Then again, I could also scour the local obituaries for names to swell our tournament field...who would know?

Alighty. Freerider and I are across the street at the Holiday Inn Express working on decks. Feel free t text us at 831-239-9817 should you get in today and want to casually play, build decks or just hang out.

If anyone sees this, where is the AGoT tournament at KublaCon?

I will not have a KublaCon badge and need to know exactly where to go.

Also my phone is broken so I cant call Syd or Cha0s

Come throuth the main entrance and walk past the main ballroom, straight to the back wall, there will be bathrooms and miniatures guys in the hall. Corridor turns left and on the left there is then the Harbour room. About what time do you expect to get here?

Joust attendance? House breakdown? Results? Inquiring minds want to know.

Looks like everyone else must still be sleeping or playing, so I'll make the first report:

Attendance was 22. Woohoo!

Syd has a complete list of all the decks, so he can give a breakdown by house later. My impression was that the houses were pretty evenly spread out. (In my five games, I played against four different houses.) I was surprised by how few Lannister decks there were, and how few Shadows cards in general. But I haven't played since last September, so I'm pretty out of touch with the current strategies....

I don't know who won, but the final two were Cha0s (Bara rush) vs. Deathjester (Greyjoy winter agenda, I think).

Syd and Cha0s ran a great event, complete with pizza delivery. The player community is always great, and it was exciting to see so many new players trying the game. Thanks to everyone involved!

Arma virumque said:

Very nice! And I'll be honest, when I did a mental head count for NYC a while back, low 20s was my optimistic everything-breaks-right figure. The West vs. East Battle for the Banners (hey, I just coined that!) is going to be close (at least I hope it is close).

The fact that we were at a convention helped a lot. At least 4 of the players were walk-ins who played their first game the night before, or the morning before, or in at least one case at the tournament.

(That contributed to the deck diversity too, because these new players were all playing loaner decks that had been brought by other players.)

We also had a few new players who had bought the game beforehand, tried it out themselves, and came to the tournament to meet people and get a taste of how the experienced players play the game.

KublaCon Report - Ironman's East Bay hosting

A great weekend at KublaCon. Syd, Chaos and DeathJester did a remarkable job once again in organizing this event. The group of Game of Thrones players probably had some of the most fun over the weekend of any group of gamers at the convention. We had a great mix of old veterans like Black Sword, Freerider and Khaleesi and Kevdawg as well as newer players from local Metas like a few nice South Bay players, a few revitalized Sac Town players, a large group of new players from Chico who have great promise as a large meta, and a few adventurers from Southern California. We were missing Rings and Mathlete as well as some locals but as Wyndwalker commented, our estrogen to testosterone ratio was the highest of the convention. While I couldn't talk Death Jester out a Maester achievement for playing cube draft "As Drunk as Robert Baratheon", I am always impressed with Death Jester's Maester challenge which has been a CaliCon traditon.

I can't emphasize enough how the hard work of Syd, Chaos, and Death Jester has paid off for the California Game of Thrones metas. It is because of the work of those stalwart heroes that I believe there is much potential for a strong tournament scene in Game of Thrones for the long term. Also I feel there is such strong potential for FFG supporting BOTH competitive Joust and competitive Melee events.

Joust

The Lannister deck I played was slightly modified from the Lannister deck I used for a few tournaments in January. While not running Shadow agenda I did have a fair amount of Shadows cards. I really was liking out of house, Taste for Blood in all my matches. Out of house for 3 gold and that card is still worth it most of the time. Littlefinger (does not kneel to attack), Cersei, Tyrion all were strong and running some out of house tech like Taste for Blood and Aegon's Blade really helped. Lannister having no attachment control really weakens them imo as more and more strong attachments are being played. Taste for Blood was played out of house in several different Houses with deadly results.

