All Things Shagga- All the Brans!

Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. We’re back with another installment of your favorite column devoted to All Things Shagga. We had a bit of an inadverdant hiatus creep up on the column during August and September, but I’m hoping to get back into your regularly scheduled bi-weekly articles on the most unique things we can find.

This week, we’re going to take a bit of time to look at a deck that I’ve been running off and on in our weekly game nights here for a month or a little more. It’s a modification of the deck that Justin Shearer took to win the Australian nationals, which I hear was inspired by one built by Rabs. Even in the Shagga realm, we’re always building and refining what has gone before and I commend Justin on taking such a Shagga build on to win the event!

The Cards:

Bran Stark- The Core Set version of Bran Stark has come and gone and come again in terms of playability over the years of the game. First tested out as a way to advance City plots much faster than normal, he was eventually knocked out of contention by the rise of Venomous Blade and different varieties of Targaryen burn over the years. But, with Targ burn surprisingly on the outs lately and a boatload of new tools, he’s come back in full force as a way to really abuse plots with “when revealed” abilities.

River Plots- The new plot cycle du jour, River plots were reigned in some with the restriction of Crossing the Mummer’s Ford. They’re down somewhat, but certainly not out, and the ability to chain multiple Rivers a turn makes them much more potent. Originally, they were designed with much smaller effects than City plots, but with the ability to double up and get two effects per turn. Once you start revealing multiples and get 3-4 effects a turn, this can get pretty impressive. Plus, the card advantage from Crossing the Mummer’s Ford is substantial.

Marya Seaworth- She’s been around in the game for awhile, and indeed, part of Shagga decks in the past as well, but her ability to stand Bran during the Plot Phase in order to reveal another plot is key here.
Forced March- Here we go again with an Any Phase stand that can work during the Plot phase with Bran. And even better, you might really surprise an opponent since it’s an event.

Hand of the King- Wow, and Stark got an Any Phase stand card of their own that works with Bran? This is almost getting silly here!

Conquest- It’s so obvious that it almost doesn’t need to be said. The new “alliance” agenda gives us the opportunity to abuse all of these cards together with very low cost. And since we’re running a bare minimum of Starks, we’re not really in all that much danger of donating a great deal of power to the opponent.

Thoughts on Play:

Well the first thought that I want to get out of the way is that this deck is an absolute blast to play! Revealing a single new plot each round is such an ingrained part of the rules and stricture of the game that breaking it to such a huge degree carries an illicit sense of pleasure that really gets my goat (see, poorly done Shagga jokes, pg3).

Aside from that, however, you’ll be wanting to get the pieces of this combo together as quickly as possible, and thankfully, some of these pieces help you do so very, very easily. I wasn’t sold on the Task plots when we reviewed them on the podcast, but this deck is pretty much tailor made for A Task for the King to go get Bran if you need him or Hand of the King if you need the stand. This lets you get rolling by turn two probably at the latest. Though, you may want to make sure you dupe up Bran to increase surviveability!

Still, even aside from the Task, we have some solid card advantage in the River plots which will dig us further into the additional pieces that we need as well as repeatedly dinging power off of the opponent’s house card. This seems like a small thing at first, but when you play out a game and realize that you’re knocking 6 power or so off of their house card over the course of the game, you can see how much breathing space it really gives you. As well, don’t neglect Sansa as great card advantage. If you need another piece to really get going in the early game before you have the cards at command advantage, she helps you grab anything you need. In the later game once you’re up in cards, she easily seeds your discard pile for Dale or Cressen or even just dumps a ready Royal Entourage so that you can marshal a lord or lady.

Aside from those card advantage options, make sure you watch the board itself carefully. Since we want Bran alive, we’ve skipped Valar Morghulis in our own plot deck and since we really want to focus on When revealed effects for the most part, we’ve skipped The Aftermath. This leaves Wildfire Assualt as our main reset tool, which of course is still leaving things on the board. Overall, though, I think we can take advantage of this with strategic use of Motley to muck with their challenges on a character their counting on (as well as maybe convincing them to use that character for claim or losing them to Wildfire) as well as Melisandre’s Favor. With our recursion options in Cressen and Dale Seaworth, we should be able to keep these control attachment options coming turn after turn.

Speaking of recursion, Asshai Initiate and Ser Edmure Tully also form key components of our arsenal. If your opponent manages to kill Bran, the Initiate can get him out of the dead pile so you can play another copy. Edmure does likewise, while offering the ability to shuffle more cards like Melisandre’s Favor back into your deck so that they can be drawn again. And they even pull double duty by doing the same thing with Dale, who allows for more recursion as he goes in and out of play!

The Deck:
Total Cards: (60)

House:
House Baratheon


Agenda: (1)
1x Conquest (SoW)

Plot: (7)
1x Melisandre's Scheme (RotK)
1x Crossing the Mummer's Ford (SoW)
1x Crossing the Ruby Ford (RotK)
1x Shores of Ny Sar (VM)
1x Under the Bridge of Dream (VD)
1x Wildfire Assault (Core)
1x A Task for the King (A Dire Message)

Character: (33)
1x Asshai Initiate (KotStorm)
1x Brienne of Tarth (PotS)
3x Brightwater Man-at-Arms (FF)
2x Dale Seaworth (AToTT)
1x Ghost of Winterfell (AHM)
3x Highgarden Refugee (RoW)
1x Knight of Flowers (SaS)
1x Maester Cressen (AHA)
2x Marya Seaworth (KotStorm)
3x Old Red Priest (Core)
1x Robert Baratheon (Core)
3x Royal Entourage (TTotH)
1x Ser Garlan Tyrell (FaI)
2x Stannis Baratheon (VM)
1x The Bastard of Nightsong (VM)
1x Willas Tyrell (VM)
3x Bran Stark (Core)
1x Sansa Stark (AHA)
1x Ser Edmure Tully (TCP)
1x Melisandre (RotO)

Attachment: (8)
3x Melisandre's Favor (THtW)
3x Motley (Core)
2x Hand of the King (The Prize of the North)

Event: (6)
2x Direct Assault (KotStorm)
3x Forced March (FF)
1x Storm the Gate (TBG)

Location: (13)
3x Aegon's Garden (Core)
1x Bitterbridge (SoW)
1x King Robert's Chambers (Core)
3x Narrow Sea (Core)
3x Seat of Power (WotN)
1x Street of Sisters (Core)
1x Street of Steel (Core)


And there you have it guys! We’ll see how much longer this is viable before the next FAQ, but for now, I hope you can each enjoy the rush that is revealing five plots a turn at least once.