This is the deck I took to Uncle’s Games, Bellevue’s Kingsmoot tournament on 10/24/2015. Quick shoutout to Jakodrako for running a great tournament, especially for such a young game. All in all, 31 people turned out. I’m sure I’m wrong, but I didn’t see anyone else playing .

It’s not even remotely subtle what this deck aims to do. Establish an early lock with Sneak Attack and never let go. Asha Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, and Arya Stark give you lots of room for an early stealth drop with which you will use alongside boosted claim from Winter Is Coming and targeted kills from Put to the Sword, Throwing Axe, and Ice. Also an important drop is Grey Wind. Intimidate lets you go all out on military challenges and simply kneel whatever threat is still left standing, while his challenges ability lets you pick off claim fodder before they can soak up the death.

You’ll also notice immediate similarities to the Shock & Awe deck currently rocking the hall of fame. I feel like we are of similar minds. That, or the current cardpool limits deckbuilding somewhat. Ah well. I’ve been playing far too much Stark for probably my own good, and after trying Banners of the Watch, Rose, and Dragon I settled for Banner of the Kraken.

I had barely had an hour of sleep before the tournament (working nights sucks), so my recall of the night is somewhat muddled, but after 4 rounds of swiss, I was undefeated. I had played two Greyjoy and two Targaryan houses, and in all cases I had managed to keep up a silly barrage of high-claim coupled with periodic pokes. My first opponent was Kody, a prominent figure in our community and with whom I’d been playtesting these decks. His Greyjoy had slaughtered me in most of our testing, thanks to Risen from the Sea keeping his characters alive and threatening and just generally meeting my aggression with at least as much. This time, unfortunately, his draws did not give him the presence he needed to keep me down, and a ridiculously twice-duped Theon Greyjoy attacked with Grey Wind to keep his state down. I’d consider our decks evenly matched, but the rng was on my side. The ensuing games went similarly, with an early stealth presence enabling Winter Is Coming and Put to the Sword to keep my opponent’s table cleared. A fortuitous challenge knocked out a Dracarys! that might have spelled the game in one case, but otherwise, the deck played solidly and put me into the upper echelons of the bracket.

The final round of Swiss paired me against Brendan, who was playing Fealty Baratheon. I haven’t much to say; as much pressure as I put on him and as much as I inundated him with murder, Stannis Baratheon nor Melisandre never left the table (though every single other character he played died horribly), and I was choked out over a grand total of 8 turns of pain. At one pints, Counting Coppers blessed me with Robb Stark, my ticket out of this horror, but unfortunately, he fell immediately to an claim, and I never recovered. He played his deck expertly, keeping me just barely at arms reach while I gnashed at his head. Once he had won, I turned over the top card of my deck, only to see a taunting Milk of the Poppy, especially awful given that ~~he didn’t run Confiscation~~ (Edit: Yes, he was running confiscation). Sad day.

No, not really. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to how the game will evolve from here.