The Lannister “big guys” fools deck isn’t super spicy, but that’s fine, because that puts it in the same league with the Baratheon Mummers decks that I wrote up further back. The Lannister deck is a good opportunity to rehash a “vanilla” big characters Mummers deck, with some similar ideas and characteristics. Once again, the idea is to flood with double Loans to make the large boards needed to enable Shagwell combos (or just overwhelm people in general), meaning that resets are again our biggest enemy.
This deck has some features designed to not only resist resets, but even go on the offensive with The Stranger. The Here to Serve —> Outwit combo is pretty simple, but getting a guaranteed maester into play also enables Healing Expertise, meaning you sort of get Risen from the Sea without the +1 strength. Combined with Bodyguards and Bronn, we are all of a sudden rivaling Greyjoy for saves.
This “package” allows the deck to have some degree of resistance to any possible reset plots. Obviously, there are plenty of saves to stop Valar Morghulis. There are plenty of large characters to stay in play for The First Snow of Winter, but if the opponent packs Valar Dohaeris instead, we can keep our fools to retain some small efficient characters. And of course, if you just Outwit Dohaeris, you could win the game on the spot more or less.
The last note to make before posting the deck list is that the newer card Maester Colemon does double-duty as a Milk remover and also a unique maester, allowing us to run Beric Dondarrion without having to worry that Milk will nullify him. This set of cards could be “slotted” into pretty much any deck as an anti-reset feature I think, or even as a “Valar enabler” of your own so that you can imitate Greyjoy in any faction. Obviously Valar Morghulis would fit fine here but I find the Stranger to be more spicy I guess.
House Lannister A Mummer's Farce Plots 1x At the Gates (At the Gates) 1x Close Call (True Steel) 1x Here to Serve (Taking the Black) 2x Loan from the Iron Bank (Dragons of the East) 1x Outwit (Fury of the Storm) 1x The Stranger (Hear My Words) Characters 3x Begging Brother (Oberyn's Revenge) 3x Benjicot (As High as Honor) 3x Bronn (Hear My Words) 3x Jinglebell (Hear My Words) 2x Maester Colemon (As High as Honor) 3x Patchface (The Brotherhood Without Banners) 3x Penny (The March on Winterfell) 3x Ser Daven Lannister (The Spoils of War) 3x Ser Gregor Clegane (The King's Peace) 3x Shagwell (Hear My Words) 2x The Hound (Taking the Black) 3x Tywin Lannister (Core Set) 3x Vargo Hoat (Forgotten Heroes) Locations 2x Casterly Rock (Bran the Builder) 2x Flea Bottom (Redesigns) 1x Gates of the Moon (Journey to Oldtown) 2x Gold Mine (Streets of King's Landing) 1x Great Hall (Redesigns) 2x The Iron Bank (Redesigns) 3x The Roseroad (Core Set) Attachments 2x A Pinch of Powder (In Daznak's Pit) 3x Bodyguard (Core Set) Events 3x Healing Expertise (Wolves of the North) 2x Unbridled Generosity (The Brotherhood Without Banners)
One thing I am testing with this is whether it’s good to play both At the Gates and Here to Serve. It seems fine in my experience but feels weird to play two “openers.” Still, you are playing plots that have nigh-guaranteed value, as opposed to things that have more specific uses and might “whiff” in certain match-ups or if used at the wrong time.
Obviously, if we are doing Shagwell/Vargo things in Lannister, we have to have 5 cost Casterly Rock, the best bestow enabler in the game. This also leads to having Flea Bottom and the Iron Bank, which in turn means we have to have the Hound, because the Gold Mine —> Flea Bottom combo is too juicy, plus all three cards are still good on their own. The rest of the deck is just fools and bigs (and Mr. Pinchy of course).
Ser Daven Lannister is a newer card who seems like the most solid Lannister “big character” to use after Tywin. Cersei doesn’t have any keywords to spread, and I would have liked to use the Halfman’s Horde, but unfortunately it has no attachments, so I went with Gregor. You could include Tyrion in this deck for sure, he just didn’t quite make the cut for me as there are not really enough ways to spend challenge phase gold with his ability in this list.
