Decks By Democracy: Issue 2

Freezerburn: A Stark Burn Retrospective

Welcome back to Decks By Democracy. With the release of the new FAQ and then our local Regional fast approaching, the second deck to be built for this column got a bit delayed. Nonetheless, as promised, the deck has been completed and I'm here to talk about it finally. This time the challenge was to build a non-Targaryen burn deck. So without further delay, allow me to introduce Freezerburn.

House:
House Stark

Agenda:
The Maester's Path

Plots:Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
At the Gates (GotC) x1
The Minstrel's Muse (RotO) x1
Forging the Chain (FtC) x1
A Time for Ravens (ACoS) x1
The Winds of Winter (TWoW) x1
Threat From the North (PotS) x1

Characters (27):
Maester of the Last Hearth (HtS) x3
Maester Vyman (TWoW) x1
Lyanna Stark (ODG) x1
Qhorin Halfhand (LoW) x1
Septa Mordane (AToT) x1
Wyman Manderly (RotK) x1
Maester Aemon (Core) x1
Oldtown Scholar (FtC) x3
Arya Stark (tHoBaW) x3
Eddard Stark (TTotH) x1
Hodor (Core) x1
Hungry Mob (CoS) x3
Old Nan (BoRF) x1
Ser Jorah Mormont (PotS) x1
Ser Kyle Condon (APS) x1
Oldtown Advisor (GotC) x2
Maester Luwin (FtC) x1
Sansa Stark (TftRK) x1

Locations (13):
Great Keep (Core) x3
Lord Eddard's Chambers (Core) x1
Narrow Sea (Core) x3
Northern Fiefdoms (Core) x3
The Last River (TftH) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x1

Attachments (22):
Pale Steel Link (FtC) x2
Bronze Link (FtC) x2
Valyrian Steel Link (HtS) x2
Lead Link (CbtC) x3
Apprentice Collar (GotC) x3
Copper Link (GotC) x2
Greyscale (tHoBaW) x3
White Raven (TWoW) x1
The Long Winter (ACoS) x2
Grey Wind (LoW) x2

Events (3):
At Night They Howl (LoW) x3

Synopsis:
Burn can be rough outside of Targaryen. Most of the other houses don't have much, but in looking through Stark I found a couple, most notably The Long Winter. Of course the next logical step was to include Maesters, as the lead links create huge flamethrowers quickly. The added benefit being that Maester of the Last Hearths can save creatures in Winter (which you'll need it to be to make The Long Winter work), giving some added fun with Copper Links. All that's left is something to make the burn terminal. For this we have 3 different things: Grey Wind, who can kill anyone once they've been sufficiently burnt to 1 or less, Threat From the North, and Greyscale, which will discard them and can be played for free with the Pale Steel Link. Build up Aemon and the Maester of the Last Hearths, then crank out the burn. In case of valar or target kill, there's a lot of easy saving available too.

Characters:
I started with lots of maesters, of course. The Maester of the Last Hearths are explained above, and Aemon is around for the same self-saving reasons. Luwin and Vyman are auto-includes, and a pair of Oldtown Advisors gives a little bit of cancel. Rounded out with the weenies maesters, just to ensure we have one around at all times. Arya and Wyman Manderly become even more useful than normal with the heavy burn going on, leaving most characters vulnerable to their abilities. Lyanna Stark adds another layer of -1 to non-uniques when knelt, rendering a generous amount of non-uniques useless, especially during Winds of Winter and Threat From the North rounds. Septa Mordane is a nice counter to shadows decks should you run across them, or just a cheap unique character to sacrifice to trigger Arya if not. Eddard Stark and Kyle Condon add a little bit of supplemental draw should you need it, and the rest are just in there because they're cheap and good for their cost. Just be careful with Jorah during the Threat From the North round.



Locations:
All production, with the exception of a little bit of extra burn with The Last River. Pretty straightforward.


