In this series I’ll be looking at cards that have never even left the binder and seeing if there is any hope of redemption for them. These decks follow a strict set of rules to make my life just a tiny bit harder. It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it.
This weeks victim is Merchant Prince
Oh Merchant Prince, is there a more inoffesively bad card out there?
There’s nothing wrong with you per say, you’re a 3 cost 3 strength monocon who can in theory just get better. So why do I hate you so much? Is it because I tested you during a time I really couldn’t be bothered? Or is it down to the fact you ended up taking far more deck space than you’re worth? Maybe I just find your expression a little obnoxious after spending so long staring at it. Either way, lets look into our fun adventures together.
I know in the first article I made a strict set of rules to be followed to really give those cards a chnace to shine. Well those are out the window already as I only built one deck to test this guy out on. They had a good run. Targ crossing was my first choice as I figured a character who would potentially become a tricon would be great to get all three challenges done. Then I couldn’t think of another deck and was tired after nationals so left it at that. I wanted to give the old merchant a chance to shine so I auto included 3 of him before building up a basic Targ crossing character base. No Mirri though, I have some pride and I just can’t do it. Then I added 10 attachments. That’s right, 10. And only one of these was a negative attachment, the rest were all there to give my little prince the chance to become a real man. So I went with 3x Beggar King, A: because it’s a good card and B: it’s the only Targ attachment he can actually use due to a big lack of dothraki traits, 3x Nobel Linage because it’s 0 cost and turns him into the aforementioned tricon, 2x Knighted because strength boost and I was just trying to make him janky by this point, and a Green Dreams for luck because I’ve missed that card. Plots were fairly standard, with a summons to try and find the Prince and a Building Orders to try and grab an attachment for him (a decision I would soon regret). The deck can be found here.
I did a quick test starter hand on thronesdb for fun and drew a reducer, Merchant Prince (or MP as he’s now going to be called), Noble Lineage and Knighted. A 5 strength tricon knight on set up seems pretty cool, how bad could this be?
Game One vs Bara Kraken
First game was against Joe’s Bara Kraken. This deck came 4th in the swiss of UK Nationals, I have never beaten it and I hate it more than anything on this planet. So I was stoked. Set up was fine my end, Khal Drogo and Viserys (probably the King one, the reason I was running both is a whole other story). I wanted the testing to get going and luckily I drew into MP first turn. Sure he looked a bit sad as Robert Baratheon entered play but it was all good. The turn after I even drew an attachment, and ended up with a Beggar Prince and Noble Lineage on him, the tricon dreams were real. As board states go it was fairly even, he had Mel but I had Dany, cards like unsullied and Song of Summer were played, maths ensued, power challenges were recounted multiple times. MP genuinely did help with the crossing side of things, though it was usually because he was thrown in for my first ‘I don’t care’ challenge. I actually thought the game was going okay until Joe had the nerve to say ‘renown brings me to 15’. Somehow he won without me noticing. Still, I couldn’t hate on MP too much, he did what I wanted from him though his impact was minimal.
Loss
Game 2 vs Stark Crossing
Next up was Stark crossing, again against Joe, and this time I had Prince from turn one and an attachment soon followed. Honestly there wasn’t much to say about this game, it started well in my favour, then Daenerys got Iced and this picture basically sums up what happened.
A very basic game with no real use for MP except on defence.
Loss
After a break I went back into testing, this time against Dan from Decklist t and Chill, as a way to break down walls and end bitter rivalries. Plus he was down for some games and I was free so it made sense. I went up against his Tyrell Summer deck twice.
Game 3 vs Tyrell Summer
First game had a nice set up with Aggo and something cheap, and drew up to a lot of attachments. This was my hand post Summons.
It was a lot of fun trying to explain to Dan why I was so visibly disappointed in what was a brilliant summon, as I was trying to keep the fact this was a tester deck secret. So I sat on my hand of attachments, sadly burning Knight of Flowers to death while I waited for my Prince to come. Sure I had a Noble Lineage on Aggo making him amazing, and I’d crowned Randyll Tarly to make him unusable, but it all felt hollow. I won a brilliant victory but not once did I see MP.
Win
To make up for this I played a second game against Dan’s deck, but sadly I lost my notes on this one. All I can tell you is Randyll Tarly came back for some hardcore revenge, MP came out with every attachment out there, and my character draw was so bad I had to pass on taking advantage of Bitterbridge twice. By this point I fully resented old MP and the amount of attachments I was having to run to make him any good and couldn’t wait to put him back where he belonged. He did however have one more chance.
Building a deck around MP was obviously not working, unlike Renly who could work as a key card, MP just doesn’t justify taking up a large portion of deck space when it’s precious enough as it is. I decided out of the goodness of my own heart to give him one more chance in a realistic setting, so I tried to slot him into my own Targ Crossing deck, you know, a good one. I gave him 2 copies as that was all I could fit in after cutting something, and left myself with just two viable attachments, both copies of Beggar King. Sadly then life decided to throw a curve ball of fun stress my way so I never had the time to play any games. The best I could manage was a very fun and totally fair draw simulator that just consisted of me drawing a set up and then drawing 2 cards at a time to see how often MP would be any good. As such my three tests went like this.
Take 1
5 turns until I drew MP
9 until I drew a copy of Beggar King
Take 2
Beggar King in starting hand
12 turns until I drew into MP
Take 3
15 turns for Beggar King
16 for MP
Obviously this isn’t really a fair way of working this out. I run Summons which would lead to a shuffle of the deck, then there’s insight and Funeral Pyre, so in reality it’s not quite so dramatic. And of course if we only ran cards based on how likely we are to see them we would all shun Crown of Gold right? The problem is, Crown of Gold is a big impact card, Merchant Prince is not. He might be helpful if he pulls off, or as chud, but honestly who can find the space for him? Pre Beggar King I’d have said no one, post Beggar King, I’d still probably say no one. I had to drop Doreah to fit him in my deck and that’s not a choice I would ever stick with. With the card pool growing bigger and bigger, while Merchant Prince might not be inherently bad, he’s not really bringing anything good either. There’s simply no space to fit him in. Maybe one day if Targ continues down the path of attachment interaction cards (looking at you close contender for an article Vaes Dothrak) he might find a space, but until that day this Merchant just hasn’t sold himself to me.
Final Verdict.
Back in the Binder.
The Southron Bannermen 