Targ: LotC - Springfield SC 2017 Winner

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
Begging for coppers - 1st @Italian Nationals and 2nd @Worlds 147 108 24 1.0
Inspiration for
Targ Fealty 0 0 0 1.0
Bloodriders, Dragons, and Beggar Kings, oh my! 2 1 0 1.0
Targ: Fealty 2.0 15 12 6 1.0
Best Targaryen (4-1), 6th of 31 at The Iron Mines Ostrava, C 4 3 1 1.0

Arjay88 196

I brought different iterations of this to the Tulsa, OK and Independence, MO store championships with mixed success. The winners of these SC's played Stark:LotC and Martell:LotC respectively. Metamate @Kale Enders took down the Independence SC and suggested I try out The Lord of the Crossing. Crossing gives immense flexibility, pressure, and moves games along without needing to rely on a) lots of renown or b) lots of power challenges (those certainly help though). The earlier iterations of this deck were designed and piloted by European winners, @Nimer primarily. I went 3-1 in Swiss, placing 3rd, and got to finals for a rematch against my only loss in Swiss.

Deck Tech

Earlier iterations of @Nimer 's deck left me lacking in economy when I didn't see Beggar King and disposable <3 drop characters to soak military claim when I fell behind. Nothing is worse than paying for an Unsullied that immediately eats it for claim. I moved over to a more bloodrider focus with 3x Devoted Bloodrider, 2x Aggo, 3x Jhogo, and 1x Rakharo. This gave me more solid military icons and made my icon alignment similar to Stark, which is comfortable to me. I added 1x Isle of Ravens to recycle Dracarys!, Kings Roads, Waking the Dragon's, and dupes. I was trying out the underrated The Silver Steed for extra renown and the threat of an extra power challenge. I didn't draw it all day and will continue to test it but I don't think it's necessary. Rakharo is mediocre at best and I will probably cut him entirely.

The final adjustment was to my plot deck. I was originally playing 2x Summer Harvest and 1x Building Orders. I dropped 1x Summer Harvest and 1x Building Orders to put back in 1x Famine and 1x Varys's Riddle.

MVP cards on the day: Varys's Riddle, Nightmares, and Khal Drogo.

Round 1 - vs Michael, Stark: Rains

Michael is a friend from AR with a very intriguing deck choice. He opens with Roose Bolton and some chuds. I open with Jhogo, Devoted Bloodrider, Roseroad, and turn 1 with Aggo and a Rhaegal. Sansa, Septa Mordane, and Arya all show up to the party and goes hard on the first turn on challenges. I am able to Dracarys! his Roose and weather the storm and I end turn 1 with either 5 or 6 power. He couldn't keep enough military icons on the board but Winterfell, and a well timed Lady -> Sansa solidly bring him up to 8 or 9 power. I am able to close it out and LotC put in work. He got 2 sucessfull Rains triggers off. Game went to 5 plots. 1-0

Round 2 - vs Zach, Tyrell: LotC.

He opens with Roymar Royce and the Arbor. I open with Jorah, Viserion, Devoted Bloodrider, and a Roseroad. Turn 1 he flips Summer Harvest and I flip Varys's Riddle. For those unaware of this interaction, read this: http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/32255-varys-riddle-vs-summer-harvest/ . I take first player and he gets 2 gold on turn 1, and I play Nightmare's on The Arbor. I slowly play out military and power icons and force through military challenges. Eventually Jhogo, Khal Drogo, and Mirri show up and the game snow balls. Renly and Knight of Flowers get killed and we wrap up in 4 plots. 2-0

Round 3 - vs Andy, Baratheon: Fealty

He sets up with Gendry, Bastard in Hiding, and Selyse Baratheon or a Rose Road. He opens with Summer Harvest and I open with Varys's Riddle. He plays some reducers, an Iron Throne and Melisandre and starts racking up some power. I'm able to get out some dragons, Aggo with a dupe, Mirri Maz Duur, and a Devoted Bloodrider. He swings with Melisandre for an intrigue challenge and she happily gets Dracarys!ed away. Eventually Stannis (core) and Robert show up, however he is lacking for intrigue strength. I'm able to get Mirri in for an intrigue challenge and knock out Gendry and Robert on back to back turns. I slowly work my way back up, and Jhogo stealths past and wins several crucial power challenges. Aggo also stands and got to participate in 2 challenges on 2 different turns. I end turn 4 with 14 power and he is at 11. Drogo claims renown for a throw away military challenge on turn 5 and I win. 3-0

