The Green Manchanorwichi (1st, Norwich Regional, 7-1)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
The Green Manchalishi - Manchester SC winner 29 18 12 1.0
Inspiration for
None yet.

jcwamma 2842

Not sure how much more mangling this deckname can take, but whatever...

This is the list I played to first at the Norwich Regional. At first I wasn't going to bother posting it since Tyrell Rains won Blackwater last weekend, but then I looked at the lists and realised they're 23 cards different, so here you go.

Standard play was to try to set up Arbor, then open either Summer Harvest (if I set up Arbor, was playing against Rains so knew no Riddle, or otherwise knew my opponent didn't run Riddle) or Time of Plenty (otherwise). This led to 6 opens of Summer Harvest and 2 of Time of Plenty (notably in the final when my opponent opened Riddle - phew!). Nothing too exceptional in the playing - just try to pace your bigs, ride the resets, don't overextend on characters before your Valar, don't overextend on locations before your Political Disaster, that sort of thing.

Potentially interesting deckchoices:

  • Arbor Vineyard over Great Hall. This was part experiment, but I didn't regret it. Advantages are that you don't have to play a unique (this deck doesn't want to do that every round when you can play non-uniques, or save gold for Arbor, or events, or Ambush); you don't lose too much simply due to some of the big uniques typically coming into play through Margaery; it's reducible by Rose Garden; and it triggers Renly. That said, if anyone wanted to change them back (even with the 4 Summer plots I run), I wouldn't object to that.
  • 16 Locations plus Political Disaster. This never felt like a problem - the only game where it might've been a problem is in part because I deliberately overextended on round six, knowing it was going to almost certainly be the last round of the game. Otherwise, just hold'em back before you play Disaster, and potentially try to dupe the Arbor if you can. Even if you do get set back, then Arbor + X is better than almost any other two card combo of locations.
  • No intrigue icon attachments. I could trigger Rains anyway, so who cares.
  • 6 STR boosting events. I don't regret this at all; in a meta where challenge maths is a consistently big deal, they were always impactful.
  • Red Wedding in the plot deck over Wildfire. This was also part experiment. In one game it was solid; in one game I wish it had been Wildfire; and most of the time it just plain didn't matter.

If anyone has any other questions about specific inclusions or cuts, feel free to ask and I'll explain my reasoning as best I can - note that this deck isn't refined though (at least not recently) except for through general instincts. I built the deck the night before, messed up by accidentally including Counting Coppers over Close Call (it ended up being much of a muchness, maybe even slightly better?), then my first game with it was round one. So if the context of your question didn't come up on the day, my answer will probably be "I'unno".

Brief TR:

