Stark Cycle 4 Review

Stark Cycle 4 Review

Hello again! Alex O’Fee-Worth here. I expect some of you may remember me from the cycle three review, where my opinions were somewhat controversial. However, for those who don’t know me, I’m a member of the Crosse Keys Sellswords, based in London in the UK. I’ve been something of a Stark loyalist for two years now, making Top-4 at UK Nationals and Top-16 at Euros. Despite this, I’m probably best known for being obnoxiously loud and for my tendency to disrupt premier-tier competitions through impromptu Karaoke.

Despite the furore surrounding my declamation of The North Remembers, Richard has asked me back to share my opinions with the community. Taking James Waumsley’s definition of faction-strength as how varied or robust a faction can be, Stark were in a relatively weak position at the end of cycle 3. Despite receiving support for several underdeveloped themes, such as Direwolves, Tully and Winter, it wasn’t enough to elevate these themes to a wide-spread competitive level. In Cycle Four, Stark finally received some highly effective cards which, in my opinion, have successfully shifted the faction’s focus from renown and denial to a more aggressive focus on atrrition. With several decks, including four-legged ones, now viable, competitive options for the house, which cards had the greatest impact?

Dreadfort Maester

The first card of the cycle and the second Bolton character to be printed for House Stark; the Dreadfort Maester is one of my favourite cards of the cycle. The cards ability effectively synergise with two themes in the house, claim raise and sacrifice, making it a powerful tool for Stark aggro decks, or those reliant on Core Robb Stark and Catelyn Stark from Wolves of the North. The card has a high cost for its effect, which often restricts its inclusion in decks, but having a constant, visible winter is coming on the board to threaten your opponent has a significant impact on games. A welcome addition to the house and a good start to the cycle!

At Night They Howl

Sadly, I’m less keen on At Night They Howl. Stark has a number of effective stand options already, including one that already focuses specifically on Direwolves. Whilst it seems a powerful effect, the limited icon spread of direwolf decks and the high-cost effectively relegates this to the binder at the moment. However, there is a small possibility this may appear when more direwolf attachments are printed, providing they are of the caliber of Lady, Nymeria or Ghost as opposed to Summer. On to chapter pack two!

Maege Mormont

Upon her release, there was a lot of negativity surrounding the Mae-triarch of the Mormonts and it’s easy to see why. On paper, she appears to be a poor man’s Blackfish, with similar stats, keywords and a draw ability but without his ability to buff Tully decks. Whilst this is completely fair, I think Maege’s draw is stronger than the Blackfish’s, given her ability to trigger multiple times on attack and defense. Whilst I might rate her more highly than others, I sadly think she only finds slots in a HRD Winterfell Castle Deck, which is now competitively unviable thanks to Breaking Ties.

The House of Black and White

The House of Black and White is a fantastic card for Martell or Night’s Watch, but struggles to find an effective place in Stark decks, due to the lack of support for bestow in Stark and inconsistency amongst bestow cards within the house. Unlike in Martell, where the bestow cards have significant impact and you have sufficient economy to support the House of Black and White, Stark lack other powerful bestow effects relevant to the House of Black and White Deck and struggle to produce an effective economy engine capable of driving this location. In addition, Stark are much more focused around the challenges phase (partly why I like them so much), so often don’t have the slots to dedicate to a passive effect like this. I look forward to the day that someone makes this work main-house, but in the meantime it’s a fantastic banner card that I find lackluster within Stark. To chapter pack three!

P.S please don’t post me to a store champ winner with a 1x copy of this in their deck…

Ramsay Snow

A fantastic card for the faction which builds on the sacrifice and attrition themes for House Bolton. This is the beginning of the point where the best decks within Stark started to shift, becoming more aggressive and focused around board control. Despite this, I still think he’s stronger in Banner Wolf than Stark, due to his synergy with other factions and the focus of banner decks. Like with the House of Black and White, Stark struggles to find the economy to support Ramsay and use him regularly and when you’re using him as a body, he’s incredibly lackluster. Regardless, he’s an incredible threat for the faction to have and an auto-include in a number of banner decks.

The Dreadfort

Stark’s obligatory banner encouragement card from this cycle. Unfortunately, the Dreadfort provides a fairly useless effect in main house stark, with significant amounts of loyal or stark-centric stand in faction, such as Robb Stark (Core), Jeyne Westerling, Jon Snow and now the Northern Armory. This is understandable given its purpose is to encourage banner decks, but the Plaza of Pride arguably proves a more effective source of non-loyal stand. The interesting part of the card is the synergy with House Bolton, but it suffers due to the lack of Bolton characters with potent challenge effects. Roose is the primary target, but you’ll rarely want to stand him as he will have usually triggered on his first challenge. In addition, the effect is relatively hard to trigger in a number of factions, with the notable exception of Martell Wolf. Again though, I rarely see significant numbers of House Bolton characters within that faction. On to chapter pack four!

Nymeria

One of the strongest cards that Stark received this cycle, Nymeria provided an incredibly important source of redundancy for Direwolf decks, allowing your four-legged friends to participate in intrigue and power challenges even if your opponent manages to deal with Bran Stark. More importantly, Nymeria is a fantastic card for Stark decks that don’t include significant numbers of direwolves. Threatening additional strength in any challenge is fantastic and her intimidate keyword pushes her over the top. A 1x in a large number of Stark decks for the foreseeable future.

