Captain Rykker (Rangers, Top4 SoCal regional, Top8 KublaCup)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
The Watchers on the Wall (Ranger deck, Top 8 GenCon, Top NW) 23 13 0 3.0

FredInRealLife 247

"The Wall defends itself" - Jon Snow

  • There is video of me playing this deck at a top 8. I'll post it in the comments when the TOs upload it.

This is the deck that I took to the Las Vegas regional, the SoCal regional and Kubla Cup (19, 40, and 40+ players respectively). I began building it with two different objectives in mind. One was, in the wake of the box, to make a Ranger deck work consistently well. The other was to build an alternative to the minicurve decks which are so common in the meta. The Watch has received so many excellent bombshell cards over the past cycle that the standard decklist has very little room for customization. But with the rise of burn, rush, and the return of big character meta, that decklist is going to become obsolete very soon. You can no longer rely on passivity and building a Wall to win the game consistently. Your opponents will be able to win challenges against you, push renown characters through, and trigger multiple kill effects to overwhelm Aemon.

Put simply, the standard NWF build is all in on a single strategy. It's a good strategy, but it's not enough. Your entire plot deck has 3-4 cards designed to consistently do two things for you:

  1. Draw cheap characters, Cravens, the Wall, and Haunted Forests to build a defense.
  2. Play Maester Aemon.

With this deck, I was attempting to build a more offensive Night's Watch, while simultaneously not sacrificing the solid win condition offered by the Wall. It would be a deck that could win without the Wall, but also defend the Wall. I'm not sure if it's consistently great enough to win without the Wall, but I will note that in about half of my games, even at major tournaments, I have won without ever playing the Wall.

So let's talk about the cards, and then we'll get to the tournament report.

PLOTS:

You'll see a few familiar plots here from standard NWF. For the Watch!, Here to Serve, Valar Morghulis need no introduction. I consider them mandatory for any Wall deck in the current meta. Valar, in particular, is necessary to halt your opponent if they begin to outrace the Wall. With Spooky Trees and duped Maester Aemon, you can pretty reliably defend the Wall post-valar.

Late Summer Feast and Time of Plenty: These are the only two Summer plots remaining from my original stable of 4. I don't believe that I would have chosen this agenda if I knew that these were the only two summer plots that would remain after all my cuts. However, there are very few cards which benefit from Fealty, I have little room for any Winter plots, and I don't want to play crossing. Fealty has one distinct advantage in this deck, in that it allows you to threaten The Watcher on the Walls during the challenges phase with no gold. The main reason I still play summer is the higher reserve. I often am at the exact limit for reserve. I like to keep cards back to save from resets. I like to retaliation early while I have an advantage, and its low reserve is killer. Plus it boosts The Watch Has Need, which is golden in this deck.

Marched to the Wall: This card wins games. It is a plot that no one plays when they're just having fun, but should be mandatory in every competitive deck. With Qhorin Halfhand? I'm going to hit something with this in every single game. You'll see in the report just how valuable it is. As an added bonus, no one expects it if they think you're running a generic Wall deck.

Retaliation: A 2 claim non-winter plot, with 4 gold? The downside is I have to make them go first? As Night's Watch? Where's the downside? If I had 8 plots, I'd seriously considering running this 2x. Qhorin on a retaliation turn just makes your opponents cry, and you have so many power icons with Rykker that you can even let the Wall fall just to get a 2 claim power challenge through. If you can keep it standing and still get one through, even better.

Characters:

Arry, Benjen, Dolorous Edd: Standard, solid characters. Arry is 1x in a crowded 4-cost slot because you need intrigue icons. Benjen is even more golden with all the rangers. Nothing gets past this group.

Jon Snow (WotW): What a beast. Jon Snow is an absolutely amazing card. He's the Jon we deserved, after getting such a mediocre version in the core set. Jon defends the Wall, then stands up to swing back for a military or intrigue. Or your opponent passes out of frustration, and he does both.