Attachments:
So many attachments! Since the lead links are powered by chains, I've included 2-3 of every chain I use on the agenda. Apprentice Collars protect your maesters from burn, make spare maesters, and cost 0 for the Forging the Chain round. Copper Links make creatures for the +1 bonus or saving ability of the Master of the Last Hearths. Pale Steel Link and Bronze Link allow you to recur the chains that do end up discarded, as well as cycling the Greyscales for quick reuse. Pale Steel Link also has the benefit of being able to put into play more than 1 limited card a round for accelerated setup early game. Draw is important, so I have 2 Valyrian Steel Links as well. In the non-chain attachment area, I have 2 of Grey Wind because terminal effects are important, just like Greyscale (which I have 3 of since they are non-unique). And of course The Long Winter. This card is amazing for this deck, giving almost all of your opponent's characters -1 all the time! Note there's only 1 White Raven. This is because with Pale Steel Link and Bronze Link, 1 is all you need to win the season battle.


Events:Only 3 copies of At Night They Howl. These take advantage of the Copper Links as well, allowing you to use your maesters multiple times over the course of a Threat From the North round, or just to use  Greyscale multiple times, or for extra attacks. The options are vast for what you can do when re-standing linked maesters.


Plots:
Two tutor plots to get the game started. Get yourself Aemon or a Maester of the Last Hearth turn 1 with At the Gates, and then A Time for Ravens on turn 2 to make it winter and turn on your saves and hopefully The Long Winter. After that it's a couple of plots to spam burn across all your opponent's characters, Forging the Chain to recur some chains should you lose some, Valar Morghulis just in case, and The Minstrel's Muse for a quick power rush (another use for At Night They Howl, as multi-chained maesters with Apprentice Collars win dominance easily) or just for the gold if you need some quick board presence but are light on production.


So there you have it: Freezerburn in all it's glory.  It's not the strongest deck I've ever made, but it's a lot of fun and it's surprisingly stable. Once all the pieces are in order, it is pretty much unstoppable.

Voting for the next deck will be starting soon at a post to be made this week. Here's the link to the voting thread: http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7371-decks-by-democracy/

A Game of What Ifs: Hound of the Hearth

Originally, I set aside 3 of 20 cards slots for attachments in the House Umber fan expansion CP. Unfortunately, "Loyalty Bought with Fingers" and "Frostbite" (a Stark only winter-burn card) never came together.

Provided your opponent doesn't discard it first, Hound of the Hearth gives you a few obvious advantages. First, neither the Hound nor the attached character (or 'leash holder') need to kneel and/or be standing to trigger the Hound's effect. Not only does this effect combo with character like Brutish Drunk but, like the melee keyword version of the Greatjon, it bypasses House Umber's intrigue icon weakness. The kill effect is just gravy at that point.

Bonus points to anyone running Old Nan, as that would allow you to force an opponent's character to participate in a challenge, say, when you were running a character with deadly.

The question is, as with all fan cards: is Hound of the Hearth too powerful? Should the kill effect be a second triggered effect, requiring a discard? That would give the player a choice to make -- possibly a tough choice given how good they both could be. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Decks By Democracy: Issue 1

A Flaying is Coming: A Bolton Deckbuilding Retrospective

A little while back, I got a bug and decided that I wanted to build a new deck, but I had a very hard time deciding what deck I wanted to build. I chose for my solution to go to the cardgamedb.com message boards and post up a topic asking for people to vote on which deck I should next build (the thread can be found here: http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4521-next-deck-to-build/ )
Thus was born Decks By Democracy, my monthly posting about a deck type decided by voting and how/what I did to make it. Though I’ve already gotten my next build voted upon, I’m going back this issue to the first one I did, a Bolton HoD: Dreadfort deck. So here’s A Flaying is Coming, and some insight into why.

