The Summer of (Tourney) Love 1.0

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• 1.0

Good folk of Westeros, pay no attention to those queer rumours from the north. House Tyrell promises this summer will never end! We shall celebrate our endless plenty with the greatest Tourney in history...

Summary (tl;dnr)

This deck uses knights attacking and defending alone to stack power on well protected lords and ladies, before ending the game in a glorious all out knightly charge with A Tourney for the King.

Background

Knight decks never really worked for me. I mean, knights are really cool, and the theme of them riding around like maniacs to impress ladies always appealed, but they had a couple of problems. Renown could pile power onto the knights, but they are usually fragile things. Valar Morghulis, The First Snow of Winter and many other cards would wipe out handfuls of knights and their hard earned glory. Most knights are well within range of being killed by Dracarys!, and there weren't quite enough knights in house tyrell alone.

A few new cards have mitigated these problems. Knight of the Reach and Name Day Tourney have given knights attacking, OR defending alone, the ability to stack power onto lords and ladies, who are much more survivable. A trickle of new knights and ladies, such as Ser Jon Fossoway and Elinor Tyrell, have filled out the roster. Thus, we have this deck: piles of knights attacks and defending alone, and the tools to make sure they win those challenges.

Winning with honour: How it works

A knight is nothing without a liege to serve!

Load up saves onto your three key characters, Margaery Tyrell (Core), Brienne of Tarth and The Knight of Flowers, then load them up with power using their renown, Name Day Tourney and Knight of the Reach. Keep them and their power on the board at all costs; the other ladies can take the power at a pinch, but they're not much help at winning solo challenges.

Glorious single combat!

Use your challenge removal, like Mare in Heat and Highgarden, or your strength manipulation, like Renly's Pavilion, Heartsbane to win solo challenges, and win with honour. Remember, you can often get power just by defending. Power is your no. 1 priority; let your opponent win unopposed, kill knights, and discard your cards if it means you can get more power in retaliation. You can probably out-rush most opponents.

The Summer of Tournaments!

I usually start off with Time of Plenty, to ensure I have knights on the board, at least one lady, and saves for my key characters by the time I play Name Day Tourney the second turn. If you have a strong starting position, you can go right ahead with Name Day Tourney straight way.

Use Duel the second your opponent has 2 6+cost characters out; you will almost certainly get a lot of power that turn. If the opponent's board is getting big, use Jousting Contest. Use Pulling the Strings to copy your opponent's Confiscation, Counting Coppers or whatever you need in that particular match.

When you have around 11 power, you can use A Tourney for the King to end the game.

Explanations

Here I'll explain why I put in certain cards over others.

General Choices:

We're picking knights and ladies to take maximum advantage of our tournament plot cards, and the solo challenge cards. Some Garden Caretakers and Syrio Forel will be taken, however, as they help the knights' solo challenge and economy. Since we'll be doing solo challenges, we'll very rarely win challenges by 5 str, which removes a whole swathe of otherwise good cards from our pool, such as The Mander, and All Men Are Fools.

Which Agenda?:

Without enough loyal cards, we're choosing between The Lord of the Crossing and Kings of Summer. This deck could probably work, with few changes, as a lord of the crossing deck, but I went with summer as those extra gold coins really do stack up, ensuring a smoother economy. We're going to pick at least 3 summer plots regardless; might as well be paid more for them. Plus, the -1 str for the first challenge in crossing has really hurt in the tests I've done.

Which Plots?:

Several plots have come and gone in this deck during testing. Jousting Contest used to be x2, but I found I needed the extra gold and potential power in Name Day Tourney. A Song of Summer was in for ages, but was replaced by Time of Plenty for the extra draw, after failing to draw saves for the key characters, or drawing too many, became a consistent problem. After struggling between choosing Confiscation and Counting Coppers, I decided to go for Pulling the Strings, which can be either, depending on your opponents deck. In my experience, opponents often Confiscation early to deal with your Mare in Heat, so you can use Pulling the Strings to good effect.