I had expected a few other players to be using Martell. I had expected Freerider, this year's CaliCon Joust Champion, to have a Martell deck but he was running a Stark deck in Joust. The decks I ended up fearing most were Syd and Devastacia's Martell decks. Red Viper + Lost Oasis is just incredibly potent and Syd and Devastacia are two very skilled players. However in a match against Syd's Viper + Lost Oasis, I was barely able to keep Viper under control using City plot kneels and won a very close match. Syd was unlucky, if I remember, not having drawn a single Taste for Blood which could have easily won him that match even if the Viper was knelt. Getting revenge on Syd's Martell deck left me drained. Although against Death Jester's Greyjoy deck I just got wiped out drawing 6 characters after mulligan, getting owned by a second turn Valar. Death Jester really surprised me by playing Greyjoy; I had also expected Jester to almost certainly play Martell. With Dormouse leaving California, there is not really any consistent Greyjoy players. So I really overlooked Greyjoy in my deck building and probably overly focused on tech'ing for Martell in Joust ( I ran a copy of Den of the Wolf for Joust since I was expecting Viper + Lost Oasis decks and Joffrey (immune to triggered effects) decks but I never drew in match with Syd) and did not anticipate Greyjoy. My lack of Greyjoy tools may not have mattered since Death Jester is just a great player. Chaos and Death Jester both deserved their 1st and second place.

Top Four had four different Houses:
Baratheon (Chaos)
Greyjoy (Death Jester)
Martell (Devastacia)
Lannister (Laughing Tree).

Semi-finals:
Chaos (Baratheon) defeated Devastacia (Martell)
DeathJester (Greyjoy) defeated Laughing Tree (Lannister)

Finals:
Chaos (Baratheon) defeated Death Jester (Greyjoy)

Chaos definitely deserved this victory. He is very skilled player and a creative deckbuilder who comes up with innovative combos. He is also a great ambassador for the Game of Thrones community. Along with Syd they revitalized our entire meta, recruiting many new players and keeping many old ones

Joust was very balanced. While I think only 3-4 people played Lannister out of 22 , I do think these results support the statement that the four Houses above are fairly close now to having balanced options for competitive play. Baratheon, with the last clump of chapter packs combined with the Lannister nerf could easily be the strongest House now IMO. Martell and Greyjoy are certainly capable of beating Lannister when both Houses are played with equal skill. Sure Lannister still has Card Draw and Gold, which are obviously important in every card game like this. However, the game is now releasing cards that make draw and gold less important as mechanics. Hand advantage with playable cards is really the key concept and that is able to be achieved with mechanics besides gold and traditional resource play. While I do believe Lannister may still have advantage since they have a wider variety of options for competitive builds, the other three Houses in Top 4 are much closer to Lanni than at any other time in the LCG environment and could easily overtake Lanni with a few more releasing depending on which cards come out in next releases.

Bara's new card pools allow more cards to be dropped into play with a gold cost, thus bypassing the importance of gold generation. Greyjoy has also found success with the Denial, Lock mechanics. Choking your opponents gold pool and negating draw advantage, as Greyjoy builds can do, can be every single bit as effective as increasing your own draw and having gold on characters. Martell really has some nasty combos and with a little more fleshing out of their House with additional options they are very strong.

Melee

We had a good turnout for Melee with many different players than for Joust actually. I think we had 18 total? I decided to play the Martell deck I built and wanted to play in Joust in Melee tournament (with a few multiplayer tweaks). I personally enjoy Melee and Joust about equally. This could be because of some epic Melee games I've been in and witnessed, such as Syd's CaliCon Melee with that crazy House Arryn card from Talons. My Martell deck was built around Red Viper + Lost Oasis + Taste For Blood (like every other Martell atm) but my own funkiness came in the form of out of house Old Nan with Carrion 'pidgeon' combo. I probably should have thrown in Red Wedding in that deck since that plot is very popular in our Meta especially for Melee. After many hard fought and fun matches with new players like Chris with his Greyjoy and the other player from Chico (I forget name sorry) who played Lannister the Final table for Melee consisted of:

