All Things Shagga - The River Reaver's Song

Welcome back, fearless readers, to yet another installment of All Things Shagga, your bi-weekly column focused on the Shagga side of the game. What does that mean, the newer ones among you ask? Well, Shagga players tend toward the big splashy effects and the impressive combos.

As happens with an LCG another new pack of cards has arrived and along with that delectable aroma of new cards, we have the cards themselves to look at, and boy howdy do we have a couple doozies in the first pack of the Conquest and Defiance cycle, Spoils of War. The first of these is certainly The Reaver’s Song, which is certainly the most jaw dropping, manhood chopping, goat loving effect that I’ve seen in quite awhile. Of course, not to be outdone, Crossing the Mummer’s Ford offers up sweet fantasies of “drawing” dozens of cards over the course of the game and has the bonus personal upside of pushing the underdog River plots into “wowza!” territory. So the question then, is how to combine the two of these cards into one monumental Shagga frenzied deck? The answer, I say, is Greyjoy!

The Cards:
The Reaver’s Song- This is a huge effect that can really hammer the opponent since many decks are still relying on a pretty large amount of locations on the board to fuel what they want to do. Thankfully, Prized 1 is pretty negligible, but the inability to play our own locations for the rest of the game is potentially a huge blow to our economy. One nice thing, however, is that locations can be saved.

Crossing the Mummer’s Ford- Sure, it requires at least some commitment to the sometimes mediocre River plots in order to use it to its full advantage, but when used to that advantage, it really earns it’s keep. One of the real house weaknesses for Greyjoy is card draw, and as stalwart Greyjoy player JCWamma has noted, Crossing the Mummer’s Ford generates a truly crazy amount of card “draw” during a game when paired with some of the available River copying effects.

Knights of the Hollow Hill- Ok, I know, KotHH isn’t an agenda that most people think of for Greyjoy unless they’re going along the lines of the (also Shagga) characterless Rhaenys’ Hill deck that Dobbler took to Worlds 2013, but it has a perfect home in this deck. First, a deck that’s using The Reaver’s Song is going to have trouble keeping up a location based resource base, and Knights of the Hollow Hill conveniently provides a big boost there, with no location commitment. Second, Flood Waters needs influence, and having it available right off the bat and at a moment’s notice means that we can likely use it at our leisure.

Redwyne Straits- Not only does this River plot fuel our Crossing the Mummer’s Ford, but it’s hard to argue with the huge economy boost that it provides on the first turn, where KotHH is certain to have less cards at command. And, you’re likely to still have less on the second turn, where you can put that extra four gold to use again. It’s a great way to supplement our economy without relying on locations.

Iron Lore- Well, we’re still bound to use a few locations, because Greyjoy really, really likes them, so what easier way is there to get one back on the board once it’s gone? Nothing. And the best part is that it is a “put into play” effect rather than a “play” effect, so the rest of the game restriction on The Reaver’s Song doesn’t stop it.

First Mate- Probably the second easiest way to put locations on the board after a Reaver’s Song. While he’s limited to just Warships, he’ll still be able to return a number of useful locations (since Greyjoy’s best are all Warships anyway) and can even cheat them into play from your hand without the gold cost, or the restriction from Reaver’s Song applying.

Andrik the Unsmiling/Blackwater Raiders- Andrik is a solid character that I’ve seen in Greyjoy Black Sails decks mainly for the naval enhancement, but his ability to take locations out of the opponent’s discard pile and put them into play on your side of the board is superb in a deck like this. Not only does he get around the Reaver’s Song restriction, but you can potentially get some really sweet effects on some out of house locations. Even just some income is a nice boost. Blackwater Raiders are an older, often overlooked card that bring the same type of ability to the table. Sadly, they aren’t repeatable, but you can get any location from the opponent’s discard pile rather than just the top, so you’re much more likely to get something that you can get some use out of.

