Rise of the Kraken - Back to Oldtown

Welcome back to Rise of the Kraken! After having previously concluded the three-part series on Greyjoy Maesters, we make a one-week return to Oldtown in order to look at the deck that finished 2nd in February's Moonboy Classic event, piloted by Will Lentz (or as you more likely know him, Kennon).

A word of warning - this article might not be as 'newbie-friendly' as some others, as I'm examining the tournament deck in terms of the current global meta (and throwing around terms like current global meta). If you're a beginner hopefully it can still prove useful in showing you the typical balance of cards this type of deck uses, as well as the thought processes that go behind the different card choices.

A second word of warning - due to this article not being the most 'timely', there was a new FAQ put out a couple of weeks ago, with a new restricted list. By that restricted list, this deck now has 4 restricted cards in it - the agenda, Tin Link, The Conclave and Island Refugee. However, while that makes this article lack a relevance to the current meta, it is still hopefully a helpful breakdown of the deck, the choices behind it, and why it worked well for Will in the tournament. At the end I will also consider how to modify the deck to meet this latest FAQ.

Firstly we'll look at Will's deck, which I've broken down into different sections so we can see not only what cards are in the deck, but also what cards are performing what tasks. For those who have read part two of my series on Greyjoy Maesters, this deck sticks pretty closely to the 'Extreme Control' variant. As anyone who reads All Things Shagga will be incredibly unsurprised to hear though, Will has given his deck more of a combo-riffic flavour, with a couple of forgotten cards dusted off and multiple out-of-house cards, but no copy of a certain standard auto-include for Greyjoy.


SAVE/CANCEL/PREVENTION (SCP) - 22

Alannys Greyjoy (ODG) x1
Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR) x1
Leyton Hightower (GotC) x1
Maester Kerwin (VM) x1
Maester Murenmure (CbtC) x1
Maester Wendamyr (KotS) x1
Moqorro (VD) x1
Oldtown Advisor (GotC) x3
The Iron Cliffs (HtS) x2
The Iron Mines (KotS) x3
Citadel Law (MotA) x2
Finger Dance (WLL) x3
Risen from the Sea (KotS) x2


REMOVAL/CONTROL (RC) - 12 (+ 6 Plots)

Carrion Bird (TWoW) x2
Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS) x1
Ser Jorah Mormont (WLL) x1
Dissension (QoD) x3
Copper Link (GotC) x2
Horn of Dragons (ASoSilence) x1
Lead Link (CbtC) x1
Tin Link (CbtC) x1
A City Besieged (CD)
City of Sin (AToT)
City of Soldiers (TBoBB)
City of Spiders (TftRK)
Valar Morghulis (Core)
The Songs of Bael the Bard (AKitN)


POWER/EFFICIENCY (PE) - 14 (+ 1 Plot)

The Conclave (CbtC) x3
Asha Greyjoy (WLL) x1
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK) x3
Island Refugee (RoW) x3
Wex Pyke (KotS) x1
Apprentice Collar (GotC) x3
At the Gates (GotC)


DRAW/RECURSION (DR) - 4

Longship Iron Victory (KotS) x2
Bronze Link (FtC) x1
Valyrian Steel Link (HtS) x1


RESOURCES (RES) - 10

Sunset Sea (KotS) x3
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Gatehouse (KotS) x3

Gold Link (TIoR) x1


Characters: 25 (10 SCP, 4 RC, 11 PE)
Locations: 16 (5 SCP, 2 DR, 9 RES)
Attachments: 11 (5 RC, 3 PE, 2 DR, 1 RES) - 7 On Agenda, 4 In Draw Deck
Events: 10 (7 SCP, 3 RC)
Deck Size: 62
Draw Deck Size: 55

From looking at this decklist, we can see the two main philosophies of the deck are save/cancel/prevention, and trait-manipulation. All the unexpectedly included cards fall into those two sub-categories, and all the cards you'd expect to see (or perhaps see more of) that aren't included are from outside those categories. I'll touch on those specifics in a moment, but first let's look at those ratios. Of the draw deck, 40% of the cards fall into the first type, save, cancel and prevention; 24% are power cards or efficiency cards; 16% are of the removal and control type, and another 16% are resources; lastly, 4% are draw cards, represented by the two LIVs. In the case of that last category that is less of a statement on the deck's aim and more a statement on Greyjoy's serious lack of draw - this is of course supplemented by the Valyrian Steel Link, which Will grabbed as soon as realistically possible to get access to his control.

