White Cloak Arsenal - Hand Control

White Cloak Arsenal- Hand Control
No matter what you’ve been told size matters. Your grip of cards represents potential. A two cost character is equally valuable as a five cost character when it is stuck in your hand. Those cards only matter if they hit play. Once in play, the five cost character should exert more influence over a game than the two cost dude. Hand control actually robs your opponent of making a choice of what to play. The goal is to reduce potential, preferably to zero.

A basic mantra I’ve repeated is having more options gives you more win. Less options equals less win. So why not take away options before they can hit the table. There aren’t many cards that attack the hand directly and are usually resource intensive. But, in the right build they are a beating between forcing your opponent to play a threat or have it get pitched to the discard pile.

Hand control is a not a win condition on its own but really shines when combined with other theories. My personal favorite combos are resource choking and challenge denial. Sporting multiple high claims also makes your opponent think twice about dropping a character onto the killing floor. Don’t forget pushing them into playing characters before blowing them away with Valar.

Baratheon 3 out of 5 Gold hands
Altar of Fire (RoR)
For R'hllor (RotO)
Zealot of the Light (BtW)
The Iron Throne (TTotH)

Within a holy build Baratheon buzz saws hands better than anyone. Altar of Fire doubles your intrigue claim within limitations. When it is online however, it can end a game quickly. Confession will be addressed later in the neutral section, but needs to be pointed out here in the house with 13 holy characters to bring the inquisition. Greyjoy comes in second with 11 certainly less sexy dudes. Zealot and Iron Throne on their own are incredible values. Full marks are not given due to needing outside factors to trigger. For R’hllor has too many variables to be consistent.

Greyjoy 3 out of 5 Gold Hands
Alannys Greyjoy (RoW)

I’m wary of giving this house a full three rating due to only one card being able to do the job. She is the original hand destruction introducer of Mr. B to Mr. Tings. The Any Phase trigger restricts your opponent to drawing one card a turn provided you have taken care of their three strength folks. When combined with a kneeling deck she shreds opponent’s options at a whim. Praise the Seven if you can stand her repeatedly. She didn’t get the same errata as Penny so if there isn’t a target to kneel they have to discard at random.

I would be at fault if I didn’t point out that the seminal Altar of Fire isn’t House Baratheon only. Eleven holy characters can power Confession and the Altar while Alannys can pick off whatever is left.

If you could judge a house based on one card Greyjoy would receive a four, the queen restriction bothers me now that the Lanni queens are becoming playable.

Lannister 2 out of 5 Gold Hands
Penny (VD)
Andal Charger (APS)
Spidercraft (TIoR)
Call Their Bluff (Core)
Ser Jacelyn Bywater (Core)

Penny is the only rock star here. Due to her errata though she’s more concerned with applying the kneel down. However, in a pinch she can force your opponent to pitch cards that they want. Call Their Bluff costs too much and Ser Jacelyn is usually more useful alive rather than sniping a card. The two claim replacement effects I’ll count as negative points because they are attachments. I can think of very few instances (the more I’m thinking about it ‘very few’ has become ‘no’) where these would take up a card slot largely because your claim two plots are relegated to claim one during intrigue.

Martel 4 out of 5 Gold Hands
The Scourge (ODG)
House Dayne Skirmisher (PotS)
Doran Martell (TGM)
Norvos (EB)
His Viper Eyes (OSaS)

This house doesn’t show much as standalone cards are concerned outside of Doran. If you can fit Doran into a deck do so. Ideally you don’t want to lose any challenges but garnering a successful pseudo intrigue challenge every time you lose is silly good.

The rest of the bunch relies on synergy to become devastating. The Scourge is best candidate but it does give you opponent choices, which you can cancel with He Calls It Thinking or Little and Less. But, that’s icon removal; making them chuck a card every turn is still pretty good. Skirmisher is great if you can pop him many times in concert with Narrow Escape. Eyes is interesting but not really playable with the restrictions. Norvos never saw the light of day at three cost. Enter House of Dreams to make this thing playable.

All of these effects combines turn Martell into a vice squeezing your card resources down to zero.

Stark 1 out of 5 Gold Hands
Errr, there are no cards that attack the hand in the Stark house. I don’t score lower than one on a scale of one to five so there you go. If I added zero or NA then why not have a scale of one to six? And if you give the mouse a gold hand then he’ll want to play the game of thrones. Huh, just thought of that, is Ned like the worse gamer ever then?

