Congratz again Mate, thanks for giving the luck to watch THE best game my eyes have seen so far in 2.0, and for building such a marvel.

The deck is wonderfull and works exceptionnally well, I can't do anything but to say to anyone to try it out to get how impressiv and beautifull it is.

Cheers.

To be fair, that deck looks really cool. The list of Decks I want to play this SC season gets bigger and bigger... ;)

Very interesting deck, especially at a time when Martell seems to be unpopular.

Did Political Disaster work well for you? Which locations are you hoping to hit with your location-control? (Winterfell would be my first guess, but Stark would never lose that one voluntarily.)

And was Jaqen effective? 3x is very dramatic, although I don't doubt his potential.

Political Disaster was mostly here for greyjoy/banner of the kraken when i predict Valar to hit his eco very hard if he want keep his iron mine. Its very usefull against Barath and NW, since they can still grab with not many character. Otherwise, it was cool just to hit economy because of ghaston grey and reset.

Jaqen was key card all day long, he can just blow up every save/dupe since token are not removed if the char is saved. The main trick with him, was when my opponents didnt have a singe Int icon. You can trigger Rains with jaqen on int, kill someone, reveal Power Behinf the thrones, stand jaqen, and kill someone else (or the same character if he got some dupe/bodyguard)

I'm glad that my defeat on the thuesday mini-tournament was vs the future Store winner ! Gratz ! ;-)

This is excellent. Take my like.

Gratz on your win. The deck looks awesome:D

But did u miss Vengeance for Elia and Quentyn Martell?

I did not miss Vengeance for Elia at all, they are very expensive cards who dont have a lot of impact in this build.

Quentyn Martell in other hand could make the cut because of wildfire, but i did not miss him. He is a bit on the same spot as vengeance, very expensive and not having huge impact... He is really great with wildfire though, and it's a bad with valar since you will probably go first and the duped/saved character you want to kill will have 4+ str.

Congrats on your win! ;) What's your opening plot - Trading, Counting Coppers?

Thanks ! Mostly Counting and Calling or sometime Trading depending on what i have on hand and board. I always want to be sure to proc agenda before using Trading to get rid of the reserve.

Congratulation this deck seems quite impressive, i wanna play it because of many sinergies and few lucky trick.

Best2.0Deck !!

I'm really fond of it after playing it myself some more, it's marvellous.

Looks like a very solid list and looking forward to giving it a go. Grats!

WOW, I've been working on a Martell/Rains deck for a little while and I'm happy to find that Valar works well in it!!! (as I haven't played with it since Valar's release) Very curious to test the deck out with Jaqen & all your location hate

Congrats! Very cool looking deck! What are your thoughts on possibly playing Confiscation over Marched to the Wall? It seems really important to get rid of Milks on your Nymeria.

I just dont like confiscation in general. Raiders are normally enough to get rid of milk... If I can't discard milk, i prefer let her die on claim or valar into close call, or just marched her instead of having a additional situational plot.

Political + confisaction could possibily stick on your plotline when u dont want too play them, or just confiscation one of your attachments with bad timing.

But if you like the plot and you see a lot of milk, you can try it ofc and see how it work by yourself.

As a fellow Martell Rains player, how prominent is Naval Superiority in your meta? I'm worried that your most logical openers are Kingdom plots.

What are your thoughts on replacing Trading with the Pentoshi for Summer Harvest? I'm assuming Trading is to recover after a Valar turn - so what would your logical first opener be?

Trading isn't for recover after Valar. You play pentoshi, keep gold, trigger castamere, reveal The Long Plan then you valar. You have now a valar turn with 6-7-8 golds. Meaning you can play a board again, trigger castamere on valar turn and have 1 claim. It's the power play of the deck.

@TheBrianFactorTgeyr as it right, that's THE main idea of the deck, that's why you need both pentoshi and Calling the Banners, so you are pretty sure to get one turn with a shit ton of gold to keep, it's not that important if you get hit by a naval, and quite anecdotic if touches your Counting Coppers (one of the main opening plot) or Calling, it will annoy you only when it hits Pentoshi, so you've got to play it wisely. And in our meta they are almost no naval, haven't seen one quite in a while, and was still able to dodge when I thought my opponent will go for it.

Yep, I saw that interaction and it's an ever prudent cornerstone to this deck, and to most all post-Valar Martell Rains decks. Having not yet played my Martell Rains post-Valar, I'm just curious how much it hurts this deck if your opponent somehow manages to stave off your +5 challenge win when you've just played Trading?

Simplistically, what are the alternative plot trajectories should you be stuck with a terrible setup/mulligan making it hard to get the Trading -> Long Plan -> Valar play off for several rounds?