Round 4 - vs Derek, Baratheon: Fealty

Derek is an awesome guy from the Kansas City area. He drops Stannis (core) and Bastard in Hiding on setup. I drop Jorah?, Viserion?, reducer?, Kingsroad on setup, and the game goes down hill from here. Between consolidations of power, Melisandre kneel, Even Handed Justice, Iron Throne/Chamber of the Painted Table/Seen in Flames, I get all of my tricks discarded from hand and am unable to make 3 challenges with all of my characters constantly knelt. I don't remember getting above 4 power and was completely knelt out on turn 2. This game came down to Derrick having a much stronger setup and drawing his key cards when he needed them. Game was over in 4 plots. 3-1

I end Swiss placing 3rd and moving onward to Top 4.

Semifinal - vs Alan, Greyjoy: Rains

This was a feared matchup for both of us, but also my favorite game of the evening. He opens with Asha, a chud, and Iron Mines. I open with Viserion, Aggo, and a Rose Road. My goal is too keep him off of intrigue challenges. His turn 1 is Balon (core) and a Little Bird on both Asha and Balon. I'm sitting on a Dracarys!, Waking the Dragon, and Nightmares in hand the entire game. I have the opportunity several times to play Daenerys, Mirri, or Khal Drogo, but I would always be out of gold and instead I played small characters and would consistently leave a dragon in play and 1 or 2 gold. He played around the Dracarys! the entire game very well. He lets a series of challenges go unopposed for fear of Dracarys!. I was unable to defend a series of military and power challenges from Balon (I confiscated the little bird on turn 2) and just had to keep playing characters and utilize Fire and Blood to get dragons back from claim soak.

He eventually is able to leverage Valar Moghulis but I have a duped Aggo and am able to quickly recover, while he is able to save Asha and Balon. I am able to finally Dracarys! Asha away and push closer to victory. On the final turn he replays little bird on Balon and plays Victarion. He swings in for an unopposed intrigue, triggers Rains for Power Behind the Throne (standing Balon), and swings Power to win the game. I Nightmares Balon, oppose the challenge and crack back for unopposed challenges and LotC to win. Nightmares wins games.

Finals - vs Derek, Baratheon: Fealty

Rematch time! I open with 2 dragons, Jorah, and a reducer. I'm sitting on 2x Dracarys! and 2x Waking the Dragon for most of the game. I slowly chip away at his board, not trying to over extend. I'm not seeing my usual economy cards and have to rely solely on my plots and Kings Roads. He doesn't draw characters and his board devolves to 1 character on turn 2, which gets Marched to the Wall on turn 3. Turn 3 puts the nail in the coffin when he drops Stannis (Core) and Bastard in Hiding. I maneuver through my three challenges, and surprise Wake the Dragon to initiate my 2nd military challenge to kill Stannis. He doesn't draw characters on turn 4 and I win the tournament with unopposed challenges.

Closing Thoughts

Playing The Lord of the Crossing teaches you the value of acceptable losses. How much can you get away with, while letting challenges go unopposed against you, so you can get full advantage of LotC? Targaryen has very efficient characters with a good spread of icons. There is built in resilience with Fire and Blood to put dragons back into play, or put important dead characters back in your deck. Waking the Dragon lets you get some extra mileage out of your key characters. My most common targets were 1) Jhogo 2) Any of the dragons for an additional or surprise challenge and 3) Mirri Maz Duur in some rare situations (but is backbreaking when it works).

Thank you everyone who came out to our Store Championship and all of my metamates who helped me fine tune this deck.

20 comments

Kelal 1

Hey again congratulations on the win sir, great match in the semis and good job. Looking forward to a rematch some time and some preps for regionals if we can swing it.

Alan

Arjay88 196

@KelalThank you and you as well sir! Hands down the most intense game I've played. It was truely a battle of the mind. Looking forward to the rematches as well. Cheers!

Kale Enders 236

@Arjay88Congrats, buddy. I'm so glad the deck worked! =)

Rajhald 8

Great job sir. Mike and Alan had nothing but good things to say about their games with you, we all look forward to prepping for Regionals!

~Hayne

H2Masri 1

Great list and great report! Any suggestions on what to replace for Rakharo?

