Kneel before the Kings of the Sea Twice 1st on 19 p. field

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Inspiration for
Kneel before the Kings of the Sea derived 0 0 0 1.0

nicogm 100

I’ve been playing this deck for a little while, specially after the release of TtB. Today it performed amazingly well on a 19 people tournament in Santiago, Chile leading me to the 1st place undefeated. The rounds were as follows:

  • R1: Baratheon Fealty (W)
  • R2: Targaryen Banner of the Lion (W)
  • R3: Baratheon Fealty (W)
  • R4: Lannister Banner of the Rose (W)
  • R5: Baratheon Banner of the Watch (W)
  • Top 8: Night Watch Banner of the Stag (W)
  • Top 4: Targaryen Banner of the Lion (same of R2) (W)
  • Final: Tyrell Banner of the Lion (W)

It was very fun to play this tournament and to watch our chilean community grow closer and bigger every day. Second edition brought with it a lot of new players and that’s something to be thankful of. I’ll be glad to read your comments and opinions of the deck, or to answer your questions if any. Regards!

UPDATE!

The deck won once again on a 19 people field in Santiago, Chile. In the last month I didn’t have enough time to practice (only had one game against a Martell Banner of the Watch) so to be honest I was worried about my performance. I made a lot of mistakes that could have cost me the game, but the consistency of the deck saved my ass more than once. Even with a distracted pilot the deck managed to give me the whole Winter Kit so I’m very satisfied again. The rounds were as follows:

  • R1: Stark Banner of the Sun (W)
  • R2: Targaryen Fealty (W)
  • R3: Baratheon Fealty (L)
  • R4: Martell Fealty (W)
  • R5: Baratheon Banner of the Lion (W)

  • Top 4: Baratheon Felaty (same of R3) (W)

  • Final: Tyrell Banner of the Wolf (W)
10 comments

GIBraag 32

Congratulations on your win. Looks like a fun deck.

The deck seems a little expensive, with only one plot that provides more than 4 gold. If you run ANC into a naval, or one of your big guys into Ghaston Grey, you could be in serious trouble. What is your experience?

Also, no Support of the People?

Deschain89 1

This is a pretty awesome deck. I played in a tournament this past Sunday and while i went 1-2 it really wasn’t the decks fault. They were mistakes on my part.

However I believe after getting to test it, I personally don’t see the value in having both Here to Serve and Confiscation. With Here to Serve in the deck Cressen can be called on demand. I may remove Confiscation for Sneak Attack as i found it would have been great for a finisher in a few games.

GIBraag 32

Confiscation is nice to have in addition to HTS/Cressen for several reasons:

  1. If your board is already wide, there’s a good chance you’ll run Cressen into a Wildfire. Your opponent will of course choose fp and let your plot go first.
  2. Cressen can get milked himself before you have a chance to use him.
  3. Cressen doesn’t work on Seal o/t Hand or the weapons.
  4. Sometimes, you want to get Wendamyr instead of Cressen.

Also, you already have Rise of the Kraken as a finisher.

Ohhomycoco 1

Great deck @nicogm. Are you typically aiming to be first or second player ?

nicogm 100

Thanks you all for the comments, I saw myself without any time last week but I’ll try to participate a little more in the discussion now:

@Deschain89 As @GIBraag said, Confiscation it’s not only to get rid of Milk of the Poppy. It’s an extremely useful plot, specially in synchrony with The Seastone Chair. It helps a lot to the main strategy of the deck: control your opponent while bringing all your big dudes out. Almost every time I play it its to get rid of Seal of the Hand, Heartsbane, Ice or another extremely annoying attachment. Also, half of the time you’ll be putting into play Maester Wendamyr instead of Maester Cressen. The stealth on PWR challenge is too important if you want to rush early game, so not to count with it would be a lack of versatility.

