Wow...8 GenCons? Really? I am getting old. One of these days Dobbler's sons will start kicking my butt.
Just got back from 2.5 weeks off - Indy/GenCon of course, then 2 weeks on the Oregon Coast. Not bad when Nebraska was consistantly over 90 degrees with 90% humidity. Plus I drank a lot (starting at Indy)...so am on a self-imposed week off the sauce (I have the stuff sewed up like Betsy Ross) 
**Disclaimer - I am horrible with names - don't hate me if I forget yours!!! Sorry in advance!**
Got in Thursday, getting up to drive in with Jesse (Wyndwalker of old SacTown fame) and fly in. Every time I get off the plane in Indy's airport these days I think I am in the wrong place! That airport just rocks, probably one of the top 3 in the country IMHO, and I fly a lot.
Checked in (Omni is always good - FFG stays there). Decided to go see who left their manhood at the door and decided to play Multiplayer 
I won't rant against multiplayer anymore than I already have, but it was good to see for two reasons:
1. First, the final table was really fun to watch. When people are not vying for 2nd or to make someone else 4th for their friend, I actually like it a little.
2. A newer player ended up coming from behind and winning (Brett Zeigler, who - I hate to say to get his head any bigger - but is a really fun guy to know...and not even that way you dirty minded reader!). Plus, 2nd went to the uncomparable Cha0s which was good to see. To be honest, I would have liked anyone at the final table to win. The guy playing Stark (sorry, names again - curly black hair) always choosing the redirection military title and then winning on defense was really interesting to watch.
Anyways, stuck around playing a few games but mainly just seeing friends. I believe we then all went out to dinner at Jillians or something and proceeded to listed to Zeigler talk about being World Champion WAY too much (actually, he was trying and succeeding at being funny about it), giving him crap about being 'only' multi-player champ, etc. Oh, and Jesse and Cha0s were getting shot down left and right by the pretty Indy-midwest gals 
Ended up going to the room to drink (notice a trend yet?) and stayed up until 3.30am talking strategy, listening to Jesse complain about something or another, making fun of people. Luckily, didn't have to be up until 9 or 9.30. I didn't even look at my decks, dance with what brought you (...wait, nothing brought me). Still wasn't sure between Lanni Wildling or Martell Wildling.
Got up, had to make a decision:
1. Lanni, mainly for Golden Tooth Mines. Plus they have lots of King's Landing locations to control...um...King's Landing (Shadow). I also liked Kneeling cards w/ Val.
2. Martell, for one of the most broken cards in the environment, Venomous Blade. Plus they have some wicked free events (Game of Cyvasse which rocks, Burning on the Sands). Plus they have two ally control cards available (Oakheart and Varys) instead of one...this would be funny when I realized after the tourney that Oakheart is Lanni as well (ha-ha! funny becasue it is true).
Decided on Martell - I was scared of Val, and Blade can take care of her so well. And I love Cyvasse which works great even with Wildlings. Last cuts to the deck were Hand's Judgement and Milk (foreshadowing alert!!!).
Other than that, nothing too special. One of each of the Wildling uniques other than Val (3X). 3X the army. I couldn't play Skinchanger because it goes against my basic tenents of never playing non-uniques over 2 cost (the Army cost 1 for me...I guess the Skinchanger would too...never mind)...yes I am silly, I just hate playing with chuds when I can play with named characters. I also didn't play Traitors (Murder Crow or whatever) since I think they are cheap (foreshadow again, and the subject of approximately 100 discussions with Nate 
) and I hate dead cards in hand.
Oh, and - surprising to me - I was really the only one playing 3X Coldhands. For my deck he ended up being a 4 cost, 5 strength, stealth, cannot be killed beast! I ran the intrigue icon NW agenda for him, Sam, Aemon, Old Bear, Jon and a couple of other unique NW's. Nothing like blunting a Valar with Aemon and Coldhands in play! Another MVP card was Seductive Promise. Lastly, I played a lot of plot location control (the kneeling all one, and the Fleeing to go along with Climbing Spikes) and 3X Iron Mines out of hosue for saves.
Okay, enough of that crapy. To the tourney!
I was pretty relaxed, I haven't played in forever competatively and really I assume no one (least of all me) thought I would do all that well. Also, I have never really taking this game THAT seriously (see my rules on non-uniques and allies and cards I just think are broken like Castellean and the old Prince's Loyalist). But, I love playing - and a HUGE shout out needs to go to the Springfield meta for letting me come down and practice about a month before. Especially Dobbler - we probably split 20 games 10/10 with each game lasting an hour.
