All Things Shagga - Dale Abuse

Here we are again, with another installment of Shagga goodness. This week, All Things Shagga takes a turn back to multihouse goodness by looking for interesting combinations of cards that wouldn’t normally be played together. This can be an expensive proposition sometimes, but with the burst resource generation available to House Baratheon, I think there’s a good chance that we can afford three Targaryen cards. Which three Targaryen cards, you ask? Read on!

Key Cards:
Dale Seaworth- So this is the card that sparked the idea. Most players by now can tell you that Dale can provide Baratheon with some pretty silly card advantage by bringing cards back from the discard pile, so it didn’t take long before I was wanting to find a way to maximize his use.

Val- One of the first ways to help maximize Dale’s use is to get cards into the discard pile quickly. Once there, they’re almost in an intrigue safe hand the way Baratheon is these days. Val provides a quick engine to drop extra cards into the discard pile and very conveniently lets you keep playing whatever you can afford. Helping power up a board presence and loading our discard is just what this deck wants.

Summer Encampment- The other key piece of our operation is the out of house Targaryen card that I alluded to earlier. Summer Encampent lets us keep returning Dale to hand turn after turn in order to keep abusing his ability. It can be expensive to spend 3 gold on him each turn, but getting a card back when he enters and leaves play, as well as leaving a body on the board for challenges, means that it can still be quite strong.

Herald of the Stag- You can’t always rely on Dale to be your only source of bounce based card advantage, so the Herald plays two roles here. Not only can it be used to tutor up a copy of Dale if you haven’t seen one yet, but you can keep reusing it with the Encampments to tailor half of your draw every turn.

Salladhor Saan- I’ve already spoken before about how much I like this Salladhor as a reusable Newly Made Lord, and this is the deck to make it happen. Sure, you’re better off to leave him in play and bounce one of the cheaper Smugglers to hand, but sometimes you do what you have to do. Blowing up nearly any location the opponent has turn after turn can be awfully strong.

Bound By Blood- If you can’t seem to hit on a copy of Summer Encampment, Bound By Blood lets you pull of many of the same tricks, and in a potentially more economical way by letting you put a character into play as well.

Thoughts on Play:
Bury your opponent in card advantage. Ok, sure, there’s more to the gameplan than that, but in many ways, this is what it all boils down to. Use your repeatable abilities with Summer Encampment to make sure that you can maintain that numerical advantage over the opponent. Of course, that said, you should also be counting your discard pile as part of that equation due to Dale’s ability. Don’t be afraid to lose incoming intrigue or be hit with Rule By Decree as Dale and Melisandre’s Scheme make certain that those cards aren’t gone for long.

A number of more specialized interactions await to help you through tricky situations. Up against a duplicate heavy deck that’s going to really minimize the impact of your Valar Morghulis? Ser Axell Florent will let you make short work of those- just replay him as necessary. Opponent has one pesky character left on the board? March them to the wall and send your Royal Entourage to join them. Then play a Lord or Lady and bring them running right back to King’s Landing. Troublesome midstrength characters? Greyscale helps you eliminate them, while Dale lets you bring it back to infect more people. Dale or another power character has died? Fiery Kiss brings them back to run rampant through the challenge phase and then moves them into discard so Dale or Melisandre’s Scheme can get them back. Don’t want to wait that long? Use Summer Encampment to return the character to your hand before ending the challenge phase!

The Deck:

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Dale Abuse

House (1)
House Baratheon (Core) x1

Agenda (0)

Character (34)
Dale Seaworth (AToTT) x3
Edric Storm (Core) x1
Salladhor Saan (TPoL) x2
Ser Axell Florent (WLL) x1
Herald of the Stag (SB) x2
Margaery Tyrell (AToTT) x1
Stannis Baratheon (VM) x1
River Runner (TGF) x3
Lyseni Pirate (TCC) x2
Renly Baratheon (TRS) x1
Knight of Flowers (TftH) x1
Robert Baratheon (Core) x1
Willas Tyrell (VM) x1
Brienne of Tarth (PotS) x1
Marya Seaworth (KotStorm) x1
Melisandre (RotO) x1
Royal Entourage (TTotH) x3
Samwell Tarly (TRS) x2
Carrion Bird (ASoS) x3
Val (RotO) x3

Location (16)
Summer Encampment (SA) x3
Narrow Sea (Core) x3
Seat of Power (WotN) x3
King Robert's Chambers (Core) x1
Summer Port (ASoS) x3
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x1

Event (7)
Fiery Kiss (ODG) x3
Distinct Mastery (Core) x2
Bound by Blood (KotStorm) x2

Attachment (6)
Greyscale (tHoBaW) x3
Black Raven (ASoS) x3

Plot (7)
Melisandre's Scheme (RotK) x1
A Time for Ravens (ACoS) x1
A Song of Summer (ASoS) x1
Alliance (PotS) x1
Marched to the Wall (LoW) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL) x1