why does life have to get in the way of games so f*ing often. :-P

Gamers have lives? This is the first I heard of that!

yeah, i want to be able to play. i will post more days in advance, so you can harp on everyone to show up. otherwise they will owe me gas money. hah.

Mad Axe said:

heh... good luck with that axe

since the league started, turnout has been good on tuesdays. cant speek for the meta tonight, but i'd assume they'd be there. (but you know what happens when you assume things <sigh>

Kinda forgot about my whole Dad's side of family christmas today thought that it was Sunday... Have to work Tuesday have seminar on Wednesday see you next Saturday for sure...

Wednesday is Rhonda's birthday, and we're playing BSG that night. Then Applebees.

The League is going so-so, as only myself, Brad and Seth have built decks. I've played Seth twice with a 1-1 ranking in te Sparring, and Dan and I sparred twice, plus another game tonight with me going 3-0. Seth had to go back to work, so him and Brad didn't get to play.

For the record Jon, I'm Martell, Seth is Targ and Brad is Baratheon. Brad is getting better, but I still manage to eek out wins. Targ is pretty powerful in Core Set and League (thanks to Ruby Ford CP, and Ancient Enemies with Dragon Thief). My flop was horrible -- a 3 gold cahracter and Open Market, a Martell recursion location that only works during Summer. I knew the game was over right away at that point. I also made at last one major play mistake, but I think it only would have drug out the win for Seth. He had it going on, and I couldn't get the deck to fire.

This week I will most likely buy Winds of Winter, as I really need both Obara Sand and Mance Rayder. Underhanded Assassin and Arthur Dayne are not to be scoffed at either. I am pretty sure Brad will break down and get Ancient Enemies. Don't know about Seth.

This Saturday, January 31st, at 6:00ish we will be doing a booster draft event at The Gamers Den. Cost is either free or $5 -- if it is free, players do not get to keep the cards (we will be drafting my own personal packs). If we got for the $5 entry, the winner gets to keep all cards drafted, and each player gets to keep one rare.

Drafting will be (in order): Five Kings, Iron Throne, House of Thorns, Five Kings, House of Talons.

Please bring your won draft and supplemental packs, as I no longer have any left.

how about this saturday? anyone going to be there? i may be able to change plans and show up. if BSG is on the slate instead, i could entice my wife to join us. she likes the game.

Mad Axe said:

BSG will happen at the very least. People show up for BSG and a game of AGoT might break out (went to a fight and a hockey game broke out kinda thing). I'll probably be there after 6, but not for AGoT. Jerusalem Jones will be there around 5.

Um, I'm on vacation as of 3:30 today, so I'll be at the store ALL DAY on Saturday.

Who knows how much BSG will break out.

And Call of Cthulhu. I am really getting into that game.

And, of course, there will be people to play Thrones. Some of us may play some league games (Seth totally wants to win this week, as I have been dominating the league with my Martell deck).

Oh woe is the Cambridge meta, when no one wants to talk about the game anymore.

I, however, got in four games yesterday, and went 3-1 (the loss was to Seth in the League, the other three were all against Brad -- one league game, two Standard games). It had been awhile since I had played standard, and apparently as long for Brad. I flopped Myrcella Lannister and he flopped Cersei. First turn plot was On Raven's Wings for Bran Stark, then switched into The Red Wedding. Of course, Brad forgot that Queen Cersei had the Lady trait, and that I picked both characters. It was all downhill from there.

Also got in a Call of Cthulhu game against Dan, which was just brokenly brutal. He just picked two random factions from the Core set (syndicate and Cthulhu, iirc) and couldn't draw characters. I went first, and won the game on my fourth turn. Truly, it wasn't even fun, but I liked to see my deck perform. Now if only I could get more Mi-gos....

Khal Viper,

Tried to email you, but your email address is Hidden, even to your friends, and I'm at home so I don't have your email address in my address book.

Just wanted to apologize for last night. When they were starting up the 5:30 game I wanted to sit out, but got talked into it, and the thing that sealed it was when I said I wanted to wait for others to show up to "host" the game, but Argonel said he' cold do that just as easily -- and then he left, just as soon as you got there. Considering you brought your brother, I wish I would have stuck to my guns.

