I know LetsGoRed will post full results on agotny.net later, but here's how Black Friday VI shook out. Thirteen players, decent mix of houses: something like 1 Greyjoy, 1 Targ, a few Lannis, a few Starks, a few Martells, and a good few Bara decks, using a variety of agendas. We played five games of Swiss, then cut to top four.

After five rounds of Swiss:

Erick Butzlaff (finitesquarewell, DC), Stark/Wildlings: 5-0

Jason Kenney (bloodycelt, Boston), Baratheon/Kings of Summer: 4-1

Anthony Bonilla (FATMOUSE, NYC), Martell/Knights of the Hollow Hill (the super-Beric/Viper deck): 3-2

Steve Kuennen (TheMountainThatRides, DC), Baratheon/Wildlings: 3-2

Semifinals: Erick beat Steve, Anthony beat Jason

Final: Erick beat Anthony

Thanks so much again to the NYC meta (Jason, Stags, and Anthony in particular) for such an outstanding tournament, and for twn2dn for hosting me the night before, ~even though he shook my confidence in my until-then undefeated Stark deck at around 1:00 AM by whipping me around with his Martell/Summer deck like I wasn't even playing, lol.

I've thrown a PDF of my deck list for both the Days of Ice and Fire joust and Black Friday VI here: http://erickbutzlaff.com/games.html

If there's time this weekend I'll do a quick report...

Congratulation Erick.

One question, why do you like use Jon Snow (Defender)?

Uncle Joker said:

ok, I am wrong, I thought you were going to use his ability. But now I think you use it only because it is Wildling.

Another question, did you successfully use the ability of Reek?

Uncle Joker said:

Joker... Reek is the most fearest card nowadays in stark :-) And played in wildling that has lot of intrigue stealth and support is simply GREAT :-)

and yet it's pretty easy to get rid of him using VB in Martell or Targ burn weapons... it also true against Osha, Vale and so on

Maybe he lost the night before against Martell/summer because of that (at least)

Luckily, he may not have faced them during the tourney, what happened for our finalists in the most recent Regional.

Vale and Reek must die quickly

BTW congrats Erick.

Lionel

(edit: the forums took out a lot of my punctuation, and i'm too lazy to reinsert it; apologized ahead of time)

Black Friday tourney report

Deck: Stark/Wildlings

I've been messing around in playtesting with more or less the same Stark/Wildling list since Lords of Winter came out. It's always been a rock solid deck, though it never proved to be the best of all the decks the DC deck-building brain trust was kicking around leading up to tournament time. Kings of the Storm introduced to the environment two cards which seemed to take it over the top, though: Narrow Escape (to keep all the huge, versatile Wildlings in play) and Direct Assault (which makes the matchup against Lanni and other Shadows/control decks all too easy, and gives Stark an advantage against Targ if it can manage to steal a Meereenese Brothel early). The gist of the thing is simply to put out a bunch of big, beefy, efficient guys with stealth and renown and pummel them with claim-two plots, power grab, and location hate while playing strong defense with Frozen Outpost. The deck has serious card advantage (The Blackfish, Val, Guard at Riverrun, Narrow Escape), and even search-based toolboxing that other houses don't have access to (To Be a Wolf, easily one of the best events in the game; Jeyne Westerling to pull Robb and Mance). The deck is incredibly strong in all three challenges owing to the Wildlings filling in Stark's intrigue gap, and the mix of power rush/stealth-based aggro, defensive control, and location and attachment gives you plenty of options to deal with anything the opponent throws at you. This list was honed over something like half a year of playtesting with it on and off, and there's so much nuance to playing this particular mix of cards reactively that I wouldn't even know where to begin.

So after the Days of Ice and Fire event it was pretty clear that I should recycle the Stark/Wildling. There was one thing that had me worried, though: Anthony/FATMOUSE has been sporting a Beric deck played out of Martell with Knights of the Hollow Hill, using out-of-house infamy-granting attachments, Taste for Blood to funnel power to Beric, and all sorts of control and cancel to ensure that nothing went astray. He plays defensively, putting power on Beric as fast as possible all while the opponent can never take his power away through claim from the Power challenge. I knew that if he decided to play that craziness at Black Friday it's likely that I'd take a loss to it the Stark/Wildling deck has plenty of versatility, but no great answer to that particular deck (he plays Maester of Lemonwood to cancel Frozen Solid, in a matchup in which attachment hate is absolutely critical). My playtesting buddies and I contemplated different options for dealing with this CS Melisandre, Ellaria Sand, Pinch of Powder, etc. but at the end of the day I decided to add a single Reek. He isn't the best solution by any stretch he's weak to Ser Arys and Varys and Venomous Blade, among many other things. But if I grabbed Reek when the Beric deck played Summoning Season and there was no VB already sitting in Shadows, I figured it might delay Beric hitting the table for one or two precious rounds in which I could try to hit him with intrigue and grab as much power as I could to get out ahead.

