I'm a little sad there is no Bolton any of the Top 4s so far
Things I've learned so far in Regional Season 2011
Mathias Fricot said:
I'm a little sad there is no Bolton any of the Top 4s so far
it is a dangerous build. i'm not all that surprised. It is worse than useless in melee and joust is works fairly well, but with so much control in the environment, it is difficult to expect it to win against hyper-kneel and martell challenge control.
dude it rocks in melee! just run three steelshanks reserves, three weeping water, and three in ramseys name! You don't even have to do a single challenge lol
until someone has more power then you and just wins...
the bolton deck in melee was the most intriguing one i saw all day. without leaning on someone else to win the idea was very solid. it kept everyone else keeping track of outside factors that distracted them from their own decks. i don't know if i would run it as a solid winner but the idea is definately there!
Agreed! It seemed pretty fascinating. Particulary amusing to me was the fact that no one can lose a challenge and off the Reserves for military claim since it will always be controlled by the active player, who won't be fulfilling claim. Well that is, unless you have a Martell player at the table playing Red Vengeance. I mean, if I played Martell in melee, I would. All sorts of fun with that card.
Post Kubla and TN joust results, here's my continuing thoughts on the US Regional Season so far.
1. Martell/Summer-still a top tier deck. 2 made the cut at Kubla and Longclaw took it to 2nd at TN. Not unbeatable, as Wade and Mathlete proved, but still strong nonetheless.
2. Bara/Wildlings-finally Bara gets the win that all the supporters of the last FAQ claimed would come this Regional season. I'm still not sold, as Bara has not consistently made top 4 appearances so far this Regional season. But I'm really hoping for more Bara decks to make top 4 and win some Regionals. Normally if Bara is going to win a Regional, it's Kubla. Looks like Bara can win a Regional outside of California.
3. Lanni/Kneel-Still top tier in the hands of a Champion! I always expected Lanni kneel to win at least 1 Regional, just didn't expect it to be Kubla. Good reminder that Lanni/kneel isn't dead yet.
4. Never count out a former champion
.
5. Why don't more people run Martell in Melee? 2nd best Rush capacity in the game and global control elements make them seem like a no brainer.
I live in Nova Scotia Canada. Is there any competitive play anywhere in Canada. They don't even sell the cards in the store yet. Maybe the hype around hbo series will change that. I think i should demo it for some of the game stores. I'd love to go to one of these tournaments but there's a ton of travel time and expense to get to New York or Missouri from here.
Expensive for sure, but Missouri would love to have you!
Kennon said:
Expensive for sure, but Missouri would love to have you!
Agreed, I'm not tootin our own horn here, but some of the nicest players who you will ever meet this side of the Mason Dixon.
ASoIaFfan said:
Fotonurth said:
Things I learned:
Know who your friends are at a melee table and examine every possible card combo on the table.
If you're at a table with Dobbler, pissing him off is fun, but usually doesn't end well.
Event control is important. Paper shield should be in EVERY deck. (personal opinion)
I don't know if Paper Shield *should* be in every deck, but I predicted that it would become ubiquitous once re-released to the environment, which is why I was not happy to see it return. Some of my local meta-mates doubted me when I said how prevalent it would become, but sure enough, it's everywhere now, for better or worse.
Auto-includes annoy me, because I see it as limiting options and variety in deck-building. I do agree that everyone should strongly consider how they are going to deal with Paper Shield whenever they put events in their decks (without gold or influence cost) that they are counting on getting to play. One will have to hedge their bets and run event protection from now on. Or just avoid events altogether and laugh that your opponent wasted three deck slots on a card he or she will never get to use during a game with you.
I preferred Hand's Judgment for event cancel. It had a cost so not everyone ran it, yet it was available to anyone who really wanted event cancel in their decks.
Agreed. I was very disappointed to see Paper Shield reprinted (though not surprised, gameplay feel has been drifting away from what I like for some time now). In particular, this really mitigates events that have a cost requiring kneeling a crest character - that's probably my largest complaint.
Things I've learned:
1) Stay at the hotel the event it happening at, or where other out of town players are staying AND,
a) play as many decks from not your home meta as possible
b) Be like Bruno/Mathlete and make lots of changes to overall deck structure, including your restricted card, and then be worried about how it will play but finish first
2) For Kublacon Joust -- Fleeing to the Wall was next to useless. A few decks in the top 8 had some good, heavy location use, but even many of their plot decks didn't run Fleeing. In the "below the top 8 realm", it was mostly pointless.
