| Card draw simulator |
|---|
|
Odds:
0% –
0% –
0%
more
|
| Derived from |
|---|
| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NW Fealty [Moscow 2017 Q1 - 3rd place] | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
Ryan4815 1280
I had a fantastic time at both Worlds and Stahleck making a lot of new connections and reuniting with old friends. The Thrones community make this game, and getting to spend a few weeks hanging with them was a pleasure. I'm also incredibly pleased with my consistency across each event (making the cut in the joust and melee at both championships) and I'm now looking forward to retiring the deck and trying out some new builds as we head into SC season.
This is the deck I took to both the World Championship in Minneapolis and the European Championship at Castle Stahleck (there were a few changes between that are outlined below). I finished in the Top 8 at Worlds and Top 32 at Stahleck.
The Deck
The deck is a fairly typical NW defence deck using Tamas Albeck's patented double Counting Coppers. I was playing the list for a few weeks leading up to Worlds with great success (testing was 34W and 6L) and slowly tweaking and refining the list.
It is a joy to play, with so many moving pieces and decision points, from the constant ditching of cards for Old Forest Hunter to the careful Halder triggers across characters against Targaryen. The main card dropped from Tamas' list was The Watch Has Need - in testing I never felt like the card was needed, as I had plenty of draw. Instead I included The Hand's Judgment to help with the negative Bara and Targ matchups. At Stahleck I lost count of the amount of Dracarys! and Seen In Flames I cancelled with HJ.
Post-Worlds I dropped Winter Festival for Fortified Position and it was amazing the entire weekend at Stahleck. I sacrificed a little speed in the end game, but the flexability offered by Fortified turned around a lot of games and vastly improved my two worst matchups of Bara and Targ (who were pretty much all I faced at Stahleck). Turning off the renown on my opponents board slowed them down too, so that in reality I feel like the 'speed' of the game remained roughly the same.
What I can remember from both tournaments is below.
World Championships 2016
Round 1 - Win - A nice easy win thanks to my super bye.
Round 2 - Loss - Stark Fealty - Tim Schirm - A very close game versus Tim in which The Wall came out a little too late and I only managed 13 power before the big triple renown Stark guys closed out.
Round 3 - Win - Bara/Wolf - Neil Kimball - This was one of the worst matchups possible, a dominance focused rushing Bara deck with even more speed thanks to Fast Eddy. I kept myself in the game for as long as possible, hoping for a mistake on Neil's end. That happened when he ran his Robert Baratheon into Watcher, giving me extra time to catch up and close with The Wall.
Round 4 - Win - Lanni/Dragon - Chris Thompson - A fairly typical matchup versus Lanni/Dragon for me here, with Craven and Milk of the Poppy keeping Mirri and Mountain occupied whilst a turn two Wall slowly accumulated 15 power.
Round 5 - Win - NW/Fealty - ??? - Apologies to my opponent here, he seems to be the only name I did not jot down. The match itself was the dreaded NW defence mirror match which effectively is a coin flip - whoever sees The Wall first is 99% likely to win. On turn one I made myself first player and as my first action in challenges I used Nightmares on my opponents Unsworn Apprentice - who was going to provide the missing power icon for his board - and an unnoposed power challenge later, Will was forced to sacrifice himself. A military challenge then further wittled the board. At this point I had full control over the board and The Wall arrived next turn to cement my position.
Round 6 - Win - Targ/Kraken - Kenny Nguyen - This was another game in which Watchers did solid work, taking down Theon Greyjoy and Asha Greyjoy.
Round 7 - Win - Targ/Crossing - Steven Cantrell - This was the feature match for round 7, so you can go back and watch this on Twitch if you'd like to see how it went down. The game was incredibly close, and probably the best match I played all day. A slow start from myself where I built up all my pieces led to a swing Wildfire Assault turn where I made myself first player against Stevens The Winds of Winter, used Yoren to steal Viserion, Craven'd Aggo and Milked his Mirri Maz Duur. My full location suite was in also in place, and from here on I had a lock on the game, triggering The Wall every turn and making sure to win at least the pow challenge on defence. Time was fast approaching on the round, and with Winter Festival next turn I was going to close so Steven conceded like a true gent.
