Fracas Flee Bottom 7th swiss, top NW 1.0

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• 1.0

Playing Crane in every game? :D

Doji is love, Doji is life ^^

Team Crane!

Hi, i love to play NW, and i would really like to know how you played this deck during the tournament and against which houses. I'm asking because a lot of card choices you made kinda surprised me, and i can't really figure out the strategy of the deck.

• Do you take the opponent aggressively or defend the wall? Or both?

• Do you choke him with White Tree and A Meager Contribution or you use them only to gain more money?

• How do you play Sneak Attack and Wildfire Assault?

These are some examples of the questions that came to my mind, and I am really curious to learn more. Congrats for your placement and I hope you can give me some answers :)

Very interesting decisions ... For one, I'm happy to see that you are running The Wall compared to all other NW choke decks that want to go full out offensive.

How are the 3x Old Forest Hunter working out for you? The biggest questions while I was making my deck was should I go for Rangers and some The Watcher on the Walls, or not ... I decided not to...

Very interesting plots as well. Would you consider this a Choke deck at all? OR is this Defend the Wall deck with some gold manipulation?

@Magnaos To answer you questions - defending the Wall has priority over aggressive attacking, but it's mainly due to fact it tends to give me more power most of the time. For sure this deck won't attack just to clear some claimsoaks for the future. I do attack if it grants me power (or, of course, if I see that Wall is impossible to defend this turn) or I have some spare guys like Lannisport Moneylender or Old Forest Hunter that clearly are not needed in defence. Next question is a bit strange - those cards do both at the same time ^^ But if you ask whether I wonder if I want to play A Meager Contribution or keep it for next turn, when it would be more choking/gold effective the answers is no. I play this event whenever possible - I do not know my opponent hand and it's always safer to take gold from him and Contribution is (Max 1 per round) so saving it for "better occasion" might be tricky. Another very important thing about those two cards is in this deck I mostly do not care too much about doing second - they effectively grant me gold even while I go first. I have 13 cards (16 with events) that can use gold in action phase, so Maegar's and Tree are never used solely to reduce opponents gold pool - that coins are always spend for my needs. Lastly, Sneak Attack is here for 5 gold and 11 initiative - I use it when I see that I direly need to go second (or first in very rare cases, like seeing possible rush to win, or planning play White Tree on first turn after setup) eg. with . Wildfire is used to shorten table when there are 4+ good character at the other side or when I have only 3 guys and opponent has 5+. It's nice to kill off his reducers when you have White Tree and A Meager Contribution in hand and it's always good way to trigger your Benjen Stark. In general I just play it like everybody, but due to low number of duplicates in this deck I tend to shorten my table a bit more that other decks (it's also caused by the fact that I don't attack very often, so my opponents don't lose claimsoaks too much).

@Dydra Old Forest Hunter is in this deck mainly for the purpose of smoothing my gold (I often need 4 gold in challenge phase) by using his ability. That single copy of The Watcher on the Walls you see on decklist appeared to be mistake in this deck - in whole tournament I played it only once and it got cancelled. I thought that having one copy of it in discard pile would be intimidating or something... but it wasn't. Almost every event (from third Nightmares to Superior Claim) would be better to play in that slot. So your decisions about events was right, but Old Forest Hunter is much more that a cheap ranger - he's here to ensure I won't miss one gold for crucial ambush or marshalling.

And of course I do not consider this deck to be a choke at all, if I would give this deck a name-type it would be "defend the Wall with ambushes", as using characters with ambush transforms NW "choke" cards into pure gold production independent of your initiative.

@Chord really good point about Old Forest Hunter, as you can trigger him in both Marshal and Challenges. Would totally find place for 2 or 3 of those bad boys tonight and test it tomorrow.

@DydraYou can trigger him in Taxation and Draw also, he enables a player that plans well to get very much rewarded.

Have you tried this as a Fealty deck? I understand that Tyrion and Hound are great, but the Bear is amazing with the Wall out. Plus the ambush mechanic seems to be quite expensive if your choke doesn't happen. I'd expect to see more emphasis on Brothel Madame if you went Lion banner.

@HidaHayabusa This deck would have no point as fealty. Hound and Tyrion are not the most important Lani cards I use. I value the most Gold Cloaks and Burned Men. This deck is built around the idea of ambush and while I value Mormont as good defender he is all about keeping strong board presence and thus he's vulnerable to all forms of opponent control (kneeling with Filthy Accusations blanking with Milk of the Poppy stealths and so on and so on), cards you put in play with ambush in challenges are immune to most forms of opponents shenanigans, so they are much more reliable ways of protecting the Wall.

Moreover characters with ambush play role of events in that deck - they are element of surprise that NW fealty lacks terribly.

Yes, i didn't imply that Bear/Fealty is better than Lions, just curious if you gave a shot as a fealty-defender (which seems to be popular in NW builds). Also, I love the idea of anything Lion+NW, so I have been toying with the banner, just didn't have the chance to test thoroughly after Arry and White tree came out, which it seems is all the difference in the strategy.

@Chord Are you going to make room for Craven? If so, what are you cutting?

@HidaHayabusaWell, I tried to play fealty NW earlier in half of the Westeros Cycle, but results were so bad I didn't want to go back to this. And in general I see banners more interesting than fealty. @dtrooperSpeaking of CtA cards Craven is truly last that comes to my mind. Firstly I'll have to make some room for two amazing 3-gold characters: Dolorous Edd and Shae. Then reconsider shape of the plot deck with incoming Winter Festival hype (the simplest idea would be to just jump on the hype train and put two copies in plot deck, but I don't feel like that) and Summer Harvest. Only last comes Craven, which, honestly, looks like lame cousin of Fishing Net to me. Only with Craven you want to be second. But it is terminal and not a weapon, so... much worse. On the other hand ties are won by attacker and NW has two cool stealths so that's advantage of Craven... I think I should test it to know whether it's useful enough.

@Chord You're seriously underestimating how good Craven is. It's not only a "Cannot attack", it handles Renown in a way defensive couldn't really, it handles Gregor, Mirri, etc etc.

It combines with 3 Milk, and in some cases is better than Milk, to completely shut down your opponent.

@imabunnehGregor is equally dangerous in defence as when attacking. Also vision of Miri or Clegane standing for domination or blocking my attacks is not so great. I prefer my opponent kneeling all his forces to attack than leaving strongest monsters to defence (cause with Wall I need to defend even the crapiest attacks with 1-gold reducers) and you can't have efficient NW deck that don't attack at all. I want my opponent to attack with everything he's got, so I can try to get some power with unopposed challenges. Exception might be with characters with stealth, but I believe NW has better ways of dealing with stealth than Craven. Of course time and testing can prove me wrong and in the end I will play 3 copies of this attachment, but on paper - it does not look worth keeping in deck for me.

Used this in a test session over 12 games against (mainly) Stark and Martell. Worked like a charm, thanks for sharing. I think that I missed Widow's wail, since I did run 3 copies of Tyrion.

@HidaHayabusa I'd recommend to find place for it. Might me 2nd Ser Alliser Thorne or that one sad copy of The Watcher on the Walls. That weapon is really strong ambush card.