Sorry for the double post But also, how do you feel about Isle of Ravens? I think it's a beautiful card, but I would struggle to find a place for it in this deck! Would you cut a House Dayne Knight and put 1 Isle of Ravens in to help you recycle Confiscated attachments or used Tears?

Great deck :)

@TheBrianFactorAs I said, most of time i just play pentoshi when i was sure to do +5 challenge. In all the games I played with the deck, only 1 opponent manage to stop me from triggering it, but got areo on hand so it was not a waste of gold.

Meanwhile, i would say we don't have clear plot path if things goes wrong. Just try to draw some cards to get more options in hand, while trying to get some int claim/bastard/viper eye to make valar good even with 2 gold.

And i dont' like Isle of Ravens in this build (even if love the card !), mainly because of politcal disaster. Its a very useless card early, and it will most likely get discard by our own plot later on.

Ah, i like this deck. It's a nice improvement on the current knowledge in House Martell. I was especially waiting to see how underperforming houses were going to play with jaqen, who is basically the neutral faction leader that you play at 7 when you have nothing else to play because it's not enough performant (It's written : selected kill on it). It is very pertinent to does it with Martell and their icon removal to find one path toward it. I also like how you used the enlarged pool of cards to go toward more appropriate number of copies for Martell cards.

I just read what is my main comment on your deck : what is your reliable plan with the deck and your secure opener ? it just looks like there is not (it's hard with Martell), if your plan is to open with Trading. But you're agressive enough to manage the confrontation in challenge phase after a Trading T1.

I understand your considerations for location control, but not at the expense of Confiscation : Martell are too vulnerable to this plot, it is "mandatory" to play it. Way more important than Political disaster, which is not a targeted removal. I am also doubting about Put to the Torch. If your concern is to remove Iron Mines, then Tears of Lys does the same job and perfectly fits your basic mechanics. If you really want to ensure your opponent cannot benefit for locations post-valar, i think it's unecessary : the main concern is always to get rid of keys opponent characters, locations became underefficient when it's done.

Like to see the absence of Trystane. I like him, but i suspected him to be complicated to play.

Good job, hope to see you around again and continue to read your lucid thinking and analysis. I would be fond of to face you on OCTGN, the confrontation with your archetype is something i want to see in practice.

Amazing idea mate. Would do a list of my own leveraging the concept of such focused kill. Did Jaqen H'ghar pull out a lot of work? I'm sure he is great in a small board, but a 3x looks strange to me. =)

I'd probably have a different main plot deck to be honest ... I really dislike Pentoshi and Calling the Banners in such a deck that wants to keep the board small feels lackluster. =) Congratz on your win!

Great idea and great showing! I also always wanted to make Political Disaster work out of Martell. One quick question though: Was Spearmaiden worth it for you? Could you reliably win not only INT, but also MIL by 5? I think that maybe Palace Spearman would be an improvement because it´s cheaper, has more icons, and resistent to attachments.

@Benji : Thanks mate ! As I said before, political could go for confiscation and wouldnt change the deck a lot (even if i prefer political). Otherwise, put to the torch was really key all day long. You are wrong when you say location become uneffiecient when they dont have key character. Actually the only way to come back/resist is to have strong location in play, because other character would be meaningless. I didnt see every of those, but when i see one of these, ptts become my number one priority to trigger : Chamber of the Painted Table + The Iron Throne, Harrenhal (FFH) + Tower of the Hand, The Wall, The Arbor, The Eyrie, and obviously Winterfell, Iron Mines,Winterfell Heart Tree... so its just mandatory for me, i wouldn't touch them. Anyway, see you arround OCTGN when i go there ;)

@DydraThanks ! and yeah, As I said before : "Jaqen was key card all day long, he can just blow up every save/dupe since token are not removed if the char is saved. The main trick with him, was when my opponents didnt have a singe Int icon. You can trigger Rains with jaqen on int, kill someone, reveal Power Behinf the thrones, stand jaqen, and kill someone else (or the same character if he got some dupe/bodyguard)". Even with great board, its quite easy to trigger him with icon removal.

Pentoshi is a must. Giving 3 gold to your opponent most of the time is good, if you manage to get the agenda and valar after. The more card they play, the less card they can play after valar. Calling was just a backup economy plot, you can swap it for another economy plot even though i think it's the 2nd best economy plot for this deck.

@Itachi : Actually it was worth, just to pressure 2 chal even if i win only one. Maybe we can swap one Spearmaiden for something else, but i would still keep atleast one of them just for the pressure aspect.

This is an awesome deck, but I find it quite tough to fight against Stark when they hold winterfell as none of my important abilities can be triggered.

I have played this deck several times, now and the opening plot does present some head-scratch options. Other than that, the deck is a difficult one to pilot as there are a lot of choices to make for several turns ahead - being a Martell player, that's not too much to squawk at.