House:
House Stark

Agenda:
House of Dreams

Plots:
After the Mummer’s Ford (KotS) x1
Assault on King’s Landing (KotStorm) x1
Fury of the Wolf (AE) x1
Manning the City Walls (CD) x1
Storm of Swords (LoW) x1
The Minstrell’s Muse (RotO) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1

Characters (33):Bolton Refugee (RW) x3
Brienne of Tarth (PotS) x1
Catelyn Stark (LoW) x1
Damon Dance-For-Me (VD) x1
Jory Cassel (CB) x1
King Robb’s Host (W5K) x1
Maester Luwin (FtC) x1
Maester Vyman (TWoW) x1
Meera Reed (TftH) x1
Northern Cavalry Flank (SA) x3
Old Nan (BRF) x1
Reek (MotM) x1
Roose Bolton (DB) x1
Sansa Stark (TftRK) x1
Ser Jorah Mormont (PotS) x1
Ser Kyle Condon (APS) x1
Steelshanks Reserves (ASoS) x3
The Bastard of Bolton (IG) x1
The Bastard’s Boys (ARotD) x3
The Bastard’s Elite (RoR) x3
The Flayed Men (DB) x3

Locations (19):Abandoned Fort (RoR) x2
Bay of Ice (KotS) x3
Great Keep (LoW) x3
Harrenhal (ODG) x1
Lord Eddard’s Chambers (LoW) x1
Narrow Sea (KotStorm) x3
Northern Fiefdoms (LoW) x3
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
Street of Steel (LoW) x1
The Dreadfort (DB) x1 (played with Agenda)

Attachments (0):
n/a

Events (9):
Die by the Sword (LoW) x3
The Price of War (KotS) x3
To Be A Wolf (SB) x3

Synopsis:
At its root, this is a basic aggro deck. You want to control the board, wiping characters as often as possible. With a very low cost curve and high strength characters, it is generally easy to force an early Valar, which (more often than not) you can come back from a lot faster than the enemy. You want to go first every turn, and between events and claim, manage their characters pretty effectively. The land destruction combined with easy-to-win elevated claim challenges means even Greyjoy will have a hard time keeping up.

Character Base:
A lot of obvious choices. You want a lot of Boltons so the all-important Bastard’s Boys can come out as cheaply as possible, and you want most of them above 3 strength, so you can draw frequently off of the primary draw-engine: The Dreadfort. Now, I see a lot of players using Bolton Loyalists in their Bolton decks, and as you’ve noticed, I do not use them at all instead opting for Steelshanks Reserves. So long as you you can go first they’ll be strong War-Crested characters, and when they come back to your control, you get to draw for them! This maximizes the effectiveness of Dreadfort without having to lose a challenge. I could have included the Loyalists as well, but as intrigue is the weakest icon type in this deck, I didn’t feel they were worth it, and opted for more efficient non-Bolton support instead.

Locations:
Mostly just production cards, but with a couple extras thrown in. Bay of Ice may seem like overkill on draw, but as going first is key, initiative is crucial. Most of the plots already have high initiative, so at 0 cost, Bay of Ice is a pretty ideal fit, and will usually keep you on the top end of initiative. The extra draw for those times you don’t get Boltons is icing. The Abandoned Forts serve a double purpose. On the one hand, you don’t want your opponent having Boltons because you want The Bastard’s Boys ability going strong. In addition, if you’re doing your job right and keeping all your Boltons yourself, Old Nan can make an attacking opponent character a Bolton and then bounce them right back to hand. Just a little bit of challenge control.
Harrenhal is just a the cherry on top. It’s hard to underestimate the usefulness of this card in a deck that will be killing characters often, but even so, it isn’t strictly necessary. I have occasionally switched it out for a Crown of Winter to boost Meera and protect a character.

Attachments:None. Who needs ‘em? Except for Crown of Winter on occasion.

Events:While overall event light, they are all crucial. The Price of War and Die by the Sword are obvious, and To Be A Wolf is both one of the best tutors in the game, and allows you to reuse The Bastard’s Boys to max out claim even if it’s cancelled.

Plots:
High initiative is the name of the day. Aside from that, multiple military challenges means you can easily get up to 6 military claim over a phase with To Be A Wolf and Bastard’s Boys. The plot everyone seems to question is Assault on King’s Landing. Well, for one, it’s a military challenge, so if your game goes to turn 8, you still have one in your used pile for To Be A Wolf. Secondly, if used properly, it cuts through Greyjoy’s resilience by butter. And it has 5 initiative, which is fine by me!