Round 8 - Loss - Lanni/Stag - Ryan Jones - So if I thought the Bara/Wolf earlier was bad, well this was an even worse match up. Winter Festival, Winter Festival, A Feast for Crows with the The Iron Throne and Chamber of the Painted Table package is funnily enough quite a bit quicker than the two power from The Wall. Ryan saw both locations early (plus some tasty renown on Ser Gregor Clegane and Tywin Lannister (Core)) and was able get a rapid win.
After swiss this put me in 15th with a record of 6-2, sneaking into the cut.
Top 16 - Win - Lanni/Crossing - Henri Naudot - Henri was the French National champion and had piloted the deck superbly throughout the swiss the previous day. Unfortunately he made a few small mistakes early on in this game and I had the full location suite to lock out his challenges (most importantly the The Shadow Tower against his weak crossing challenge).
Top 8 - Loss - Lanni/Stag - Ryan Jones - A rematch with the dreaded Table and Chair deck SoCal were piloting. This game was a lot closer and if it hadn't been for a turn one intrigue challenge taking the only copy of The Wall I saw all game, I may have been able to push this one out for a win. Ryan got the win and went on to face Giovanni in The Elite Four.
Not too shabby!
Stahleck Championship 2016
Round 1 - Win - Targ/Fealty - Christian O - I played so many Targaryen decks during the day, they all sort of blurred into one. The HJ and Halder were key in every game to make sure important characters stayed out of burn range.
Round 2 - Win - GJ/Fealty - Umberto G - I lost The Wall to an intrigue challenge on turn one, then on turn two Euron Crow's Eye appeared. I played around his trigger all game, making sure he could not steal my wall with his reaction and obtaining some power using Thoren Smallwood. Eventually I drew a 2nd copy of The Wall and was able to close two plots later.
Round 3 - Loss - NW/Fealty - Tamas Albeck - Another NW mirror, and this time against the lord commander himself. Simply put, Tamas saw The Wall before me (plot 2 rather than plot 6!) so won this game.
Round 4 - Win - Bara/Dragon - Markus N - This was perhaps my greatest comeback of the day, being 12-0 down on plot 6 when I finally found The Wall. Fortified, For the Watch!, Fortified over the next 3 turns kept Markus static at 12 power and when time was called I had just eased to 14 thanks to 3xWall, 3xDom, Benjen and a few Smallwood triggers.
Round 5 - Win - Targ/Crossing - Piotr
Round 6 - Win - Targ/Fealty - Roy E
Round 7 - Win - Bara/Summer - Alexis I - I'd tested extensively against this matchup as it was my secondary choice for Worlds. I knew that I could deal with the kneel in Bara, but the dominance package offers more passive power than I can gain than The Wall. Alexis saw the chair early, but thankfully did not see the table.
Top 32 - Loss - Lanni/Rains - Gregory P - After an exhausting day of playing and beating bad matchups, I was confident going into this game against the relatively easy Lannister matchup. Sadly it did not matter what my opponent was playing. In a miserable end to the day, I suffered a mulligan of 7 attachments into 3 attachments, The Roseroad and 3x Steward at the Wall... The redraw didn't help and The First Snow of Winter later my board was empty.
Even with the sad end to the day, the tournament was a fantastic time as always and I again was super happy with my performance, becoming the top NW player in the Stahleck joust as well.
| 16 comments |
|---|
|
|
|
Definitely. The three copies of Halder were indeed there mainly for the Targ resurgence (just look at how many I faced at Stahleck!). Yes most of the time you'd rather be using them for their actual effects, but The Shadow Tower or Castle Black or even The Wall can be used in a pinch. In a few of the Crossing matches I knelt the Wall via Halder to stop them winning the crossing (power) challenge - them gaining crossing (1), claim (1) and renown (1) was more important that me gaining a net one power from Wall (2) and losing that challenge (-1). I also knelt Castle Black to give Maester Aemon quite often when he was my only intrigue defender and I was going second - I did not want him to face a Dracarys! as my opponents first action before triggering the actual effect of castle black. |
|
Hey I haven't added it to my permanent deck list yet, but it's definitely in that Winter Festival slot. It's an open competition between Building Orders, Winter Festival and Fortified Position for that final spot haha. It's an excellent meta call against Baratheon too. The only problem I've had is when my opponent has Tears of Lys'd Benjen and milked/killed Aemon on that turn. Those kinds of things can lose games, but I haven't experienced them often enough to convince me it makes the plot a bad choice. What do you think about that risk/reward dynamic? |
|
One of the reasons I ran away from the standard Wall defense deck was exactly because of the NW mirror. It's as simple as who gets the Throne and The Wall out first ... The Night Gathers deck ... that's a different story ... ;) |
|
I often found opponents would ditch their copies of Milk (and other negative attachments) for reserve against the NW, as there are so few targets. This meant that by the time I played Fortified they usually had none in hand. There was only one occasion in which Fortified backfired, during the team event in which a Stark player was able to steal Ser Waymar Royce for a turn and a deny me a win on both attack and defence in the power challenge.
