Dothraki Power Rush (4-0 SC)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
Targ LOTC (Sam Braatz) - World Championship 2016 4th after 47 32 6 1.0
Inspiration for
None yet.

mythras 712

I tried to "modernize" Sam Braatz's deck with the stuff released in the last few packs (well, essentially only Tyrion's Chain...) and managed to go 4-0 in a SC with it (http://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/2923).

MVPs:

  • Aggo: In the early game Aggo on his own gives you two of the challenges you need for Crossing with a reasonable strength and he becomes even more awesome when he gets to play with is friends. Getting the stealth from Jhogo or the intimidate from Rakharo twice is exactly what you want for a power rush deck like this. The deck usually works best when you have Aggo and one of the other bloodriders out.
  • Waking the Dragon: Because you need your three challenges per turn and you have to win your third challenge, Waking is an important piece in the engine of this deck. Coupled with Blood of My Blood or Dothraki Sea you can get two uses out of a 4-6 cost character for just 1-3 gold. That is the stuff this deck needs to out tempo your opponent. Of course there is also the possibility to remove pesky attachments like Milk of the Poppy or Craven by Waking your Viserys Targaryen (Core), even during marshalling. Or saving one of your important characters when you are far enough ahead that your opponent has to Valar Morghulis next turn.

New additions:

  • Relentless Assault: Well, this card looks like it was tailor-made for Crossing decks. You can use it to gain your third challenge, when you are missing one of the icons, or just to increase the pressure on your opponent by getting another military or power challenge in. The flexibility and 0 cost also helps a lot.
  • Quaithe of the Shadow: 2 strength, bicon for 2 gold is just solid, even without her ability. And its finally a character that Targ can ambush during The First Snow of Winter. You might even get a sneaky unopposed challenge by removing a cheap blocker or completely cancel on of your opponents challenges. All around a solid addition for this deck as a one-of.
  • House of the Undying: In theory this looks like a nice finisher when you need a little bit more strength or renown during a turn. I wasn't able to test this much because apparently I am not able to draw the one copy I put in the deck. ;)

Changes:

  • Marched to the Wall instead of A Clash of Kings: During my testing, I never really needed the extra power from Clash but I still wanted a high initiative plot for the last turn where you have to go first. I found Marched a lot more flexible because while you are trying to power rush with this deck you often can decimate your opponents board really well with the usual Targ-Stuff (Khal Drogo, Dracarys!, Relentless Assault for more military). It can also "save" one of your uniques from Valar Morghulis by just discarding instead of killing it.
  • Time of Plenty instead of Summons: I just like Time of Plenty a lot more for this deck because of the economy and the Summer trait. A lot of the time you are also not looking for a specific character but you just want something to play. Time of Plenty gives you the extra card draw and the economy to do just that.

All in all this deck works suprisingly well in a Valar Morghulis meta because it is actually fast enough to accumulate a lot of power during the first few turns. That often forces your opponent to use their board wipes. If you are to able to leverage that turn with Trading with the Pentoshi or Time of Plenty to refill your board while their board is weakened, you can still finish the game. Important bonus is that most of your power is actually on your house card and not bound to renown characters.

Added bonus: Everyone tries to do stuff with Qhorin Halfhand at the moment who doesn't do much against this deck because almost everyone is unique. :D

5 comments

Kinkajou 1

Hey I tried this out and it's super fun! The events are really good. I never realised how good Blood of My Blood is until I played this. I did make a few changes though.

Swapped House of the Undying for Mother of Dragons it's a really fantastic card that messes with challenge math and can help push through to trigger Relentless Assault

Secondly I went down to 1 Nightmares and put a Put to the Torch in to deal with annoying locations. One of my meta mates loves to use the Harrenhal (FFH) and Tower of the Hand combo but it can be used to get rid of The Wall or Winterfell which would really mess with this deck given how many actions we want to take . PTTT can just as easily be replaced with Put to the Sword for even more kill or Superior Claim even.

mythras 712

I'm not so sure about Mother of Dragons. Dany is only a 2x for me because she is so expensive and hard to get out sometimes. Adding an attachment that only she can use is too inconsistent. But House of the Undying isn't really consistent either, so there is that.

Kinkajou 1

@mythrasi see it as if you draw and play it much the same as with Dany the deck goes into overdrive. If not the bloodriders do are what do the heavy lifting in the deck. Mother of Dragons is a card that aids this even further, pushing through challenges with huge str numbers. During my testing it seemed to come up a lot even though it's a 1 of so maybe I was getting lucky. I'll keep testing.

Stormborn 301

Hi @mythras - the deck looks great, I'm going to try it out. I'll take out HotU and try and fit in another nightmares plus 1x PTTS & 1x PTTT.

You don't have a reset which can backfire - maybe Wildfire for the second ASOS.

mythras 712

@Stormborn: I'm all for more Nightmares because that card just wins games. But I'm not really a fan of one-ofs in this kind of deck. You try to win in the first three or four turns, so these turns have to be consistently good. One-ofs are just too inconsistent. That's also the reason for cutting HotU. A lot of times it's just a dead card.

Why this deck runs no reset: If you fall enough behind your opponent that you need a reset, you are most likely done for anyways. You just don't have the ressources to come back after a reset. But if you want to run Wildfire, I would cut the Close Call because in most of my games I found that plot to be too slow.

I also cut Rakharo down to two copies and added Ser Barristan Selmy (LoCR). I'm not really happy without the 3rd copy of Rakharo but Selmy fits this deck really well. Because the deck lacks card draw, you will often play with fewer cards in your hand than your opponent. I might even try to get rid of Dany (and Trading) and go up to Selmy x3.