ATTENTION

I'm stealing from space here on the main board to make sure the word gets out.

On Sunday, May 24th (the Sunday before Memorial Day), a bunch of the various Illinois metas are coming out of hibernation and getting together for some AGoT in Elgin, IL. It's not ChiCON and the Casino of Mundelein, but it should be a good time, nonetheless.

It's looking like a real Gathering of the Clans. Preliminary count say there could be 10-12 people there, so I thought "what the heck." Anyone willing to make the drive to the western suburbs of Chicago is welcome. It's a great opportunity for people new to the game and returning after a hiatus to play some "relaxed" AGoT, eat free food, talk crap, and generally have a fun day of gaming.

(We're easing some returning people back into the game, so the format will likely be Standard. But if you are an "LCG-only" player, you should come anyway. We can organize play among formats or provide you with non-LCG cards - and actually, some of our play has shown that LCG decks can stand up very well against Standard decks.)

Madison? SWMI? Anyone else who may be out there and interested to see what other people are playing? All are welcome. Just give a shout (here or otherwise) to let us know you're interested/coming - and so we can tell you where it is. Accommodations can be worked out if you don't feel like making the round trip in one day.

Cool! Hope you get a good turnout. Sadly, I already have plans for that weekend, but here's wishing you the best.

Anyone thinking about attending really should go. These guys know how to put on a great time.

Sounds like a good time. Wish i could be there.

I just spent four days in Chicago and it didn't even occur to me to bring my decks... then again I was there for work and I had nearly zero free time other than my going to Spybar and the Darkroom Thursday night.

Next time, I'll shoot you an email to see where y'all gather.

Travel is tough rigth now - but that shoudl be a lot of fun.

And I agree - I ahev seen some really solid winter LCG decks that ttoally owned my Stadnard builds. at this point, some LCG decks can stand up to Standard - but the location adn atatchment control still gives the older format teh edge.

Who is planning on attending? ShieK/ ProfessorAJ? Staton's crew? Luke? Please keep us posted.

Stag Lord said:

Sheik, myself and some of the new guys in the area will be there. Probably will not see ProfAJ. Staton's "new" crew is coming, but I don't have numbers. What some people may think of as Staton's "old" crew - who are really the illustrious Sworn Brothers - are bringing 4. A bunch of good players and good people forming the base here....

Stag Lord said:

and cancle/lack of cancle. Standard decks get to do what ever they want. LCG decks have about a 33% chance of their stuff getting stopped.

I'll be wishing you guys the best from Kubla.

Still, I'm diggin' the possitive vibes I get from announcements like this. It feels like the community might just be growing back together.

Wow, sounds like fun - I can't make it that weekend though, as we're trying to organize a friend's bachelor party/getaway for that weekend ( and unfortunately, he's not an AGOT player).

I'll be bringing 4 people including myself. 2 of which are relatively knew and 1(Katie) who's been playing for a couple years now. Andrew and Charlie are bringing Squeak out again(after like a 4 year hiatus from AGoT!) and his gf who is a brand new player. A nice mix of old and new me thinks. I'll give a shout at the SWMI guys, I know they were wanting to get back into thrones.

oooo! Looks like I just got a 5th confirmed for bloomington. Kyle will be back from school and ready to play some thrones. *sigh* yet another deck to build.

That is awesome news guys and we will all be very interested to see what develops from your event.

And Lars - i agree. playing LCG v LCG gets a little predictable form your end of the table, since you are pretty much guaranteed of getting whatever effect you what off.

And attachment control is becoming a big deal. I'll have some comments on that over the next few days.

Ok, so andrew john and I played some games last night and Andrew's GJ deck is crazy annoying. Yet still good! I'm used to his GJ decks being annoying, but winning too?! ~I'll have to slot in some Men with No King in my deck! Andrew won't even see it coming!

sarcasm aside. MWnK would be a good answer to GJ right now. unless they are running only 3 locations....

here is my AIM: larsAGoT

Well looks like I better get on that lcg bara deck.

Also, I don't know if MwnK would help against Ironborn's deck. I didn't have that much gold in the first place, letalone the extra 2 to steal his one valid target for MwnK. Although if I would've stolen Mance, then I would've had the extra gold. A paradox there. Anyway, everyone seems to say that there isn't nearly as many resources in LCG, so where do you keep getting 2+ extra gold every round?

And isn't Andrew's deck made for a Standard environment, anyway?

BTW: MWnK needs 3 gold more often than not - 2 for it's own ability and 1 for the cost that 83% of the Reinforcements events have.

wow i feel like people don't read... from MWnK T2 post

Twn2dn said:

Lars said:

its about 12 resource locations in the deck

Lars said:

Um... what are you you responding to with the prolonged quote from the other thread? It doesn't seem entirely applicable, anyway.

