Rise of the Kraken - Winter Choke

Welcome back to Rise of the Kraken! Today I'll be going through winter choke decks, one of the most feared and loathed weapons in the Greyjoy arsenal. I'll give some ideas on deck building and then a few nuggets of wisdom/painful lessons for playing some of the common deck archetypes you're likely to see.

Deck Philosophy
Winter choke is a wonderfully thematic Greyjoy strategy. Murdering civilians, burning fields, stealing gold, starving foes under the icy grip of winter... what else could a pirate want? This path is not for the soft-hearted looking for friends. People will complain about how much they hate your deck and hate you for playing it. If this encourages you, you've probably found the right deck.

I think it's important to explicitly say what my deck is trying to do, as this lets me evaluate where in my strategy something went wrong. In my experience, playing with a winter choke deck is a three phase plan

• Make it winter, ruin their economy, sink the choke in
• Kill Everyone
• Profit (win the game because they can't do anything)

Different decks will pose threats to different stages your sinister plans, but winter is coming, and it's taking your money. In some cases, you may take and keep control from the start, and Valaring may be totally unnecessary (though they certainly will eventually). This deck's real agenda is not to win the first phase of the game, but to take away the opponent's ability to recover from a reset.

The Cards That Make It A Winter Choke Deck

The first set of cards that go into a winter choke deck are to insure you win (or at least can compete) in the game of footsie that is manipulating the seasons. If you come up against a summer deck, which season it is will likely determine the outcome of the game. This deck needs it to be winter and to stay that way.

• White Raven (TWoW) - Makes it winter, fixes summer if you find yourself in that horrible predicament.
• Carrion Bird (ASoS) - These serve many purposes, but are necessary for season control/getting rid of their ravens. Also a 1 gold critter with stealth fits in nicely.
• Samwell Tarly (TRS) - I HATE SAM. Sam is not a pirate. Sam is the opposite of a pirate. Two cards whenever you drop a raven is just unbelievably good. It's worth it. Make up a story about enslaving him or something to ease your tiny twisted conscience.

The ravens and their awful doughy friend will be in every winter deck. The Greyjoy choke part comes from the following cards.

• Wintertime Marauders (ACoS) - They're berserk. Whacking any non-unique card after they win a challenge is unbelievable. It's a great way to destroy those infuriating limited cost reducers (Godswood (Core) etc.) and so many other things.
• Burned and Pillaged (FtC) - The locations you allow them to keep hurt them. Delightful.
• Ice Fisherman (TWoW) - If they get any money, steal it.
• The Sparr (APS) - A burned and pillaged with feet.
• Cragorn (ASoSilence) - Steals money, has a war crest, bounces around resets.

The Fun Part Of Deck Building
Rounding out the deck is a matter of personal preference. These are the cards that will be adjusted to suit your meta and personal temperament.
I'll give an example of one way to fill out winter decks I've had success with

War Crests:
If you have enough war crests that you can have one out fairly reliably, you can include the cards that trigger off of them. I'd recommend having at least 8 or 9 characters, and luckily the Marauders have them already. The filler subtheme includes cards like:

• Randyl Tarly (KotS) - pumps your other war crest characters. Hates Sam too.
• Dagmer Cleftjaw (KotS) - Not an ideal value, but deadly and war crest.
• Nute the Barber (BtW) - All you care about is getting the military through with a war crest. He will help. The Ally trait is annoying.

These are in there so that you can play with some confidence:

• Die by the Sword (LoW) - Targeted kill is awesome.
• The Price of War (KotS) - The real reason to run this. This should give you complete location control.

This will make you much stronger early, so if you're consistently having trouble with getting rushed or are not able to get your choke in place before valaring, this may be a good option. Also note that destroying 4 cards in 1 challenge with Wintertime Marauders (ACoS) and The Price of War (KotS) makes pirates everywhere happy. This setup can be dominant enough early against some opponents that you force them to pull the reset and achieve your "Kill Everyone" objective.

Other Options
To run the war crests effectively, you need some critical volume of cards dedicated to it. Price of War is dumb if you rarely have a war crest out. If you can't give up the deck slots for it, you are probably better off filling your deck with other complimentary cards. Luckily there are lots of good options!

Another subtheme I have run successfully is including a ton of saves and Aeron Damphair (VM). This will make your characters extremely resilient and cover your card draw, which is normally a weakness for this deck. Your Valar can become "Kill all opponents characters and draw 3 cards." This does mean you have to find Aeron and can't run another agenda.

There are lots of other cards that don't really fit a particular theme, but I would advise giving thought to. Winter Reserves (SA), Maester Murenmure (CbtC), River Blockade (RoR) are all extremely good fits for this deck. Putting in more cancels such as Seasick (KotS), Drinking the Sea (TBoBB), or even Finger Dance (WLL) is a great way to make sure that you keep control once the choke is in.

If you are having trouble with some specific opponent consistently, put in answers for it.
I've posted an example winter choke deck that has bought into the war crest idea in the submitted deck section. This deck has done well for me.

