Stark Fealty - King of Swiss, Top 4 at Red Saturday 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is the list I played at Red Saturday. "There is My Claim" was legal for the event, so it was our first look at the Valar meta. Overall strategy of the deck - bend but don't break. A lot of my games had my opponents going to 7-8 power quickly before I was able to deplete their resources and come back over the top.

I had planned to bring this deck mainly because I know the New York meta loves its Lannisters, and everyone would be buzzing about the newly released Rains agenda. Winterfell and Catelyn are a nightmare for that matchup and crushed it consistently in my testing. Naturally, I only saw 1 of them all day in the last round of Swiss.

A few notes and reasoning for certain cards:

• Valar

I wasn't at the point where I thought I could leverage Valar better than a lot of the 1.0 vets in the field, so I wanted to bring something that could sustain against Valar without sacrificing slots for cards like Bodyguard that could be meaningless draws late game. Looking at the Starks, they have a lot of unique characters that can effectively be slotted in at x1 and have enough impact on the board to draw out Valar in an attempt to recover. Any other impactful character I didn't want to lose got x3 for dupes. I'd time my plots with Valar in mind until it finally flipped with the hopes of having 1 of 3 plots - Noble Cause to play out more characters than the opponent and maintain board position; A Time for Wolves to win Init, trigger Valar first, then bring in Summer to return an Arya; or Varys' Riddle to COMPLETELY reset the board if they had a lot of their characters with Dupes/Bodyguard and were trying to aggressively Valar.

Other than that, you just have to play around it. Use Summons to grab a dupe for Robb or Catelyn already in your hand so you're playing a protected character immediately. If you don't get a dupe, grab Arya or Jory. Most importantly - don't play characters unless you're prepared to lose them or absolutely need them in play.

• Plot choices

Building Orders is more used to fetch out Milk or Ward rather than Winterfell. If the matchup relies on Winterfell, then of course opening with Building is for that, but typically I would use it to fetch a second Milk once my opponent blew their Confiscation.

Noble Cause is still a plot I'm unsure of. I went back and forth between this and Fallen From Favor to play on a Valar turn, but decided to go with stability. That's also why Marched isn't in here - I didn't want to force myself into a situation where I compromised my board. My board stability is much more important in this deck than breaking my opponents.

A Time for Wolves is just absolutely fantastic. It's reserved to bring in Summer, but if I drew him early, it would fetch Lady or Greywind. I never drew all 3 in the same game, but if I did, the game is probably at the point where my other 6 plots would be more impactful anyway.

Varys' Riddle is there to copy 2 plots - Valar or Counting Coppers. I thought I would see a lot more of the defensive NW decks that run x2 Counting, so was planning on opening with Riddle against them. Otherwise, most of the plots it would "miss" against would still have it being a solid stat plot for that round. Copying Trading with the Pentoshi was my only concern.

Confiscation, Summons and Wardens of the North are self explanatory.

• Limited locations.

I only went with 2 Heart Tree, but in hindsight, that should be at 3 and Kingsroad should be at 2.

• Nightmares

I have a hard time not playing at least 2 copies in just about every deck I run. The ability to catch an opponent flat footed is just way too impactful not to include. I see a lot of Starks running Winter is Coming to gain 2 claim on a power challenge, but that doesn't seem as good as using Nightmares on the Hound after he is brought in with Harrenhal and participates in a challenge he's winning... As I said, I expected a lot of Lannister Rains. At worst, it's a great combat trick to nullify strength bonuses from Big Bob, Red Keep, Winterfell, The Wall, etc. and steal a challenge the opponent thought they'd win.

• My tournament matchups:

Round 1 - Dan Strouhal - Martell Wolf: He mulliganed into a Arianne & Ghaston setup and played behind the whole game. I hit his Counting Coppers with my Varys' Riddle and kept control the whole game.

Round 2 - Nate Y - Greyjoy Stag: He got off to an early lead with Asha and Melissandra, but eventually ran out of tricks before I was able to come back over the top.

Round 3 - Chris Lavin - Baratheon Summer: A grind of a game. I killed his Stannis with Ice turn 1, but he got out Mel and Bob with Bodyguards by Turn 2. I was able to get Jon Snow and Robb out and keep pace with him before pulling ahead.

Round 4 - Austin aka The Mystery Knight: Baratheon Watch. I play Austin nearly every tournament we go to, so we're both familiar with each other's playstyles. He got out a MASSIVE board of Stannis duped, Mel duped, Aemon duped, and a couple of Ranging Parties. He gained a lot of power quickly due to x2 Winter Festival but I was able to win Dominance on his Feast for Crows turn. He ran out of cards by turn 3 and was in top-deck mode for the rest of the game, allowing me to crawl back into it. I barely edged him out with a 15-14 power count.

Round 5 - Parker I - Targaryen Fealty: This was a truly bend but don't break game. He got out Syrio, Illyrio and Drogo very early and was dominating my board, but I was able to get off an Ice late to knock of Drogo with his 3 renown power to keep it close. He never saw economy other than Kingsroads which he used on the 3 characters above, so Dany never hit the board. I made a big play error forgetting to Winterfell when going for the win on a Power challenge, he knelt Fealty and was about to Drac me which would have cost me the game... Then realized he didn't have it in hand. I was fortunate enough not to get burned by my misplay... Pun intended.

Round 6 - Dave Stromes - Lannister Rains: I got Cat on setup, he got Tyrion. I hit his Tyrion with Milk and Warded his Chella. He Confiscated the Milk, I played my second Milk. We played for another turn or so, but he was way too far behind by that point. He conceded to not show me more of his deck.

Top 8 - Austin aka The Mystery Knight - Baratheon Watch (rematch): He came at me more aggressively this time with Bob and Chamber of the Painted Table, but lost a lot of early challenges to me moving around Lady and catching him off guard. Much like our first game, he got ahead very early but eventually burned out of cards. I also drew a clutch Milk to drop on Bob. The game went to time, but I hit 15 on the last plot.

Top 4 - Tom Melucci - Lannister Kraken: He set up a chud and Ilyn Pane, I set up duped Sansa, Robb and Roseroad. He Marched away my Sansa and used Ilyn to keep my 3 or lower characters in check. I had an early Ice get stopped by Treachery. Nevertheless, I pulled ahead to 11 power, but he set up his board with Victarion, Iron Mines, and Dupes with the plan of hitting me with Valar. I used Riddle one turn too early, he got my board into the position he wanted, crushed me with a Valar and came over the top with Mountain, Tyrion and Theon.

Any questions, feel free to ask!