Round 1: Chris Swales (Greyjoy Chris), Baratheon/Knights of the Realm

He got out to an early lead with a bunch of Knights with good abilities, but I eventually put out an even bigger bunch of Wildlings and Lords with renown along with a Frozen Outpost or two. Not sure how many plots we went before I got to 19 power and used Mance to blank one of my agendas; he had a lot of saves on the table, so Military claim wasn't narrowing his board down as fast as usual.

Round 2: Steve Kuennen (TheMountainThatRides), Baratheon/Wildlings

Steve was playing an experimental Bara Shadows/control deck that Corey Faherty cooked up in the weeks preceding the tournament; the control in Bara is actually really good at this point in the environment (Black Cells and Wicked Seductress in particular), and the house has some decent location hate, too. Because Bara's usual characters are a little on the pricey side it was necessary to fill in most the character slots with Wildlings (especially in a pricey Shadows build). In this game I got Narrow Escape and Direct Assault in my hand early; I managed to steal the first Black Cells he put out and proceeded to splash the board with Wildlings. I ate at his board and hand with claim, and Grey Wind came out on a duped Robb to finish things off before I had to use my own Valar. It hurt that he never got King's Landing (having taken out Building Season before the tournament), which is the key card to keeping the deck ahead.

Round 3: Mike Pestrak (Lars), Baratheon/Knights of the Realm

This was the best version of Baratheon I have seen in a tournament this year, and at some point Mike was within one power of winning. I say it's the best because it included the cards we've discovered to be the key to the making Bara rush work: Fox's Teeth and Ser Eldon Estermont, used to get around any wall the opponent throws up including, most importantly, superior Wildling forces. This was the first version of Bara I've seen to play those two characters outside of DC. He got out to a very fast start after I started the game with a big blunder I put Jeyne out on setup, pulled Mance pre-plot, and got hit with Rule by Decree. The cards I chucked weren't overly important, but the differential in card advantage hurt for a little while. He went first on the first plot and put out a whole bunch of Knights and a Fox's Teeth, too, but with no locations out; I put out a few Wildlings to ensure I both defended and won Intrigue to set up a second plot Valar. Because my hand consisted entirely of beefy characters, I knew that if he had Narrow Escape for Valar I'd still be able to field enough of a force in addition to the one or two Wildlings I had left over from the first round to pull back ahead. (The upside of the Valar gamble was me just dominating the rest of the game with a whole bunch of Wildlings, so it seemed a worthwhile use of Valar.) He did indeed have the Narrow Escape, so I proceeded to splash the board with all the characters I could. I stole the second Fox's Teeth he put out with Reek, tried to go first as often as possible (he was winning the initiative game and even had the new 5-cost army that switched the first player), and hoped for Jon Snow so I could kneel my own Wildlings out to defend against the first Fox's Teeth. At some point I realized I could use Mance Rayder to defend against the Teeth, but at that point we were both very close to victory. On plot six he got to 14 power during his challenges phase, but with a two-claim plot out I was able to snag enough power myself for the win. Frozen Outpost again played a huge role, and Grey Wind on Robb ate away at his little characters to help supplement my Military claim.

Round 4: Dan Strouhal (twn2dn), Martell/Kings of Summer

We had played this matchup the night before, and Dan's combination of Red Vengeance, Burning on the Sand, Game of Cyvasse, Venomous Blade just flattened me when fueled by strong card advantage that I had no way of stopping(the Knights of Summer agenda, Gilly, The Viper's Bannermen) suffice it to say I thought I was going to take my first loss of the day. We both had mediocre setups, but I saw a lot of my three-strength characters early and he didn't manage to get Red Vengeance for a while. I had control over Intrigue and Military, and an early Grey Wind on a duped Robb was very important to staying ahead in this game. I'm pretty sure a critical Narrow Escape was involved when he played Valar, but I don't remember for sure.

Round 5: Alec Irwin (skeletonator), Lannister

Alec again recycled my DC Regionals deck list that won him the Worlds joust tournament back in August, and I knew from playing this matchup out a good few times already that I would wreck him pretty quickly. (It really is one of the few match-ups in the game that just might be 10-1 or more in one deck's favor.) He flopped GTM, and I stole it with Direct Assault during the first challenges phase; he also made the mistake of initiating a Military challenge against me on my first-plot Fury of the Wolf, which resulted in a Castellan and a Lannisport Steward dying that turn. He seeded the board with the two "inert" City plots first, and tried to Valar on plot three so he could force me to rebuild my character portfolio under the control of his City plots, but I had a Narrow Escape or two in hand. I flooded the board with Wildlings and guys with renown, had Grey Wind out, and just controlled his hand, characters, and locations with ease.

-

So after the five-round swiss, the top four was myself, Dan/twn2dn, Jason/bloodycelt, and Anthony/FATMOUSE. It was at this point that Jason realized that Dan had decided to out of the tournament to go hang out with his family, without telling Jason that he was leaving first. After redoing the final standings, Alec/skeletonator and Steve/TheMountainThatRides were virtually tied for fourth place. Alec turned out to be ahead Jason applied multiple tie-breakers, but he and the other DE/PA guys wanted to get going instead of waiting around to watch Alec play out the nightmare of the Stark/Wildling-versus-Lanni matchup for a second time.