I3eastMode1050 1

RJ, you are my HERO! XD Extremely happy for your first Store Championship take-down! Solid deck construction backed by great play-style wins tournaments, sir. Congratulations for a job well done & thank you again for another awesome game! Targy's FTW

-Micheal

(P.S. I... WILL... NOT... make you show me that Dracarys! again.... Roose is still salty about that. lol)

Nimer 2752

Congratz @Arjay88! Very interesting choices (I love Jhogo 3x). It's nice to see that those 7 plots are still working well... ;) P.S: tagging people in the description doesn't seem to work, but fortunately I saw the deck anyway... :D

Arjay88 196

@NimerThank you! Jhogo is one of my favorite power houses of the deck that only gets better as the game goes on and the stealth is extremely clutch. He is easily one of the best Waking the Dragon targets. Thank you for laying the groundwork for the deck and I hope to continue building on its success.

@H2Masri Thank you! I ended up replacing Rakharo with 1 Unsullied and the The Silver Steed with a 3rd Nightmares. I retain the same Military and Power icons and Nightmares has won too many games. I will probably play it as a 3x in any deck from here on out.

@I3eastMode1050Thanks Michael! You will get that rematch, I promise. ;)

@Rajhald Thanks Hayne, glad you and the crew could make it up. Would love to continue the brewing and playtesting for regionals. We'll get some work done. =)

H2Masri 1

What are your thoughts on adding Magister Illyrio? Could add more intrigue icons to level it out, and the stand may be helpful to initiate that third challenge.

Arjay88 196

@H2MasriI could get behind that. I originally cut him for the same reason of constantly "not having extra gold" if I didn't see a Beggar King. All throughout the day, I would usually sit on 1 or 2 gold to threaten the Dracarys!. If I didn't end up using it, I could always stand someone to win dominance if I went first, or to force through the 3rd challenge. Also with Valar in the meta, it is not wise to flood the board so on plot 3, 4, or 5 you could just sit on the gold and Illyrio would let you get extra use out of characters, thus generating card advantage. @Nimerwhat is your experience and opinion of Magister Illyrio? You were running two in your Worlds list, how much use did you find yourself getting out of him?

Nimer 2752

@Arjay88as you said, the possibility to keep gold for events and use them for Illyrio is the great advantage you get from him (apart from being great against baratheon). Moreover, doing a military challenge with high str and 2 gold left will probably force your opponent to oppose not to lose by 5... :D

MiSiO 278

@Arjay88 I do like the deck but do not get all the synergies. For example Blood of the Dragon of Famine They work fine with Begger King but who were You using them in practice? Same story with Waking the Dragon - surprise attacks are great but the cost is very high. Especially if You do not play it on dragons.

Arjay88 196

@MiSiOThank you! This style of deck wants to capitalize on incremental advantages every turn (@Nimeralso has a good summary: thronesdb.com.)

The basis (and most obvious) is the economic advantage from Beggar King. Ideally you want to have this on set up or turn 1. It allows you to use the plot effects to your advantage while keeping up a strong economy (thus reducing the need to play extra economy plots). This allows you to play Blood of the Dragon, Famine, and Counting Coppers.

Blood of the Dragon requires some finesse. You ideally need to be in a good spot to leverage this with Plaza of Punishment, Dracarys!, Crown of Gold, and Daenerys Targaryen is helpful but not required. Blood instantly kills all of the character reducers and really puts the pressure on military challenges. In one game, I flipped Blood of the Dragon and put Crown of Gold on Robert Baratheon to kill him along with a dupe, as there were no kneeling characters. It also allows you to negate the buff Winterfell and The Wall give and potentially kill key characters, like Maester Aemon (Core). Standing dragons also really help on this turn especially with the threat of Dracarys! being able to now kill 5 Str characters. On paper this plot looks mediocre, but when leveraged to its full potential it can be game winning.

Famine is another plot where you have to use best judgement. This is best when you have a solid leg up on them on Military icons, have Khal Drogo out, and maybe a Dracarys! queued up. Its harder for your opponent to stick multiple characters. Killing 4 characters for claim because of Khal Drogo can also be game winning.

