What is dead, Marches to the Wall! 1.0

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• 1.0

Were all your opponents cats?

I don't know what that means, lol.

I'd love to hear a tourney report.

Tourney report please.

Report Added

Great deck and thanks for the report. Will seems like he could go in this deck. Did you just think he was too risky?

@celric I had Will in an early version but I tend to allow through UO. Also 4 cost is too much for this deck with no location reducer.

Thanks for sharing your deck. Congrats on the win!

I've been getting wrecked by a deck like this lately (except they use Lanni)! Congrats on the win. It's been getting pretty annoying the march plus Yoren combo against my Targ Fealty. Poor Jorah has to rejoin with his father on the wall. I'm surprised how often it works. Great report; I'll have to give this deck a try.

Very nice theme and potent deck build. Happy to give it a try myself :)

thanks to everyone for the nice comments. i also don't mind criticism, lol

How does the deck fare when you don't hit a big Naval on your opponent early? It seems like this deck benefits from the "suprise" factor. I guess if your opponent gets ahead then you need to get a Varys off to regain control? Although the high character count would indicate a better chance of Varys sticking around. I guess your set ups are so amazing that you are ahead in most games from the start?

@AFredein the 7 games I tested before the tourney I only hit on Naval twice and won all 7 games by concedes. I can't remember though if i needed Varys to bring it back but probably. I don't always Naval early, I try to read the board and if mine is unassuming then i figure they are not dropping Calm. Like I said in my report, you can't be afraid to Varys away your best characters b/c you should refill the board faster and use your tricks to crush them into submission, lol. Strangely my setups were not bonkers in the tourney. I believe I usually setup 4-5. I think my ideal is Asha, Shipwright, reducer and roseroad. i'm almost always going to March off that, exp if they have a kingsroad out. then i'll go first and kneel it and they are down a character probably a reducer

Built this one today, had a pretty good run, but it's not speedy. Which is fine, but just be prepared for a few slogs to victory. I like it.

@paranoyd not built for speed, built for winning, lol. I often get concedes when I play online so that's fast, lol

@kidohearts my first game I naval superiority my friend's marching orders. He just stared at me for a second, said "That sucks." and put his cards down. We started over.

@paranoyd on OCTGN I Navaled a Trading with the Pentoshi and got rage quit on. The best is hitting 3 people in melee, lol

Grats dude. Enjoyed the write up as well.

After playing this only a handful of times, I felt as though A Noble Cause was just there for Varys when its needed. Otherwise, there wasn't any issue getting things into play with the low cost of characters. You also mentioned a worry about Treachery and the desire not to include The Hand's Judgment for a single card. But, had you considered Supporting the Faith to resolve this potential situation as well? There are little events to worry on this end outside the Tears of Lys, but you are probably not playing tears on a Varys turn unless you are trying to remove a dupe and it would provide some event protection like Treachery or Put to the Sword or other shenannigans while still providing the 6 gold when you need it. It doesn't sound like a bad replacement plot for it. The two initiative even might be useful over the 0 of A Noble Cause in clashes with Summons or their A Noble Cause for instance.

Solid deck, and one I want to consider for upcoming tournaments for sure.

actually Noble gives you Varys and Tears which in my final game won me the game as i was able to Tears the dupe off Stannis. but honestly i'm not sure about the plot myself and have an eye on a plot that's coming. Problem with Supporting is the reserve value and playing lannister is tough and now Tyrion can make gold in the challenges and if they get Brothel then i can't do military. but thanks for the feedback

Yeah, neither of them really feel great. I did forget about that reserve 4 as well, along with the same restriction on the other 6 gold plot. That potential extra gold from A Noble Cause just seemed like a waste and I was trying to ponder what it could be and if you had thought about something that could bring Varys to the table with some sort of benefit or initiative.

@Bronze it can be Varys and a Raven, trigger Raven first. And with just one roseroad it's Varys and a Longship

In your write-up on The White Book you wrote about Asha, "Aeron and the Iron Throne will get her back." What did you mean by this?

I'm about to play this in the Bristol tournament on Saturday. It'll make a change from my usual NW/Stark deck!

@Tathagata what I mean is: what I love is that everyone sees Asha and targets her to get off the board usually by kill. I'm also hoping that's their strategy b/c Aeron''s ability brings back Ironborn from the dead pile. When u have the iron throne it's almost a lock you'll win dominance which is the condition that triggers Aeron

Ah of course, thanks for the explanation. I was being daft and thinking you meant Maester Aemon! Yeah my opponent definitely targeted Asha when I played this.

I am an avid NW player and was so happy that yours actually won SC when most of the cards are really out of meta. I gave the deck a test and it was really fun to play with.

