With Fire and Blood - Agendas

With House Targaryen, you'll find that you can build a deck with a large number of the available agendas. This week, we're going to look at the most common choices and generally discuss the strengths and weaknesses. Your mileage will vary and the beauty of this House is that there is so much flexibility in deck design - which means there's a lot of flexibility in agenda choice.

Basic Design Choices

Most of the time, I would recommend you follow this model for your deck design:

• Determine your deck archetype (see this article for ideas)
• Determine if there are specific mechanics within that archetype that you want to capitalize on
• Determine which agenda you think supports that mechanic and archetype best
• Build your deck with that agenda in mind

Others prefer a more organic approach and that tends to go this way:

• Determine your deck archetype
• Decide which cards or combos you want to pull off with that archetype
• Build the skeleton of your deck
• Look at synergies to see if there are specific mechanics that lend themselves to the combos you want to pull off
• Select an agenda that supports those synergies
• Flesh out your deck with that agenda in mind

The common theme is the fact that your agenda choice is going to have a significant impact on your deck build in almost every case. If you build your deck and don't need an agenda to accomplish your goal, well, that's a whole different story (and you're probably reading the wrong article).

Most Popular Agendas
The most popular agendas in House Targaryen as of this writing are probably in the following order:

• Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM) - automatic +2 Influence and +2 gold in a House that tends to not run many gold locations anyway is already interesting. Toss in the extra influence and you have an engine designed to help you ambush. While no setup can be a pretty huge downside, there are ways to compensate depending upon your deck strategy.
• Kings of Summer (ASoS) - prior to Knights of the Hollow Hill, this was probably the go-to agenda for Targ due to the significant number of cards in the House that capitalize on Summer synergies. As Winter became more popular, we needed an alternative, so many folks went with KotHH.
• The Maester's Path (GotC) - yes, many of us hate this agenda, but there are some great builds that can be had using this agenda out of Targ. There's certainly more ways to tech against this than there used to be, but it's still a viable build.
• Heir to the Iron Throne (QoD) - this is the only in-House agenda. It tends not to get played much in Joust except as a support agenda when no other agenda fits (and you're not running heavy in Intrigue). Most of the time, you'll see this agenda in a Rush build (due to that extra power challenge), but it's also seen some solid play in some Targ Aggro builds.
• Griff (CD) - this is a relatively new agenda, but a number of folks have been experimenting with this agenda. I've yet to see a T1 build yet, but that's not to say it won't exist someday.
• House of Dreams (ARotD) - this is only on the list because it's got so much potential. Almost every Targ player I know is looking to abuse this with either Aegon's Hill (TTotH) or The Dragonpit (TftRK).

Knights of the Hollow Hill
Knights of the Hollow Hill is, by far, the most popular agenda for Targaryen, so we want to take a few paragraphs and talk about this one a bit. The primary reason it's so popular in Targ is the synergy with the House keyword: Ambush. The fact that you start the game with 2 Influence in play and are guaranteed that every turn ensures that you're more likely to get those ambush and influence-based effects to fire. On top of this, add in the +2 income and every single plot now looks that much better. The initiative swing also benefits both Burn and Aggro because you are far more likely to be able to choose player order.

The downside to KotHH is a big one. Not being able to setup any cards is going to put you down in the draw category. So, you'll either need to put in some extra draw or, like John Bruno, throw in some serious recursion effects to pull cards back into hand or into play. Whatever you decide, you need to look at your deck and squeeze out as much card advantage as you can since you're starting with seeing fewer cards than your opponent. That said, once again, we see the advantage of the Ambush keyword. Not having a setup does impact you, but you're at +2 gold for every plot. You should have no trouble marshaling cards and then dropping in surprise attacks with your Ambush characters.

What can really hurt you? A first turn Fear of Winter (BtW) can destroy you if you're not ready for it. With no cards in play, being stuck only marshaling a single card can be brutal. It can be hard to predict a first turn Fear. Many folks use Forgotten Plans (KotStorm) turn 1 just to combat this problem. Some experienced players just don't worry about a first turn Fear and just play their deck to cause as much pain to the other player as possible using offensive plots like the The First Snow of Winter (ODG) / Rule by Decree (Core) combo. Or a pre-plot event or ambush leading them to believe you may be playing Rule by Decree - this might be just enough to cause them to not want to flip Fear of Winter.

