HOUSE CARDS
Excellent. Tyrell’s 1 and 2 cards are nothing spectacular, but they are pretty much exactly what you want from your cards without unique abilities. Mace is a decent 4 card, though more often than not I’d prefer Euron’s single sword to the more limited autokill option. But the real threat, and real fun, of the deck are in the Queen Of Thorns and Knight Of Flowers.
Queen Of Thorns possibilities are endless, and is the single best card for pulling off a backstab move. It’s callous to speak this way I know, but the fact is that while your enemies are going to be aware of when you have her and adjusting around her possible strikes, your allies are not so much. Just when Martell or Lannister thinks they have the world by the ass, she can dip in and remove a crucial support or potential counterattack before Loras drops the hammer.
Loras’s prowess is well known. An extra march order is an enormous advantage that no other house can duplicate (like Martell’s ability to move up the tracks outside of a Clash, Stark being able to return cards without going through the weak ones, or on the much weaker end, Lannister’s ability to enrich itself through battle). Use him as frequently as you can, and don’t be afraid to throw him on a -1 march, since most opponents will be skeptical that you would handicap him in this way and he might just win a surprise battle. You don’t have to enact an extreme scenario of wiping out an enemy’s entire naval force or roll directly through 2 castles in order to get use out of the extra march. Chasing down and killing a routed army (even a small one), spreading single units into unguarded territories like Salt Shore, Boneway, or Greywater Watch, or even just instigating a second losing battle to cycle your hand; these are not the moves that you spend hours plotting to hopefully pull off, but they can be major hassles to your opponents nonetheless.
But fun cards aside, the bigger part of Tyrell’s deck is going to come down to mastering the fundamentals of baiting. That’s right. You have to be a master baiter. I said it and I am not sorry.
The 1’s have fortifications to make them prime candidates for baiting opponent’s high cards, and 2’s have swords to take a bite out of the enemy when that’s all you need to win (Garlan is fairly underrated, imo, given that all four neighboring houses together only have 1 card between them that can block his second sword). If the deck has a single particular flaw, it’s that neither Mace nor Loras have any sword icons, which make them easy targets for being drawn out on defense. I won’t claim to be an expert about all of this, but I’m learning that you always want to use all your marches with Tyrell, rather than being careful with defenses or speculative raids. These help to take advantage when a Loras opportunity arises suddenly, but also to start cycling through your cards quickly when you are baited/Patchfaced into dumping your big cards early.
KEY CARDS:
Loras and Queen Of Thorns. These cards make Tyrell a menace in the final round, when every march counts. Even when they are functionally eliminated from contention for first, they can play a hell of a spoiler almost every time. I am considering starting another thread solely to talk about Turn 10 considerations and strategies, but at the top of that list is that QOT and Loras are closers. Do whatever you have to in order to ensure they are in your hand in the last round. If you are in a tight race with a neighbor, and you can’t parlay the ability to remove one of their marches and add an extra one of your own into a win, you need be ashamed.
Excellent. Tyrell’s 1 and 2 cards are nothing spectacular, but they are pretty much exactly what you want from your cards without unique abilities. Mace is a decent 4 card, though more often than not I’d prefer Euron’s single sword to the more limited autokill option. But the real threat, and real fun, of the deck are in the Queen Of Thorns and Knight Of Flowers.
Queen Of Thorns possibilities are endless, and is the single best card for pulling off a backstab move. It’s callous to speak this way I know, but the fact is that while your enemies are going to be aware of when you have her and adjusting around her possible strikes, your allies are not so much. Just when Martell or Lannister thinks they have the world by the ass, she can dip in and remove a crucial support or potential counterattack before Loras drops the hammer.
Loras’s prowess is well known. An extra march order is an enormous advantage that no other house can duplicate (like Martell’s ability to move up the tracks outside of a Clash, Stark being able to return cards without going through the weak ones, or on the much weaker end, Lannister’s ability to enrich itself through battle). Use him as frequently as you can, and don’t be afraid to throw him on a -1 march, since most opponents will be skeptical that you would handicap him in this way and he might just win a surprise battle. You don’t have to enact an extreme scenario of wiping out an enemy’s entire naval force or roll directly through 2 castles in order to get use out of the extra march. Chasing down and killing a routed army (even a small one), spreading single units into unguarded territories like Salt Shore, Boneway, or Greywater Watch, or even just instigating a second losing battle to cycle your hand; these are not the moves that you spend hours plotting to hopefully pull off, but they can be major hassles to your opponents nonetheless.
But fun cards aside, the bigger part of Tyrell’s deck is going to come down to mastering the fundamentals of baiting. That’s right. You have to be a master baiter. I said it and I am not sorry.
The 1’s have fortifications to make them prime candidates for baiting opponent’s high cards, and 2’s have swords to take a bite out of the enemy when that’s all you need to win (Garlan is fairly underrated, imo, given that all four neighboring houses together only have 1 card between them that can block his second sword). If the deck has a single particular flaw, it’s that neither Mace nor Loras have any sword icons, which make them easy targets for being drawn out on defense. I won’t claim to be an expert about all of this, but I’m learning that you always want to use all your marches with Tyrell, rather than being careful with defenses or speculative raids. These help to take advantage when a Loras opportunity arises suddenly, but also to start cycling through your cards quickly when you are baited/Patchfaced into dumping your big cards early.
KEY CARDS:
Loras and Queen Of Thorns. These cards make Tyrell a menace in the final round, when every march counts. Even when they are functionally eliminated from contention for first, they can play a hell of a spoiler almost every time. I am considering starting another thread solely to talk about Turn 10 considerations and strategies, but at the top of that list is that QOT and Loras are closers. Do whatever you have to in order to ensure they are in your hand in the last round. If you are in a tight race with a neighbor, and you can’t parlay the ability to remove one of their marches and add an extra one of your own into a win, you need be ashamed.
