All Things Shagga - The Tattered Lion

The wild and wooly land of Shagga-dom waits for no man (or woman) and thus we find ourselves once again wandering back through these woods this Wednesday. This week, I was feeling a little short on inspiration, but thankfully, my cohost on 2C1C, Kyle Vancil, happened to be chatting about a rather unique tournament they had where each player was assigned one of the “bad” agendas in the game and then had to design a deck around it. It turned out that the agenda he had was The Tattered Prince, and as he talked about it, I knew we had our deck for this week. So, to credit where it’s due, this is my interpretation of Kyle’s deck from what he mentioned in that conversation.

The Cards:

The Tattered Prince- Hey, it turns out that some of the character agendas are awfully good. Sure, no one has been accusing The Tattered Prince of being up there with Quentyn Martell, but he does enable one of my very favorite Shagga things- playing cards from other houses! The mercenary pool isn’t huge, but there are some nice gems, and mercenary hate isn’t played quite as heavily as ally hate.

Summoned by the Conclave- This brand new plot is one of the biggest boons that character agenda decks have gotten, by allowing them to immediately search out their agenda so they can get it into play and kill it ASAP. Sure, it’s not as efficient as just starting with an agenda rather than blowing a plot slot, but it’s a whole heck of a lot better than using Summoning Season and giving your opponent a free choice of character and leagues better than *gasp* waiting to draw it by hand.

Fleet From Lys/ Fleet From Volantis- These agenda-armies really bring the beef to the table as cheap mercenaries that play in to the out of house theme. Though agenda-less Lannister decks are popular at the moment, these armies should still get the -3 gold discount in the majority of your games. Throw in the -1 and lack of gold penalty from The Tattered Prince and you’re looking at 7 strength armies with a nice icon spread on the board for 3 gold. It’s hard to turn that deal down, even if they can’t be played on setup.

Tribeless Vagabond/Pentoshi Guildmaster/ Ashemark Knight- While searching for mercenaries lower on the gold curve, I happened back upon the Vagabond, which I love as a cheap stealthy character with any icon that I need. Conveniently that same search also turned up the Pentoshi Guildmaster, which can be a reasonablely priced tricon once your agenda is rolling, but more importantly can be tossed to the Vagabond over and over since your Fleets make you quite likely to win challenges by 4. Ashemark Knight gives us another solid outlet for the Guildmaster and helps us to some free card quality along the way.

Gold Cloaks/Cape Wrath- Ah, our draw engine of choice and one of the only reasons to care about the Mercenary trait. In this deck, it shouldn’t really be too hard to draw a full three cards from him when you bring him out of shadows. Plus, the 4 strength body isn’t too shabby to push across some challenges. Then of course, with Cape Wrath, you can pop him right back into Shadows once you in a challenge by 4 and he’ll be ready to come out and drawcap you again next turn.

Thoughts on Play:

Most games, you’ll want to open first turn with Summoned by the Conclave to get The Tattered Prince as I mentioned above, especially since the out of house cards aren’t terribly setup friendly. If your opponent is kind enough to help you with a military challenge to kill the Prince, so much the better, but if not, Wildfire Assualt is probably my plot of choice for the second turn to make sure that the Prince can be killed and prior to Marshalling. As an added bonus, Wildfire can pare down the opponent’s board a bit if they landed a bit too much from Setup and their first turn.

Of course, going the character agenda route means that we have a bit of lag time to deal with. A few of Lannister’s notable control locations in Pentoshi Manor, Lannisport Brothel, and The Iron Throne give us some footing to help hold the opponent back while we set up. As well, if things go poorly we do have resets available to us. If Wildfire is nice, particularly if we don’t have to use it second turn, because our larger pound for pound characters are likely to give us a leg up in the challenge phase after we weed out the characters on the table. If needed, though, we do still have Valar Morghulis up our sleeve as well.

Once you have things up and going, we’re a fairly aggro deck. We have some really beefy mercenaries in the Fleets and to a lesser extent the Gold Cloaks to push through challenges. On top of that, we’re even able to play the House Clegane Brigands that have seen so much play and success in Lannister no/character- agenda decks. Though they don’t have the mercenary trait, they’re right at home here as a very efficient beatstick that features a war crest. The war crests available on our armies are one of the key features to make the opponent fear this aggro deck. With the icon spread on our high strength characters as well as the crests, we’re able to use Price of War, Die by the Sword, Terminal Schemes, and Seductive Promise. This assortment means that our opponent can never be quite sure of what to expect and thus has to fear the worst from every challenge. And that’s not even counting the effects of two claim, which we do have a couple turns of.

If you can make it through the slow start, this deck should offer a nice challenge phase powerhouse.

The Deck:

Deck Built with CardGameDB.com GoT Deckbuilder

Tattered Lion

Total Cards: (60)

House:
House Lannister

Agenda: (0)

Plot: (7)
1x Take Them by Surprise (LoW)
1x Wildfire Assault (Core)
1x Summoned by the Conclave (AHA)
1x Cersei's Scheme (TPoL)
1x City of Soldiers (TBoBB)
1x Manning the City Walls (CD)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)

Character: (34)
1x Bronn (Core)
1x Daario Naharis (WLL)
3x Fleet from Lys (RotK)
3x Fleet from Volantis (RotK)
3x Gold Cloaks (AToT)
3x Ser Gregor's Dog (FF)
2x The Tattered Prince (AJE)
3x Tribeless Vagabond (OSaS)
2x Pentoshi Guildmaster (Core)
3x Ashemark Knight (FF)
3x House Clegane Brigands (AToTT)
3x Lannisport Moneylender (LotR)
1x Tommen Baratheon (SA)
2x Lannisport Weaponsmith (Core)
1x The Second Sons (ARotD)

Attachment: (0)


Event: (8)
2x The Price of War (KotS)
2x Die by the Sword (LoW)
2x Terminal Schemes (LotR)
2x Seductive Promise (Core)

Location: (18)
1x Pentos (CD)
1x Volantis (VM)
1x Lannisport Brothel (Core)
2x Lannisport Treasury (LotR)
3x Pentoshi Manor (AHM)
1x Street of Sisters (Core)
1x Street of Steel (Core)
1x Shadowblack Lane (Core)
2x The Goldroad (LotR)
2x The Iron Throne (LotR)
1x Queen Cersei's Chambers (LotR)
2x Cape Wrath (AJE)