Syd (Martell)
Death Jester (Stark)
Kevdawg (Baratheon)
Laughing Tree (Martell)

Death Jester established a very strong defensive board position with Stark, Syd had out Red Viper with bodyguard and Kevdawg had Renly with mutiple Loyal Guard dupes. Syd played Maester of Lemonwood early and removed 3 bodyguards. That Maester play was critical because he also got rid of the Milk of the Poppy I had put on his Viper. After two plots, the power leader had maybe 2-3 and everyone was playing defensive, although I lost Harmen Uller pretty early to a Guilty trying to have a go at Death Jester's wall of steel Stark defense. Old Nan gave Renly (twice duped and with bodyguard) the Raven trait and shuffling him back into the deck. This was a big play since after seeing that and afraid of Death Jester's Old Nan shuffling my bodyguard'd Arianne Martell back into deck (who was one of my few characters I drew for 3 plots) I decided to play Alliance and my own Old Nan instead of playing Building Season and searching for Den of the Wolf after Syd removed my Milk of the Poppy.

Freeing his Viper from Milk of the Poppy allowed Syd to work his way into the lead. With dupes and bodyguard, Maester of Lemonwood and other strong characters Syd was able to not be too aggressive but still be in strongest position. My Old Nan was quickly killed by Syd's Venomous Blade. In retrospect it would have made sense to search for Den of the Wolf earlier and hopefully allow Death Jester's Old Nan to get rid of Red Viper. Syd had played a power of Blood during turn when Death Jester tried to kill Viper on defense giving out Deadly with Northern Steel. At one point Syd was at 14 power with Kevdawg at maybe 7 and myself at 7 or so. Death Jester while having a defensive board position that no one wanted to even think about attacking (Hodor, Catelyn, cancel Eddard, Robb Stark, Old Nan with Icy Catapult...) was only at 1-2 power most of the time. It took all three of us to prevent Syd from winning that turn. My Southern Mercenaries stealing power and having renown was important. By this time I did get Den of the Wolf out to weaken Viper immunity but it was a little late.

The next turn had both Kevdawg and I at 7-10 power and Syd knocked down to 11-12. Sadly Death Jester only had 2 power despite having strongest defensive board. This start was the key and really important for multiplayer decision making. Since I was holding Make and Example and my own Red Viper in hand, and Syd was still the prime target I picked the title that gave +3 Intrique when Kevdawg chose me to go first (which made Syd last). My thinking was that I could Viper and with my own Viper and Arianne Martell on the table I could feint with them, and make an intrique challenge to Make an Example to win. What I forgot was how the Titles all play out. With Kevdawg as Crown Regent and my own Title supporting Syd I was really limited in my attacks since the ironic thing was I might have been able to pull a power win over Baratheon with the Crown Regent but I was not able to win an Intrique against Stark because of Death Jester's Catelyn. Kevdawg put the Black Cell freeze on Arianne. Death Jester used Cancel Eddard to prevent my using Lost Oasis on my Red Viper as I could have won intrique against Jester if Viper could have knelt Catelyn with Lost Oasis Stealth. Instead I was left just throwing Viper and Southern Mercenaries on an intrique against Jester and losing. This left me with 11 power. Kevdawg was then able to use his Baratheon renown to jump 5-6 power in one turn and take the Melee battle. Kevdawg is always a dangerous opponent and deserved the melee victory although Syd probably was dominating that table after removing Milk of the Poppy from his Viper. Again great thanks to everyone

Final Results:
Joust Champion: Chaos (Baratheon)
Melee Champion: Kevdawg (Baratheon)

Maester Challenge: Devastacia
and if we had calculated an overall champion: Death Jester

LetsGoRed said:

The ball is in your court now. Our poster is signed and ready to go. We also have documented proof of the attendance by means of official convention registration form. Of course I took a pic. I trust you NYC boys will take a group photo or a shot of your reg sheet to prove the numbers.