One of the things that jumps out is the low character count - traditional wisdom is that as a minimum, half your deck should be characters unless you're playing a reset-heavy deck, yet here we only have 25 characters out of 62 cards. The reasons for this are two-fold - firstly, because the chains go on the agenda the draw deck is in fact only 55 cards, and 25 characters out of 55 is not such a bad stat; secondly, and more importantly, this deck is packed with so many cancels and saves that you don't need lots of characters. Additionally, there's little worry about being stuck after set-up, because you should really be setting up at least 4 cards, typically, due to the 17 0-cost cards (only 3 of which are limited). This is despite there being 11 cards you cannot play on set-up (the events and Horn of Dragons) and a further 4 you wouldn't want to (Jorah, Arys and the 2 Iron Cliffs).

One of the general advantages that a toolbox-y, reactionary deck like Greyjoy Maesters offers is that you can tailor what you need to suit what you expect to see. Will's decklist is a masterclass in this regard. It will come as no shock to anyone studying the decklist that the two decks in the final of November's Worlds were a Winter deck based on kill events and a deck that relies on allies, mercenaries, and influence-heavy events. For the former Will has the standard Maester solution of Tin Link and Copper Link, but also throws in 2 Carrion Birds, which also provide a cheap body for set-up and cheap stealth to help force through early challenges to get chains off from the get-go. He also has the usual saves, but that's pretty standard for Greyjoy!

Against Targaryen and their plethora of events and triggers Will packs a ton of cancel, with 7 event cancels (4 repeatable), a way of giving his key characters immunity and a way of preventing the events from being played, but none of those cancels are Paper Shield (QoD), meaning all of them work on cards that require influence such as the dreaded The Hatchlings' Feast (ASitD) (or, for other decks such as Martell KotHH, Westeros Bleeds (Core)). He also packs an extra amount of trait-hate cards - 3 Dissensions, plus Jorah and Arys Oakheart out of house. This is where the specifics of the deck will make a synergist sing - it would've been easy to throw in Daario Naharis (WLL) instead of Arys for natural cover, since Daario and Jorah always make a good pair and Daario's effect is uncancellable, but instead Will doubles up on the ally/mercenary-hate to really punish decks that want to use Street Waif (AToT) or Long Lances (THoBaW) - and in the process he adds extra renown to help close out the game and, for the cherry on top, goes with the character who can benefit from the reduction his Sunset Seas provide, making that character more playable. What's more, Will went all-out to up the usefulness of these cards - adding a second Copper Link to the deck means more trait manipulation, he dusted off the highly-underrated plot Songs of Bael the Bard, and he included a copy of Horn of Dragons, which is a great card for trait-manipulation fun and will practically make your opponent tear his or her cards up in disgust if the poor soul is actually running Dragons. These utility cards ensure that all the trait-hate in the deck can work regardless of your opponent - it just works that much better (I'm sure by chance) against arguably the most successful deck on the scene right now. One additional defense against both those two top decks is the two extra Apprentice Collars in the draw deck, which are great for set-up, protect against some of the nasty Targ effects that only work against characters without attachments (as well as obviously providing a strength boost), work as a defense against card-blanking effects like Meera Reed (TftH) or Nightmares (LoW), and in a pinch can give more chud characters like Island Refugee the Maester trait so they can kneel for the awesome utility card that is Citadel Law.

Finally for thinking about the likely opposing decks, look at the plot deck. The must-have Valar, the aforementioned Songs, and 5 City plots, culminating with A City Besieged. As you might recall from my previous article, A City Besieged is one of the few weaknesses that the new(ish) kid on the block House of Dreams (ARotD) has. Throw in City of Soldiers for some extra help on the targetted removal front, City of Sin for some kneel control from an unexpected house, and the plot deck is one that exists to grind the opponent's plans to a halt and let those power and efficiency cards march through to victory.

