Stark Remarks - You Dirty Bastards (of Bolton)!

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of Stark Remarks. This will be a regular article on all things related to that ancient and powerful House, Stark. I delayed the writing of this initial article until this week because I had an agenda. It went something like this: build an unconventional Stark deck for the San Francisco regional, perform terribly with it, and write primarily about the lack of choices in competitive Stark builds. Last year I won the SF regional with a cookie-cutter Stark Siege deck running Fear of Winter, Rule by Decree, Epic Battles, and you probably know the rest if you have ever built a Stark Siege deck.

Building up to regional season this year, I felt like I would have to run a very similar deck in order to be competitive with Stark. I explored Bear Island HoD decks, Kings of Winter decks, Shadow decks out of Stark. You name it, I probably mulled it over like a hot spiced wine. They all seemed less than encouraging if I wanted to repeat my win from last year. I was 100% against running Siege again, so I threw my hands up and did what any one of you would do when faced with such an issue: I built a Lannister deck with tons of draw, kneel, gold and pretty blond people.

I spent much of Spring Break with my Lannister deck. We had a great time. I was wealthy, wined, and in control. Underneath all the treacherous debauchery, however, I felt this nagging pull. My Stark roots were calling me, a low whisper heard faintly from afar, urging me to come back. Turns out it was just the wind from the stormy weather that hit California last week, but nonetheless, I rejected my Lannister love affair and went back to the drawing board with Stark.

In building a Stark deck this time around, I started with my strength as an A Game of Thrones Player. I feel like I have the ability to build decks that address the expectations of the current meta. I do not have much confidence in my ability as an expert deck “driver,” but I do believe I have some skill in observation. So, I asked myself: what does a player think when they sit across from a Stark Deck? I think they think that Stark decks rarely draw well, and I think they think that Stark decks are relatively weak on intrigue. So I had an idea: what if I built a Stark deck to create dissonance between what my opponent expects, and what my deck actually does? This was exciting, and created the genesis for my deck that eventually went on to win the 2013 San Francisco regional with a perfect 6-0 record (4 rounds of swiss/cut to top four).

Soon after that initial excitement, I realized I was going to build a Bolton deck. I needed card draw in order to disrupt my opponents’ expectations. Most Stark decks are built around a gaggle of good Stark characters, which are marshaled over the course of 3-4 rounds, eventually die to a reset, and the Stark player is left with few options. I wanted early, repeatable, consistent draw to offset this problem. The answer was obvious: run The Dreadfort. But of course, that necessitates protecting The Dreadfort and running lots of Boltons (eep!). So, I went with House of Dreams as my agenda to keep The Dreadfort in play for at least a couple rounds.

Boltons carry with them an inherent risk. You read their text boxes and run the other way for fear they will turn their torturous love of flaying onto their masters. But take a wider gaze, and you realize they have the best cost/STR ratio of any characters in the game, as well as a fantastic icon spread and crest support. That’s a lot of pluses.

I did not, however, discount their risks. I knew I couldn’t have my opponent stealing my characters willy-nilly. So, I needed a way to control my opponent, but again, in such a way that defies their expectations for Stark. I opted to play City plots in five of my plot slots. This allowed me to control a few of my opponents’ characters that represented the biggest risk to my Boltons.

As I said before, I believe in my skills of observation. This deck absolutely relied on my ability to predict the reset. My general strategy was to mass a field of Boltons that would allow me to gain early, dominating board presence (while simultaneously drawing fistfuls of cards) in order to force the reset. While I played Boltons I saved characters in hand like Eddard Stark (core), The Blackfish, Nothern Cavalry Flank, Robb Stark (KotS), and Meera Reed. Boltons agitate players. They represent unpredictability and swinging play states. I was counting on this. I often tried to play The Minstrel’s Muse when my opponent played their reset. This gave me a big one-round power boost, and in most games I was able to win the following round with my second wave of power characters.

Here is the decklist, and a bit more detail on its component parts.

