The Roose is Loose- in the Reach (PA Store Championship 2nd) 1.0

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Having won the small Store Championship with WTF, Mate? last week, I wanted a new deck to play at this week's event. I put this deck together a few weeks ago as a way to test out a couple of cards whose power I wavered on - Roose Bolton and Harrenhal (GoH).

It's a reasonably standard Tyrell style deck (card draw, gold, big guys) but with the added board clear provided by Roose, Harrenhal and Marched to the Wall. There's a lot of smaller combos that work incredibly well, like using Roose to clear out a bunch of weenies then following up with Marched, or using Valar Morghulis with Harrenhal in play to almost lock your opponent down.

Round 1 against Tyrell Fealty, the Harrenhal I set up enabled me to overcome a sluggish start. And when I played Valar, I was able to drop a second Harrenhal (yay for The Arbor) to basically keep him from being able to play his key people. Nightmares took care of Ghaston Grey the one turn it mattered, and that was that.

Round 2 I went against Stark Fealty. He was able to get a Eddard Stark (WotN) with Bodyguard and then a dupe, but outside that wasn't able to put up any protection for his board, and I used Harrenhal to kill his Jory Cassel. My Valar turn saw me keep Randyll Tarly and Renly Baratheon (FFH) and from there he was never able to get back to a good place.

Round 3 was another Stark Fealty. He got a better setup, and on turn 3 it looked ideal for me to Valar - except I figured he would plan for that, and use Confiscation to get rid of Renly's Bodyguard. He actually held off a turn, as he drew Ice and with Arya Stark (Core) he would've been able to use it (his Ned was duped too). After the Valar, I was left with Margaery Tyrell facing his Ned/Arya, and despite us both having a good number of dead characters, he never drew an unplayable card the rest of the game, so he was eventually able to play Catelyn Stark (Core) to get around my Highgarden and power out against me. Props to Roy for his first Store Championship win!

And congrats to some friends who also ran this at various events this week (permutations of it) and took 2nd, 2nd and 3rd. Much like my Nationals/Continentals deck, it just can't get to the finish line!