Congratulations to Gualdo! I'm so happy that you won. Too bad I lost with Kabe. If I hadn't bad luck and didn't do stupid mistakes I would play with you semifinal (which I would probably lost).

BTW 4 hours of sleep and then 15 hours tournament with all that noise - that's no fun anymore. And then instead of sleep I had to go back by night train to catch the plane .

Hi Rogue, so nice to have met you at Staleck and you played Stark (if I rememeber right) with honor.

There were a lot of noise you are right... the tourney were so long... but it was so nice from my side... maybe because we are latin and so we are crazy ;-)

Gualdo said:

Of course!

Just do some great card for Stark (not for Martell you traitor! )

Greyjoy at the moment need a card the most :-) But every minute I change my mind about it :-)

Walter Frey! We want a new Walter Frey!

AU AU AU :-)

Ps sorry, this post is understandable only for the tourney attendant ;-)

some other pics here:

http://www.agameofthrones.it/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24352#24352

What a great weekend!!

First of all congrats to Gualdo for winning the biggest joust ever. In my opinion he is the true WORLD CHAMPION!

Arrived with the rest of the portuguese crew in Stahleck with 2h slept in the night before and after not much more than 1h started the Kingsmoot.

1st game - I was playing GJ with Melisandre as guest star for extra power on unopposed challenges. Played against WWDrakey using Stark, a spanish Targ and a french GJ. Finished second after offering Drakey to choose the card he needed from "to be a wolf" to steal the last title from the Targ thus making me stay in second place with only one title but almost no power .

2nd game - One of the most funny ever. The TRUE KINGSMOOT, 2 spanish guys, me and my fellow country man Tovra.pt all playing Greyjoy decks. The Iberian Kingsmoot. Very funny game with one of the spanish guys even making comments as we marshalled our characters (Asha, Victarion, Euron) that played a part in the scene in the book from where this melee variant comes. Unfortunately me and Tovra.pt drawed for last place with the same titles and power and the spanish guys taking first and second place.

3rd game - Another game with my portuguese friends Claudia and Fábio and a spanish guy. All of them playing Stark against my GJ!! I thought I would place last here. How would I survive 3 furies of the wolf?? Well I rushed to the victory with Scouting Vessels and Support of Harlaw and managed to go first always against who had the Fury plot revealed and placed first on the table.

Placed 16th on the melee. I was finally off to bed when... wait our young padawan and squire Henrique made it to the final table with his Martell Viper rush...

Boy was that intense, I stayed with the rest of our crew supporting him. Sadly he made a mistake in the last round and Jakub won the table otherwise he could have won the melee! We also left the game hall with the notion that one of the spanish guys was in fact playing with 2 decks, his own and the one from the other spanish player since he was calling all the moves that the other player should do. Anyway Henrique placed 2nd and it was the best result from our team from Portugal and so we celebrated a lot during that night and the high point was when we knighted Henrique using a miniature lightsaber. He arrived a squire and left Stahleck as Ser Henrique of Stahleck. We're crazy I know!

The joust I'm not even going into it in detail since it went so bad for me.

Played again with Greyjoy against Old Ben in the first round and lost to his Baratheon rush. I opened with Valar for his set up Melisandre and discovered the next turn that Many Powers Long Asleep was already legal in the tournament... I thought it was coming only with Kings of the Storm... lol Anyway after this game it only went downhill.

Played against Swiss Martell with agendas( hurray Darkstar being discarded with Val, but coming to the table anyway!) and lost, Italian Targ burn and lost. After losing 3 times the rest of the games were just for fun. So, French Stark with Bear Island and won, French Greyjoy and won, German Stark Winter and won and finally Polish GJ winter and lost already on time out. (3 wins - 4 losses)

After this went for Bacharach to meet the rest of the portuguese crew and our friends, the finnish couple for some wine tasting and pizza!!