Waking the Dragon does have a rough draw back but the payout is worth the risk. The key thing to remember is that dupes allow you to keep the character in play. The best targets are Ser Jorah Mormont, Viserys Targaryen (Core), any of the Dragons, and Jhogo (situationally others but these are my favorite). It allows you to get extra uses (by actually putting him back in your hand) out of Jorah because 4 Strength, Military, Intrigue, Renown for 2 gold is priceless. Viserys Targaryen (Core) essentially gets you a free confiscation trigger which can be clutch. I've had opponents use a Nightmares on Viserys to prevent this play. Being able to surprise stand any dragon and immediately use it for Dracarys! is also a valid line of play. I had this combination ready to go in the Semifinal and Final game. Jhogo brings so much to the table with the stealth and dead character buff, and at 4 gold is decently priced. He can win you challenges alone in the proper boardstates.

It does take a lot of practice to notice and be able to capitalize on all of the synergies. I had to play this deck in 2 other store championships with numerous practice games in between before a lot of them finally clicked. It is extremely fun, challenging at times to play (in terms of making the correct play), but immensely rewarding. You need to be especially careful with your crossing turn when you flip Blood of the Dragon, because the -2 on your first challenge can put you in a bad corner. The Devoted Bloodrider's really help out on this front.

Hope this helps.

MiSiO 278

Thanks @Arjay88 for Your answer. I totally forgot about Viserys Targaryen (Core) and Waking the Dragon trick. I think I will play Your deck few times. I had a break from playing. This deck looks great so I will start from it.

One more thing Varys's Riddle - it allows to trigger a plot INSTEAD of my opponent or can I triger opponent's plot and then he can trigger it once more? Like Filthy Accusations?

Arjay88 196

@MiSiO oh that seriously depends on how the plot is worded. Riddle on a Filthy Accusations turn lets both of you kneel a character. On a Trading with the Pentoshi you unfortunately have to give them 3 more gold. Flipping Varys's Riddle on their Summer Harvest is awkward for them. I posted a link in the description that summarizes the interaction, because its very important to know that one in a tourney.

zack 126

Heya, with All Men are Fools now available, there are some interesting tweaks for this deck. What do you think of:

?

Thanks for your feedback!

Arjay88 196

@zack good timing with the suggestions, because I have been testing some of these out. I need to post an updated decklist, but let me frame my comments. The presence of "Tinder" Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) creates a game warping problem for The Lord of the Crossing, because you are shoehorned into making three challenges. Since I've noticed this, I have reverted back to Fealty, for the safe flexibility and economy boost.

Slaver's Bay Port is stupid good. I've seen an 8 gold Counting Coppers turn because of Port and I dropped The Roseroad (gasp!) because Roseroad is a delayed investment, while Illyrio's Estate is an immediate gain. Combined with Fealty you pay 1 gold for Port, and it immediately kneels to give you gold, and while Port is online you gain 2 gold per Port (which is why started playing Beggar King). My econ package is 3 Slaver's Bay Port, 3 The Kingsroad, 3 Beggar King, and 3 Illyrio's Estate. In my opinion, can equal and even surpass in the economy department, which is saying something.

Regarding Ghiscari Elite, lets examine the ideal recycle engine: Pyat Pree and Shadowblack Lane to search for events/attachments and Isle of Ravens and Ghiscari Elite to recycle them. Both Isle of Ravens and Shadowblack shuffle your deck so Ghiscari Elite essentially reads: "When knelt, shuffle Dracarys! back into your deck." I feel Ghiscari Elite is a staple 1x with awesome Str and /.

I'm still experimenting with some cards, but I feel got a solid support boost from this pack and I am really excited for Grey Worm and Astapor coming down the pipe. FIRE AND BLOOD!

H2Masri 1

@Arjay88``@zack as a follow up to your comment, I've reached the same independent conclusion. I've dropped LoTC for the challenge inflexibility, and have gone back to Fealty. I also believe that Ghiscari has become a staple.

The main issue I've had is trying to determine the number of recycle cards to use (I.e. Do I run 3x Pyat, and 2 Shadowblack Lanes, then 3x Ghiscari and 2x Isle of Ravens?). This is my current setup, with the Targ burn package for support. Another issue is determine which Targ events to run, and whether I want neutral ones as well. I have liked Funeral pure for the increased consistency. It's been fun at least.

zack 126

@Arjay88 thanks for your feedback. I'm just getting started playing Targ, but even as a newbie to the faction I agree that the recent and upcoming additions look really exciting!

Any chance you'll post your updated decklist soon?

Arjay88 196

@zack, here is the link to my updated list. Good luck! thronesdb.com