Actually, slight correction to Nick's report- I was actually running Martell Brotherhood in joust.

More info please!

~Unless you were all giving each other free wins and conceding...

Four Martells in the final four. Ug...

rings said:

2 Champs and a Chump podcast will be the primary source of information for Kennon's and my reports.

However, it was a great turnout (24 this year in joust compared to 10 last year), it was great seeing everyone and yes....it was Martell dominated. There was only one Lanny kneel deck being used, and I honestly believe a Lanny hyper kneel can stand toe to toe with Martell control, but no one wanted to play them.

Bara was tied for the second most represented house at four (tied with Targ), so the errata/FAQ update didn't stop them from being played.

While most of you a probably interested in reports from the top finishers I thought I’d give you insight into mediocrity. For me the 3-2 9th place finish was my best showing in my first year of competitive play. (I did post a robust 2-3 at last years regionals and 1-4 at GenCon.)

My Deck

I decided to play Bara Asshai Holy. Most Asshai players (at least from what I could tell) were using Asshai shadows, however I love Power of Faith and built my deck around two copies of that and Many Powers Long Asleep. When the deck was first made it consisted of OOH such as Tarle, Damphair and a Practical Believer (Lanni) with the Alliance plot and Val as the draw engine. However, once the restricted list came out Val was dumped in favor or Pyromancer’s Cache x3. This was much more reliable and less fragile. Plus with already running Alliance, relatively cheap. One change that occurred because of the Cache was dumping Tarle in favor of Anti-Shadows King Robert to buff the Cache draw. I also had Anti-Shadows Knight of Flowers to further distance me from the other Asshai decks. At the very last moment, as I was filing out my deck sheet I made the decision to go with 29 characters, pulling an Acolyte of the Flame out and putting in King Robert’s Hammer. The main thrust of the deck was hand destruction through Altar of Fire and Zealot of the Light and delayed rush through Defenders Mel.

First Game
Opponent: Jeremiah
Deck: Stark Shadows

This game took almost to time as I could never get a great opportunity to finish off my opponent. Also removing my ability to due intrigue challenges via Catelyn slowed me down a bunch. At one point in the middle he was able to get a ton of characters out using cheap shadows, and my decision to use Wildfire rather than Valar helped me here. I brought it back to 3 on 3 keeping Mel out. I never felt that I was behind at any point and it was just a matter of full win or modified win. The fact that the Stark deck was just made the night before without any playtesting helped me out as well.
1-0

Second Game
Opponent: Jesse [Complord}
Deck: Targ Dothraki

Now when testing this deck I knew that if I ever saw a 3 card or smaller flop I was to mulligan because I would get 4 or more. Heck, 5 and 6 were very frequent. This is key to get my deck going, especially considering the lack of Military icons, I need to absorb claim. I got a 3 card, mulliganed into a WORSE three card flop. I can’t remember the last time I had to 3 card with the deck. Couple that with him winning two two claim military challenges in the first round, I was off to a rough start. Now the Wildfire over valar decision hurt me as I couldn’t get rid of the problem characters. Looking back I probably should have used Power of Faith earlier in a more defensive role to give me the necessary Military icons. I didn’t and I paid for it.
1-1

Third Game
Opponent: Noel
Deck: Neutral Brotherhood-(Brotherhood Agenda)

This game had me sweating bit. He was able to get Beric out, duped and loaded with power, flaming sword and Devious Intentions. He also had the Mad Huntsman for most of the game. But that was about it, but a 500 str Beric that gets double renown is problematic. However I did have enough going for me that I was able to get the victory though it was close up until the last round where I won 15-10 (ish).
2-1

Fourth Game
Opponent: Brad [King Blith]
Deck: Stark Wildlings (both agendas)

My, my that was quite the ass-whupping. Nothing went well for me. He was able to get out Prince of the Sun Theon and just eviscerate my board. Hell, I even put a Cache on a Seat of Power just to try and get my draw engine going. I wildfired a round or so two early but I doubt it mattered. It was over so quick we then played a game and I used my still in development Bolton deck. Surprisingly, that did much better.
2-2

Fifth Game
Opponent: Warren
Deck: Stark (Knights of the Hollow Hill)

This game had a normal flop for me (I believe 5 cards) and I was able to get the start I needed to gain the advantage. Add that with the natural slow start for a KotHH deck and it was never in much doubt. This was the first game I really got my hand destruction going well pulling three cards on one intrigue challenge towards the end. Plus I used King Robert’s Hammer well and cruised to my first ever winning record.
3-2

Final Thoughts:
Maybe my finish should be asterisked due to the fact that I went through and didn’t see Lanni or Martell the entire day. Eh, beat the deck in front of you. It was a fun time and my opponents were great to play against. Congrats to Luke for being lazy with deck design and still beating everyone in sight. I look forward to seeing everyone in the future, hopefully at the Chicago regional and GenCon. Out of the Bara decks beging played I know of two were Asshai and one was Rush, so it will be interesting to see in the other regionals how the errata effects those tournaments as well.

goshdarnstud said:

Good showing man, I'm glad you've enjoyed your first year in the environment, and it's great to see how you've come along. I've really been wondering where the Asshai decks were, as I thought they'd really been gaining some steam with Hand destruction, and reasonable staying power to pull the win later on. I'm intrigued (Heh, get it, I made a pun) about the choice of Pyromancer's Cache as your new draw engine, especially if you'd not had Robert in the at the start to "power them up" so to speak. Had you thought about fitting in ToR Renly, Tommen, Mance as a cheaper K ing ? Especially since KL Robert isn't "turned off" by other Kings . (Heck, KoW Robb triggering Asshai might not be half bad either, now that I think of it).