~and if you have exactly 23, I'm calling foul!

I will post more tournament results as soon as I can, including deck breakdowns. It was an amazing, fantastic weekend. I want to thank Cha0s for running the Melee and DeathJester for taking the hardest job of the Con by facilitating the Maester's Challenge. You guys are the best! Also thanks to all the new players that made the Regionals a truly epic event.

Now I need to play with my much neglected kiddies.

I had nightmares of people asking me for plastic chain links all last night....... not really

Well, normal life has smacked me square in the face so my deck list and tourney report will not go up today, but hopefully tomorrow.

For now, let me just hand out some major thanks:

1) First and foremost to the greatest woman ever, my wife, and the people who helped her not go insane. She didn't just let me attend Kubla. She practically pushed me out the door and stayed home to watch our 2 kiddos. All this 3 weeks after having surgery, and still being unable to lift more than 10lbs. (including both kids). They were pretty much locked up in our up stairs apartment the whole weekend, sleeping on the floor instead of cribs, and having picnics in the living room. To top it all off, the youngest even got sick Friday night. She'll never read this, but the world deserves to know she rocks.

2) FFG for some spectacular prize support. Thank you for for having regionals, and for going all out with the loot this year. People playing other games were attracted to our prize support table.

3) Syd for running a joust with 22 people after giving demos for about an hour and a half. Great job my friend.

4) cha0s for going undefeated on Saturday through the Joust AND Draft events, and for running a superb Melee on Sunday. I'll never let you charm me into using a Scurvy Cutthroat on your Bodyguard again punk

5) All the players who showed up, old and new. Not only did you guys show up, but you showed up in style. Several of the people playing in the Joust had just played demo games the night before, or right before the event. Thank you all for being helpful and curteou with them. I hope they felt wlecome, and I am impressed (as always) by the way people who play this game carry themselves. It was a tough, but friendly, competition and you all represented Thrones well. Thank you.

6) Kublacon for always wanting us to be there, and going the extra mile this year.

Ah Kubla, always so much fun. Deathjester pretty much said it all, but thanks to Syd for running and setting up this whole thing. Deathjester, thanks for the continually evolving ever fun maester challenge. A big thanks to the Kubla staff for really taking care of us and making us welcome, to FFG for all the nice goodies, and to everyone that come out and showed up to play.

Looking forward to Calicon at the end of the summer, and hopefully there will be a chance to get some more games in before then.

As with Deathjester26, my tourney report will most likely find its way up here tonight. However I cannot neglect those who made this event possible and so I must give credit where it's due;

A HUGE THANKS to Syd for his tremendous efforts organizing the Western Regional Championships and countless hours constructing the cube for our draft and for running the Joust/Draft events perfectly. Also I want to congratulate him on his 2nd Place finish in the Melee. Well done!

Another HUGE THANKS to Deathjester26 for orchestrating the Maester's Challenge, an awesome addition to the competitive environment, although a tough and tiring task he pulled it off flawlessly. (Next year we will hire you some assistants to ease the work load)
Congrats to Deathjester26 as well for finishing 2nd in the Joust and then 4th in the Melee, which by my calculation makes him the Overall Champion!

Thanks to all our players! This was the best KublaCon turn out in the last 3 years. Let's double our numbers next year!

As one of the new Chico Meta players, (I played the Baratheon deck that made top 8 in joust) I just wanted to say I had a blast.

I come from a relatively new meta with casual and competitive players alike, but we are all very new to the game, so playing against some of the best was a real treat.

I started the tournament with zero joust and about 5 melee games under my belt, so the experience I got was invaluable.

Thanks again to those of you who ran the event. I hope to see you all in the future.

John (AKA Fieras)

Sounds awesome! I was depressed all weekend on not making it (well, not the time out on the lake w/ beers...but the rest of the time for sure!).