Now for the games:
1. Win vs Targaryen Conclave: This was a Daenerys Prince That Came Too Late deck, which I guess is standard for Targ Conclave these days? It was core Daenerys instead of the 8 cost version though. The opponent was unhappy that my intrigue claim picked a Daenerys from his hand on turn 1 and then Dracarys on turn 2 (isn’t that why you always use Drac to stop intrigue normally?). I guess it put him on tilt as he made a couple misplays then conceded shortly after.
2. Win vs Baratheon Fealty: This was a smugglers deck and I was almost sad to win because I would love to see smugglers do work. The game was pretty even with the opponent using Marya Seaworth to good effect, but I played the Stranger to kill two big guys while saving my own with dupes and Healing Expertise, so that was it.
3. Loss vs Baratheon Kings of Summer: This was a mass kneeling deck with chair and table. Begging Brother is required here but I didn’t get one until turn four or something, after I was already way too far behind.
4. Loss vs Night’s Watch Valyrian Steel: I think this is still close to a 0-100 matchup. Even if you could stop the Wall, they’ll eventually win from dominance.
5. Win vs Greyjoy Lord of the Crossing: Mr. Pinchy devastated the opponent in this game, being used with Tywin and Penny to return 6 and 7 costers every round. The opponent eventually did Valar Morghulis but Bronn was available to save Tywin.
6. Win vs Tyrell Knights of the Realm: This was a razor’s edge game which was up in the air until the last turn I felt like. It was a rush deck of course and leaped ahead to about 10 power. I did The Stranger to get rid of Green Apple and a couple other things before beginning to play my Loans and using a huge Tywin to block power challenges. The opponent let me go first and use Mr. Pinchy a couple times even though he had already seen it, which I think was a misplay and allowed me to sneak out a win. But on the other hand it would be hard for him to go first against the 20 some odd strength Tywin as well.
7. Win vs Greyjoy Kings of Winter: The opponent’s own character hurt him here as I spread Erik Anvil-Breaker’s keywords onto my fools using Shagwell. He did The Stranger to try and kill Shagwell but Healing Expertise saved him. After that he did Valar Dohaeris to try and control my board but I used my second Loan to flood again. Victarion was returned to hand twice with Pinch of Powder.
8. Win vs Lannister Aloof and Apart: Another very close game, I survived I think 4 resets (Ashemark, Valar Morghulis, First Snow of Winter, Mad King’s Command) to still have a large board with multiple big characters on plot seven. At one point his First Snow allowed me to kill his Tywin with the Stranger while my side of the board was only 2 big guys with saves since the chumps were all bounced.
9. Win vs Night’s Watch Kings of Summer: A Builders deck, which I think is standard for this agenda. Number one, he didn’t have any military icons; he had Forest Patrol but it got stuck in shadows due to Begging Brothers. This allowed me to kneel the Wall with military for a couple turns. The second and likely bigger factor was that I simply canceled Valar Dohaeris with Outwit. After this he had no resets so I made a giant board of fools with renown and stealth.
10. Win vs Night’s Watch Free Folk: Interesting to see this agenda again after its redesign. It’s still basically an aggro deck going for 3 claim military. I had Tywin and Gregor on turn one who prevented any military from going through, and after a couple turns I had like half a dozen saves, so he scooped.
The deck went 8-2 in these 10 random games so that’s definitely a good result. Some of the match-ups were against some fairly serious decks. Looking at the two losses, I pretty much write off Night’s Watch VS as unbeatable, and the Baratheon kneeling one is also a bad match-up but likely winnable if you just have things to cancel the kneel effects. The set-up with Loans and different cards to interact with resets is very effective I think, it’s often bad for the opponent to reset into another Loan, so you basically have two safety turns against resets and if you have a dominating board state the opponent often can’t afford to wait that out.
On to the little guys deck.