I'm at the store all day today starting at about 2, 2:30 (waiting for the DirecTV guy to fix out system first) and all day Saturday, if you have either off. I'd like to play Thrones with you, league, LCG or Standard, it doesn't matter.

JJ

^---bump---^ ^---bump---^

Sexy new avatar there, Nick-ler.

JerusalemJones said:

it is the closest thing i could find to a cylon in the avatars ;-)

I set up the Baratheon Hedge event for this Saturday. LCG format people. Let's award some pins this time!

<wink> you could always just give me one <wink>

Funny. I don't remember the last time I played against you in a game. I've seen you play, but I haven't played you...

You just want to have your Bara pin and play Toasters, don't you.

... ummm... no. <wink>

Looks like Phantasy Hobbies is throwing down the gauntlet, guys! We'd better step things up lol.

Somebody better show up with a deck pretty **** soon. Brad got calle din to work Tuesday shortly after I got here, so we didn't get a agme in, and I want to PLAY!!!!

So Seth showed up this evening (his work shifts get done earlier now) and we played two games of Thrones. He didn't bring any decks, and opted to play my Targ Bounce n Burn deck. I played my Martell deck.

The first game was over very quickly. Neither one of us was able to play more than two cards during setup, but he couldn't get his locations into play, and was behind on the gold curve all game. I was able to win challenges against him, play good Martell Control (Broken Arm on Setup, Locked and Arriane 1st Marshalling). When I had character control, he played Winter Storm. I Marshalled ITELP Aero Hotah, and he conceeded.

The second game should have been his. Again, I had a lso-so flop -- ITE Arianne and the +X Inititive guys. He played two Kingdom Location and some other location, so he started with high gold and influence. We both played our Fury plots first turn. I got to drop LP Darkstar with his Kingdom location, he dropped a Queen's Knight. I let him go first, as I had Aerys Oakheart and Milk of the Poppy in my hand. He played Rhegal and some other chump card. I played the neutral fiefdom, and ITE Littlefinger.

He got the upper hand, I killed my Init guys, and did okay with LF and Arianne. The next round he got Queen Dany (5KE) in play, with Don't Wake the Dragon. I played Swearing of Oaths, but even with Nomadic Scholar I couldn't put much together. I did, however, Milk Dany. I think he also got Viserion in play this round as well (fortunately, he didn't have much influence, and I was able to Viper's Bite Viserion the first time he tried to use it. He did, however, discard my Aerys.

The next round I used Benjen's to get Myrcella, he played For Love of Duty. I also drew into a Summer Sea, so I played Mycella and another Scholar. Well, the SCholar died to claim, he burned Darkstar, and I had to win INT at all costs. I failed, and got lucky -- he discarded my Broken Arm. Now I had the upper hand -- I had Arianne and LF in play, 5KE Viper in my hand and two Devious Machinations. I was all set to turn Viserion back on him the next round.

This round, I played Wildfire. He played Swearing of Oaths. He marshalled some good cards (kept both his Dragons and Dany, having used a Dragon Thief to discard Milk. I Marshalled Viper (with a dupe). I had also drawn into Put to the Question.

Sure enough, the first thing he did was Ambush the Queen's Knight, and used Viserion on the Viper. I ptt? it, then knelt Ari and Viper to DM it twice back on Viserion. Then I did it again, using LF and Ari. Bye-bye Viserion. Well, he got his Power challenge off, and used it to get Pyat Pree, then attacked with him and killed Arianne. On my turn, I attacked Power with the Viper (as he was knelt out). Sadly, he had Allies of Necessity and got a character into play, but also my Aerys. So I discarded Pyat (lol). But he won the challenge, and got another character.

The next round I dropped Fleeing to the Wall, and he lost half his location. And didn't draw any more. I had the better characters, and was able to hold him off for the turn, and gain some extra power. On turn six, while I had the upper hand, I played Prove One's Worth and dropped HoTh Quentyn and Anders. Again, he played Allies (And I knelt Anders to give Q 2 power). Then I defended with 4 characters to win a Mil challenge (and 4 power), intentionally lost an INT challenge (stood Viper) and won with an unopposed INT challenge with LF (would have won anyone if he defended, but triggering the Viper.