Semi-final: Steve Kuennen (TheMountainThatRides), Baratheon/Wildlings

This matchup started out in his favor, and it looked for a while like this was going to be Steve's revenge. He had a good portfolio of characters on the table supported by a recurring Kingswood Trail, and he got King's Landing into operation early, too. Eventually I got some location hate, a two-claim Military challenge off with To Be a Wolf on a Blackfish that he had knelt with the Wicked Seductress, and used the opportunity to muscle my way into the lead. I timed his Valar correctly with The Power of Blood and got to keep Eddard (Robb?) and The Blackfish on the table, even after he chucked his hand to Narrow Escape and then drew a card with KL to have a hand to chuck to the second Narrow Escape I had waiting. Things slid downhill from there even after he got Val out, and I was on to the final round.

Final: Anthony Bonilla (FATMOUSE), Martell/Knights of the Hollow Hill (Beric superstar)

As I sat down to the table with Anthony to begin the game, all I could think was, "Of course fate had to have it out for me perhaps I'll never be able to reclaim this Black Friday title." The fifteen plot, near-two hour nightmare of a final round played out far after most the other AGOT players left the cafe, all while Paul Tapias (RedTerr0r) sat by and heckled us both to the point where we were close to forging an agreement to kill him. The highlights of this ridiculously epic final round:
I started with a very solid flop, and had three characters out for my first-turn Fear of Winter. The hope was that he would play Summoning Season first; I would win initiative and make him go first, he'd grab Beric while I grabbed Reek, and then he'd be scared to put Beric out knowing that he would immediately be stolen to Reek (who would in turn be killed on MIL), giving me an early jump in terms of power and a chance to Intrigue Beric out of his hand. Instead he played A Time for Ravens to grab a Black Raven (which he uses in conjunction with Red Warlocks to get out the key attachments, and also to generate some more gold despite his agenda's restriction). He played a Red Warlock so I couldn't force him to win dominance.
I grabbed Reek when he went and fished for Beric with Summoning Season on the second plot, but he immediately played Confession to get Reek out of my hand. I won initiative, chose to go second, and successfully put him in a situation in which he would end up with 1 power on his house no matter what. He played Beric and a Taste for Blood. I had 3+ characters on the table with stealth in all three icons, and a Frozen Solid in hand in case he played Devious Intentions (because he didn't I put it on Taste for Blood instead). He then had a choice: attack with Beric to kneel him (in which case I would let him claim 1 power for an unopposed challenge), or leave him standing. If he left him standing, I would stealth him for all three challenges, allowing me to kneel out all my characters and force him to claim 1 power for dominance. He went the dominance route, and I knew what I had to do next.
Third plot, I played Valar; I thought it was the case that without Beric left he'd have no chance at all to come back. Better, I had a dupe on Mance and plenty of Wildlings in hand. I went through with it; Beric died; and things seemed to be going very well for that plot and the next.
Agonizingly, Anthony had a second alternative: he put out The Red Viper with a bunch of attachments and proceeded to cause me trouble for a few turns because I couldn't top-deck a Frozen outpost for the life of me, while I had to save on characters in my hand to be able to get past his own upcoming Valar (especially if he got a dupe on that Viper). He had enough random guys to keep the Viper from dying to MIL claim, but then had to Valar him away on Plot 7. He discarded his hand to cancel my Narrow Escape, and because all of my draw sources had died earlier (The Blackfish to my own Valar, and the Guard at Riverrun and Val to Venomous Blade) I wasn't able to splash the board for a big comeback.
The game then turned into an AGOT version of Go Fish, in which we both just kept drawing non-Character cards into plots 9-10. He got an Open Market out to keep my hand down with Confession, my characters off the table with Westeros Bleeds, and he had all his copies of Burning in the Sand left to boot. Through these he kept at bay the few characters I was able to muster, and kept winning dominance through an out-of-house copy of The Iron Throne, too. Fortunately his hand was steadily disappearing as he kept using Open Market each round, and eventually he could keep his recursion running no longer. At some point I attempted to steal an Open Market for myself with a Wildling Horde, but he replied with a Burning on the Sand to my frustration.
Eventually we both got a few characters, but I had more (and more efficient ones, too including Varys to hit a Red Warlock he had just played), and finally pulled out the win on plot 15 or so.

