I ran a Game of Thrones LCG Game Night Kit this past weekend, and much to my surprise and joy, we had a good crowd of out-of-towners gather at Gamezilla Fredericton for the event. In the crowd were multiple store champions, along with Maritime Regional Champion Sam Morin. After the event, Sam and I throw down for a couple of fun ones, including an absolute massacre where I managed to throw away a starting hand of Tywin, Mirri Maz Duir, and Gregor Clegane (perhaps my most impressive defeat to date!).

The games aren’t important, everyone laughed at my dismal performance and then Sam and I had a pretty serious discussion about the state of the game. There were a few important topics discussed including “restricted list, yes or no?” among others. But the most interesting one by far (to me) was the current state of House Tyrell.

Over the last few months, there has been a pretty set tier list. Lannister is the king of the castle, followed loosely by Martell, Stark and Greyjoy in an order determined by the day of the week, then we see Targaryen and Baratheon making up the middle of the pack. The bottom tier were the Night’s Watch and House Tyrell.

All of this seems to be shifting, however. Night’s Watch has a lot of excitement behind it as a choke archetype with the upcoming Kings of Winter agenda. Night’s Watch fealty even took down the GNK in a field full of Starks and Krakens (no Lannisters in that field, however). If things are looking so much better for the Watchers on the Wall… what can be done to help the other loser house?

What can you do to fix the house that has everything? Tyrell look like they should be on fire! they have the best (or second best) gold in the game, and they have the best (or second best) card draw in the game. They have a great number of low-cost characters who seem to have significant synergy with the strategic elements that FFG has given them (knights. I’m talking about Knights here).

But they are garbage. Nobody plays them, and the people who do play them wind up going 0-3 or worse at weekly events. Why is that?

Well, the main issue is that their principal strategy of flooding the board with weenies actually doesn’t get them anywhere against the best decks in the format! Stark can pull huge numbers, Lannister and Greyjoy also have just as many utility low-cost characters, all of whom tend to actually do more than just exist as a pair of icons and a trait.

The biggest issue with the way the Tyrell curve is built is that everyone kind of just sits there doing nothing except turning sideways. They are an aggro/rush house in a format where the only effective forms of aggro are enabled by mechanical attrition. Nobody who costs less than four in House Tyrell effectively does anything except engage in challenges, and the deck doesn’t have a strong way to flip modes.

Stark is able to use their characters in multiple ways, since they are able to turn their weenies into utility pieces in the mid-game. Fast Eddy, Robb, and even the Blackfish use the existing pool of low-cost Stark characters into a massive power rush – giving the house the ability to attack and defend very effectively through the use of standing tricks and power grabbing.

Lannister are able to turn their low-cost characters into meat shields for the big men of the house (Jaime, Tywin and Gregor), who really do the lion’s share (pardon the pun) of the work for any Lannister deck.The low-cost characters you see most often in a lannister deck (Red Cloaks, and The Hound) find a way to use the income advantage built into Lannister to become greater (or at least more unpredictable) threats as the game progresses.



“But Matt,” I already hear you say… “Muh, Muh Margaery!” I concede, Tyrell has one character that does something interesting. Tyrell’s theme in the core set was “growth”, temporary strength boosts that can be leveraged in different ways. Combined with Randyll Tarly, you can get multiple challenges each turn, or combined with the large number of low-cost characters, you can make your challenges more threatening.



The problem with that theme is that the other houses have all have ways to make that advantage less impactful. Lannister has characters who are just bigger. Stark has characters that will prevent your tricks altogether. Greyjoy has saves to make your victories meaningless. Targaryen has burn which can kill your characters before you even get to make those challenges to begin with. Baratheon has kneel which keeps your characters out of the red zone.



Margaery remains an excellent character, her utility cannot be disparaged, but the theme just isn’t as impactful as I would have liked.





So, what can be done? How do you put the Lords of the Reach back in the competitive scene?



I think it is pretty simple – give them something worth spending their gold on. House Tyrell has excellent economy thanks to cards such as Paxter Redwyne and The Arbor, but they have nobody at six and seven that make the same kind of impact as Gregor Clegane, Mirri Max Duir, Euron Greyjoy, or even Robert Baratheon.



