I figured i'd get things started with the regional reports. I know I don't post here often so most may not know me by my login name...so i'm Joey Kreins. If you want to post your own report, please feel free to do so in this thread. The top four shaped up as follows:

1st - John Bruno (Lannister Clansmen)

2nd - Lucas Sydlaske (Stark)

3rd - Joey Kreins (Martell Summer)

4th - Greg Atkinson (Targaryen)

(There was no playoff for 3rd/4th place so I only put myself higher based on seeding going into Top 8).

We had 30 people this year at our regionals and the level of competition I have to say was the best i've personally seen, especially with three former world champs.

Here's a breakdown of my matches:

1st Round vs. Eric Prescott (Stark Siege)

Eric tried Fear of Winter on first plot when he outflopped me. I responded by playing nothing, and using Burning on the Sand on his only challenge. From there, Game of Cyvasse, Bannermen, Master of the Sun and Darkstar were a bit too much for him to deal with and I won 15-4.

2nd Round vs Alex Esposito (Lannister Kneel)

Alex made a couple unfortunate mistakes in this game, like forgetting to use his Toll Gate, but in the end it probably only would have prolonged the game. Vengeful and Venomous Blades made it hard for Alex to even make challenges and I won 15-1.

3rd Round vs. Jesse Mariona (Stark)

Jesse also made an unfortunate mistake early and accidentally selected the wrong plot. Game of Cyvasse, Burning on the Sand and Paper Shield were his bane and I cruised to another 15-1 win.

4th Round vs. Matthew Ley (Lannister)

Matt was a matchup that really worried me, being a former world champion and all, but I had the luck of the universe on my side and drew virtually every event I could have possibly needed. Despite Matt not making a single noticable mistake, I still managed to cruise to a 15-0 win.

5th Round vs. Daniel Machado (Martell Summer)

Danny and I are roommates, and met in the semifinals of last year's regionals, so meeting in the final round of swiss as the only two undefeated players seemed fitting. The deck was essentially a mirror match, however Danny's deck focuses more on Open Market for recursion while mine relies on a wider variety of control elements. In the end, my deck dominated the whole way through with tons of cancels for game-changing scenarios, and I won 15-5.

Quarterfinals vs. Alex Esposito (Lannister Kneel)

Alex and I had to rematch in the first round of Top 8, and it essentially went the same as the first time, with less mistakes but the same result, and I won 15-0.

Semifinals vs. John Bruno (Lannister Clansmen)

John Bruno played with the mastery that is expected in any game with him. After I jumped out to a huge early lead (10-0 I think?) he played Valar when I wasn't expecting it, and started slowly recovering. I made a couple of dumb mistakes in this match that I am not happy about, though after seeing how John played all weekend I have a feeling that if I hadn't made those mistakes he still probably would have found ways to beat me. The game was really close and I lost 15-12.

It was an honor to play in such an incredible tournament with so many talented players and getting to meet a lot of the people that i've heard talked about for a long time. I'm really looking forward to representing our Meta at GenCon this year as well.

And I also have to say thank you to Eric Butzlaff for the deck idea that I lovingly ripped off. I did made some tweaks to fit my play style, which i've jokingly said was to "make it better" but it was about 95% his deck.

Nice, Corey's deck (nearly) wins again!

I've been waiting to see if FFG was going to post it, but I'll have my list up soon, one way or the other. I'd be interested to see what little differences there were between Erick's (did he change anything before NYC?), mine, yours, and Daniel's.

Maester_LUke said:

i only swapped out one paper shield for one more he calls it thinking

phoenixember said:

congrats on your strong finish with what i can attest is a very solid deck what's your email/AIM/gtalk/skype/whatever info?

I better do a quick report before I forget everything, since almost every night ended at between 1am and 4am - which for me is actually 3am and 6am (Nebraska is 2 hours different than the West Coast) but I still had to wake up early.

1st - I apologize for not remembering everyone's name. I am horrible even when not working on little sleep and my first day back at work

2nd - Thanks to all my opponents, and hell everyone that made it. I met some GREAT new players and fun people.

3rd - WONDERFUL to see some old faces coming back. Obviously Mathlete is one, but the Kingg and Ram and Erwo and Matt (Knight of Frost?) and all the rest. It was a great mix of new players, old players starting back up, and people who never strayed!

Okay, before the tourney I really had no thoughts of winning. Every year I play less it seems, and so things just surprise me more, and I don't change my playstyle quickly enough.

True I say this every year before every event - and to be honest being lucky is a large piece of doing well. I put the five straight top fours at 'Worlds' (or North Americans or whatever) 100% to luck and matchups. The point being is that I went to have a good time, drink way too much, and make sure Wyndwalker didn't catch anything And, this year was special since I took my first year off of Kubla last year (moving to Nebraska from Seattle) and my good friend Mathlete's was having his Sweet 16 party...wait I mean coming back party.