Favor of the Old Gods

Richard informs me I have to review this, despite the conclusion being self-evident. This card is complete binder-fodder at the moment. Stark simply have easier ways of standing their characters that don’t require you to massively compromise your economy module. The card seeds two themes in Old Gods and Stark-only, both of which intrigue me and I really hope they’re developed. However they will need significant, potent support to become relevant and this doesn’t provide a solid foundation. Martell box Ho!

Greatjon Umber

Finally, the Greatjon arrives to the LCG and he doesn’t disappoint. Arguably the best card Stark have received in a long time, the Greatjon is an incredibly efficient character, especially when you consider that the majority of Stark’s five and six cost characters have had their strength fixed at four. On top of his efficiency, he has an incredibly impactful ability in the early game when coupled with his intimidate keyword. Like Nymeria, he’s a fantastic 1x in any Stark deck, but could be especially impactful in a direwolf deck given that deck’s focus on aggressive military challenges and intimidate. I’m slightly saddened that he’s non-loyal given his characterization in the books, but I can’t be unhappy. The Greatjon is ‘bloody tough!’

Taste for Flesh

An excellent event, Taste for Flesh reinforced the faction shift towards aggression in this cycle and pushed the direwolf deck to a semi-competitive tier. In my mind, the most exciting part of the card is it’s synergy with the direwolf attachments. The main issue with direwolf decks, and perhaps Stark in general, has been the transparent nature of the threats on the board. With Taste for Flesh, your opponent genuinely has to consider defending seemingly innocent challenges if you have the direwolf attachments on the board, or have methods of pushing a direwolf into a challenge. I’m not convinced that the direwolf deck is the best build for Stark at the moment, but I certainly look forward to experimenting with the build more. Back to the cycle!

Arya Stark

Hands down my favorite card of the cycle. ‘Valarya’ dealt with a significant concern of a portion of the community whilst elevating aggressive Stark builds focused on attrition to a competitive tier. Her stats are perfect for the faction, providing a cheap intrigue icon and another target to recur with Summer.

Upon her release, players’ minds swiftly turned to the potential impact of playing Valar Morghulis with Arya on the board. This isn’t how I’ve played her. Instead, I find her best use is to push heavy military claim and kill effects and to bait an opponent’s Valar Morghulis. I’ve often won games by marching Arya on a turn where my opponent Valars to kill my dupes. Her synergy with Breaking Ties is also outstanding.

All in all, ‘Valarya’ provides an excellent, viable alternative to Arya Stark from the Core Set and given how that is one of the best cards available to Stark, I don’t think I can give her higher praise. I look forward to trying alternative builds with her ability in mind, enabling an entirely different style of play for the faction.

I Am No One

Opinions are divided on this card. Personally, I’ve found it to be exceptionally useful, including it as a 2x in the Stark Wars deck I took to the European Championships. The card is certainly powerful, providing unconditional insight, stealth and non-kneeling. Furthermore, there are a series of effective targets in faction, as Stark have ready access to a number of two costers with high strength, such as Sansa from Wolves of the North, Hodor and the House Manderly Knight. Despite this, the loss of faction affiliation can really hurt on occasion, cutting off synergies with Last Hearth, Winterfell and the direwolf attachments to name some. A great card for the faction, but one that will never be an auto include. Finally, on to chapter pack six!

Host of the Riverlands

A Tully card that sadly doesn’t do enough to push the theme over the edge. Honestly, bestow has been a bit of a failure these past two cycles, with the only real success being the Saltcliffe Sailor. That card is a testament to the fact that cards with bestow needed to synergise with one another to be truly effective. As it stands, this is a relatively expensive body without an impactful ability and the presence of effective burn in the metagame has really hurt Tully as a theme, due to the reliance on The Blackfish. In melee, this card becomes much more attractive, due to the comparative lack of board pressure in that format and the viability of rush decks. This elevates it from pure binder fodder, but sadly, the Tullys are still swimming against the stream at present.

Godswood

Godswood is an interesting card. Whilst it commits the cardinal sin for winter cards by requiring more winter than summer, it’s synergy with Stark’s claim raise effects and potent source of draw intrigues me. At the moment, the high presence of summer plots in the metagame makes this too unreliable to see regular play, but I was impressed with the card when I spoke to David Kennedy about his experiences running it. Also, the fact this is non-unique and loyal elevates it in my eyes, to potentially rival Gates of Winterfell as a source of draw.

Godswood is genuinely a card I could see beginning to enter the meta in a couple of cycles, providing the design team continues to push winter by introducing impactful plots. Sadly, a certain fat man’s shadow looms over this card, but only time can tell whether a deck develops that prefers this to Wyman.

So that was cycle four for Stark. All in all, a really good cycle that developed existing themes and pushed the faction in a new direction. I can’t wait for cycle five and I look forward to debating my opinions in the comments section. However, before I go, let’s summarise:

Top, bestest, besty cards that are best

1. Arya Stark
2. Greatjon Umber
3. Nymeria

Bad cards, worsty cards, sucky cards which suck

1. Favor of the Old Gods
2. The Dreadfort
3. At Night They Howl