Rise of the Kraken

Welcome to Rise of the Kraken, where JCWamma and I (Gangle) will be introducing you to many of the directions that you can take with House Greyjoy. The lovable (or not) lords and ladies of the iron islands will win your heart and murder your peasants with equal enthusiasm. We'll be putting out articles about these delightful pirates about twice a month, but are always willing to talk Greyjoy if you have any suggestions or questions.

Is Gangle a real word?
I'm Gangle, and I've played the LCG for a few years now. I've played competitively, on OCTGN, and a lot with friends both melee and joust. I play some Martels and have even dabbled into Stark (only for Boltons), but my real love is the pirates of Greyjoy. I have a fairly short attention span, so I have tried a huge variety of Greyjoy decks, both the established competitive types and some real odd balls of my own devising. As far as my card game personality, I'm over-competitive but like maximizing various uncommon themes. I enjoy toying with my food too much to consider myself a real Jaime. The Nedliest I get is that I don't like running alliances to the other lamer houses, and I will feel a pang of shame every time I play Sam in a Greyjoy deck.

What's a JCWamma?
Greetings all from JCWamma. When people think of what they associate with House Greyjoy in the books, they think of pirates, of raping and pillaging, of raiding villages, of the Drowned God and of Theon wrecking everything for House Stark in Clash of Kings. But most of all, they think of Maesters, and the Citadel's almost telepathic link with Iron Islands.

...Right?

Okay, so Greyjoy is possibly the least-Nedly house to run Maesters out of, but in my experience it's also one of the best. Maester Murenmure (CbtC) is a very solid cancel who's very well priced, and Maester Wendamyr (KotS) is one of the best save cards in the game to the point where I suggested the net of Gangle's usual suspects be extended to catch him. In short, Maesters rock and they rock slightly harder than usual out of Greyjoy.

My experience with this game is reasonably short, a mere 9 months or so (and even less than that competitively). I have only ever been to one tournament (the inaugural UK regional), albeit a tournament that I won playing Greyjoy Maesters. As a result, as this column goes forward, Gangle will be looking at the more traditional Greyjoy builds while I take an in-detail look at running Maesters out of the iron islanders, as it's currently the only real part of our beloved house that I feel I can talk about with any authority. Hopefully by the time I'm done discussing the deck type my experience with the house will be worth a bit more and I can contribute more to the house as a whole, and until then we can look forward to hearing the words of wisdom from Gangle, that old seadog.

Who Are These Pirates
As is appropriate from the books, the Greyjoys are somewhat of a misfit house in the card game. The other houses are locked in a deadly struggle for power in both Westeros and The East, and none are overly concerned who wears the Driftwood Crown or what they claim dominion over. The Greyjoys are intent on capitalizing on the chaos left in the wake of the struggle for The Iron Throne and taking back what they view to be rightfully theirs (everything). Longships full of raiders strike unopposed at weakly defended settlements, pillaging and burning everything before once again retreating to the sea. The Greyjoys are players on the fringes of the game of thrones, and their strength does not lie in direct confrontation. The Kraken is the ultimate opportunist, striking at undefended weak points and causing mayhem and disruption. For now, House Greyjoy harries shores and raids coasts, but a one eyed madman has something much grander in mind...

What are they good at?
As the Greyjoys, you'll find that you're not really dominant in any particular challenge. The pirates are fairly good at military challenges, but they will still get resoundingly thumped in the field by the Starks. You don't have the intrigue capabilities of the Lannisters or Martels (or a fence post), and you won't be able to match the Baratheons or Targaryens for power challenges. Direct confrontation and winning fair challenges are never the goal for the Iron Islanders. Greyjoy strengths are in the peripheral elements of the game, and include:

• Location Control. When it comes to burning things down, nobody comes close. Taking away key locations is critical against some decks and just extremely useful against others.
• Saves. "What is dead can never die." It's not quite true, but it can get pretty darn close.
• Cancels. Martels may have some claim to dominance here, but the Greyjoys have a very healthy number of viable cancels, which can wreck an opponents carefully laid plans.
• Unopposed Challenges. I will fess up to a somewhat irrational love affair with the Greyjoy warships. If people want to defend your challenge, the fleet can make them pay dearly for it. It's delightful to launch a power challenge with a single Ambitious Oarsman (RoR) and have it sail through without opposition for fear of warship intervention.
• The Discard Pile. The raiding mechanic (milling for historical reasons) lets you put their deck in the discard pile, and then fiddle with it when it's there. This can be extremely fun, and occasionally very powerful.

While these all seem unrelated, the common thread is the drag they put on an opponent. Playing against Greyjoy should be the card game equivalent of slogging through 4 feet of snow. This holds for most of the deck archetypes, whether it's due to your opponent having no gold, no way to kill your characters, no way to defend themselves etc.

Where is this going?

Over the coming months, I'll go through some of the common Greyjoy deck archetypes for joust and melee. In addition to hitting the key cards for each deck, I'll try to go through some of the more subtle ways to round out each theme. One of the wonderful things about Greyjoys is that they are so unspecialized. You can tune your deck to be a fast hitting rush, a slow miserable choke, and pretty much everything in between. I'll try to guide some of the deck building choices by talking about how the deck plays out against some common opponents. I look at Greyjoys as somewhat of a counter punching house, so I'll look at how they stack up against decks you're likely to see. JCWamma will be going through running Maesters out of Greyjoy and how to maximize their effects.

Today I'll go through the cards you will probably see in every Greyjoy deck. To give a rough idea of what will be coming along in the near future so that people can let me know if there's something they're really dying to have covered. A rough schedule:

• Fun With Winter Chokes
• Maesters Part 1
• Unopposed Rush

The Usual Suspects
There are a few cards you can assume will be in every deck with a Greyjoy house card. If you're making such a deck, you should think long and hard before leaving these at home. They're just extremely powerful. This list does not cover all the powerful Greyjoy cards, just the ones that I would recommend stuffing in your deck regardless of the theme you're going for.


Alannys Greyjoy (ODG) This lovely lady is just wonderful. The icons are sort of a bonus, but pretty much she's a walking counter. She can cancel pretty much anything at pretty much any time. Keep her alive and pick your spots wisely for what to cancel, but you'll almost never regret having her.


Those of you that have read the novels will know that the only person who could consistently best Ser Jaime Lannister (LotR) in single combat was the legendary Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK). Well maybe not. This may be the least Nedly card ever, but boy is it good. 1 gold, 4 strength, 2 icons, a good trait, and an almost never used drawback? Yes please.


Newly Made Lord (TftH). Three gold to burn down a location as a passive so it can't be canceled by pretty much anything. This gentleman is a lifesaver against horrible miserable locations. He's good enough that people play him out of house. You get to play him in house. Oh, and you also get a character...


Longship Iron Victory (KotS). Some of my enthusiasm for boats is unfounded. My enthusiasm for this boat is not. A combat trick (one of the only ones that works on defense too!) and card draw are just too good. This warship fits in pretty much every deck.


Asha Greyjoy (WLL). Asha is one of my favorite characters from the book (I have a soft spot for surly pirate wenches... who doesn't...). Luckily for me she's a monster in the card game too. She'll almost never kneel to attack, and can rack up power in a hurry with her renown. She also has the rare and much sought after intrigue icon.


Maester Wendamyr (KotS) is a boss. Repeatable save is just too handy in too many circumstances. His one strength means he's a dead card against burn, but saving people against burn is like having a water bottle in a forest fire.


Feel free to message Gangle or JCWamma with comments or questions, and stay tuned! Next we'll going into Winter Choke decks, which are a wonderful way to make friends in the card game*!

*Not so much