Had I not 2xDM'd his Viserion, he had the game locked. Completely.

I miss playing this game. We need to do this more often.

Just thought I'd pop in and say that was a nice little game report there. Thanks for writing that up. I do love the Martells. I got in a trio of games earlier tonight with my "standard" Martell deck, and it was tons of fun.

A game against a Lannister clansmen deck, and 2 games against a Stark Bolton deck. I managed to draw into the answers I needed almost perfectly in each game, along with an awesome flop/first turn marshalling against the Clansmen of Arianne/Myrcella/Red Viper and a bunch of free locations.

Gotta say, Intrigue challenes with Venom in the Cup on Deadly Red Viper, and Frey Hospitality revealed against decks that struggle to have strong Intrigue is just nasty . :-)

What I'm dying for is the Martell LCG expansion... Until then, I think ITE/5KE is really my preferred format.

Lately I'd been do poorly with my decks. After playing Seth (as described above), I tried running my Targ deck and got beat down for a few games. Then I ran my standard Greyjoy/Winter deck. This deck has had some amazing games -- against Brad running standard Lanni using Bran for plot recustion and Kings of Deceit, I one turn managed to make it Winter, had a two claim plot, and with LCG Theon and the Winter Marauders pretty much managed a 5 kill Military challenge; totaly awesome -- but it's been misfiring on me lately. I need to do some tweaks, but I'm waiting for Kings of the Sea before serious fiddling with it.

Yesterday I tried my Targ BnB deck against Seth's Martell deck. I was able to flop 4 cards, including 5KE Drogon, and then played Herald of the Dragon(?) to put Viserion on top of my deck. Of course, Seth had THe Broken Arm, and always neutered at least one of my dragons. But I managed to draw into both of my Sellsword Companies in the first two turns, and a Queen's Knight. Once I got V in play, even if I couldn't kill one of Seth's characters I could almost always Ambush someone into play, use Viserion to reduce their STR, and then Drogon to kneel them. Seth more than once found himself having to Broken Arm one of my Queen's Knights, only for me to bounce it back to my hand, and then play again (with icons back). I joking referred to my deck as being Targ Control. Even when he had more characters than me, I seemed to always find ways to kneel them out. He never got more than 2 power the entire game, ITE Red Viper was ineffective against me, and my lack of events didn't hurt me. My lack of draw was the worst part of the game, but as I said I did win, and although it took 7 turns it was rather one sided.

Khal Viper wanted to play against my Greyjoy deck, but we spent most of the afternoon playing Monty Python FLuxx, and then I had to take care of some store stuff, so by the time we had time to play it was time to start the Game of Thrones boardgame.

I likes me some good Targ Ambush Dragon action. Curious though JJ, I was thinking about swapping out 5KE Drogon to use the CS version... (perhaps going so far as to play CS Tywin out of house to maximize the ability). I just was never sold on the kneel ability (unless I was forced to use it in concert with Viserion, and that just seemed to subvert the true power of burn), particularly with the loss of WED Daeny, and MwNK's discouragement of anyone playing something 5K Daeny would effect.... (Though she does hit Reinforcements, now that I think of it.... Hrmm)

Speaking of Targ Control... that's really what my GC build was... I went so far as to remove 5KE Rhaegal, since I just didn't think my deck was about rushing out to finish (and the addition of 2 copies of To Be A Dragon could get me a re-stood Deadly or Stealthy D or V just as well, in addition to the synergy)... And then I got housed by Geoff Hollis in round 5 with his Stark/Targ monstrosity that ran three Barracks to my two, and combo'd 5KE Rhaegal with ITE Viserion... I was not happy. But I learned just how much my mindset has evolved toward control since my move to MN... and the (damaging?) exposure to French radiation. I wouldn't go back to rush for all the world, but I do have to be conscientious of that fact that there's a more aggressive way to play than is normally in my PoV.