To close the report out, props go to:
Dan/twn2dn and his wife Lili, for letting me stay the night before at his place and letting me share a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with his family
Jason/LetsGoRed and the NYC crew for putting on yet another fabulous tournament
Everyone who helped me playtest the deck, and Corey Faherty in particular for honing it down to a pure list of 60 good cards after Kings of the Storm.
All my opponents for the great games, and Mike/Lars and Anthony/FATMOUSE in particular for the ridiculously close games
The DC meta, for being the DC meta
Steve/TheMountainThatRides in particular, for deciding not to the deck I was playing (and using one of Corey's experimental creations instead)

Slops
Myself, for taking the beautiful 60 card list Corey had whittled the Stark/Wildling deck down to and adding 2-3 cards to it each of which likely was unnecessary
Dan/twn2dn for shaking my confidence in the Stark/Wildling deck the night before
Paul/RedTerr0r, for all the heckling during the final (not that we expected anything less)
Wildlings, for being far, far too good; a total NPE in this environment

I have to say I'm very impressed that Anthony got away with a voltron deck.

(IIRC these were popular during Valyrian Block, Davos - Lightbringer IIRC. And before that IAF with Khal Drogo - knight + maester)

Now in the interests of bring the environment back to the "don't bother with attachments" mode :-P.

I think unless the agenda is being run: Eastwatch by the Sea might make Beric vulnerable (along with Nightmares). I am not certain how the infamy works in this case...

Brienne btw... is currently my standing strategy for dealing with this...

If only Bara had an event like Shadow Play, I mean perm steal should not return. However, Bara needs a little more point and click (as does Greyjoy)... to deal with threats like this. Swayed by the Light is also not a bad idea in this environment. If you are going to have characters that are CBK/CBD and basically a pain to dislodge, well the last environment that had a lot of that also had the threat of Bara taking that character for a ride.

finitesquarewell said:

Nice job playing around (and ultimately killing) Beric. I thought the addition of 1x Reek would be risky as the only solution for Beric, but your skill really pulled you through. Anthony's deck is really the most innovative/interesting and competitive build I've seen in a year or so (though I heard the Ice and Fire tourney featured some interesting army builds).

For the record, Zsa deserves much of the credit for my Martell Summer deck. Though the deck I played was a revised version of something I've had for more than a year, his suggestion to add Viper's Bannermen proved to be extremely helpful. (It turns our suggestions are particularly convincing when they are preceded by an opponent rolling you four games in a row in mirror matches on OCTGN. I'm definitely a "Viper's Bannermen" convert.) Also, Zsa, thanks for reaffirming my belief in Pit Vipers...those proved to be critical in a couple matches and likely would have won me the matchup against Erick if he hadn't drawn into a Grey Wind so early in the game.

As for Wildlings, I agree that they remain overly strong. Marshalling what become an 8 STR bicon with stealth and a war crest for 3G (or is it 2G?) is ridiculous by any standard. Throw in the war crest-response events and it's very NPE.

Congratulations finitesqaurewolf for another trophy and another day of stellar play. Youa re clearly the finest player aroudn right now and its an honor to face you at these big East Coast events.

I agree that teh wildlings reamin really powerful and I am surpised peopel don't start just playing the metagame against them. There isn't much you can do sicne th heart of the problem is the Agenda - but that's why rings always calls for caution with those things. Agenda break the environemnt of the game at its very core and they need to be carefully engineered or they'll create overly strong effects. Nontheless - its always a pleassure to chat with you and toss thougths around - hoepfully i'll get a crack at your arsenal at the next East Coast event.

Thanks to letsgored for all the effort adn dedication and in putting together a great event. Thanks to FFG for the great banner and the wonderful rpize support. And finally thanks to all the East Coast playrs for turning out 15 strong and providing a fun and competitive field. See you all again soon!

Has anyone thought of playing around with MwNK? We've got several strong neutral builds now... it seems ripe.

bloodycelt said:

There's been talk of it in the forums, but I think a lot of people don't want to waste the deck space for the reinforcements cards that trigger the ability...

Very nice write up, Erick. Congratulations on reclaiming your former title!

In the interest that more players will publicly release their decks after a good tournament run, I've decided to release mine -- followed by a short write-up of some of the the deck's origin/philosophy, my day at the tourney, and some conclusion/comments. Please excuse any potential errors I may accidentally make in the report.

(I didn't run Fury and only used 20 cards, gasp!).

House Martell
Knights of the Hollow Hill

Plots (7)
A Time for Ravens
Summoning Season
Valar Morghulis
Fleeing to the Wall
Alliance
To the Spears!
The Prince that was Promised

Characters (18)
3x Flea Bottom Scavenger
3x House Messenger
3x Maester of Lemonwood
3x Red Warlock
3x The Red Viper (PoTS)
3x Beric Dondarrion

Locations (12)
3x The Iron Throne (DotN)
3x Open Market
3x Summer Sea
3x Dornish Fiefdoms

Attachments (15)
3x Black Raven
3x Venomous Blade
3x Devious Intentions
3x Taste for Blood
3x Milk of the Poppy

Events (15)
3x Confession
3x Burning on the Sand
3x He Calls it Thinking
3x Westeros Bleeds
3x Make an Example

Deck Origin/Philosophy

When I first saw Beric Dondarrion spoiled back in April I immediately knew he'd be a character to contend with. CBK characters were very strong back in CCG. CBD, Renown, Tricon, and 3 STR was just icing on the cake (well, maybe a bit more than just icing ). Granted, you couldn't have power on your House, but Infamy took care of this. Since it would be a while before Beric came out, I put him in the back of my mind.