Also neat to see (sorry that it proved it's worth against you) PotS Theon being played. He was a beast in my old CCG-era Nuts & Boltons deck... and Stark Wildling could really abuse that ability to run up the score.

Maester_LUke said:

Looking at it again, Tommen would probably be a good add considering his cost and him + one cache equals draw cap. I was also running two copies of Ruby of R'hllor for draw, not as reliable but still triggers a bunch, but I also enjoyed the immunity from events on Mel. If I make it out to Iowa City I'll have to decide if I should run this with revisions or the crazy Lanni deck that's floating in my head.

Never discount crazy!!!

clu said:

+1.... It never ceases to amaze me how many times I try to go and click "Like" on people's posts here. :/ It would make this so much easier.

Maester_LUke said:

~Watch out for Luke, he is tricky...telling you to run out-of-house Kings while himself running vanilla Martell goodness.

Any idea what the final representation of the houses was for joust?

Also, Luke, any chance you'll post your winning deck list? Or possibly just the plots? (After NYC is fine...just curious.)

Twn2dn said:

Erick posted the house by house breakdown in the DC and MN results thread.

Dobbler said:

Am I mental? I saw all the breakdowns from the DC one posted, but I haven't seen the MN one?

rings said:

I think Dobbler was referring to the house by house breakdown at the top of this thread:

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Or relevantly: 8 Martell, 4 Bara, 4 Targ, 3 Lanni, 3 Stark, 1 Greyjoy, 1 Neutral/Brotherhood, with varying agendas. There was no further list, Greg may have gotten that info from Jaffer afterword. <"Hey Greg, Consider yourself asked."> I should have my decklist, and a short report up by this afternoon.

Many thanks.

Nice, thanks! I really hope other metas continue to do the same in terms of house/agenda breakdown and (if possible) restricted cards for the winner. It's very interesting/useful info.

Good luck to upcoming participants!

It's interesting to me that Fear of Winter is tied with Venomous Blade as the most played restricted.

Tied? I count twice as many VB's than FoW's.

Fotonurth said:

Fotonurth said:

Where dd you get that? I counted 6 decks listing VB and 3 running FoW.

Yeah Looking at it again. I miscounted are something. *shrug* My bad. Probably counted them twice or something like that. Not so interesting after all.

Let's face it, Venomous Blade is still Martell's best answer to weenies. And compared to the other cards on the RL, there better be a compelling reason to run a different card than VB, otherwise Martell will run VB.

Agreed, VB is still pretty annoying...though at least it isn't VB + NE + FoW.

On the other hand, I'm finding that my recent deck lists are a bit more resilient to VB than in the past. Given that FoW is a lot less common, I've felt a lot less pressure running a bunch of weenies. This has given me a lot more flexibility to play less "chud." I still play the obvious weenies - refugees, carrion birds, and a couple great tool box cards. But no longer is 2/3 of my deck comprised of characters with STR 2 or less. (For example, my favorite Targ deck plays only 4 other characters at the 2 STR slot - 3x Dragon Thief and 1x Viserys. Even if I added 3x Killer of the Wounded, that'd still be only 13 of ~30 characters at the 0-2 STR slot.)

I imagine as the card pool expands, more cards will be added on the restricted list, while more 3 STR character options are added. That will naturally make VB a lot less useful and could ultimately push Martell builds to reconsider NE or whatever new cards are added to the RL.

Can someone remind me...what was the house/agenda breakdown for the top 4 joust? I've seen top 3 joust and finals table melee...but I can't seem to find the LCG Days top 4 joust breakdown anywhere.

Thanks!

1) Luke - Martell/Summer 5-0 (I'm waiting for FFG to tell me their printing my report/decklist afore I go posting it myself)

beats

4) Mark (ASoIaFfan) Martell/Summer 3-2 (?) who beat King Blith's Stark/Wildling deck in a playoff to make the cut.

and then overcomes

2) Greg (Dobbler) Martell/Shadows 4-1 (His only other loss was to Luke)

who beat

3) Jerod (clu) Martell/none 4-1 (his only other loss was round 4 to Dobbler)

The first three ran VB and Jerod had NE.

Maester_LUke said:

I'm actually Matthew, and I was 4-1 but had to beat King Blith to make the cut, which put me at 5-1. Our only losses to that point were to the same player (Dobbler) so even our SoS was the same, which is why the playoff was needed. I finished 5-2 for the day, fourth place. Matthew, Mark, Luke...hmm; sounds sorta Biblical.