NW Kraken Choke, Red Saturday King of Swiss 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I haven’t published a list in a while, but wanted to share this one I took to Red Saturday. I went 5-0 in Swiss losing in the cut to Targ Fealty Hyper Burn which is by far this deck’s worst matchup (Free econ from the agenda, opens Time of Plenty, Qotho and Missandei are free, Blood of the Dragon exists, etc). Even then, the top 8 matchup was a back and forth slugfest well played by James Restaino.

The best thing I love about it is being able to play Breaking Ties, which is the perfect Restricted Card for this strategy.

A few misconceptions about choke: It always opens Naval Superiority
False, I opened it only twice all day because my board position was fine enough to risk a 2Gold plot. Most players see it coming with the agenda, but a wiseman once told me “half the power of Naval is your opponent knowing you have it.” I recommend slow playing it until you know they’re going to play a plot like Marched to the Wall when you’re guaranteed to hit.

Your win condition is choke
False, but it certainly helps you win. Disrupting your opponents gold amount by 1 a turn can be huge, and cards like White Tree and Meager at worst help pay for events like Bound.

Knights of the Hollow Hill kills Choke
False, I beat a Martel Hollow Hill fairly convincingly piloted by Austin Restaino, who is a great player. Generally, people will run less Econ in their deck because it’s on their agenda, and will skew their plots lower in gold as well. I regularly caused problems for my Hollow Hill opponent.

This deck is not fun
False, it is fun to pilot... not for the opponent of course :-)

Finally, just because I know this is going to be the first thing everyone jumps at, here’s a small FAQ...

Why the hell would you only run x2 Yoren?
It does sound crazy (and probably is) but to try and explain the logic behind it - this deck uses Old Forest Hunter 2-4 times a turn since Hobb/Raven make sure you’re constantly cycling cards. I found myself many times having 0 cards in my hand at the end of turn and jumping back up to 8 next Marshaling phase (Hobb draw 2, 2 Ravens, 2 for the turn).

Because this was the typical flow, I didn’t want to run 3 Yoren because I would find myself sitting with him as the only card in my hand getting intrigued claimed... so I wanted to avoid prioritizing him early. He’s there for blowouts but is not essential to this deck’s success. If he was restricted, I probably wouldn’t run him over Breaking Ties... but as is, he’s too good not to include at least some, and I didn’t want to go to 61 cards, so I went with x2 Yoren.

You don’t think you’re still crazy for not running 3 Yoren?
Yea, probably. But I always approached deck building as an art fitting the pilot, so 2 “felt” right to me and I went with it. I encourage you to change that if you build this list - make it your own and don’t just copy/paste what I posted.

Are you a bad player for not running x3 Yoren?
Nah.

But isn’t x2 Yoren a wrong decision?
Nothing is wrong in deckbuilding... In fact 61 card decks aren’t “wrong”, they’re just “competitively hollow”.

I still think you made a terrible decision.
That’s not a question... but sure.