All Things Shagga - A Neutral Voyage

Hello faithful readers! Sorry for the delay in our regular bi-weekly schedule here on All Things Shagga, but alas, it couldn’t be avoided this time. Thankfully though, last week’s FAQ update gives us Shagga types an instant deckbuilding challenge. What’s that you ask? How to use The Long Voyage with the Neutral Faction thanks to the wonderful new errata, of course!

Now I’ve already heard some good discussion on possibly going with a Maester build that main decks chains and uses Oldtown Raven for some extra cost reduction, but sadly, that’s not the way this deck went. Instead, this one was inspired by the FAQ entry that the Neutral Faction can actually use all of the new Prayer events. Of course, it turns out that they don’t all mesh particularly well with each other, and some are certainly more playable than others, but with the right support cards in the deck, several of them kind find a useful roll to fill.

The Cards:

The Neutral Faction + The Long Voyage- Ok, so this is really the whole reason for the deck. We’re just playing them together to see what sort of interesting things we’re still able to do post erratum. Of course, the gold penalty reduction on the Neutral Faction means that we can almost splash to our heart’s content, but that doesn’t come without difficulties (such as the full price locations) that the dearth of popular Neutral Faction decks draws attention to. Still, perhaps the additional guaranteed draw of The Long Voyage might help somewhat.

Blessed by the Maiden- Ok, so it’s probably more strictly useful in a deck that will self discard more or can use some very top specific recursion like Prince’s Plans, but in a deck that does want to use Desperate Measures for additional card selection, it can be nice to have a way to return some cards that you might need later.

Judged by the Father- Arguably the most powerful of the Prayers, Judged by the Father lets us return some of our key characters to hand if they happen to be killed. With the right characters, we can even get to trigger their effects more than once.

Nurtured by the Crone- With some key 3 STR unique characters in the deck to take advantage of Judged by the Father, we also have some that we’d like to protect from various effects that would disrupt our plans. It sure doesn’t get more protective than Nurtured by the Crone.

Supported by the Smith- Again, it’s going to be a little better with a deck that spends more time discarding itself, but Desperate Measures and Street of Silk mean that we might have some locations to return to play. Even more nicely, Supported by the Smith could potentially help us dodge the gold penalty on the Kingdom locations.

Priestess of the Pyre- With the alternate cost of kneeling a holy character to pay for these events, the very first character to come to mind was, of course, the Priestess who essentially makes all of our Prayers free as long as we’re able to keep it Summer. As well, additional Priestesses in play will also stand when we play one of our Holy powered events. Considering the “any phase” nature of most of them, this has some pretty powerful flexibility. Of course, bringing in the Priestess generates a variety of related cards and effects, but we’ll detail their interactions more below.

Thoughts on Play:

With much of the deck revolving around Holy characters, we’ll likely be on the hunt for one quickly. There are quite a few in the deck, so we should hit on them fairly quickly but many are indeed from houses, so the gold penalty is a potential concern. You may be soaking up a few early hits as you build up the resource base to keep going. Thankfully, a handful of the Holy characters return themselves to the bottom of the deck when they die and both Aeron Damphair and Doubting Septa keep you at card parity by replacing themselves upon death. Also, don’t forget that Aeron is able to search up holy characters and drop them into play without worrying about the gold penalty. This can be very useful to get a Priestess in play ASAP.

The need to ramp resources and the focus on holy characters lead me to the Warrior’s Sons who are also conveniently neutral. Warrior’s Sons gives us the capability to drop locations into play without worrying about the gold penalty or the Limited keyword provided they give gold or influence. Thankfully there are several options around, and the Warriors become even more flexible by letting us return locations discarded via Desperate Measures. The Warrior’s Sons also have the very interesting status of being dual crested, which sets the mind to thinking about to also use War crests in the deck.

With War crests on the mind, Fairweather Followers soon join the deck as another self standing card to parallel Priestess of the Pyre once you’ve made it Summer. Though you can’t kneel the Followers to pay for the Prayers, their “any phase” nature means that you’ll likely be able to stand the followers just when you need them. As well, neutral weenies are needed to round out the deck and Free Man both fits nicely into the bottom of the curve and gives some solid standing potential for your War crests when they leave play. Not to be out done, however, Holy characters retort with the Practical Believer who offers stands both on the way in and the way out of play- nothing to sneeze at when you can search him up with Aeron Damphair! The multitude of stand effects here is likely to frustrate the opponent who will never be quite sure what to expect during the challenge phase. Mucking with combat math is almost always a good thing, and the various ways to stand in this deck might give a faint echo of the Long Lances.

Possibly the most important War crest character, however, is the Red Viper who gives us an extremely strong game ending character to polish off the last power we need to win the game, while interacting favorably with our War effects and being returned by Judged by the Father. Cersei Lannister enters the deck as one of the most solid non-restricted characters to close out a game and another excellent Judged by the Father target even if she doesn’t have a War or Holy crest.

Of course, to get these many balls rolling, you’re probably going to need some control effects, which is where some of our other events come in. With the crests available to us, we have several powerful ways to strip problematic cards off the board (Die By the Sword, The Price of War) or make certain that they don’t see play at all (Confession). Our Restricted card of choice also fits into this role by stalling out troublesome cards (particularly power grabbing characters) and potentially giving the opportunity to immediately pull them from an opponent’s hand with Confession. As well, it’s often a good choice to play a Restricted plot card with The Long Voyage as your odds of seeing any particular card in a larger 85 card deck will be a little lower than the conventional 60, whereas a plot can be instantly available when you want it.

The Deck:

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com Game of Thrones Deckbuilder


Total Cards: (85)

House:
Neutral Faction


Agenda: (1)
1x The Long Voyage (TPoL)

Plot: (7)
1x The Power of Faith (KotStorm)
1x The Power of Arms (Core)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)
1x A Song of Summer (ASoS)
1x A Time for Ravens (ACoS)
1x Alliance (PotS)
1x Search and Detain (HtS)

Character: (42)
1x Gilly (RoW)
3x Carrion Bird (ASoS)
3x Fanatical Follower (KotStorm)
3x Free Man (TftH)
2x Samwell Tarly (TRS)
1x Craster (WotN)
3x Godswood Attendant (KotS)
1x Randyl Tarly (KotS)
1x Varys (SaS)
1x High Septon (LotR)
3x Warrior's Sons (LotR)
2x Aeron Damphair (KotS)
3x Doubting Septa (LotR)
2x Practical Believer (CtB)
3x Priestess of the Pyre (ASoS)
1x Ser Lancel Lannister (TPoL)
1x Daario Naharis (WLL)
3x Fairweather Followers (ASoS)
1x Ser Jorah Mormont (WLL)
2x The Red Viper (APS)
2x Cersei Lannister (LotR)

Attachment: (2)
2x Black Raven (ASoS)

Event: (19)
2x Blessed by the Maiden (AJE)
3x Judged by the Father (TCC)
2x Nurtured by the Crone (TCC)
2x Supported by the Smith (AJE)
2x Confession (KotS)
3x Die by the Sword (LoW)
2x The Price of War (KotS)
3x Desperate Measures (TCC)

Location: (22)
2x Flea Bottom (TGM)
1x Ocean Road (WLL)
1x River Row (QoD)
1x Shadowblack Lane (Core)
3x Shivering Sea (KotS)
1x Street of Silk (LotR)
1x Street of Sisters (Core)
1x Street of Steel (LoW)
3x The Roseroad (KotStorm)
3x The Searoad (KotStorm)
1x Braavos (VD)
1x Myr (AHM)
1x Norvos (VD)
1x Tyrosh (AHM)
1x Pentos (CD)