Yesterday we had our National... last year we were only a group (very small) of friends... yesterday we had 51 players and the honor to fight with 9 spanish friends... some of the best players around... I always thought about the throne as a game that must have no walls... no borders... that's why I spent lot of time writing in all "not italian forum" and pushing on internationals tourney via OCTGN2 and so on...

At Stahleck our "small italian group" met a lot of great friends: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish, ecc ecc ecc

We went to Madrid playing with most of them and we invited "all the european world" to come to our home... unluckly french guys had the national very closer to ours so they didn't attended but Spanish guys accepted our invitations and the Spanish Armada was ready for the Invasion ;-)

I really think that the future of this game is to "unify" all world meta... in some way... virtually or physically... i will try to work on this way starting from tomorrow to organise our stahleck invasion this year and coming to New york in november for Black Friday...

There is only ONE IRON THRONE and we have to fight for him all together!!!

What about the tourney.

Attendances: 51 people (9 spanish)

I played a Martell Summer Deck (I know this is not so exiting but in all my tests all my decks lost against this very badly so I felt to play this: THX to Erick and Zsa for suggestions and help)

my games:

1st round vs Stark Defender (Valeria)

A good matchup for me. My Venomus in setup killed almost all draw engine of my opponent. Cyvasse, Burning and most of all Bannerman made the rest.

1-0

2nd round vs Targaryen KOTHH deck (a guy from Roma - sorry I forgot the Nick)

Terrible... Terrible... I knew from starting that this archetype would cause me lots of problem. 2 Resets + Threat of the North... I won the game at last minute 15-14. Thx to the Old Gods for the Sam Tarly draw when I had a black raven in hand... this made me draw a Bannerman that BREAK my Nightmare! Honor to my opponent that was unlucky in this epic game!

2-0

3rd round vs Targaryen Summer (Pyat Pree)

The perfect game for me. My opponent needed to get summer very early cause my 2 claim intrigue hurted a lot. Gilly, Luwin Bannerman made the rest.

3-0

4th round vs Greyjoy Winter (a guy from Ravenna - sorry to not remember the nick)

Well... I play Summer... he play winter... I fear greyjoy... and I fear Whiter Raven as the Devil... I played very well... I draw not bad... I played a lot Greyjoy so I know no one would renounce easily to Blockade, Fear of Winter... I setupped well... so I knew he wasn't playing Fear of Winter first round... I suspected he had rule by decree... seeing 2 darkstar in my hand I forced him to reveal Rule by decree playing 2 house messenger and going in card advantage...

He played rule by decree... great for me... he had a lot of military in play and a Claim 2... I played valar when I suspected he would play fear of winter... I bet well... he played a character... I played Burning on the sands... next plot... summer for me + maester of the sun . Viper's Bannerman... Game.

4-0

5th round vs Lannister (Aioria)

I know I can suffer draw of Lannister most of all cause I don't have location control. So I need to start quickly with my claim 2 plots... well... the game get longer and longer... I drew all my best events but NO key cards... at the end of the game with more than 40 cards drawn no Venomus seen and only one Bannerman at plot 7th... all game with Summer so 3 cards at round... no luck... but I had luck in other games so honor to Aioria that played a perfect game.

4-1

6th round vs Stark Winter (Manfre)

simply... first round Bannerman... second round Bannerman + cyvasee and him in hand... third round bannerman... is it enought? 3 summer sea in first rounds and summer... game ended at third plot...

I want to underline that this game was a very special to me cause played with one of my maesters... it is so bad to fight the place in top 8 with a friend... someone suggested us to make a tie to have "security to pass both"... we laugh and said 'no thx'... this is the fight for the throne... honor first please...

I arrived in top 8 with a 5-1 ranking.

Stukov won all the swiss: Martell Summer (with location control, Knight of Summer, Fleeing to the Wall, Southern Mercenaris)... the true champion is the one that "see the meta" and know is enemy... he knew Targaryen deck made him scare... so made a lot of anti Targaryen move that were versatile also against other formats...

in Top 8 we had 4 italians and 4 spanish (luckly also my friend Manfre passed with 4-2).