I got in Thursday, and Mathlete was nice enough to pick me up. After a quick trip to the liqour store, we were playing. I was having going to choose between two decks:

1. Lanni trait manipulation w/ Knight agenda. To be honest, it isn't THAT great, but it works good vs. many match-ups and has two of the top 5 cards in the game IMHO (GTM and Cache). It draws so much anyways, that the Knights agenda just helps it get started against many match-ups, and with the trait manip the houses that have a high # of knights (Bara and Stark) I can usually control the board pretty well (Lords, lots of renown that I can mess with using Lion's Gate).

2. Martell. Duh. I am so bored with Martell, however, that I decided to make it a Ghaston Grey deck, which was surprisingly...um...surprising to my opponents and since the effect is a location effect it really gets around some things. Since Martell has so few Nobles (three really, since one is trash - and 2 of those three are 4 cost +) I knew I was putting in 3X Edric's. That means a Brotherhood deck, which is just fine with me (I have always loved BH - hence my Ghost of High Heart). And people spend so much time trying to control Beric or the Viper that my actual win condition (board control)

After testing a bunch of Mathlete's decks, I was having good success with both really but especially with the Lanni Trait Manip (warning foreshadowing alert!!!). But he was pulling out a ton of decks, none of which looked 'Mathlete polished' yet so I wasn't feeling good.

Later on Dobbler and Jesse (Wyndwalker) get in at 1am or so. Of course we all have to shoot the breeze and play, and next thing we know it is 4am (again, 6am my time). Not a good start. The plus was that I got Mathlete to drink almost a full liter of rum with me while playing, and I don't think I have ever seen him take a drink before that!

Friday we CCG drafted - I did horribly since for some random reason our table got crap for cards. There were these special 'packs' of power cards, and our best one was Phat Pree or Massing I believe (not bad) but the other tables had promo dragons and Vipers and...Thorns EYRIES on the fourth pull for goodness sake!!!

Saturday came and I still didn't know what to play. Both were doign well - my only issue was that my BH Martell deck just didn't have enough BH and I was going 10+ plots after the game was basically handled in 3 (since I couldn't find a character to put power on that didn't get Valar'd or something). I didn't want to borrow any more cards, so I decided to go with the Lanni Knights.

**quick prop - they run a Maester's Chain event at the same time, with 20 or so things you can do to get a link (kill charactes, have locations, beat a 'World' Champ, etc.). It was super fun. Really a cool idea, I was always excited to get another link**

Round 1: Jenny (???) playing Targ Dragons. She was a VERY nice new player, who's meta played more Melee than Joust. She didn't have the greatest of starts and I ended up getting her starting dragon Wrong Dwarf/Dissension'd. It went downhill from there for her, and the board was pretty close to wiped fairly quickly. But it was fun, and we talked a lot about her meta and the game afterwards. 1-0

Round 2: James playing...Targ as well? We played the night before and he had a horrible flop and I won. That is what happened here as well (what can I say, Dragon decks don't flop well ~and I cut decks like a pro yo!). I think basically the same thing happened although maybe I made the first dragon a lady and killed her with Red Wedding? Not sure. Maybe made him a Raven? James was also a pretty new player down in San Diego and he was so pleasant all weekend.

Round 3: John (Fieras) playing Lanni Kneel. Whew...I was a little scared here - he was starting to get a lot of kneeling out, but really not a lot of card draw. I kept drawing and putting out characters that would eventually die to Wildfire or Valar but it didn't matter, I had 15 cards in hand to his 0. Oh, and I 1st or 2nd turn stole his Castellean which was fun! Oh, and Fleeing just killed him. John did a great job helping to run various tourneys and got his revenge in Warhammer LCG on Sunday being me in the Finals! 3-0.

Round 4: Phoenix playing Erick's Martell deck with adjustments. This game was a lot closer than the final 15-0 (with me winning a grand total of 2 challenges probably). He got two V. Blades and at least one Game of CV in the first couple of turns, so I sat and watched. However, he was deciding to kill either Lancel or two other characters who were actually better, and he ended up killing Lancel. Good choice since my Red Wedding would have hit his Ellaria w/ Blade the next turn. I couldn't find even one Dissension (the other blade was on a Spearman Refugee) at all either. Those two things equaled me watching him win challenges 90% of the time.... He didn't make any mistakes with a good deck. 3-1.

Round 5: Robert Baratheon (just kidding, a SD player with a big beard - Ryan I think) playing Martell. Ryan's deck was different, especially in that it usually had an equal amount of knights than I did, which was annoying. This might be in the top 5 games I have ever played in all my years (starting with the first set ever). It was so intense I don't even remember THAT much about it, other than I ended up winning 15-14 after a post-draw Wrong Dwarf on my own character, and both of us with 6 cards left in our decks. It was the perfect 'win or go home' game. Just great. 4-1.

