bloodycelt said:

Jason: You raise a good point; that is indeed a lot of draw sources. The thing with Golden Tooth Mines, though, is that it's consistent, more stable draw. Lanni also uses Insidious Ways and Goldcloaks as secondary sources of draw, of course, but for as minor as those two are, they're also "stable" in that they're not as conditional as, say, having a raven in your hand. In our game, you drew a good bit toward the beginning, but as I knocked a Black Raven out early and after Samwell died, and because you never saw LIV (or maybe I nailed it with a Condemned), I think that situation sort of illustrates my point between consistent and inconsistent draw (Samwell and the Summer Agenda are season dependent, which in turn is very dependent on who can keep winning challenges with the Carrion Birds); Golden Tooth Mines is only affected by location hate, which as I mentioned in the other post is an important part of card advantage. This matchup just might have been more situational, as you did devote a lot to card draw, it's true. What were your other losses to?

CaseyVa said:

While I appreciate the preface, this statement can, in no way be, read as not disrespectful. But good try.

This aside, I agree that there is a limitation in what greyjoy can do. In our meta, greyjoy does very well, but we are more casual and so often we miss possible combinations or deck ideas that might be more competitive. Having played at Black Friday and seen other decks, I definitely have some new ideas for mine, and I'm sure others do too. This just illustrates the need for cross meta play. Greyjoy decks are often focused on the couple things we can do well, like saves and cancels, and some control. This is particularly effective against stark and bara, but lacks against lanni and probably martell when it comes out.

So, it's disrespectful to say the Greyjoy decks brought weren't very good and then you follow up by explaining why they weren't good by mentioning your environment is more "casual"? I'm confused by that logic.

It's not even that the decks were "bad" so much as the environment is so unbalanced with Lanni being a ridiculous house that breaks the game. Had Lannister been better balanced, or the other houses have more consistent themes and card advantage, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Since Lannister is so unbalanced, however, it forces players to either play Lannister or houses that can defeat Lannister. I made the mistake in doing neither and hoping I wouldn't play Lannister (big mistake on my part). Greyjoy is the most obvious house that has a good chance against Lannister while still being strong against other houses and I didn't see any of the Greyjoy decks capable of beating Lannister while seeming to be no better against other houses.

CaseyVa said:

wow, does this discussion really need to devolve into random ridiculousness like this?

its doesn't and i apologize for even posting, seems stupid now, bad night I guess. Casy, feel free to email me and I'll explain what I meant. [email protected].

I'll email in a bit.

I know I can be a little caustic, it's part of my charm, but I hate the word "casual". It's a word I hear a lot in 40k, a game I play much more competitively than AGoT, and usually "casual" is the word people use to explain why they lost and to try to make the person that beat them feel bad for taking something effective.

More seriously, I sincerely meant no disrespect.

CaseyVa said:

I'm sorry "casual" has that meaning for you. While I would agree that casual often means "not perfectly honed" or "not the optimal build", I don't see why that would have to lead to making the person who beat them feel bad. As someone who brought a "casual" deck to Black Friday, I would say that it would explain why I lost to better decks that were better built and better played. But it was my fault that I went 1-3 with a bye. No need for players with better decks to feel bad that they played a better deck in a better way. If you went to win, you should take the optimal build that gives you the best chance to win. If you went to have fun playing games with your friends you rarely see, bring a deck you enjoy playing and have fun with your friends.

I think the problem comes that different players would define whay is "casual" and what is "competetive" very differently. And right now I don't know that there are enough inter meta events to determine those definitions to everyone's satisfaction. Lanni kneel is obviously competetive. But is Greyjoy rush competetive? Greyjoy hand control? Targ burn? Bara rush? Bara control? I think these questions are answered differently meta to meta. How much is deck and how much is player? I'm not sure there is a universal concensus on these questions and until there is we may not all be speaking the same language on the Greater Metagame.

Greyjoy Chris-

For what it's worth, I think your deck seemed very well built, at least based on what you played and what I pulled from intrigue challenges during our game. Your start (2x Boatswain, Dagmer, and an early Longship "Iron Victory") was extremely strong, but the lack of characters late game was pretty unlucky, and it didn't help that three cards in shadows ensured your Boatswain were 0 STR even after a longship pump.

The decision not to run the winter agenda is a tough one, and your rationale (that it was a metagame decision) made a lot of sense but probably didn't work out as well this time around. You definitely weren't the only one making those types of decisions though...Finite ran 2x Black Raven as anti-GJ tech against GJ abut didn't play against any winter decks, so that turned out to be pretty awful . (The thing is, your no-agenda build could have made a huge positive difference had the field/pairings been slightly different.) In the end, all we can do is anticipate the metagame and plan accordingly, but again, I think your deck seemed very competitive, and I wouldn't have been surprised if you had broken to semis.

