Hey everyone. After finishing 6th or so at last year's TN regional I was looking to do better this year. Having seen in the previous few weeks how strong the Lannister Trait manipulation deck was and that it had a really good matchup against most of the field I decided to give it a whirl. Knowing that a couple friends of mine were planning on playing either summer or winter based decks made it an easy decision to play over my Targ Wildling deck which had nothing to deal with season based decks. I had a great time and met some really nice guys and saw a few interesting decks being played throughout the day. That being said...on to the action.
Round 1 vs Targ Summer played by Darksbane
First off I want to say thanks to him for making the trip all the way from Nashville. That's a 5 hour trip and while not the longest trip made by a player at the tourney that is still a tough drive giving the current state of gas prices in the country.
Darksbane was running a summer based deck with lots of armies and high str characters. I knew that if I couldn't keep his characters knelt that it would get to be a problem if he had any standing effects. Opening hand i dropped 4 cards and drew back up. No golden tooth mines but I did have a king's landing. Knowing that most targ decks(unless shadows based) don't run many KL locations i had a feeling that I would be able to draw as many cards as i wanted. I went with At the gates turn 1 to go get Maester Aemon. I believe he opened with A time for ravens and grabbed his black raven. The race for card advantage begins. The first 2 rounds went back and forth with him winning a military challenge or two and a power challenge. By the third turn i was counting 7-8 gold each turn thanks to summer and was drawing 4-5 cards due to my KL and shadows cards. Until turn 4 DB hardly had any locations on the board so playing those high cost armies was getting harder and harder. Lucking I kept all his characters knelt and even discarded a few using a Dissension/YKtWD/Lion's gate combo. Luckily he started drawing more locations and less characters and I was able to get to the 15 power needed to win. My chains didn't do much in this game and I never was a Carrior Bird. That would have been nice to shut off his summer. Oh well still a win.
1-0
Round 2 vs Greyjoy Winter Agenda Choke played by Jake(I think. I'm horrible with names)
OK, I have to give a major shout out to this guy for making the 12+ hr trip from Missouri. Although after his experience he might have to have a word or two with his meta-buddy Dobbler for some of the nasty things we did to him with combo's that Dobbler thought up. But I'll get to that in a second...
On the opening round all I remember is dropping a Carrion bird that would end up being the bane of his existence. He drops Maester Wyndamyr a Marauder, and a couple locations. First round I play At the Gates to get Maester Aemon once again. I figure I'll need the military saves so he was a good choice. He plays Fear of Winter. At this point I make my first mistake by thinking that that means I can't play any more cards other than Aemon. After the fact we realize that is actually reads " you cannot play or put into play more than once card from your hand." So AtG gets around that stipulation. It really didn't matter. In the long run. He plays another marauder and passes. I do an intrigue challenge, which he lets go through. I pull nothing of importance. On goes Apprentice Collar to the Carrion Bird. At this point, my opponent still doesn't know what's going to happen. So I do a power challenge, he lets it go as well. On goes the Copper Link. Now he puts two and two together. At this point he has 3 characters, I stealth one Marauder with the Bird who is now 3 str, making wyndamyr a raven. Back to the deck he goes choosing not to claim his as military claim. Ouch. Uber-Bird FTW! To my suprise on the following 4 ROUNDS!!! he lets the bird wreak havoc on his board before he plays Valar. All together the game went about 8 plots with me at the end counting 0 gold the final 3 turns, however I had enough card draw to end it before he could clear my board again.
2-0
Round 3 vs Greyjoy Winter KotHH played by meta-mate Tony
Another Greyjoy?! Jeesh these guys never go away. This game basically goes the same in the first turn as it did in my last round. Tony's first mistake was winning initiative with his KotHH agenda and choosing to go first. Ok, I'll take that. I proceed to kneel him out completely and get my Carrion Bird/Links combo going. Good for him he plays Valar the following round to end the shenanigans. 
No biggie, I proceed to drop a board full of characters, bring Tyrion out of shadows, and Tony concedes on the next turn when he can't play enough characters that won't be knelt by my plots.
3-0, time to play Jonathan(Longclaw)
Round 4 vs Martell Summer played by Longclaw(Jonathan Benton)
I always love playing Jonathan. He's just such a nice guy and a good player. He really makes you step up your game. Too bad this would be the game of the day where my deck completely craps out on me.
I draw my opening hand and see a 3 card drop with only a lion's gate and 2 characters with the rest events. Yuck! That could be better. So I muligan to see a hand full of 3 cost characters, 1 event, and a Painted dogs. You gotta be shitting me. 2 card drop. At this point I know the game is over. But hey, anything can happen so why not play it out. I knew Jonathan was playing Blockade so I totally expected to see him flip that as his first plot. NOPE! Loyalty Money can Buy. Ok just as bad. I go get Grand Maester Pycelle with at the gates hoping not to see a VB. Draw my opening hand - Lion's gate, Lannisport Chancellor. Terrible! I play the Gate and the Chancellor with another location. Jonathan drops a card in shadows and I shake my head. Could this get any worse? Of course he kills Pycelle with the VB. I win a couple challenges and he comes back at me. Next turn I see something promising, a Dissension. I remove the power from his Darkstar with the Lion's gate turning him into a Refugee. Then try to discard him and the Lost Spearman. Aaaaaand...Paper Shield! From this moment on he would proceed to kill a character each turn with the Blade and I never got a GTM or KL for draw. He rolled me in 4 or 5 plots. After this we play again for fun using different decks(his Stark, my Targ Wildling...I crush him. Maybe I should have played that deck? That's what you get when you go against the House you love. Should have played Targaryen. Oh well...
3-1, win the next game and I'm in the top 4.
Round 5 vs Stark Seige played by ZombiePrime.
I knew from seeing other games and hearing from some other players that he had a lot of armies, a lot of standing, effects, and could just crush you with military challenges. I flop 4-5 cards and redraw. Play AtG to fetch Aemon once again. Claim soak is so important in this match. I proceed to kneel much of his board in the first few turns but he keeps standing those **** armies with High Ground. Such a good card. The game basically goes like this for 4-5 plots before I finally strip his hand completely and then play valar to ensure no Narrow Escape nonsense happens. The defining moment of the day for me would happen on round 7. At this point Prime had run out of card draw and was not drawing many more armies. He did however have plenty of Guards at Riverrun, a carrion bird, and syrio in play all knelt thanks to my city of spiders plot(the copy one?). Round 7 saw Prime get to 14 power by winning an opposed military with syrio, then pass to my challenges. I start to initiate my intrigue when he says that he's putting syrio back in shadows. The nice guy in me says "sure, go ahead" while the whole time i'm thinking that was a terrible idea. Sure enough, next round that would cost me the game. In hind sight, there were a couple other mistakes I made in the final round that may have made that a moot point. I had the highest initiative card and I simply had to play it and go first in order to win, but alas hind sight is 20-20. Final round I didn't draw any military icons and syrio from shadows stealths out aerys oakheart with only a Carrion bird to block and him at 14 power. Game, set, match. All in all he was a good guy and gave me the hardest most nerve racking game of the day. ****, so close!
FInal Record 3-2 finishing 6th AGAIN!
Awesome tourney! Got to meet and play a lot of new people which I hope can keep in touch and help to grow our TN/Southern meta. A big shoutout to Wade for a great performance and a much deserved and long over due Championship win. Truly a great guy and what a crazy deck. Wait until you see the decklist, nuts! I mean who plays Aegon's Hill in Bara?