Big Vic Voltron for Poznań (Winner Poznan tournament) 2.0

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• 2.0

big guy decks are boring? Maybe... But how about just playing one single big guy? Could be interesting!

This is the deck, which I played in the tournament of Poznan 2022. I had a wonderful time in Poznan and first of all I want to thank Piotr for the organization and Marco and Ivailo for beeing great traveling companions.

It was great fun seeing some familiar faces and getting to know other members of the Polish Mate. And playing with real cards in hands feels so good :)

Big Vic Voltron

The idea of this deck is quite simple. Get Big Vic into play, make him invincible and give him several keywords. Almost every card in this deck tutors the idea of Victarion becoming a voltron.

So many ?
We run many attachments here to provide multiple keywords (stealth, renown and pillage, intimidate, pillage and assault). All these keywords want to be used in many challenges, so alongside his own standing ability we are making brave Vic Hand of the King. Besides the keywords our Voltron needs some strength and the missing icon.
Obviously the most important attachment is Valyrian Steel Armor. Being not only imun against all kill effects, but also against all types of discard feels just amazing. This card is the centerpiece of the deck.

What about ?
Obviously, it's mostly about warships. Vic needs to be able to stand and to control locations.
His flagship fits perfectly in the plan, to make him stronger and stronger.
Foamdrinker might be a surprising card here, but the icon on Vic, his crew or his brothers's crew can help a lot. I playtested with Golden Storm (which works nicely with Pyke as a surprising factor), but finally decided to go for the icon.
Nothing to say about the other warships.
As we need a lot of warships here, the incredible Pyke is an obvious include. The five gold may slow you down, but the effect is very helpful dealing with negative attachments or small characters.
Also helpful with negative attachments is of course Qarth.

Which are able to support Vic?
This tournament was played without the latest restricted list beeing in force. So Queen Alannys was an auto-include here. This deck has some search effecst but not much draw. Triggering Alannys twice per round with Pyke in play is really awesome.
Big Vic desperately needs his attachments. The Black Market Merchant helps a lot finding something useful, and Cragorn does his best as well, but with only five targets in this deck, he sometimes finds nothing. But with the agenda you get at least a new try next round.
Irri provides another stand for Vic possibly every round and Captain Groleo gives some extra gold.
When playing Big Vic this way, he surely needs his friends to fight along. The Crew is mainly used to find his ship. While that is already in play, the Iron Fleet Scout or Nightflyer are worthy targets.
One of the most important cards here is Saltcliffe Sailor. It gives a very useful keyword to Vic (thanks to the agenda) and possibly to all other characters on board.
The only keyword, that is hard to find for Vic, is insight. Septon Utt can theoretically fix that, but honestly that doesn't happen very often.
Normally our Voltron has a lot of keywords, so why not spreading them. Shagwell is cheap and in this deck very efficient. Jinglebell helps to find him and is a good setup card.
Another very important card is Maester Kerwin. There might be times, when Vic hasn't taken on his armour yet and needs to be protected.
Begging Brother over Fanatic here. We don't need characters, that can't fight and go directly to discard. And the Free Companies like the Begging Brothers.
The Silence's Crew works perfectly with the agenda and Left-Hand Lucas Codd can help to spread some gold.
Murenmure helps to control the locations, the Fishmongers and Brown Ben Plumm help to get good setups and apply claim.

What happened to the ?
This might be my first deck ever without any copy of both Risen from the Sea and We Do Not Sow. Risen is not needed as we mainly care of Big Vic and he normally wears his shining armor or is at least protected by Kerwin.
We have enough location control from Big Vic himself and Murenmure and Nightflyer and we also have attachment control. So one of the best events in this game is not needed here.
Another very, very strong event is Gifts for the Widow. This is one of the most important cards here. We need to find the pieces to let Vic doing his job.
Last but not least: Spreading some gold is very helpful in this deck. Mostly the Saltcliffe Sailors love gold on all your characters.

Lets play some !
The first two plots are usually fix. There might be games, where you find a duped Vic (and a one coster) in setup and can go directly in actions. Normally you need to get Vic into play and protect him from Valar as next plot.
If the opponent has built a threatening big board in the first two rounds play The Mad King's Command as third plot to control the tempo. If you want to build a board first, just play Late Summer Feast as third plot.
Bran the Builder shines with Pyke on board, Close Call helps to come back, if somehow Big Vic was killed and good old Valar is very useful, when Vic wears his armor.

