Card Advantage Matters - 2nd at Tournoi de la Main 2018

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet.

Vince 131

Hi everyone,

This is the deck with which I made finale at Tournoi de la Main 2018. It came from the observation that Big Guys were still prominent in 2nd Ed, to the point where often my opponent was top deck but would draw 2 big characters and simply stay in the game, despite me having a better CA and better plots.

This state is still technically dominant, but it felt recently that people were more and more careless with their cards in hand, especially Targaryen and Martell players. That's why I wanted to give this another try.

The principle are simple:

  • Let your opponent play as many cards as he can turn 1. Your game starts turn 2.
  • Attack their hands as hard as you can and make sure you can reset in the best possible situation
  • Win it back from there.

The deck is centered around this, and as a result only has Asha, Doran and to an extent Myrcella to win once you've resetted and taken the lead.

It makes for very tensed games as you will be down in powers for a long time and will need to climg back quickly when your opponent has no cards in hands.

Why Kraken? Because Coastal Reaver. It is an intrigue claim in Marshalling and when your opponent is top deck, losing 50% of their hands always hurts. Because it brings much needed location control and iron mines.

The deck has as much draw as I could fit in. Ahead of the tide has been great all day, keeping control of initiative makes a hell of a difference to me.

The one regret I have is not putting dohaeris instead of Forced Marched. The games I had played with Dohaeris it hadn't been that important and I had been taken aback by some very rush decks against which Forced Marched made sense.

I have played about 15 games with this deck before the tournament and hadn't played against Tyrell. This also means there is a lot a wiggle room to make it better or adapt it to your playstyle.

During the tournament I played and defeated:

  • Greyjoy Greensight, Tyrell WtC, Martell HtrD, Lanni Dragon, Bara Watch (x2), Martell WtC, and Targ WtC.
  • I lost on time againt the Targ WtC in rounds, I would have won with one more turn. I lost against NW Rains, steward, Bowen has been bonkers. And I lost in finale against the Tyrell WtC I had beaten during the rounds.

I believe the "surprise effect" has been key in the success of the deck during the day, I think its chances lower considerably against someone who knows what you are up to and knows how to play against it, but I also think they don't go drastically below 50.

I had an absolute blast playing this deck during the two days. Each of the games have been a huge pleasure to play, with a special mention to my 2 matches against the Bara Watch and the Targ WtC. Nerve wracking, and at the same time the deck did exactly what it was supposed to :).

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

13 comments

gabi4008 415

Congrats to a very good result! I like this type of deck.looks interesting to play! What do you think about high sparrow for this deck? I am a bit surprised by trading with the pentoshi...does the deck need this plot?

Vince 131

Thanks! High Sparrow has been mentioned to me a number of time, and there certainly are hand attrition decks with High Sparrow, but it is not this one. You want your opponent to have the least possible number of cards in their hands, if you limit the gold they have it won't work. And it turns out that apart from Tyrell and the barges, people don't draw enough to really need the high sparrow. On top of it, once you've reseted you need:

  • Gold
  • Bodies that will win the game The High Sparrow is the opposite of both ^^. So no, not the High Sparrow in my opinion...

Pentoshi is there for the gold it provides. I don't care giving 3 gold to my opponent turn 5 when they have only 2 cards in hand. It won't make much of a difference and it helps play the "lock". Basically if you have Coastal Reaver and Orphan of Greenblood, you can get rid of the cards your opponent has left in hand (or better, before he even plays them) by bouncing out and back in the Coastal Reaver. Although it is not the primary aim of the deck, it is a very welcome cherry on the cake :).

argento 649

wonderful deck ! very nice building !

Markdrive82 124

It’s a great deck Vince

Clu 250

Reaver is vastly underestimated. Great deck!

