Fools on Boats
Greyjoy Mummers
Alright, now for the first real, original post on this blog. Quick note before I go into the decks: I’m just briefly reporting game results here, but I considered doing a more in-depth breakdown of how each game went. If people show interest in that, I may implement it in the future. But for now I decided to favor brevity over detail.
Greyjoy is probably the most straightforward faction in the game, and that definitely still applies when making a “big guy” Greyjoy Mummers deck. The formula seems pretty simple: Play all the big cards, throw in fools/Vargo/Unbridled, there you go. This is pretty vanilla and boring, but… what else would one do when making such a deck? Play the… bad Greyjoy big cards, instead of the good ones? That’s not any more interesting and it’s a worse deck to boot.
I think the most notable choice I made was not bothering with Valar Morghulis. Sure, you can still use it and get some easy wins from it, because Greyjoy, but in my experience with all these Mummers decks, the opponent tends to be the one looking for a board reset more often than not. Since your fools act as your “hand” to a large extent, they are precious, and killing them with Valar Morghulis sucks.
House Greyjoy A Mummer's Farce Plots 1x A Clash of Kings (Core Set) 1x At the Gates (At the Gates) 1x Close Call (True Steel) 1x Confiscation (Core Set) 2x Loan from the Iron Bank (Dragons of the East) 1x Political Disaster (The Road to Winterfell) Characters 3x Asha Greyjoy (Core Set) 3x Balon Greyjoy (Kings of the Isles) 3x Begging Brother (Oberyn's Revenge) 3x Benjicot (As High as Honor) 3x Euron Crow's Eye (Core Set) 2x Hagen's Daughter (The March on Winterfell) 3x Jinglebell (Hear My Words) 3x Patchface (The Brotherhood Without Banners) 3x Penny (The March on Winterfell) 3x Ser Dontos Hollard (House of Thorns) 3x Shagwell (Hear My Words) 3x Vargo Hoat (Forgotten Heroes) 3x Victarion Greyjoy (Lions of Casterly Rock) Locations 2x Braavos (Dragons of the East) 1x Great Hall (Redesigns) 2x The Iron Bank (Redesigns) 3x The Kingsroad (Core Set) 3x The Roseroad (Core Set) Attachments 3x Bodyguard (Core Set) 3x Milk of the Poppy (Core Set) Events 3x Risen from the Sea (Core Set) 2x Unbridled Generosity (The Brotherhood Without Banners)
Loan From the Iron Bank is pretty important because your big characters can end up as attachments under your fools, which means they can’t be reduced by location abilities. Oops. I even considered not using At the Gates because of this. I think it wouldn’t be wrong to use The Maiden for better initiative, but I love At the Gates. But yeah, either way, you need to have money. This means I can’t use the 7 cost Victarion because he finally got restricted (long overdue in my opinion), which is fine, because I want the other one anyways for his Intimidate/Renown combo.
It also means I’m not using the 7 cost Asha. The fools provide you with more intrigue than Greyjoy would normally have, as well as giving you draw, so in theory her purposes are still fulfilled. But if you’re attached to her, you could use her and then just run Late Summer Feast or something. My OCD won’t let me use Late Summer Feast outside of Rains decks though.
Since you have the ability to flood a lot with your Loans, but rely on having a large board to keep drawing cards, dealing with resets is basically your number one concern in many cases. The reduced income from the Loans in your used pile will also really kill you if you find yourself having to try and rebuild after a full board clear as well. So we’ve got seven saves as well as Hagen’s Daughter (who pulls double duty as a Penny “activator”), and I’m trying to run as many dupes as possible. There is plenty of flexibility in the plot deck, so it wouldn’t be crazy at all to tailor it further in this direction, with something like Return to the Fields.
Other notes: Box Balon (is that the right term for him?) is chosen because Mummers leaves the faction card kneel available. He gives you an actual benefit to spreading pillage onto your fools. I also realized that he has a bit of synergy with Benjicot who will discard random things from the enemy’s deck for him and Euron. This brought on a temptation to try a mass pillage deck, but if you’re going to do that there’s not much reason to do it with Mummers I think, since Greyjoy has plenty of printed pillage already.
One thing I like about this deck is Braavos actually seeing play. I just had to cut Highgarden Jester because he’s a non-unique and thus non-dupe-able, which is too bad, I really wanted maximum Braavos potential. Even if you’re only averaging 2 gold off of it, though, I think it’s pretty good, if I’m doing my math right. 2 gold per turn from Braavos makes it a better Gates of the Moon—costs 1 on the turn played and gains 2 every turn after, except it’s non-limited and doesn’t give the opponent a gold.
