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Crimson and Gold - Enemies of the Crown Pt 2
Aug 09 2012 08:25 PM |
Rave
in Game of Thrones
Small Council Crimson and Gold Rave
Welcome back to Crimson and Gold.This week we will continue our journey through Westeros to the Iron Islands, home of the toothless pirate brigades and child conquerors!
Seriously though, Greyjoy is a great house, and gets better every chapter pack.
Today we're going to cover a favorite of many... Grejoy Winter Choke.
This deck is famous for turning bad setups into trainwrecks and making new players never want to play the game again. When you're locked down hard, and early, generally that's it. Your reset is also pretty useless beyond a certain point... so what the heck do you do?
For the moment, my deck of choice against these guys is a Lannister Night's Watch. Night's Watch isn't a popular theme for sure, but it has merit, and Lannister has the ability to make them shine!
A lot of the Night's Watch cards are kind of boring, but they have great uniques, and some solid set-ups.
This is the latest version of what I'm runninng.
Total Cards (60)
House (1)
House Lannister (Core) x1
Agenda (3)
The Builders (ASitD) x1
The Rangers (WotN) x1
The Stewards (AKitN) x1
Plot (7)
Shadows and Spiders (LotR) x1
Fleeing to the Wall (Core) x1
Retaliation! (ASoSilence) x1
Regroup (KotStorm) x1
Spending the Winter Stores (QoD) x1
Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) x1
Edict of the Rock (LotR) x1
Character (34)
Mountain Refugee (RoW) x3
Tommen Baratheon (SA) x1
Samwell Tarly (TRS) x1
Carrion Bird (TWoW) x3
Old Bear's Crow (TGM) x1
Lost Ranger (RotO) x1
Ranger of the Watch (WotN) x3
Steward of the Watch (AKitN) x3
Builder of the Watch (ASitD) x3
Satin (WLL) x1
Maester Aemon (Core) x1
Dolorous Edd (TWH) x3
Janos Slynt (WotN) x1
Jon Snow (Core) x1
Ghost (Core) x1
Mance Rayder (RotO) x1
Benjen Stark (Core) x1
Ser Barristan Selmy (Core) x1
Old Bear Mormont (RotO) x1
Defenders of the North (AKitN) x3
Location (13)
The Goldroad (Core) x3
The Gift (EB) x1
Street of Silk (LotR) x1
River Row (QoD) x1
Golden Tooth Mines (Core) x3
Lannisport Tourney Grounds (ODG) x1
The Wall (RotO) x3
Attachment (5)
Pyromancer's Cache (TWot5K) x3
Slander and Lies (HtS) x1
Head of a Dwarf (RoW) x1
Event (8)
Yoren's Task (BtW) x2
The Wealth of the Rock (LotR) x2
Condemned by the Council (AToT) x2
A House Divided (WLL) x2
This article, like the one before, will go over some of the deck's weaknesses, and how to take advantage of them.
Greyjoy Winter gets a lot of its mid to late game bite from your Valar
An odd concept, but really, if you think about it, in the matchup, if you are actually hanging in the game, the coup de grace usually is dealt when you're forced to flip this on yourself. The Greyjoy player saves key characters with his locations, and you're stuck with no gold and 0 claim for a turn that may be crucial.
We can solve this problem by not running Valar, or for that matter, any reset.
The Lannister Night's Watch is build to deal with swarms. The vast majority of your character base are cheap tricons, and when the board is filled with characters on both sides, there are only two things you needto focus on.
-Winning power on attack and defense
-Chump blocking everything else
If your opponent has a ton of renown characters, obviously this is a different story, but in any other case, your opponent will get no power from you this way outside of possibly winning dominance, and you will slowly beat them through attrition. Chances are, your opponent cannot match you in power icons, and this is all that really matters late game.
You also have six 1 cost characters with stealth military, and the chance of drawing into Janos Slynt for even more stealth.
Opponents that catch on, and then try to match you in characters can also potentially trigger a huge late game Wealth of the Rock, which can trigger an even larger swarm. If this swarm includes Old Bear, you can go an entire plot cycle without a reset.