Then in July, Knights of the Hollow Hill Agenda was spoiled. I was very excited; the doors flew open for builds that would otherwise be too inefficient to run. Giving up setup is a huge draw back and I don't recommend running the Agenda for "regular" decks (i.e ~30 characters, ~15 locations, ~15 other), but the agenda can be golden for bizarre, even gimmicky combo decks. It was then that Beric came back mind and the idea of a Voltron deck was born. The Brotherhood Without Banners Agenda was spoiled about a month later, but it's benefit didn't outweigh it's drawback -- infamy alone was stronger. After play testing for a bit between Lannister and Martell with and without the Agenda I decided that Martell with KOTHH was the best option. Lannister provided nice gold and good draw, but Martell provided better "game" control than Lannister did (i.e. BotS, Open Market, He Calls it Thinking, etc.) and KOTHH gave me the gold I needed and more room for better cards (i.e. Confession, Westeros Bleeds). Orignally, I was running 3x Devious Intentions and 3x Head of a Dwarf and hoping to draw into one or the other. This was a terrible idea; especially because Head of a Dwarf is a horrificly horrible attachment compared to Devious Intentions. I needed something more consistent, so I took a closer look at the card pool and found my solution -- Red Warlock. Not only could I fetch it with Summoning Season, but it would let me look for ANY attachment in my deck. The Iron Throne was a later addition to my deck as I realized that it became favorable for players to not attack and try and win the game through dominance instead.

The idea of the deck is to play defensively until you can set up Beric with Devious Intentions and Taste for Blood. This idea familiar to many as I've seen it previously discussed on these forums, but I hope others will see how I made this deck efficient/consistent as something that is unique and original.

Black Friday

Figuring that little to no (blank) character control or attachment control would be played at the tournament, I decided to run the Super Beric (and "oh crap, Plan B" Red Viper) Deck. I also knew, much more often than not, it would dominate against the popular Wildling decks. It's just not possible to get to 21 power without being able to steal power during power challenges and with 2-3 Taste for Bloods in play. I was nervous, but I knew I had a shot at winning it all.

Round 1: Kevin McCoy/kpmccoy21 (Greyjoy/Wildlings) 1-0

Greyjoy Wildlings was one of my potential decks for the tournament. I found Wildlings, High Claim, Fishing Net, and Pulled Under rather appealing. I knew the game would mainly come down to whether or not Kevin had and drew Pulled Under. Given that the card is seldom mentioned or seen, I figured (and crossed my fingers) that he didn't have it. He did have Fishing Net (failed to draw it), but not Pulled Under. I drew into two Maester of Lemonwoods, which would have taken care of the Fishing Nets had he played them. Things almost got hairy when he tried making it Winter (but couldn't because Fear was out and he already played his one card). Next turn I played Confession to discard his White Raven to be certain that his Wintertime Mauraders would stay in hand (it was Summer). Otherwise, the game went exactly as I thought it would -- Beric became a Beast and 21 power was just too much for Kevin to achieve. Kevin is the ideal oppenent; he's a strong, competive player with a fantastic level of good sportsmanship. I look forward to any future matches Kevin!

Round 2: Chris Macias/Stag Lord (Targaryen/Knights of the Hollow Hill) 1-1

When Chris told me he was going to play Targaryen for the tournament, I knew he'd be an opponent I would not want see. Attachment control is obviously a huge bane for this deck, and I knew he'd be running tons of it. I decided to fetch my Black Raven first turn, and I played Confession after we both drew cards for the draw phase. I saw 2x Milk of the Poppy and a Dragon Thief (amongst other things). I cried inside for a few seconds and then discarded Val. I actually did have a Maester of Lemonwood in hand, but I knew Beric had no chance in this game. So I fiddled around for 5 rounds and had both of us go through our Valars and his Threat from the North. He slowly gained power during this time, while I worked to dwindle his hand and have him waste his burn and attachment control (I was using my Milks). After the resets I got The Red Viper out and put 3 Taste for Bloods on him. If I had a chance, it was then; but of course Chris' last plot was Marched to the Wall and my only character in play was TRV >_< Next round I drew into two more copies of TRV and put him back into play. I was able to quickly grab some power, but not enough to surpass Chris. He took the modified win. A great meta-mate made an otherwise gut-wrenching game bearable.

