Dumb Fun Decks: Bob n' Weave

Lords of the Crossing. An excellent agenda from the ground up. It fundamentally changes the way you approach both deckbuilding and the game itself, helping many houses execute fancy maneuvers or streak to the finish. Accordingly, it is customarily run best by houses known for their finesse and versatility (Targaryen, Lannister) or speed and closing ability (Greyjoy, Tyrell). You know what house has little finesse and isn't particularly fast? Baratheon. Home of grindey tech and passive locations, with dominance and kneel packages to the envy of all, it doesn't seem suited to any of the benefits of Lords of the Crossing.



Or does it? To my mind, a successful Crossing deck has two major components: the ability to get three or more challenges off consistently, hopefully winning at least two; and the ability to prevent awful things from happening back to you while you're committed to the assault. Baratheon, while not very specialized for Crossing (no extra challenges, much tech printed on locations rather than characters), actually has a few very interesting pieces of tech for these two facets if you tweak it hard enough. Much credit to my playfellow Jeff for inspiring me to take a closer look at Bara Crossing by trotting out the combo.

So if I'm going to try this out, my first question is "How to make Baratheon play faster?" Their characters tend to be cumbersome and pricey, but impactful and hard to manage. Solution: do more with less. How? The judicial application of a “future card" whose time is still not here but I'll use it anyway!



Street of Steel has been out for some time, but I've never managed to make it work too well. It feels like every few weeks it flutters through my head, “Can I make something with that yet? Greyjoy Raiders from Pyke? Stark with Ice? Banner Sun for Dawn?” Alas, these musings were to no avail until I considered its application for Bara Crossing. One thing that's always been on the back of my mind is that “or Item” on there. For this deck, I realized I could put in two each of these and search them out to assemble an easy multi-challenge machine!



These cards do bring with them problems that need addressing. Immediately, Lightbringer needs renown, and Milk of the Poppy is overwhelmingly prevalent currently. Baratheon has Cressen though. And House Maesters are great cheap icon density for Crossing. And there's a dumb little-used save around for the taking! And another tech attachment that's searchable with the Street! And so a true Maester module was born.

• Here to Serve – Can snag you an intrigue icon or Cressen to peel a Milk or Craven.
• Healing Expertise – Can definitely be an unexpected swing. Helps the loss mitigation module muchly.
• Maester's Chain – Slow, but dirt cheap and searchable, a cheeky 1x in case you can turn a House Maester into a do-it-all force of nuisance for ya.
• Pylos – Another warm body and stealth on demand is great. Underrated, helpful card that makes Here to Serve much more reliable.

With some of this tech starting to gel in my mind, I began thinking about efficient ways to stop from losing the game instantly as I give my opponents gaping holes to get their tech through. I came to the conclusion that there were many disparate pieces I could pull together to irritate my opponent and most of them benefited from one thing: Going first. Get your stuff done before they go and just deny any bad things that can come back at ya with a wide array of Baratheon frustration tech:

• Robert Barathon – The Fattest of Bobs, he is the absolute centerpiece of this deck and makes everything you're doing easier. Intimidate is excellent, and he wields any of your attachments to perfection.
• King Robert's Warhammer – A great Street of Steet target and excellent go-first tech. I plan on having City Watch and Barristan around, so even not on Fat Bob it should hit pretty hard; harder if it gets buffed by Crossing. Win your third challenge on military, smash their board, and search out a new one for next round!
• In the Name of Your King! – So so so so so many bad things can happen to you on a military challenge. So so so so so just turn that junk off! If you're going first, this is perfect; if second, still pull the trigger if it means saving your butt. Faction card kneel clashes with Street; you gots to pick and choose here.
• Melisandre – Although she usually works better going second, any little bit helps. Also the entire classic R'hlorr package will obviously be included since none of it clashes here and it's decently icon-dense.
• Ours is the Fury – I forget this card exists all the time, and others may as well. Regardless, if you tapped out your stuff on offense this is usually a get-out-of-trigger free card as you get to use your best character on defense, too, regardless of icon. In an ideal situation it results in extra renown and dominance, too.

