City of Fools

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

Normie 8

I think this deck is fun and different enough to warrant a share, so here it is. When I was thinking about a Martell farce deck, I instantly thought of Host of the Boneway for that intimidate keyword. From there, I thought of Manning the City Walls. The rest of the deck kind of built up around those two things, plus the typical Shagwell and bestow shenanigans. The goal of this deck is to win with mass renown and/or Doran's Game (R) while remaining resilient to an opponent's reset attempts due to many high economy plots + draw interactions.

First of all, I should say that in trying to utilize City plots, they are much less efficient if you do not draw Gulltown in the first turn or two. I understand why At the Gates was banned, but I consider it a bit unfortunate that there is no real substitute for a City plot opener, although I guess Manning the City Walls with a 3 gold non-unique target is still a 7 gold plot, which is not bad at all. But basically, you want to draw Gulltown. Of course, knowing my luck, I more often found myself not drawing it and having to deal with a sub-optimal plot deck. I still won a good amount of those games, which is one reason I figured this deck was worth publishing.

Now, to return to deck construction. I knew that with Host of the Boneway and city plot cards, used plot card tech would be a natural inclusion. This means At Prince Doran's Behest, since 6+ gold openers are very common in the current meta. The possibility to start with one plot in the used pile and flip an 8+ gold Summer Harvest is irresistible. And of course, if your opponent does not open with a high gold plot, you have the benefit of reacting. You can just flip City Festival or Manning the City Walls instead. Notably, if your opponent opens with Summer Harvest, you can flip City Festival to give yourself 5 gold and the opponent only 4, which sort of "counters" that as an opener.

Vargo Hoat and Unbridled Generosity help us activate the Shagwell jank. We can borrow stealth from Edric Dayne (Core), intimidate from our Host of the Boneway, and renown from several different characters. Brave Companions helps us find big armies and Shagwell/Vargo. It tends to get big so you can give it a surprise icon to make it more useful with The Prince's Plan. Gulltown City Guard goes with the city plots and gives you an economy play with The Iron Bank Will Have Its Due. You can put it into play with Manning the City Walls then bounce it for +6 gold, then marshal it again later for 1 or 2 gold. The Iron Bank Will Have Its Due fuels challenge phase shenanigans such as Windblown, The Prince's Plan, Areo Hotah (SoD), etc.

I think that pretty much covers it. Everything in the deck goes towards something mentioned already, armies, renown, etc. I wasn't sure about Windblown at first but with The Iron Bank Will Have Its Due it showed its potential. Dawn is a borderline card, while it fits a couple themes, there's just not enough Dayne characters to reliably get the intimidate. Something to remember when choosing plots is that Valar Dohaeris will ruin your Manning the City Walls value, so be careful to try and avoid that. If you think it will be played, you can use City of Spiders, which can also re-use City Festival for 10 gold.

1 comment

prancingPWNy 104

Can attest that this is a very resilient deck. Nice work!