I have always wanted to do a non-kneeling weenies deck with Lannister but I wasn’t sure for a while if it was possible for it to work. After a lot of iterations and playtesting I finally landed on this list which I am quite happy with. Of course one of the big memes with Lannister Mummers is Shae, likewise any strength buffs that be-fooled characters get from the agenda are multiplied in impact when the character can do multiple challenges in a single turn. So with this in mind we summon the non-kneeling weenie cards:
House Lannister A Mummer's Farce Plots 1x Close Call (True Steel) 1x Forgotten Plans (True Steel) 2x Heads on Spikes (Core Set) 1x The Maiden (Hear My Words) 1x Valar Dohaeris (The Archmaester's Key) 1x You Win Or You Die (Someone Always Tells) Characters 3x Anguy the Archer (Fury of the Storm) 3x Benjicot (As High as Honor) 1x Bronn (Hear My Words) 3x Ghost of High Heart (City of Secrets) 1x Jinglebell (Hear My Words) 1x Joffrey Baratheon (Core Set) 3x Myrcella Baratheon (Sands of Dorne) 3x Patchface (The Brotherhood Without Banners) 1x Podrick Payne (Tyrion's Chain) 3x Ser Dontos Hollard (House of Thorns) 3x Shae (Called to Arms) 3x Shagwell (Hear My Words) 2x The Hound (Taking the Black) 3x Tyrion Lannister (Core Set) Locations 2x Casterly Rock (Core Set) 1x Fair Isle (For the Realm) 1x Gates of the Moon (Journey to Oldtown) 2x Gold Mine (Streets of King's Landing) 2x Small Council Chamber (True Steel) 3x The Goldroad (The Brotherhood Without Banners) 2x The Red Keep (Redesigns) 3x The Roseroad (Core Set) Attachments 2x Ser Pounce (The Faith Militant) 1x Shield of Lannisport (Lions of Casterly Rock) 1x Water Dancer's Sword (Dragons of the East) 1x Widow's Wail (Core Set) Events 2x "Florian and Jonquil" (Bran the Builder) 2x Forgotten By History (Kingsmoot) 2x Tyrion's Chain (Tyrion's Chain)
The cards for non-kneeling are Myrcella, Anguy and Ser Pounce. Only a few cards really, with Shae being a variant who technically kneels but can do up to 3 challenges. But they can be extremely annoying if combined with core set Casterly Rock. Anguy in particular can do 4 challenges if given Ser Pounce. Heads on Spikes 2x fits well with this for a few reasons. First it discards the opponent’s hand to enable Myrcella, second it speeds power gain to reach 15 while you still have tempo in early rounds, third it has high initiative so you can go first with your non-kneeling.
If we’re going to do the 2x Heads on Spikes then we should throw in Tyrion’s Chain, an ancient combo from the days of Lannister Crossing which still works just fine here. The Maiden is desired as an opener since we want to control initiative if possible, this could also be Varys’s Riddle, or you could even use both. Forgotten Plans is once again your First Snow defense and You Win or You Derp is a restricted card that goes almost perfectly, its draw ability can help you to use Myrcella.
Ser Dontos makes it into the deck since he has a Lady to save, while Penny is excluded due to lack of shadows. This deck has many ways to use challenge phase gold so Tyrion goes in here. Having Tyrion means that we should probably have the Hound as well. Bronn and Podrick Payne are useful chumps and I have one cheeky Joffrey because Widow’s Wail is in the deck, although really that should probably be something else.
I added Small Council Chamber because I was still concerned with making sure the deck has enough power gain, but I am not sure if it is needed in hindsight. It might be unnecessary and worth cutting for Alchemists’ Guildhall or something, in which case you could use Penny over some of the other chumps. Fair Isle is another marginal card, it helps you use Myrcella but other than that you probably toss it with Gold Mine.