Very funny was also the way that our friend Alex was cheering for Gualdo to win the joust. He lost against Gualdo in the last round and so didn't make it to the top 16. So we wanted Gualdo to win so Alex could say he was beaten but only because it was by the champion. ahahaha

The next event was the Nation's Cup that actually was my favorite event!

Our national team played against 2 german teams. First round we did 3-3. I played with the Greyjoy and Martell decks. I took a bite of the german Red Viper but then bit back when the portuguese Viper bit the german baratheon rush. During this game my balls fell when the german player played Fury of the Stag. Because I'm not used to play Martell and only realized that fury of the stag is against martell when it was already in the table ahahah...

Second and last round I played against Gleb. First GJ against Baratheon Rush and managed to win even with him very cleaverly forcing me to reveal a new plot when I was marshalling Melisandre using Alliance. On the second and most freakish game I ever played, I took my red viper against a very annoying GJ mill and managed to win just one minute before time limit and with all my deck milled. I was "confessed" in the first round after getting viper with summoning season but with an incredible lucky draw in the last rounds managed to get herald of the sun and house messenger. After shuffling the deck and putting viper on top I marshall house messenger and reveal the top 2 cards. The viper that was already on top and.... another Viper that would go to the bottom! Everybody just laughed at the irony!! ahahah Thanks to Gleb for this game and also for giving me two pets to keep me company even when valar came... 2 wharf rats... eheheh

The ambience between the players was great, had a great time also with the other portuguese group that was playing Warhammer Invasion and the spanish guys are really crazy! The spanish Cersei and Lannister man at arms were really great! And thanks to Kabe for including us in the warcry in the last round "Españoles, Italianos, Portugueses" "Aú Aú Aú!!" Sorry to the guys from the other countries, yes we are latin we make a lot of noise!!

Finally thanks to Thorondor for organizing all this. Hope to see everyone again next year!

P.S. Maybe FFG should send some representatives next year since this event is much larger than GenCon

Lord of Blades said:

I had a great moment with all players and portuguese and spanish guys expecially were so kind with me with support and friendship. About the "true world champion" issue... it is not that easy... if we look at numbers you are right...

Before going to Staleck I contacted Ercik to arrange an online WORLD final via OCTGN2 with the future European Champs. Now that I'm the European Champ this officiality is not needed for me... I tested a lot with Erick, he helped me a lot and I have stolen lot of tricks to him so I'm ok with this title ;-)

The thing that I'm proud is that my deck was made by me by 90% and I'm very happy it worked.

it would be more fun to organize a USA vs Europe (Top 4 vs Top 4) OCTGN2 tourney as we did in the past...it would be funniest in my opinion... what do you think?

I will open a thread related.

Ps to solve the world vs Europe situation would be great if FFG would help Top 4 European champs to come to Gencon and Top 4 World Champ to come to Staleck next year. Maybe paying the plane or giving some help paying part of the cost.

I don't know if this is finantially feasible but surely will be very appreacieted by all players in all the World and will help the growing of the game and the numbering of people taht want to compete in tourney.

Hello everybody!

This is Aioria and Allyria Lannister reporting a very brief post from Spanish lands!

First of all, thanks to all of the players for making of this event something hell fun and memorable. Thank you as well for all the kind words about our costumes... It was a crazy idea we got in the last moment. We are happy that the people liked it and we encourage the rest of the players for the next year to bring their own!!

I have to mention to all the people I played against (lets see if I remember): Joao, Lyo, Gleb, Jef, Jakub, Michal, Harren, and Boots. They are all great players and I am happy to have played with them. Special mention to the matches with Michal and Jakub in the top 16... Really really hard! Any of us could have won. My congratulations to this two players that I consider that were to of the best of the tourney and that could have easily won as well (and without 6 agendas! hehe).

Of course, our congrats to Gualdo. He is a very nice person! I hated to loose in the semifinals; I would have loved to play against him (maybe soon in Spain? ^-^). Also missed playing with Gilles, from whom Ingrid told me great words. I think he deserves this mention; not easy to be such a great player living in the Luxemburg that hasn't that big community of players!

