Rise of the Kraken - World's and Stahleck Preparations

As requested one fortnight ago, this time I'll be looking at what I consider to be the four main builds I consider to be the most likely winners at Worlds (and most likely Stahleck too), and what the House of the Kraken can do to combat their evil schemes.


1) Lannister Tunnels of the Red Keep

This decktype combines two different styles I'd consider "in" right now - House Lannister and Shadows. The House of the Lion has been looking good for a while now. While The Long Voyage (TPoL) was popular its star waned, as Lanni's best quality was draw and suddenly everyone had it with ease. When TLV was errata'd to be Neutral Faction only, Lannister immediately became a great house once more. They underperformed at Gencon - although make no mistake they were already strong then as results from Europe in the same timeframe demonstrated - and their pick-me-up was the unrestriction of Pentoshi Manor (AHM), an absolutely fantastic control location I discussed in the previous article. As a result, Lannister is in fantastic shape going into Worlds.

There are multiple builds Lannister will look to offer, but I've focused on the build using House of Dreams (ARotD) and Tunnels of the Red Keep (CoS) for two reasons: firstly, because the recent Kingsguard pack provides Shadows decks with a tremendous new set of toys; and secondly, because of the second decktype in this article - of all Lannister's various decks, it's the one that stands up best because of the STR boosts (spoilers, the second decktype is Targaryen burn) offered by the HoD Tunnels build.

How to be a Kraken in the works:

• Attack the resource curve. Shadows builds typically have a fairly poor gold curve because of a lot of cards having a minimum of 2 gold cost due to the shadows crest. Often they'll open with an effective 7-gold plot in the form of City of Lies (CoS), but it's important to hit the resource base hard early on. If you're running enough learned crests, maybe even try to set up Maester Kerwin (VM) (or an equivalent crest) and Outwit (TIoR) turn one, although that might be pushing your luck.
• Push the location hate hard. Pentoshi Manor, Golden Tooth Mines (Core), The Iron Throne (LotR), Kingdom of Shadows (KotS), the aforementioned Tunnels - all are fantastic locations for this build. 3x Newly Made Lord (TftH) should be a given in the current meta, but honestly that might not even be enough. If you aren't running a full suite of warships, I'd recommend strongly considering Fleeing to the Wall (Core). This is a great shout against many decks in the meta right now (see below), but particularly the Lannister Tunnels build.
• Cancels are key. Don't let Preston hide back in the Shadows before your Valar, cancel it! Or cancel Jaime, or cancel their Pentoshi Manor. Do what you need to do to stop the Lanni deck using its toys.
• As an alternative to the above suggestions, hit hard and fast. The other weakness of Shadows builds is that they take time to get going. As mentioned above, often they'll open with City of Lies. It might be an effective 7-gold plot, but it's also a 1-claimer that doesn't touch you. The City plot chain is something you'll see often out of this deck. It's a powerful chain, but it's also incredibly predictable, and the truly damaging effects don't really hit until turns three and beyond. Take advantage of the early game and make your Lannister opponent regret not taking a simpler punchy-punch approach.

2) Targaryen Song of Fire

I could have chosen any number of different Targaryen burn builds for this spot. The one in particular I'm going to focus on is Song of Fire, but Knights of the Hollow Hill and Maesters are both nasty in their own way (albeit the Maester build plays somewhat differently to the other two). With Manning the City Walls (CD) restricted, burn is back, simply put.

The Song of Fire build is, for me, the most versatile of the available burn builds. It allows a setup, it hurts decks that are trying to splash Winter (like potentially decktype 3 on this list) a great deal, and it provides access to the truly amazing Field of Fire (QoD). This can either provide redundancy on top of The Hatchlings' Feast (ASitD), or else it can replace it and free up the restricted slot for one of the restricted characters, either Long Lances (THoBaW) or Street Waif (AToT), which allows for the Summer build to be fairly proactive compared to the ponderous KotHH build. Despite the new agenda this build pulls off the same tricks as burn decks have done for a while - bounce in characters with ambush, or Ambush from the Plains (QoD); use Incinerate (VM) and other burn effects to take your characters away; hit your tiny board hard and have the characters retreat back into hand to dodge your retaliatory strike, or else recur them after they've been killed or discarded.

How to be a Kraken in the works:

• Unlike the other decks in this list, choke doesn't work so well against Targ burn, be it Song of Fire or Knights of the Hollow Hill. This is because often they don't need gold to play cards, they're using card effects to put them into play. However, don't despair - location-hate will still hurt them badly. Take away the influence and they struggle to trigger their effects. The KotHH build will still have the 2 influence from the agenda, but without the Summer agenda will struggle in other areas to compensate.
• Cancel is important again. Cancelling Incinerate or Field of Fire, cancelling Ambush from the Plains, Recruitment (VD), To Be a Dragon (SB)... a lot of effects worth your while to prevent.
• The high-aggro route will leave you most likely using characters out of burnable range (or at least out of easily burnable range) - the likes of Victarion's Reavers (CD) and Euron's Enforcers (DB) will hit hard.
• If you run the Fury of the Kraken (AE) as your restricted card, note that Targaryen is one of the houses that can suffer. It's not a big deal given that alot of the time they don't care so much about individual characters, particularly those dumped on turn one, but it's still worth considering.

3) Stark Murder

Like Lannister, Stark received a big boon in the latest FAQ, getting No Quarter (TBC) unrestricted. This card almost single-handedly enables Stark's aggro-evil deck they ran to great success last year. The deck has received comparitively few toys this past year, but with the expanded restricted list, to be able to run the old version almost card for card (you still have to lose the Bolton Refugee (RoW), Kings of Winter (TWoW) agenda (which is risky now anyway) and Search and Detain (HtS)/Fear of Winter (BtW) (whichever you ran), but they were all essentially fairly peripherary cards anyway) is still a grand state of affairs. There are a few different sub-variants of this deck - Knights, Song of Ice and No Agenda would be the principle three, although there are others beyond that.