I read all this many words and now I finally realized that this deck is illegal? Are you kidding?
No, I am not :-) As said above, we played that tournament with the old restricetd list. So let's make some changes here. Alannys draws badly needed cards, but with no Pyke on board, she mostly triggers once per round. Pyke, on the other hand, is a valuable card even without Alannys. So we go with the stronghold as our restricted card.
We have three free slots from Alannys now. With all the possible stealth on board one copy of The Reader (TRtW) could be an option to draw at least a bit. And I also would recommend to increase the copies of Septon Utt to three. That insight keyword might help.

What about matchups?
I think this deck has a pretty good selection of good matchups. Big Vic in his shining armor mostly loves to face burn or some heavy reset decks.
In this tournament I lost against two different decks. Dark and Full of Terrors (with Palace), Banished from the Light and first of all Delena Florent are very dangerous cards.
with Hellholt could be a problem. But Pyke and a 2-cost warship can solve that.
Another problem could be A Pinch of Powder. Qarth and again Pyke are the answers to that.
Victarion is a brave fighter, but it takes him some time to put all his stuff on. So any very fast decks are a real threat. But because of his pure strength as the Captain of his ship the popular Great Ranging decks are a feasible task.

Winter is joining forces! – Poznań 2022 Championship

(https://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/8201)

Round 1 (Win vs AaA)
We only managed to play four or five plots and as expected I needed some time to get my voltron to work. But when Vic had some toys and his shining armor, I could easily take control. My opponent was in lead of power, but after my reset I turned the tide.

Round 2 (Loss vs Wars)
I faced a very fast power gaining deck, with three passive power plots. My opponent was in clear lead of power, when at least his 2nd winter party was disturbed by some summer vibes. In his At the Palace of Sorrows turn, my brave Vic had his armor and was protected against House Florent Knight (remember: old RL!) and he was ready to fight back. At least I thought so... A well timed Dark and Full of Terrors put poor Vic into shadows and hit me hard. I managed to get Vic back on board next round, but my opponent reached the 15 power in this. Well done!

Round 3 (Win vs Crossing)
Crossing can be very fast and his knights had a strong board presence. I saw Maester Kerwin in setup and could play Late Summer Feast after the late Prince showed up. Another copy of Vic and Gifts in hand gave me a good feeling, even when At the Palace of Sorrows (R) was revealed. My opponent made himself first player and I was absolutely sure, getting Vic discarded by some House Florent Knight. I had enough gold to affort both Vic and his armor, but surprisingly that was not needed. No HFK showed up and from there on it was a very one-sided match.

Round 4 (Loss vs Conclave)
The pairings were made during lunch break, so I had enough time to worry about how to deal with Delena. Pawel played his deck very good and slowed me down. I was quite lucky with my claims, but a duped Delena in round 3 was quite a nail in the coffin for my plans. I got rid off her the round after my valar (due to Pyke), but too much damage has been done and Pawel got pretty easily to 15 .

Round 5 (Win vs Krakenbanner)
Marco was already qualified for the Cut, so not much pressure on his side. I really like his deck. It is all about having stealth and making multiple and challenges. Unfortuntely for him, I saw my brave Sailor early in game and all of my characters (including Vic) had that needed stealth keyword. Not much he could do from there on.

Top 8 (Win vs 321)
As I said above, Martell heavy-reset is a very good matchup for this one. Vic had enough time to come on board and get his armor, the mad King annoyed my opponent and Vic blew his Horn masterfully to control possibly annoying locations.

Top 4 (Win vs Krakenbanner)
This was a rematch from Swiss. Marco tried to kill Victarion immediately after he showed up, but Kerwin was there to serve. Several stand effects (Irri shined) and stealth from Support of Harlaw made this again a very one-sided match.

Final (Win vs Crossing)
Another rematch from Swiss. I had a pretty decent setup and my opponent did not find any econ. This time he managed to get my Vic from board in round 2 with his HFK and At the Palace of Sorrows and got into an early power lead. My Nightflyer destroyed his only econ card (Redwyne Straits) and gave him some headaches. In the next round, he desperately played two Pleasure Barges and with -2 gold, no locations and no characters on board I won this game even without seeing Victarion again.


Wow, that was way longer than I planned. Thanks for reading until here. Feel free to comment and ask questions. I will try my best to answer.