Thanks A LOT to Wolfgang; it's amazing how he manages to organize all so well and be so kind at the same time! Man, you deserve a lot!!

GO SPANISH ARMADA! We are crazy, we were one. It's great to have this community of players.

When I have more time I'll make a better report of the games, deck and maybe some pictures! ^^

For the time being, see ya!

Aioria said:

We are working on the Madrid "coming"... we think january can help us to organize the thing. Anyway as I said in other forums Tourney is ALL, skill, luck, magic draw when you need... and pairings... I didn't faced a single lannister and their toll gate and kneel would have surely made me difficult to go on.

So let's match in the very near future... without agendas of course ;-)

Gualdo said:

Just an aside, some of this thread is getting borderline xenophobic, and I usually have pretty thick skin about such things.

Has the US every disparaged any of our European counterparts? Ever said that your Italian and German huge tourneys are not easily as important as GenCon? Ever said that your European champions are lesser than ours (the US population is likely larger than the population of the 4-5 countries I for sure knew was in attendance)?

If so, I apologize for my country-people words - all the US aGoT players I know of think the Euros are just as good. I can understand if you don't get as much love from FFG, but that is just logistics and maybe total sales/profit...hopefully it doesn't start a complex.

No issues, I just don't want either this thread nor any type of OCTGN tourney to get all nationalistic ~We are all card-flopping people of this world!

rings said:

I agree, I think Lord of Blades have no idea that his words are rude.

Aioria said:

I must admit that both games with You (pre top 16 and during) were tough ones and balance of power was shifting from one side to the other. Most important lesson we learnt at Stahleck was, that beside deck construction, playing skill, luck there is a fourth factor - fatigue of a player

It was a great tournament and it was a pleasure to meet all of You. Polish crew will be back next year, lets hope in even bigger number

Regards,

Jakub

rings said:

I think Lord of the Blades was joking. But let me see that I never said something like European do it better or something like that (even if a Staleck I had a tshirt with italians do it better :-))... I also wrote in my report that my deck worked so well also thx to testing with Erick and stealing some of its ideas ;-)

OCTGN" USA vs Europe is a logistic name cause the first international tournament we had caused some people to drop tournament cause timezone differencies so with Jonhatan Benton we decided to make the second one splitted. And unify it only in finals.

I arrived in Top 8 but lost in the first final against Jonhatan if I remember well and the tourney was won by Erick with Zsa in final (where are you Zsa??? :-( ).

So don't read the thread title as regiophobic :-) It is not its intent :-) I want the game as unite as we can that's why my proposal to invite top 4 european at Gencon and top 4 USA in Europe... if it is feasible for the company of course.

Geez, this issue is getting a bit out of control...

I want to start by saying that I, or anyone else for that matter, have never mentioned or implied anything about US players not being as good as european ones, or anything as extreme as to being xenophobic or disrespectful...

What I do think is that FFG should give more support to european players and that if you consider the sheer number of players and nationalities represented in Stahleck, that should be a factor in deciding where the world championship should be.

Like Gualdo said FFG should provide to US players to come to Stahleck or vice versa, the european top players to go to GenCon. I think until this happens that I have the right to have the opinion that GenCon should not in fact be a world championship but a US championship.

I find it redundant having to explain here that I ironically said that Gualdo is the true world champion as a compliment to him as a great player and also to Stahleck as the great tournament it is, not to insult any US player or champion as not as good as an european...

That's right we are all card flopping people from all over the world! We must stick together...

rings said:

Also sorry for my account if my sarcastic remark on still having more people behind me than the world champion somehow contributed to such a feeling. I was just still being astonished by the sheer size of the tournament! I think any and all quips in this thread should be taken with a piece of salt, or possibly a "~". Also when not writing in one's native language, people tend to come off a bit more abrupt than they mean to.

But then, umm, sorry about this... I just HAD to check the population facts. (Really sorry about being tiresome, but then that comment somehow stuck with me.)

