Cersei's Small Melee Council - 2025 Melee Finalist - US Nats 1.0

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Hi friends! This was my deck for the 2025 US Nationals Melee tournament, which was the first cut I have ever made since starting Thrones back in 2018.

Some history about me - I am a pretty casual player, went to a few events in 2018-2019, got back into it in 2023, and have been playing on and off since. I very rarely do well playing Joust, my winrate is like 33% and my best finish was at Stahleck in 2023, where I started 2-3 before catching fire and finishing 5-3. I did ok at 8R this year playing Night's Watch (3-2), but went 1-4 in the Joust in this tournament and finished second to last. So...yeah. Take my comments below with a boulder of salt.

Joust is cool, but I loooooove the melee format. IMO, it is the best tabletop game ever invented, and I always would ask my group to play it back when I was starting out. (I'm SO happy we can play melee on Iron Throne now, huge props to DeathlySteve for implementing that!) My first real taste of it competitively was going to worlds in Minnesota in 2018. The day after going like 1-7 at the Joust (lol) I came to the melee event with low expectations and actually won a 3-person table playing Core Robb, Fat Cat and a bunch of Tullys and I've been in love with it ever since.

Ok, so enough about me, lets get into the list. It's a super fun Small Council list! Yay! I've been playing some variation of this ever since I saw the Small Council agenda released. We have two ways to win:

• Get a bunch of big small council bodies out, chill and win dominance, and when ready, go for the sneaky win with A Feast for Crows
• Cersei + Small Council Chamber

The second never fully played out - in the final I quickly rushed to 13 power in round 2 with that combo and then Cersei died to Duel. But the first one (sorta) did - more on that in a bit!

Really though, you just intrigue and chill. Keep your characters standing so you can win dom and trigger your agenda. Protect your key cards for your burst and make friends. Then you blast!

Key cards:

• Cersei. She's vital of course for winning intrigue, not kneeling and winning dominance, and grabs a lot of power while doing so. You gotta be careful with her though - maybe don't play her round 1 if you can help it because people see her and immediately want her dead!
• Core Rock. Multiple intrigue challenges. Enough said.
• Core Ned. He's soooo awesome in melee. People won't want to bother you if he's on the table. If he gets appointed he's a multi-stand tricon with renown and a great target for your agenda. My best games were when he came out early. Mulligan for him!
• Pycelle is a good cheap SC body with insight. I never got Pounce on him though which would have made him a God.
• Small Council Chamber. Good wincon for us, immune to events, but can get blasted with something like Pyke or similar, so YMMV.
• Goldroad - its how we can pay for our challenge phase shenanigans. I think its less obvious than Tyrion and gives you a +1 gold passive too which you need because the SC chars don't come cheap. Worked well!
• The Bastard of Driftmark. This guy kinda slaps! With Goldroad you can win a challenge with him and stand them back up, generating more gold for your Qyburn plays. Speaking of which...
• Qyburn. QYYYYYYYBURNNNNNN. This guy is so gangster I love him soooo much. In melee he is AMAZING. Case in point - in one of my games, he reanimated a Gregor, won a military challenge for me on defense, and then his pillage trigger hit a 6-cost character, which I used to kill an opponent's Ser Richard Horpe. He should have been a 3-of, he's so incredibly fun and he has the SC trait too, which is just chef's kiss.
• Hand's Judgement. With three opponents, it's triple the bullshit that's possible. It cancelled a key treachery which enabled Gregor to die in the scenario above. Great pick.
• False Spring. This is a spicy choice, guaranteed to get power on Cersei if she's out. Use caution though, your opponents won't be happy about this! Could be a good closer too if you don't think there's a kill threat.
• Gossip and Lies. This ended up being pretty good - high initiative and we don't kneel our characters for our primary challenge! Yay!
• Bronn. There to save Cersei, Ned and Tyrion, important ability, good controllable cost curve, he's great.
• Iron Throne. You need to win dom. This helps you do that.