“The Dirty Bastards”

House Stark
Agenda: House of Dreams

Plots

The Minstrel's Muse (RotO) x1
A City Besieged (CD) x1
At the Gates (GotC) x1
City of Soldiers (TBoBB) x1
City of Spiders (TftRK) x1
City of Sin (AToT) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1

Character (33)
Bolton Loyalist (DB) x3
Damon Dance-For-Me (VD) x1
Roose Bolton (DB) x2
The Bastard of Bolton (IG) x1
Steelshanks Walton (OSaS) x1
The Bastard's Boys (ARotD) x2
The Bastard's Elite (RoR) x3
The Flayed Men (DB) x3
Catelyn Stark (LoW) x1
Eddard Stark (Core) x1
Hodor (Core) x1
Jeyne Westerling (ASoS) x1
Meera Reed (TftH) x2
Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) x2
Robb Stark (KotS) x2
The Blackfish (LoW) x1
Arya Stark (CoS) x1
Maester Luwin (FtC) x1
Riders of the Red Fork (FtC) x1
Shaggydog (Core) x1
Bran Stark (Core) x1
Ser Jorah Mormont (PotS) x1

Locations (11)
Great Keep (Core) x2
Lord Eddard's Chambers (Core) x1
Narrow Sea (Core) x3
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Northern Fiefdoms (Core) x2
The Dreadfort (DB) x1

Events (15)
Dissension (QoD) x2
The Price of War (KotS) x2
Winter is Coming (Core) x2
Distinct Mastery (Core) x3
Die by the Sword (LoW) x3
Cannot be Bribed, Cannot be Bought (SaS) x3

Attachments (4)
Frozen Solid (LoW) x2
Grey Wind (LoW) x2

As you can see the characters are what you would expect from a Bolton deck. I left out Steelshank’s Reserves because they seemed just a little too risky if I was going to run City plots. There is a very even icon spread among the characters, and I never felt weak in any challenge type throughout the tournament.

Locations, besides The Dreadfort, are straight resources. They allow me to build up some extra income when it comes time to drop the big boys after my vanguard of Boltons have disrupted the board.
The events fell into place rather simply for this deck. The Price of War and Die by the Sword were obvious choices due to all the war-crested Boltons I was running. They gave me powerful, targeted character and location removal in all my games. In all but one game I played At the Gates as my first plot, grabbed Luwin and snagged additional events fairly consistently. Dissension gave me some additional spot removal against Targaryen and Lannister, which I expected to be well-represented (they were). Winter is Coming is not typically found in decks these days, but that’s kind of why I chose it. It is a flexible card, that is essentially “kill an extra character, take an extra power, or discard an extra card.” It is meant to disrupt. Surprise claim is a curveball, and most effective on Intrigue and Military challenges. Distinct Mastery was another no-brainer. It is such a great card if you have a lot of crests. My version of the deck was not running Cannot be Bribed, Cannot be Bought the morning of the tournament. The morning of the tournament (which was also the morning of the KindomCon regional) I talked briefly with John Bruno about the decks we were playing at our respective tournaments. John’s tournament was already getting under way due to an early start time. He suggested I run the event, and after the briefest of considerations I took his advice. When the World Champ gives you a pointer the morning of a big tournament, you should take it. Just sayin. It fit perfectly into my goal of disruption and dissonance.

Overall the deck is versatile. It can move fast if I see the opportunity to rush, and it can bide it’s time, playing havoc with opponents’ decisions.
I look forward to many more examinations of current and future Stark builds, cards, and metas. With that said, I will sign off with a segment designed to highlight my own take on some “stark” observations, titled:

“Be Real” and “You Ratchet.”

Be real Stark players. Your house does not have to be a one dimensional, win a bunch of Military challenges, paint-by-numbers deck. Stark is so multi-dimensional right now, that I would not be surprised to see our friends in the North continue to do well at Regionals without adhering to a single, dominant archetype.

When you are the TO of an A Game of Thrones regional and you admit that you don’t really understand the rules of the game, you ratchet.