A Bitter Dragon 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Bitterbridge Encampment is a fascinating card. It's just fun stacking your deck with cost 6 or 7 characters and putting 1 or 2 of them out each round. What do you do if you don't see Bitterbridge? Guarding the Realm has the answer: Keep getting your big guys out with Great Hall! Whoever had the idea to make this a non-unique location deserves a medal! Now Bitterbridge decks have the consistency they lacked before.

So what do you need to make Bitterbridge work in your favor? Obviously more high-cost characters than your opponent. But most decks play a lot of big dudes, so you only profit after they have run out of characters. So in the end you need two vital elements: resets and massive (!) card draw.

Resets:

• Valar Morghulis of course.
• 3x Varys. To use him properly you need 3 things:
  • Go second because of Milk and because you want your opponent to play out his hand. Calm's initiative of 3 must suffice for this task.
  • Protection against targeted kill (The Eyrie, 3x Hand's Judgment, Nightmares) and against Nightmares/Treachery (3x Hand's Judgment)
  • 6+ gold if you are 2nd player and doesn't use Bitterbridge to put Varys out.

Draw:

• Double Close Call really is the heart of this deck, make no mistake! You just don't care about Mirri or Jaqen being killed. Play Close Call, draw an extra card, and then bitterbridge them in again.
• Street of Silk is surprisingly good with 20 Lords/Ladies, 16 Allies/Companions, and an unused faction card.
• 3x Littlefinger and the means to find and play him several times. Don't you ever dupe him!
• Renly's super-insight with 12 loyal cards
• Time of Plenty is the emergency opener if you didn't see any economy.
• Early drafts included The Mander, but it didn't make the cut in the end. It's win-more. Still thinking about it, though.
• I was also considering Called Into Service for the extra card, using it together with "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", but this didn't convince me in testing.

Agenda:

• Kings of Summer is an option with this amount of Summer plots. In this deck, The Queen of Thorns could do a lot of the heavy lifting. But all in all, this deck lacks the punch which non-loyal banner characters can offer.
• Banner of the Kraken offers saves, location control, and Victarion and Big Aeron, who are both good support for Jaqen (intimidate and kneel saved characters) and Valar (Vic's interrupt and kneel all survivors).
• Banner of the Wolf offers Harrenhal (GoH) which is awesome in combination with Bitterbridge. Roose Bolton is a 3rd reset option, especially with STR buffs ("Lord Renly's Ride", Renly's Pavilion, Core Margaery), which you can easily play over and over again. Double Close Call allows you to play 3x Rickon and 3x Bran and go with Large Marge instead.
• My favorite is definitely Banner of the Dragon! Mirri Maz Duur is the perfect high-cost character because she likes all the stuff you put into this deck for Jaqen H'ghar anyway: Syrio, STR buffs, intimidate. And there is this other card which is just made for high-cost characters: Plaza of Pride! Using Mirri, Jaqen or Renly twice is just as good as it sounds. The STR restriction is no problem at all with your cost curve. You often have 2 spare gold to use Magister Illyrio, too. Aggo is ok with 5 Summer plots in your plot deck, but he can also be just discard material for Plaza of Pride. Ser Jorah is the perfect chud: Companion for Street of Silk, decent board presence for only 2 gold, high printed STR claim soak for "Lord Renly's Ride", +4 STR for Mirri and Jaqen with 2 betrayal tokens on him.

What else?

• Mulligan for The Arbor or Bitterbridge or at least a Great Hall!
• Jaqen H'ghar and Mirri Maz Duur put a lot of pressure on the opponent. You can use them to get dupes out of the way before your reset. They keep opponent's boards small after resets. If you make your opponent put a 7-coster into play for free, there is a good chance it ends up in the dead pile at the end of the round.
• STR modifiers (Little Marge, A Song of Summer, Renly's Pavilion, "Lord Renly's Ride") for Randyll, Jaqen, and Mirri. "Lord Renly's Ride" is made for Randyll, but it works extremely well with Plaza of Pride, too.
• Confiscation is necessary. Terminal attachments can be dealt with by resets, but you need Confiscation against Frozen Solid.
• While Mirri and Jaqen keep the opponent down, you can win fast in the end with 5 Renown characters accelerated by Randyll's and Plaza's stand.

Try it out! ;-)