Thoughts on Play:
This is one that I’m itching to put together on paper and play at our usual AGOT night next weekend. Conveniently, it uses a different enough arrangement of Greyjoy cards that I think I can build it without having to raid cards out of Deviora’s Greyjoy Black Sails that is built with my cards. I’ll be sure to come back to report on how it played once I have the opportunity to do so.
That said, the deck should play a pretty good aggro-control game. We have the River plots with Crossing the Mummer’s Ford and Flood Waters to generate an absurd amount of card advantage and keep the options coming. Desperate Measures helps find the pieces that we need a given time, while our various recursion measures can return discarded locations to play.

The usual Valar gives us one option to control the opponents board, while a few of the regular Greyjoy saves pave the way for us to come out on top in board position afterward. Interestingly, this deck is a perfect home for Salt Wife, to “save” the day, pun intended. As well, we have a couple extra reset options with Storm the Gate available to clear out a good chunk of characters. With the flexible gold or influence cost, we should be able to pay for it whenever we need it. Alannys and Finger Dance help make sure that our valuable events go off without a hitch, and are sure to throw a wrench in opponent’s plans. Confession takes key pieces out of the opponents hand, and as a bonus can throw a location into the discard pile for Andrik or the Blackwater Raiders to get- all while sporting a flexible cost of its own.

On the more aggressive side of things, we’ve chosen Asha Greyjoy as our restricted card to really help close out a game. With The Reaver’s Song likely to knock out several locations at once, and the higher than normal intrigue icon count in this deck, it’ll be a snap to make sure Asha is active. As well, we back her up with a solid range of high strength to gold cost ratio characters who can push challenges with a minimum of investment.

To wrap it all up, I’m excited to see how Blessed by the Maiden does in this deck. It’s done good work for me in Martell Bloodthirst, and this seems like a deck that is also likely to power through a good chunk of itself when it works correctly. Blessed gives us the chance to keep dropping some of those more important cards back into the deck so we can get to them again. It also helps keep someone like our restricted Asha from becoming unplayable while a copy languishes in the dead pile. I’m particularly enthused to see the fun of shuffling a couple copies of Flood Waters and another copy of Blessed by the Maiden back into my deck to keep the copious amounts of card advantage coming.

The Deck:

Deck Built with CardGameDB.com GoT Deckbuilder

The River Reaver's Song


Total Cards: (64)

House:
House Greyjoy


Agenda: (1)
1x Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM)

Plot: (7)
1x Crossing the Mummer's Ford (SoW)
1x Crossing the Ruby Ford (RotK)
1x Shores of Ny Sar (VM)
1x Before the Black Walls (VD)
1x Redwyne Straits (FF)
1x Under the Bridge of Dream (VD)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)

Character: (32)
2x Alannys Greyjoy (ODG)
1x Andrik the Unsmiling (TPoL)
3x Asha Greyjoy (WLL)
1x Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR)
3x Blackwater Raiders (TftRK)
3x Damphair's Drowned (FaI)
3x Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK)
2x Enraged Crewman (SoW)
2x First Mate (SB)
1x Gormond Goodbrother (THtW)
2x Kingsmoot Hopeful (FtC)
1x Maester Murenmure (CbtC)
1x Maester Wendamyr (KotS)
1x Moqorro (VD)
1x Qarl the Maid (AJE)
2x Salt Wife (AE)
1x The Reader (TGF)
1x Victarion Greyjoy (RotK)
1x Wex Pyke (KotS)

Attachment: (0)


Event: (20)
2x Iron Lore (MotA)
2x Storm the Gate (TBG)
3x The Reaver's Song (SoW)
2x Confession (KotS)
3x Desperate Measures (TCC)
3x Flood Waters (ARotD)
3x Finger Dance (WLL)
2x Blessed by the Maiden (AJE)

Location: (12)
3x Captured Cog (AHM)
1x Longship Black Wind (CbtC)
1x Longship Grey Ghost (TK)
2x Longship Iron Victory (KotS)
3x Sunset Sea (Core)
2x Kingsroad Fiefdom (QoD)