Well, that’s all for this month folks. Feel free to comment on the deck or ask any questions! I’ll be back in a couple weeks at most with my next deck: A Stark Maester Burn.

Off the beaten path: Kingsmoot

This week's Off the Beaten Path is dedicated to AGoT's Kingsmoot variant. However, I must first make an embarrassing admission: I've never played it. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone else playing it either. This reality may illustrate two significant challenges for AGoT and rules writing in general.

The first and obvious challenge: if rules are purely optional AND require additional work to facilitate, no one will play them -- and Kingsmoot stumbles on both of these points. Not only are its rules unsupported by official play, you will need to build a new and fairly specific melee format deck to do well at it. 

Second: Kingsmoot rules, by their very nature, adding 'more rules' to the game. 

Together, these issues are not unlike the woes we all face with the first CP of each cycle. Naval enhancements are interesting, but are they worth the effort to get working? Will they clutter the errata list and scare away yet more new players? At least those mechanics are tourney legal...

In principle, Kingsmoot is quite interesting. Like Civil war, it supports up to 6 players, which is a great boon for 6 player casual metas and, possibly, retail spaces alike. Additionally, as they have no support/oppose concept, Kingmoot's Titles are probably easier for new players to understand. However, this simplification is a catch 22, as it results in some cards (admittedly only a small few) having meaningless wording in the format.

In practice I can't imagine Kingsmoot working well at all. Without supporting Titles, no player is ever safe and since 'winning' is dictated by the number of Titles you control (semi in addition to collecting 15 power) it only emphasizes the advantage of going last and/or forcing the earlier players to over manage the later players to prevent them sweeping the board. In short, the poor player decisions that already throw a standard melee format into the non competitive pile are probably worse here.

Unlike Hand of the King, Kingsmoot doesn't lend itself to use as an Agenda ...but maybe,

given the Character-Title coming up in the currently cycle, maybe we'll see something like them in the future. Who knows? House Frey characters that lend their owner title-like effects when you reach certain achievements has some appeal...

What do you think? Does Kingsmoot deserve more play? Do you think we'll see more kingsmoot-like titling in the rumored revised Core set maybe.maybe not due later this year? Say your piece in the comments below.

The Sansa Award

What started as Tag's side gag is now an official HOBO tourney tradition: The Sansa award. As is befitting to AGoT's biggest loser and the award's namesake, the Sansa is given to the player with the lowest win/loss ratio at a HOBO tourney. Last Saturday, that happened to be me and my 0 for 4 Targ Treaty with the North winter burn deck.

I will treasure my framed piece until next time (probably our regional match?) where a new Sansa will be crowned.

(photo of Tag presenting the award)

Off the beaten path: hand of the king

For this week's break from competitive play, let's take a look at the Hand of the King alternate rules.

In many ways Hand of the King is the complete opposite to the Civil War rules we talked about last week. Hand of the King adds very little time to setup but complicates play. (both through the rules that dictate when and how a Hand enters and leaves play AND because the Hand is immune to non-hand rules gold moving card effects)

Due to it's potentially complex interactions, deep strategic options, and on-the fly customization (you could start with a different unique character from your deck in every game) Hand of the King is definitely a competitive build. However, it could be argued that HotK is best suited for an unusual and rarely talked about scene: the comfy couch meta. That is to say, a small group of players with moderately strong understanding of AGoT's core rules and enjoy slightly competitive play, but don't construct custom decks and/or have a small card pool to draw from.

The argument to support this is simple: in a true competitive meta, HotK presents hyper OP/broken play opportunities, which dramatically disadvantage new and less experienced players even more than the base game does already. (eg Reek can infinitely steal an opponent's characters, since he only loses a gold instead changing control) Furthermore, since it is not an tournament legal play style, it may be difficult to entice a competitive group to invest in it.