@Ohhomycoco I’d said i’m typically aiming to go second: makes kneel and stealth decisions easier, helps to get an unopposed challenge and the opponent prefer not to attack harder because of the same reason, but it depends… if you have The Seastone Chair and chances to winning an unopossed military challenge, you’d be able to kill a key character before he has chances to use it, so i’d prefer to go first.

@GIBraag In deed, the deck is a little expensive. If you see the cost curve, you realize that this is mainly because of the 5-cost characters which are extremely indispensable to think about cutting any of them. Afterwards i’ll give some tips about the use of the deck (or at least, how i use it) and hopefully you’ll understand how to get rid of this problem. Regarding to Naval Superiority it’s really not a big issue: even if they manage to trap your A Noble Cause with it, you still have the 2 gold reducer (and mostly of the time, one or two limited card from setup and the first round, might be even a Kingsroad) so you’ll be able to play something. Further more, nobody gets a huge advantage with a 2-gold plot like Naval Superiority so you shouldn’t be worried about that. About Ghaston Grey, yes, you should worry. Luckily my meta doesn’t play Martell a lot, so i wasn’t waiting to face a lot of it. Perhaps in a meta full of Martell i would be considering, with the pain of my soul, changing one Filthy Accusations for Calling the Banners or another A Noble Cause, but i think it would require a lot of thinking and testing because We Do Not Sow should be able to deal with GG (at least on middle-late game, and in early game GG doesn’t hurt that much). Concerning to Support of the People yes, i’d like to use it but i like my other events more, so there’s no room for it right now.

About the deck. In my opinion the most tricky thing about piloting this deck it’s that you’ll have to choose which characters play on a game, and which not. I think there’s four groups of them: the big big dudes (Balon Greyjoy, Euron Crow’s Eye), the big dudes (Asha Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, Littlefinger and Melisandre), the not as big dudes (Fiery Followers, Selyse Baratheon and Maester Cressen), and of course mini guys that you are going to need to protect the others, and even if you don’t think so these guys gives you a lot of control (Shireen Baratheon y Lordsport Shipwright), rush power (Maester Wendamyr) or economy (Iron Islands Fishmonger).

Of course every game is different, but in a simple analysis this is what you’re looking for early game:

Setup: The most important thing is to try getting a limited card on table, if you have two or more in hand, don’t mulligan… it is what the deck most needs. The most amazing setup would be one big big dude, one mini guy and one economy location. If this cannot be possible, try playing one big dude, one or two mini guys and one economy location. I really don’t recommend to priorize number of cards over playing one of the 4 or more cost characters. If you didn’t get any big dude (4+ cost), mulligan. You really need to put in play one of them in setup. Also the 3-cost characters have their purpose in the deck, and definitely it’s not to appear on setup.

1st round: You’ll open with Here to Serve almost every time. Gives you one more character (you rarely start with more than two in play) and one of these two extremely good advantages: get Milk of the Poppy useless unless your opponent has 2 in hand or one additional stealth on PWR challenges. In fact, it’s a 5 or 6 gold plot with 3 iniciative… just an amazing card. Also the 3 gold remaining allows you to play some mini guy or a location to prepare the next rounds and protect your board.

2nd round: It’s time to play more than two cards. Try A Noble Cause and ideally let Littlefinger out (gives you card advantage, one precious gold, and a 4 str intrigue character). The early game on this deck consists on bringing your big dudes out and preparing the table to the rush coming so don’t surprise if you get a little behind on power. Try to control the board on your opponent side, try to waste their hand (and protect yours). If you have Great Kraken on play, draw with it every time. The rush will come, but early on you’ll need all your cards to keep your opponent in control. At this point your best friend is Seen In Flames: discard the best card in your opponent hand it’s just an amazing early control. So, try to have at least one R’hllor character in play (ideally Melisandre, of course).

