Forgotten Plans - Current Sleepers

After quite a delay, I welcome you to a brief return of Forgotten Plans! Forgotten Plans is a column that takes a look at cards, decks, and strategies that have fallen out of favor at the moment but remain potent or are looking newly potent at the moment due to the current state of the game. Things are under works, so hopefully we’ll have a more permanent writer in this column soon.

This week, I’d like to talk a little bit about some of my card choices from a Martell deck that I recently played in the 2013 Missouri Regional. Those of you who listen to 2C1C already know that I fought the decision to play The Long Voyage until the last minute and that the TLV deck that I played first started as a Knights of the Hollow Hill deck that I modified to flow a little better as an 85 card deck that needed regular resources. What you might not know are some of the key cards that I included in the deck which I felt were really right for the field right now.

Spear Phalanx (HtS) - This is a card that I found while looking for some more influence based effects to round out the KotHH version of the deck. When I converted, I was on the fence about including it because the jump from a two to three influence effect in an eighty-five card deck is pretty big due to variance. I wound up keeping it in, however, and I am very glad that I did so. In the increasingly aggro focused meta that has developed this Regional season, Spear Phalanx is a phenomenal deterrent card that can really slow the game down. My most popular targets are probably Cersei Lannister or Stannis Baratheon. It’s still useful against many other characters as well, and if you can hit something without a dupe, discard saves are far less common than kill so you’re likely to take out your opponent’s most threatening attackers. It’s also nice to have the Spear Phalanx on offense. If you don’t happen to have enough influence or have To the Spears! revealed as your plot, a four strength bicon attacker with deadly is nothing to sneeze at.

Sun Stroke (QoD) - The time is ripe for negative attachments. With the restriction of the Tin Link, attachments as a whole became much more viable. I had thought at first that people would just default to some of the other attachment control to shore things up in the meantime, but instead it looks like most folks have opted instead to forgo attachment control at all. While I don’t expect this trend to continue, for the moment, it’s a great time to include something like Sun Stroke. Aside from the Tin Link restriction, the agro meta also plays into my choice of Sun Stroke. Against any of the agro decks like Baratheon that want to attack with multiple characters to maximize their renown and the like, Sun Stroke forces them to alter their challenge math or immediately lose their key Stannis or Knight of Flowers to the minus strength response. If your opponent opts to play around this, you've probably slowed them down immensely to help set up your own board control. Of course, Sun Stroke has another key line of text which can often go overlooked when seen next to the flashy response- that glorious “Cannot be Saved” text! This means that you can also drop it on the opponent’s most fearsome or key character and make certain that they’ll die to Valar Morghulis or other kill effects. This is particularly potent text with the power and popularity of Greyjoy at the moment.

Words Are Like Arrows (WLL) - Another piece of the deck that came from the KotHH background, Words Are Like Arrows turned out to be much easier to pay for all day than I expected. I don’t think there was ever a time when I didn’t have influence to play a two influence event which assuages my fears about the variance of resources in an 85 card deck quite a bit. The KotHH build was one that I started work on when Rusted Maesters was looking to be a popular option here in our group and I was looking for tools to tech against it. Conveniently, those decks had nothing that could save from a return to hand effect, which let me use this to bounce Maesters and remove chains in an indirect manner. It also turns out to work well against any number of power grabbing characters in order to slow the game down. It’s a surprisingly versatile event and players really should not overlook the ability to use it after losing a challenge as the attacker. Feel free to throw a chump attack at that 47 strength maester that the opponent is planning on standing with Meereenese Fighting Pit just so you can bounce their character. If they let it through, “hey, free challenge!” Then you can get them when they swing back at you.

The Red Viper (APS) - Most people would choose the immune Viper in a heartbeat, and up until this deck, I would have heartily agreed with them. Still, Greg and Darryl have been talking this Viper up for quite awhile and on a bit of a lark, I decided to give him a try. The verdict is that he’s completely awesome. I wouldn’t say he’s hands down better, but he can really help you put and keep pressure on with less support and careful play than the immune Viper. Much like Words Are Like Arrows, don’t forget that you can trigger him to gain gold tokens even when you lose on attack. This gives chump attacks an even higher than normal value and charges him up for some truly devastating turns. I’d say that I was using up his gold pretty quickly just to keep standing him rather than raising claim, but the stealth and renown combination on a tricon leads to him gathering power even faster than his sturdier brother. On your To the Spears Turn! He really hits a homerun. This guy closes out games hands down.

Crossroads (Core)- This one is probably the most surprising entry in the list for any readers. When I made the conversion from KotHH to TLV, I really wanted to make certain that I had enough influence and enough gold/reduction. As another who’s built TLV knows, figuring out the right resource curve and ratio for a deck that size can take a bit of finesse. As well, even with a larger than normal deck and the large number of Martell restricted cards, there were a lot that I wanted to include in the deck. This led me to trying to figure out the most efficient way to fit in both resource types and it turns out that the number of cards that produce both is awfully low. Crossroads hasn’t really seen play in the LCG since the early Core days when Targaryen desperately needed any and all influence it could find. These days most folks shy away from it for the slow return on gold investment. I’m glad to say, however, that in practice, I was always happy to have Crossroads at my disposal and it provided the perfect confluence of resources to help me make the most of the additional cards that I was drawing due to The Long Voyage.

So there you have it, folks, another long awaited look at underrated or overlooked cards.