Combo of combos - help needed please

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robrobrobwright 30

This deck is far from finished but I think there’s a couple of tricky combos that I’m trying to squeeze into one deck… is it possible?

Firstly, Ser Barristan Selmy (TS) , Shagga Son of Dolf and Tyrion Lannister (LoCR) , preferably with Mountains of the Moon or a similar icon-granting effect. Attack with Ser Barristan, then ambush in Shagga, choosing Tyrion to die but saving him with Ser Barristan. Do a challenge with Shagga and Ser Barristan, return Shagga to hand to raise claim / draw 2 / gain 3 gold through Tyrion’s reaction. Note that everyone’s standing and you haven’t spent any gold. If you have Mountains of the Moon then you can rinse and repeat. A Storm of Swords can mean 4 military claim in one round. Obviously you’ve got to find the cards in the first place, hence the 2x Summons. An alternative would be to use Heir to the Iron Throne to find Tyrion but I went with Summons because of the other combo…

I wasn’t sure about putting both of these in the same deck but both need to find some characters and a location.

You need The High Sparrow out and to win an Intrigue challenge. Play Without His Beard - the opponent can only draw 1 card but has to discard 3 - then use Maester at the Rock ‘s reaction to move Without his Beard to the top of your deck. Use Lannisport to draw it, then play it again (I think this works as there is a nested set of reactions and so you’re still able to react to winning the Intrigue challenge) but this time your opponent still has to discard 3 cards but can’t draw any because of The High Sparrow. Plus Intrigue claim means you’ve reduced your opponent’s hand by 6 cards from a single challenge. You could even repeat this if you have a second Maester at the Rock or Archmaester Ebrose (not included) for 9 card hand destruction.

This second combo is perhaps harder to pull off and again, needs you to find the cards but this time it’s more difficult to win the Intrigue challenge. It perhaps deserves its own deck with Conclave or Rains and big Cersei Lannister (LoCR) . So, do I try to squeeze both into one deck, giving flexibility and finding whichever one I can? Or does each deserve its own dedicated deck, and how could they be tailored?

Thoughts welcome please! :-)

p.s. I don’t have any Chapter packs beyond Someone Always Tells.

6 comments

Duckbringer 63

those are too complicated combos to pull off reliably, and the second one just seems like an overkill too. You also could not repeat the second combo - how would you get the Without His Beard to the hand second time? First you cannot trigger Lannisport, as zou can trigger reactions only once and second, you would have already drawn your third card with the first time you triggered it.

Generally speaking however, The High Sparrow synergies great with Without His Beard, you dont need those other cards. Try playing around that. Hint: there are other nice cards in Lannister that you can use with The High Sparrow. cough Fair Isle cough

As a rule, if you need 3 or more cards for a combo, dont play that combo, unless those cards are strong by itself.

I sort of like the Shagga Son of Dolf combo, Clansman decks were popular one time and I belive they could still be pretty good. Is it worth dippning into though?

robrobrobwright 30

Thanks for taking the time to comment. You’re right, I couldn’t draw Without His Beard a second time, though this would be icing on the cake and isn’t necessary for the main tricks.

The combos aren’t too bad on terms of finding cards but one cancel from the opponent does ruin it.

The Shagga / Barristan / Tyrion combo does rely on Barristan but there’s not many other Bara cards that I want, and I’d drop down to about 7 or 8 if the agenda didn’t necessitate 12.

As you say, the combos have to work in pairs for them to be genuinely worth playing. Barristan and Shagga combo okay, as do Shagga and Tyrion. I do miss having core Tyrion though :-(

Duckbringer 63

I think you should pick one of them, and try to make it work. Sparrow blocks your income as well, so you wont be able to pay for Selmy if you have him. Put some clansman in, so Shagga has ambush even without tyrion and some other lords and ladies to target with Shagga. It will still be very brittle though , as you realistically need 4 cards (3 when you have Tyrion covering both target for Shagga and enabling him ambush).

BlaiddDrwg 1

Aaah, fellow jank soul! Don't ever let the Shagga in you become bound by boring rules! I love clansmen (how the hell did I not notice this pairing before), I love janky combos, this is both, this is perfect! :D

On a more serious note though, if you can have fun playing fragile combos and if you are ok with losing a bunch of games horribly before you get it to gloriously pop once, then this deck is pretty good already. If you on the other hand prefer to win, I would tend to agree with Duckbringer in most points.

Speaking of rules of thumb, I find that when I put the second tutor plan into a deck, it's suspicious, when I put the third, something definitely smells. The problem with the tutor plots is how terrible they are for tempo, so when you play them you are conceeding (part of) your hard-combo-earned advantage.

I find the trick around need for tutoring your good cards, is to have decent draw, and more importantly - to not play the shit cards. That way even in the games where you don't assemble your exodia, you don't necessarily suffer horribly (just elaborating on what Duckbringer said, really).

Here's my stab at the shagga shenanigans thronesdb.com mind you, I didn't limit the card pool, but you can still try it out online ;P

I cut all the maesters and some of the other chaff. Took some cheap lanni lords and ladies to sub for Tyrion. I added more clansmen as sub for Shagga. Added some discard pile abuse. Took more permanent sources for icons, leaned heavier into the gold generating economy, and finally, I put in some tricky experimental cards.

It is by no means refined, but I'll try to play it when I have some more time and see if the deck's worth diving into.

Comm 26

I like the Selmy - Shagga - Tyrion combo !

If you need Ser Barristan Selmy (TS) but no so much other Baratheon cards, have you looked at The White Book?

robrobrobwright 30

Thanks for all the comments! :-)

@Comm, yes, The White Book would probably be better. I haven’t really experimented with other Kingsguard characters but perhaps I should.

@Duckbringer, I think your comments are fair, it will always be somewhat brittle, even when optimised. I guess I live for the times that it pays off, even though there are more times when I can’t find the combo or a single Nightmares or Treachery ends up ruining it (and perhaps killing Tyrion at the same time).

@BlaiddDrwg, yes, I think we have much in common! I can’t resist interesting cards, and recognise that too many interesting cards often just gives a terrible hand. Certainly the second combo attempt in this deck is over-the-top. I like what you’ve done with your version, and that you’ve gone heavy on the Warhammers. I totally agree on the tutoring, more than once looks obvious and there’s a significant opportunity cost as you say. But wouldn’t you put in at least one in your deck? Or are you thinking that you’d near empty your hand and then go through (and draw) nearly as many cards through Siege Preparations?

I’ll do a second version of the deck considering the comments so thanks all, glad you like it! And if this is your style, check out my others decks too! Not all as janky, certainly not all competitive but hopefully most of them are interesting.