Congrats to Chaos - I knew you could win one (~when I am not there)!!!

Sounds well planned, played, and attended. I love it. Kubla is my favorite Con, and I will be back! KUBLA!

Alright.... deck list time.

Nothing too original here. Just your average GJ Winter deck. I wasn't too worried about running into any summer decks, and the search plots were used as a last resort to make it winter, and to find the Marauders.

House Greyjoy( Kings of Winter )

Characters:
1X Syrio Forel (King's Landing)
3X Island Refugee (A Time of Ravens)
3X Scurvy Cutthroat (Kings of the Sea)
3X Carrion Bird (A Time of Ravens)
2X Maester Wendamyr (Kings of the Sea)
2X Ice Fisherman (A Time of Ravens)
1X Wex Pyke (Kings of the Sea)
1X Theon Greyjoy (A Time of Ravens)
2X Sea Raiders (Kings of the Sea)
3X Wintertime Marauders (A Time of Ravens)
2X Alannys Greyjoy (A Time of Ravens)
1X Dagmer Cleftjaw (Kings of the Sea)
1X Mance Rayder (A Time of Ravens)
2X Jack of all Trades (Kings of the Sea)
1X Asha Greyjoy (Kings of the Sea)
1X Craster (Defenders of the North)
1X Varys (King's Landing)

Locations:
1X Street of Steel (Core Set)
1X Street of Sisters (Core Set)
1X Aeron's Chambers (Kings of the Sea)
2X Longship Iron Victory (Kings of the Sea)
3X Sunset Sea (Kings of the Sea)
3X The Iron Mines (Kings of the Sea)
3X Gatehouse (Kings of the Sea)
3X Iron Island Fiefdoms (Kings of the Sea)

Attachments:
3X White Raven (A Time of Ravens)
2X Support of Harlaw (Kings of the Sea)

Events:
3X The Price of War (Kings of the Sea)
3X Risen from the Sea (Kings of the Sea)
2X Seductive Promise (Core Set)

Plots:
1X Rise of the Kraken (Kings of the Sea)
1X Fury of the Kraken (A Clash of Arms)
1X The Winds of Winter (A Time of Ravens)
1X Blockade (Core Set)
1X A Time for Ravens (A Time of Ravens)
1X Valar Morghulis (Core Set)
1X Summoning Season (Core Set)

A little bit of background....

I really haven't played much, so my goal at Kubla was to play slow and smart. Usually I get too hyped up and just play, but this time I made it a point to go slow, have fun, and walk away happy with the decisions I made throughout the day no matter the outcome.

I apologize to any of my opponents if I get something wrong. My mind was racing with handing out links for the Maester’s Challenge all day, especially at the start of the weekend.

While playing my goals were to: (1) Choke out income via blockade early (if not 1st plot), then winter, and finally with the Marauders. (2) Use Valar to eliminate Characters played early in the game, and come out ahead with saves. Of course, I didn't stick to this in every game, but this was my starting point.

Round 1 vs. Adan (Black Sword) playing ?????? crap, I’m getting old.
Adan’s major trick was to provide cookie squares and brownies for all of the participants… and he nearly got me. Quite honestly, they were so delicious, that’s all I remember of our match. This wasn’t a quick match, but I know the WM helped me to get a good character advantage and close the game out.
1-0

Round 2 vs. Jeff (Freerider) playing Stark Shadows
I can’t remember having ever defeated Jeff. He is a good player that thinks through every step, and quite frankly, I’ve been much too lazy to match his wits in the past. As both of us were playing slow, this was a long game that nearly went into a draw. With Jeff playing shadows, I held off on playing Blockade 1st plot. I figured he was going to play City of Shadows, and wanted to maximize Blockades effect. I believe I played it 2nd, and got quite a character advantage on Jeff early. Jeff eventually managed to get a Black Cells on the table and locked down my WM, but as the game progressed, I noticed Jeff was lacking enough gold to get characters on the table, and cards out of shadows. I was holding 2 Price of War’s in my hand, and just waiting for another character with a War crest to show up in my hand. Eventually, I drew into AToR Theon, got off a Military challenge, and eliminated 2 black cells that had failed to go off, as no cards had come out of shadows that round. That was pretty much the tipping point of the game.
2-0

