Brothers at Origins
by Geoff Hollis
My first Origins has come and gone, and it was well worth the trip. The Game of Thrones end of things was excellent. It was great to catch up with people I've met at GenCon and ChiCon, and even meet a couple new friends.
My only regret was that I didn't get a chance to play more pick up games. I really wanted to see Tom's fabled traitor deck in action. LUke and I were due for a rematch from our ChiCon sidegame. The two pick-ups I did get to play were against Erin. We split the games 1-1, and after playing her, I was glad I didn't have to face her deck in the joust tourney. I think a third turn Rise of the Kraken is one of my deck's biggest weaknesses. They were intense matches, though, and I look forward to the tie-breaker come GenCon!
I chose Baratheon Brothers at War for joust mainly because I exclusively play power grab decks. I don't have the patience for a slow-moving control deck. I feel that the Brothers agenda offers the most flexibility for a power grab deck, and that was the main factor in my decision. A little about how my deck worked…
Rush
The first thing I wanted to do was build a solid foundation I could use to rush an opponent, and grab power quickly. I deliberately opted to stay away from big characters. I thought they'd just be too juicy of a target for control effects. Instead, I built my rush out of smaller characters and pump cards. That way, if I did get hit by control it wouldn't take away all the pieces of my puzzle, and it would be easier to rebuild. The cards that drove my rush were:
- x1 Royal Guard
- x1 Mace's Bannermen
- x2 Brienne
- x1 Fiery Followers
- x1 Selyse Baratheon
- x2 Butterbumps
- x2 Hallowed Ground
- x1 Old Bear's Crow
- x1 Blade from Dragonstone Forge
- x1 Savior of Westeros
Pre-emptive problem solving
There's numerous cards out there that, once they hit the board, can really stall you or even change the way you have to play your game. In control-focused decks, this isn't such a big problem because your deck is typically based around being able to solve problems as they arise. But in a rush deck it's a little different; once you lose the ability to put pressure on your opponent for even one round, you lose the major strength of a rush deck. I wanted to be able to deal with problem cards before they became a problem. So I tried to dedicate some space to pre-emptive problem solving in my deck:
- x1 shield islands
- x2 confession
- x1 cape wrath
Though Brienne won me the most games, I think Confession was my MVP card. It it weren't for a first-turn confession against Morgan in the semi-finals that tossed her WED Cersei, I don't think I would have made it to the final table. It was also handy against Stag Lord in game 1, to toss his Jaqen (though in retrospect, I probably should have tossed his Festering Wound). Cape Wrath sounded nice in theory. I like the idea of not having to worry about direct kill on my main characters. In practice, though, it never saw use, as none of my characters ever reached 6 strength.
Character Control
With Nightfire Converts popping up all over the place, I felt like I needed to tech against this (by running my own converts and WED Cersei). However, I really hate running cards that are single-purpose. I wanted a way to leverage my own Converts. So I ended up adding Joffrey's Herald, who became the backbone of my character control coupled with the Converts. With Raven's Wings and Benjen's Cache I knew I'd have very strong spot character control whenever I needed it. I also had a few other cards thrown in for control:
- x1 Joffrey's Herald
- x2 Nightfire Convert
- x1 Valyrian Steel Spear
- x1 Shadow Play
- x2 Robert's Wine Cellar
- x1 Lord's Assassin
- x1 Edric Storm
- x1 Smuggler's Cove
I consider stealth cards part of my character control. I feel like I need to consistently put pressure on my opponent, or else a rush deck loses its edge. Cheap stealth can really help increase that pressure. It was also helpful to my ability to get through a couple important uses of the wine cellars. Valyrian Steel Spear seemed like a good pick with Brienne and the Royal Guard.
Scavenger of the Free Cities
I like to dedicate at least 2-3 cards of every deck to tricks that can get me out of a rut. I figured that if I was getting hit hard by a traitor deck, I'd need a way to re-establish my rush that did not rely on in-house characters. Running three weapon attachments, scavenger of the free cities seemed like a good pick. Though he didn't see any play, I think this guy will stay in my deck.
The Brothers Split
Though I don't see many of them, the way I understand it is that Brothers decks are typically split into a resource/setup deck and a big characters/rush deck. I took a different approach. I like the ability to hit the ground running, so I pushed most of my rush cards in with my setup deck. In playtesting, I found that this 30-card deck had enough bite to win games on its own, if left unimpeded. So instead of packing more characters and rush cards into my second deck, I tried to pack it as full of utility cards as I could. That way if I established a rush, I could just start drawing from my utility deck and pick up cards that would hopefully make sure it kept going through. Or if I needed solutions to cards on the board, I could draw from my utility deck and know I'd have a good chance of pulling something that would help.
If I were to run this deck again, I'd probably make some changes to the utility/control deck. Jonathan's broken arms were pretty devastating, and even with three strong location control cards, I feel like I needed more. With the +2 strength, direct assault fits in as a nice surprise during the challenge phase. I'm not sure how Put to the Question didn't find its way in here; great to prevent my characters from being locked down, and it also fuels ITE Joffrey. It might even help against those Greyjoy decks I'm so scared of. Origins was a blast, and I look forward to attending again next year!
