Got a text from the Shiek: 12 Attendees (Does anyone find it odd that NYC & DC had two of the lowest turnouts?), including Ktom, Adam & Tony from the "old school," Casey & Mallesh from MI, and a group who drove up from Cincinnati. However, they are suppose to play all rounds as best of three games, and having no cut to out-rounds.

Maester_LUke said:

Unfortunately, as much as I sympathize with those who boycotted the DC and NYC regionals, it really just hurts the organizers and local metas, who spend a lot of time and money on fixed costs and can't recoup either if only 9-10 people show. Meanwhile, the players who boycott still (I'm guessing) buy the chapter packs, so FFG is satisfied. The trouble is, if there's player dissatisfaction, there's very little that player can do to act on the frustration without also hurting the local metas. Put another way, fewer attendees in NYC will likely make it harder to build the local meta here. Big events generate enthusiasm and momentum, and quite frankly, I'm less enthusiastic about helping organize the next big event if it means I have to beg and plead for veterans to attend.

Random Question: Was the Tourney Kit required for officially sanctioned regionals tournaments? Just wondering looking back whether we did the right thing by purchasing it for NYC.

Twn2dn said:

What is the boycott for?

FFG's FAQ that restricted TLS and errata'd the Heir to the Iron Throne.

Twn2dn said:

This really angered me, I must say. It was a completely ridiculous and insane reason to boycott the event. Jay and I came from Boston to play, and it seems incredible that we had so few players just because of a really appropriate errata. Bara players complaining that because their house was just made to not be a nearly invincible rush monster - anyway, I find it very childish to boycott an event over something like this.

I've been staying away from here for the same reasons I didn't attend the NYC regional (I couldn't make the DC regional).

I am very dissatisfied with the tournament environment as a whole. There is no deck I'd want to run right now, and I wouldn't even have run a deck with TLS or Heir in it at a regional without the errata. The game is being pushed in a direction that I don't find fun and challenge at the same time.

So instead of dropping a big monetary and time commitment, I did something else with my saturday. Normally I go to NYC tournaments whenever I can because i really like the guys there. Sadly, I could not justify spending over $100 in total costs to watch the people i like play a game.

For me it was the timing and cost. I couldn't go to all three tournaments on the east coast three weekends in a row. If they were spread out across a 6-week time-span, that would be doable probably.

WolfgangSenff said:

Pardon me, but you don't know that.

No one does - The TLS + Val combo was never tested in actual tournament play and so we have little idea what the real effect would have been on the metagame as a whole. All we have is some anecdotal evidence fromm some groups playing with proxies, but all else is specualtion.

I don't at all want to derail the Chicago thread with OT comments, but I can't let this pass. These will be my only remarks on the subject here.

I hope everyone had a great time in Chicago and i look forward to the deck lists and TRs from one of the strongest play groups around. Its good to see such old veterans embracing and competing in LCG.

The winner was a guy from Wisconsin named Tim. I didn't see which House he was playing.

Casey was second, playing GJ-Winter

Tony was third, playing Targ (no Agenda? I forget)

The 4th place finisher was another GJ-WInter deck.

Honestly for me it was a very mixed experience. Being my first Game of Thrones organized play event, I was very excited to meet the other players and really get a chance to partake in the community, this for me was excellent. The players who were there were top notch classy people, and I greatly enjoyed meeting them and playing some Thrones in a competitive environment. The part that was sorely lacking unfortunately was the TO's piss poor attitude and the lack of communication regarding the fact that the tournament would be run in a manner completely inconsistent with all of the other regionals.

It was not even until the second round of play that the TO realized there were two separate "Mike" players in the field, and even after this realization it still became a problem during the third round matchups and I am still unclear as to whether it was actually dealt with properly from a scoring perspective. The TO also felt the need to talk down to KTOM and lecture him about "the direction FFG wants the game going in." Now I've only been playing for 4 months and I sure as hell know who KTOM is.

Due to the insistance on "best of 3 matches per hour," I was unable to take notes as I might have wished to do an actual TR with my play experiences. At one point I asked the TO if he was going to post the house/agenda breakdown on the forums, or if he wasn't if he would provide it to me via email so I might do it myself. At this point he informed me that "the stores run these events at a great personal loss and the types of players who on are the forums are not the type of players we wish to attract, we don't want competitive players, we want a more casual crowd." This is a completely illogical and contradictory statement, if running a regional is a net loss because of the cost of the regional kit (which I believe for many it is) one would think you would want as many players as possible in order to recoup some of that investment.

Honestly, I loved playing the game with these players, but next regionals season if there is a regional in Chicago, and it's hosted at Galactic Force, I will take myself elsewhere. I will probably just plan a trip to NYC or DC and take part in their regionals instead. To all the players who frequent the boards who I met in Chicago, it was a blast, and I wish I could've gone for a beer afterwards instead of heading home to the wife and kid. I will look forward to seeing you all at Gencon!