The Red Keep is here because it wasn’t in the other Lannister deck and we needed to have that card in at least one of them (really though, since this deck lacks Begging Brother, it’s more needed here). Shield of Lannisport is another marginal card that I have always wanted to use and finally with this list I think it’s at least okay at 1x. I settled on Forgotten By History as a faction kneel that makes use of challenge phase gold gain. It’s okay, but even in a deck with challenge phase gold, it’s just okay, not really that good. It could easily be Relentless Assault or something else instead. Games:
1. Win vs Stark Fealty: I had Red Keep to cancel Wyman Manderly and other than that the opponent didn’t have much going on. I went first repeatedly with non-kneeling and eventually won.
2. Win vs Night’s Watch Banner of the Stag: This was a Rangers deck with Gendry and Warhammer (don’t think I saw whatever the other Bara cards were). The opponent used Gendry to give Jon Snow intimidate and renown. This was a powerful combo to be sure but at the end of turn 2 his board was Gendry, Jon Snow, and Dywen. So Valar Dohaeris messed him up and I had the advantage after that. Red Keep was also invaluable for canceling Jon Snow’s stand ability.
3. Win vs Stark Banner of the Lion: This deck used 7 cost Catelyn, core Joffrey, and The Boy King, with the idea apparently being to gain passive power from their abilities. He had them both duped so he did a Valar Morghulis which rushed him to 8 power, but then he ran out of cards and died.
4. Loss vs Targaryen Aloof and Apart: The opponent started with Drogon and Khal Drogo. I managed to survive one turn of Drogon with a Hound ambush and then did Valar Dohaeris to get rid of one of them, but he just top-decked another Drogon (or maybe held it in hand, either way).
5. Loss vs Night’s Watch Sea of Blood: Rangers deck. I started with Casterly Rock on setup but didn’t see a single intrigue icon until turn 4. The game was fairly close despite that, so maybe I could’ve won if that didn’t happen. Forgotten By History was useful to get rid of the 4 cost guy that gives everyone power icons for a couple turns.
6. Win vs Greyjoy Aloof and Apart: He conceded in turn 2 marshaling, I guess upset that I had Myrcella non-kneeling with Casterly Rock? Not sure but okay.
7. Win vs Greyjoy Lord of the Crossing: A turn 1 concede despite having Victarion and Euron on the board. I really don’t understand this one. Maybe he expected Marched to the Wall next turn?
8. Win vs Lannister Prince That Was Promised: He named Gregor Clegane as Prince and set up a duped Hound. This meant the Hound was still in play when he did turn two Vanquish the Unbelievers and was killed by it (he named Lord trait), which I think was a misplay. He had Tyrion out and also Gregor with the Noble Lineage but still conceded, which I think wasn’t totally unreasonable, as I had already gotten 7 power on turn one due to Florian and Jonquil played on Anguy.
9. Win vs Baratheon Banner of the Falcon: Winning initiative to make the opponent go first was key as it made him marshal 6 cost Selyse before my marshaling. I made a wide board and he played Mad King’s Command to reduce it, but I then used a super buffed Myrcella wearing Shield of Lannisport to get far ahead with many non-kneeling challenges and renown. He forgot to do his Siege Preparations which could have changed things if he drew another Selyse.
10. Win vs Lannister Banner of the Stag: I’m not entirely sure what the opponent’s deck was but it sure had a lot of big characters. On turn two he had: Cersei, Tywin, Daven, and Jaime. I also saw Renly picked for intrigue claim so maybe the idea was to cheat in bigs with a strength buffed Renly. I put a lot of pressure fast as I had Casterly Rock, Small Council Chamber, Shae with Fool attachment, and Ser Pounce on a 5 strength Patchface (with Water Dancer’s Sword in hand). Turn 3 he did You Win or You Die but still conceded in marshaling as Valar Dohaeris had removed 3 of his 4 bigs.
Only 2 losses is a very impressive record, but some of these were pretty silly, I feel confident that in a bigger sample size the win rate wouldn’t be 80%. But some games were strong wins against decks with many large characters so to me that’s a definite success. Oftentimes people will need a board much bigger than yours to deal with non-kneeling which then is easily punished with Valar Dohaeris. I think in future posts if I get these games where somebody does a baffling turn one concede, maybe I’ll only count that as a half-game or something, and play another one to make up for it.