Some additional tips:

  • Think the deck is a middle-late game one. So, let your opponents spend their cards. The deck it’s well prepared to hold on so if you let your opponents think that they’re winning, they’ll bring everything to the table early and without hand size you’ll devaste them if you play your control cards well (Seen In Flames, Wildfire Assault, The Seastone Chair, Milk of the Poppy, etc.). Milk their key characters every time that it’s possible, this way they will have to use their Confiscation early and you’ll trouble them meanwhile you’re preparing your next rounds. Remember: your early game is poor, but in middle-late game you’re definitely going to crush them.

  • Try to delay at maximum your kneel. Don’t waste your two Filthy Accusations early. Try to bring Melisandre out as soon as possible but don’t waste all your R’hllor characters early. The best way to use her ability is later in the game, this way you’ll have a few R’hllor cards in hand and with the help of the plots you would be kneeling two key characters per round. That, in addition with the stealth (or Balon) gives you at least two unopossed challenges each round… they just won’t have a response for that.

  • If you see The Kingsroad on the opponent discard pile, let Euron Crow’s Eye out and go for it using everything you can. Having The Kingsroad all turns makes all problems on the deck gone. It’s extremelly easy to win when you get some early and permanent The Kingsroad.

Sorry for the extremely long post. but I would love to see what ideas come to improve the performance of the deck, and know how it works for you so i wanted to give a pretty good idea of how i use it, so you can start from something.

GIBraag 32

Hey Nico - want to give you a very late thanks for your decklist and the amazing strategy primer. With just a couple of changes due to the Targ-heavy meta in the Netherlands (-1 Asha, -1 Theon, +1 Dragonstone Faithful, +1 Davos) the deck went 4-0 in the Leiden Winter GNK last Saturday (13 participants). In the “final” of the Swiss, it even managed to beat AgoT European Champion Donovan van Beek’s Targ/lion.

In the cut, against yet another Targ/lion, I let the deck down with a couple of brainfarts (didn’t sleep much the night before) like drawing only one card instead of two in the first round (I somehow included the tutored Maester Cressen as a draw) and flipping the wrong plot (I wanted to play Confiscation on Jaime’s Seal o/t Hand and flipped a Filthy instead).

All in all it’s a fantastic archetype that is as fun to play as it is powerful. Kudos to you!

nicogm 100

@GIBraag Congrats on your result! Today the deck won another tournament so I think at this point it has proven its value among the competitive decks available. I’d be very glad if you continue collecting titles with this archetype, and of course making some upgrades in the strategy. With the arrival of new chapter packs it’ll be challenging adjusting the deck to a new meta, so I hope you don’t give up on it ! Regards

Archmaester Ned 37

Very strong and solid deck @nicogm , thank you for share this and your analysis .

GIBraag 32

Gratz with the repeat victory, Nico. :)

Is there anything you’d change right now or do you feel the deck is as polished as can be? How about Davos in a Targ-heavy meta. Would you consider including him for a copy of Theon?

nicogm 100

@GIBraag Theon is one of the last characters I would replace, for any other card. It brings you power rush and a stealth keyword, for just 4 gold (remember the deck is far too expensive). Davos only delays your play (you don’t have 4-gold to waste each round) and doesn’t have any power rush capability, also because he is no Lord or Greyjoy you don’t have any way to reduce the cost except for The Kingsroad. In a targ heavy meta the worst thing to do is not to attack or defend fearing Dracarys!. If one of your guys has to die, so be it, it’s one Dracarys! less to worry about (and you can even save them with Risen from the Sea if it’s Asha or Balon).

The only change I’d make in a Targ heavy meta (and actually is one change I did in the version I’m currently playing) is one copy of Euron Crow’s Eye for another The Hand’s Judgment. I think the deck works better that way.

With the arrival of Road to Winterfell I think the deck loss a lot of competitive advantage. None of the Greyjoy cards are useful in this archetype, and cards like Syrio Forel or Nymeria Sand definitely counter it. May be it is time to move on haha :)