bloodycelt said:
Husemann said:
So what was up with the random Vale Refugee?
Because it amused me, and I didn't have time to go hunting for a third orphan.
Granted modification will be in order if I use this later on, it really just doesn't work well vs. Targ.
I see.
As a more curious question, what kind of modification would you suggest for Targ?
@schreck, I rocked Lanni shadows myself but I stayed away from the city plots. Actually until the train ride into the city I was running 5/7 city plots. But the night prior I played stark rush and bara rush and lost -every- game. It really made me rethink my deck, so on my way in I switched up all of my plots and ended up only running city of lies. Which I also kind of regretted. I must make some sort of "City of Lies" Face, cause every time I played it the other guy was like "Fear of Winter 
".
I must say that I hate Fear of Winter more than any other card in the game, but I felt the same way about Valaar when I first saw it. Eventually I learned to work around it. And I must say that Fear can be invaluable in a control deck like Lanni. Got that kneel lockdown on? Sweet, the Fear and bring man's out of shadows like it's going out of style!
All and all, just like some others have voiced, I didn't find fear of winter to be as gamebreaking as I thought it would. I think it does horrible things to the meta, but Blockade hurt me more in most games.
schrecklich said:
Oh, also, just curious what the general community feeling is on this - after I finished my game in round 1, I started watching the game next to me. The players finished round 7 and were starting round 8. One of the players had picked up all 7 of his plots during the plot phase. I pointed out that he had to leave his last plot in the used pile, and his opponent told me that outside comments were not allowed. Is it a common consensus to let rules errors stand if neither player in the game notices them?
schrecklich, I think you were correct to point out the error. I can understand a player not wanting any commentary about a game in progress since it might open their opponent's eyes to something that they hadn't noticed, but a clear rule violation in my view should be pointed out by whichever player or observer has noticed it. I try to remember to say at the start of the tournaments I'm running that it will be "rule by committee" on difficult rule questions; I will try to remember to say that anyone who believes they have observed a rule violation in a game they are not participating should bring it to the players' attentions. (The thornier issue is observing games at all during the Swiss rounds since you might be watching a player who you will then play; I think the NYC tournaments have been low key enough that folks are fine with that (it seemed that pretty much everyone was doing it at some point on Saturday), but I imagine at GenCon it is frowned on.)
Great tournament Jason! wekll run, on time and plenty of goodies for people to take with them. I had the best time i have had at a big event in some time.
It was simply amazing seeing Ktom for the first time in two years. Thank you so much for making the drive from the second City to appear at our event and finish Top Four! Far and away the best aprt of this game is the community that developed around it over the last decade and seeing one of my distant friends in person warms even this grizzled old veteran. It was wonderful seeing you Kevin. I must return the favor when circumstances allow.
Ran Bara noble rush and went 2-2 against a brutal draw: three of the Black Friday finalists and the strongest Stark player in the NY meta. I was playing for the cut in Round 4 agaisnt finitesqaurewolf and i have to be happy wiht that - I could easily have been 0-4 against the field I faced.
I'm very much with ktom and Lars on the Fear of Winter thing. Faced three decks running it - was never a factor. The Plot affects you much more before the tournament than it does you the day of. When you can five or more cards, and if you play carefully looking for RBD or Blockade the next turn - and paln accordingly, you can still be in the game. your deck needs to be pptimized with 0 cost locations and cheap characters. Too mnay three and four cost cards are goign to kill you - so yeah, there are several potetntila builds that are not viable at the moment. But that's the curent metagame we are playing. New cards and reprints will come out to shift things. For GenCon - just be aware of the Plot sequence and plan accordingly. It sucks - but you just have to deal with it.
I loved First Snow - this is the reverse and I'm just going to have to ride it out.
I also think the threat of the Turn 1 win with the Siege + Fear deck is way, way overstated. Mnay decks were running Uneasy Peace this weekend which is a quick and easy solve. Yes - its a sub par Plot, but I think you need to keep it in your hip pocket while this build remains strong. Looks like we are getting a little more Shadows hate with the Bara box - once you have a reliable way to deal with Syrio, the threat of a 10 power, three Claim 2 barrage will be mitigated.