All decks have weaknesses, and since Will's is no exception it would be remiss of me not to point out its problems. In this case, the biggest issue is how thinly-spread the deck is, so eager is it to counter everything. Will made a tough decision to cut the usual auto-include Newly Made Lord (TftH), leaving himself vulnerable on the location control front (other than A City Besieged) in exchange for helping his gold curve and set-up, but otherwise the philosophy of being able to answer whatever the opponent throws at you leaves you trusting to luck slightly that you do indeed get the answer - for instance, there are 3 copies of Finger Dance (and Kerwin's Ironborn-based cancel) despite the fact that there are only 9 Ironborn cards in the deck. The extra emphasis on trait-manipulation helps mitigate this somewhat, but an opponent is unlikely to waste their key event after you've telegraphed your cancel by using Copper Link to give a character the Ironborn trait (although this is actually a good strategy generally to try to psyche out opponents), and so as a result I can see those Dances being a dead card a lot of the time. Given how character-lite Will is he's taken the fairly sensible precaution of not having multiple copies of any unique character, but in doing so that's caused him to have to include 11 neutral/out-of-house characters despite the fact that only 3 of his saves (the Iron Mines) work on non-Greyjoy characters, and the other 6 (2 of which are repeatable) are left spoiled for choice with the remaining 14 characters. Those 11 non-GJ characters also include two-thirds of his Maester cards, and in the case of the Oldtown Advisors he wants to put chains on them to activate their cancels, so the core of this deck, the agenda, can be surprisingly fragile given how incredibly controlling the deck is otherwise. Finally, this high presence of neutral characters also leaves the deck incredibly vulnerable to Too Proud to Bow (SB), although I wouldn't worry too much about it, because I mean really, who would run that?

Since the restricted list was changed, there are three cards that need removing from the deck. Since the agenda is kinda set in stone, that leaves Island Refugee, Tin Link and The Conclave hitting the bench. All three of these hurt in their own way, but perhaps oddly the biggest hit in practice is the Refugees. The Conclave is a tremendous card and often it will be very cost-efficient since this deck seeks to keep its Maester cards in play from the off; that said, the job of "reasonably expensive but chunky learned crest Maester" can be filled by substituting in a single copy each of Archmaester Ebrose (CbtC) and Archmaester Marwyn (MotA). Ebrose has the opportunity to make up for the Conclave's rush, and Marwyn actually synergises superbly well with the City plot sub-theme of this deck. Both are needed though, simply as warm bodies that aren't easy to burn away. The Tin Link is a bigger hit, but it remains to be seen just how much a lack of reliable attachment control will hurt the deck. If Attachments do become a big issue, there's a natural replacement for the card in the form of Ill Tidings (IG). This is not a particularly great replacement, but it's still a better option than most non-Targaryen decks can manage. The Island Refugees have no natural replacement. The next best we have in terms of cheap military and power icons that we weren't already running (at least in this deck) is Sea Raiders (KotS). They aren't ideal, but they are certainly serviceable, and are at least more resillient than the refugees while keeping that lovely Ironborn trait. This hurts set-up, but also generally makes the Gold curve of the deck more expensive - thankfully the deck already has a solution for that problem, and it's called "actually use Gold Link sometimes rather than having it in the deck as a contingency for choke that you never then actually face". Also, obviously since the Moonboy tournament we've had a couple of the newest cycle's chapter packs come out, and included is a lot of love for Greyjoy. Naval Enhancements aren't such a big deal for this deck, but don't be afraid to splash some of the cards anyway. The card I look to immediately is The Reader (TGF). Another learned-crest to synergise with Wendamyr (and possibly put the number of learned crests up high enough to consider Outwit (TIoR) for the plot deck?), and an ability that means Greyjoy don't necessarily need to rely on Valyrian Steel Link so much. Or, in the rare instance where you're already draw-capped, an option to funnel cards into the discard pile to activate Alannys and Asha's ultra-modes (and also power up Baelor some more).

That concludes the run-down of Will's excellent deck. I'll be back in four weeks, but in the meantime join Gangle for the next article two weeks from now. Until then, cheerio!