Cities of Dorne

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
House of Starfall. Cities of Dorne vol. 2 1 1 0 1.0

Neoptolemos 788

Hi there, today I publish my casual deck that I have played a lot last month (mainly online). I'm not a Martell specialist, but always enjoy trying them as Martell have a lot of interesting mechanics. This deck was built because of 3 main reasons:

  • Martell are underdogs now, freeing Dorne helped them a lot, but still they miss something (hitting Raider in exchange didn't help) - and I like to try "underpowered" factions
  • I wanted to try full city chain and Martell/Wars are probably the best deck to really make full advantage of it
  • all my other freshly built decks need cards from Targ box ;)

Plotdeck

So, my main idea was to cycle as many City plots as possible. I knew that I want to try some plot manipulation in main deck, so wasn't afraid to put both Expose Duplicity and Valar Morghulis, because they may be hidden if needed. All other plots (besides obvious Behest to speed up cycling) are City plots, with 2 Mannings + City of Spiders to put huge Martell armies right onto to battlefield - it's quite nice exchange for oldfashioned Trade Routes.

Main deck

Most of cards are quite obvious - I play mostly cards that use the mechanism of used pile (skipping whole Doran lords and ladies module though). My only unique in more than 1 copy is Ricasso (quite obvious), but I use all possible armies and knights from Starfall. There are no really surprising cards here, I think - due to restrict I omitted all jumping/FB module and the rest is quite obvious. Probably the most surprising cards are:

  • Meadowlark - really amazing when played in setup, but still useful in later turns - I have never put more than 3 tokens there though; most times I searched for Cletus, Ricasso or Obella (but sometimes also some small knight or even scavenger)
  • Change of Plans, because I like plot manipulation. Mostly used to hide Duplicity in non-shadow matchups or 1 Manning when ED was necessary

How it performed

I won't write too much about the gameplay, because I think it's quite obvious. With two 2-claim plots and intimidating armies it's quite aggresive and doesn't really bother about defending (just chump blocking), since most characters are disposable, draw is decent and it just doesn't have means to prevent losing power... too often. With renowns, UO and challenges it usually has about 8-10 power after several turns and finishes with Doran's Game.

What is nice about this deck: it has better start than most Martell decks and Manning the City Walls really speeds up the game. It is used to do a lot of challenges and it's one of most fun parts of Thrones. Between River Gate, Dorne, Secret Schemes and Starfall Cavalry it has very reasonable amount of draw; characters are very efficient; and it still has several nasty Martell tricks like His Viper Eyes or Starfall.

It has problems in current meta, though, as most midrange decks have; the main problem is of course Kingdom of Shadows. With good opponent it's generally autoloose and to tune this deck up, second Manning should be definitely Barring the Gates - Expose Duplicity is way too less. I didn't play Barring though since I'm really tired of it and it struggles with several of my own cards. It has problems with quick Bara power rush because of relatively small amount of power icons. It performs though better than average against all these stupid NW steal decks, since only painful Bound for the Wall target is Host of the Boneway and also Yoren (TB) doesn't steal any really important character (ofc losing Ricasso or Arianne is painful, but my opponents can't abuse them as much as I would); deck is also quite resilient to resets - it doesn't rely that much on locations as most of Martell decks and with good draw and some economy it should quickly rebuild after any reset (Meadowlark helps a lot!). Good enough for casual deck. Also, Riot + Valar combo is good reset combo to start game once more and if I have Dorne already, it's quite comfortable situation.

That being said: it's just an oldfashioned Martell Wars deck that performs surprisingly well now, besides shadow matchup :)

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