Ah, well never mind then, characters only. Hm. Obviously I didn't build a Neutral Faction Deck.

Well, I'm very excited to report that my Neutral Treaty deck was chosen. And it looks like a good field. Here's the decklists:

http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_nrep.asp?eidm=20

I think the link might change at some point (they didn't put the "www" in), but looks like some good decks.

Well, it seems that my quirky Targaryen Rush also made the pick...

I have to agree that the field looks tough. Good luck to everybody!

WWDrakey said:

Gratz!

Well, seeing the competition I'm up against, I can't help but wonder how my very unsophisticated neutral "Refugees With No King" deck got even picked (especially considering that I probably was not the only one with this idea), or even might stand a chance...

Though being the only A Time of Ravens deck might help since there will be no Carrion Birds to discard the Black Raven for the extra card draw (and gold).

@JerusalemJones: Your deck looks very unconventional, that's for sure. I'm really curious how that one's gonna work out.

@Drakey: What the hell where you think submitting such an non-sensical deck... You should be ashamed of yourself...

My deck is actually a variation on my Brotherhood deck. I picked the Martell treaty to add in resources and cards that I didn't have to pay any gold penalties to bring into play. The idea is a nobles/power rush deck, and the original does very well in Joust and Melee (I've won turn two in Melee). I actually played this deck against regular LCGs for several weeks, and matched up pretty well against the field. Teaming up with Martell helped the deck with draw power and a little extra control and renown.

If I didn't already have plans for that Sunday (we're playing A Game of Thrones all weekend at my store) I'd make the hour trip to the Events Center just to watch it being played. Except I'd likely try to be a back seat driver, or facepalm if my proxy made a play I didn't agree with. But I have found that other people can do better with my decks (Slio9 ran my Martell deck to a top 8 showing at GenCon last year) so I'm looking forward to this event.

Jekothalep said:

Wait... 22 refugees in total? o_O That's one big refugee camp!

A pretty neat workaround for the gold problem with Neutral decks actually... and that deck should have pretty scary setups

Jekothalep said:

~ Wait... Targaryen is the Power Rush and Baratheon the Control House, right? I always get those two mixed up.

Mechanically my deck is just a skewed take on power rush, since the DoTN cards gave Targaryen a pretty nice cardpool for that (and it let's True Power shine for once, especially in combo with Khal). But if you think that deck is odd now, wait 'till you hear the bit of story behind it... I'm hoping it'll be included in the posts next week.

Jekothalep said:

Have to agree, the Treaty is actually a pretty cool trick, and shouldn't hurt that bad in a rush deck. Plus the combined power gain from Bara and Martell is pretty staggering.

@Jeko - I made almost that exact same deck, only without the Men with No King and with a ton more characters/events-nee-characters. I posted about it earlier in this thread.

I'm glad my GJ got picked. I really felt like it's the most fun deck I've ever built too. To be fair, it's partly based on a deck that my wife built quite some time ago - around the time of the CCG when Storm Raiders existed. I had built a deck called Hate (which took second in the NE Regional that year, to Nate of course , and my wife built Love to counter it.

Wow. Some stunning decks, some really interesting stuff. I'm really curious to see how it plays out!

great job jj for win and congrats to all winners

Below is the Deck I submitted. Alas it did not get chosen. Congrats to the winners and best of luck!

Title: Winter is Coming..... but Not Yet

House Stark
Agenda: Kings of Summer

characters (34)
Jenyne Westerling x1
Bolton Refugee x3
Northern Calvary Flank x3
Northern Infantry x3
Carrion Bird x3
Samwell Tarly x3
Gilly x2
Catelyn Stark (core) x2
Hodor x1
Knight of the Tumblestone x2
The Hound (Martell) x1
Ser Jorah Mormont x2
Brienne of Tarth x1
Randyl Tarly x2
Robb Stark (Kings of the Sea) x3
Eddard Stark (core set) x2

Locations (13)
Narrow Sea x3
Great Keep x3
Street of Steel x1
Street of Sisters x1
Northern Fiefdoms x1
Godswood x1
Lord Eddard's Chambers x1

Events (7)
Distinct Mastery x3
THe Price of War x2
Support of the Kingdom x2

Attachments (6)
Black Raven x3
Ice x1
Court Advisor x2

I'm really hoping they do this contest again sometime, perhaps with different restrictions like 1 pack from each cycle or something.

Darksbane said:

I second that. I love contests like this. I feel it's really good for the creative deck builders that this game has had over the years - in that way, it is a testimonial to how solid the card base is that they could even hold a contest like this without it being clearly dominated or skewed in any direction really (maybe away from Bara, which is a little weird).

I typically don't root for Lanni to win, but I gotta make this case an exception. GO DAMON!

I typically root for Stark and Greyjoy... and this time is the same: GO NORTH!!! ;-)

Gualdo said:

Generally speaking, I'm very surprised to see so little location discard among the decks. Very interesting....

Twn2dn said:

Because there is so much location discard in the game? The two most effective events are Price of War and Condemned by the Council. And if I recall correctly at least one deck is running Condemned. Two are also running Fleeing To The Wall, and outside of Targ there is never a deck I buiild where Fleeing gets cut. I've seen too many games where someone wins with 8+ locations on the board, and a location reset is just as nice as a character rest.

Twn2dn said:

In fact, one of deck biggest weakness is draw engine. As I had been considering for a while (I love this deck, and keep playing as much as I can), I could need to include Building Season instead of City of Spies to search for King's Landing or Alchemist Guild if needed

Yeah, location removal is still quite scarce in the game, so at least I had to make the call of completely dropping it. I was mainly trying to keep the rush fast enough, and figured that I'm "ok" with my opponent spending 2-3 gold for a location they don't (hopefully) get to use too many times.

The options I had were: Price of War (not enough crests) and Climbing Spikes (this could have possibly worked out, if I'd have added some more wildlings, but adding even more attachments to that deck seemed a bit too risky).

Due to Viserys I was more afraid of getting hit by direct (in the worst case repeatable) kill, and was actually a bit surprised to see so little of it in the decks. My proud King (poor wretch) may actually stay alive...

@Gualdo: ~Can I take that "Go NORTH" as support for me as well?

...up here in the real north I'm pretty much hoping for summer and some warmth (instead of the huge piles of snow...), so I'm really happy with playing dragons.

JerusalemJones said:

So yeah, I am surprised to not see a bit more targeted location removal...though I guess a large part of that might have been that FFG was looking for creative builds rather than just straightforward aggressive builds. Looking at the deck lists, the same might be said of character removal...though 4 of 8 decks do play Milk.

Overall looks like a very interesting and creative group of decks. The Red Viper deck looks interesting...3x Taste for Blood is always a pain to play against, especially with little attachment/character removal!