May-December Claimants 1.0

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• 1.0

The young hottie who falls for the old man is a long-running story trope, but thrones has never seen a May-December Romance quite like this one. =)

I wouldn't call this a full-on new archetype, but I had a lot of fun with this at the Portland Regional (Siege of Storm's End) and finished top 4.

Inspiration and Strategy

Expecting a lot of Tyrell, I felt the meta would be light on Breaking Ties, which gave me the confidence to go with 3x Wall. I faced Nothing Burns and Political Disaster, but didn't face a Breaking Ties all day.

The deck leans defensive, but can really surprise people when you need to press the attack.

Generally, you open with Peace and Prosperity and try to go second most of the time as it let's you react appropriately to your opponents actions.

Maester Aemon (WotW) can devastate opponents in many match-ups because of how hard you make it to challenge you. In some games sacrificing him with Breaking Ties will also be the right play.

13 cards prevent challenges:
9 cards prevent characters from attacking (Craven, Secret Pact, Mole's Town, Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken) and 4 remove icons (Dornish Spy, Nymeria Sand (TRtW), Shadow City Bastard)

Even when they do get challenges through, they may regret it because of Benjen, Obella, Small Paul, Sunspear, and Waymar.

Wall benefits from the same tech. Flea Bottom with Veteran Builder also makes the power gain very reliable.

Arianne Martell (AM) is simply fantastic when you are going second as she'll never catch a negative attachment that way. Just as important, she hides your plans for the turn. About to lose a MIL challenge? AM for Obella or Benjen to gain some power. Did your just remove all their POW icons on your Retaliation or Sneak Attack turn? AM for Aemon to hit them for 4 claim, etc.

Potential Updates

If I was going to make changes here would be the first things I'd experiment with/have in my rookery.

-1 Secret Pact: in the Martell matchup a 2nd Mole Town or 3rd Raven or 3rd Ranging Party would make sense. It doesn’t work on Martell characters but you have some NW bodies that can gain renown like Jon and Arry.

-1 Yoren/Guarding for another Dornish Spy: Yoren and GtR give the NW some great in-house counters for Flea Bottom. If you don't expect much FB, then an extra icon removal from Spy serves you better. Great with Ambush, AM, or FB.

Expecting a lot of Targ? I'm not sure what to cut for these, so test for yourself.

+1 Hotah's Axe: Almost all your characters can wield this lovely weapon. Nice on AM as Targ will have to spend multiple burn cards to kill her. When AM leaves play you can have it automatically go to the Bastard, Nymeria, Obella, or Spy you just dropped in. Puts Jon (WotW) into Beast Mode, and allows Qhorin to slaughter every popular non-unique character. As both of my losses were to Targ, this might have saved me on Saturday.

+1 Castle Black can make your NW guys harder to burn. Your high initiative will often allow you to choose to be first player. From there you can use CB before a Dracarys! or Consuming Flames reduces you to 0. Even if that character dies, sometimes you need to prevent the unopposed.

Have a blast!