Anyways, let’s see if I can get some keyword combos going, Greyjoy definitely has the characters for it, Victarion probably being the most notable. I think Robert is the only other character with the printed renown/intimidate pairing.
1. Win vs Targaryen Long Voyage: This was your typical Targaryen burn deck, and Balon basically countered it by throwing the opponent’s own characters at them, who they obviously don’t want to waste their kill effects on. Begging Brother and Hagen’s Daughter get notable mentions. Notably, the opponent did Valar Morghulis on turn 2 to clear out a bunch of small characters, leaving me with several big characters still in hand and neither of my Loans played yet.
2. Loss vs Night’s Watch Valyrian Steel: The opponent used Isle of Ravens and Lay Waste to tutor and replay Craven + Milk of the Poppy. Hard to do much about that. I think it’s a 0-100 matchup, or maybe like 1-99, with the 1% being when you get super duper lucky and pillage The Wall with Euron on turn one. This is a case where Valar Morghulis might have theoretically helped me by clearing out his wall of characters, but, he flipped The Crone on the turn when I probably would’ve wanted to use it, so probably not. And even if you did manage to use it, they’ll be able to rebuild instantly since their whole deck is 1-2 cost dudes and they draw a million cards.
3. Win vs Tyrell White Book: This game is an example of the centrality of reset plots: When they are played, and what you can do afterwards. The opponent played very conservatively, allowing me to get ahead on board and in power, but then playing Valar Dohaeris to reduce my board size. I flipped my second Loan from the Iron Bank on this same turn and played out another large board, having held a couple characters back in hand for this reason, as well as having various things to marshal from underneath fools. He scooped.
4. Loss vs Greyjoy Lord of the Crossing: This loss was a result of misplay on my part, I mathed wrong and lost a big power challenge. I might’ve lost it anyways but I definitely needed to not do that. I think it was a fairly close game if I didn’t suck and actually won that challenge, it was his 3rd challenge so it was a 5 power swing or something crazy like that.
5. Win vs Targaryen Free Companies: I slowed him down a lot by marshaling Begging Brother to block Aegon on turn one. On turn two he did First Snow of Winter to get rid of that but I had played Loan so I had quite a large board anyways and was able to win from there, although it wasn’t totally one-sided, the ability of the Targ mercenaries to pull big characters out from nowhere is really something. Balon really screwed up his deck though, taking Tyrion targets out of the discard pile and such.
6. Win vs Greyjoy Rains of Castamere: He started with Asha but didn’t seem to have much else going on as turn 2 he did Counting Coppers and marshaled very little. Guessing that he had Valar Morghulis but not Dohaeris, I just played both Loans and marshaled a gigantic board with many saves, leading him to concede.
7. Win vs Stark Banner of the Dragon: This appeared to be some kind of aggro/attrition deck as turn one he stole Hagen’s Daughter with Ward and used Wyman Manderly to kill her. I also saw Mercenary Contract, Daario Naharis, Crannogmen, and Ramsay Snow. Unfortunately, turn one ended up with him having only Wyman in play, having returned Crannogmen to shadows, and Ramsay Snow in his discard pile. I thus used Balon to Ramsay away Wyman in standing phase. Turn two I got a Begging Brother out with gold to cancel what I assumed to be an incoming Aegon and he scooped.
8. Loss vs Tyrell Brotherhood Without Banners: This deck combined Jaqen H’ghar with Highgarden Courtier and The Bloody Flux to kill all my guys, giving Jaqen stealth with the agenda. Ow. Needed to have a Milk or Begging Brother for this, but alas, I didn’t draw them.
9. Win vs Baratheon Faith Militant: This match started out fairly even, and the opponent was up 5-0 on power at the end of turn 2. I drew a bunch of economy and baited Valar Dohaeris by playing Euron and Victarion while holding more big characters in hand and neither Loan played yet. Turn 3 I think was his Valar Dohaeris into my first Loan, which I used to keep Victarion and marshal Balon and Vargo Hoat, in addition to some fools. From there my board strength was too big to manage.
10. Win vs Night’s Watch Knights of the Hollow Hill: This was the control deck that you’d expect with Varys and such. I played accordingly, trying to hold characters in hand for as long as possible, and only marshal enough to win power challenges. As usual in these match-ups, Balon was a big help. Benjicot discarded the Wall (6 cost) with his ability so maybe that made a difference, funny thought to end the run on.
So out of the 10 games the deck went 7-3. Not bad, although I think you could probably make a Greyjoy deck with Greyjoy big characters, slap any random agenda on top of it, and likely get good results. But there is definitely synergy in the sense that the fools provide Greyjoy with draw, and Greyjoy is well-equipped to resist Valar Morghulis, which is normally a big enemy for Mummers. Out of the three losses, only the loss to the Jaqen combo deck could have potentially been salvaged if I had Valar Morghulis, although having to play a “defensive” Valar Morghulis in this deck would still be a terrible situation there. Balon stands out as a key card in multiple games.