Round 3: Steve Keunnen (Baratheon/Wildlings) 2-1

I quickly learned Steve was running a Baratheon control deck using the Wildlings for a source of cheap, strong characters. He got a Black Cells out first turn and was able to lock up Beric for a bit. I wasn't too concerned about the Black Cells because I had To the Spears! and The Prince that was Promised. It didn't take long to get Beric with a Devious and two Tastes. Steve actually helped with that as I played Valar in the 3rd? round and he played Narrow Escape. I decided to let it go through and bring my Red Warlock back into play, which let me look for another Taste. I also drew into a He Calls it Thinking and Open Market for recursion and Steve knew he was in a lot of trouble at this point. He had no way of dealing with Beric and knew it would be impossible to get to 21 power without forcing me to get to 15 first. His last hope was to use Queen of Thorns and use her ability to collect a power each time a card came out of the Shadows, but I quickly put a Milk on her, effectively destroying his chances at winning. I really liked Steve's deck -- it was a nice synergy of aggro and control, but the Voltron Beric deck is an extremely tough match up for the Wildlings.

Round 4: Jason Kenney/bloodycelt (Baratheon/Kings of Summer) 2-2

Jay was playing a fast Baratheon deck. Between dupes/saves and Power of Blood I quickly realized resets weren't a real option. I Milked Eddard and Renly early, and eventually got Beric setup with a Devious and two Tastes, but then Jay played Brienne of Tarth (PoTS). He had Marya Seaworth out and was able to stand Brienne to win two challenges where I couldn't trigger my Tastes. I had no choice but to Valar next round to kill Brienne. I figured he would have a Narrow Escape, but I had no choice. Of course he did, and of course I discarded my hand. I couldn't rely on drawing my last Milk or a Red Warlock (I don't remember how many I'd used at that point, but I remember at the time that I couldn't rely on the odds of drawing into one). We went to Marshalling and Jay played Robert Baratheon (CS). Between having Melisandre (DoTN) out for a couple of rounds and now Robert, I knew the game was over. The Taste for Bloods would not be able to catch up to his power grab and they didn't.

Round 5: Dan Strouhal /Twn2dn (Martell/Kings of Summer) 3-2

Dan unfortunately had to concede during the middle of our match to attend to family business. He was running a heavy draw deck using the Viper's Bannerman, but I got a very strong start drawing into all 3 of my Confessions within our first few and only rounds of play -- discarding his two Game of Cyvasse and a Viper's Bannerman with them. When Dan conceded I had a Beric out with Devious and was going to play the two Taste for Bloods in my hand on him the next round. I had his Ellaria Milked and two Venomous in the Shadows to kill a bunch of his weenies with. While I can't be certain, I'm confident I would have eventually won the game. I wouldn't be surprised if Dan's deck beats mine more often than not, but I got lucky and had the perfect start for the match up. Maybe we can have a rematch one of these days, Dan.

Round 6: Jason Kenney/bloodycelt (Baratheon/Kings of Summer) 4-2

I made the cut, woo hoo! Having played Jay earlier I knew I'd have to "rush" to my Super Beric setup before he could rush to victory. He got Robert out first round, but thankfully I had a Milk. This was HUGE considering he also got Marya out with a dupe. I quickly got Beric with a Devious and two Taste for Bloods and made Jay pay for declaring and winning challenges against me. He played a Herald to fetch Brienne, but I had a Confession in hand and discarded her. I also got Iron Throne out this game, ensuring he couldn't "dom" his way to victory. Jay drew into Brienne a round later, but it was too late. I was too close to 15 power and a 20 STR power challenge between Beric and the Viper over came his 14 STR and won me the game. I played two amazing games against Jay that day. Now that I think about it, I believe I've played Jay in every major tournament we've attended with the exception of one. Jay has always put up a good fight and has always been a great sport -- win or lose. Sorry about the Milks, Jay. They were just too good for me not to play On the bright side, we've finally seen a competitively viable deck with only 20 distinct cards!

Round 7: Erick Butzlaff/finitesquarewell (Stark/Wildlings) 4-3

Erick was begging Jay to beat me in the semi-finals. He even jokingly suggested they have a "coaching" session prior to our match. Both Erick and I knew my deck was a horrific match up for his. After winning the semis a fellow meta-mate cheered me on implying that the trophy was mine, but I calmed him down knowing that it was still very well possible, although unlikely, that Erick would win. I decided to take a mulligan for the first time in the tournament, and my second hand wasn't really any better. I didn't have Beric or the Viper in hand, and I decided to fetch my bird for the first round, not wanting to give Erick his sure-to-be-in-the-deck-somwhere "answer to Beric" character. Erick played the expected Fear of Winter, which unfortunately forced to play a Red Warlock to avoid winning dominance that round. I designed my deck expecting to have to face Fear the first round of every game, but I knew I would have to sometimes makes sacrifices. Second turn I played Summoning Season to fetch Beric and Erick gleefully fetched Reek. He told us (Paul/RedTerror was watching -- and heckling) that he specifically put Reek in the deck for Beric. I figured Erick would have some character based answer to Beric (CS Mel, Reek, Brienne, etc.), which is why I played Confession to discard it. Erick was shocked. I was happy I was going first and played Beric with a Taste for Blood. Erick played a third Wilding and I was caught in a terrible predicament: I could make a challenge and hope he'd defend so I wouldn't claim a power for unopposed, or hope he didn't Stealth and kneel out all of his characters so I'd win Dominance with my standing 3 STR (he played Frozen Solid on the Taste). I decided to go for the latter route (even though Erick and Paul did admit afterwards that the former option would have been less obvious, even though I think Erick would have thought it through) and Erick eventually realized his best chance at drastically increasing his odds of winning the game. I won Dominance (man, with Martell you really DO have to lose to win!) and Erick played Valar next round. Erick made a great blow, but I still had a back up plan -- The Red Viper.