Lost Ranger: I have an open bounty for photoshop wizards. Make me an alt art of this card with the ranger edited out and I will buy them. I'm serious. This card is made for this deck. His downside has only triggered once in my memory, out of 100 games, and I usually have Rykker out. 2 for 4 bicon is pretty good.

Aemon, Messenger Raven, Old Forest Hunter: Standard cards. Yes, I did try new Aemon. I get that question a lot because I have a lot of military icons and don't really have to worry about losing that challenge often. He's not good. Not here, at least.

Qhorin Halfhand: Wipe boards, collect renown, win games. We don't need a Wall when Qhorin's dual wielding Daggers and murdering armies with them.

Ranging Party: No comment

Satin: Taken over 1x Samwell Tarly (Core). I like standing Jon twice in one round. Can easily go either way on this one.

Ser Jaremy Rykker: The deck's namesake, and for good reason. He's the lynchpin to the deck. Rykker makes your Lost Rangers huge. He makes Will into a tricon with Stealth/Insight. You will use him in pretty much every game. And he will do work for you in those games.

Steward at the Wall: No comment

Thoren Smallwood: Originally a 3x, began to cut him down as I started escalating into competitive play. I might bump him back up. Thoren is one of those cards that you may never trigger, but still adds value to the deck because it forces your opponents to play around him, like The Watcher on the Walls, or The Seastone Chair.

Will: I don't think I've ever had a stronger love/hate relationship with a card like Will. In this deck, he's reliably a tricon with stealth and insight. But he's still stressful to play with. I have a feeling he might be a win more card. But I have been able to use him reliably in several matches. We'll see if he sticks around this time.

Attachments:

Craven: I originally considered not running these, as I'd rather have those characters knelt so they can't defend on my challenges. But that's a very bad idea. There is no shortage of good craven targets in the meta right now. Every deck has them. And every single one of those characters is better for you if they're defending rather than attacking. The real question is not whether or not to run Craven, but if you want to cut any of them to make room for Milk.

Dragonglass Dagger: Value card. It's the +2 that matters here. The big things that the other part stops are the Mountain, Dany, and Balon. It's worth it to note that this is not an anti-burn card, at least not a very good one. The +2 fades after the challenge, while Dracarys! lasts until the end of the phase. So they won't get unopposed maybe, but your ranger is still going to become Dead Ranger.

Locations:

Eastwatch-by-the-Sea: Solid 1x in every Watch deck until the end of time. Wish I had room to run 2.

The Haunted Forest: Complete bullshit card. Don't ever think you can get by without 3 of them. It'll probably be in every Wall deck until it gets restricted or cycled out.

The Iron Throne: It's good to be gaining 3 power per turn instead of 2. And you need this to have any kind of hope to win against Bara Fealty.

The Kingsroad, The Roseroad, The Wall: Great Halls might work instead. Further testing is required.

Events:

Nightmares:

You should be running this at 3x if you have room. I don't have room.

The Hand's Judgment:

Mandatory for Wall decks. It stops their Nightmares, Treachery, and Dracarys. The only times I don't use this card in a game is when I'm running away with a victory or I just don't draw it.

The Watch Has Need:

Do you like drawing 3-4 rangers for 1 gold? Whether it's more Lost Rangers, dupes for your officers, or surprise Halfhand, it's 1 gold well spent. Bonus! Try playing this with Time of Plenty! You can draw the Halfhand, and play him thanks to your agenda! What a deal!

The Watcher on the Walls:

Of course this is going to be in here. The real question is how many copies. I think 1 is enough. You're not going to trigger it in most of your games, but you need it there to keep them honest. One of my favorite plays is to react strongly when they hit it with intrigue so as to draw their attention to it and mess with them.

Other cards/possible replacements:

Milk of the Poppy: My big conclusion after this run is that this deck could really benefit from Milk. I don't know what I'd cut for it just yet, but I think that's what it really needs to go over the top.

Tears of Lys: Sadly there is no room for it, but I would strongly consider playing it in any deck with this version of Jon. Mostly because there are a lot of juicy targets in Bara and Targ.

