, while powerful, they're a tad on the expensive side. I'll briefly touch on each of them even though we're passing them up here, since they can all see use in the right build:

Victarion's Reavers--This card can really shine in an aggro deck using a lot of 2 claim plots, as in combo with a NML or two it's not inconceivable to be totally wiping an opponent's location base. The ability to make the power challenge affect board state is great for aggro. However, what's also great for aggro is Negotiations at the Great Sept, which synergizes very poorly with Manning the City Walls, a card that I'd definitely want to play in combination with the Reavers. Had Negotiations not been released I would have seriously considered the Reavers + Walls combo for this deck.

Raiders of Orkmont--This is a card with the unfortunate feature that it has no text box when you're running an agenda, which you probably want to be doing. What makes it attractive is the raider trait in combination with its war crest; in a version of the deck running war crest events this would probably make the cut. However, without them, there's no need to use this when we can include raiders who have keywords and/or strong text.

Euron's Enforcers (DB)--Anything 5 cost really needs to pull its weight, and a dedicated raider deck is probably the best way to make these guys do that. With a nigh-guaranteed 5+ strength and intimidate you can expect unopposed power for any challenge you send them into, which can potentially lead to mouth-watering amounts of power gain in combination with Euron, Iron Fleet Captain, Chintarion (to raise pow claim) and Rise of the Kraken. My issue with them here is that I'm just plain loathe to include more than one five cost character and they simply don't make the cut over Euron.

With the characters out of the way, we'll move on to our other tricks (and there aren't too many of them, the agenda and the characters are the real drivers). The first and probably biggest is that thing we mentioned earlier, using Longship Grief beyond just its text. This comes in the form of Naval Escort (ASitD), a card which doesn't see too much play but becomes exponentially better when you start with a protected warship in play. By itself the location is pretty garbage, but with just it and Grief you can give 2 characters +2 strength, four times as much extra strength as you get from the Escort alone. Give this to your raiders who are participating in 2 challenges and your board is looking at some pretty serious efficiency.

With Naval Escort joining the lineup we find that Captured Cog (AHM) also slots in quite well. With text that doesn't require it to kneel, 2 ways to kneel it for additional effects, and only 1 cost (great for set-up in our HoD deck), this location is perfect for our deck. The fact that it adds initiative sure doesn't hurt since we certainly want to be going first with our agenda.

So here we go:

Deck Built with CardGameDB.com GoT Deckbuilder


House (1)
House Greyjoy (Core) x1

Agenda (1)
House of Dreams (ARotD) x1

Character (30)
Iron Fleet Captain (CD) x3
Ambitious Oarsman (RoR) x3
Bloodthirsty Crew (OSaS) x3
Euron Crow's Eye (ASoSilence) x3
Newly Made Lord (TftH) x3
Asha Greyjoy (WLL) x2
Maester Wendamyr (KotS) x2
Maester Kerwin (VM) x1
Alannys Greyjoy (ODG) x1
The Reader (TGF) x1
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK) x3
Fishwhiskers (CtB) x2
Victarion Greyjoy (RotK) x2
Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR) x1

Location (24)
Longship Grief (CD) x1
Gatehouse (KotS) x3
Naval Escort (ASitD) x3
Longship Iron Victory (KotS) x1
Bay of Ice (KotS) x3
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Sunset Sea (Core) x3
River Row (QoD) x1
Flea Bottom (TGM) x1
The Iron Mines (KotS) x3
Captured Cog (AHM) x3

Event (6)
To Be a Kraken (SB) x3
Finger Dance (WLL) x3

Attachment (1)
Captain of the Iron Fleet (TGM) x1

Plot (7)
Take Them by Surprise (LoW) x1
Fury of the Kraken (AE) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL) x1
The King's Law (KotStorm) x1
Forgotten Plans (KotStorm) x1
Rise of the Kraken (KotS) x1


The location and character base leave little room for events and there's a lot of options for which way to go with those. We're going with cancel here to help ensure that we can get our challenges to go through. Between Naval Escort, our agenda, and plenty of strong characters to start with, the deck should perform fine on a pure character-efficiency basis--but that's not going to matter very much if our power characters are simply knelt out every turn or whole challenges are being rendered meaningless by events like Burning on the Sand. Another perfectly viable option would be to include events that key off winning challenges to put us even further ahead, such as the war crest events or Seductive Promise, but the thinking here is that if we're winning challenges on our turn then things are probably going right anyways, and if they go wrong, those events will be dead cards. It's also much easier to pay for Finger Dance when you get a non-kneeling challenge each turn.

The plot choice is very straightforward given the deck's agenda and the need to win initiative with it. If the opponent goes first they can simply make the first challenge on an icon that we don't have out at the moment, or utilize stealth or other such effects to nullify our defenders, rendering our agenda worthless. Furthermore, by going first, we get to decide which kind of challenge we want to be strongest in for the turn. This necessitates some of the obvious high-initiative options present here, and in combination with Captured Cog, makes Bay of Ice a good choice to help out our otherwise draw-barren HoD deck. However, we do have two lower initiative plots which have effects that are simply too good to pass up, regardless of initiative. Negotiations at the Great Sept should be able to net you 3-4 cards, which is clearly worth the possibility of giving the opponent one from your Bay of Ice (and with the plot still having 2 initiative and you having Captured Cog in your deck, it's still far from guaranteed that you'll lose initiative). Valar Morghulis is as ever-present and self-explanatory as ever.

Like the events, the plot deck here also has a fair degree of flexibility. Victarion's Scheme can easily slot in over one of the more specialized 3 gold options, which are great in certain matchups but may prove to have no real effect in others. Rise of the Kraken is also going to be a judgment call, but if you can build up a decent board and keep it there into the next challenges phase, it's probably the best closer plot available. Feel free to experiment with plot choices and tailor them to your meta.

Until next time, happy raiding!