  • Round One: win Vs Stark Kraken. This was an army-heavy deck with 2 claim, claim raise, Duel, and no characters above cost 5 except for King Robb's Host. We both opened Summer Harvest, but I set up The Arbor while he hadn't, and it gave me the tempo lead needed to get ahead and stay ahead as my opponent had no Valar, saw little econ and had little intrigue presence.
  • Round Two: win Vs Bara Fealty. The first of four games to be recorded on the day, I'll link the videos as and when the White Walkers post them. An early Political Disaster set my opponent back hugely, as he kept Table and Chair at the expense of draw and economy. Despite this he was able to get out Robert, (big) Melisandre and (king) Stannis, with Mel and Bob duped; however, I was able to use Jaqen and The Red Wedding to remove Bob, while getting my own Marge and Randyll duped to disincentivise Valar. Easy to win from there.
  • Round Three: win Vs Martell Fealty. I mulliganed into a set up of just Randyll and a limited, and sadly he had to be Marched to the Wall. A cagey game followed where I was able to get the Arbor down and Valar away Nymeria, then slowly come back into it. Ultimately the early Marched cost my opponent, as I was able to copy it with Pulling the Strings to get rid of his duped Ricasso, and the tempo hit allowed me to get over the line. Also of note was this was one of the games when Political Disaster proved very useful, as it forced him to chuck three resource locations to keep a Fiefdom and a Ghaston, preventing him from pushing hard at me thereafter.
  • Round Four: loss Vs NW Summer. Yup, lost to the Builders, go figure! The deck has a close matchup with the Builders with both PD and First Snow in the plot deck; however, it wasn't enough here as my opponent got the excellent setup of Gift, Vault and Wall, and spammed out multiple Builders plus a Stronghold and a Forest round one. He also got all 3 Grizzled Miners by round two, making First Snow pointless. I kept in it, but didn't see quite enough to beat the nuts draw (and a well-managed performance by my opponent) and he got a narrow-ish victory.
  • Round Five: win Vs Targ Rains. Second recorded game. Essentially a Targ Fealty deck, but using Rains for challenge flexibility over econ. My opponent got off to a better start with Mirri and support; since I had Varys in hand and The Arbor on the table, I decided to Valar turn two. He was able to reflood expertly with Dany and supports, putting my back against the wall, but I got Varys out. Held him off for round two challenges, but Varys had Nightmares in dominance. Next turn I was able to push more, getting out duped Marge and duped [other big guy, I think Renly]. Thanks to the dupes my opponent couldn't guarantee I wouldn't Varys still, and for the sake of Dracarys!-based challenge control had no choice but to Waking the Dragon on Dany in the challenges phase. That then allowed me to use Varys as a challenge participant, forcing him to Drac Varys (because why wouldn't you, he's a ticking bomb as long as he's on the board). That then gave me the tempo advantage (Drac gone, 7-coster knelt and then subsequently disappearing back to hand) to push home the advantage and swing the game back in my favour. It went to time in round six and my opponent conceded, as I would have gone on to win anyway and he wanted the SoS point (which proved wise as he made the cut off the back of doing so).
  • Top 8: win Vs NW Summer. Rematch from before. I drew like absolute crap in this game, but thankfully my opponent drew even worse. He couldn't justify getting the Wall out round one, and I pulled it for intrigue claim. That gave me the breathing room for a couple of rounds, and he had to spam cards out, not getting his second Wall until round three. I First Snow'd him (leaving him with zero characters on the board) and followed up with Political Disaster to his Counting Coppers, leaving him with just Brandon's Gift and The Wall. With him only having two gold (and I believe 1 more power), I opted to go first so that I could Nightmares Brandon's Gift in the marshalling phase, and the lack econ he now had stopped him getting enough stuff out to prevent me from taking complete control of the game. With Coppers gone and Eastwatch discarded to PD, he didn't have enough card advantage to come back into the game. It looped round to plot 8 when I could First Snow again, and with my opponent finally seeing a Castle Black Mason I was able to Nightmares him as my next action, preventing him from finding any more answers, and I closed that round.
  • Top 4: win Vs GJ Rains. Third recorded game. Similar to round one, I set up the Arbor (and my opponent obviously didn't), and we both opened Summer Harvest. That gave me a tempo advantage, allowing me to get out Tinder Marge and force him to use his Euron (that he'd set up) on defense to prevent me kneeling him with the Rains trigger. Round two I could play out more, and was very fortunate to discard We Do Not Sow for intrigue claim (when I couldn't've prevented unopposed). Round three I duplicated the Arbor and just slowly churned out more people. My opponent similarly put more characters on the board, but the STR pump events allowed me to manage the challenges phases without issue, and I just kinda slowly closed.
  • Final: win Vs Targ Rose. Fourth recorded game. I didn't see the Arbor until the last round of this one, so had to play it honestly - where's the fun in that?? The key moments here were: getting Highgarden on setup; altering from Harvest to Time of Plenty and dodging Riddle round one (and then Harvesting his Time of Plenty round two); getting Tinder Marge out duped with Paxter round one, making military challenges a non-starter (with him having Drogo out); and Political Disaster forcing him to discard his econ to keep out Plaza and a 4-Bestowed Astapor, leaving him ruined for tempo for the rest of the game.