Tournament report:

I built this deck over the course of April, to prepare for a regional at Power 9 Games in North Las Vegas (Vegas players, come play some games with us! We meet on Saturdays at noon). I sadly did not make the cut there. Had some bad luck in the swiss, and Chris Schoenthal pulled the stuff of nightmares on me when he hit the Wall with We Do Not Sow on turn one, and then immediately took it with Euron. I'm sure he was quite amused himself.

SoCal Regionals at At Ease Games, San Diego:

You can find the stats for this tournament here: The Jousting Pavilion

Round 1: David - Lannister/Sun - Win

David was a solid dude. We had a beer after the game (did I mention that At Ease has a bar attached? That owns so much) and talked some shop. The game itself was pretty unlucky for him. On turn two I flipped retaliation with Qhorin and a few Lost Rangers on the board. He had Tywin and someone else, but didn't draw enough characters of his own to flood the board. I killed three characters on that turn, leaving him with just Tywin. Marched the following turn to clear his board and it was gg from there.

Round 2: Pablo - Lannister/Castamere - Win

Pablo opened with Trading, which let me get an early Qhorin out on my Here to Serve. I made a mistake and walked into the classic rains play; Chella helped trigger a rains, flip wildfire, all of a sudden she has 6 ear tokens. I immediately valared on the following turn, leaving just tyrion. Unfortunately, he decided to march on the same turn as I was showing just Qhorin + Aemon + other valuable character. So his Tyrion bit the dust, and so did my Qhorin to marched. That turn I played Thoren and duped aemon to blunt the mil claim that turn. On the next turn I played Jon Snow and he pulled out Jaime to recover. Pablo ran into a bit of bad luck with I Never Bet Against My Family. Jaime couldn't do anything because Jon + Thoren meant free power and a stand. The game was over when I found another copy of Qhorin with The Watch Has Need and played him on retaliation.

Round 3: Edward - Targ/Fealty - Win

Opened with the Wall, Lost Ranger, and a Chud. I've found this never backfires on me; I'm almost guaranteed to find another ranger in the opening hand. I dropped Rykker and put a dagger on the Lost Ranger to make him utterly safe from the full Dragon is no Slave, Dracarys, Plaza/dany/etc combo. Edward played Dragon is No Slave several times, using the recurrence to pull it back. What really broke his back was when I found a craven in my opening hand for his Mirri. He didn't see Viserys.

Round 4: Jesse - Tyrell/Wolf - Loss

Jesse had a good deck and piloted it well. I made one big mistake, which was to Craven Fast Eddie only to make a military challenge. Jesse killed Eddie, triggered Marge to pull out Renly, and then followed with Ghosts of Harrenhal to bring back a full Eddie. First snow wiped my Lost Rangers, and he won on turn 4.

Round 5: Zi - Tyrell/Lion - Win

Zi and I have met before. He won our Vegas SC after beating my buddy Shane in the finals. And he made the finals of our regional the week before. This time I learned from my mistakes in the previous game and did not let Marge do her thing. Zi had to do all the killing himself, including a clever trick with Wildfire (it says "up to 3", not "3") that I had not seen before. Right away I hit her with a Craven. Zi pulled out a Rattleshirt's to knock him out. He forgot that Qhorin works on defense, and so I killed those filthy wildlings. I pulled an offensive Valar very early and just cleaned up afterwards.

Top 8: James - Night's Watch/Wolf - Win

James managed King of Swiss with an awesome deck. By coincidence, it was actually pretty much the same deck I was going to play that day before I decided to give this ranger deck another try. I won't spoil too much of what's in there, because it's kind of a different concept, but I think that James had a bad matchup and didn't see the draws he needed to get over the Wall. Great player and great deck, and I hope to see it at some high profile tournaments soon.

Top 4: Kevin - Baratheon/Fealty - Loss

This is the matchup you have nightmares about. I'm sworn to secrecy on specifics here, but you can imagine how this one meant. I should have mulliganed for a Throne, but I'm not sure if it would have made much difference.