Round 3 vs. Dan (cha0s) playing Bara
As I had been play testing my deck with Dan the entire night before, and taking his suggestions for changes, I knew he expect the 1st turn Blockade, so I resisted. In typical Bara fashion, Dan managed to get a million characters out early on me. Eventually, I got a WM and started to fight him back a bit. In round 3 or 4 Dan played a Bodyguard on Renly and comically suggestion that I should use my Scurvy Cutthroats to get rid of it. I was looking to Valar soon, but the first thought through my mind was, “He’s baiting you, and has another attachment for WM”. I should have listened to that voice. Renly lost his Bodyguard, and my WM gained a Motley. I couldn’t do much after that. Stupid decision #1 on the day.
2-1

Round 4 vs. Kevin (Kevdawg) playing Targ Winter
Kevin is a great player, and usually wins mosto f our events. Early in the game, Kevin managed to kill a couple of my characters with DoN Khal Drogo and Forever Burning. I made it winter, but that only helped Kevin as he played Threat from the North and Winds of Winter his first 2 plots. After Kevin marshaled in turn 2, all I had left was a Sea Raiders to go up against Khal Drogo and another 4 STR character that Kevin had loaded up with Poison Wine. At that point an announcement was made that Kevin’s car was about to be towed, and he had to leave for a couple of minutes. As I sat waiting, I realized that any characters I put out were just going to have their STR reduced, and be killed by Khal Drogo. I knew I wanted to play Valar next to get rid of Khal, so I just marshaled another Sea Raiders (no attachments for the Poisoned Wine). Not much occurred the rest of that turn, but my Valar worked perfectly in the next plot phase. Drogo was gone, and I was able to marshal out WM, and several other characters. With my saves, and Kevin’s lack of any real burn, I pulled out the win.
3-1 and in the finals!!

Quarter Finals vs. John (Fieras) playing Bara
This was the first time John had ever played in a Joust, and he only had 5 or so games of melee under his belt for AGoT. He was in the finals from a pretty tough field, so I knew he knew what he was doing. My deck was slow and I was terrified of getting out rushed again. Luckily for me, I managed to get my lock down on this game early, before John got too much out on the table. He did get quite a bit of power on his house card, but I was able to locked him down in time.
4-1

Semi Finals 2 vs. Jim (Laughing Tree) playing Lanni
Jim had asked me before the tourney what I thought about his plot deck. He was trying to decide whether to play the City plots, or more hi gold plots. My suggestion was to use the plots that best complimented his deck. After he flopped 2 Weaponsmiths and one Steward, I knew a first turn Blockade was out of the question. In turn 1 Jim marshaled a Castellan and 1 other character, and I basically marshaled a bunch of weenies. I had all the pieces I needed in my hand and Jim have very few resources out. I Valared turn 2, and Jim was left with very little gold due to my Ice Fisherman. Unfortunately for him, he had decided to go with the City plots.
5-1

Final vs. Dan (cha0s) again
I was patiently waiting for Dan to overload the table with characters again, but in the process he managed to get double renown Bobby out with a dupe and vigilant. Dan didn’t need to do anything else. Bobby was running away, and my deck was too slow to catch him. Turn 2, crushed by Grimace.
2nd place

Major congrats to Dan. His deck was much more than a rush deck. His semifinals game was a testament to that. Overall, I was extremely happy with not only the results of my day, but how I had played. I was convinced I was going to get rolled as I hadn’t been playing much, but the approach I took to how I was going to play throughout the day was quite different for me, and really made the difference.