Thanks to all my opponents for putting on a great show, the store for running the tournament very effectively (and agreeing to use Jousting Pavilion over TOME, then promptly being amazed by how much better it is!), everyone who came out for the drinks and meal after the tourney, Sweeney and Caitlin for driving 6 hours to make it, Keb and Alex for keeping me company in the car (go Team Chindow!), Rowan for the scroll, and everyone who's wished me well.

19 comments

Von Wibble 191

Congratulations again on the win. I definitely agree on the Growing Strong, that proved decisive in our game as it prevented me from killing Brienne with Dracarys! (and she was doing a lot to stall me thanks to duped Renly being in play). In a Targ heavy meta, using a deck that wants to win by 5, with Randyll on the board - seems strong.

No Left and Right? ;)

slanderandlies 122

How big did you find yourself bestowing on Informers? Or was it purely 'oh I have this left anyway', or was it more of a case by case decision?

jcwamma 2842

Default Bestow was definitely 1. I think I Bestowed more in one game for funsies? I vaguely recall disappointing Rowan in the final because I could've Bestowed more but held some gold back to threaten events.

Baronerosso 160

Congratulation james! Beautiful deck how mander and renly host works?

jcwamma 2842

The Host were good, they benefit from being Duel-proof and No Attachments, and can create real problems for the opponent; that said, their high cost slot and lack of power grab means I wouldn't be opposed to cutting them.

The Mander was pretty worthless, frankly. I never played it, and discarded it to Informer/reserve more than once. I think Coppers AND 3x Pleasure Barge AND 3x Informer AND Renly/'bumps AND Mander is overkill. I'd cut that in a heartbeat.

Acloakofred 53

So we finally get to play each other and trust it to be in a final! Looking back the political disaster turn I maybe should have binned the plaza and kept a great hall, 0 econ really hurt with the high cost cards I had in hand.

Was an absolute pleasure, just a shame I couldn't have put up a better fight! Great Player, great deck and a great event <3

looking forward to our next meeting!

NastyJack 1

As a devoted user of the Manalishi/Manchalishi decks the biggest surprise to me is the lack of Trading. The other versions of this deck have run Trading for when you don't see The Arbor on setup. What's different about this deck that it's not needed any longer?

Gerion Lannister 241

@NastyJackLate summer feast is much better for this deck than Trading, because it is summer. But I think that Harvest is here instead.

jcwamma 2842

@Acloakofred Tough call - if you'd seen more econ quicker, you could argue keeping the Plaza was the right shout since it gave you tempo on the board at a time you badly needed it. And after a long wait to finally play you I can't wait for the next one! Weekender final? ;)

@NastyJack as @Gerion Lannister says, I went with Harvest in the Trading spot. Five reasons for this; firstly, I wanted to run a Summer econ plot to help support the Vineyards and Host (and I strongly dislike Late Summer Feast); secondly, Harvest is increasingly a safe plot due to the uptick of Rains decks and the fact that it's relatively safe if you can set up the Arbor; thirdly, it has better initiative than Trading; fourthly, one of the advantages of Trading always used to be that you could 'rope-a-dope' people into overextending and then Valar/Varys them away, but Varys is increasingly becoming a card that lots of people are running, meaning that instead of spamming out all their characters, opponents are more likely to use their extra 3 gold to, say, absorb the tempo hit of playing their 2 cost limited location, or drop a fully-Bestowed Astapor, or whatever else; and finally, a big draw of Trading was being able to set up your economy going forward with the Arbor while still having enough gold to drop a character down, but with the increased scope of the economy in the game you can just as easily play a Vineyard and trigger it to get the gold to play a big character still anyway, meaning the need to have so much gold is less imperative versus the 7-8 gold you can typically get from Harvest. So in short, the difference isn't so much with the deck as it is with the meta.

NastyJack 1

@jcwamma Cool, thanks for the detailed response. I look forward to trying the deck out!