I am just wondering if The Watch Has Need would have any place in the deck given you use Tears to even take out small characters. Why not use The Watch Has Need to take one of their characters and then Marched to the Wall the next round to potential thin them by 2 characters. I do see the problem with the card's cost though.

Oops, tagged the wrong card in the above post. I meant Take the Black instead of The Watch Has Need.

Had a great time playtesting this and will definitely take it to the tournament tomorrow. Twice I had to play a Marched to the Wall when they had no characters and I had only characters I really wanted though, so I swapped one out for a Trading with the Pentoshi. I'm sure that isn't the best choice, but it felt good playing Naval Superiority after triggering Varys and having a free round, then playing Trading with the Pentoshi and flooding the board with characters.

@tsuyaa that would be awesome and a card I would love to play but I don't run Put to the Sword b/c I never have 2 gold. But I made a version of this deck using Lion and I run 2 of it b/c Tyrion generates gold.

@Tathagata I think not running 2 Marched would be a mistake. Those must have been awesome games to keep the board that clear, but in almost all of my games (40ish) I've played both Marched in the first 4-5 plots. But if u think u can keep ur meta in check then go a different way besides Pentoshi. There are few power character in the deck and giving them 3 gold could lead to a comeback. Can't let them up once you have them down. If u have the need, play Clash of Kings, Marching Orders, a second Winds of Winter to really keep pressure on, Heads on Spikes, or Sneak Attack, but I would always keep that 2nd Marched for me f you don't see Varys. Yoren needs recruits, lol.

@kidohearts Thanks for the advice; I'll stick to the plots you suggested!

I was struggling vs greyjoy banner of the sun, kept losing initiative and falling behind. I replaced winds of winter with sneak attack and saw inmediate improvements. I used to consistantly play WoW opposite rise of the kraken, and get my head smashed in. Now sneak atrack out speads it and i get my 2 mil claim and their kraken is crippled.

@igotoofast for sure, people should adapt to their meta and what their seeing

I took this deck to 4th place in my store champs to lose in the top 4 cut in the exact mirror. I lost one game in the Swiss to Stark Fealty after he managed to Head on Spikes my Varys (1 in 7!) turn 1. Without any reset, I couldn't power rush fast enough after both Asha and Theon were milked. In the semis, I found d playing the mirror match very odd as I was playing from behind after his setup had better economy. While I managed to pull off a Varys reset he had better draws to keep my board smaller for the win. In the finals the NW/Kraken deck lost to Tyrell fealty after failing to find Varys after summons and a clutch Clash of Kings to grab the last 3 power off a Knight of Flowers.

Sry, if you talked about it already @kidohearts, but how do you feel about the Lannister match-up without The Hand's Judgment to protect Varys?

@Amoon Lannister will be the hardest matchup b/c of Tywin and Tyrion. I really liked the cards and didn't want to pull any for HJ just for Treachery. I don't really care too much about the other events that could be played. Now if I had a heavy heavy Lannister meta that may be different. But the dude at Thrones War played against some pretty stiff competition with just one of it.

Piloted the deck to a 2-2 at a 16 player event today and really only lost because of play mistakes. Switched both Milk of the Poppy for Fishing Net which worked a charm. Have you tried them already yourself, @kidohearts?

Right, the big question pre-play testing: Will the deck retain viable in a The First Snow of Winter environment? Can totally see how a Naval Superiority and (bounced) Yoren punishes an opponent the turn after First Snow, or having one of their big duped characters get Marched to the Wall. But can the deck itself recover its board presence?

@Amoonwhen i first knew of "first snow" i thought for sure it would kill this deck and so have the podcasts so far. But after thinking about it and knowing my deck, i think its going to fit right into the objective of the deck: keep characters off the board. lets just say i set up a theon/asha/party/ghost with shipwright, reducer and kingsroad. i'm so going to drop "first snow" first turn and if they had no 5 or more cost, what will they do? if they have a kingsroad, i go first and kneel it, if they don't i may let them go first so if they play one then i kneel it and maybe meager. so there is a very good scenario they can't even put out a character first turn that won't get hit by "first snow". when they see the deck they will flip "calm" first turn to avoid "naval" so even if they can get one out it will get Marched. Second turn will most likely be a kingdom plot so Naval eats. or if they have one then you March b/c they may filthy. we'll see, but i look forward to trying it

@kidoheartsI am glad to hear you also see the potential for The First Snow of Winter to actually work in favour of the deck! Very much looking forward to play-testing. I'll start testing against it, though what plot would you cut for your own copy?

@kidohearts, any thoughts on what changes you'd make to this deck with all of the new packs out?

I am also interested to see how you would update this deck to the latest chapter pack, or if you feel it is still viable in todays meta.