King Garth the Magnificent (Starpike Runner-Up) 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Hey all, this is the deck myself and much of the Maryland meta took up to the Storming of Starpike in Philadelphia and did quite well with. The deck went 21-9 overall in Swiss (19-7 without the mirrors), and three of us took it to the cut. I lost top 8, Jordan lost top 4, and Martin lost in the final. This here is the version Jordan and Martin were running since they placed a bit higher. My own "prime" variant of the deck has Harvest instead of ToP, LiW instead of one Bodyguard, Superior Claim instead of Fossoway, and a second Bounty instead of the Gates.

The essence of the deck is to abuse the powerful soft control that The King in the North provides to give coverage for a rush strategy. As such, we ended up with 3x Golden Roses and 3x Garth the Gross. Garth is stupendously cheap to hold the Crown, almost always has renown (and often tri-con), and gives us some redundant dupes for coverage. Most of the rest of the deck is pretty self-explanatory; the 3x Crown gave us some flexibility in going up to 3x Flea Bottom and Informant, since it's hard to have truly useless dupes and having one gold informants fueling extra challenges is preposterous. The deck's not super dense with strength buffs, but in a pinch Crossing is plenty for Courtier triggers. Bounties were to shore up any potential miss with Harvest or to be triggerable econ on KitN even if you don't have a king, and are just pretty decent in rush.

The plot line is full of techy, versatile plots to provide whatever support the rush needs. Conf gets rid of that one crucial negative attachment, Dohaeris helps slow down a bully deck vomiting their bigs to the board, Spikes is a finisher, Strings is obviously almost anything you want (Marched or Coppers usually, but the game rarely goes long enough for it to be used). King in the North slows down other rush decks or deactivates control decks' control abilities for a round, opening a window for a kill shot.

Tourney Report:

Round 1 (David W, Stark Fealty) W 1-0: Literally the only Stark deck in the field, we brawled for a couple rounds, but his First Snow left him with 6-6-5 on the table, my Dohaeris flushed him and his Withering Cold only helped Randyll out.

Round 2 (Andras Fulop, Tyrell Rains) W 2-0: He gets out two activated Green-Apples with Horn Hill, but I get Renly with a Seal and play denial. He eventually upgrades his Garth to Renly with Tinder Marge, but I immediately Dohaeris him down to just Renly and a chump while cleaning Milk off my Marge and keeping all my renown on Renly and Garth; I close that round (plot 4, I think?).

Round 3 (Martin Naze, Tyrell Crossing) W 3-0: My Harvest/Bounty/Superior Claim gives me a huge advantage in the mirror. We both drew okay but I went second first round and just went faster.

Round 4 (Jon Palmer, Tyrell Rains) W 4-0: Again, I'm staring down two supercharged Green-Apples immediately, but this time I'm rocking Randyll with Crown on setup. We do a looooooot of math with a ton of strength on both sides, but I'm just faster and win going first in challenges on plot 3.

Round 5 (George Hong, Lanni Crossing) W 5-0: Me and George played a heck of a game for King of Swiss last year, so I was excited to play him again as we were the two surviving undefeateds. He land the Tywin setup and gets big Cercei out plot one, but I'm going second and have a ton of stand and an Informant, so we end the first round with me up 9-2. I Dohaeris away his Tywin, make him go first and let everything through unopposed since he's not in striking range. I come up just short on the counterattack, but Spikesed his last card for the win on plot 3 before whatever reset he was throwing went off.

Round 6 (Jordan Davis, Tyrell Crossing) L 5-1: I was excited to shoot for my second King of Swiss in as many Starpikes, but was so intimidated by his flawless shuffle and cut I immediately conceded. George ended up passing me on strength of schedule :(

Top 8 (Chris Vac, NW Greensight) L: I brainfarted bad against this steal-yo-stuff deck, kinda forgot to play in control-deck mode. He set up and marshalled a lot of brawling strength in the first round, so I overmarshalled a bit to meet strength with strength since I've been in slugfests all day. Two Mutinies and a plot 2 Morghulis later, I'm being betrayed by topdecking only limiteds and events and run out of bodies real quick and out of gas at 8-10ish power. I scooped plot 5 with no characters on the board.

Overall, the deck is pretty versatile and has some different plays but is still certainly a classic rush deck. I was quite excited though to be playing something a little new to the meta since a lot of the powerful archetypes are pretty stable for now pre-Martell box, and am happy it went well. Thanks to Roy Rogers and Redcap's Corner for a great tournament, congratulations to Scott Levine for winning a heck of a final and taking us out twice in a row!

Jousting Pavilion for the tourney (Every Tyrell Crossing there was us): http://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/4941

Perhaps Jordan or Martin will post Tourney Reports here.