Greyjoy Winter relies on Newly-Made Lord for location control
In most cases, this isn't a bad thing, but in this particular matchup, you get a huge advantage.
Newly Made Lord (TftH) can't discard The Wall because of its high cost.
Being a 4 cost location matched up against GJ winter, you aren't going to get many opportunities to play it, but if you can come off an early (or post Wealth of the Rock) turn by playing this, you can start to cause some problems.
Defenders of the North + The Wall is bad news for most decks, and Greyjoy Winter is no exception. The wall can take a lot of the pressure off your board when it comes to characters like Wintertime Maurauders.
Also, anytime you have a Carrion Bird, the Wall is an easy way to get White Raven off of their house.
You may notice I'm cherry picking a lot of cards here on my end.
Here is the reason Lannister works so well for the deck.
We purposely play more draw than we need because unlike most decks where you want to play just enough draw that so you aren't wasting slots by constantly hitting your cap, here, there is always the threat of Dolorous Edd. Dolorous Edd is a pretty wicked card, and unanswered, drawing a sixth of your deck every turn is going to draw into every card you need pretty quickly. Yoren's Task also helps grab the missing part of your combo in a pinch. (Sam, Edd, or Defenders usually) Your opponent's Rule by Decree also wont accomplish much if your engine is already going: you keep the key cards you need, and then draw to cap that same marshalling phase, and possibly more.
Greyjoy Winter is weak to Fleeing to the Wall
Greyjoy Winter is a fast deck that is built to survive Valar, so it needs to juggle both reducers and save locations. A well placed Fleeing to the Wall (maybe 6 locations or so) will weaken its presence quite a bit. Fleeing to the Wall also gives you the advantage of being able to toss a location of yours they've chosen to Burn and Pillage, even if you only have 3 yourself.
Greyjoy has poor answers for attachments
Stick your Caches on The Wall and your Gold locations and ride the card-draw wave.
Wintertime Marauders (ACoS) can hit any card you attach them to, but unless you're locked down already, they'll have a hard time getting through your defense.
Misc stuff
Open with Loyalty Money can Buy
With no Bay of Ice in sight, this will beat A Time for Ravens if it pops up, and gives you the opportunity to play at least 1 turn of gold unmolested. Samwell and the Wall are both good plays here. Sam will give you free draw when White Raven hits, and playing The Wall will get it out early and it will probably stay around all game. (Don't dupe The Wall vs Greyjoy, If they start stacking Burn and Pillage on it, toss it with Fleeing to the Wall and just try to play a copy later)
Loyalty Money can Buy also cushions the blow for Fear of Winter, which also tends to pop up.
Satin
He has his uses in here: Post 'A House Divided', or if your opponent has already drawn to cap. Even if your opponent hasn't, if you have Edd out, and cap at 6, it might be worth it anyway. Otherwise you can at least peek at the cards, which could give you some insurance for Lost Ranger at the very least. I would personally avoid using him to try and deck your opponent, but the option is there.
An annoying 3 card combo
I mentioned something similar to this in an old article, but Janos Slynt out with Head of a Dwarf and Slander and Lies on an opponent's character makes the game pretty miserable for your opponent, because you can discard their power in real-time. Massive amounts of renown can still pull out a win, but short of that, you can stall the game forever if you need to. They will get power claim if they win power (since it is considered “moved†and not claimed) and that's it. With 2 attachments and an ally, it's pretty fragile, but if this can't be answered, you're at a huge advantage.
Wealth of the Rock
This is your get-out-of-jail-free card. Use it wisely. If you successfully play this, make sure it is on a turn where you can get some characters or The Wall out there. Don't be afraid to drop it in an early turn either, especially VS. Greyjoy winter. Enjoy the gold boost, and hope the second one pops up later.
Benjen/Barristan
Because of your draw potential, it's going to be much easier for you to deck yourself than most other decks. Because of this, if you draw into these guys, it will be smart to hang onto them until you can get some use out of their abilities.
Spending the Winter Stores
This is important against Power Rush decks. Grab your Slander and Lies.
Otherwise, it's a good way to get your Caches out. Early Head of a Dwarf on a duped or key character is also a good way to slow the game down.