Regardless, for those small groups of players who enjoy the game at home, a single core set box can provide many interesting options. (eg Stark's lack of intrigue icons getting you down? Choose Catelyn and by round 3 you will always have at least 1 intrigue icon in play, and a useful character ability to boot. Or heck, just choose Bran and churn through your plot deck as rapidly as you want)

As stated earlier, HotK is not great for new players. However, given
experienced players, it can combine with Civil War rules for added flavor and stability. (eg since Civil War decks can have draw issues, starting with a character with on-card draw like Tommen is a huge thing) While it's probably too clunky for brick and mortar retail, it's not impossible and the added 'newness' to each Civil War + HotK game may excite experienced players to participate with new players. (especially if you draft your hand)

As a closing thought, imagine Hand of the King's rules repurposed as an agenda. Would it suffer the fate of House of Dreams and feel like it had miles of potential but only a few really bonkers good starting choices, or would the natural delay of more expensive characters balance it out? Love to hear your comments below.

Prizes away!

Here are my three final drafts for this weekend's "Burning Hearts" tourney. All three will be available on single sided card stock, while 1 will get mounted to an old CCG era card (so it will match normal AGoT cards)

and here are the three cards we gave away at the previous tourney

HOBO Feb Tourney Prize Preview

As with previous Hobo tourneys, this Saturday's prize pool will include a custom house card. As you can see above, the Asshai get some attention. A Bara version is obvious, since that house is home to the majority of Asshai trait cards in the LCG. However, I'm considering making either a Greyjoy or Targ version as well, even if the Asshai available to those houses are... lack luster?

So, Targ or GJ? Toss your votes in the comments area below!

Off the beaten path: Alt game types

Every now and again, I need a break from competitive play. Fortunately, AGoT provides 3 alternate rule sets, with each set providing some interchangeability. If you are familiar with AGoT in general, you can play any of them and, perhaps most importantly, they require little or no additional investment to get into. This week, I'm going to highlight the Civil War variant.

Civil War rules, which were introduced in the Martell deluxe set, are both the most time consuming to set up and the easiest to play. Since a single player provides all 100-180 cards all players draw from the communal draw deck, that player needs to set aside some prep time. The deck can't contain duplicates of unique cards and, if you want a coherent experience, you'll need to crunch some numbers (or practice a lot of trial and error) to get its gold curve right.

Civil War's biggest advantage is that it takes away a big advantage veteran players have over new and beginning players: deck construction. The deck-providing player can even provide each player's plots, either pre-built sets for each player or for each player to draft.

Civil War's second, and perhaps most overlooked advantage is that it support's 2-6 players. Why? Who knows? Regardless, seating 2 additional players (especially new players who don't have prebuilt decks) can be very useful.

Combined, these two advantages make Civil War ideal for brick-and-mortar retail. Specifically, this format allows a retailer to keep a 'store deck' on hand that can teach more players the game with fewer staff. Moreover, while 180 can contain a lot of card text and game mechanics, being limited to one house (plus neutrals) cuts down on a bit of the learning curve.

Now, if only FFG sold some sort of product that contained random assortments of agendas and plots for players to draft using this method, AGoT would have a great in-store product...

A Game of What Ifs? House Umber Unique Characters

This week's what if fan cards feature the unique characters of House Umber. The Greatjon's Uncles and their Father are pretty self explanatory. Lady Umber, while not specifically noted in the book is presumed to exist... unless the Umbers reproduce via spores. I modeled her card text on the notes that Umber Ladies of the past have been carried off in Wildling raids, which has in turn put the Umbers in a killy mood.

Next week: Locations and Plots!

A Game of What Ifs? House Umber fan cards

In the pre-LCG days, the House Umber trait was a common in Stark. While the Greatjon is really the only significant member of the house in the books, I've always had a warm place in my heart for these klingon'y barbarians from the upper north. 

So, In the spirit of filling time while FFG readies the next cycle, I present to you 6 non-unique "What If?" characters from the house. Each is my own take on possible expansions to the Umber themes already in the game (Melee format, creature support, multiple challenge participation), expanding underutilized mechanics (Bannermen/banner traits), or just what I think is Umber'ly thematic.

