All Things Shagga - Evolution of Martell Choke

Here we are again with another thrilling installment of All Things Shagga! Ok, so thrilling is probably a bit of a relative statement to most folks, but I certainly think so. Well, ok, maybe not so thrilling for us Shaggas, as that generally derives from a fresh, new idea, but this week instead we’re going to look at an evolution of the Martell choke build from last column. Perhaps we should settle for enlightening then, rather than thrilling.

Even with the relatively good record that the deck had so far, it sometimes still felt like the deck juts wasn’t quite getting there. Sometimes it would hit spurts of too little draw, causing it to sputter out in a way that even Negotiations at the Great Sept was unable to counteract. Sometimes it wouldn’t have enough control options to clear your path and keep the opponent tied up before they could get to ten power. So, with some of the discussions with Kizerman and the comments on the previous article in mind, I devised some changes that I had the chance to test out over this previous weekend.

Underperformers:

River Row/ Gatehouse x2- The deck seemed to be a touch too high in resources. It was great for Setup and helped me blunt the force of some of my own choke like White Raven and Blockade, but part of the issue of running out of steam was due to drawing into too many resources in the late game rather than more characters to keep up the attack.

Hellholt Docks- Ouch, this one hurts. I know that they were a big portion of Kizerman’s initial inspiration for the deck, but I’ve been running into some issues with them. Sure, they’re amazing if you have a River Blockade in play to eat up triggers and let you kneel other things, but it’s just not really practical to run many River Blockades. I tried to argue against that for a long time, but hitting on multiples just winds up being too dead when it happens. With only the 1 River Blockade, it becomes really difficult to force an opponent into kneeling a location so that you can trigger the Docks unless that location is the one that you were really wanting to stop with the Docks to begin with. Sadly, it becomes too easy for a strong opponent to play around.

House Messenger- It’s actually not a card that I have any complaints about because it does its job very well. It helps round out our icons a little, fits in low on the curve, and is guaranteed to replace itself with another card on setup or during marshalling. It really helps smooth out draw for the deck, but I think we’ve got another option that will do more for us.

The Contenders:

Parting Blow- The original build of the deck featured Orphan of the Greenblood as the Restricted card, and the two of these just pair so beautifully it almost brings a tear to the eye of the average Martell player. I’m still not planning on switching back to the Orphan, but the control and draw acceleration of Parting Blow is hard to ignore. Thankfully, Martell has some other options to enable this great event.

Dornish Paramour- Remember what I said about there being another character that can suit our needs a bit more than House Messenger and what I said about other Martell Parting Blow enablers? Meet our new dream girl! Sure, she may not actually be a new card, but she does provide a little more smoothing of our icon base while giving the same net cards as the Messenger. She’ll lose you a little bit on resources when you discard her, but being able to respond with Parting Blow for the control and to add up to draw cap of the turn should be more than enough return on investment.

Watchful Servant- Here we are again with a wonderful little bicon character that serves multiple purposes. Again, she’ll round out our icons a little more smoothly and gives us a mostly at will option to trigger Parting Blow, but she also provides control of her own! Interestingly, she can be used to clear the way when you’re on offense as well as negate incoming challenges on defense. Rush is still a potential problem for Treaty decks, and it turns out that most all of the renown covered rush characters fall in the 3 STR or higher category that she hits. As well, with armies like Viper’s Bannermen put into play with Manning the City Walls (thus dodging your choke) seeing popularity, the Servant gives you another solid option against them.

Southron Stronghold- Ok, so I am actually adding a resource card back in. It turns out that the Stronghold is just too much of what this deck wants in non-limited gold production that also provides influence.

Thoughts on Play:

There’s not much new to say here, because, of course, editing and evolving a deck rarely has the impact to change the goal of the deck or else you’d just start by building a new deck. With that in mind, I can say, however, that the deck flows a bit more smoothly through what I want it to do over the course of a game. I have less trouble with opponent’s characters (barring Quentyn agenda decks and all their unique vengefulness) and it feels like I’m able to dig through the deck toward what I need and hit on that more often. Now that I’ve made these changes and had the chance to play a few more games with it, however, I can see that my goal with the deck isn’t quite what I thought it was before. Choke is still an important factor and you do have the capability to lock the opponent down completely, but I realized that the pieces that I was really looking for and using the most let me play a much more tempo based game. With these changes, we’re able to play to that tempo strength more fully and thus ride out the bad draws or situations where were aren’t able to get a lock on the opponent’s resources.

The Deck:

Deck Built with CardGameDB.com GoT Deckbuilder

Martell Choke v3

Total Cards: (65)

House:
House Martell

Agenda: (1)
1x Treaty with the Isles (CoS)

Plot: (7)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)
1x The Winds of Winter (TWoW)
1x Rule by Decree (Core)
1x Blockade (Core)
1x A Time for Ravens (ACoS)
1x Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL)
1x Marched to the Wall (LoW)

Character: (34)
3x Ice Fisherman (TWoW)
3x Greenblood Merchant (ARotD)
3x Lost Spearman (MotM)
3x Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK)
2x The Sparr (APS)
3x Wintertime Marauders (ACoS)
3x Carrion Bird (TWoW)
2x The Red Viper (APS)
2x Samwell Tarly (TRS)
1x Maester Murenmure (CbtC)
1x Maester Wendamyr (KotS)
2x Ellaria Sand (PotS)
3x Dornish Paramour (TTotH)
3x Watchful Servant (CD)

Attachment: (4)
2x White Raven (TWoW)
2x Burned and Pillaged (FtC)

Event: (8)
3x The Prince's Wrath (PotS)
2x When I Woke... (PotS)
3x Parting Blow (PotS)

Location: (19)
3x Water Garden (PotS)
3x Summer Sea (PotS)
3x Sunset Sea (KotS)
1x Street of Sisters (Core)
1x Street of Steel (Core)
3x The Iron Mines (KotS)
1x Aeron's Chambers (KotS)
1x Lord Doran's Chambers (PotS)
1x Volantis (VM)
1x River Blockade (RoR)
1x Southron Stronghold (TBG)