Targ Fealty 4th, 8th, 10th in Swiss @ETX US Nats 1.0

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• 1.0

Dr. Draclove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Burn

To begin, I must say how great an experience ETX Nationals was. Thank you Patrick Day for the awesome event.

Targ Fealty is a known quantity, but with solid card additions from the NW Box and Guarding the Realm and lots of high level results it was the ultimate choice for myself, Zack Decoto, and Robert Brown to play at US Nationals as we played near identical 67 card lists, with Robert eschewing one of the Varys for a Littlefinger. The deck went through numerous iterations including one that won myself the Portland Regional, and Zack the Seattle one.

First let's discuss plot decisions

-Time of Plenty: Solid gold value, high reserve, an init value that will win on t1 a decent number of times, a positive trait that couldn't be navaled, and extra draw to smooth out the econ in the early turns. A strong opening plot.

-Retaliation: The ideal opener for this deck. After 20 or so games with retal in the plot line it became clear that a setup with econ, some mil icons and a drogo in hand led to a favorable t1 retal and the percentages of games lost following this sequence were low to none. Obv not every game will you set up a dragon/jorah/jhogo/econ/plaza'o'pride and have drogo in hand, but when we did retal was the easy decision. There are many free games won in the Swiss of the regionals and Nats where an opponent couldn't handle 4 mil claim on t1. The init allowed you to always go second and drop your drogo after they had marshalled protecting him from t1 milk, and sometimes catching players unawares. Also a solid midgame plot to pressure hand size and power totals. The hands down best 2 claim plot in the game right now.

-Varys's Riddle: Once we had enough games with the deck, it became fairly easy to predict opponents Counting coppers, Valar, Marched to the Wall, and having access to Riddle allows you to punish your opp to the maximum. As long as you fade the trading Riddle is a fine plot and can sometimes even be an opener against summer decks as they often open Harvest. We won't go over that interaction, ;) Fine init, which became a priority for us early on in the testing process.

-Counting Coppers: I'm unaware of many competitive lists that aren't running coppers atm.

-Blood of the Dragon: After Dragon is no Slave was printed, blood of the dragon gave us a way to answer pesky Brans and combo Dragon is no slave to reliably kill aemons on command. The threat of drac on a Blood turn is also particularly daunting for an opponent to work around. Easily the weakest plot in teh line and often pinned, though it fuels the slaver's bay port and has it's uses in particular matchups.

-Valar Morghulis: Don't leave home without it kids.

Marched to the Wall: Cleans ups boards after dracarys and drogo, as well as being the perfect follow up to Varys that will win you init 95% of the time.

--Economy--

Some might find it odd that roseroad and kingsroad have been omitted from this list, but that was a relatively easy decision with the inclusion of slaver's bay port and great hall. Great Hall was insane in testing and allowed for explosive plays on Valar and Coppers turns while not sacrificing your following turns econ and was a direct replacement for the Kingsroads. You trade the tempo of the Kroad on one turn for the consistency of the Great Hall for the entire game. Slaver's Bay Port inhabits the roseroad slot, as in combination with fealty the port is at worst equivalent to roseroad outside of setup and it much stronger in the mid to late game. The econ was stronger than any other decks I've played in 2.0. Partially due to the rest of the factions not having access to their 2 cost limited location, Targ was very appealing for this tournament.

--Util Locations--

We do consider this a burn deck, however Plaza of Punishment is not the All-Star Plaza here. Plaza of Pride is extremely powerful. For awhile we have seen lists start with one, work their way up to two, but it isn't enough. You want to see the card in every game and the best part is, when you draw the dupe, you can happily discard it to itself to stand a dragon or other small character. Punishment is a fine one of, as at times it is the answer to your opponents board state, though I can easily see it being cut with the printing of Astapor.

--Events--

Dracarys! ,Duh. Fire and Blood was a 2 of but moved up to a 3 of when we realized how prevalent Valar was in the meta. A Dragon Is No Slave fuels the Plaza of Pride with it's recursion and threatens to kill almost any character in tandem with Drac. NIghtmares are versatile, and the Hand's Judgements were a direct consolation to the Targ mirror and the expectation that people would play them to counter Targ as well.

--Characters--

Some very obvious inclusions that I won't go over, like Dany, Drogo, Dragons. Not so obvious inclusions: Mirri x2, Jaqen H'gharx1, you need a certain threat density and Jaqen offers you a similar effect with out the risk of drawing dead or controled dupes in the mid-late game. Rattleshirt was also an affordable tech slot for NW and pushing through multiple 2 claim challenges with Plaza/Retal. Varys was added last minute, as we heard about the NW builders deck and ultimately helped somewhat vs the DC deck. Though we went 0-2 vs it. :( Lack of Confiscation hurt us there.

The deck performed well with my only loss in the Swiss being the mirror match against Zack Decoto which was partially defined by him Riddling my Coppers on what I thought was a non obvious Coppers turn. So, wise play on his part. In the Top 16 I lost to Tyrell Xing, a meta mate and friend Aaron Frede. I can only imagine the deck becoming stronger with the printing of Astapor and Greyworm. Replacements would probably come in the form of Plaza of Punishment and Fire and Blood for the Astapors and Rattleshirt and possibly Ilyrio/Varys for the Greyworm. No attachements will be crucial if the DC deck stays around in the meta for very long. Also I would suggest finding room for confiscation, perhaps for the blood of the dragon which was underwhelming on the day.

Feel free to ask questions about the list, and I will try and answer them as best I can below.