Beware VS Stark, or they will grab Frozen Solid and Freeze your Wall. (Which makes absolutely no sense by the way, if I was a Ned type player, that would drive me crazy)
Other cards to look out for
Stannis Baratheon[Core]
This guy just plain cheats. Don't bother looking at the deck list, you have 1 Lord and he's busy playing with Ser Pounce. Stannis has 3 things we hate: An ability we can't reliably answer, renown, and a power icon. Your only hope is a character played off The Wall, but with Stannis usually comes Smugglers Cove, Massey's Hook, and other characters with Renown, so you're probably going to be giving away 4+ power on any challenge he initiates late game. If you have the opportunity to use A House Divided, and have Satin out, that is your best bet. Other than that, if your Slander in Lies isn't in your discard already, Stannis is a pretty good target for that. Don't forget you can Search and Detain yourself to grab this off another character if you need to.
Aegon's Hill/Ghost of High Heart
These cards should be a big Red Flag when they come out. If you're lucky enough to go second and your opponent plays this, it's time to actually play your Defenders of the North and not have them sit in your hand, the same goes with Benjen Stark and Barristan if you have any of them. Our permanent control is sparse, but these are both good targets for either.
Brienne of Tarth[Multi-house]
If you don't have the field strength to defend power, she can keep The Wall from having any effect. If you're going first, try to use your stealth on other characters to force her to kneel out on defense if you can.
Rule by Decree
This is a fairly obvious counter to the decktype, and you should definitely keep it in mind throughout the early turns. Once you get some carddraw going, though, it's not that big of a deal. Keep your key cards and just draw to cap again.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the deck. Thanks for reading.
- bigfomlof likes this
13 Comments
I don't know why I wouldn't have thought about Dolorous Edd with the vast amount of card draw that Lannister has access to.
I am curious how this deck works in general however.
Your number one goal is to monopolize the power challenge. Slowly claim and maintain your power. The more you draw into, the easier it gets.
When you draw into The Wall and Defender's of the North, the greater chance you have to monopolize the challenge phase in it's entirety.
Because of the way The Wall is worded, you can't stealth characters that come into play off of it, so Defenders of the North make it extremely difficult to get anything through.
At the point where you have The Wall, and 3x Defenders of the North, it doesn't matter how much power you need. More than likely, that's a lock. Power is the only thing that matters at that point, and chances are you have more power icons, more draw, and more STR than your opponent does, not to mention The Wall to back you up.
Renown causes a problem here, because it's where military and intrigue challenges actually begin to matter, in the late game, it is pretty diffcult to block all 3 challenges at once, even with The Wall.
Military claim is not very effective against NW and their swarms, and intrigue wont do much if a draw engine is already out there. A simple chump block should suffice for these later on if necessary.
That's pretty much my gameplan, seems to work pretty well.
If you are worried about losing the Wall to Burned and Pillaged and Support of the Kingdom, then perhaps as a small contingency(and multiuseful), add Chella, Daughter of Cheyk (Core) and if you happen to have the Gold(or slander and lies etc), you will be able to get The Wall back.
Have you considered First Ranger (TBC)? This would be a fantastic card effect during your Edict of the Rock round.
Qhorin Halfhand (LoW) is generally solid for 3 gold(renown plus a good kill effect) and Longclaw (ASitD) will very unlikely be leaving play as long as you keep controlling Night's Watch characters.
I don't doubt you had considered the Night's Watch suggestions before, but I thought they'd be fun to mention anyway.
For the record, I've always liked Snowed Under (Core). I think its low gold and initiative makes it a little unfavorable, but it could be used against Maesters, power rush, indirect attachment discard(return a character with a bad attachment), and maybe offensively(character has a put into play effect you'd like to use again) or defensively(to pull a character out of play to protect it from the plot phase).
I'm a fan of the Night's Watch and would really like them to be a viable deck option so kudo's to you!
Would Retreat (Core) be viable with Old Bear Mormont's ability? I mean, he's expensive but is certainly a nice character to keep in play for additional unfavorable "when revealed" effects.
