Sword of the Morning goes to town - Italian Champion 2026 1.0

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• 1.0

Hi folks. :)

This is the deck I played to win the 2026 Italian Nationals. It is basically a combination of two ideas. The first one is looping Sword of the Morning and other 3-cost attachments to completely dominate the challenges phase, which has been played quite a bit in the past. I remember we played it quite successfully in the Martell team in the 2024 8 Regents event, building of course on previously published decks. And the second idea is the interaction between Doran Martell (SoD) and Ser Gulian Qorgyle, which was one of the key elements of the Martell Crossing deck that Gabriel Ranner played to reach the Stahleck final last year.

I built the first draft of this deck when we were looking at Martell options for the World Cup in the Slovenian team. We didn't want to play Knights of the Hollow Hill, and Crossing was already taken by Stark, so we had to find something different. I think this was a very good call in the end. My teammate Sonja played the first draft in a Friendly Open event just before the deck submission deadline, giving her the chance to identify some weaknesses and make some last-minute fixes. The deck then went 6-2 in the tournament, and I also played it to win Season 18 of the Friendly Open series. All of those games were enough to spot another couple of changes that still needed to be made to optimize the deck. I strongly considered playing the final draft of this deck in the Online Worlds this year, but I opted for my trusty Bara Summer in the end, since that was kind of the swan song for that deck before the inevitable restrictions. But I was very excited to be able to take this deck to Milano and try my luck there. :)

A few comments about some of the cards...

For the deck to work, you basically need at least one big in play, hopefully with an attachment or two. Anders Yronwood has the added bonus of having intimidate, and his ability makes it less bad if you ever have to go second, especially in the early game. Similar story with Doran Martell (SoD), losing a challenge or two means you can take the remaining icons and probably have a good situation to strike back. Or, if you're going first, you make it quite costly for the opponent to defend challenges. Then we have The Red Viper (OR), the ideal character to hold the key attachments due to being a tricon and quite difficult to defend, plus he has printed renown. Doran and Viper also work perfectly with Ser Gulian Qorgyle, who can put the opponent in a position where they have no great solutions, because putting characters into a challenge may be just as useless as doing nothing at all. Those are the four key characters of the deck. They probably won't all be in play at the same time, but two of the four is mostly good enough.

Now for the attachment package... Sword of the Morning is one of the best attachments in the game, especially on a character that can go into multiple challenges. Sometimes you can sequence challenges in a way that you win them all, but other times it might be just as good to pull most of the opponent's characters into your weakest challenge type, clearing the way to win the other two. In the early game you will probably have to loop it a bit with Seal of the Hand, but in the late game you might just have both of them in play permanently. Then we have Venomous Blade, which can be marshaled to kill something and then traded for one of the previous two, or it can come into play with the agenda, for a kill and temporary strength boost, before you trade it for something more permanent. Just don't do it before claim, if possible, because the character you poisoned will just get claimed. Finally, we have a copy of The Mountain's Skull, for a source of renown. It is difficult to keep that in play, so mostly it will come in during a loop for 1 power, or towards the end of the game when you think you might be able to close. All of these attachments are 3-cost, so they can be traded for one another. No War Scorpion, it's restricted and not really that useful in this deck, since you want to keep your investment in play rather than sacrifice it.

Then we have the 1-cost attachments. Ideally you would not want to trade down from 3 to 1, but sometimes it's just too important to get an early Bodyguard on your key character. I think Milk of the Poppy and Seized by the Guard are self-explanatory. We actually didn't have Seized in the World Cup version, because it looked like the gold would be a bit tight to bestow it properly, and it also didn't seem that necessary in testing. But we ended up regretting that. The Bloodroyal is a cheaper source of renown than the Skull, but it is a dead card in games where you are always going first, so it's just 1 copy. Vulture King is pretty efficient in this deck as some additional icon control, and it has good synergy with the agenda, because you can trigger it and then trade it away in the same challenge. But mostly I found that I didn't even want to trade it away that often, because it's great if it stays on your voltron character permanently. There is some minor danger with the trigger, because it discards a card from the top of your deck, so it could potentially be the last remaining copy of some attachment you are hoping to put into play, but the odds of that happening are pretty low. Kind of like triggering Stannis Baratheon for the draw in Bara Qohor and drawing the attachment you want to put into with the agenda. Still, if there is no benefit to triggering Vulture King in a particular situation, you might want to just skip it. And finally, there is an absolutely indispensable copy of Candle in the Dark. First of all, if you are facing Targaryen, Shadow of the East has the potential to destroy your game completely. But the Candle can cancel it, so you want to trade for it immediately and put it on a chud that you will keep standing at all times, or at least as long as there is a mystery card in shadows. You could potentially put it on a big with Seal as well, but you have to make sure that character stands immediately after it kneels to attack or defend. And then the other thing is the shadows matchup... Decks that don't play on the board are mostly immune to the Sword of the Morning stuff, so you probably want to go second against them, and then the Candle will cancel some of their biggest triggers, which improves the matchup a lot.

