HoD Gates of Winterfell - 1st UK Nationals (107p)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
HoD Gates of Winterfell - 2nd Blackwater Bay '16 (87p) 41 36 15 1.0
Inspiration for
Stark Classic 0 0 0 1.0
4th place at HSE Chile (34 players) 4 2 1 1.0
Stark Fealty - AGOT 2 Demo 0 0 0 1.0
Stark Big Guys Deck - Live Stream/Deck Testing 0 0 2 1.0

Ryan4815 1285

After my 2nd place finish at Blackwater Bay, I decided to rock my HoD Gates at this years UK Nationals - now with a few games of actual practice rather than creating it on the eve of the event. After an extremely tiring day full of close-fought games, I beat Kristian's Lanni/Fealty in an epic final and succeeded Dave Bamford as the UK National Champion!

I made a few changes since Blackwater, including the 'madness' of dropping all three copies of The Roseroad - I was never short of money thanks to the plots and Fealty, so top decking (or the chance of missing a draw with Gates of Winterfell) a Roseroad was never something I wanted. These were replaced by third copies of King Robb's Host, Rattleshirt's Raiders and Riverrun Minstrel bringing me to a lovely 48 characters. Calling the Banners replaced A Noble Cause as it often provided me more income (with no reset) and the initiative could be key on certain rounds.

A full report (what I can remember at least) can be found in the latest episode of The Southron Bannermen (Facebook or Soundcloud) so I won't go into too much detail here. You can also check out the previous deck for an explanation of how it arose. I would like to thank all my opponents on the day, and my Thrones family as a whole for being a truly fantastic group of people. The amount of congratulatory messages and support I received during/after the tournament was awesome. Thanks to Liam Hall and Esdevium for the smooth running of the event too.

Matches

Round 1 - Bara/Lion - W

Round 2 - GJ/X - W

Round 3 - Bara/Fealty - L

Round 4- Stark/Fealty - W

Round 5 - Stark/Fealty - W

Round 6 - Lanni/Dragon - W

Top 16 - Lanni/Wolf - W

Top 8 - Lanni/Dragon - W

Top 4 - Martell/Kraken - W

Final - Lanni/Fealty - W

15 comments

imabunneh 361

Stupid deck. OP Restrict. Competitively Hollow. Amazing congrats Ryan! :D

tonythetiger891 55

i'll have to give this one a go in my meta.

Badeesh 28

This is awesome. Take my like.

Campeur 1

Hello Ryan ! I tried your deck once, it worked well ! So i tried it a second time, same result : a steamroller ! I tried it once more against another type of adversary, same result !!! I still try it and continue to win. DAMNED ... your deck is insane, good work, il love it. It's fun :)

tonythetiger891 55

I tried it! Worked well in two of three games. My trading got hit with a summer harvest which allowed them to dominate the board but that may have just been bad luck.

donovan 74

Congrats on winning Nationals! Why on earth are you not running Maester Luwin instead of Osha?

Eukalyptus 7

Man I love this deck. And congrats on winning the Nationals! I suppose the changes you made leaves room for Jeyne Westerling, Edmure Tully and Last Hearth Scouts later on. How do you feel about Donella Hornwood?

SirLargeness 470

Did Core Cat do enough to continue to use her over Fat Cat? seem slike you have enough money in your plots to pay for whatever you wanted, just wondering if you got enough big time save out of core cat for that to matter with the 48 characters and all

Ryan4815 1285

Thanks all!

@donovan - I don't have Rickon Stark to grant pillage #oprestrict. Joking aside, the amount of times Osha just confuses your opponent and plays with their challenge math is nice, but I agree that Maester Luwin should probably replace her in the coming months (with Wildfire Assault becoming more prevalent and the advent of Valar, making Bran Stark immune is the key benefit and the others are nice bonuses).

@Eukalyptus - Ser Edmure Tully and Jeyne Westerling will slot in. Donella Hornwood is again another nice one-of, and helps with increasing my unique count ready for Valar. I'm not sure if the Last Hearth Scouts are necessary, I'm not too scared that Burned Men will swing a challenge considering my large strength in and

@SirLargeness - Catelyn Stark (Core) is far and away the better choice right now. Yes there are a lot of characters, but a considerable amount of those are duplicates and with all the target kill in the game, a single Close Call is not going to cut it. I lost count of the amount of times she stopped Tears of Lys, Mirri Maz Duur, Put to the Sword and Ser Gregor Clegane throughout the tournament. Once the final is uploaded to YouTube she will show you her worth - combined with an early Syrio Forel she kept my opponent honest and stopped my big dudes being picked off one by one.

Eukalyptus 7

Burned Men are of little concern, of course. But what about The Hound, the upcoming Clansmen and not to mention Arianne's shenanigans? I'd count those among the ones to respect.

Ryan4815 1285

@Eukalyptus - Indeed, the new clansmen and possible resurgence of the jumping lions deck make the scouts a more exciting prospect. The difficulty is in what to cut right now - I can see myself making room for them when Valar drops and I inevitably have to cut down on the triplicate unique's.

Yodalf 1

My question is how do you play it around Wildfire with so many triplicates in the deck? There are a hefty amount of good strong characters, so I assume losing them and having dead cards can be a problem. Still looks fun though.

Ryan4815 1285

@Yodalf If you expect your opponent is playing Wildfire Assault then its best to play a bit conservative and keep some uniques back in hand. Not once have I had a hand full of 'dead draw' and I faced a large amount of kill and resets both at Nationals and Blackwater - there are still 28 different characters in the deck ignoring duplicates. Close Call and Summer are useful if you do draw copies of dead characters.

Gerion Lannister 241

Very nice deck. :) But why no Septa Mordane? :) Wouldn't it be nice to keep Arya on the board after Wildfire? :)

Ryan4815 1285

@Gerion Lannister Thanks! I was hesitant to include Septa Mordane right now mainly due to her lack of a icon - I generally care very little for the challenge. However, she is another unique that will likely be added in as we head towards chapter pack 4 and Valar Morghulis - her and Maester Luwin can provide a little bit more protection.