**another disclaimer about names, and even decks. This was a long time ago and I played a lot of games!!!**
1st round:
Lars - Lanni
Ooo...tough 1st round match up. Unluckily then I flopped all three streets (WTF - I have NEVER done that, even when they were not 1 per deck!), Val, an Orphan, and something else. First turn Val w/ 5 gold plus 3X reducers = 0-cost +1 gold location, Old Bear (1 gold left due to s of sisters), Darkstar (put into play for free since I couldn't afford him), the Wildling Army for free (street) and then something else (messenger?). Um...wow. He knelt a few things, but with a start like that (and a 2nd turn Coldhands to counter his Valar), it was a quick game. Sorry Lars, Momma told you there would be days like this!
1-0
2nd round - Fox
Fox is from Springfield, and I beat him in the 3rd/4th game last year so we pulled out out 3rd/4th prize house cards and said we would switch if he won. 
He was playing Stark/Epic/FOW plots deck. No epic event for him first turn. He still plays FOW, I get to Burning his military challenge. He over-extends a bit (but has to, I would take out his hand), then I Valor with lots of cards in my hand, and Val does the rest. No epic event = easy win vs. this deck. Very gracious as always though.
2-0
3rd round - Eric
Obviously Eric is a VERY good player and plays a lot. He knows the meta and knows the game. This game I got a pretty good start, but he had 2 of his traitors in his first 10 cards. Now I am not saying I win without those, who knows. I am just /ranting:
**Jeez I hate traitors. They are just SO unimaginative. So boring. Plus, they can't do anything fun when they come into play? They just kill/discard stuff? And there is little drawback in playing them with so much draw in a few of the houses? I can never really know how I would play against Eric since I lost last year to a couple of Lanni traitors he had, and this year to a couple of Wildling traitors since he decided to meta against a certain deck type? It makes me hope that in the final game he drew all three in his opening hand vs. a non-Wilding deck...and I like the guy!!! Stop printing them Nate - they are not fun, nor do they add to the game...people didn't like them a couple of sets ago, so why print more???**
end rant/
So, lost semi-badly but was annoyed. Luckily he just slaughtered me later with only one traitor. But I felt better about it.
He had a very good Targ Wildling deck, which can be really annoying when you get all the different shadows and locations out. All my characters were consistently -1 strength, and having two resets and a ton of draw from KL is nice. We went quite a few plots, but it wasn't much in doubt.
2-1
4th round - Cincy guy play Targ
I am sure people have heard about this - we uses Aegon's Hill and the location that tries to put all your characters into play and win really quickly. It was a long game, but I never really felt out of the winnning. He pulled off his trick once, but I didn't have that much for him to steal (no renown). Not sure if it just petered out or what, but was an interesting deck.
3-1
5th round - Casey, 1st World Champ creator of the awesome Bandit Lord
SO great to see Casey back in the game, at any level. He has been awesome to deal with over the years, as a player first, then as the head designer of aGoT, then as a friend as well. Just good to see him back, smoking and everything. Plus, if there was ONE guy that weekend who drank more than I did - it was him and his friends.
I can't remember a ton about this game. He was playing Lanni kneel, but I had a good start. He had almost no gold the whole time, and Lanni gets hit hard by V. Blade IMHO. I was always in some sort of control, and went for the win.
4-1
5th round - Darryl
Darryl is from Springfield as well, and a pretty new player, so great to see him this high. He was playing a Red Viper deck that had already beaten a meta-mate and almost took down Eric (and would have most likely if he would have called a judge on a Cyvasse ruling). Good for you, D-train! (I have been calling Darryl's that all my life for some reason, I have known at least 5).
Started out okay for him, but being a newer player he made a couple of mistakes and I continued to have pretty good board control. I think he got the Viper out, but I ended up killing him at some point using V. Blades/Secuctive on other characters and then he had to kill RV for claim. I don't remember much, except he was pretty excited to be so high so I felt bad demolishing him so badly j/k d-train!
5-1
That got me into top 8, good enough for me. Then pairings...Dobbler? Really?
Top 8 - 2-time world champ mr. greg dobbler (I am contractually obligated to introduce him this way)
Well, this kind of sucks. Dobbs helped me get my deck in order (and hopefully visa-versa although he runs in circles I don't and gets a lot of good advice from trusted sages like Eric and Jonathan). We are both playing Martell Wildlings - a few changes, he had the wrinkle of playing Castellean with the multi-house locations which was cool (I discarded him early).