Not much to say about the locations, it's mostly just econ, with a focus on the locations that provide immediate tempo. The exception here is River Gate, which can sometimes be used for draw in a pinch. It is difficult to include much other draw in a deck like this, and this version of Doran unfortunately doesn't have insight. There is just 1 copy of The Water Gardens, because the most expensive card it can reduce costs 3, and there is no Behest to speed it up. Then we have Isle of Ravens, which is sometimes needed to shuffle the attachments back, particular something like the Skull which is just 1 copy in the deck. And finally, 1 copy of Starfall to go along with the rest of the icon control. No room for events, unfortunately.

Of the supporting characters, I find Ser Cletus Yronwood to be the most important, hence the 3 copies. The deck sometimes just wins by default it if can go first, and the plots do have high initiative, but not high enough to always guarantee it. Cletus solves that problem single-handedly. The World Cup version had 3 copies of Tyene Sand (WK) instead, but I found her to be less important, so 1 copy is enough. I also dropped Darkstar (Km) and Nymeria Sand (SoD) from the final version. As useful as they are, I found it to be much better for a character to be able to take Seal and Bodyguard, that's why we have Mellario of Norvos and Myrcella Baratheon (GoH) here. And even Edric Dayne (Core) can do that in a pinch. So can Trystane Martell (BtB), but his main use it to provide an extra body for First Snow and MKC, or to trigger after Doran or Gulian have stripped some character of all of its icons. The 1 copy of Ser Willam Wells probably needs no explanation. Same with the reducers. We have 3x Desert Raider to help with the aggro matchups... Now, good players will be looking to play around them, trying to keep them in play for First Snow or MKC, while you of course want them in the dead pile as soon as possible. And probably keep them dead until those tricky plots are revealed. One trick you can sometimes consider is to use Venemous Blade on your own Desert Raider, if the opponent refuses to kill it. Especially if you see that it won't remain in play through your own MKC or Dohaeris. And finally, we have 2 copies of House Dayne Escort. I try to remember if I have one in the discard pile, but it doesn't really come up that much. Usually you would just marshal it from hand. The good thing about this card and the Desert Raider is that they both have the House Dayne trait, so they can actually take Sword of the Morning, Sometimes when your voltron is Doran, you can't pull characters into a challenge with him, so it's quite handy to have the option to do that with one of your chuds instead. Plus, House Dayne Escorts have a tiny chance of getting discarded by Vulture King, which is always a nice bonus. :)

And let's conclude with the plots. We open with The Maiden, to give ourselves a better chance of controlling initiative for the rest of the game. First Snow is an enemy of this deck, so we have a couple of counters for it. If it's the jumpy type, we can counter it with Supporting the Faith, which of course also counters shadows and event-heavy decks. If it's just bigs, The Dornish Wars wins initiative and gives us a good chance of fizzling the round for the opponent. It's also really good against any deck that plays on the board, and it's the perfect counter for Ser Jaremy Rykker. :) Along with Supporting the Faith, we also have The Smith which can usually pay for our expensive characters, and it will give us a good round against location-heavy decks. We have two reset options. The Mad King's Command is the key plot against decks that don't play on the board, to reduce their locations and shadow cards. Against decks that do play on the board, it's still a killer if you can go first, because they're not going to be able to do much in a 3 vs 3 situation against your attachments. We also have Valar Dohaeris, which sometimes remains unplayed, but I've also had plenty of situations where it worked in my favour. And we have You Win Or You Die as the restricted card. It will usually win initiative, so you can play it as a finisher, or as a draw/pressure plot after your MKC. And sometimes you will play out virtually your entire hand anyway, so YWOYD is just a bonus at that point, with little downside.

And I think that's it. :) Maybe just a quick tournament report from the Italian Nationals...