Targaryan 3 out of 5 Gold Hands
Rakharo (IG)
Vaes Dothrak (IG)
Merchant Spy (TTotH)
Aegon's Hill (TTotH)

This house I had the hardest time grading between a three and a four. It comes down to having the best location to attack a hand with; Aegon’s Hill. The hill forces your opponent into very difficult choices, either play the character which is bound to be Valar’d away next turn or hope they don’t get plucked from their grip. I expect to see plenty of Aegon’s Hill House of Dreams in the very near future. The three cost is prohibitive in most Targ builds.

Rakharo is pretty great on his own and Vaes Dothrak is interesting in a Dothraki deck. Both rely on a subtheme to get full benefit out of them. Merchant Spy is, um, not good.

Neutral Characters 3 out of 5 Gold Hands
Ghost of High Heart (WLL)
Ser Preston Greenfield (KotStorm)
Steward of the Watch (AKitN)

I’m going to put Ghost of High Heart on here which will drive up this score pretty well. Technically she doesn’t lower options because we don’t know what the opponent has drawn. Her ability only triggers during the challenge phase which is problematic. However, given the information we can work off of she does a good job discarding the expensive characters they could’ve played next turn or ditch valuable events that require a response. She is an easy addition to any house.

The other two barely make a blip. I’ve made decks that revolved around both of these folks and have been underwhelmed each time. The best was Targ with Summer Encampment, high initiative to go first. Green field just makes folks play their cards.

Neutral Events 4 out of 5 Gold Hands
Confession (KotS)
Narrow Escape (KotStorm)

Are you kidding me? Let your guys die or I mortgage my future options hoping to top deck wins? Narrow Escape is an incredible hand control weapon. It doesn’t get higher points because your opponent can just let you have your dudes.

Confession is incredibly resource reliant. Holy crests are not that easy to come by and you should never add resources of influence just to power one card. All of that being said if you have the resources, Any Phase can be played post draw but before Marshalling and it can target any cardboard in their fist. Confession is the bane to control decks looking for combo pieces.

Neutral Plots 4 out of 5 Gold Hands
Rule by Decree (Core)
Waste Their Time (QoD)
On Dagger Lake (VD)
War of Attrition (MotA)

Never before has so many plots been available to choose from to assault the mitt. Rule By Decree is a standard classic. It has gotten a boost from Much and More and other Any Phase events.

The other choices are newer and haven’t been fully explored as of yet. Waste Their Time has recently been praised in the World Championship Deck. On Dagger Lake’s effect can be repeated with other River plots and Flood Waters. War of Attrition creates a win-win situation, turning every challenge into a potential intrigue win. Each one of these however sports a terrible stat line. Use at your own risk, good effects, not so good gold. If you can mitigate the weakness then I’d say all of these are playable.

Neutral Agendas 4 out of 5 Gold Hands
Kings of Winter (TWoW)
Seal of the Crown (APS)

There isn’t enough I can say about Kings of Winter. When the seasons first arrived Summer was the favored effect because it brought you a boon of cards and gold. Now, folks are turning more to the cold side restricting gold and opponent hand size. Recently cards such as Much and More and other Any Phase cards are making this agenda even more effective. A no win situation is Kings of Winter and Alannys.

Seal of the Crown is a much tougher agenda to get a hold on. Card draw is restricted by giving everyone an extra card during the draw step. Hmmm, weird. Decks that are based around card draw get pinched a bit but it becomes more hand filtering rather than hand control. Filtering a person’s hand isn’t a negative effect especially when they get to make the decisions. The best cards are still going to be kept. If they are running any sort of recursion it becomes a terrible idea. The only way this card becomes hand control is when you put them at their limit. Ghost of High Heart forces them to draw one, discard two. Now, there is value!

House Scavengers 1 out of 5 Gold Hands
Dragonstone Scavenger (RoW)- Targ and Bara, cost 2
Southron Scavengers (ACoS)- Martell and Greyjoy, cost 1
Northern Scavengers (TRS)- Stark and Lanni, cost 2
Scavengers of King's Landing (TWoW)- Lanni and Stark, cost 2
Scavengers of the Sea (ASoS)- Greyjoy and Martell, cost 2
Stormland Scavengers (SA)- Bara and Targ, cost 2

I pulled the Scavengers out separately because they are not good in a vacuum but all have the same usefulness. The obvious use is what is being played in your meta. Making someone discard a card is valuable but to get long term control it should be repeatable. Bouncing them back to your hand gets double duty. Notice each of these cards is house only. You can’t splash them into another deck so their viability is very poor.

The positive value of the Scavengers is there potential recursion effect. If you need a discard outlet these guys will work in a pinch. If nothing else they are very cost effective if they are the last card you play from your hand.