I faced Beric with a Targaryen King of summer deck... It was a very exausting game... I saw all my weapon... he saw all his ones... he played better than me and had a better deck than mine... no regrets... honor for my opponent and for his "Search location plot" at 7th round that surprised me and took the Hill... and resurrected 2 Bannerman in my dead pile... 8 cards reavealed in one turn are very bad to manage... :-)

Next Round Balerion finished the game... cards left in my deck 10... great deck for a Great Player!!! Honor to Beric

I finished my tourney 5th... Then I saw final games... Stukov won against Beric semi-final... and had only 3 cards left in the deck... Stukov won against his "worst match up"... like a true champion...

I saw the final near stukov to see and wath all his moves... the final started not well for him... but managed quickly to control it... he deserved the title of Italian Champion!!!

Honor to all the Spanish Armada Team that made our tourney a great one... I think you have the highest "Meta level" in the world at the moment... it will be exiting to try to beat you next time!!!

I love you all my friends... Keep on rocking in a free world!!!

sorry double post

Congrats to the winners and to the organizers. It seems that the italian community is also growing!

I am anxious to see the top lists and the maquiavelic version of martell-summer from Stukov.

Great report Gualdo.

Enjoyable report, Gualdo. Thanks for sharing. You had a good turnout and sounds like it was a lot of fun.

[begin Cookie Monster] ME...WANT...DECK...LISTS!!! [End Cookie Monster]

Only a note: there were a lot of Summer deck (maybe more than a half of the total players) and 6 of them in top 8 (4 Martells, 2 Targs). I've never seen such a dominant abuse of an Agenda, neither when Defendrs of the North was legal. Maybe an intervention is needed... (Defenders was FAQqed with 2x cards, and still was so played).

Maybe more and better Winter decks will end Summer's dominance. Maybe not. Just a thought.

Congrats on the large turnout. 51 is impressive. Congrats on making top 8. Hope to see you in NYC on Black Friday.

Thanks a lot for the report, Gualdo. I'm really sad I couldn't make it this time around. Maybe next year.

51 participants is really impressive. What happened for the game to take off like that? I really wish the playerbase in Germany got bigger too. Maybe we'll see some growth when the TV series gets shown here.

Widowmaker: Alberto posted his decklist over on agotcards: http://www.agotcards.org/deck/v/1490

I would really like to get a look at that Targaryen Summer deck that beat Gualdo. Sounds like a fun build.

Greyjoy Winter Choke should either thrive or wither in a field so heavy in Summer. Probably why so many people are using it to meta against summer.

The Targ Summer sounded a little like Dobbler's maybe? Using R's Hill to push at the end - it rocks especially using your opponent's come into play effects (ESPECIALLY Viper's BM).

Great TR Gualdo - thanks for sharing, sounds like a great tourney! Congrats to you and everyone who played...

Thank you very much Gualdo for the compliments. All we are glad to had been at Italy, especially me, of course hehe. It was a great tournament and a show of how quicly your community grows up. It's wonderful to have the chance to share and mix our different comunities in a global one.

rings said:

I don't think so, unless Dobbler plays only 1 Rhaennys Hill, Balerion, The Black Terror and QoD Daennerys (OMG, how bad I feel in our game... my Knights of the Sun were a trully legendary heroes facing Balerion).

Gualdo said:

A great showing, ser. The losses sounded both unfortunate and epic, at the same time. I did have to ask about your reference to 8 cards revealed. The Hill says, "At the end of the phase, return those characters to their owner's dead pile." and you can't trigger the Bannermen's Response then. Did I miss something?

@widowmaker... I'm still waiting to see your decklists.

@Jaquen: I can agree... and DotN won at least one GenCon, post-errata.

@Ratatoskr: Italy has had cards as long as any foreign language edition, and a strong meta & nationals for quite a while.

@kpmccoy: I think it's hard to meta purely with Winter. Martell has the most draw/reveal, and Targ the easiest attachment search/recursion, making the war of the Raven's a bit uneven. (And VB and Burn make short work of Carrion Birds)... As the Maester's spread, and Ill Tidings and the Copper Link/Tin Link combo weaken the likelihood of keeping it Summer. You've got to make it Winter to actually hurt the Agenda, but for the most part, Targ only lose a bit of functionality if they lose the season, as opposed to Greyjoy's punishing losses. IMHO, of course.