Olenna Tyrell is inarguably the worst 7 drop in the game to date. If she put a character into play (knelt and participating?) when she kneels to participate in a challenge, then she would be good. If she let you play “characters up to 7 gold total” when she triggers, then she would be great. She does too little, too rarely for her to be at all impactful – compared to Tywin who just comes in like a wrecking ball (with huge synergy with the rest of his house to boot), or Robert whose intimidate combined with his passive strength boost really creates some massive tempo swings. Pair either of them up with Seal of the Hand and you can count the number of games those guys lose on one hand!

Olenna has none of those things. She usually just gives you a couple of gold during the challenge phase (being about half of a Tyrion Lannister, some of the time). Rarely will she get you a free 5 drop. She’s also very easily countered in the current metagame! Nymeria Sand just swipes that Intrigue icon like it is breadsticks at the Olive Garden. The Lannisters just laugh at her and win the challenge on defense, while Stark just put a 30 year old mother of five in her way and the trigger just vanishes like Catelyn’s heart at the Red Wedding.







If Tyrell had one (or more) impactful 7 drops – hell even six drops, please FFG? – then they would have a plan to build around. Right now their plan is “well, we have a bunch of knights and Margie, so let’s just go!” This is not an effective plan in a metagame where tempo and attrition are the key strategies.



Let’s assume that House Tyrell will get one 7 drop in the current cycle – Renly Baratheon, first of his name, blah blah. This is an opportunity to really give the Tyrells something to bark about. I would really like to see him do something like this:



Renly Baratheon 7gc (l)

King, Lord

5STR Mil,Int,Pow

Renown

Reaction: When you marshall Renly Baratheon, you may search your deck for up to 4 House Tyrell characters and reveal them. Put those cards into your hand. Shuffle your deck.

House Tyrell characters get +1 STR when participating in a challenge against an opponent who controls no King.



This is a character that really plays well with each of the themes presented by the Tyrell cards we’ve been seeing in this cycle. Bitterbridge wants you to have characters in hand, as does “There is my claim”. In fact, this Renly gives you exactly what you need to trigger TIMC. He follows the King cycle by giving a boost against players without a king, and Glorious Anthem is perfectly within the theme of “growth”.



How about we turn things up a bit more by introducing Loras and Margaery’s elder brother Willas to the mix?



Willas Tyrell 6gc (l)

Lord

4STR Int/Pow

Insight

While Willas Tyrell is participating in a challenge, Lannister and Martell characters do not count their strength.

Reaction: When you win an Intrigue Challenge in which Willas Tyrrell was participating as an attacker, you may pay X gold to return a Lannister or Martell character to their owner’s hand. X is that characters printed gold cost.

+1 Gold



In first edition, Willas was a huge piece in the Baratheon puzzle for fighting Martell and Lannister decks – letting Baratheon decks compete agaisnt a pair of houses that were generally at the top of the pile. Adding in a bit of card draw, and another gold sink are just two more ways to let Tyrell keep up with the attrition elements present in the rest of the format.



Armor of green 3gc (l)

Attachment

Item

Terminal

Attached character gets +1 STR during Mil challenges.

Interrupt: When attached character become the target of a character or location ability, kneel Armor of Green to cancel that effect.



Dress of White 3gc

Attachment

Item

Lady character you control only

Kneel attached character, that character does not stand during the standing phase.

Reaction: When attached character kneels, take control of a character as long as attached character remains knelt.



These two effects represent an effort to give the Tyrells a bit more utility – Renly’s armor of green was an iconic image in the first two books. Leaving the wearer vulnerable to events and attachments was for thematic reasons.







How about some utility in the event slot?



Riches of the Reach 0gc

Event

Challenges Action: Target any number of attacking characters. You may pay 1 gold for each of them to remove them from the challenge.







Now, these cards might be too strong as I present them, but in all honesty, it is effects as powerful (and as flexible) as these that will bring Tyrell up from the basement of competitive play and make them interesting, impressive and maybe even victorious!