With that I feel like I've applied some solutions to those two crucial facets of Crossing, many of which are unique to Baratheon and several of which are totally out of left field. Round out the deck with your normal stuff, looking for cost efficiency and icon density with any synergies. I will say I came to only 32 characters (low for Crossing; really gotta hope you can do more with less on the premier characters front) and had a handful of notable excludes:

• Stannis Baratheon – He's another Lightbringer target, but his ability is just not helpful to this deck. I just can't justify him. I'd rather pay another gold for higher strength, a mildly helpful ability, and non-conditional renown on Barristan.
• Renly Baratheon – I love him, think he's way underplayed. But while this deck loves the tricon, there's no way to get him renown, he's super expensive, and there're veeeery few targets for his ability.
• Gendry – Still cost efficient and above the First Snow threshold, I just have no confidence he won't trigger on himself and City Watch is better for a similar price.
• Milk of the Poppy – Cheap, efficient control that I don't like here. It doesn't agree with going first, and is likely temporary, and doesn't help you go faster. I prefer the other mitigation tech in this deck.
• Syrio Forel – He's awesome, I just have other stuff I like more. Grab a spot for him if ya prefer.

So onward to plots. We need money, efficiency and initiative from them. Easy! Why doesn't everyone just get everything from their plots all the time forever? Note: No Wildfire here. It has good initiative and can save your bacon, but I find this deck plays in a way that doesn't need it and I like these more.

• A Noble Cause/Calling the Banners – Economy. You're usually going to open Noble Cause, indifferent to initiative. First lets you use some of your tech more optimally, second is just always a big advantage first round. Calling has good initiative in later rounds and your opponent will likely have more characters out than you.
• Summons/Here to Serve – Draw plots, Summons is to get you Robert or Mel if you don't have them, of the final piece to complete your board. Little initiative control here, but getting the piece you need can be much more essential.
• Clash of Kings/Heads on Spikes – Closers. Raw power gain and initiative. Spikes could easily be a second Clash.
• Varys' Riddle – Tech plot. I'd still run it to cover a 1-character setup with five 7s to three 1s in this deck, even with its threat in the meta already. I also feel like it's already fading a tad as the mad Summer Harvest fad fades (I love this sentence). Has initiative too.

Here's the completed decklist as it stands currently:



This is a fairly wild smattering of tech. I've been playing this deck for over a month now and I'm still trimming and shoring up, so feel free to go nuts on the proportions. I just added the third Street, is it too likely to dead draw now? I HAVE NO IDEA. But anyway, the bones are there: Use a select few badasses laden with equipment, with cheap filler and coverage tech to keep them upright. Punish your opponent for trying to make efficient plays. Setup is looking for an economy card and Robert or Melisandre, but there's a wide smattering of acceptability for this deck. My edit points right now are the Summons and the third Name of Your King or Street of Steel or both (gotta pick one or the other on faction card kneel, 6 total cards may be too many).

This deck has won consistently in testing, but mainly against other “non-classic” decks, so feel free to get it stomped on by the big boys and report back. One notable game I had was against Stark/Lion, I set up Robert and went first every round; I won on plot 4 and I believe he was never able to initiate a challenge because I kept chaining intimidate and Warhammer(s) and any other kneel I found. He did not have a particularly bad draw, all my tech just landed majestically with going first every round. Fun fluky game. This deck is kind of like my first, a faster splashy play that's easy to take lightly because games should be over quick one way or the other.



There are a few notable concerns for this deck. Martell is a serious problem; Nymeria can be a headache and Ghaston will make Robert/Lightbringer suffer. Mirri gets around In the Name of Your King, but is kneelable and healable, so there's that. First Snow is a hazard to all Crossing decks, make sure you win initiative against it. And burn is a HUGE hazard to all crossing decks, I guess just deal with it? Find yourself some room for some Hand's Judgments if you're troubled by it.

Try it yourself and enjoy the confusion value you turn up this dumb house/agenda combination, and the shock as dumb, fun cards keep spilling out of your hand to substantive and unexpected effect!

ThronesDB link: https://thronesdb.co...bob-n-weave-1.0

Discussion thread link: http://www.cardgamed...ks-bob-n-weave/

Remember, if you want to make a variant that I can disassemble next week, just PM me! Some ideas that pop to my head for this concept would be another house that can leverage Street of Steel in a rushy way, a banner that'd help more than Crossing, or any tech I missed that can be effective.