Agendas and Restricted Card

I have found Fear of Winter (BtW) to be amazing for pushing an advantage and avoiding unexpected counter moves. You can put decks on the back foot if you out-flop them. I pretty much use this all the time. With House of Dreams (ARotD) coming on, you're likely to see a ton of decks built around a location, so Search and Detain (HtS) may become somewhat of a necessity. An invincible The Iron Throne (LotR) or Bear Island (AE) are just irritating, and the plot is still pretty useful even if they aren't running HoD.

As far as agendas, Kings of Winter (TWoW) can prevent them from sitting on something or getting too big a hand advantage, but really what you are trying to do is make them unable to play whatever is in their hand. I've thus found this agenda is not absolutely critical, and with House of Dreams (ARotD) out for an automatic invincible Iron Victory, it may fall by the wayside.

Playing A Winter Choke Deck
In general, you have a very low gold curve. This means that you should get a pretty beefy flop. You should expect at least a 4 card setup, and unless you really like the feel of the hand, I would probably throw back fewer than that. Your first few turns should prioritize making it winter and getting rid of cost reducers, problematic locations, and not losing the game. Unless you're going against intrigue heavy decks (specifically PbtT), it often makes sense to keep your money stealing characters (Ice Fisherman (TWoW), The Sparr (APS) etc.) in your hand unless you have enough saves out. The goal is to completely hamstring their ability to recover from a reset, and dropping these guys afterwards can ice the game.

After every game, figure out what went wrong if your vicious pirating was thwarted, or what could have gone wrong if resistance was fiercer than you'd like. Did you valar and afterwards are still staring at Melisandre (RotO), Knight of Flowers (SaS), and Party Bob? Might want to put some more save cancels. Sometimes you just get crappy draws, but if you play enough, you'll notice the things that consistently anger you the most. There's not a real hard counter for Greyjoy Choke (some annoying games though...) so you should never be dead in the water if you learn and adapt.

Greenlanders Of Note

Stark Murder - This is sort of a weird matchup for you. Unfortunately the reality of the situation is you're going to lose a military challenge every turn (luckily you have claim soak!) and assume that they always have a murder event, especially if Maester Luwin (FtC) is hanging around (kill him if you can!). Having reliable save is huge so you don't get tabled before you get to do anything. Your winter also helps some key cards of theirs, most notably the awful frog wench herself, Meera Reed (TftH). If you can steal their last gold, they can't pop her out of shadows... The hardest part is surviving while you put in the choke hold. Be judicious of who you use your saves on, and Maester Wendamyr (KotS) is awesome here.

Baratheon Anything (It's a rush deck... don't be fooled) - The counter to Baratheon is killing their stupid infinitely-standing renown characters. Unfortunately, this is every house's strategy against the deer people, and every Baratheon player will have enough dupes, recursion, and usually power of blood to prevent that. Your biggest advantages against this deck are cancelling saves on characters with power and disrupting their acceleration during the martialling phase. Maester Murenmure (CbtC) > Seat of Power (WotN). The game within the game here is the plot phase. Against nobles, if they can catch your Valar with The Power of Blood (Core), it's a big hole to dig out of, but if you can clear the board, you're in great shape.

Martel Summer - This game usually ends up hinging on if you can win the seasonal footsie game, as their gold curve is usually terribly suited to winter. Burn down their key locations and be ready for their silly Martel events. Try to always save your last cancel for something that will really ruin the game for you. Martel saves are terrible, so if you can put in a decent choke you should be set after you Valar.

Targ Burn - Against any KotHH player that looks unconcerned about your huge flop, please don't be surprised by The First Snow of Winter (ODG). Winter choke has a lot of tools to counter this deck. There's a fair chance there will be some season struggle, but the weakness of burn decks is their reliance on locations. Burning down Lady Daenerys's Chambers (Core), Meraxes (TBC), and then their influence providers really cripples this deck. You also have a huge array of disposable chumps to win challenges with even if they burn your favorite characters. A Targ burn deck in winter with no locations is very vulnerable.

Lannister PbtT - This deck is not overly popular, as it doesn't match up well against some common decks (Cersei is flammable). This is good, as playing against this deck is horrendous. Your card draw is somewhat of an Achilles Heel, and their hand demolition is astounding. From the second turn on, your hand will usually be the two cards you just drew. The "good" scenario for this matchup is you wind up with no hand and they wind up with no money. Your best bet is to do everything you can to get a kill through on Cersei Lannister (LotR) and hope you draw the cards you need.


A Very Quick Note About Melee

While purists will poo poo melee, I think it's terrifically fun. I have made a noble effort at running a winter choke deck in melee. Unfortunately, all the things I said earlier about people hating you still apply... Except now there are three of them... You will not be able to lock down everyone. You will be able to irritate everyone. If this appeals to you, go ahead and try the choke deck in melee. If you want to win, you had better be much more charming than I am...

We'll Be Back
In the next article, I'll be going through unopposed rush decks. They're fast, they're fun, and they can be competitive against most opponents. Feel free to throw out any questions or complaints to Gangle or JCWamma, and stay tuned!