Thoughts and outrage are welcome in the comments. I'll post unique characters next week.

(EDIT: I designed the modified card art, the illustrations are modified but shamelessly pilfered from existing cards or around the internet)

DC's January Tourney: bust or beat down?

The DC Meta delivered a total beat down to team Baltimore in yesterdays tournament. Excluding casual play and Baltimore on Baltimore games, our score stood at an embarrassing 1 win and 11 losses. This was a surprise considering HOBO's team captain placed 2nd against similar match ups in last month's tourney. Here's the breakdown:

The Prophit - 1 bye 1 win (vs Robot Martini) 3 losses - Lannister KotHH

Robot Martini - 1 bye 3 losses - Stark Siege

Ayon - 1 bye 4 losses - Martell KotHH 

So was it bust or beat down? While any deck can deliver a fail sandwich on setup, and thus face an uphill battle against strong competition, 5 straight losses (up to 10 setup hands with mulligans) points to issues with the deck's construction and/or pilot error. I can't speak for the other's but I would rate my own experience 40/60, with the greater going to beat down.

In Game 1, I failed to draw a producer/reducer after a mulligan nor anything better than a sea for the rest of the game and spent the lion's share of my time slowly losing to Dan's No Agenda Martell. My biggest error was ignoring the consequences of Dan's game of thrones plot, which made my feint pointless as it knelt no characters, reduced my defender count AND gave Dan's Red Viper an extra power for renown. I also missed the chance to blank Ser Drinkwater with my Frozen Moat, netting Dan a power for renown and an unopposed challenge I could have otherwise blocked. I'm confident I could have taken this game with a better set up.

Game 2 was a bye. 

Game 3 against Steven's GJ Maesters repeated my setup fail, though this time I did eventually draw 2 gold producers, at the same time, after a Valar. (complete fail) I remember much less about this game, outside steven slowly grabbing his chains but not being able to use them or his locations most of the game due to my plot choices. However, I'm pretty sure I wasted a Meera Reed to kill a Conclave with 5 chains and 2 power on it, because I knew I couldn't get her back out of play and a Valar was coming. Regardless, the most interesting backfire was in round 2, where Steven's Forgotten Plans blanked my Assault on Kings Landing, which allowed him to protect quite a lot of his board position. In all, Steven plays very fast and, intentional or not, will push past your response windows and resolution steps if you don't rein him in and I was much more comfortable doing that this tournament than last time.

Game 4 reversed my setup woes, almost too much in the opposite direction. After a mulligan my hand was still clogged with locations and events and after a few kills and controls I conceded to The Prophit and Lannister Hollow Hill deck in disgust.

Later, I defeated Ayon and managed two narrower losses against Eric's Targ KotHH jumping burn deck in casual play.

What's my take away? Not drawing cost support in 5/6 of my setup hands, nor for 2 rounds after is statistically unlikely for a deck with 13/61 production cards in it. So, while it was very annoying, I don't see my curve as the core problem. While it never got off the ground, I encountered a reasonable number of the 10 draw/search effects in the deck - so adding cards in that category also seems unnecessary. 

My plots remain very effective and, more importantly, surprising/unpredictable for my opponent. However, grudgingly, I will retire Wildfire Assault in favor of Valar. While I still hate Valar's stats (especially it's gold curve) and I find it near useless against Greyjoy, there were too many scenarios where my opponent had too few characters and/or crucial targets I could otherwise not reach.

Lastly, I will also retire some or all of my epic phases. Epic phases OWN when they work - easily netting extra power and board position or forcing the opponent to Valar prematurely. Unfortunately, well built hard control decks can shut these cards down and heavier agro decks (namely Clanni and Dothtarg) can out muscle my more balanced approach to Stark. In tourney play, they either backfire, do nothing or close games I've already won. I will probably replace them with targeted location control or, possibly, some cancels. (paper shield, probably)

Star character in the deck goes to Bouncing Cat this time. She saved my ass many a time :)