|
|
Do you think you'll add Valar Morghulis to the deck? I am building NW Fealty myself, with Stone Tower Mason and Haunted Forest for a defense deck. What do you think about those two? |
|
Congrats for your performance ! I totally agree this is the kind of build who is the more stable and the easiest to perform with NW can do right now. Not sure it survives valar through, maybe with some changes in characters. I usually think that thoren worst his X3 especially post valar. And especially if you have chosen to play here to serve and not summons. What is your analysis about that ? in some match up thoren is often the key to rush out the game before too late. In the same mindset, i often prefer 2 tower and only 1 iron throne. But I agree your choise is far more stable as the throne is at all cost necessary agaisnt barath the worst match up of the deck. Yet shadow tower help a lot in martell and targ match ups... sometimes in lannister too... finally, last question but not least, how do you evaluate the impact of 3 halder + 2 practise blade ? in my environnement, practise have been removed and halder is often in x2 (might be restored to X3 with valar maybe) as the whole pack is less impacting.. 3 nightmares is a must have right now here for example. thanks in advance for your answers and again, impressive performance ! |
|
The Stone Tower Mason and Haunted Forest are both excellent cards, of which I'd like to fit two copies of each into the deck. The Mason will likely replace 1x Halder and 1x Veteran Builder. Finding the room for the forest is more difficult though!
I tend to find against good opponents Thoren Smallwood works as more of a deterrent, and therefore helps you trigger The Wall, rather that accumulating you a lot of power with his own response. If they are throwing three challenges against you they can't win (we have very little 'surprise' boosts in NW except Edd) then they are playing the matchup wrong. The 3x Halder and 2x The Iron Throne were indeed meta calls to help the Targaryen and Baratheon matchups respectively, which I was expecting to see a lot of at Stahleck (and indeed I did). See my reply to |
|
Agreed especially on the thoren part but yet having thoren + shadow tower (or the worry of the opponent on sword in darkness) in play mean most opponents can push for errors or making the wrong decision. I agree totally that a smart player will play around and rarely my opponents gave me 3 POW in a turn but the fact they MUST play around AND around shadow tower AND around watchers on the wall is often a loss loss situation for them. This is why I love him in X3. Yet thanks a lot for your interesting answers ! Congrats one last time ! Often I heard people saying NW is a no brain deck, I think this is quite the contrary, this is easy to play a tiers 2 NW deck who go for 4/3 or 3/4 but this is far more difficult to build and pilot a winning NW deck in a great event... moreso two :D |
|
Ryan, any thoughts on how the deck will change with There Is My Claim? |
|
|
|
maybe cut 1 The Iron Throne, with so much draw and Building Orders you are bound to find it and it is not essential to winning. Veteran Builder is great and has won me many games since you can forget defending The Wall for a turn and focus on winning challenges, or you get to trigger The Wall even if you cant defend it. |
|
Hey Ryan, congrats on your success with the deck and moreso for your success across the season - maybe the best year ever for a UK player (as far as I recall, anyway). Fyi, I think steve was a higher seed when he lost in top 8 at worlds, so you would have been 2nd best NW at worlds. And Brad was 2nd NW coming out of the swiss, but he lost to steve in the top 16. Either way great show! -seth |
|
|
|
Hi man, i love your deck, what do u think to change with valar? Haunted forest and the new char? Maybe swappin em with halder? |
|
Ryan, you think that nw will run Valar Morghulis or need to change something with valar impact? |
Hey Ryan, thanks for posting! I have just joined the NW Fealty train so always happy to see different iterations.
Obligatory question - was Halder really necessary at 3x with only really 5 viable targets in the deck? I see some lists at 3x practice blade or with a Longclaw and then still only running 2 Halder. Is this to combat the Targ resurgence?