Oh, and to fill in a little info from KTOM's post, Tony was playing Targ KotHH, I felt the pain of that one personally!

You are always welcome to Iowa! Congrats to Tim! Looking at the top finishers over this last weekend it looks like Greyjoy is on the rise!!

@fhornmikey

I'm sorry to hear of the negative experience relating to the store and the owner there. But I believe you are totally correct in pointing out the contraction inherent in the store's attitude!

For example, our local gaming store here in Springfield, Missouri is Meta-Games, and they not only fronted the $150 for the regional kit, but they paid $70 for CCG booster boxes for a Friday night draft at the regional, they spent over $100 for food for dinner on Saturday night, and they gave away over $45 in store product as part of Sansa Prizes. And due in large part to their overwhelming support, goodwill, and friendliness, we drew 35 unique participants between all of our weekend's events! We also have a large group of local players, new and old, male and female, and much of that is due to having a great store to play at.

Interestingly, another store in town has been selling Thrones alot, and the proprietor has been teaching and pushing the game. Unfortunately, he has told his players to not come to Meta-Games because we are too competitive and he doesn't want that type of player at his store. Its sad that people think and feel that way. While we definitely have some competitive players, the environment of our metagroup is one of the best I've ever seen, with strong friendships where evenings most often end with friends sharing beers, not harsh feeling for each other.

This weekend's Chicago regional champion was Tim Peterson from Merrill, WI. He's been playing CCGs with Corey Faherty and myself since we were all in high school, and Corey and I got him into AGOT this summer after I made the move back to WI. He was playing the usual DC Martell/Summer list at Chicago, with a few tweaks we made in response to Luwin entering the environment. In the weird match play you guys had to endure, he lost only one of two games against Casey's Greyjoy/winter deck (7-1 on the day in total). He also took 3rd/4th place at the Iowa regional last weekend with the same deck, losing only to Nickler's nasty Greyjoy/Maester's Path/winter deck and myself in the semi-final. He's spending the rest of his summer in attendance at the Faherty/Butzlaff school, so I expect Tim will make a strong showing in his debut at Worlds this year.

finitesquarewell said:

~There is a school? Dear Lord that would be scary

Sorry about the experience, that is really weird. The competative community here is SO not all that competative, and loves new players. Maybe they mistook it for a MTG or YGO event? Sigh...

rings said:

~there definitely is a school -- the required reading includes a 150-page booklet titled, "case studies in winning and losing at the margin: on making decks more efficient by taking out bad cards and replacing them with good ones"

fhornmikey said:

I don't want to go off on a rant on this. It is absolutely true that the local stores, especially the ones trying to build a following for the games, operate Regional events at a loss. And I completely respect the local store's right to run the games the way they want and to build the kind of local player base that they want. But if that is the case, the lack of communication ("We run events in a '3-games-per-round' format" as part of the tournament details posted on the website) is actually more confusing. Hosting a sanctioned Regional event, don't you expect the competitive, forum-going crowd to show up? So wouldn't you want to either discourage them from coming or set your expectations for the event up front so they don't ruin your "vibe"? It was the lack of communication - and the unwillingness to acknowledge that the community that travelled from as far away as Ohio might have had a certain expectation based on FFG's information for sanctioned events - that I found disappointing, not the tournament format itself.

I mean, sure, FFG's tournament rules do not specifically say "1 game per round" - although the instructions for how to score the event are clearly based on that assumption. And I find the fact that the local store prefers "3-games-per-round" so that people can feel that they have played a satisfactory number of games and interacted more completely is praiseworthy. But given that FFG creates a distinct expectation in the player-base for their sanctioned events, it would have been nice to have seen the "house rules" in the event information so we would have known what to expect. And since it is a deviation from the basic expectations set by FFG for its sanctioned events, I think it would be the responsibility of the venue to advertise the change rather than expect each individual player to contact the store beforehand to verify the format (which I was chided for not doing). Let's say, for (an extreme) example, that the local store has only been promoting and demoing the game in the last 12-18 months and, for some reason, never got Princes of the Sun. So there is a (completely understandable) local rule that Martell cannot be played as a House in the local events. Is it the venue's responsibility to communicate this change from sanctioned rules before the event, or the player's responsibility to research and confirm possibilities such as this before showing up?

I respect what Galactic Force is trying to do with all the LCGs. They are a store that is actively trying to promote the game and they should be supported in that. This is exactly the kind of store that FFG needs on its side in order to build the LCG games at the grass-roots level - which is indeed where the LCGs are the strongest and most fun to play. I'm just not sure they were ready for the influx of event-going "old hats" and the FFG/historical expectations they would bring with them when they decided to host the sanctioned event.

rings said:

ktom said:

I lol'd pretty hard @ that one, also, what is the tuition for the school of good AGoT play? I think I made more mistakes in my 3rd game against Tony than I can count on one hand

fhornmikey said:

Well, I kinda feel bad for the thread starting off poorly, but developing plenty of good discussion. I just wish the boards/mods could do the pruning necessary to split threads effectively to promote discussion.