- My comments that Andrew's deck is built for Standard was more a comment on MWnK being a less reliable/powerful answer to GJ in that environment (because GJ can use far fewer neutrals outside of LCG).

- My comments about MWnK being more likely to need 3 gold to trigger was a direct response to Staton's comment "I didn't have that much gold in the first place, letalone the extra 2 to steal his one valid target for MwnK."

- Staton's own comment about "Also, I don't know if MwnK would help against Ironborn's deck" seems based on the resource base of his current deck. I read it as him saying, more or less, that he didn't think he could just slot them in. Knowing the way Staton usually builds his resources (tends to be bigger on reducers than gold) and his propensity for 3/4-cost Bara characters, that's not surprising. The quote from the other thread is useful if Staton wants to start from scratch (and maybe he'll have to), but regardless, if Andrew's GJ deck is Standard, not LCG, he'd do better to adapt your suggestions to THAT environment - including an examination of whether or not MWnK is the appropriate response to the deck.

~Although honestly, by that point in the MWnK T2 thread, yeah, I had stopped reading.

You know, I have actually been keeping my character cost down lately, and my gold curve up. I have 2 fallow fields, robert's chambers, 2 rare kingdoms, 2 hamlets, and 3 seas. along with 3 reducer guys. I just wasn't getting enough of it against Andrew. Even though I drew almost 20 extra cards. hmmmm. Anyway, if we are talking about broken cards, I'm going to say its that new GJ army that discards cards long before MwnK.

Staton said:

The defense being "it has to be Winter" and "the target has to be non-unique." Which is kind of like saying "it's Doomed, so that balances it out"....

But yeah, come July when they (probably) get their own in-House resources, I wouldn't be surprised if GJ rockets to the top of the "strongest House" discussions.

ktom said:

[shakes head] how about this part?

Staton said:

and that was only in my second post in that thread. Maybe i should be glad people are dismissing MWnK. Staton told me today "so what, i don't toolbox much anyway..." ok then MWnK did its job for me again before the game started.

I think that GJ card is pretty strong too, just like a think Shadow Stalker is very strong (and under noticed, perhaps). It was brought up as an answer to MWnK, right now i'm not 100% sold on that. I need to see whats in the Expans still before i'm sodl on GJ rocketing to the top. I htink they have some neat tricks right now and in house resources will help, but i don;t know what the focus of the expansion's going to be. Is winter going to become its main theme, are they going to have 3-4 themes (which i think would be bad, as opposed to 2 themes, winter and something else) like they had been moving towards in 5KE. I still think intimidate is one of the weaker keywords (maybe best of the bottom 3?). What holes is GJ going to have, in relaisitically 50 cards or less there are going to be some. Those holes make toolboxing more important (and thus strenthen MWnK).

I don't see it at all likely that any season mechanic is going to be included with the GJ and Martell expansions. Were there any for the Core Set Houses? These expansions are, if I interpreted Nate correctly, supposed to be plug and play decks expansions for the Core Set. Including mechanics not supported in the Core Set just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Did I miss something?

dormouse said:

No, that sounds about right to me.

Lars said:

And that's why we ask. Considering that there were 3 - 5 other comment made between Staton's "not nearly as many resources" and your "no one reads," it's not that surprising I lost what you were responding to in there.

Lars said:

Hence the "sarcasteric"

Lars said:

Many cards have historically "done their jobs" before the game started. Heck, Black Walder did his job while seeing almost no play at all.

I doubt the expansion will have more than 1 or 2 "themes." Thing is, Winter for GJ isn't really a theme in and of itself. It's a tactic. It supports almost all their other themes and strategies with minimal effort on the part of the GJ player. And Wintertime Marauders is virtually a toolbox in and of itself (spot location, character AND attachment control in one card). I mean, Wintertime Marauders, Horn of Winter, Winter Armada and Thuggish Tactics slots right into a GJ deck, supporting both unopposed and location control. And it's not like you need to combo those 4 cards for them to be useful. Assuming we see similar resource cards in the expansion, GJ is going to be a bear when they don't have to pay 2-gold to get a 1-gold income bonus card onto the table.

But that's enough. Shame on Staton for hijacking my hospitality thread! (And on me for cruising with it....) From just the Illinois folk, we've got 12 confirmed. Anyone else want to come to this little shindig and see Staton lose to Andrew's GJ deck in person?

Just curious, does anyone have a cookie-cutter decklist of a MWNK deck? I'm thinking of putting together a deck to playtest with. Basically, I am still grappling with how the deck actually functions--namely, how it marshalls the large armies and saves enough gold for stealing, all while still keeping up on playing other characters/cards so that it doesn't fall behind if the opponent doesn't play neutrals. (I wouldn't say I'm doubtful that the deck does what people say it does, I just don't quite understand how a deck that devotes 15+ cards to this mechanic wins when there are no good targets to steel and/or the opponent is playing location discard.)

...maybe I should have posted this on the MWNK...