Chord 101

Very nice deck. I see a lot of pace for... maybe not improvements, but smaller adjustments to fit ones meta, but that's even better. Few questions that come to mind: 1) what's your opener? The problem I see is that all of this plots seem very useful on later rounds :) False Spring and HoS shine vs thin hands, Riddle is tactical response (on first turn it's best vs Harvest, but you actually WANT an opponent to buy too much on first) on opponent plot, Forced March/VD/VM are also very responsive (although vs rush deck opening with FM can make sense) and opening with Pentoshi contradicts what you said about using it late after the reset. TL;DR - this plot deck seem lacking opening card fitting your desired game plan ;)

2) +1 for Kraken (GJ banner - best banner), two cards that come to my mind as an addition for what you have are Tris Botley (but he's best when kept to board) and long forgotten Capitan's Daughter (but you gamble a bit risking going vs "big loyal guys").

3) You have my utmost Respect for not moving in Flea Bottom nor "The Last Giant" direction here. I don't know if they fell out through some testing or you discarded them at initial theory-crafting level, but not seeing this two cards that on the surface, could support some of your plays warms my heart.

Lastly, congratulations on the result, of course.

Vince 131

Thanks Chord! To answer your questions: 1) My opener is always Varys Riddle, the 7 reserve combined with winning the iniative and going secnod has been bonkers all day, I never regretted it. The plan is then technically to go HoS/Fallen Spring, depending on the number of cards my opponent then has in hands. Then normally Reset, and Gold plots to take the board again. Forced Marcehd can go anywhere in this timeline to tempo a turn if need be, but as I said I'd take it out for Dohaeris.

2)I have considered both, and even tried adding Tris the day before the tournamene tbut couldn't fit him in, as he doesn't bring much in a lot of cases once you have your location management cards in hand. The first version of the deck I had had Captina's Daughter, it's a card I am really fond of, but here it didn't fit in the deck in the end. I wanted to keep my house card free for Secret Schemes and Doran, and she is quite expensive for what she brings here... Or at least it was my opinion...

3) The first version of the deck played Flea Bottom, but it simply didn't work as including flea botton often meant depleting some of the other modules, and I never felt comfortable with it. It may be possible to include it if you're a better player than me. It also went with the fact that I though the meat would be prepared to deal with Flea Botton, and in a way, by not running it I was taking this concern off the deck. I am not a huge fan of Last of the Giants/Varys in earnest and never conidered it for the deck. I don't think I'd include it as it is a real combo here and if you don't get Varys the event is useless.

As silly as it sounds, the number of games where you will actually have more than plenty of cards in hands wohn't be that many, and in all honesty you don't need THAT many, you just need 5cards more than your oppoennt to be comfortable, or so I felt. On a similar trend, not really knowing what to do of this observation, that weekend I played 8 games I believe where I didn't see Dorne, and still won 6 of them (the 2 I lost are the 2 games from the finale). Should this queston the inclusion of Dorne in the deck? I'll let others find the answer ^^.

Amoon 1

Very well build and played! You made your meta proud ^^

mach 52

This is the good stuff, Vince!

maugwhy 1

how do you manage with doublons ? I'm testing the deck and i have really hard times reseting. valar is not good against doublons, and varys is really expensive and you want to keep your eco plot for the after-reset. I think I'm missing something.

Vince 131

Hi Maughwy, I have generally gone for Varys/Valar for dupes. There has always been enough economy out that I could play Varys on a False Springs turn as well. It is also the reason why I run 3 Kingsroads/Roseroads. When I see dupes, I generally dig for Varys, save the gold, and go for Varys Valar. Being able to control initiative and go second prevents a lot of issues, I haven't faced a Nightmare, it may also be because my opponent's hand was generally empty by that point ^^.

Hope that helps. If you test against Tyrell, I would suggest trying Dohaeris instead of Forced Marched to slow them down as much as can be, and maybe find a spot for another impactful character (second Asha?) If your opponent only has one character in play or two after the rest because of the dupes, you should still be able to make the most of it... Or at least, it's the idea...

Ryan Jones 173

Great deck, @Vince! I ended 9/55 at the Kubla Cup this past weekend with it, but feel like I let the deck down about by having 0 reps before the tourney. You've always been the master and it doesn't look like that will end any time soon...

Kingnothing 1

Now with the Nighttime Marauders they are an auto include for this deck? Should be easy to fill up the discard pile and choose a card for more hand destruction.