Do we know how many people played in Joust? And I'm thinking next year I may have to try harder to get to GenCon; if the player pool is this limited, I actually stand a chance. Though probably not against Dobbler. Or LUke. Or the guy who just picked up his Core Set.

26 Players... including ktom. (He played to even out the numbers).

I think there was 20 for meele, and 12 for highlander.

Oh... and Tales from the Red Keep was released.

bloodycelt said:

23 signed up. I evened out the numbers until people dropped (by end of second round), and dropped myself to keep the numbers even. In my recollection, the smallest Gencon Joust Championship ever.

Final 4 were:

rings, finitesquarewell, Dobbler and Jeppedo.

Final table was: Dobbler & finitesquarewell

Dobbler won the Joust.

finitesquarewell was the World Champ for the combined Joust and Melee (the only one to make it to both final 4's).

bloodycelt said:

*Begins round-the-clock vigil on this forum until somebody posts some kind of spoiler*

ktom said:

In terms of participant numbers being low, I think that was the expectation, right? A lot of the tourney-going metas have been hard-hit this last year, and players from those that are forming/growing are still somewhat reluctant to travel long distances. I suspect that, assuming Martell is released and popularity continues to grow over the next year as it has in the past, next year's Worlds should have a strong showing. (In addition, melee seems especially bland right now, with Bara so strong relative to the other houses. I think that over the next year we may see more variety so that players are more enthusiastic to play that format.)

All that said, it sounds like the level of players was still strong. Congrats to all three winners!

Twn2dn said:

Actually, it's less than a lot of people expected. I remember at least one discussion in which people were predicting 30 or more players and I was the pariah for saying I personally only expected around 20.

Twn2dn said:

Like I said before, I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so. This is about the field size (10 to 20ish) we should expect to see at Gencon from here on out. That's been about the size of the CoC field at Gencon since they went to fixed packs almost 2 years before AGoT did. The game is indeed continuing to grow in popularity - among exactly the kind of casual gamers who are unlikely to travel to Gencon for this kind of competition. In fact, there were about 4 - 6 new players who dropped very early, at least in part because the casual experience they had had with the game at the local level bore little resemblance to the competitive experience they had at the con.

I'm not saying the high level of competition is a bad thing - it's actually a very good thing. But the game's growth in popularity doesn't seem to be (predominantly) among those types of players, so I wouldn't expect the growth in the game to translate into growth in the size of the Gencon fields.

Of course, if FFG's plans to jazz up competitive play at the local level come to fruition, all this could change.

ktom said:

What's the current status of organized local play? Is it supported in any way at all?

There may not have been as many players as some people expected, but the events were still a blast. Gratz to all the champions, hope to see you all again next year. ( Except you Dobbler. ; ) jk )

To everyone who attended: It was nice to meet everyone and put faces to the names! Hope to see everyone again next year!

ingsve said:

FFG is providing "League Kits" to retailers for us in running events. Currently these kits include 2 House Pins, a deck of playing cards with GoT images and voting ballots for winners to vote on the direction of future GoT releases and/or cards. I don't remember if the current kit also contains the Power poke counters. These kits cost $15US.

The OP had been lacking, and whether this is due to lack of support from FFG or lack of interest from players (or both) is debateable. I know our local playgroup has lost osme of our competitive players in the last year and a half, but it is starting to pick up again.

JerusalemJones said:

Nate has also said that playmats will be coming in the league kits hopefully in either fall or spring.

ktom said:

Could you tell me which houses they all played?

Any chance of the finalist's decks being posted online??

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Two Lannisters, a Baratheon (Summer, I think) and a Greyjoy Winter that won out in the end.

while there might have only been 25-ish participants i would say this was still a succesful gencon.

My first gencon there were 60 some participants, but i didn't have a tough game until round three (and then they were all tough after that). This year i don't think i had an easy game (i did have a game where i got lucky in having the right draw after a reset to close the game at that point).

And most importantly we had a lot of new players and those players were competative in their games. I was 3-2 with my second loss coming from skeltanator who is a new LCG-era player from our meta. While it sucked to lose (especially in a tight close game) i was thrilled that he did so well and got to play a former world champ (who turned out to be the first [right?] repeate champ in the next round. PLus i got a free dinner out of the game

If you were wondering about the Melee houses as well, I think it was a Stark, Greyjoy, and 2 Bara's. (I think)

all the info i've seen here so far is correct concerning attendance sizes and breakdowns of what was played in the final fours both days. to add detail to what ktom posted earlier, the final four for the joust went like this:

1) finitesquarewell/erick butzlaff, lannister "hyperkneel", 5-0 in the swiss

2) dobbler/greg atkinson, greyjoy/winter agenda "reverse card advantage", 4-1

3) i can't remember this guy's name for the life of me -- he's from MO -- baratheon/summer "infinitely standing robert with hunting spear", 4-1

4) rings/matt ley, lannister shadows, 4-1

the top seeds swept both games of the semifinals, and in the final greg got winter down on plot 1; i didn't see a raven, nor much anything else useful for that matter; i tried to valar to wipe a marauders and a few other guys after whittling down greg's hand as much as i could, but he did indeed have the event save for the marauders; and then he proceeded to wipe my board, i was left with not a single card on the table

Congrats, Erick!

I'm a bit sad to see the turnout was so low but I plan on attending next year.

I think the transition to the LCG format is going to make AGoT similar to Warhammer and 40k in its tournament scene. You're going to have a lot of casual players and a few tournament players. Whenever the two meet it's going to be pretty unfun for the both of them. With a CCG, at least, the buy in made it such that it became difficult to be a casual player and, if you were, you were acutely aware of your status so you would avoid bigger tournaments. The LCG format creates the illusion of equality and whereas someone might be a big fish in a small pond, they're still in a small pond. Granted, I come from the vast ocean of the DC META so I might be a little biased there

finitesquarewell said:

Just for reference, the person playing the Baratheon deck in top 4 of the joust was Jeppedo?/Justin Fox.

Si Senor, that is me. Too bad deck just kinda died in Top 4 play. And Rings will always hold that 3rd over my 4th forever

CaseyVa said:

I think the transition to the LCG format is going to make AGoT similar to Warhammer and 40k in its tournament scene. You're going to have a lot of casual players and a few tournament players. Whenever the two meet it's going to be pretty unfun for the both of them. With a CCG, at least, the buy in made it such that it became difficult to be a casual player and, if you were, you were acutely aware of your status so you would avoid bigger tournaments. The LCG format creates the illusion of equality and whereas someone might be a big fish in a small pond, they're still in a small pond. Granted, I come from the vast ocean of the DC META so I might be a little biased there

LCG puts the focus in the right place - not how much money you can drop on rares, but how good of a player you are. This may mean more "casual players" who can't compete, but it also means some unexpected faces who've done their work showing up and surprising people (apparently, there were a couple this year?)

Amante said:

Not really. At least 20 of the 23 players in the Joust event were indicated somewhere on this thread. And those that were not didn't exactly "surprise" anyone.

I really don't think the "casual players" the game is attracting are the type that regularly attend things like Gencon, and even if they do, they are not necessarily going to choose AGoT events over everything else they could be doing. The LCG model is great and has done a lot for the game - but it's a more local, board-game-like crowd. It's a difficult audience to draw into competition.