Thanks for the decklist and TR. Congratulations on your excellent weekend.

congrats DJ. sounds like it was a lot of fun (~and you did better then your Devils)

quick question. Why no Milk of the Poppy? had it not been working, was there something you wanted a lot more? It seems like it might have helped a lot against bara (stop grimace) and even though you won Targ and Khal.

Interesting read, DJ26. Thanks for posting. Sounds like you really had a good time at the tournament. May there be many more.

Lars said:

Yeah, I might have to agree with you here. Milk would have helped a lot more than Support of Harlaw. Not that Support of Harlaw isn't a great card. It's just that by the time I get around to using it, my deck is already doing it's thing. In all honesty, I can't build a deck to save my life, and really need to play a lot in order to fine tune things. I really hadn't had the opportunties to do that with this deck. But I agree, Milk would have been very useful, espeically on duped characters I couldn't kill off with Valar.

Great TR DJ - and thanks for posting the deck list. I'm suprised I don't see Sam in there - apart from LIV, htere isn't a lot of draw. And you do have five Ravens...

I agree on the Supports - Greyjoy really doesn't have a lot of stealth anymore, and its harder than ever to get them off - espeocailly in a deck not running unopposed as a major theme. (Once you get them going though - you pretty much own their resources)..

Stag Lord said:

To be quite honest, I can't stand Sam. I hate characters that sit around doing nothing, waiting for their moment to shine. Half the time I suffer over whether or not I should just kill them for claim. In all of my games, I never had to play more than one White Raven, and I only remember seeing the Carrion Bird once or twice, on either side of the table. Both of these cards are used much more in Melee out here.

I could have used a thrid LIV because I sure did miss it in those games where I never drew into one. You're right though, some more card draw would have helped me find the pieces I needed a turn earlier.

Here's my melee deck:

The goal is to build up a defensive wall that is strong enough to kindly suggest to other players that their effort is best spent elsewhere, while at the same time to building up too much, making myself a target. Then I pick away at weak spots for unoposed power and renown. Once I get close, I ramp up my defenses, and shoot to kill.

House Stark

Characters:
2X Catelyn Stark (Core Set)
1X Shaggydog (Core Set)
1X Hodor (Core Set)
1X Maester Aemon (Core Set)
1X Old Nan (A Clash of Arms)
2X Bringers of Law (A Clash of Arms)
2X Northern Cavalry Flank (A Time of Ravens)
3X Bolton Refugee (A Time of Ravens)
1X Maester Vyman (A Time of Ravens)
1X Samwell Tarly (A Time of Ravens)
1X Mance Rayder (A Time of Ravens)
3X Carrion Bird (A Time of Ravens)
1X Varys (King's Landing)
1X Robb Stark (Kings of the Sea)
2X Peasant Defenders (King's Landing)
1X Littlefinger (King's Landing)
2X Eddard Stark (King's Landing)
1X Septa Mordane (King's Landing)
1X Ser Jorah Mormont (Princes of the Sun)
1X Osha (Defenders of the North)
1X Theon Greyjoy (Princes of the Sun)
1X Brienne of Tarth (Princes of the Sun)

Locations:
1X Storm Dancer (King's Landing)
3X Northern Fiefdoms (Core Set)
1X Lord Eddard's Chambers (Core Set)
3X Great Keep (Core Set)
2X Godswood (Core Set)
3X Narrow Sea (Core Set)

Attachments:
3X Icy Catapult (A Clash of Arms)
3X Northern Steel (King's Landing)
2X Bodyguard (Core Set)

Events:
3X Bound by Duty (King's Landing)
2X Guilty! (Core Set)
3X To Be a Wolf (A Clash of Arms)

Plots:
1X Summoning Season (Core Set)
1X Mutual Cause (Core Set)
1X Wildfire Assault (Core Set)
2X The Power of Blood (Core Set)
1X Counting Favors (Core Set)
1X Fury of the Wolf (A Clash of Arms)

Tourney report to follow later in the day.

