Ours is the Fury!

Recently, we had a Store Championships for the Game of Thrones card game. Because I did quite well (went undefeated), and because the blog is rapidly filling up with 40K related posts, I thought I would talk a little about my deck.

House - 
Baratheon

Agenda - 
Fealty

Plots - 
Summons x 2
The King's Peace x 1
A Feast for Crows x 1
A Clash of Kings x 1
Filthy Accusations x 1
Summer Harvest x 1

Characters - 
*Robert Baratheon x 3
*Ser Barristan Selmy x 2
*Stannis Baratheon x 3
*Melisandre x 3
*Ser Davos Seaworth x 3
*Selyse Baratheon x 3
Asshai Priestess x 3
Fiery Followers x 3
*Edric Storm x 3
*Shireen Baratheon x 1
Vanguard Lancer x 3

Attachments - 
Stinking Drunk x 3
*Lightbringer x 3
Red God's Blessing x 3
*Ruby of R'hllor x 3

Locations - 
Dragonstone Port x 2
*Chamber of the Painted Table x 2
*Tobho Mott's Armory x 2

Events - 
Consolidation of Power x 3
Seen in the Flames x 3
Even Handed Justice x 3
Ritual of R'hllor x 3


I have a deck built for each House for a Melee Cube, so none of the decks have Neutral cards and they currently all use the Fealty Agenda. As time goes one, each House may get it's own Agenda and Neutral cards may be used, but currently I'm not playing the Cube often enough to make changes like that yet.

Essentially, the deck uses Melisandre and a suit of R'hllor cards to kneel opposing characters, plus help from effects like Stinking Drunk. Then it relies on either repeating those effects or Stannis to keep those characters knelt. I then attempt to win a few challenges while actually winning the Dominance Phase.

Mel kneels an opposing character whenever a R'hllor card is marshaled or played. Including her when first marshaled, but not including any Dupes, there are 23 cards in the deck with the trait. There are also 14 other cards that kneel opposing characters. This allows for a lot of board control, and meant that an opposing Mountain stayed knelt for practically a whole game at one point.

Stannis the Mannis turns all the kneeling into a soft lock. While he is in play, each player cannot stand more then 2 characters in the standing phase. While that seems symmetrical, my deck is more often than not kneeling their characters with no benefit to them. Give Stannis Lightbringer, and suddenly he stands every time he gains power. Give him Red God's Blessing and he has the strength to win challenges and gain power from Lightbringer's Renown and therefore stand himself. That's one less character to worry about standing. This allows him to win challenges the next turn and keep it going. The two Summons in the Plot Deck are there to find him and Melisandre as quickly as possible.

Bobby B, the only King I respect. Intimidate and Renown are great keywords. And then he gets +1 strength for each other kneeling character. Kneel before your King! That can lead to him being hard to stop in a challenge, especially as you should have knelt their strongest/most threatening characters. Spoiler alert - I failed to draw/marshal him during the event.

The Onion Knight. When the opponent has so few defenders, the Stealth on him is amazing. His ability to dodge death is great too. I can even use Selyse to give him an Intrigue icon. He is the man you want when you want to make a small winning challenge.


Combo - Ruby of R'hllor and Seen in Flames. I never managed to pull this combo off, but as both cards have the R'hllor trait for Melisandre, I'm not that annoyed. Seen in Flames essentially acts like Thoughtseize in Magic the Gathering. I look at your hand and choose a card for you to discard. It being a Challenges Action means I can use it to stop any combat surprises, or after you have drawn cards from effects like Insight. Then (in theory) the Ruby works like Cabal Therapy. If I win an Intrigue challenge with the attached character, I can name a card and the losing opponent reveals their hand and discards each card with that name. Choosing correctly is made easier when I have seen their hand through the first card. Especially in subsequent turns where they may not have been able to play all the cards I've seen. Also, each use shows me their hand to keep my information up to date.

Finally, the Dominance Package. A Feast for Crows gives me 2 extra power when I win Dominance, which can often end the game. Painted Table can be knelt when I win Dominance to steal a power from the opponent. Mott's Armory draws me a card when I win Dominance.
Winning Dominance can be easy, as my opponent's characters should be knelt and therefore not contribute their strength. Fiery Followers stand themselves during the Dominance phase to contribute extra power and Edric Storm lets me stop an opposing character from contributing strength should they manage to stand someone.
Ritual of R'hllor is the icing on the cake. When I win Dominance, it lets me turn leftover gold into power on R'hllor characters, to increase my overall power gain. Then, because it has the R'hllor trait, Melisandre can kneel someone. It can either be played early for an extra kneel trigger, or late to finish the game.

That's the deck I've built for my favourite house. It's a control/prison style deck that wins through inevitability, but can also gain a chunk of power quite quickly. It did better than I expected, as it is made for Melee and the format was Joust. I suppose attempting to build a deck that can lock down multiple opponents makes it good at focusing on one opponent. I won the event, but passed down the Bye at Regionals as I don't intend on going while the players that came to the event will do.