Baby's First Martell Wars (Top 4 BoC)

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

bored2excess 452

I randomly felt like getting some reps in with Martell Wars since I expect it to be pretty good again soon, and I haven't touched Martell in quite a while. I cooked up this deck, pre-RL, on Thursday and it treated me pretty well even with some truly atrocious play at times (e.g. it wasn't until round 4 that I put a cavalry character into play and it was actually the one I thought I was playing).

I went with a little more of a mid-range build, as I do not particularly enjoy big Arriane or SAT. I learned from my day that Darkstar would possibly be better as another large nonunique, Kingsgrave is still not worth a slot, and I hate having to manage Ricasso with a burning passion. The Long Winter, Duel, and Secret Pact were tech calls that did not hurt me but never fulfilled their reasoning.

The deck struggled lightly with midgame draw, and Raiders were efficient but not crazy tangibly helpful. Swapping over to Dorne should be pretty easy and will help not needing to add more draw to the plotline or pray for Schemes.

Notably, I did not trigger a Doran's Game until the cut. I have no idea if that's a great triumph or a miserable failure. I believe I mulliganed maybe once since I didn't have an econ location or a dope enough set of nonecon cards, but overall easy setups.

Report: R1 - W - Lanni HRD Bowels: Fun game where we both accomplished our goals, just me a little bit faster and harder. I jumped out to an early lead, he stabilized solidly plot 4ish (managed to eat through most of my hand to prevent my finisher Game) but then we were just exchanging equivalent body blows while I was already up 8-10 power or so. Fun flexing contests between my PPs and his Tunnels

R2 - L - NW Blood: He Tricksied to force plot 2 Valar, I couldn't find enough tempo to keep up with his swarming, and then my one big character play on my FS was brainfart Quentin. Barf, obliterated.

R3 - W - Lanni Stag: Navaled LSF, ate his board, won with tempo round 3 or 4.

R4 - W - Targ HRD Mereen: Amazing matchup for me, but he nearly had the nut this game. Fished Pride, Qotho, and Missandei to turn my naval into his tempo. Lots of struggles, but I had a solid Valar. He peaked at 10 round 4 or so and I eventually rolled it back and clocked him on round 8 with only a solitary int-claimed Game to be found.

R5 - W - Stark HH: Navaled Fallen, had tempo. Flayer was butchering a lot, but he never played a character above cost 3 so I always had my Snow in my pocket, and finished just via tempo the round I threw it (5?). Couldn't find a Game to accelerate.

X-2 - I was third after swiss and did not have to play. A fondue burger suffered a tragic fate instead.

Top 8 - W - Targ HRD Mereen: Rematch! This game went much more like I expect between these decks. We exchange early blows as he shovels control plots but I absorb them well, my characters get stronger, I get a good midgame Game in for 4 and he has to panic Valar his own Drogon while I airdrop another Host behind it. I struggle to find more bodies even though I draw a million cards, but finish him a couple plots later.

Top 4 - L - NW Blood: Rematch again! This game went much better than the last one, but was still a sturdy loss. It hinged largely on two points: on plot 3 he was able to push blood by 1 str, resulting in 3 events and I could only cancel Bound. Then, next plot, he finally gets a Bound through and topdecks the Host that had eluded me the entire game. A possible blood-stuffing huge character becomes his only, gargantuan intrigue icon. Got a Game off for 5 off on the final plot, but lost cleanly that round.

Thanks to all my opponents, and to Todd Moyer for putting on an excellent tournament. I feel like I am slightly more comfortable at playing Martell now, I can almost remember to read my cavalry and track when I have dead Raiders now!

1 comment

Req 7

I played a very similar deck at Italian Nationals last weekend and, while not having had a good result like you, I have similar feelings about it.

Raiders were good but not game changing, Secret Schemes is great (of course) but when you don't see it you're just waiting for draw, and I almost never triggered Doran's Game (and didn't help me to win games when I did it).

Martell are really far behind at the moment and I'm not sure Dorne is going to change this. I think we need to find a different gamestyle to play them.