I can say I'm very happy (aside from the fact I would have been lucky number thirteen) that I chose not to drive up as a wild hair. I'd mostly agree with rings that we can be _very competitive_ but typically are incredibly welcoming and teaching oriented. In my days demoing, there's always a fine line to avoid condescending, and in a tournament setting to avoid "playing with your food," but on the average, I think first time tournament players would rather lose quickly and have the chance for a teachable moment afterward.

Truly excellent humorous distillation ktom... it makes me think of a Skeksis elixir.

Mike, I'm sorry your first tourney experience was less than pleasant. At GenCon one year, myersd and I started counting our play mistakes to the side of our gamespace with gold tokens. And this was in the Top 8. :/

We can hope a more welcoming store is available next year (or perhaps a ChiCon to take the edge off)... It's baffling that they claim it's at a loss. I know the store in Iowa did well, and they didn't have a lot of product available (I'm sure they could have sold some of the 2nd Maester pack if they'd had it re-stocked). I will agree with some that the FFG kit left much to be desired, and for half the price most TOs could spend the rest on getting better, more personalized prizes. But that just sounds like a toxic place to play. Since local play is primarily OP-less, it's not like you can't just refuse to play with jerky, antagonistic players... ~Though we totally need a deck rating system to match evenly the various competitiveness levels of "fun decks."

And I definitely need to visit this Wisconsin school of AGOT... 69 card decks do not a world champion make... well, not often at least.

Why host a REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP if you don't want competitive players?

That's really too bad about the attitude of this TO. I guess that means you don't know what the total house break down was?

@Finite: For the winning deck list, can I assume it was the same plots you ran in DC/NYC, along with VB for the restricted? (Again, this is for the stats I'm pulling together.)

Thanks!

I believe (and again I may be mistaken) that the house/agenda breakdown was like this, I know I'm missing a few players so maybe kotm or some of the other guys who were there can help fill in the blanks...

2 Baratheon - 1 Knights of the Realm, 1 No Agenda

2 Greyjoy - 1 Kings of Winter, Not sure on the second

2 Targaryen - 1 Knights of the Hollow Hill, 1 Summer

At least 2 Martell - both were Kings of Summer I believe

1 Stark - No Agenda

First place deck was:

House:

Martell

Agenda:

Kings of Summer

Plots:

A Song of Summer

A Time For Ravens

At the Gates

Regroup

Retaliation

The Winds of Winter

Valar Morghulis

Characters:

Arianne Martell

Carrion Bird x3

Darkstar x2

Ellaria Sand x2

Gilly

House Messenger x2

Lost Spearman x3

Maester Luwin x2

Maester of the Sun x3

Orphan of the Greenblood x3

Refugee of the Citadel x3

Samwell Tarly

Ser Arys Oakheart

The Bastard of Godsgrace

The Red Viper

The Viper's Bannermen x3

Varys

Locations:

Lost Oasis

Palace Fountains x3

River Row

Shadowblack Lane

Street of Sisters

Street of Steel

Summer Sea x3

Water Garden

Events:

A Game of Cyvasse x3

Burning on the Sand x2

He Calls it Thinking x3

Paper Shield x3

Attachments:

Black Raven x2

Venomous Blade x3

Matches were 2-0 against a Targ Summer with neither of us ever putting summer on the table.

2-0 against a Baratheon with He Calls it Thinking being the big card by canceling dupes.

1-1 against Greyjoy Kings of Winter came out strong in game one and won my first time against winter. Played several games over the weekend getting thoroughly beaten by winter to learn how not to play. Thanks to Corey for that. Second game I had no locations in setup and couldn't play enough to keep winter off the table. Came down to the final few seconds of the round so I likely could have stalled it out but I was happy with a tie.

2-0 against Targaryen KotHH. Ended up with Summer on the table and drew into 3 paper shields and 3 He Calls it Thinking between draw and Luwin. Also pulled a Paper Shield back with Regroup. Card advantage very much dominated the game.

Despite the surprise random format it still sounded like most people managed to get 2-3 games in during the hour allotted. Happy to have put in a good showing against some quality players. Thanks to everyone who came out and the store for hosting.

fhornmikey said:

I can... not 100% on all the Agendas and restricted cards, but here's what I do know:

3 Martell, all Kings of Summer I think. 2 VB, 1 NE.

3 Targ, 2 Kings of Summer. 1 Fury, 1 Pyromancer's Cache.

2 Greyjoy, both Kings of Winter I think. 1 FoW, 1 Fury.

2 Stark, 1 Siege, 1 no Agenda. 1 no restricted cards.

2 Bara, 1 Knights of the Realm, 1 no Agenda. 1 Laughing Storm.

I'll probably post my deck in a day or two.

The other Bara was Narrow Escape.