Round 1 vs hidasuka ( - Kings of Winter):

I had actually just played this matchup in the World Cup final against China shortly before coming to Milano, so I knew it quite well. It's a loss if you don't get a duped big at the start, because it becomes increasingly more difficult to play one later on. But, like in that World Cup game, I was lucky enough to immediately get a duped Viper. And once he got Sword of the Morning, hidasuka was forced to spend all of his characters on defence, so he never did a single challenge. Win

Round 2 vs ProfundMite ( - Fealty):

My opponent was a very young player, playing what looked like Aljosha's deck from Online Worlds. There was Ice (Core) and Arya Stark (TFM) in play from the start, but I was able to play around them in the early game. Arya first got a Milk, and then a Venomous Blade after she was resurrected. The game was really close. I was able to win with a Milk on Dacey Mormont after time expired, but it would have probably gone against me if my opponent was ever able to push through a big challenge. Win

Round 3 vs Khal Prono ( - Sea of Blood):

Not much chance in this one. There was an early First Snow that decided the game. I needed more protection, but I think I only had Mellario with a Bodyguard and The Viper in play, against a Raiding Khalasar that increased the claim, followed of course by Marched to the Wall. After that I could never really get much of a board, especially after my opponent just started calling Desert Raider in challenges with The Iron Throne (LMHR). Loss

Round 4 vs Mario Perotto ( - Banner of the Sun):

A Drowned God deck that played without Tarle all game, but it still gained a lot of power with an early Drowned Disciple. I would have lost this game, but I was able to use Doran and Gulian to remove the icons from a Drowned God's Apostle that had something like 4 power on it, and then I used Trystane to return it to hand, luckily avoiding the Drowned God Fanatic cancel. After that I had just about enough time to rush it with The Viper and YWOYD before Mario would win passively. Win

Round 5 vs Francesco Folladori ( - The Prince that was Promised):

Complete non-game. There was Ser Jaremy Rykker in play with a bunch of duped Rangers and Castle Black (Core), and the characters I tried to play got an immediate Craven. And then I got a surprise Duel as well. I could not push a challenge through, and my resets did nothing against The Watch Has Need. Loss

Top 8 vs Francesco Folladori ( - The Prince that was Promised):

I was lucky that it was a top 8 cut, even if I had to play an immediate repeat of what looked like a horrible matchup after the previous game. But, as so often happens, this one went completely differently. No Cravens on my key characters, and my Sword of the Morning plan worked quite well. I was able to dominate right from the start. Francesco also spent both draw events before MKC, in an unsuccessful attempt to dig for answers. I also won initiative against Duel with my Dohaeris and fizzled it, which gave me a good chance to close the game. Rykker was there in the end, but I waited with my Dornish Wars for him. Two extremely different games, so I'm still not quite sure which one was closer to the way this matchup would usually go. Win

Top 4 vs Adichamp ( - The Brotherhood Without Banners):

Could have gone either way. Adichamp's deck fights for initiative, and won it one time with A City Besieged revealed, which put me under some pressure. Fortunately I traded for a Bodyguard that saved The Viper from Put to the Sword, and then I found a dupe afterwards as well. After Adichamp had spent the high-initiative plots, there was not much else he could do against Sword of the Morning just pulling all of his board into challenges, clearing the way for me to win everything else. Win

Final vs Alessandro Vasta ( - "The Rains of Castamere"):

A pretty interesting game. I had a Milk for Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) early on, and I played Supporting the Faith into my opponent's First Snow. He marshaled Varys (Core), whom I was able to Milk also, but I couldn't stop The Pointy End to discard the Bodyguard from Anders. That meant Morghulis, which I tried to counter with a YWOYD to keep the pressure on. I made a really bad strategic mistake that round, when I decided not to marshal Doran. The gold didn't work out for Doran and a icon, and I convinced myself it was a waste of a 2-claim plot if I couldn't do a challenge that round, so I think I marshaled something like Gulian and a Desert Raider instead. But they weren't going to get the job done without a big on the board. Alessandro was happy to just pass marshaling and ambush a couple of Hightower Spies instead, a strategy I completely underestimated. I needed some luck after that blunder, and I got it by topdecking Doran and The Viper the following round. I couldn't afford both, but Doran's ability was able to protect The Viper in hand, so I eventually managed to get both of them on the board. Alessandro had Renly Baratheon (FFH) and Margery back at that point, with Wardens of the South revealed, but STR didn't matter against the combination of Doran, Viper and Gulian in play, so I was able to close the game.

And there we are. :) Thanks for reading if you got this far. As always, any comments or suggestions are more than welcome. :)