This is a beautiful deck construction and I love it! I'll be continuing to play this and enjoy its fruits of its labor!

Milked Nymeria is such a sad, sad panda when pushing for the intrigue challenge. Milked Nymeria without raiders is frustrating and expensive. I think Confiscation is probably an improvement on Political Disaster. To each their own though!

Jaqen H'ghar seems very susceptible to being nerfed by several popular cards, like Milk of the Poppy, Treachery, or Craven. Did you have any trouble triggering him?

@sabrefoxAs someone that has been playing this iteration of a Martell/Rains deck religiously since I found it, it is a bit difficult to trigger Jaqen H'ghar. He hits the board and places his tokens and then your opponent hits the "oh s***" alarm and does everything they can to get him off of the board. However, if they are concerned about him, that removes their ability to mitigate he, Nymeria Sand, Arianne Martell, Syrio Forel, various Tears of Lys triggers, and the Rains trigger. Oh, and don't forget about Spearmaiden, too! There are so many things for your opponent to keep track of, mitigate, or halt for them to be successful. If you are able to keep them on their heels by making them constantly worry about what you might do next, then you are already winning. This deck is pretty air-tight. There are, obviously, some less-than-ideal scenarios, but most of them can be remedied by smart game play.

@Badeesh You can always use Arianne Martell to bring in your Raiders after you've done your work to get some of your opponent's board knelt to make the win easier.

Tried it and it's really for good players, I'm that good to play it. I can't imagine triggering Castamere when needed, playing with so little gold and mainly poor initiative and so on. For hardocors only ;)

@TrueSokleslove your statement haha. "This deck is only for good players" followed by "I'm a good player". Nice One ;)

Big fan of this deck. It is does a great job putting multiple threats in the board and keeps people reacting to you, while keeping the Valar card in the back pocket to punish them if they overextend to stop your target kills. It very much got me back on the Martell train.

A few thoughts and suggestions based on my experience with it - consider Rangers Cache over Counting Coppers. I open this most of the time and the extra gold over Coppers is very helpful. I have also found it useful as a backup plan for getting money on the turn you Valar, since sometimes you play against Lannister and only draw your military removal/can't trigger your agenda. I had already seen a huge surge in Little Birds and Appointeds to slow down the new Lannister stuff and this gets caught in the cross fire a bit.

I also managed to sneak a one off copy of Dawn in, which works wonders on the several Dayne characters, but also turns Jaqen into a wrecking ball.

The other card I am trying is Burning on the Sands, which have been very powerful get out of jail cards on critical turns (ie Valar) and unlike Vengeance it doesn't hit your econ and isn't broadcast, so people overextend in to you more often.

The deck is so slow

@iaanGot me, should be "I'm NOT that good to play it" :) just eaten the word ;)

@brainuI tend to agree with the comments surrounding the lack of attachment removal. Would it be better to remove a Starfall Cavalry and add another Rattleshirt's Raiders? I feel the cavalry sits in hand to maximise it's effect and it's not a good setup option. I appreciate that draw is key but paying 6 gold for a single draw (until turn 4 that is) isn't the best pay-off i feel

@adam_geekYes it is, you need to play pretty fast.

@tarrandrI actually just like draw too much and i'm a bit biased about it. Starfall on setup is very fine since he is no attachement and ensure too have some str for mil and int chal (and great with cost 2 chud/cost 0 loc) . I would rather play with one less Desert Scavenger to include one more Rattleshirt's Raiders if your meta is full of negativ attachement.

I do not understand why people are so amazed by this deck. Any deck with saves and valar will wreck this build. There is no attachment control so milk and craven will shut down all the kill.

Yep, it's not performing well at all now that Valar and saves have settled in to my meta. Going to be returning to my Doran-based Martell Rains.

@TheBrianFactor and @LickMyBalzac Its interesting that you say that, because I have pretty much only ever run this deck in a meta where people were already running saves and Valar (I've seen Healing Expertise + Maesters on top of the Bodyguards and Greyjoy stuff), and it is still probably the most consistent Martell deck I have played. The entire point of this deck is that the kill effects blow through the save effects after all.

This already has Rattleshirts, so it doesn't have no attachment control, but attachment control vs location control is mostly down to taste/meta call. Against defensive NW, the Martell mirror and a meta with everyone running 3xMilk I would prefer Confiscation over Political Disaster (it's numbers are just straight up better so not a hard sell), but against Greyjoy in particular the location control is incredibly important, and can can clear out all the Mines for you to get the kill effects rolling.

@LickMyBalzac This is a great deck. Every deck has it's weaknesses but this one doesn't have many. I don't know how many saves will they can produce to stop Tyene Sand, Jaqen H'ghar and Spearmaiden along with Valar Morghulis. Especially with Bastard Daughter and His Viper Eyes blasting out additional cards. This deck is loaded with card advantage, and I don't buy it when you say "Valar will wreck it".