On to deck number two.
This “weenies” deck is a bit more off the beaten path compared to the first one. If you’re Greyjoy and you’re determined to make a deck with only small characters, what do you do? Well, Greyjoy does have that whole unopposed theme, and one thing to do with Shagwell is to spread stealth around. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your perspective), I’m a bit late to the party and Saltcliffe Sailor has been banned from this deck. That’s fine though because I already published a version of this deck a while ago before that update, so now I have the chance to do a version of the deck without the anime girl.
There is still plenty to work with even without that particular card. The card that caught my eye in particular is Support of Harlaw. A card that I don’t think I’ve ever seen played, outside of me playing it in this deck. But look at it—stealth and renown in one card, with no restrictions at all on who can wear it! We know from experience with Victarion Greyjoy that kneeling warships is a very manageable cost. So we want to do weenies, with stealth, bestow, unopposed, and warships. Let’s see what we can cook up:
House Greyjoy A Mummer's Farce Plots 1x Forgotten Plans (True Steel) 1x Rise of the Kraken (Taking the Black) 1x The Warrior (Hear My Words) 1x Valar Dohaeris (The Archmaester's Key) 1x Varys's Riddle (Across the Seven Kingdoms) 1x Weapons at the Door (Wolves of the North) 1x You Win Or You Die (Someone Always Tells) Characters 3x Anguy the Archer (Fury of the Storm) 3x Begging Brother (Oberyn's Revenge) 3x Benjicot (As High as Honor) 3x Hagen's Daughter (The March on Winterfell) 3x Highgarden Jester (The Blackwater) 3x Jinglebell (Hear My Words) 3x Patchface (The Brotherhood Without Banners) 3x Penny (The March on Winterfell) 3x Shagwell (Hear My Words) 3x Theon Greyjoy (The Fall of Astapor) Locations 1x Gates of the Moon (Journey to Oldtown) 2x Great Kraken (Core Set) 1x Grey Ghost (Music of Dragons) 1x King Balon's Solar (There Is My Claim) 1x Pyke (Across the Seven Kingdoms) 3x Raiding Longship (The Road to Winterfell) 3x Refurbished Hulk (In Daznak's Pit) 2x The Hollow Hill (Fury of the Storm) 2x The Iron Bank (Redesigns) 3x The Roseroad (Core Set) 2x The Seastone Chair (Taking the Black) Attachment 2x Support of Harlaw (Favor of the Old Gods) Events 2x "The Bloody Cup" (The Blackwater) 2x Unbridled Generosity (The Brotherhood Without Banners) 3x We Do Not Sow (Core Set)
The plan is to go first and do obnoxious unopposed things, although if you don’t have Raiding Longship in play, it’s still fine to go second depending on circumstances. Raiding Longship is very powerful and fits the deck well, but, if we want to leverage it, we do want to be sure to have high initiative. This is one benefit of running a low curve deck; you can afford to focus on initiative in the plots rather than gold, the latter of which tends to take priority otherwise, in my experience.
Speaking of gold though, this is why I ended up using The Warrior. I did want to try and have at least one plot with the highest gold value that I could afford without sacrificing initiative, and I noticed that The Warrior is 6/8 on gold/initiative with no downside (and even a theoretical upside, as there is one The Seven character in the deck). You Win or You Die, Rise of the Kraken and Valar Dohaeris seem like no-brainers. Weapons at the Door ensures that you can use Raiding Longship and The Seastone Chair, and 9 initiative sure doesn’t hurt either.
Forgotten Plans is the only low initiative plot and it’s included because it’s the only way to not lose horribly to The First Snow of Winter, which thankfully feels less common at the moment. I picked Varys’s Riddle as a solid high initiative opening plot. The Maiden wouldn’t be unreasonable at all, but with how high in initiative the plot deck is, I don’t feel the need to sacrifice initiative on turn one as you can often still win it on later turns anyways.
There are plenty of other plot options and a couple flex spots, so you could also use A Clash of Kings or whatever else you might prefer. If you really wanted to be cheeky, you could use The Maiden and then run 2x Besieged at 8 initiative each, for some real memeing with Raiding Longship and Theon. If I’d thought of this earlier in my playtesting I probably would’ve tried it to see if it’s good or not. One change that I might make to the deck would be to remove the Hollow Hill because it doesn’t work with You Win or You Die, but I just have such a soft spot for the card.