-

As a general statement, I agree with the sentiment that the winter GJ build is probably the most effective against the most common types of decks for the reasons I highlighted in the other thread on these issues. That said, I don't think it's the only competitive build, and it's definitely wrong to say the GJ decks at Black Friday were the "wrong" type of build. For example, Greg's world champion deck and the GJ deck that the DC meta playtested with didn't run Scouting Vessel, but I found this to be a very annoying card to play against in my matchup with Letsgored. Greyjoy Chris ran those too, but his lack of characters after round 3-ish made them much less of an issue

I should note that I commented on Greyjoy Chris' deck because his was the only GJ deck I played against at Black Friday. (I played against two decks that treatied with GJ, and both were unique/difficult to play against in their own right. In fact, Corey's Martell treaty/GJ deck was the hardest 10 power I claimed all tournament.)

As far as the competitiveness of other houses go, I strongly disagree that nothing can compete with Lannister. (If that's not what was said above, I misunderstand, so please disregard the rest of this.) I think a good Greyjoy deck will definitely compete and may even have an edge over Lanni. A good Targ deck can as well, and the deck I brought to Black Friday performed very well against Lanni players. (Though I lost 2 of 3 games against Lanni, both losses were very close and easily could have gone either way. In fact, despite my record, I actually think my Targ deck will beat the Lanni decks I played against more often than not.) Against a fast Bara deck, Targ (and possibly also GJ) faces a much harder match than Lanni would, however.

I think one of the main reasons Lanni still feels strongest is that it's probably a bit easier to play. By this I don't mean that Lanni players pick the easy way out, or that they are not skilled. Building and playing a good Lanni deck requires much skill. Still, the "optimal" build is probably a little easier to figure out, and I think that in-game play decisions tend to be more straightforward, whereas Targ tends to have more moving parts (Forever Burning, Street Waif, and search if you play summer, etc.) and Greyjoy relies on long-term planning to combo Valar with several saves. Again, this is just my opinion, but I think the current environment is beginning to feel much more balanced than it was several months ago, though balance still isn't perfect.

I was commenting more on the difference in opinion between "casual" and "competetive" decks. It seemed to me that the post Black Friday V analysis from the DC meta claimed that Lanni kneel, Targ burn, and Greyjoy hand destruction were the only 3 real "competetive" builds. I think other metas would argue that there are other "competetive" builds, therefore "competetive" is being defined differently from meta to meta. So what DC considers a "casual" build may be considered a "competetive" build in the NYC or DE/PA metas. Until there are more frequent inter meta events, I'm not sure the greater community will come to a concensus on the definitions of "casual" and "competetive".

For the Record, I think Greyjoy is still a top 3 house, and probably number 2. Targ does have too many moving parts so that the player must either play targ incessantly to think of the parts as 2nd nature or risk making many mistakes during the game. Greyjoy is a little more straightforward.

But I would point to both Targ burn and Greyjoy hand destruction as examples of decks being defined by their player. The average player will not pick up either deck and make them work well. A really good player will take those decks and make them work great.

Greyjoy Hand Destruction?

well - as the Op stated - pre BF testing seemed to show that greyjoy could hang wiht Lannister and have some success agaisnt them - and the DC tests were similar. I won't go so far as to argue that Lannister is broken - but let's face it: Lannister kneel-draw still beats most of the other deck builds out there and is porbably still slighlty ahead of Gryejoy - there is no getting aorund the fatc that all three Lannister decks made Top four, and none of them had losses to non Lannister decks in Swiss.

I agree with Rings that all the Houses have competitive builds - except maybe for Stark. But i do think that Lannister still pretty much wons them all - given players of equal skill.

Kuba said:

Earlier I called it hand control.Look at Greg's World championship deck from GenCon this summer.

kpmccoy21 said:

Can You give me link directly to this deck?

I actually think Stark has some good deck types if you were to remove Lannister from the meta game.

Good Greyjoy decks still have a rough time against Lannister. By no means does hand destroying Greyjoy automatically win against Lannister but it is the best deck to go against Lannister and even then it'd have a hard time winning half of its games.

I think it's to the credit of the community that players try so hard to play outside of these two decks. I think it makes for a better game overall to try to play more varied and interesting decks. All the same it seems that the current meta game is incapable of reliably stopping Lannister.