Bad Choices

• Sneak Attack. Like, WTF lol. It has anti-synergy with our multi-intrigue plan, and if you have a Greyjoy at the table, they're going to win initiative with their ships and Forced March anyway. Plots are so important because they're the only truly consistent thing you have and this was a terrible choice and waste of a slot. First to go for sure.
• Maester's Chain. I put it in to stop milk, craven, etc, but in the US we play good clean Thrones and just bounce or kill your characters instead of milking them. Plus there's not enough maesters. Dumb! Cut it.

I'm Ron Burgundy?

• Littlefinger. He was ok I guess, decent body with gold (that we really need) and draw and the right trait. Probably ok as a one of.
• Orton. Not a factor, but some potential there. Might be spicy to include some Little Birds to get some card info on someone and bounce them in and out with Qyburn and Tyrion.
• Shadows Tyrion. Ok guys hear me out. You do give up stealth by not running money Tyrion but I think this guy is really cool with the right trait and I think he has some really good potential in this list that I didn't explore fully. You can bounce a kneeling SC char and then bring them out back out from shadows in the dom phase standing which could be a reasonable gold dump. I think he also has really cool potential with negative attachments, Little Birds, and just whatever else you want to bounce around. Plus - he could also enable multiple Qyburn triggers. Qyburn. QYYYYYYYBURNNNNNN. Is he good? Yes. Is he fun? YES. Does he need to be triggered all the time? YESSSSS
• Tommen. Idk, he's cheap and lets you get Ned or Cersei with Heir. He wasn't a factor otherwise.
• Lancel. I think he's pretty good in this list actually! Normally the only Lannister lord or lady you have out is Tyrion or Cersei. For whatever reason, just like in real life, Tyrion or Cersei rarely coexisted on my boards. So you can get good value from Lancel. Amazing for setups, high potential for efficiency, I think he stays. Plus, you could use Tyrion's ability to hide him back in shadows if you have multiple Lannister lords or ladies out and then bring him back when needed.
• Varys. He wasn't that great in my list for anything other than stealth, since I kinda suck at this game and don't know what can hurt me all that well. But in the right hands with someone with good game knowledge he stops tons of things. You just need to remember to trigger him off scheme reveals, which are plentiful in melee (I didn't - lol). I need to play more and the more I play, the better he'll be. He stays.
• Mathis. Eh, wasn't a factor, enables some cheeky plays to get gold though during the challenge phase. Maybe ok as a 1 of for that sweet SC trait and his military icon.
• Harys. Wasn't a factor, but a good one of with Varys and Bronn I think.
• Regent's Council/A Feast for Crows. I don't know if Council is good enough to play around. It's potentially explosive with Feast for Crows, but the one time I could have made that play, I screwed it up because I forgot to save a gold for it. Even so, it was kind of win more in that situation because the plot alone was going to give me 4 power at the end on its own, which was enough to get me to 14 power in the final round after time was called and secure the win.

Missing?

• Compelled by the Faith. Helps the Cersei + SCC plan but because of how unpredictable the ordering of the plot phase can be a Duel or VM might be unavoidable. Likely 100% required in Joust though if you run a list like this one.
• Council Consents. You're like always winning by 5 and you need stand. Dumb omission, it should be in the list.
• Spider's Web. Could be a very spicy include, especially if you grab Master of Whispers!
• Ser Barristan Selmy. He's a big body with the right traits and saves lords and ladies and stands. We already have so many big bodies though...idk, maybe a one-of. I kinda want to explore more Tyrion though, so I'm not sure about this guy. I think it's a miss, need to try him out more.
• Castamere! We want dead people for QYYYYYYYBURNNNNNN...it's amazing, and its not melee-restricted...so why are we not running it?
• Just in general more ways to cheat in characters temporarily to eat claim or other effects would have been nice. This list can struggle with opponents who go hard after your board and you don't want to have to claim a big if you can help it.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! And thanks to all of my opponents and for everyone who came to Nats, it was one of the most fun weekends I've ever had gaming that I'll cherish forever!

Kevin