Knights utilises the new Kingsguard much as the Lanni Tunnels build described above does. On top of that it can use a Winter subtheme and utilise some of their nasty Winter Shadows cards - the most obvious two being Meera Reed (TftH) and Arya Stark (CoS), but expect to see the likes of Tower of the Hand (TTotH) turning up too. Song of Ice obviously has a similar build, but with Winter being more reliable can go in strong on the theme - the likes of Ranger of Winter (TWoW) and Winterfell (FaI) can help make the deck strong on both defense and attack. Finally the No Agenda version can pick and choose from the best of everything, possibly running The Kindly Man (VM) or Maege Mormont (AHM) but possibly not.

How to be a Kraken in the works:

• As ever, Cancels. The best way to deal with Stark playing No Quarter is to cancel it, sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. There is the slight added complication of Brienne of Tarth (PotS), an evil card that all good Greyjoys loathe. In my last article I suggested potentially running Milk of the Poppy (Core), but in retrospect that's a poor idea - there are comparitively few characters you want to blank, at least once we take out those new Kingsguard characters who all have "No Attachments". Instead, I'll just recommend the more versatile Nightmares (LoW) - if you weren't running it before, you should be now.
• Stark's perpetual problem is that all of their good cards are expensive - Robb Stark (LoW), The Blackfish (LoW), and moreso than anything else Northern Cavalry Flank (SA). If they run Winter, that problem is only intensified. Choke early and choke often. Meera becomes a lot less of a problem if they never have 1 gold left over in the Challenges phase.
• This is one of the match-ups on this list where the high-aggro route will run into difficulty. That being said, your setups should be better - and with Fury of the Kraken as an opener, you can have targetted removal in the first challenge phase. That might be enough to turn the tide. It's more of a coinflip matchup than against Lanni and Targ, but it's winnable still.

4) Martell No Agenda (Quentyn)

This deck somehow seems to have gone under the radar, despite dominating Gencon. It seems like there was a weird sequence of events where the online community essentially went "We must tech against Quentyn decks!" -> "Now that we're teching against Quentyn decks they aren't such a threat" -> "Now that Quentyn decks aren't such a threat, nobody's running them" -> "Let's not bother teching against this no-hoper deck". Make no mistake, Quentyn decks were nasty at Gencon and they're nasty now. They have lost the first turn play of Manning the City Walls for a free The Viper's Bannermen (PotS). That's it. The unrestriction of Pentoshi Manor and No Quarter does hurt them slightly, but not significantly, and the restriction of Manning actually significantly hurts one of their most natural counters, Greyjoy Black Sails - no more cheap King Balon's Host (TWot5K) to off their Vengeful for us.

Meanwhile, the list of qualities this deck has remain the same. Exploiting Ghaston Grey (FtC) is fun. The Red Viper (PotS) is one of the best cards in the game, and a genuine contender for THE best unrestricted character. Choosing the Spear (AJE) is a bonkers-good event that in an aggro-heavy match-up can decide the game on turn one. Arianne Martell (PotS) remains an amazing card at basically all times.

How to be a Kraken in the works:

• I'm almost tired of saying this, but cancel. If they're running Ghaston Grey, cancel it, make them pay the cost of bouncing a character for no benefit. Choosing the Spear: just say no. Red Vengeance (PotS): not even once. The current Restricted spot is fairly open, so be on the look out for Burning on the Sand (RotO), hard-casting the Bannermen, even the underplayed Venomous Blade (TBoBB) and A Game of Cyvasse (ACoS). And be ready to cancel any of them if needed.
• The Ghaston Grey build is very susceptible to Choke. Remove those resource locations and it becomes significantly harder for Martell to play their nobles each time. Remove Ghaston Grey itself and it becomes harder still!
• Quentyn Martell is a pest. However, he can be dealt with calmly and quietly. The likes of Nightmares and the incredibly underplayed Fortified Position (LoW) can ruin his day, and while the Martell deck is still very strong without the mass-Vengeful, removing one of their easier draw options will hurt them, especially now they can't cheat in the Bannermen.
• If you are going high-aggro, beware those nasty Martell effects. Euron Crow's Eye (ASoSilence) - never leave the Iron Islands without him. Again, hit hard, hit fast, and don't allow for Red Vengeance.

From these counters, we can see two obvious decks emerging that will be Greyjoy's best bets when it comes to meta-calls - firstly, a slow, ponderous choke deck that has cancels galore, let's the opponent play as little as possible, and wins steadily through unopposed power; secondly, a high-paced aggro deck that punctures through the opponent's deck before they can really get going, hitting 15 power before the slow control decks are fired up, out-aggroing the aggro, and punching cancel builds in the gonads.

Both builds have a few things in common. Firstly, location hate is absolutely key. How it is meted out might change slightly - I imagine the aggro build favouring The Price of War (KotS) and Victarion's Reavers while the Choke/Cancel build favours Fleeing to the Wall and Newly Made Lord - but the important thing is it is there. Secondly, Nightmares. Never underestimate the usefulness of this card, it hits so many important meta cards hard right now. Thirdly, they're using the best* house card in the game!

It is important to stress that these are far from the only builds that will be at these big tournaments. However, I do feel that they are currently what many people would consider the favourites to win. Do not ignore them. But most importantly, have fun if you attend one of these events, and make sure you do the House of the Kraken proud!

*Greyjoy is possibly the 6th best house right now. But we totally have the coolest sigil.

If you have any comments, suggestions of other decks to look out for, or general questions, feel free to post them below. Until next time, good luck to all squids attending Worlds!