Kings of Summer
For years, this was a pretty big agenda in the Targ house and you still see it played with some frequency. What makes it difficult these days is the popularity of Winter. The down side of this agenda is pretty huge. Taking your draw from 3 cards down to 1 card is very difficult to overcome and then reducing your gold essentially 2 if they flip the White Raven (TWoW) can really set you back. Even with the recursion of your Black Raven (ASoS) with Lady Daenerys's Chambers (Core), if they're able to make it Winter just long enough for your draw phase for a few turns, it's going to be brutal for you.

While the most common way this is done is with White Raven, there are a few folks who use trait manipulation and either Tin Link or other attachment hate to discard your Black Raven while keeping Crown of Winter (LoW) or even Cotter Pyke (TBC) in play. Then your down to 1 card for Draw and then you still have to have LDC in play and marshal a character to get the Black Raven back into your hand.

Right now - this is a risky agenda and not highly recommended in the larger tournament scene - Kings of Winter (TWoW) is very likely to eat your lunch without some serious anti-Winter tech. Just check the World's stats and you'll see it was the most popular agenda.

The Maester's Path
Aaah - the agenda hated and loved by all. Too strong! Too powerful! Since Twn2dn's version of the deck performed so well in 2011, a number of people began to run a TMP Targ deck, but the popularity of that build has died off a good bit. The Maester's Path is still a great toolbox and even though it's now Restricted, there can be much fun to be had with Lead Link (CbtC) as part of your burn arsenal. Plus, using Advisor to the Crown (QoD) gives you influence and an easy reason to kneel a Maester. There's a lot more tech against this agenda type these days, but I still think there's a build out there that can be brutal to play against when balanced well - especially now that we have a few more in-house choices.

The Other Choices
The other choices are a bit more niche, I think. Heir to the Iron Throne, as I said above, is typically only used in a Rush-type build (normally in Melee coupled with Dragon characters). It's a strange agenda because you're choosing to either forgo declaring either the Military or the Intrigue challenge type for the entire game. That's a tough row to hoe and your deck just has to be tuned with that in mind. Most of the time, you select Intrigue as the challenge type you won't declare to get those two power challenges per turn. Still, you can't ignore Intrigue! Just because you aren't making challenges of that type, you'll still have to defend those challenges. I've never known anyone to forego the military challenge. Not even sure why that's an option honestly in a Targ only agenda - we aren't exactly an Intrigue-heavy house. Maybe they intended it to be available to all houses, then discovered it would be broken in Baratheon Rush and then errata'd it to be Targ only... who knows. Still a strong choice for Dragon/Dothraki builds and a solid Melee choice.

Griff is a our character agenda. He's built-in attachment recursion most of the time and if other houses start actually running attachments again, he can be a very weird claim soak (assuming you're running zero attachments). As attachments seem to be on the rise in popularity (due to the decreased popularity of The Maester's Path), his claim soak capabilities are probably worth another look. But, again, that's a niche build and is essentially a "no-agenda" build.

House of Dreams is brand spanking new and there are very few who have much experience playing it. The most common cards talked about in use with this agenda have been:

• Aegon's Hill (TTotH) - seeing their hand every challenges phase and putting a character in their dead pile is a brutal play. Add the Bruno tech of Much and More, then during the challenges phase, you can essentially keep searching their deck for their best characters and then put those in the dead pile.
• The Dragonpit (TftRK) - automatic -1 that can't be hit by Frozen Solid (LoW) or blanked is pretty brutal. Useless against Shadows heavy decks, but those are rare. In a dedicated Shadows Burn deck, this has possibilities, but it requires you to build with this in mind. Normally, this used to be done with the Summer agenda so that you could benefit from add'l draw (since Shadows is expensive, you want as many options in hand as possible). You'll need to buff your draw for a shadows-heavy build
• Hall of Dragons (AHM) - this has two base options, one a Dragon-specific build or a Dothraki-based build. The ability to give someone deadly on the attack after your opponent declares defenders can be a brutal move. Coupling this with Meereenese Fighting Pit (ARotD) to stand your Dragons back up, opens possibilities so that you can even defend with the Dragons. One Shagga-ish build that's been discussed a bit recently is the use of Dothraki with a bunch of the Weapon attachments. Toss in Dragonbone Bow (ARotD) and then you have multiple surprise Deadly options to explore.

Final Thoughts
If you're going to use an agenda, you really need to build your deck with that in mind. You want to capitalize on the agenda's strengths and minimize its weaknesses as best you can. In future columns we'll be going over some specific builds that use each of these agendas over time - so stay tuned!