Forging the Chain - Preparing your Deck for Major Events

Forging the Chain – Preparing your Deck for Major Events

(or That card isn’t broken, your deck just isn’t ready)

Welcome back to another edition of Forging the Chain. This week I’m going to discuss a subject which I’ve heard a fair amount about since Gencon, autoloss cards for decks. I’ve heard a number of people complain that a particular card which is an autoloss for their deck and ergo it is bad for the game. Let me start with a blanket statement, these cards are not too overpowered, you just don’t have a strong enough deck. To be a bit more specific, I mean that if you build a one dimensional deck that is wrecked by one card, you have not built a great deck. It may be a good deck that often works and destroys everyone in your meta, but it will not be successful when paired up against the best AGOT players in the world. For instance, if you build a Stark Siege deck that only has military characters, epic events, and only worries about winning military challenges you will run into situations where you will struggle. If you preplot that epic event and play fear of winter your opponent will wreck your day by dropping down Shadows and Spiders. Since you have not included many intrigue icons in your deck, you will not be able to grab that overwhelming first turn advantage you were expecting. Now if you had built a really good deck you would have been aware of this problem and included many of the great Stark characters like Damon Dance For Me which can help you win both military and intrigue challenges. So to begin, my advice is that you build a deck without autolosses. This can often be a daunting task and will quite possibly rule out a lot of fun and interesting decks. However, if your goal is to win a title or make the top 16, you are going to have to face this reality. By stating this I am not saying that all matchups will be in your favor as this is not possible. However, it is possible to avoid building decks that have multiple 90/10 matchups against you.

As always I will provide you with some examples from my own experience. Before Gencon I tested about 30 different decks and most struggled with this issue, one popular archetype was a really terrible matchup. For instance, while I love Greyjoy they struggle with Targ right now, at least the way I play them. I tend to rely heavily on the save aspect of the deck and Targ completely neutralizes the ability to save. My biggest fear was using At the Gate to plunk down Wendamyr and then having him instantly killed with a Flame Kissed. Was this likely to happen every game, of course not. Was I going to play Targ every round, of course not. However, I was not building a deck to survive the Swiss rounds, I needed a deck that would not face an autoloss matchup once we cut to head to head. With Targ being so popular the odds seemed good I would face one if I fared well in the tournament. So I had to pass on the deck I was in love with. However, it did go 4-0 in the warmup event demonstrating that it was still a great deck. Next I looked at Bara Wildlings. This was another deck that when it worked well it was an absolute beast. However, an early Valar against a non-duped Val or even worse Val and TLS often meant I lost. So I set aside another strong deck. I have always like Power Behind the Throne, but I just have not been able to put a balanced build together. I have certainly been able to put builds together that when not impeded completely wreck my opponent. However, these builds usually fell apart to decks that could stop its early intrigue rush. In the end I just couldn’t find decks that were better than my Martell Maester deck. However, even this deck struggled with a few matchups and this is where the real work begins when building a deck.

It’s easy to put together a deck that just crushes 50 percent of the other decks and gets hammered by 20 percent of them. However, in my opinion this is not a great deck. It can be really fun, but I pursue a more balanced deck. I strive for a deck with a positive win percentage against as many archetypes as I can get and then maximizing my chances in bad matchups. So after deciding on a Martell Maester deck I thought carefully about what gave the deck trouble. The main answer is removal of chained up masters. This means that many common cards were problematic for the deck: nightmares, house divided, first snow of winter, seductive promises, kill events, targ burn, and valar. Before the restriction of the Maester’s Path most of these problems were solved with Narrow Escape. After that tool was taken away, I realized I needed new tools or a new deck. Fortunately, after pouring over the toughest matchups I realized that cancels handled most of the deck’s problems, so I added 2 Paper Shield, 2 Hand’s Judgment, and 3 HCIT. While these handled many of the problems, a well timed First Snow/Rule by Decree combo was really difficult. So Forgotten Plans was added to the deck. However, this choice added a whole new skill element to the deck. Not only do I need to try to play Outwit at the correct time, I now had to determine when I should play First Snow. But this added degree of difficulty was well worth the tradeoff. Thus, by the time Gencon rolled around, I felt like I had a deck that had a favorable matchup against most decks, even those which many builds would struggle against. Bara Wildlings with giant armies and Seductive Promises was no longer a scary deck. I could cancel their events and bounce their armies. Targ burn relies heavily on attachments and Hatchling’s Feast. My deck included Hand’s Judgment specifically to deal with Hatchling’s Feast and my chains would handle Flame Kissed nicely. My preparation payed off nicely and I never ran into a deck I felt unequipped to handle.

As stated above I’ve heard people complain that various cards are bad for the game. For instance, before Threat from the East was errataed, TLS was a really, really strong card. Either your deck had to be able to endure getting way behind first turn or include Fortified Position. Many people had begun including Fortified Position in their deck. While this was a bit annoying, you could work around this issue. More recently I heard someone state that Shadows Catelyn is bad for the game because she can stop intrigue challenges and as such she single handedly was able to destroy his one dimensional Lannister Power Behind the Throne deck. Returning to my previous statement, if one card wrecks your deck you probably don’t have a great deck. So let’s take a look at how a Lannister PBTT focusing entirely on intrigue can handle her. The most obvious answer is permanent character removal. If you can hit her with a Terminal Schemes before the Stark player puts a card into shadows you will be in business. Ok this is unlikely to happen. So let’s look at other ways to handle her. First, you could play Fortified Position and kill her with Terminal Schemes. You could also play cards that neutralize her like Milk of the Poppy. Both of these solutions are useful because they can handle a myriad of annoying characters such as the Red Viper. Spoiler alert: this is one of Bruno’s favorite tricks so look out. A less permanent solution is House Divided. Every Lannister deck should be running this card and is probably running a bunch of allies. So set up a turn in which you can put out Myrcella and a 2 claim plot. Then bounce Cat and wreck their hand. Another useful tool for Lannister is trait manipulation followed by Dissension or Arys Oakheart. Again this tool isn’t just useful for controlling Catelyn but any other annoying character such as a chained up master. While this is only one example, this approach can be applied to any deck. If there is one or two cards that are popular in the meta you must have an answer to them. If you don’t, don’t complain when they wreck you, you only have yourself to blame!

Well, hopefully this article will help you prepare for your next major event. Until next time, keep improving.