Interesting. I do acknowledge the threat of these cards, but I think since the GJ opponent doesn't get any benefit from The Wall and has to cease some income control to do this, this use of Support of the Kingdom strikes me as more of a gimmick. Also, because it requires winning power, and power is the most important challenge to win and block as the NW deck, I think it isn't going to go off often enough to consider it as a serious threat. Though. that is a killer way to deal with Pyromancer's Cache that I didn't think about, since Goldroad is usually the go-to location for it.
An early Price of War is a pretty devestating play... good call. An early game play like this would make the game pretty miserable for the NW player.
I do think though, that discarding The Wall when your opponent is established with either of these cards is pretty difficult. Even if your NW opponent doesn't have Defenders of the North, they have an easy +2 or +3 STR boost to defend any challenge you initiate.
Thank you! It does have a few horrible matchups, but it's much better than I thought. I was surprised how many decks just can't deal with The Wall. However, the cards I mentioned in the article like Stannis or Aegon's Hill just wreck this deck. I hate having to add in cards to toolbox for the chance that 1 or 2 cards pop up.
I had forgotten about Raff, good call. I wish his ability wasn't so throwaway though.
Adding some more NW synergy would be good, First Ranger sounds pretty hilarious. I've actually never tried the NW before this, so I'm sure there's a good amount of synergy a more experienced NW player could bring to this build.
Awesome insight in general. I really like the retreat idea, I never really thought about that. Sounds like a good way to protect Dolorous Edd too.
Yeah, I don't like Bought either, but it would suck to put so much into the wall and have to discard it yourself and replay it...
As for early Price of War - my friend built a non-standard Choke deck, heavily utilizing War crests, Wintertime Marauders and Winter Armada (for STR pump and renown). On turn 2 he attacked my Asshai deck after a realtively good flop and followup (4 non-uniques + Mel, some reducers and Altar of Fire). He went in with Military claim 2 and two Marauders, one pumped by the Armada. Obviously, he won. Claim 2, 2x Marauders response, Die by the Sword and Price of War later, I was left with 0 cards on the table. ZERO. Now THAT'S Choke.
Yeah you're right. On the bright side, you can use him like you would use Satin after you play A House Divided (WLL) and it won't cost you a knelt NW character.
If you're worried about Stannis Baratheon (Core), Lannister does have a number of cheap Lord characters including Joffrey Baratheon (PotS)Joffrey Baratheon (KotS), Ser Lancel Lannister (CtB), Ser Kevan Lannister (LotR). You could also add 1x of Randyl Tarly (KotS) for his Lord trait as well and if you have the Old Bear's Crow (TGM) out, he'll help jack up the STR of most of your NW characters.
Yeah, that might transform your deck a little too much, but I guess it's either that or you targeted kill Stannis with Terminal Schemes (LotR) or A Lannister Pays His Debts (Core) maybe.
As for Support of the Kingdom, It's more that you are no longer denying me the 1 gold, than you have to take the -1 gold yourself. Based on the draw in this deck, there is a very good chance I will draw into a duplicate of The Wall early in the game, and because of situations like this, I definitely wont dupe it. Since you're running choke, I won't necessarily be able to play it immediately, but by ceding your choke, you have made it easier.
And man, that was one magnificent flop vs your asshai deck. Ouch.
Mind. Blown. Wow, I can't believe I didn't catch that myself.
As annoying as Stannis is, I don't think it's healthy to remake your deck around 1 character, so I'll just deal. I like the idea of terminal schemes though.
I completely agree about Stannis. At least he'll only hurt you on one challenge unless he is re-stood back up.
I have one more idea, but it may cost too much to even consider. If you toss Rhaegar's Harp (BoRF) on an opponents character that you want to remove with A House Divided (WLL), you will be able to trigger it off of the very next character played by that opponent and target the attached character. Very expensive, but certainly a possibility. Just keep in mind that Terminal Schemes (LotR) won't be able to target that same character if you happen to have it.
Ha! That's a fun trick. But yeah, I do agree with you, too expensive in the long run, especially since A House Divided isn't necessarily permanent removal.
Rhaegar's Harp is so awesome, I have a friend that made a Lanni/Targ alliance that likes to put Rhaegar's Harp on Amory Lorch. LOL