Our game (IMHO of course) can be summarized like this. Val played 1st or 2nd turn. Val's first flip - Val dupe, Val dupe, Orphan of G. Um...yes please! Greg spent 4 turns trying to kill her, in which time I think she put 12-15 cards on the table. I just had the right cards at the right time. I bet we would still go 50/50 playing 10 more games.
Always a pleasure sir, I hope we continue to knock each other around on even/odd years (he won last year).
6-1
Now, it starts going downhill...
Top 4 - Deathjester
Obviously DJ is a pretty good friend as well, us both being from the West Coast. I have seen him and Cha0s all grows up and all grows up into **** good aGoT players. We talked about Martell the night before quite a bit, and he gives me too much credit (I think all I said was forget about influence events for Martell - they have SUCH good ones that don't cost...I might have also said I hate the Red Viper).
I had a great start, and basically cleared his table. However, then he searched for the Viper and put him out, with a Dupe and with a Bodyguard. Plus he ran two Power of Bloods. I wasn't going to kill him. And I just took out my Milks. Slowly he get back into the game, and then my 7th turn Valar destroyed me. If I knew that Elleria would have stopped him, I would have searched for her instead, but I didn't know that (since I thought he was immune).
But, if you lose, you want to lose to a good friend, and someone who hasn't been there before. Congrats again DJ!!!
6-2
3rd/4th game - Eric again
I. LOST. BADLY. Plus Cha0s put the hex on me since he would have been overall world champion if I won. I told him I lose to that deck/player probably 24/25 times...and it wasn't close. He got out the draw quickly, and just like the first game I regretted not keeping Hand of Judgement to stop the Forever Burnings combos. A hell of a player.
6-3, 4th place.
Well, a mixed bag. On one hand, better than I expect - just like last year. One the other, I was certainly not playing well in the Top 4 
I would have loved to play vs. Alec to see the last portion of the Top 4, since I think I matched up with him better than either Eric or DJ...but that is a story to be written I am sure.
Congrats to Alec especially, and to Eric (overall) and Zeigler (women's division). I am not a fan of the three world champion titles (to be honest, I find myself calling the Joust WC the WC), but at least they went to capable players ~and not that Cha0s guy.
That all being said - 5 straight top 4's. I have to be proud of that...not a flash in the pan at least Unluckily, 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th doesn't look like a good trend for next year
I played in Warhammer:Invasion the next day (getting top 8, barely missing top 4), and then was gamed out. But, not really! Luke did a great job with his draft and it was great to play with the older cards again. We took in a grip of alchohol (and went to get more) and had a great time. Other than Dobbler owning me with the Bara traitor
Also got to talk to Eric Lang a bunch, which was cool. A **** good game designer, I have to say that!
Props:
Alec - LOVE seeing new WC's.
Zeigler - LOVE seeing that Title IX is giving the fairer sex a chance to be winner in aGoT!!!
Cali - Deathjester and Cha0s for doing so well. DJ for sitting around with a bunch of annoying drunk guys...that would be hard sober.
Springfield - some good results...but a ton of fun. thanks for hanging this year!
Robbie - people here don't know Robbie well, but he was a good friend of mine from Seattle (actually played aGoT at one time) - he was at one of my basement parties for the Lannisport tourney in Seattle (I drive a dodge Stratus!). He ended up winning L5R which is a far greater accomplishment (over 250 people in the final day, which you had to qualify for...probably 500 total players over the weekend). I had to leave on Sunday before he won, but that rocks.
Eric - two straight overall's is pretty dang cool. Hope you get the big one soon - you should.
Dobbler - for the playtesting, support, etc. I didn't really like Dobbler when we first met (he can be a little shy and he won a lot), but am glad to call him a good friend these days.
Casey - welcome back!
Nate - congrats on a great GC, and for a very balanced, fun game right now. Just ban all traitors talk in future sets
FFG - I love aGoT, like W:I and CoC, and am intrigued by LoTR (please make competative rules! I need my LoTR fix!). Plus they had some other great games...they seem to be on a roll lately.
Jesse - for playing and playing pretty well after taking a year plus off.
Bunches of people and things I can't remember...a really good GC. And of course, my wife who puts up with this geeky addiction!!!
Slops:
Traitors...grrr...don't get started again...
Brotherhood without the Ghost of HH It is like Peanuts w/o the butter! Wait...something like that. C'mon, I only got a year of being relevant!
Mathlete - get playing again dammit.
Luke - after spending 100% of last year's con together, we could never locate you! But...props on the draft!!!
The Hall - pretty weak this year IMHO. Other than FFG's booth.
Thanks for reading - too long I know...I get wordy.
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