3) As locations were such a small fraction of decks (and except for Martell, attachments too) lots of event control would have been great. As Greyjoy, I should have run Seasick & Paper Shield (or sub in To be A Kraken, and change my restricted from Fear of Winter to Fury of the Kraken [see above about playing as many decks from outside your meta])
4) There should be more Regionals in CA! Now I feel like I have nothing to play for, as Gencon is out of the question. I NEED MORE THRONES!
I wrote an article about playing Bolton at the casual level, which I will finish up tonight/tomorrow morning (after emailing it to the people I played against to confirm it is correct). If I don't get off the med school waitlist I (hope I) will be driving down to GenCon from Thunder Bay Ontario, which will be 20+ hours of travel. It also means the people I am driving get to Joust in the back seat the whole way down.
Gualdo said:
Stag Lord said:
Yeah Gualdo: the date will be Friday November 25th. Its a always a fixed day - the friday after the American Thanksgving holiday. Its really nice in NY at that time - the holiday decorations are just going up and the season is just getting started. The venue is rigth off Times Sqaure and smack in the ahert of the city. It would be great to see you.
The week after stahleck... indeed would be a great 10 days... I will manage to be there... maybe arriving directly from frankfurt and spending a week in NY...
Time to plan ;-)
On a related note, have you ever had an American Thanksgiving feast? I hope you really like turkey....
Man, we should get more trans-Atlantic trips going. It's a bit like studying abroad
Twn2dn said:
Apologies for the delayed response. Man, this sounds cool. Any idea which day(s) you'll be in the city? I have to begin preparing my wife for another Thanksgiving with guests. I think staying 2 nights at my place works. I might be able to squeeze a third night, depends on what the wife says, but if not, hopefully we can find another local player who can host you for the remaining time that you're in NYC. (Stag, you up for it?)
On a related note, have you ever had an American Thanksgiving feast? I hope you really like turkey....
Man, we should get more trans-Atlantic trips going. It's a bit like studying abroad
any way i can get in on your NYC thanksgiving again this year? don't want to push the wife or anything, but if gualdo is making black friday this year, how could i stay away?
finitesquarewell said:
any way i can get in on your NYC thanksgiving again this year? don't want to push the wife or anything, but if gualdo is making black friday this year, how could i stay away?
I would love to come to this and meet all the NY crew!
Danigral said:
I would love to come to this and meet all the NY crew!
You should definitely come to NYC's Black Friday event. It is, quite honestly, one of the coolest tournaments, in part because it's the only regionals size (or larger) tournament around that time of year in the US. Also, Letsgored typically has T-shirts made (you've seen those awesome logos on the forums), a ridiculously cool trophy, and some other great prizes.
Also, it turns out that there are few things better after eating turkey until you burst than playing a few games of cards with friends. (Unfortunately, I don't have much more space for people crashing at my house, but there will be plenty of food, if you wanted to just come for the Thanksgiving dinner.)
Yeah, I saw the t-shirts...very awesome. I'll try to work something out as it gets closer. I may just come up early day of so that I can spend T-day with friends/family.
~Do we need to change this to the Black Friday Rollcall thread or just the perpetually hijacking thread?
I really hope you all show up for Black Friday, don't get me wrong. Maybe we should start the Black Friday thread.
Dang, if Gualdo is coming, that is tempting for me to finally make it back to NYC to play again (it has been, what, five years since I played Stag and the gang?)...but the Friday after Turkey Day is daunting to say the least...
rings said:
Dang, if Gualdo is coming, that is tempting for me to finally make it back to NYC to play again (it has been, what, five years since I played Stag and the gang?)...but the Friday after Turkey Day is daunting to say the least...
I agree. Saturday would be much easier for me to make. I could drive up on Friday and not have to miss Thanksgiving with my family.
Hmmm, if more people (and out-of-towners) can make Black "Friday" on Saturday, perhaps we should move it to then. The NYC crew shall discuss this...
And yeah, most hi-jacked thread ever, lol.
The holiday weekend itself is a problem. Unless we move the whole date....
For instance several people can't make it that Saturday - me for one. With a dispersed family, most years I usually need that Saturday for holiday stuff. unless we move ti off the holdiay altogether, we'll end up chasing our tails around trying to find the day that works for everybody.
Yeah... I already booked bus tickets for Black Friday.
~Obviously we just need to have back-to-back tournaments Friday and Saturday.
Odds are it'll stay on Friday, but someone from NY will start a thread on it sometime a bit before or after GenCon so that people can start planning.