The Ocean Orcheatra - House Greyjoy First Impression

Now that we've got the majority of our cards all of us have been building decks, and I went for House Greyjoy, mostly because I'm the only one with 3 sets of Kings of the Sea, and therefore probably the only candidate in the community who would bother to build Greyjoy decks. So I figured why not? Squids look cute anyway.

After toying with the deck with very consistent failures in games, I've finally sat down seriously to look at my cards and formed up a deck that will be ready for testing, hopefully sometime this week or next. Here are some of my thoughts about Greyjoys, the pirates of the Iron Islands.

To start with, let's talk about their "House ability" - Intimidate. I think among the House abilities, Greyjoy definitely has one of the best (if not the best). This is evident in the fact that the Intimidate ability comes readily to many characters (unlike the Stark's Stalwart), is relatively easy to use, and most importantly, is the only House ability that isn't situational - like the Ironborns, you're in control when you're using this ability.

Intimidate is of course, only useful in attacks, but so is Vigilant. It has no attached cost (unlike Ambush), or conditions (like Vengeful and Vigilant), and has no need for something else to happen first (Stalwart and Infamy). It also plays very well with Greyjoy's unopposed tech, since it reduce defender's STR to zero if you out-STR them with an Intimidate character. There are also ways to get this ability on characters, such as the Banner. With 7 characters with Intimidate, with average cost of 4, and only 2 of them being unique, one can safely field 17 different Intimidate characters on the ground - scary ya?

Now, the Greyjoys have 3 distinct pathways -

1. The Raiders.

There are 7 Raider characters, only 2 of them are unique, but the Raiders are a little all over the place at the moment. Their true cohesiveness comes from numbers - Euron Crow's Eye (Song of Silence version) and Euron's Enforcers all support fellow Raiders. The Enforcers, with their Intimidate ability, gets quite deadly when enough Raiders are on the table, since they get +1 STR for each Raider character you control. The cheap Ambitious Oarsman is pretty much a Raider specific discounter that allows you to use them (and any warships with nothing better to do), to discount the next Raider character you call, making Raider summoning a rather economical affair. With Euron on the table, the attack can be rather devastating, since the Raiders all get Stealth, and most importantly, your opponent cannot use events - perfect for those Military attacks you need to send the Stark's way. And not to forget, with Intimidate and Stealth, there are few opponents who can even raise any defenders against you, and then, of course, the Support of Harlaw will allow Euron to lead the next wave of Raiders in a different mission, or even the same one with the Assault of the Kraken. The Longship Silence is also a very supportive warship for a Raider attack deck.

2. Deck discards.

Probably a lot more powerful in a Joust environment, deck discard is not exactly very viable in a melee environment at the moment - there just isn't enough tech to support the Greyjoy's manipulation of the discard pile. Sure, they can sack a lot of cards from all their opponents, but aside from a few means of controlling locations and so on, there aren't too many means to make use of that resource deprivation - milling just doesn't cut it, for the time being. That said, the psychological impact of the deck-milling Greyjoys is pretty cool.

3. Unopposed challenge.

This is probably the most commonly seen Greyjoy's means of victory. With either Intimidate, or Stealth (again, Euron is a great help over here, and I'm referring to the Kings of the Sea's Euron). Many cards from the Greyjoy's resources allow them to capitalize on unopposed challenges, from their unique Plot card, to power claiming or multi-attack Events, to many attachments and locations that enhances your gain from unopposed challenges, this is probably the easiest mean to build a Greyjoy deck, and probably a secondary part to any of those Greyjoys who didn't take this as their path.

There are several more interesting things about the Greyjoys.

I think they have many cheap and efficient characters, though they do come with some random problems. Take Ancient Mariner for example - this is an extremely cheap character for 4 STR, costing only 2 gold, though he gets a -3 STR in a Military challenge - not a big problem if you're using him for Power challenges, or just for Dominance. The Distinguished Boatwain is probably the most cost-effective character besides Lord Frey, and his ability isn't that much of an issue; and Fishwhiskers and the Mercenaries of Pyke come a close second. I don't think any other Houses has this kind of efficiency - except those Stark people whom you can never keep around in the first place.

The Warships concept is also pretty unique to the Greyjoys. I think they're the only one who manipulates locations in this way. They can gain Power with them, use them to contest Dominance and every Warship has some means of being used by the appearance of certain characters in some ways, and some even play off each other - such as the Naval Escort.

The Ironborn trait is also pretty consistent in the Greyjoy's character retinue, and some of their cards support that, such as the Salt Wife. But if you somehow uses Robb Stark's "name Trait" ability it could be quite profitable. They do however, don't have a lot of attachments to play with, but some of them are very effective for what they do, like the Fishnet and Harlaw's Support.

They also have the only event card in the whole world that allows them to win Initiative regardless. That is a bane to all who plays Taken by Surprise. It also gives them a lot of strategic advantage by winning them lots of Initiatives.

I now hope to see more of Greyjoy's other potential playstyle - such as the Drowned God's people, and perhaps expand more on their current deck-depletion tech.

All in all this is a power House, with a lot going for them, and relatively easy to start. Their problem is of course the current financial issue with the Kings of the Seas deluxe expansion, which of course will be fixed very soon.

And don't forget, they have the coolest Resin House card.

(o.o)swimming