I eventually got TRV out with a Devious and Taste. My Valar was coming up and I knew that I wouldn't be able to claim enough power to win before the 6th round, so I decided to hold and not play Valar 6th round and hope that I could gain enough power to win. It turns out "hope" means squat-diddly without an actual plan. Between a long day and losing Beric, I lost focus and didn't think things through enough. I was better off playing Valar 6th round so I could have used it again after the plots recycled. On top of that, Erick had played Power of Blood 6th round, which would have kept TRV alive! I actually drew a Make an Example and another copy of TRV last round and could have grabbed enough power to win the game! Alas, this did not happen and when I played Valar 7th round TRV died. Erick did play Narrow Escape, which meant the Viper could come back but without his power and extra STR and Stealth from Devious he wasn't much of a threat against Erick's myriad of characters that would return to play. I figured I was better off letting his characters die and let him draw into his now character-lite, dupe-riddled deck while I would keep on winning Dominance with The Iron Throne. It actually worked for several rounds and I was able to pump out a few characters to commit challenges of my own. I was also able to draw enough cards to recycle key cards in my discard pile with Open Market, but Erick ultimately drew into enough playable characters and grabbed enough power to get to 21 for the win. The game lasted an epic 15 rounds and both of us we're nearly decked out. I was disappointed to lose a match I probably should have won, but it was a blast being able to play an epic match with the best player in the game.

Conclusions/Comments

I'd like to say thank you to Jason (LetsGoRed) and Chris (Stag Lord) for getting the tournament organized and running, and showing me the ropes of what it takes to host an event like Black Friday.

Thank you Paul (RedTerror) and Jesse (Wulfen613) for helping me play test for the tournament.

Thank you FFG for the tournament and prize support.

3 things you should do to be successful at a tournament:

1. Play test
2. Know the meta-game
3. Avoid making mistakes

I put more preparation into this tournament than I have for any other and it clearly paid off. Points 1 and 2 definitely help each other, and point 1 helps point 3. I really didn't make any mistakes until the final game. In previous tournaments I've failed to make the cut because of ONE costly mistake during a Swiss match. Thrones really requires you to bring out your A-game, which is one of the reasons why I love it so much.

Milks are seriously very good; especially in this environment where there are so many strong unique (and even non-unique characters). It kind of surprises me that they aren't more popular; especially in tournaments where you can see a variety of decks. The perma-blank definitely makes it better than Nightmares, which I've heard and read gets some action in multiple metas. I know and understand why people are hesitant to run Milk, and they often don't make the cut for my decks, but I definitely wouldn't have done as well without them.

Narrow Escape is a silly card. It didn't make or break any of my games, but it still baffles me why the CCG version wasn't printed verbatim. Even then, I believe powerful "neutral" (any House can run them) no cost events like Narrow Escape are terrible for the game. They really take away from the flavor brought by each House and demand cards like Paper Shield be in the environment. This in turn makes Paper Shield an auto-include, and I loathe general auto-includes. If the cards are too powerful that they need such a cancel, they shouldn't be printed in the first place. I keep on hearing that we need an anti-Valar, yet everyone seems to forget we have currently have Old Bear Mormont, an non-zero cost (ergo, not so ridiculous) anti-Valar card. Honestly, I would rather have Valar banned than have cards like Narrow Escape in the environment, because if and when Paper Shield comes out, nearly everyone will be forced to run it and that just drives me bonkers.

Blood of the First Men needs to go. The Stealth is strong, but it becomes much more balanced when you have to pay 2 extra gold to get it. I think Val hurts the game too. She's one of the reasons why I ran Venomous, Milk, and Confession. She's similar to Narrow Escape in that she's a low-cost powerful card that anyone can run. I think it's dangerous and even lame that anyone and everyone can have access to such a strong ability. It's not very creative and yet again takes away from distinct flavors brought by each House.

I don't think I'd make any changes to my deck if I had to do it all over again. I was running Summer Encampment for a while and then was going to replace it with Patience when that came out, but then I replaced it with The Iron Throne. Bleeds, Make An Example, or House Messenger could have been swapped for it (or Red Vengeance), but I like Bleeds as an extra reset threat, Make against Bara rush (and to make Beric stronger), and Messenger to accelerate through my deck. I didn't run Val, because I'd often be hitting my cap with Flea Bottom. I also needed more control over my cards. That is, many of them were high cost or specific to certain moments in a game (i.e. BotS, Bleeds, etc.)

All in all, it was a great tournament and I had a great time. I appreciate everyone at the tournament and in this community. You guys are definitely the main reason why I play Thrones, and I hope I can finally meet most of you at GenCon this year. Thanks for reading my write-up. I hope you enjoyed it!

