Tyrell - Crossing the bridge between rush and choke 1.0

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This is my latest Tyrell deck I used at the monthly league tournament in Hungary. I ended up winner but we beat around each other with two NW players in the Swiss and I was lucky to finish with best secondary points. At the end of the description I give you the tournament result so you can see how the metagame was this weekend in Hungary.

My aim with this deck was to find a balance between the rush I used to play before and the choke I tried and failed recently with Tyrell. Both strategy had nice games but I prefered to seek for some flexibility in my playstyle and to have more choices depending on the opponent. I put together this deck the night before the tournament so it had zero tries before, but I am playing pure Tyrell for a year now so I guess it doesn't matter that much. Probably I will cut some cards and make some better choices by testing later. Yeah I know it's 63 cards, but I just squeezed in 2 Superior Claim in the morning because I had a feeling that I will need them. I know I am not the man of optimal choices :)

Agenda: I played a lot of Kings of Summer before and bannered some houses time to time. I choose The Lord of the Crossing now because I thought I compensate the lack of knight rush with some extra power gain.

Plots: I guess not much of a suprise here. 3 of the plots serve the choke strategy (Valar, Marched, Famine). Only one pure eco plot (Noble), but 3 more with 5 golds. Close call is for card draw and if I fail to draw any dupes before Valar. Pulling the Strings is very flexible and I usually copy Coppers or Marched with it. Barring the Gates is probably the odd-plot-out, but I expected to face some Lannister jumpers during the tournament. I also expected no NW decks since our main NW player couldn't come so I didn't include any attachment removal. I failed at both prediction, so I still consider this plot slot flexible for some change. The other 6 plots were great and gave me good options.

Character: Well I wanted to try the new Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) but I didn't want to jump on the little-Stark Lord-killing bandwagon so I just focused on her other values. I consider her icons, renown and STR quite reasonable if I can't even trigger her ability (which I did only once during the tournament). I guess the big chars have no suprise at all, 5 renown with Margaery Tyrell (AMAF), Renly Baratheon (FFH) Randyll Tarly The Knight of Flowers and Brienne of Tarth. I put a Ser Hobber Redwyne in just to find the Lady I need more. The supporting chars don't need much explanation either, since 1 Alerie Tyrell, 1 Butterbumps and 3X Lady-dupe is quite standard for Tyrell in Valar meta.

The rest probably seems weird so I give you some explanation. I just like those guys. Paxter Redwyne is simply good. Not to mention that he could be a Margaery fodder his ability and the extra gold makes him great. I can setup him easier than the 5-6 cost characters, I can trigger Nightmares even if my opponent is the first player and usually nobody consider him as a threat at all, so they just leave him free to stop or even win my defending intrigue chalanges.

Left & Right are so vanilla cards I hardly ever played before but since Valar I am more into dupes than ever. Yeah they are not a big deal alone but together they can change games. Usually I can find the missing guy with Alerie and have gold to marshal him after. If I miss this combo they are just claim soaks and not to mention they are great for setup and the Crossing agenda.

Attachments: I guess no suprise here either. 3X Bodyguards because my main chars are all lord and lady. I usually play 1 Heartsbane for Randyll or on one of the guards. I put in 1 Crown only because I don't really like it, but need other options for Brienne than Renly. I would like to squeeze in 1 Mare in Heat again for Loras, but I doubt I can.

Locations: Simple eco locations with Arbor. If I play with Arbor I usually cut Roseroads instead of Kingsroad. I always play with 2X Pleasure Barge, but I didn't see any during the tournament. I had to cut Caswell's Keep from the choke part and put in Renly's Pavilion that proved to be very useful with the lack of little Margaery Tyrell (Core). I usually play 1 The Iron Throne nowadays to counter the Baratheon passive power gain a bit.

Events: Probably this is the part where I will make cuts later. Lately I didn't play Growing Strong and Nightmares but I realized how much I need them so put those on 3X. The other three support the rush line, but maybe I need to balance here as well for a bit of choke I had to cut e.g: Put to the Sword. Lady Sansa's Rose is the odd card here, but I really like it and I hope I can score the Crossing 3rd challange with Loras with the base STR 7 and it is probably less expected in a non-Knight deck. All Men Are Fools had one shiny challange with all 3 ladies but other times it was a dead cards.

Initiative: You can go first or second either. Usually they won't let you go second because the guards and Brienne won't kneel while they attack. If you go first you should focus on Randyll getting into the 3rd challange to stand him for defense duties. I think the deck is flexible regarding who is the first player.

Games played at the tournament:

Win vs Baratheon - Summer (7th overall)

Melisandre's kneeling slowed me down, so had to build better board presence for a Valar to turn the match-up to my favor. Luckily I had many protection with dupes, Lady-in-Waiting and Bodyguard and the opponent missed the dupes so Valar was on my side. After that choking came and I could turn the game from a lost sitation.

Win vs Greyjoy - Winter (5th overall)

First and only rush game of the tournament. I had a good start of 8 power in the 1st round, forcing my opponent to Valar my ladies. This was the only time I triggered new Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) when I killed my duped and bodyguarded Paxter Redwyne for a Randyll Tarly. I still had good board and continued building to finish faster than my opponent, because I couldn't stop Fishwhisker on the other side anyway. The Lord of the Crossing and Randyll Tarly won the game mainly.

Win vs Night's Watch - Winter (3rd overall)

After the rush race, I faced a choke race. My friend attacked my hand heavily and I was lucky to draw dupes on my mains for free so I didn't waste any cards during the game. Qhorin Halfhand was very threatening on claim soaks so I had to defend it with the guards. After that a nightmare on Maester Aemon (Core) and famine claim turned the game to my side.

Lost vs Night's Watch - Fealty (2nd overall)

The 2nd NW match-up was against a The Wall-deck. I had good board but so did my opponent. 3X Craven on Renly, Margaery and Loras made me passive anyway. Usually I couldn't win any challanges because of the Crossing negative effect and Halder and The Shadow Tower on the other side and I lacked military icon on non-Cravened chars. Basically I had no chance at all, maybe I should have dumped Renly for searching for Randyll at Valar but who knows. Well I missed attachment removal badly so maybe I return to Weapons at the Door again.

Win vs Lannister - Winter (4th overall)

The last game was against the good old Lannister-Winter, with The First Snow of Winter and Famine. I was behind for the whole game but Valar and the choking machine turned the match to my favor again. I was lucky I could kill Tywin and from there I won every intrigue to empty his hand. After that turning point the guards duo and Randyll handled the game with Crossing.

Tournament result:

1. 4-1 Tyrell Crossing
2. 4-1 The Night's Watch Fealty
3. 4-1 The Night's Watch Winter
4. 3-2 Lannister Winter
5. 3-2 Greyjoy Winter
6. 3-2 Tyrell Watch
7. 3-2 Baratheon Summer
8. 2-3 Martell Rains
9. 2-3 Greyjoy Crossing
10. 2-3 Baratheon Kraken
11. 2-3 Targaryen Kraken
12. 2-3 Greyjoy Rains
13. 1-4 Greyjoy Crossing
14. 0-5 Martell Summer

Summary The deck was performing quite good and I could achieve the flexible strategy I wanted. Probably it needs some hotfixing and changing 2-4 cards to make it more competitive.