Bridge of Bones

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Bridge of Bones 0 0 0 2.0

SenescentOcelot 71

Chapter 2 legal.

I wanted to build a deck that effectively lost challenges to power up The Boneway This proved to be extremely difficult, as there is very little by way of forcing your opponent to engage you. I found this particularly troublesome with decks, who could literally bypass the challenges phase altogether, win dominance, and speed through plots to accumulate 2-3 power per turn very rapidly.

The result is this deck, very much a concept deck still, but provides a nice balance of character depth with location stability, that baits your opponent in to making the choice between attacking and winning, but losing the game, or letting small challenges thru unopposed.

The crux of this is obviously The Boneway, with a strong push from typical favorites like Maester Caleotte, Arianne Martell and Nymeria Sand. However the other unsung heroes are the pivot points in Thoren Smallwood and Edric Dayne, who provide the majority of the confusion when your opponent is decided whether to attack or defend. Obara Sand also does quite a bit of work, especially when your standard characters get Milk of the Poppy or other attachments turning them into expensive dominance keys. Sweet Donnel Hill is in there to deal with pesky renown characters who seem to always speed their way through most of the challenges phases.

The beauty of this deck is in the Location diversity. With you standard The Wall in the picture, it draws the majority of the attention from Frozen Solid and Nightmares which helps immensely, as its main strength is the #1 Strength to all characters. The deck's goal is to function without it, and use it as a decoy to make sure that people attack you during challenges. Queenscrown does major disruption, especially to help find a The Iron Throne and make sure it never sees the board. Likewise Castle Black is available to tip the scales. The hidden gem, Bridge of Skulls makes challenges a point of contention for your opponent, forcing strategic decisions to be made. The one off locations (The Eyrie, Tower of the Sun, Tourney Grounds, etc) are merely for stacking the deck with locations to pad yourself against non-Greyjoy deck. The keys still lie in the duped locations.

Lastly, there are just enough events to make the deck -like, to give you the extra gold to play that 6 cost character late, or to protect you from that stray or challenge that gets through. A lot of the intrigue strategy lies in playing all your cards in prior to their intrigue challenge so losing intrigue does more harm to them (kneeling strength) than it does to you (powering The Boneway).

2 comments

bradmcd77 7

No Dornish Paramour? I thought she'd be a shoe-in for this type of deck.

SenescentOcelot 71

It's a good thought. However, on the attacking side, you want your opponent to consider both options. If he chooses to defend and lose, he's subject to claim. Or better still, he wants to attack you on the rebuttal, the choice to go unopposed should be available. This would prevent that, so it seems like an unnecessary constraint.

There is a role of stealth to be played with Edric Dayne, where you stealth out weaker characters so they are inclined to defend with their bigs, making the counter attack less potent and more open to events. I could see Dornish Paramour having this same role.