Great report from both of you.

FATMOUSE said:

What do you mean?

Rogue30 said:

Thanks!

Rogue30 said:

Black Cells prevents a character from kneeling (and standing) for the duration of the phase it's triggered. Both To the Spears! and The Prince that was Promised would allow me to still attack with Beric even if Steve locked him up with the Black Cells while he was standing. Both plots let him attack (and one lets him defend) without having to kneel; thus giving me two turns where I could use him offensively to gain power. As stated, I also drew into He Calls it Thinking and could have used it to cancel Black Cells if I thought it was necessary. if that doesn't answer your question, let me know.

FATMOUSE said:

But Black Cells still blocks him, because he must be able to kneel in order to attack.

I wish that was not true though, cause I lost recently because of **** Black Cells - it would be better if my Cavalry could attack those **** Lanni.

EDIT: I think I misread this question . Sorry for confusion.

Rogue30 said:

No worries. Just to clarify for others, there is a difference between a knelt and standing character that does kneel to attack (i.e Northern Cavalry Flank, TRV, etc.). If a character doesn't need to kneel to attack and is knelt, it can't attack; however, If a character doesn't kneel to attack and is standing, it can attack. This is why I was not worried about The Black Cells. I could keep Beric standing and use To The Spears and The Prince that was Promised to attack with him.

I read that question not carefully and assumed that it was in "does not kneel to attack" context (without this context such question is really obvious - that's the purpose of this card), silly me. Well, my game with Paul during current OCTGN tournament should look different

Back on topic: Didn't you find Lady Stoneheart useful?

Rogue30 said:

When play testing I thought I would, but after giving it more thought I realized that her ability wasn't as useful as the other cards in my deck. I really didn't need the claim soak, and a player could play around her ability (i.e. Don't perform a military challenge) if a power did manage to get on my House, which can only really happen in the very early rounds of a game when i don't have Devious.

Even if I had Lady Stonheart in play on the turn Erick made me win Dominance, he still could have avoided a MIL challenge, knelt enough characters (for INT and POW) and had enough Stealth to avoid winning Dominance. Beric would have still then died to Valar next round. Patience and Lady Stonheart could have been interesting (not using it on her but to pull Beric out of play and other useful characters like Flea Bottom and Warlock), but you'd still need a bit of luck of drawing Patience early on. I didn't draw the cards (Bleeds, Make an Example, House Messenger) I would have swapped for Patience and/or Lady Stoneheart in the first two rounds of the FInal (when I got a power on my House), so I don't know if it would have made a difference. I suppose I could have played Summoning Season to fetch Lady Stoneheart (and then hope to draw Beric), kill her (use my own Valar if I have too), and then use her as an insurance policy to protect Beric if I got power on my House. Unfortunately, I only have so much time to play test and think of ideas.

Definitely a good question, thanks for asking.

Great TR's! Congrats to Erick and great to see some new types of decks.

FATMOUSE said:

Hey Fatmouse!

I too had a Mar/Bar deck going and after looking at your build made my own tweeks. Much of our decks are the same although I use more characters than you and I did not use Milk or HCIT. Anyways in local play I fould the deck works very well although Devious Intentions is so important to this build it cant be streesed enough. In fact the one idea (of 2) I took from your build was the Red Warlock, the other being Taste for blood. I never realized how good taste for blood was until I clued into the fact that you can have more than one in play. DUH!!! lol

Anyways, here is my version of the Mar/Bar, would love to hear what some more seasoned players have to say.

House
House Martell (Core) x1

Agenda
Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM) x1

Plot
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Summoning Season (Core) x1
Building Season (Core) x1
Fury of the Sun (AE) x1
A Time for Ravens (ACoS) x1
Retaliation! (ASoSilence) x1
Rains of Autumn (Core) x1

Character
Beric Dondarrion (IG) x3
Thoros of Myr (RoR) x1
Tom Sevenstrings (RoR) x1
Flea Bottom Scavenger (AToT) x3
Maester of Lemonwood (BtW) x3
Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS) x2
Dornish Paramour (TTotH) x3
The Red Viper (PotS) x2
Lady Stoneheart (MotM) x1
Red Warlock (ASoS) x3
Herald of the Sun (SB) x1
Orphaned Recruit (OSaS) x2

Location
The Red Keep (TftRK) x1
Dornish Fiefdoms (PotS) x3
Summer Sea (PotS) x2
Open Market (ASoS) x2

Event
Westeros Bleeds (Core) x3
The Hand's Judgement (TTotH) x1
Ill Tidings (IG) x3
Condemned by the Council (AToT) x1
The Shadow of the South (CoS) x1
Gossip and Lies (OSaS) x2
Make an Example (PotS) x3
Confession (KotS) x2

Attachment
Black Raven (ASoS) x2
Devious Intentions (BoRF) x3
Taste for Blood (PotS) x3
Venomous Blade (TBoBB) x3