Viper Combo and Event Madness

Oberyn Martell has always been a type of extremes that doesn't leave anyone indifferent. He loses his mind when remebering the murder of her sister and nephews by Gregor Clegane. With the right combination, and a pair of "You Murdered her Children," he quietly puts himself in strength 52. We may think that putting toghether the right cards may be, but thanks to our friends Tyrell and the Annals of Castle Black the combo joins relatively easy. The hard part is to defend ourselves against the resources and obstacles of the rival.

The deck has an easy plan. During the first and second rounds we want to see as many events as we can and then replay them all in the third round through Annals of Castle Black. We play EVENTS LIKE CRAZY, events that allow us to draw, that cycle us, that look for the pieces that we miss, that look for defenses, etc. The deck plays 25 events and many give us drawng or are searchers, so you can get an idea of ​​the speed at which we can launch them. IN THIRD ROUND PLAY ALL OF THEM AGAIN and then we recruit Viper + Crown of Golden Roses + Seal of the Hand. We raise the strength of the Viper to 13 and play two events to double strength. We attack and attack, and for every 5 strength of difference for which we win challenge we take 1 power.

Against my hom'es wall or against my cat the deck is very solid. We always reach the combo. However, in real game and tournament is not competitive enough. All the houses have cards that plunge us completely into misery: Treachery, Nightmares, Winterfell, Craven, Milk of the Poppy, Melisandre (any version), an economic choke of winter decks etc. We have defenses and answers against some of these, but in practice if we defend ourselves a lot we take longer to fight and the opponent will be able to reach 15 ower. But I think the mechanics of the deck are interesting and original, and the plan to play events and replay them is especially solid. It is really easy to put together the cards we need with the Tyrell engine. The problem is to defend the Viper. Note that all the Hand's Judgment and Nightmares that we see can be used again in the first rounds to obstruct our opponent's game, and we will keep them available in the turn of the combo thanks to Castle Black. It is a deck that requires practice, but the system is caught fast.

House Martell

Banner of the Rose
Packs: From Core Set (3) to True Steel

Plots
1x Calling the Banners (Core Set)
1x Confiscation (Core Set)
2x Counting Coppers (Core Set)
1x Close Call (True Steel)
1x Valar Morghulis (There Is My Claim)
1x The Annals of Castle Black (Guarding the Realm)

Characters (10)
2x Rattleshirt's Raiders (Core Set)
3x The Red Viper (Core Set)
2x Margaery Tyrell (Core Set)
3x Wildling Scout (No Middle Ground)

Locations (17)
3x The Kingsroad (Core Set)
2x The Roseroad (Core Set)
3x Tourney Grounds (Wolves of the North)
3x Tower of the Sun (Across the Seven Kingdoms)

1x The God's Eye (For Family Honor)
2x Isle of Ravens (There Is My Claim)
3x Ocean Road (Lions of Casterly Rock)

Attachments (8)
3x Seal of the Hand (Core Set)
1x Bodyguard (Core Set)
1x Milk of the Poppy (Core Set)
3x Crown of Golden Roses (For Family Honor)

Events (25)
1x Superior Claim (Core Set)
3x The Hand's Judgment (Core Set)
3x "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" (Core Set)
2x Nightmares (Calm over Westeros)
2x A Gift of Arbor Red (True Steel)
1x His Viper Eyes (Wolves of the North)
2x Tithe (Wolves of the North)
3x The Dragon's Tail (Across the Seven Kingdoms)
3x You Murdered Her Children (Lions of Casterly Rock)
2x "A Rose of Gold" (Lions of Casterly Rock)
3x "The Dornishman's Wife" (Guarding the Realm)

The master plan is to do a crap in the setup (there is no other option in this list), then reveal two Counting Coppers in the first and second rounds and then reveal Annals of Castle Black. We must play a lot of Tyrell drawing events and searchers to recycle them afterwards. Tyrell has very good mechanics in this respect. In addition we will have to accumulate gold resources for the turn of the combo, which are 11 coins + events and we start counting in 4 that is what we collect for Annals of Castle Black. It seems difficult to get past 11 but we have the invaluable help of Tower of The Sun, which will give us a +4 gold in the combo turn. In the first rounds we have so few characters that the opponent will take every challange unopposed, so any deck will advance faster than normal against us, although we will not have power that can be stolen by claim. We can not entertain ourselves and we have to combo by all means in plot three. The idea in plot three is to gain initiative (we need one or two kingsroad, and we will always win in tying because we will be dry of power), we name the opponent as first player and we dodge any possible Milk of Poppy or other attachements.This is the aspect that should have our table in the combo turn:

Regarding the plots, Counting Coopers gives us fuel and the low income is not really important in the first rounds. We can only play two copies if we are not afraid of Forgotten Plans or Weapons at the Door n the meta. If we smell these plots we have to replace one by Building Season and double the Castle Black (Nota bene: I prefer to speak of Double Castle Black than Double Annals, which sounds a little disturbing to me). We just can not fight with Forgotten Plans or Weapons at the Door revealed, so we have to wait a turn. The rest of the plots are actually flexible and are only for emergencies.Isle of Ravens: Essential for two very important functions. The first is to cycle parts of the combo that our opponent discards from the hand in the intrigue claim. If we do not need it for the first function, the island can also target the opponent's cards, so we can put the events back in his deck, events that he could have replay in the Castle Black turn.Rattleshit Raiders: We do not have high enough initiative, so if we gain initiative and we have to fail to recruit first, we need to marshall to these guys to defend ourselves from Milk of the Poppy. We attacked with Viper inflated, activated first Raiders response when winning and then Viper.Wildling Scout: Stealth to the Viper and triggering Tithe giving us two additional gold. You can also feed wirth him the military claim without problems.Dornishman's Wife: Much more useful than it seems n the paper. It will give us lots of gold, some draw and if we take care we can also obtain some power tokens.Dragon's Tail: Played twice each of them will give us 4 cards, and have great synergy with The Bear and the MaidenTower of the Sun: It will give us 4 gold in the combo turn (In Plor, Drawng Phase, Marshalling and Challenges). It is almost another essential piece of the combo. We need a lot of gold. We could also play In Doran's Name (kneeling house card gives us 1 gold for each plot in used, ie two gold). It does not convince me because we already play Gift of Arbor Red that also requires to turn the letter of house.God's Eye: Same, in this case this is an awfull card but quite useful in this list. We do not care of the gold in setup or in the first or second rounds, but in plot three is vital.OVERALL, the deck is not yet good enough to take it to big tournaments. We need more consistent defenses. Actually what works really well is the Tyrell + Annals of Castle Black, the card cycling engine. With that we can quickly find exactly the cards we want. But which ones do we want? The Viper is one of the worst 7 costs of the game, so focusing our game on it ends up leading us to several problems. If anyone is interested you can try this list or try to keep the Tyrell events and look for other possible alternative combos. Sure there are more!