Ghost of High Heart is not included because she messes up Theon’s ability, which is of course a big asset in this deck. Hagen’s Daughter provides claim soak and Penny stealth, maybe she could be reduced to 2x to squeeze in one Maiden’s Bane or something. As usual, all the 3x uniques is to try and have duplicates. The other cards are all things to either help you push unopposed challenges (Pyke, Grey Ghost) or reward you for winning them (We Do Not Sow, The Bloody Cup, Great Kraken, The Seastone Chair).
I like the duality of the deck in the sense that if you’ve got a big board you will draw a lot with multiple fools, but if the opponent wants to play a reset and reduce the board state, smaller boards make it much easier for you to win unopposed challenges with the support of your locations.
1. Loss vs Night’s Watch Banner of the Wolf: This wasn’t the attrition deck that I expect from this faction/agenda combo, but I still died to Watchers on the Wall, which killed Shagwell and Patchface. That happens sometimes!
2. Win vs Stark Fealty: I was able to get mass stealth with Unbridled Generosity right off the bat, prompting the opponent to do Wildfire Assault, which killed half my guys. But with a small board state, all my characters having stealth and Great Kraken in play, I could still rack up power to win easily. His side of the board was just a bunch of typical Stark small characters and Dacey.
3. Loss vs Stark Fealty: This opponent flipped The First Snow of Winter on plot 5, the same turn that I flipped You Win or You Die. So yeah that was a wrap. I didn’t expect him to have First Snow as he was also playing many small characters, plus it came quite late in the game.
4. Win vs Martell Hollow Hill: I think this might be the only time I’ve ever beaten this deck. Definitely the only time I can remember. Thinking back he didn’t play Venomous Blade, which may be why I was able to pull out a win. This has to be unwinnable if there is Venomous Blade going on. But yeah even without that, I have to imagine this is a bad match up in general. The stars just aligned for me in this game I guess. The ability to get extra power from Great Kraken and Rise of the Kraken helped a lot.
5. Win vs Targaryen Lord of the Crossing: This was a Dothraki version with heavy military aggro. He opened Summer Harvest into my Riddle which helped me get ahead on board to avoid dying to too much military claim. There was a 4 claim military turn which hurt but I had a big wall of guys to absorb it. On the next turn I went first with You Win or You Die and removed Khal Drogo with The Bloody Cup, leading to a win.
6. Win vs Lannister Rains of Castamere: This game showed the potential for destruction as turn one saw Pycelle being killed by the Seastone Chair and Jaime removed by The Bloody Cup (he had a Noble Lineage to protect him from the Chair), leaving the opponent with only a Lannisport Merchant. Figuring that the only way I could lose from here was a reset, and that my opponent is Lannister, I played Forgotten Plans turn 2, which flipped into and blanked his First Snow of Winter. He played Tywin with the Noble Lineage to protect from the Chair, but this was removed with We Do Not Sow and Tywin was murdered as well.
7. Win vs Baratheon Fealty: A similar game as above where Stannis was removed turn one by The Bloody Cup. The opponent didn’t have any small characters for military claim and couldn’t make a board afterwards.
8. Loss vs Lannister Banner of the Kraken: This was a bestow deck with some pillage from the Greyjoy banner (Silence’s Crew, Nighttime Marauders). He had Saltcliffe Sailor to give his whole board stealth and City Besieged to kneel Raiding Longships, so I couldn’t win any unopposed challenges, and decked myself at 12 power on plot 7.
9. Win vs Greyjoy The Wars to Come: He flipped Naval Superiority turn one, marshaled no characters, and conceded. Okay. I feel like this one only halfway counts, if even that.
10. Win vs Stark The Wars to Come: This was a pretty standard Stark “goodcards” deck. It played more like an Aloof deck really, as it had 4 different big boys in it and all of them hit the board at different points. The game was very close with a good amount of back and forth, with him playing Wildfire and me playing Valar to control each other’s boards. Eventually I won initiative with Weapons at the Door on plot 7 and the power at 12-12. If he had gone first he could have won with renown but instead I won due to unop/Great Kraken power. Both copies The Bloody Cup were used and did lots of work.
This also went 7-3. Quite a good record, and some of the wins were against strong decks, although that one where the guy just tried to Naval and then conceded doesn’t really count in my mind. But I’d still be plenty happy with 6-4. The three losses were First Snow (expected), Watchers on the Wall (“it happens” is my mindset on that, but I guess you could also call it a misplay/pilot error), and a deck that had some specific tech to counter it (fair enough). It presents threats that demand answers and winning initiative all the time is quite nice. I’m glad that I got to nail First Snow with Forgotten Plans once in here and also that this deck still works fine without Saltcliffe Sailor.