78 participants.

Someone might do a breakdown of decks, agendas, and the like, but not me....

Cut to Top 16 shortly.

I hear Erick is tearing it up.

Update: Erick and Corey are at the final table with Greg and one person TBD. Erick and Corey are playing identical decks. No clue what Greg is playing, nor TBD. The amazing thing is that Erick and Corey are playing Martell maesters in melee!

Dobbler also made the final table.

Dobbler = Greg. Any clue on who won, or are they still slogging it out?

i got a text from zeiler saying corey won

This is all according to Erick (finitesquarewell):

79 players (ktom said 78, so there's discrepancy), cut to top 16, then top 4.

Final 4 Results :

Corey Faherty of DC (baragwin) - Martell/Maesters Path 1st

John Kraus of CA (Deathjester26) - Stark/Siege of Winterfell 2nd

Erick Butzlaff of DC/WI (finitesquarewell) - Martell/Maesters Path 3rd

Greg Atkinson of MO (Dobbler) - Martell/Knights of the Hollow Hill 4th

Erick and Corey played *identical* deck lists that leveraged Maesters for claim soak, to play The Conclave for cheap and play Citadel Custom then using To The Spears to rush victories by turn 3. It also had other rush/renown characters (i.e. TRV, Darkstar, Arys, etc.); it was a rush deck at its core. I don't know much details on John's deck other than it was a "straight forward" Stark Siege melee build. Greg was running "beefy" characters with Reinforcements and Men With No King.

John pulled out an early lead so Erick and Corey played to defend each other and Erick decided to king-make Corey since he apparently was ahead of him in power count. Erick and Corey worked together with no shame and were mocking the Melee format for competitive play. John and Greg could do little to nothing to stop this as Corey won on turn 3. Corey and Erick agreed prior to the finals that one would help the other player if they gathered more power/was in a better position to win earlier than the other. Erick could have apparently came in second, but there was no way to immediately gain more power and they wanted to end the game as soon as possible.

Congrats to Corey! Also, congratulations to everyone else at the final table! I don't know who made the top 16, but I'd imagine we'll get more stats sooner or later.

As for my personal thoughts. I think its *great* that we had four seasoned, skilled players make it to the final table. It does show that there is a correlation between skill and performance in melee; however, as exhibited by Erick and Corey, Melee is a horrible competitive format. There's nothing to stop collusion, king-making. I don't think what Erick and Corey did was wrong (they were playing so one could win and design a card), I think it just highlights a huge design flaw in the multiplayer competitive format.

Again, big congrats Corey! I hope everyone had fun at the tourney, and good luck to those competing in the Joust!

I also agree that melee as a format has no sense in a competitive way but I know that other people feel the opposite so i'm ok with this. I just never play and played it ;-)

But, at the end, The top 4 surely were great so I'm glad the best players get there and not "random" ones!

well if this was an attempt on their part to prove a point, point proven. i however feel a little... dirtier for it. :-/

Gualdo said:

+1.

The Nick-ler said:

My understanding (although I could be mistaken) was that both felt either of them winning was like both of them winning.

They are both good friends and do A LOT of prep-work/testing before any AGoT tournament. One of them getting to design a card is like the other getting to design a card. I'm pretty sure Erick will be working with Corey closely on designing his card. I don't know if Erick has designed his 2010 card yet; if not, I'd imagine Corey would help Erick, and I wouldn't be surprised if their cards complement one another in some way.

I agree with FATMOUSE. They did a good job, not a dirty one. They are friend and so helped each other. GenCon (and great tourney in general) are not only a matter of fun... or better... fun is also winning...

I think they can create a card "cooperative" based on the new book... I owuld love it...

the problem is not the players helping eachother... but the FORMAT that can not work in a fairly competitive way...

I'm going to go against the trend and say that there is no honor whatsoever in king-making or getting king-maked. The flaw is common in many games but the choice of purposely help one player because it's your friend outside the game, dosn't seem to me a honest approach. Melee format does work if everybody uses alliances with the only purpose to win themselves. If this approach is missing, then you can call it mafia, not melee.

So it won't be a Champion card but a Beggar King card.

msommi said:

~“When you play the Game of Thrones (melee championships) you either win….or you die. There is no middle ground.”

Collusion discussion aside, grats to the four finalists for making it to the end in such a large field.

