Strength of the Reach - 2nd in War of the Faiths, Road to Fr

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Strength of the Reach - AD Version 0 0 0 1.0

Johannes 441

This deck started when I got the idea to but all the strength buffs into a single deck and also cards as much as win by five effects. Original deck included the new Brienne of Tarth (HoT) and new Knight of Flowers but even with all the strength buffs it's hard to get Brienne consistently to 10 str or higher which makes her playable. The agenda was started as Kings of Summer but I changed it into Rains when changing Brienne and adding more copies of Renly Baratheon (FFH).

Other cards choices were more or less obvious. I wanted to use as much as Reach locations and use Wardens of the Reach and Highgarden Honor Guard just for the fun of it and also to have strong middle range characters that cannot be Warded or take other attachments. I think both of them are good against popular deck types such as Martell Wolf (they actually had only one Martell Wolf in the tournament of 39 players!) and Targ burn. They are also good with Valar Dohaeris which I wanted to use to make the Greyjoy matchup better. I think the least useful card was Olenna's Machinations because if I could constantly win power challenges it seemed that my opponent didn't have enough power on the house card anyway especially when using A Clash of Kings. You could cut that altogether or add Growing Strong, "Lord Renly's Ride" or Melee at Bitterbridge. (or Support of the People for The Mander)

Tournament report:

http://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/4974

Round 1 - BYE

Ok, easy win and time get a beer but when you travel 6 hours to a tournament you would actually like to play.

Round 2 - Ken, Bara Sun, a win

After a bye you should of course play a fellow Finnish player. Luckily I've never played against Ken before since he just made a comeback to the game. It was a good game but I could control the intrigue challenges and copy his Heads on Spikes twice. After his Valar Morghulis I recovered better and got the win.

Round 3 - Maris, Greyjoy HwtRD. a win

Maris played a drowned god deck. I started carefully and try to control him from not getting the dominance triggers. After his Valar Morghulis it was not possible so I tried and managed to rush to victory before his Acolyte of the Waves could hoard too much power on Aeron Damphair (Core).

Round 4 - Stepans, Targ Fealty, a loss

Stepans played a mini curve ultra burn Targ. He had Flea Bottom and Plaza of Pride from the setup and got a 6 gold Astapor on turn two. I had a decent setup but after that I draw too many limited and too few characters. I needed to go a bit wider I would have liked because his hard control. He got a good Valar Morghulis and I didn't enough characters to establish a good board afterwards. I think The First Snow of Winter could have helped me but otherwise it seemed a bad matchup. My deck can handle 4 gold Astapor but 6 gold was too much even for me.

Round 5 - Reinijs, Targ Fealty, a win

Reinijs had a different version of Targ mini curve burn. He had 4 card setup without economy and didn't redraw that well. I played the first rounds defensively and survived both his Valars and rushed into victory after before getting hit by my own Valar Dohaeris.

Round 6 - Daniel, Martell Rose, a win

Last game and the winner gets to got to cut for sure. Daniel played similar deck than the Thrones W.A.R. winner so I was able to expect a lot of tricks. He had the magic combo of Left and Right from the beginning which caused me some problems. He also had a Sunspear and better intigue presence which made me concentrate on power challenges. He had a really good Retaliation turn with two Olenna's Informants which caused a lot of trouble. I just managed to hang in the game with the draw from The Mander and playing defensively. With help on The Honeywine, A Clash of Kings and "Lord Renly's Ride" I managed to rush into victory before Daniel would have gotten control. Luckily Daniel made the cut also even with the loss.

Top 8 - Marcus, Targ Fealty, a win

Marcus has been burning just about everything in Finland during the Store Championship season and hitting people's best characters with Heads on Spikes. We played practice game during our boat trip to Tallinn and he Spiked my Renly and destroyed me. Maybe it was a good sign his Heads on Spikes hit The Mander instead of either my copies of Renly Baratheon (FFH) on first turn or maybe it was the worse hangover Marcus had which allowed me to get basically everything I needed to win the game. The highlight of the game was triple King Renly with Crown of Gold and Crown of Golden Roses. Must have been a shiny Golden Crown!

Top 4 - Erika, Greyjoy Rains, a win

Erika was the Queen of Swiss with a awesome cape to remind me from it. It was the first time I played against Greyjoy Rains with my deck and I was eager to see how my anti-Greyjoy tech would work in an actual game and not just in theory. She had Asha Greyjoy (Km) and Euron Crow's Eye early in game and I was lucky enough to find duped Randyll Tarly and intrigue weenies. She had a strong start with Asha and We Do Not Sow on Redwyne Straits but couple next turns were dominated by Randyll and "Lord Renly's Ride". She extended her board to Euron, Asha and Victarion Greyjoy with Theon Greyjoy (TFoA) and Silence's Crew. At that time I had Randyll Tarly, three intrigue weenies and Wardens of the Reach. With help on Wardens of the South Randyll was able to lure Euron to defend a military challenge with Silence Crew. Then I hit with three intrigue weenies with a big int challenge with "Lord Renly's Ride" and triggered Rains to Wildfire Assault. I was really hoping that she wouldn't save Theon to make my Valar Dohaeris brutal. She thought about it for a moment but decided to save the big characters. I played Valar Dohaeris the next turn and rushed into victory before she could re-establish her board.

Final - Zbignev, Tyrell Summer, a loss

Zbignev told me that his deck was build from the basis of my Stahleck deck which was nice to hear. He had added some newer cards like Oldtown and The King in the North. Zbignevs shuffling of my deck was magical since I mulliganed but still had a bad setup with no econ. He had a decent but a risky setup with Ser Robar Royce and The Hightower. His Late Summer Feast allowed him to get a better board than my Time of Plenty. Next turn he played the King plot because he had Renly and I couldn't use my Great Hall. With help of The Hightower and his agenda he could keep his card, econ and board advantage and my Valar Dohaeris too little too late and he cruised into easy victory. He played well and I think his deck is more consistent but I would have liked a better setup to get a better game. I had really good setups in my other top 8 games so maybe it was just time to get hit by a worse one.

Anyway it was great to play against some new people and it was fun to hang out with other Thrones players in saturday's St. Patrick's Day party. The deck was fun to pilot even though it's not the best deck there is. Some tuning might make it more competitive but I like to use cards that are not that commonly played like Wardens of the Reach, Highgarden Honor Guard, The Mander and Melee at Bitterbridge. Especially the core set cards remind me from the days when Tyrell wasn't that good. The better economy makes The Mander playable even without Support of the People and the amount of The Reach locations are making Wardens of the Reach actually a good card. I like how most of the Reach locations are concentrating in winning by five. Only Caswell's Keep seems to be out of theme and not generally good card like Highgarden.

2 comments

Daniel 1

Congratz Johannes! It was pleasure to play with such an amazing player!

Johannes 441

@Daniel it was nice to play against you and nice to meet you. Very nice deck you had and well played.