Kubla Cup:

Round 1: John Kraus - Lannister/Castamere - Loss

Kraus hit me hard and early, setting up the Eyrie and dropping Tywin with a bodyguard. Rains into wildfire wiped my board, then the Mountain pushed through a military challenge on what was otherwise a solid military defense. With two characters left on my side, he marched and took an insurmountable lead. The Eyrie and Tywin's dupe stopped any hopes of a reset afterwards. Not seeing the Wall, Forests, or Craven was pretty bad luck but I also made several mistakes and of course John played really well. He had just swapped First Snow for Marched that morning as well, so good call on his part. I entered the submarine bracket not too discouraged, and plotted my climb back to the surface.

Round 2: Jesse - Stark/Rose - Win

Jesse had a lot more experience than me in this game, but he was playing more for fun than anything else, he told me. Still a good player who just got some bad luck in the form of my cravens. He had out a solid combo of Cat, Blackfish, Arya, and core Marge, all protected one way or another. I immediately cravened Cat, because I had Dolorous Edd in hand from setup. I hammered him pretty hard with retaliation, pushing all three challenges through. With all his protected characters, I feared that I had overextended and was about to get hit with a valar. It never came, however, and after drawing the Wall with 12 power, I closed the game out anticlimactically.

Round 3: Michael - Tyrell/Watch - Win

Michael (Mike?) is a fellow Watch aficionado who was playing a false banner deck for the Arbor. I actually really like the concept. Pleasure barges can make up for ravens easily, and you've got good economy with the ocean roads as well. I could tell right away that I was playing against a real pro by the way he could verbally game out all challenge math and scenarios in real time. He even remarked on turn two, as I was holding my Watcher, "Why does Watcher on the Walls have to be a card?" It's like he was reading my mind! But then again, having 5 rangers on the board should tell that to anyone who's played this game before. Nevertheless, he risked a challenge with an unprotected Qhorin to try to clear some of my other Rangers. After I triggered it, he immediately regretted that decision. In retrospect, that, plus his ill luck in not drawing the Wall before me, is what got me the win here. It was a 15-14 victory and a good game.

Round 4: Buz - Stark/Watch - Win

Buz was playing a hilarious fat cat deck. I saw Qhorin early but had learned my lesson from the tinder marges a week prior and didn't play along. Steady power gain got me within striking distance, and then I triggered Valar with 13 power and Benjen to win in the plot phase.

Round 5: Sandy - Lanni/Rose - Win

What a game. This had to have been the craziest, most back in forth, insane finish I've ever seen in my time playing Thrones. Sandy was keeping very good pace with the Wall, seemingly finding answers to every single roadblock I threw up. One line of defense held, though. I Cravened Jaime and then drew another copy as soon as Sandy played Confiscation. He dropped Cersei, and I Valared, sacrificing some of my rangers to wipe him out except for Jaime (still cravened) and Tywin. I could never out-aggro him, of course; those factions just have superior characters in every way. I had been holding marched and trying to win before having to use it due to my precarious board position. On plot 6 I realized that he had 13 power and only needed to push through a power challenge with Tywin to win the game. Either because he hadn't been drawing characters, or because he wanted to keep his gold to boost Tywin for the game-winning challenge, he sat on Jaime/Tywin after marshalling. As I realized that I couldn't win, I tried my best to extend the game to another round. I went in for a power challenge, knowing that he couldn't block and still win the game, as Tywin was his only power icon and Jaime was Cravened. Qhorin was the only character I had left alive, and the Haunted Forests were doing their duty. So Sandy basically calculated that blocking the challenge left him in the best position. Still, I had not won outright, and knew that I was about to lose, since I would be forced to march my only character while Sandy would only march Jaime. And that's when the bombshell dropped. Sandy was holding back a Marched as well. The double marched meant that his Tywin with 4 power was gone. I kind of lost my composure at that point, which I'm still embarrassed about, but hey. The rest of the game was kind of fuzzy but I recovered with bodies and won the game with the Wall.