So, I know that gets me in somewhere between 2nd and 5th. Unluckily that was 5th and I had to play #4 which was Mathlete playings...dum dum dum...Lanni trait manip with lots of draw!!! Mirror match time!!!

We probably had 5-10 cards difference in our decks, although our plots were farther apart (he ran Cities, I ran more gold). I think other than the Maester search and Red Wedding, maybe they all were different? Other than that, he ran some Distractions and a few more 2X or 1X characters and I had a few different ones for Knights. Anyways...

Round 1 of Top 8: Mathlete playing Lanni Trait. We both searched for the biggest **** in the game right now (M. Lewin) and spent the first couple of turns trying to control the other's. He pulled a few more of the good cards early than I did, but it was pretty even. To be honest, I don't remember a ton other than I was always one move behind him after a good Paper Shield he played, and I didn't draw any weenies so claim was actually hitting good characters. The game didn't seem out of reach until he won, but I never felt like I was going to win. *shrug* OH, I almost forgot - he got Chella out early which wrecked me a bit. 4-2.

Overall I was fine with the performance. I learned a lot, and had a good time.

I only lost in Swiss to the #1 Swiss deck, and I only lost in the top 8 to the #1 winning deck which ended up very similar to mine.

Last notes - then I drank WAY too much and tried to play the other format badly, and then my plane was cancelled which actually was good so I could play in Warhammer Regionals getting 2nd. Whew. Sorry for the LONG TR!!!

Thanks again to everyone for showing - 30 is the most since 2007 (?). Glad to see the game coming back in CA!!!

finitesquarewell said:

I'm [email protected] and phoenixembr on AIM. Also, Joey Kreins on Facebook.

rings said:

Didn't realize you did in fact have Red Wedding, but i'm always afraid of it when I have the only Lady on the board with Ellaria or Arianne (or Melisandre in the Bara deck I love playing), so that definitely factored into my decision. Turns out I was lucky to make the right one it seems because Ellaria played a crucial role in that game pulling power off of Jaime.

I enjoyed you kicking my butt in the Joust, Rings. I also had fun in the Warhammer:Invasion regional. Got to get my revenge on you!

Fieras said:

That was not a kicking at all John

~I think we have as many tourney reports as players - I was hoping that posting on this would have made this a catch-all, but Syd and Mathlete just NEEDED their own threads

A View from the Bottom... sad panda.

About a month before Kubla, I began freaking out about what deck I was going to play. At that time, I only had two decks. The first was a Martell KoHH deck that I wanted to tweak and remove the agenda. It was a strong build, and Ram took 1st with it a Kingdom-con. The second was a Targ Burn deck that I took 2nd with at Kingdom-con, and had done well at Calicon last November.

The problem was, I didn’t want to play Martell. So, I took that deck apart to make a deck for the Chosen Few event at Kubla. I also knew that my Targ deck was way too slow, and too dependent on key locations, not at all suitable for a regional tourney.

So, there I was building a Lanni deck while I was packing, the night before driving up to Kubla. While testing early Saturday morning, I realized the deck was no good, a terrible thing to realize at 4am the day before an event. Instead of rebuilding, I decided to tweak my Targ deck that I really do enjoy playing. I knew it was too slow, and not tourney ready, but I had always had fun playing it.

In order to make the deck less reliant on King’s Landing for draw, I tossed in Pyromancer’s Cache, and took Building Season out of the plot deck.

Here is the deck list:

House (1)
House Targaryen (Core) x1

Agenda (0)

Character (31)
Syrio Forel (TftRK) x2
Silent Sisters (KotS) x2
Varys (SaS) x1
Brown Ben Plumm (Core) x1
Green Hatchling (TWH) x1
Maester Aemon (ACoS) x1
Refugee of the Plains (RoW) x3
Ser Jorah Mormont (PotS) x1
Street Waif (AToT) x3
Viserys Targaryen (Core) x1
Carrion Bird (TWoW) x2
Aggo (RoR) x1
Dragon Thief (AE) x3
Khal Drogo (Core) x1
Jhogo (OSaS) x1
Black Hatchling (DB) x1
King's Landing Assassin (SaS) x2
Daenerys Targaryen (GotC) x1
Pyat Pree (QoD) x2
Maester Luwin (FtC) x1

Location (18)
King's Landing (SaS) x2
The Dragonpit (TftRK) x3
Twilight Market (AToT) x2
Eastern Fiefdoms (Core) x3
Summer Sea (Core) x3
Aegon's Hill (TTotH) x1
Street of Steel (Core) x1
Khal Drogo's Tent (Core) x1
Temple of the Graces (Core) x1
River Row (QoD) x1

