Dumb Fun Decks: Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Bombermaaaaan

First of all, a crucial bit of housekeeping: the name of this deck should always be sung to the tune of Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys (link). Every single time. I'll know if you don't do it. I can't do anything about it, but I'LL KNOW.

Anywhays, much less crucial housekeeping time; this deck is my off-week variant on this one from last week: http://www.cardgamed...ammajamma-r1822

I was interested in the feedback I got on it, there were some interesting ideas there. However, I must say that I completely disagree with putting the Arbor in that deck in any way, the curve was created specifically to always Bitterbridge in one character and marshal one character, Having an Arbor would just prevent marshaling for a round and likely not result in additional characters in subsequent rounds. Totally redundant. In that deck, at least; in this one, it's perfect!

Do you know why it's perfect? That's right, astute reader, it's because I'm going to put in that one other piece of Bitterbridge-friendly tech that I don't think I even mentioned last week: Varys.



Bitterbridge lets you overextend your opponent SO HARD, and the Arbor is the best card to work with Varys since Yoren, letting you build up your economy to preposterous levels before resetting and balling out. Let's jam em all together and see how it goes. This does add the need for many complementary pieces: protection, draw, and the ability to leverage the new board.

I love me some Tyrell-Kraken for exploiting a Varys wipe, but with Bitterbridge in the deck banner Kraken's not bringing much in terms of oomph till Victarion comes out. So instead I went with banner Wolf. It'll be fun to mess around with Old Nan to increase my Bitterbridge triggers and/or guarantee the activation of my Knights of Summer (suck it, Fishwhiskers!), and Fast Eddie is a win condition unto himself with all the other renown that'll be around him.



Next I just needed to make sure I could find Varys and protect him. The double-Close Call is definitely sticking around, so Gregor's not a catastrophic concern. For other protection, 3x Hand's Judgement should help with PttS, Treachery and Nightmares (Puts also may not make it off with whatever you have on the table pre-wipe anyway, you have strong characters). Summons could replace Song of Summer to find Varys (Old Nan can help here), as well as 3x Arbor Red of course (give them a chump or a limited. They can have all the economy they want).

I'm going to lower the curve of the deck to make it likelier to get multiple characters out in marshaling with or without the Arbor, focusing on pre-Varys faction-card power accumulation and post-Varys renown accumulation. Core Sansa and Butterbumps are really great for card advantage and passive power-gain early. Butterbumps and a disposable Renly will make sure you're sitting pretty for a round 3-4 reset.



I don't feel like there's room to bank on having survivors of Varys in this deck. Pulling the Strings is an interesting play in response to that, it can copy your opponent's draw plot, Wildfire, or, most notably, Marched. Each of these are valuable utilities to have in a post-Varys world, but would bog down the plot deck to save spots for each. Sticking with the lack of attachment control fo sho, my last plot's debatable but I'm leaning toward Counting Coppers for supreme draw power. Tech in your own there first.



The rest of the deck should be fairly self-explanatory, Ward is kinda random but super cost-efficient, you can afford it, and some of the most annoying control characters are 4-cost. Cercei, Pycelle, Catelyn, Jhogo, Theon and Davos are all serious irritants against a slow-game deck that are true heroes when converted. The Wards, Heartsbane, second Edmure and the third Nan are my fiddle spots, I'd edit to your own satisfaction there first. Here's the finished decklist:



Showing some intriguing versatility, there are three key win conditions to this deck:

• Overextend your opponent while gaining at least one of your two crucial locations and hopfully card advantage, then triggering Varys on the board and coming back faster and harder.
• Pure renown rush with the absurd amount of power gain possible to flood the board with. Just close it out; no Varys bomb necessary, just your bomb characters.
• Slow burn grind where you just have a heftier board. You may end up threatening Varys, but not necessarily triggering. Renown is harder to rack up for whatever reason, but Dominance and card advantage salt it away for you.

I've gone 1-1 in playtesting thus far; the first game came down to a bad intrigue pull by me against Targ permitting my opponent to get PttSt through on Varys (one outta three that didn't stop it, I got). The second was a grind, where my opponent only wasn't blown out because he kept top-decking Ghastons to reset my renown on Mance and Renly. Those two games were both stupendous fun; I'll have this deck assembled for quite a while, I think. I'm thoroughly pleased with this result.

Next week I think I'll break out a brand new concept: a deck that uses a ton of Bloodriders and get this: DOESN'T run Dracarys. Hahaha, but for realsies, I'll probably break down this interesting Baratheon deck I've been running for a while.

ThronesDB link: https://thronesdb.co...mbermaaaaan-1.0

Discussion thread link: http://www.cardgamed...bomb-bomberman/

Rules thread for Bitterbridge Encampment: http://www.cardgamed...dge-encampment/