What About Bob? 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Went 2-2 (tying for 5th in a field of 16) at Game Empire Pasadena. The two games it won were decisive (15-0, 15-1 I believe), of the two games it lost one was extremely close (VERY fun game against Targ) and the other was mildly close but started with a bad setup.

I feel the losses were more due to my inexperience with the game (i’m not a 1.0 player) than to the strength of the deck and even then, they both felt very close and within my grasp of winning. The games I won were blow outs for the most part and I felt very much in control from the jump.

This is a pretty typical Bara kneel, but there are few little fun bits. I think Here to Serve is a stronger plot here than Confiscation as everyone wants to Milk of the Poppy your Robert Baratheon. Maester Cressen makes Bob milk-proof. The only think I’d want Confiscation for is to pull Seal off of my opponent — which is worth considering, but I like the plot mix as of now.

There were 2 games where I had Seal of the Hand, Lightbringer and Little Bird on Bob. I won those games. That’s some Voltron madness right there. I was worried that Little Bird needs to be a two-of for Tears of Lys protection, but I found that I drew it enough purely based on The Red Keep which is MONSTER for card draw.

Varys is an MVP here as it saves your from running Wildfire Assault. Just wait till you’ve got Bob, Mel and one other character duped, then pop that Varys and follow it up with a Marched to the Wall for some serious snowball action. Or don’t play that Marched if you’re scared of the double-marched and just drop some R’hllor during marshall (or Seen In Flames after).

Either way this deck has a real tendency to snowball. Mulligan for your Bob or Mel, then Summons the other. Don’t flood the board early. Get The Red Keepthen never lose another power challenge for that crazy card draw (4 new cards every turn!). It’s often worth not doing a power challenge on your turn just to make sure you don’t lose one on their turn if you’re going second. But this doesn’t even matter if you’ve got Seal of the Hand or Lightbringer on Bob.

Stannis Baratheon is another important card here as long as you’ve got Mel on the board and a character advantage. Sometimes Stannis feels a bit like a win-more card as you usually only play him when you’ve already got a leg up, but he can really snowball you to victory once he’s out, especially if you can throw Lightbringer on him for renown (and a quick R’hllor kneel).

Is this deck easy to play? Potentially. Although the pacing of it takes a bit of time to get down. Also I’m not a 1.0 player so a deck that I feel comfortable with is important to me at an early stage in learning. But I also don’t play tournaments to win, I play to learn, and it feels like I’m learning more off of a deck I’m comfortable with than one I’m not. Is this deck difficult to beat? Yes. Is it fun to play? I think it’s a blast. But I really like this style of control “nope” deck.

It’s still a work in progress (hit me up with your thoughts if you got any) and I plan on tooling this one for a while and keeping it as my main or 2nd deck. I think there’s something quite interesting to be done with a no-agenda version of this deck as well that I plan on trying out soon.