Event (7)
Forever Burning (Core) x2
To Be a Dragon (SB) x3
Ambush from the Plains (QoD) x2

Attachment (9)
Dragon Skull (CoS) x3
Flame-Kissed (Core) x3
Pyromancer's Cache (TWot5K) x3

Plot (7)
Threat from the North (PotS) x1
Loyalty Money Can Buy (QoD) x1
Threat from the East (QoD) x1
Fortified Position (LoW) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
At the Gates (GotC) x1
Lineage and Legacy (KotStorm) x1

Round 1

Vs. Erick (Erwo the Elder) playing Targ
The STM made a return to Thrones about 3 weeks prior to Kubla, and it was great to see Erick and crew. As in most games with my Targ deck, Erick got out to a lead. Eventually, I managed to Valar away his characters, burn off any new comers, and hit his hand as much as possible. I finally got a control lock around plot 6 or 7. At the end of the 8th round, Eirck and I both had 10 power. He claimed dominance with his only character still standing and we moved to reveal our next plots. Time was called before we flipped plots, and I ending up losing by one power a game Erick said I was about to win.
0-0-0-1

Round 2

Vs. Ronnie (Shadow Stag) playing Martell Brotherhood
Another STM member! Ronnie was playing a deck built by Mathlete, and flopped Beric. I had a horrible, 2 card flop that included Dragon pit and a wimpy character. In my had I had Flame Kissed and a shadows card. I took a gamble and opened with Fortified Position. Ronnie opened with the attachment grab plot, but I won the coin flip for initiative. I went first, and spent my 4 gold on a card in shadows and Flame Kissed, killing Beric before he could do anything. On turn 3, I managed to burn the Viper off as well. At that point, I knew it was just a mater of having the time to claim the power I needed. I got to 14 power, and time was called.
0-1-0-1

Round 3

Vs. Jeff Yin playing Lanni Shadows
At this point, I was pretty dejected. I new time was going to be a factor, but didn’t think it was going to be this bad. Jeff played a great game, but I didn’t see any draw until the 6th turn in this game, and that really hurt me. Just as I was getting back in the game, Jeff finally drew into his Tunnels of the Red Keep, and shut down my burn. As I still didn’t have enough cards on the table to put up much of a fight, he finished off what was a great game, winning 15-11.
0-1-0-2

Round 4

Vs. Kevin Yin playing Bara Summer Rush
Lol… with my pouty pants on, I sat down across from Kevin and waited to get rolled. Unless I cold burn off his characters with renown, I knew he was going to win, and win fast. He played Core Mel early, and opened with Power of Faith. Kevin was always one step ahead of me. I was prepared to kill Mel with a flame Kissed, but Kevin played and attachment on her, and ran away with the game.
0-1-0-3

Round 5

Vs. Jennifer (Khalessi) playing Targ Heir to the Iron Throne
Jennifer hit the ground running with lots of tough characters on the table, while I hit her hand. I left an opening one turn, and Jennifer wisely hit me with two uo, claim 2 power challenges to claim 6 power in one turn. Eventually, I played Valar, and was able to just rebuild faster. With a few key pulls of Army characters from her hand, I was able to locked Jennifer down, and pick off power for the win.
1-1-0-3

Definitely not the day I had hoped for, but I think I played well with what I had.

Props

1. Syd, Syd’s wife, cha0s, Phoenix Ember, and fieras for running excellent events. Thanks for your hard work, and for helping me out with the Maester’s challenge during the joust.

2. Mathlete. What a triumphant return of one of the nicest guys to play the game! Just like riding a bike…

3. Crevic, for making top 8 at a stacked event.

4. Everyone who showed up to make the weekend what it was, especially Greg, Matt and Jesse for traveling so far. I think it was good for all of our new players out here to get to see the top guns, in action at the table, and away from the table as well. This game rocks because of you.

5. The SD crew for making the trip up: SD Ryan, Crevic, and Bronson. THAT, is what Thrones is all about my friends.

6. Nicholas Cage and making it rain.

Slops

1. My “Kubla”cold. How am I the one who got sick?

2. My work for deciding to finally block the FFG boards this past Tuesday.

Deathjester26 said:

It was so cool to meet Nick Cage. I can't wait for the new, sexier National Treasure movie to come out.

We all used alchohol to kill everything in our bodies, including the Kublacold.

DJ

They blocked the aGoT boards?!? How dare they!!!

Still great to see you, and see you again soon.

<<< Garrett, not Ronnie... ~wouldn't sully myself by playing Martell

shadow stag said:

You might play martell if you saw/got one of those custom house cards lucas made.

shadow stag said:

derp... I knew that! Sorry! Not sure if I know Ronnie's board name off the top of my head? Take comfort that I at least know yours, Garrett.