Round 6: Lance - Greyjoy/Fealty - Loss

I don't remember very much about this game, except that it went to time and I didn't see the Wall early enough. But I had still made the cut at number 8, which was both a relief and a scare, as I was staring down the barrel of a first round against Chris Schoenthal, who was 6-0 in the Swiss and doing extremely well.

Top 8: Chris Schoenthal - Lanni/Rose - Loss

I don't want to spoil much of the details about this game, as Chris is going to Nationals soon. This game was recorded, and I'll be posting the link in the comments as soon as it's up, so you can watch this deck in action! But it was an incredibly hard-fought game. I had been expecting to lose rather quickly, but I got both of his treacheries early in what was probably Chris's only misplay of the game, as he tried to treachery Jon Snow's stand effect, I cancelled, and he treacheried it again. I played aggressively, striking hard on my retaliation turn, using Jon Snow on offense early and often, and aggressively Valaring his unprotected board. I drew everything I needed to win this game. I even drew the second Hand's Judgment, and almost forgot about it. Chris was in the middle of playing Tears on Qhorin, when I looked at my hand and said "OK", before I saw it and said "nah". However, I made two critical errors. One was forgetting to trigger two Messenger Ravens, which would have drawn me a Craven and almost certainly won the game. The Craven was pillaged instead by the Mountain. The other mistake I made was saying "unopposed, claim" after winning a challenge with Jon Snow, which meant I had jumped over his reaction window for the stand effect. In the end, the game came down to a single power challenge when the score stood 14-13 in favor of me. A good game and a loss to an excellent player, who went on to win the Kubla Cup.

9 comments

keldozad 2

Nice deck, just one question why no castle black?

Fruggles 106

Nice!

Great list - this is the more offensive/versatile NW deck I've been trying to build since rykker came out, glad someone found a way to make it work, will definitely be stealing it for some throneteki games :P

congrats on the success with the deck as well.

FredInRealLife 247

@keldozad No room, to put it simply. It would be good in this deck, to be sure. There's a lot of good cards I had to cut unfortunately.

argento 649

no grenn ? a ranger pretty strong with jon no ?

Fruggles 106

@argento downside of Grenn is 3 cost monocon (without rykker). What can he replace? Arry and Will are too valuable with int icons and abilities. If grenn is doing work with Jon Snow (WotW) or Qhorin Halfhand etc, it's likely you're already winning/ahead, and if you're behind, he offers way less versatility / defense than other uniques or rangers. Could maybe replace a lost ranger though? if you're expecting a ton of stark/NW that might be worth it.

But that's my take on it- fred of course feel free to correct me.

FredInRealLife 247

@argento @Fruggles Fruggles is right. Grenn started as a 3x but i had to cut him for intrigue icons and other cards. I found that I wasn't using him often enough to warrant anything. He feels like a win more card and just compares unfavorably to lost ranger. The 3 cost slot vs 4 is also a huge leap when you look at first snow. I eventually cut him for Will about 6 weeks ago.

Grenn has to go in to him with a military challenge. Often times I am going second and using Jon Snow's stand ability during defense. So Grenn would have to go with Jon on military, and even then only claim 1 power. This is suboptimal. I care about the intrigue challenge a lot more, and Jon is the only way to push it through. My military challenge typically comes from other characters. So the only other target is Qhorin, realistically.

This grenn only really shines when I don't have to use jon's ability on defense. If I'm not doing that, then I'm either losing challenges or winning so hard that I don't need to defend with jon. In the former case, I'm playing recklessly, and in the latter, Grenn is win more.

I think he's a good card, just maybe not so much in a wall deck.

OKTarg 33

Great report and an awesome deck! I look forward to seeing you again at a future tournament (Mountain View regional, perhaps?) I only wish that my Fat Cat deck was "good" rather than "hilarious!"

Hybrid92 241

No Underground Vault? Would you include it nowadays?

FredInRealLife 247

@Hybrid92 These events were pre-Astapor. I did try the Vault but I feel like it needs fealty to shine. I ran 2x Vault 1x Roseroad for another event. Didn't do well there. Not sure what happened but seeing 4 bara decks in the 5 rounds of Swiss didn't exactly help.