This was also the first deck I'm aware of that utilized "The Rains of Castamere" with The Long Plan to create a big money Valar Morghulis and then go for claim through another Rain's trigger. No other faction can do that and the internet hive mind said Martell was a down and out faction. @brainumade a strong contribution to the meta.

@WreckoYou're right. I apologize. There are no cards in the current meta that can deal with Jaquen, Tyene or Spearmaiden. Well, I guess you could play treachery on Jaqen when he comes into play, but who plays Lanni, right? Since your obviously playing in a 80% Greyjoy meta, you'll probably be fine. And since you'll be triggering Castamere at will it is unlikely you will need to have a plan vs. your opponent's valar. Milk of the Poppy is probably a 1x in most decks, so 2 Rattleshirts is plenty. If your opponent plays valar you can just top deck the other one. #noweaknesses

@LickMyBalzac Thanks for apologizing. That's big of you.

@LickMyBalzac: mate did you even played the deck ^^ ?

If Not you should. If you did, either you have a very special Meta (unlikely seeing your coments above), either you are kind of closeminded (and a bit agressiv), or not that good at understanding this game or decks (and still a bit agressiv don't worry)

Since you missunderstood "don't have many" and understood "#noweakness" instead, I have a personnal opinion on this question (and I would gladly be prooved wrong about it btw).

Oh and by the way does it really happen that often that the lannister player have income during his opponent marshalling phase ? And do you oftenly base your all strategy on playing a seven cost cards in this particular set up ?

Oh and did you knew that His Viper Eyes can oftenly allow you to Know big part of your opponent hand ?

(It seems you are not that bad at sarcasm, hopefully you'll be able to see through them).

With <3.

Yes, yes. You made testicles. Renoir would be proud.

Saying the deck is only susceptible to milk, treachery, nightmares, craven etc is like saying I "only" gave my yahoo password to a Russian.

I also don't understand people who attack into Long Plan. The reason this plan works in some games is because you are playing a bad opponent.

Thanks for telling us how much you didn't get (while beeing at the same time so verry insultant against any player who played against Brainu, or anyone else who looses againts this deck) how to play the deck.

Your opponnent making challenges on The Long Plan doesn't matters. I'll let you a chance to understand why and how.

(And i didn't sayed anything about Wrecko's point on the different weaknesses within the build, neither if i agree with him or not, neither did I for your opinion on those, I just tried to show that you're way of arguing was toxic and lacking of analyses, or interest on someone else arguments, this look like either a sophism, either a missunderstanding on Wrecko's words.)

@LickMyBalzac well every deck is susceptible to milk/treachery/nightmares/craven etc. So maybe you should stop playing ?

The deck is redundant in it's effect (Jaqen/Tears/Tyene/Spearmaiden/Valar) that if your opponent have a way to deal with one of them you're likely to have another effect like this or two.

The deck doesn't need ALL the parts to be effective. Only 1 or 2 effects goes through and it tilt the balance heavily.

Your comment on The Long Plan made it obvious that you never played the deck or didn't understood how it works.

You're supposed to play Calling the Banners or Trading with the Pentoshi keeping money (even 2/3 golds is enough) then you trigger "The Rains of Castamere" and switch to The Long Plan. No need to trigger the long plan...

Please tell me how to win Stark with Winterfell and Catelyn. All the intrigue kills effect will be useless and Stark also has quite a lot of saves. And it also impossible to trigger Put to The Torch as Stark has very strong Millitary Power. With one icon steal and imprisoned wouldn't help as Stark has Arya's gift and Summer＆Greywind who are "No Attachment"(Frequently used by Stark players)

How often is the Intrigue Challenge won and Rains triggered on the opponent's turn (assuming you're going second)?

@Miller There is a reason Imprisoned is in this deck, an Imprisoned + a Stealth or Nymeria is normally enough to win military against any faction (assuming you are matching them for characters). Against Stark you need to keep the board small and threaten as many things as you can. I would also recommend swapping out Counter Coppers for Rangers Cache to give yourself a Winter plot option. They can't Winterfell every challenge however, and you can often find a way to shut down Catelyn (Stealth and Icon removal). Jaqen can do power challenges to force them to block, and you can always threaten things like Hotah to sneak things through. Its also worth noting that if you are first player the Spearmaiden's trigger will go off before Winterfell is tapped, so if you can land a military you can take out his protective characters and snowball out.

@powerguyI may be wrong but I am pretty sure Winterfell will react to the initiation of the challenge before Spearmaiden has the window to use her ability after being declared as an attacker regardless of FP.

Did you consider including summons? Bouth for key character or for rattle to get rid of milk?