Gerion Lannister 241

@jcwammaCongratulations! :) I played a very similar deck for quite a long time and I'm curious why you run only 2 copies of Randyll Tarly with so many strength boosts? I know, when Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) is out, it's not so hard to put Randyll Tarly into play. But sometimes she is hiding at the bottom of the deck. I think Randyll is the beast here and it is great to see him every game. :) Thx for you answer!

jcwamma 2842

@Gerion Lannister thanks! With Randyll, I certainly wouldn't judge somebody for going up to 3; my reasoning for keeping him at 2 was partly based on Marge as you suggest, partly based on the sheer amount of draw meaning that it's very easy to find him regardless (3x Barge, 1x Coppers (plus the ability to copy other peoples' Coppers), 1x Mander, 2x Renly, 3x Oldtown Informer), and partly a correction, possibly over-correction, from a similar deck I took to Bristol two weeks before. On that occasion I played 3x Queen of Thorns, Marge, Renly and Randyll, plus 2x Renly's Host, and an extra limited to compensate; as you can imagine, that day my deck was very inconsistent, sometimes struggling to find enough economy for its bigs, and sometimes getting absolutely swamped by economy. I decided to pare back both elements this time, trusting that the draw would be enough to find Randyll (and the others), and the 3x Bodyguard would be enough to consistently be able to save them.

Vancluysenflor 9

Hey james, congratz on your win.

I don`t like to play rattleshirts raiders in my deck. Would you think it's a bad call to get a confiscation in there and switch out the vinyards for great halls? Or were the vinyards an absolute succes?

Flor

Lannister 557

Congrats mate! Nice work. Few questions: -Didn't you miss Hand's Judgment with all the Targaryen hype? -Were you happy with just having 1x Varys? I think he is a 2 at least... Otherwise if you have him in hand you lose the Marge surprise factor -Did you ever feel like Trading with the Pentoshi could have been necessary? I see setups with this deck where a 6 is not enough to go with more than 2 chars. Cheers :)

jcwamma 2842

@VancluysenflorFirstly on the Great Hall/Vineyard swap, I think they're much of a muchness. If you wanted to add Confiscation in place of a Summer plot, that change should happen, otherwise it kinda doesn't matter either way. I prefer the gold to the reduction personally, but it's as much a playstyle thing as anything else I think.

On Rattleshirt's Vs Confiscation, I'm increasingly coming down in favour of Raiders, because I'd prefer to put my plot deck slots towards better effects where possible, and this deck has so much STR-bump effects that winning a military on pretty much any boardstate isn't too tough; however, at the same time they're not vital to the deck, so if you did want to cut them and put Confiscation back in, you're more than welcome to do so. I'd definitely recommend adding some characters in those slots though, preferably with mil icons, to prevent the deck from suffering too much against aggro.

@Lannister I've never been a huge fan of Handy-J. I don't like having to save gold that I'm not going to use for something, just in case the opponent has an effect. In the case of burn specifically, I typically find that I have the STR pumps to outlast the burn - once the round five game @Von Wibble and I had goes live you'll be able to see evidence of that for yourself! Varys is a fine card and I can see the argument for going higher, but I find that a lot of games you don't need to trigger him at all so just having the threat of him is all that's required. I also don't know that putting him in with Margaery is particularly surprising anymore - he's a known quantity at this point! On Trading, it's a card I've included in this type of deck before, and if I wasn't trying the Summer module may well have gone in in place of Summer Harvest. Check one of my earlier responses for a more in-depth comparison point between the two plots.

Vancluysenflor 9

Thanks for your fast and in dept answer.

Hybrid92 241

Would you play the recently released Garlan Tyrell in this deck and, if so, what would you cut?

Hybrid92 241

Also would you consider Wheels Within Wheels as one of your schemes?

jcwamma 2842

@Hybrid92 sorry for missing this. Obviously the meta has advanced a lot to the point where this isn't really very helpful anymore, but yes Garlan should go in, and Wheels is good but there probably isn't space for it in practice.