Nationalities mentioned in this thread (9 so far, not 4-5) together with populations from english wikipedia: Italian (60 mil.), French (65 mil.), German (82 mil.), Polish (38 mil.), Spanish (46 mil.), Portugese (10 mil.), Finnish (5 mil.), Czech (10 mil.) and Luxemburg (0.5 mil)

Totalling at around 317 mil. (Did some rounding to nearest integers) And I know at least Switzerland is missing from this list.

US population according to wikipedia: 310 mil.

So... pretty even actually. We win by one Finland in card-flopperdom! ~and as I was the only player from Finland, all of the honor belongs to me, right?

- WWDrakey

PS. Stahleck has been a bit of a Mt. Everett for me as well, but let me tell you, gathering the courage to go there was one of the best decisions I've made in my life! =)

Thumbs up for mentioning our meager Luxembourgish 0.5 contribution.

Swiss and Austria are missing. I think we had one person from the Netherlands, and a couple of belgian Cuthuluh (I probably spelled it wrong again) players too. Also 1 english Warhammer player (so I heard).

What amazes me the most is the number of kilometer/miles, resp. the amount of time people are willing to travel/invest to attend such an event. Same goes for the boardgame fair in Essen, where people literaly gather from all over the world.

I'm so glad that Stahleck is only 2 and Essen only 3 hours away from Luxembourg. (Yes, we are a bit spoiled... )

WWDrakey said:

You forgot to add around 35mil (Canada) to you USA total and should just call it North America. Ofcource then that opens the door to Mexico.....

Jekothalep said:

Yeah, Essen game fair is next week - it´s supposed to be a golden october fro gamers. I only wish FFG or Heidelberger Speilerverlag ( the german distributor) had sort of a tournament program for the game fair. I always enjoyed the decipher tournaments at Essen game fair. And i would love it to have again a bigger lcg/ccg tournamnet at the game fair. The atmosphere is just fantastic.

No issues LoB (wow...a new LoB - that was Lord of Brewtown for years, now a Lord of Blades has arrived!), sarcasm never translates onto boards very well unless there is a '~' before it.

However, saying he is the 'true World Champion' WAS a little easy to misconstrue on this side of the Pond. I totally see the reasoning behind it (i.e. # of players, the nationalities), but without us testing our meddle against each other someday that is impossible to say. Which is why I am very careful to congratulate our brethern and never say something like 'well in the US you wouldn't have won' or other such crap that is probably not true. Also, you had a ton of countries, but is skewed by population a bit (i.e. I can count players from over 13 States and at least two Canadian Provinces...and one Englishman that I have played at GenCon).

Even in your rebuttle you said saying he is a true world champion doesn't lessen the 'other' world champion over here. How could that be? If I was the 'formal' World Champ (not likely to happen again, that was SOOO 2006) and never got to test my mettle vs. Gualdo that would stick in my craw a bit to be regulated to the 'fake' World Champ.

On FFG it is strictly money. If Europe was making a ton more than the States and it was easy/not expensive to do all the work behind international printings and organized play (heck, our OP is horrible over here!), then you would get the love. They wouldn't step over a dollar (or Mark) to get a dime (or pfennig). You are most likely not going to get FFG to fork over $4,000 in plane tickets *shrug* although it would ROCK.

But, water under a bridge. Like I said, I usually am pretty thick-skinned about such things but there was a weird vibe that is now gone! Thanks to you and WWD for re-posting! And congrats to see such a major contributor to the game on the win again.

rings said:

Euro €

Whats matter a tournament name? I haved fun in Stahleck and i dont care if the winner name is European o World Champion (or the gencon champ). If anybody from US wants to test his or her skill vs an european guy, im here

I completely agree with spanish friend ;-)

We are too far to play and compete each other. That's way we can use OCTGN2. Not to see "who is stronger" but to have fun... And we have a tourney online planned to start in more or less 10 days.

I'd like also to put the restriction 3 agendas we were speaking about about.

What do you think?

Here's the Video of the final and the "day after"...