Finally many thnaks to staton for his device and testing during the past few weeks. His assesment of teh Bara matchup agaisnt Lanni shadows was spot on. Eddard is a perfect answer and you can really steamrolller them before they get the City Plot lock set up. I still suspect Lanni hyper-kneel, with redundant in phase control can derail the rush - but I wonder how that build stands up to high claim multiple MIL Stark.....No one was running pure kneel this weekend - all three Lanni decks were City of Shadows. I still think the hyper kneel deck is absolute top tier and i'll be curious to see how it fares in the new, post LoW metagame.
Deck list to follow later.
Great info on all sides, and congrats to all the players. Sounded just great.
I am glad to hear the assessments of Fear/RBD/Blockade. I am not glad to hear of all the meta'ing against it - well, more specifically how you have to meta against it. I don't mind having to meta, but putting in weenies isn't my cup of tea and might led too much into a Rock/Paper/Scissors scenario w/ Targ or the such. The good thing is that I think you can put some plots in for every situation and still be okay...good to hear!
Again, sounded like a blast, and great to see Stark winning. Really, with them being the only house both with the Core Set and their own expansion...they better be decent! 
Good to see Targ played well too.
rings said:
I think people underestimate Targ. It's a lot of moving pieces, but it is really strong control when built for it. It has been playing - and placing - well for months now, but because it has a tendency to end in the 2-3 slot, it doesn't get much notice. But if it is always in the 2-3 slot.... Consider that @ Kingsmoot, there were 2 Targ decks out of 22 - and they made up 50% of the Top 4.
I also think that targ gets over looked as its not a house for everyone right now. I like targ alot, think they have good pieces, I just can't buiild it or get it to work reliably for me. I know Erick was having some issues with it on saturday even though he took it to the top 4 (its tough to remember that forever burning can come back with influence, of which he had none standing, or gold, of which he had 2 left but forgot to take it back. its even harder when you are starting to look at the board and think ahead to next plot and beyond).
we have been trying to targ to work in our meta for long time now, but do not have the right kind of moving pieces player to do so. we know its strong, we just can't recreate it.
Lars said:
I also think that targ gets over looked as its not a house for everyone right now. I like targ alot, think they have good pieces, I just can't buiild it or get it to work reliably for me. I know Erick was having some issues with it on saturday even though he took it to the top 4 (its tough to remember that forever burning can come back with influence, of which he had none standing, or gold, of which he had 2 left but forgot to take it back. its even harder when you are starting to look at the board and think ahead to next plot and beyond).
we have been trying to targ to work in our meta for long time now, but do not have the right kind of moving pieces player to do so. we know its strong, we just can't recreate it.
This is my problem. I want to use Targ, but just can't seem to get the hang of them.
I think they are a good meta choice to be sure.
Weenies are coming back, along with duplicates - burn is good vs. both.
However...I never trust Ktom when he says someone is good - he would win with any house, so that isn't good proof He is, however, the perfect driver for a complex house like Targ right now.
Yeah - I really want Targ to work - a playable Dany would be a huge help. Further, I'm betting there will be some Dothraki themes in the coming months - what with the traited themes we are seeing lately, particularly in the boxes.
Right now they are good in the hands of top tier players - but like Lars said: you need to have the mind to handle the multiple moving parts of a succesful and complex control deck - with multiple interactions between events, resoruces, recursion and effects. The you need to rigorously play test so you know it inside and out. Too much effort for me right now.
Stag Lord said:
Yeah - I really want Targ to work - a playable Dany would be a huge help.
Ya know what... this is true. We have multiple versions of MANY uniques, but we still don't have a second version of Dany.
Maybe instead of making Robert Baratheon version #10, they could throw Targ a bone soon.
I've now put up some photos from the tournament on www.AGoTNY.net. See the "Photo Gallery" page. You can either open up the photos to see captions identifying the players or, perhaps easier, start the slide show in full screen (which shows the captions up in the corner). I'm now sorry I didn't take more pictures and get more of the people who participated.
Dude - Johnna really should have made the photo album. For the sake of variety at least.....
Stag Lord said:
Dude - Johnna really should have made the photo album. For the sake of variety at least.....
Agreed! Also, new players usually like that sort of thing. I know it was kinda cool to see myself in the album....