Duel deserves special mention. It has been useless in many games, but almost every game I've triggered its effect, I've won. Even without its revealed effect, its stats aren't bad. Replace it with Confiscation, Jousting Contest or Counting Coppers, if you like.

No 6+ cost characters?:

There are no knights in house tyrell that are 6+, and core margery is better for this deck, as it has few lords. The Queen of Thorns (Core) was originally in as a nice strong lady, and Renly Baratheon (FFH) for his insight, renown and tricon, but Duel and the slowed pace of having expensive characters convinced my to drop them. I have strongly considered putting in a King Renly's Host, but its not a knight. which has kept it out for now. Duel, and Mare in Heat lets this deck deal with opponent's big characters pretty well without resorting to playing their own.

If you don't want to run Duel, then Renly and the Queen of Thorns can be solid. You might want to run a second Knighted, though.

Which Knights?:

3 of The Knight of Flowers because he's just about the best card for winning challenges alone. I took 1 of each unique knight as they're all good in their way, but there's no easy way to save them. Knight of the Reach is key, Arbor Knight is the best knight to have a Mare in Heat due to their strength manipulation. Only 2 x Knight of Summer because, though they are excellent, they are relatively expensive for something that is almost garenteed to be killed by a reset; a Hedge Knight was thrown in to help with setup and post-Valar spamming.

Feel free to play around with the number of Hedge Knights and Knight of Summers according to your taste. For the uniques, you could consider more copies of Ser Horas Redwyne (considering all the ladies), and Ser Robar Royce, for faster rush.

Saves:

3x Lady-in-Waiting and Bodyguard are a lot of cards, but you really are in a lot of trouble if your power banks get killed. You could consider running one or two less, but I regreted it when I tried. Almost never use the Lady-in-Waiting as anything other than a dupe. Don't put down too many dupes if you think they might Battle of the Blackwater; keep some in your hand.

Which Attachments?:

Green Dreams was added because this deck has something of a draw problem sometimes, loaded as it is with saves and attachments when you need characters. Its a free setup card, and helps you filter your draw as long as its around. Seal of the Hand is a huge problem for your opponent if you put it on either The Knight of Flowers or Margaery Tyrell (Core), but also works on Brienne of Tarth. Heartsbane is incredibly efficient help for winning solo challenges. Knighted is here to be put on Brienne of Tarth or Syrio Forel, but also works on any of the other ladies, or to give renown to Ser Jon Fossoway, and is a cheap card to throw in at setup. Making someone a knight adds to the power you can win during three of our plot cards. Knighted is only really good on the 7 cards mentioned, so I wouldn't have any more than 1.

People might want to try cutting Green Dreams and Knighted, according to their taste.

Which Events?:

Always an area I struggle with. There are a great many events that seem urgent for this deck, and you should feel free to pick them according to your local meta. The Hand's Judgment, Nightmares, and Lay Siege have all been in this deck in varying numbers, but I've settled on 2 x Nightmares to help blanks threats to winning key solo challenges, and just play around opponents events. Offer of a Peach used to be a 2x, but I found I rarely wanted 2 of them, or had the gold to play both it and highgarden. Still, a very potent card for winning a defensive power. Growing Strong is an absurdly efficient card (6str for 1g) if you use all of it, and will give all three of your solo attacking knights a +2. Still, it is probably the most replaceable of the event cards.

Lady Sansa's Rose is a game winning card, but having more than 1 can be a waste. If your opponent has a reset, the only person you can use it on without losing it is The Knight of Flowers, or a Knighted lady. Or, you will win on that turn. That means a whole lot of turns that it might sit useless in your hand, So, I only take 1, but taking a 2nd is highly tempting - 3 power is a LOT.

Thanks for reading

I'd love to hear your questions, comments and suggestions. There's some really nice knights and ladies coming soon, so the future of this deck type looks bright.