Yeah - this is going to be a lot of fun.

Just curious .. what's the expected head count?

Kpmccoy can't make it - which will pull the number down becuase he was bringing like four. I think 4-5 from Li, 3-4 from NYC (Dan?) so 7-9 New Yorkers + you + one form DC? Around 10-12 players I'd guess.

cool.. should be fun... Bummer on kmmcoy.. was looking forward to seeing that crowd. Looking forward to putting faces to the parts of the NY meta that I haven't met.

orclrob said:

Ditto.

something came up and i have to screw the team, i cant make it today

a thousand apologies

jack merridew said:

Man, talk about straight up bad luck. Something came up for about the half of the potential attendees, including myself. I hope those that did attend had a great time, and thanks to Dan, Jason, and Chris for organizing the event. I hope the small turnout won't discourage creating future tournaments in NYC.

I had a *great* time today, thanks again to Stag for hosting! As Fatmouse noted, turnout was lower than expected, but a couple new players attended and appear to be jazzed for more regular gaming.

I'm thinking about holding monthly "mini-tournaments" of around 6-10 people. If anyone is ever in the NYC area for a business trip, shoot the Night's Watch an email, and we'll get you more info!

So...who won? House breakdown? Tourney reports? C'mon guys!

We didn't track decks/stats closely, since this is a pre-GenCon tourney and some people may be playing those decks at GenCon. I can tell you that I won with a Targ deck running maesters. I believe one of the new players (his third game ever) was second with a GJ maester deck.

The maesters agenda was fairly popular overall, as was round-1 Luwin with At the Gates. I'm definitely beginning to see this agenda as a bit strong, and wouldn't be surprised if it was the most popular agenda at GenCon. I think the round-1 Luwin is getting a little silly though...would be very nice if each house had an in-house 3 STR maester so they didn't have to search for something OOH to have immunity to VB.

NYC ran into bad luck with a flurry of last minute cancellations - literally four regulars FATMOUSE, jack merridew, letsgored and wulfen bowed out within the last 48 hours before the event. And it turned out to be a bad day for kpmccoy who was coming with +3 - so we lost eight attendess in the last week of the tournament. given that half the field who did show were at their first tounament, i am very encouraged and optimistic about future events. I'm already fielding requests for another Saturday meetup in September - about a month after Gencon. The NY meta is already looking at dates.

Yeah - twn2dn undersattes thinsg a little. From where I sat, running a pretty fast Baratheon knigths deck that needed to be just a little faster - Maesters were everywhere. The Apprentice Collar on the Raven is just silly - the Bird was already undercosted a 1 for MIL + stealth and an ability - now with easy tartit mainpulation -its bordering on broken. Yeah, yeah - he's controllbale - but there is very littel effort in getting the combo going and unless you're running specific weenie hate - he may be aroudn long enough to wreck your board. I am pretty certain that every deck ran an Agenda and there really is no reason NOT to run Maester's Path. i'm sorry - but it seems to be showing up as much as Wildlings did last year.

My deck performed about as I expected - a couple of Turn Three wins, one annhilation at the hands of twn2dn and a dedciated control deck that got its elements in palce faster than I could close things out, and one odd game where I stalled at 14. It needed to be just one challenge faster I think. Hard to get the timing exactly right. i am thinking that Unoppsed Mel really shoudln't have been a last minute cut - I think she would have served better than the arena Knights I kept drawing and I furtehr think that Claw Isle is a better card than Bastard of Robert. Same stealth effect, an additional point of STR in the challenge, and not vulnerable to Threat or VB. I'll be pulling the Bastards for the Isles in all future iterations of this build.

I love Claw Isle, it can easily bring rush over the cusp.

Stag Lord said:

Huh? You mean Smuggler's Cove, right?

Anyway, I tend to run both the Batsards and the Coves. Can't have too much Stealth in a Rush deck, right?

Stag Lord said:

Thankfully, that won't be happening going forward, though a 2-3 STR carrion bird for 1 gold + win 1 challenge is still pushing the limits of silliness. Chris had a great suggestion, which is that all creature characters really should be "no attachments." Even if that would make them less vulnerable to Targ's attachment-based burn, it would prevent a lot of the crazy combos.

Ratatoskr said:

Yeah Smuggler's Cove. And I have cut the Bastards actually. In a tgght 60 card deck - that slot gets filled with the Coves now and i reduce my exposure to VB. Running six Refugees - I kind of want to dispose of soem cheap charatcer slots. I almost wish the refugees were restricted. They are too good not to run in just about every deck. Seeing them go would open up some deck space at the bottom end.

The Bastards may go back in - I have to see hwo it runs wiht these edits - but with limited draw, you don't wnat to hit a sceanrio where you draw say four cheap small characters and miss on a coupel fo heavy hitting renown guys.

Well, I have found the Bastards to be invaluable. Their Stealth is such a big help to get those important early challenges through. They help you get that all-important first power on Ser Eldon, or to get your Banner attached, or to trigger Edric's response, or whatever. If I have to choose between three Bastards and three Refugees, I'll always choose the Bastards. Stealth, to me, is easily worth that one gold. Besides, I run KotS-Renly, and with him on the table, they're zero gold guys, too.

EDIT: KotS means Kings of the Storm here, obviously.

Interesting. Clearly the Bastards are a strong card - they have been in my decks as long as they ahve been legal - but teh refugees are just more efficient in etrms of STr to cost - adn (even more importantly) they help you on teh flop. a big part of Baratheon's "draw" is their ability to get five or six cards into teh deck tat the outset. You really can't count on anything after that - you coudl get out Knight-ed, you could lose Renly before getting POW challenges off with the right Plots in play, etc. so you almost can't eschew the refugees - which is why iw oudln't mind seeing them go.

How is that Renly working out for you? I have always found the POW draw renly so much more efficient and he is in just about every deck I build. I can't bring myself to run either of the other versions.