Tyrell is getting a couple of interesting cards in the cycle (including Alerie in Lions of the Rock), but nothing that really makes me feel that the house will take a step up that ladder. Maybe this is by design – there has to be a worst house… why not Tyrell? They are always just secondary characters in the books (except for Olenna, Margie and Loras.). Knight of Summer and There is my Claim are on their way to stores now, and neither are going to be impactful.



Knight of Summer requires more Summer than Winter plots to be revealed, and when that is satisfied he becomes a 5STR renown for 4. That is potentially very good! The problem is that Winter plots are already more common than summer plots, and this is just going to be even more true with the introduction of Kings of Winter and the rise of Night’s Watch choke.



There is my Claim is an odd card. It costs 0 gold for a house with plenty of gold, and it requires that the Tyrell player is holding 4 characters back instead of playing them. All of this for the same effect Stark gets for just 1 gold. It seems like too narrow of an effect to be worth holding back so much (and offering your opponent such amazing information! Imagine the Heads that will be on Spikes the next plot phase!). Not worth it.



If only it boosted claim for the phase, not just a challenge – then it would have been worth both the opportunity cost of not putting your characters in play, and the risk associated with giving your opponent that information. As it is, however, the card just doesn’t do enough to be worth everything you have to put into it.





In Lions of the Rock we see Alerie Tyrell, who is a 4 drop Lady (Lady tech hype!), who comes into play and searches your top 10 for a Tyrell character with cost 3 or lower. 9 times out of 10 you’ll use this to dig for your Margaery, but if that was the case, why not just run Hobber instead? The fact that she is a Lady offers Tyrlel a few more options for their own knight/ladies synergy (she’s only the third printed lady in the house, including the dreadful Olenna and number one waifu Margaery).



In Tyrion’s Chain we will get a fourth lady in the form of Brienne of Tarth, a non-loyal 5 cost 5STR Mil/Pow with Renown. While you control a King or Catelyn Stark she doens’t kneel as a defender. This is a very telling card from the design team. It pairs very nicely with Left and Right, putting Tyrell very firmly in the ‘go second’ camp along with Martell. The problem is that Tyrell don’t have the same Akido moves that Martell has to turn that negative into a positive.





If you get a team of characters with defensive vigilence, then maybe you can ward off any challenges coming your way, but you still don’t have a way to prevent an opponent from stealthing you out, or just whilttling you down with kneel tech or burn. Martell have effects like Vengeance and Long Plan to be unpredictable during the challenge phase. Tyrell can… make their characters a little bigger sometimes?

Honestly, Tyrell was just designed weak. Their themes are wildly disparate and there is almost no synergy build it outside of the RandyllxSword in the core set. They are the only house that hasn’t gotten a single card over 5 cost since the core set, and the powerful cards they have been given (Pleasure Barge, Arbor, House Florent Knight) all come with significant drawbacks.







Why didn’t Mirri have a drawback? Why didn’t Gregor? Why does Pleasure Barge have to be immune to card effects, I think that if you are able to finagle a way to get rid of it, your creativity should be rewarded – why doesn’t Florent Knight just effect opponent’s cards? Why does the Arbor have to be Limited?

It is needless drawbacks on cards that otherwise would be auto-includes in Tyrell decks that is keeping them down. It feels like FFG might be designing the house to be held back mechanically – and if that is the case, then we certainly shouldn’t expect things to change anytime soon. It says a lot about the card quality in House Tyrell that they hesitate to even include Arbor Red in their decks – Much and More was such a ubiquitous card in first edition because it always got you the best card in the pile…







Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true again?

I would like to just take a second at the end here to discuss Rains of Castamere, and how it might impact Tyrell. Currently, the only real options for a green deck are Lord of the Crossing, or one of three powerful banners to try and fill in the holes in the roster.

LotC will be better once the house has more cards to let it more easily afford the all in rush strategy, and the banners really only highlight what’s wrong with the house.

Rains provides a lot of flexibility in creating a Tyrell deck, thanks to cards like Pulling the Strings and Wildfire Assault being Schemes. It will require a lot of experimentation to determine if losing schemes out of your main plot deck will be overly detrimental to the mechanics of the deck, but I feel like this is a better option moving forward than the obvious King of Summer strategy FFG seems to be pushing on Green.

Until next time, may the seven blessings be upon you!

Matt