The Melee

Round 1 vs. James (from Chico) playing Stark, John (Fieras) playing Lanni, and Brandon (Kefka) playing Lanni
At first, I thought this was going to be a tag-team match between wolves and Lions, but James rejected my Counting Favors offer first round, and instead shared his Summoning Season with his meat buddy John. At that point, Brandon was my buddy. James was using King Robb to put out large Stark armies, but Brandon was kneeling them out, and I was attacking with military to get rid of them. Meanwhile, Brandon was building up, and John was attacking him. I had in play Catelyn and Eddard duped and with Bodyguards along with a Peasant defenders loaded up with a Northern Steel. Brandon was running away with the Joff that claims power when a character kneels. Noble characters were basically CBK the entire game as there was almost always a Power of Blood in play. That was great for me, but I really wanted to get rid of Joff and all his power. At the star of the final round, I had 10 power, James had 3 (1 on his house), John had 6 or so, and Brandon had 13, but had just received a Deep Freeze. I played Mutual Cause as my last plot and chose Brandon as he was the only threat to the power on my house. I was going last so I figured I would try to squeeze out a power challenge with Eddard, pray it was unopposed, and then get dom. I flooded the board with everything I could and when it was my turn launched and unopposed power challenge at John. Brandon tried to redirect it, but I couldn’t as I supported James, and had chosen Brandon with Mutual Cause.
1) Me
2) Brandon
3) John
4) James

Round 2 vs. Jesse (Wyndwalker) playing Stark, and Jeff (Freerider) playing Bara Winter
Jeff was putting out all of the pieces to play The Wall with winter and the new Stannis out. At one point I played a guilty on Stannis, only to have it cancelled by Jeff’s Eddard, only to play another Guilty to get rid of him before he got duped. It paid off, as soon after The Wall was played, but Jeff only had Renly out at that point. I had the same cards in play as in round 1: Eddard, Catelyn, Peasant Defenders with Northern Steel. I can’t remember how I finished winning this table but Jesse was close behind me in power.
1) Me
2) Jesse
3) Jeff

Round 3 vs. Jesse, Brandon, and Michael(?) playing Bara
Brandon and Jesse were sick of my tricks at this point and conspiring against me like true STM members should. I saw the same cast of characters, but managed to hold my own against the both of them. Jesse eventually won the table, but I was close behind and I knew I only really needed to not place 4th in order to make the final table.

Final Table vs. Luke (Syd) playing Martell, Jim (Laughing Tree) playing Martell, and Kevin (Kevdawg) playing Bara Summer.
One of these things was not like the others, and it was clearly me surrounded by a bunch of agro power claiming decks. Sadly, I only managed to marshal 2 cards, but I eventually built up my character base. I was never really in this game. Everyone at the table was not about to let me build up too much power or defense. I think the most power I ever had on my house was 2. That, and Kevin’s motley on my Eddard really kept me out of contention. Oddly enough, I probably had the best board presence and was instrumental in deciding who lived and died throughout the game. I just wasn’t allowed any power. Luke got to 13 power, followed shortly by Jim, with Kevin sitting at 11 or so. Jim won initiative, but I managed to shut down his last attempts to finish the game with Eddard cancelling a Lost Oasis on Jim’s Viper, and Catelyn denying his Southron Mercs any STR. With Jim out of the way, Kevin was able to swoop in for the win and win by 4 STR to trigger his Martial Law. A great game played by all but me . Actually, I played ok, but my deck just couldn't hang with this power hungry bunch.

I really enjoyed playing this deck in melee, but found it was lacking against the big guns in the end. It’s a great deck to capitalize on your opponent’s mistakes, but it relies too heavily on what your opponents decide to do. The 3 other decks at the table clearly had their own goals, and were able to go after them with full force.