Maester_LUke said:

Ah, I was under the impression that the Italian language edition of Thrones had been discontinued. Might have gotten that wrong. And Gualdo himself mentioned an upsurge in attendance at the National from a very small group of friends last year to 51 participants now (unless I'm reading that wrong), and I'd really like to know how they accomplished that. I always thought (wrongly, probably) that the Italians were basically in a similar situation as we Germans, with a discontinued local edition, but I noticed they were doing a lot better than ourselves, with a bigger player base, a more connected national scene etc. And I thought maybe we can learn something from them.

Although I have a personal pet theory about why the game is very weak in German-speaking countries, as opposed to, say, Italy or France or Spain.

LCG AGOT has been translated in italian ONLY starting from march 2011. So with maester cycle, Core Set, and Queen of Dragons. All other expansion are available only in english for us.

In the past CCG we had some edition translated. With LCG translated and most of all thx to our kilometers making tourney all over italy we reached to increase our numbers. Let's hope now to increase also our meta level.

I bet that I can bring with me at least 15-20 players in stahleck this november... this is our next achievement to fulfill ;-)

Maester_LUke said:

OK...here is what I played at the TN Regional

House - Lannister

Agenda - Maester's Path - Apprentice Collar, Copper Link

Plots -

At the Gates

City of Lies

City of Soldiers

City of Spiders

City of Sin

Fortified Position

Valar Morgulis

Characters -

Tyrion Lannister x 3

Cersei Lannister

Maester Creylen

Maester Aemon

Grand Maester Pycelle

Chella Daughter of Cheyk

Ser Arys Oakheart

Enemy Informer x 3

Castellan of the Rock x 3

Lannisport Weaponsmith x 3

Lannisport Councilor x 3

Carrion Bird x 3

Qyburn

Varys (KL)

Syrio Forel

Mountain Refugee x 3

Painted Dogs x 3

Old Nan

Shagga son of Dolf

Tommen Baratheon

Jhalabar Xho

Events -

You killed the Wrong Dwarf x 3

Dissension x 3

Distraction x 3

Locations -

The goldroad x 3

Kingdom of Shadows x 3

Kings Landing x 2

Golden Tooth Mines x 3

Lion's Gate x 3

Alchemist's Guild Hall x 2

I went 3 -2 and placed 6th. Lost to Longclaw with his Martell Summer after I flopped 2 cards(both characters) and then lost by bad play on my part to a Stark Army deck with TONS of standing effects and Siege of Winterfell.

I have just arrived home after five days in Italy, I don´t feel like writing a report or posting a deck right now, but I promise I will do in the next days. Thanks to all the Italian people that welcome us, take care of our accomodation and helped in everything we asked. I hope you will come to the Spanish tournament so we could return your hospitality.

widowmaker93 said:

I really enjoy playing it, but I don´t know if it´s fun for the opponents. But everybody knows that dragons are cooler than dothrakis or armies (not to say knights or wolves), so I think it´s really funny.

rings said:

I made the deck myself, and don´t know how Dobbler´s is, but it has a lot of the typical Targ cards. In fact is mainly a burn deck, with the difference that it uses dragons to win the game, and Pyromancer´s cache to get a bit more stability. Anyway, I´ll try to post it tomorrow.

LordBeric said:

My Targ Summer ran 3x Rhaenys Hill and 2x Open Market (as well as Regroup to recycle the Hill and Building Season to go get whichever one I needed). Basically, my deck was solely a Rhaenys Hill recursion deck.

Gualdo said:

It was again with sorrow that the portuguese community of players had to sit this one out... (work schedule and all... ). But I see that the italian meta is growing strong. Good!

Are you planning on going all the way to New York? What month is Black Friday? Stahleck is also in november, the italians are going to both Germany and New York in that month?

I think we will double our numbers on stahleck. Not all of us will come to NY, at the moment the only one sure is me :-)

But I'm trying to come with some players ;-)

Gualdo said:

Do you know the exact date for Black Friday?

25th november if I remember correctly :-) week after Stahleck.

Gualdo said:

Great video, Gualdo! Any chance you got complete footage of the final like the French did?