@Saturnine

~Don't be so hasty to congratulate. They might have colluded their way there!

But yes, even though I'm pretty sure this thread will de-rail. I don't want that to take away from the *amazing* performances by the Final 4.

msommi said:

You're presuming that the Melee format is suppose to be "honorable" when there's nothing to suggest it should be other than fictitious rules created by people/players. In fact, the tournament rules explicitly allow/encourage the use of dishonesty:

Table Talk
During a Melee game, players may discuas [sic] the game with one another, at any time. Of course, there is no guarantee that any given player is telling the truth, and the wise AGoT player takes everything that is said with a grain of salt. Players are not allowed, however, to show the contents of their hand, deck, or unrevealed plot cards to an opponent, unless a card effect or game effect instructs them to do so.

Are you ok with people lying, back-stabbing, breaking alliances, etc. if its so they can win? If so, what is wrong with a player A helping player B win so they can benefit from reward Z. In this case it was Erick helping Corey win, so they can design a card (maybe also to make sure the other players lose so they have less points towards the overall champion -- who also gets to design a card -- in which case Erick was acting in self-interest so that's honorable then, right?). Is this any different than a politician dropping out of a race to endorse another candidate to become his Secretary of X, Deputy, Chief of Staff, etc.? What if the likes Bill Gates took an interest in the AGoT Melee and told Erick, "I will give everyone that participated in the melee $100,000 if you 'king-make' Corey." Should Erick be "honorable" and not help Corey win? If he should, why have the "honor rules" changed?

Also, I don't know if you've read the books or how much AGoT lore you're familiar with (don't worry no spoilers), but many have argued that Melee better represents the ASOIF universe better than Joust. The fact is, there is a lot of "dishonor", "king-making" etc. in the series. So I'd argue what happened in the final table was a rather accurate representation of ASOIF. Kudos to the final table for staying true to and "honoring" the series

FATMOUSE said:

I had a feeling that objection would come My point was, though, that collusion will not get you to the final table in a field that large if you have a crappy deck or suck as a player. But you know that's what I meant.

Anyhow, I want to see that decklist now so I can copy it and hurt my friends >

You know nothing jon snow (msommi) :-)

If the format allow that there is not dishonor. 4 of the best players in the word were there and they fight to win. Since 2 guys from the meta of Washington were there this means that that was the best meta so they deserve to win.

The real true fight is today. Melee can be a squad game so the best squad won.

I hope today the best player will win!!!

Cheap win. No interest now in whatever card the winners come up with. Hope it goes straight on the banned list.

Their win would make GRR Martin proud if he knew this

Anyway - can someone tell what they had in those Martel maesters decks?

Congratulations Corey.

I see there no cheating or cheap winning. It's just the fact that Melee isn't a good tourney format.

I'm really interested of what the stark deck was like, thou must be hell to go against 3 martells with one....

I'm happy and sad at the same time to hear these news. Yes he did win and it was well within the game rules. I still find that it shows really poor sportsmanship even and especially since there is such a big prize involved. I can see why, but was it worth it. I can only imagine what it would be like to sit in a melee table where 2 guys decide to help each other no matter what, since after that point, it isn't a fun challenging game anymore it's more of a time consuming waiting to see which one of em does it first as it is with current cards very hard to intervine in such pacts. For me there is always a line of yes I can do this within the rules, but if I do it I will ruin my own fun and the fun of others with it just to win. Yes the format allows this, its more of a personal question should you.

Still well done for the winner.

~just dont make overly OP neutral card that goes 3x in every deck

I feel that collusion in a Joust tourney and "collusion" in a Melee tourney are different.

The Melee format is supposed to be about making alliances/playing shady. I would argue that Corey and Erick were playing the game exactly how it was meant to be played. It's not like they decided beforehand which person at the table would win. Instead, they decided that once one of the two people in the alliance got ahead, then the other boosted them to a win.

FATMOUSE said:

Corey and Erick did not "break" the format. They didn't even "expose a flaw in Melee as a competitive format." The ability and likelihood of kingmaking in Melee is a known quantity, and the way the game is played. How individuals (including Corey and Erick) feel about the "legitimacy" of "collusion" in the finals is not a flaw in the format, but just the way it happens to be played.

That is exactly the point of the two formats. Melee is not intended to be about "individual achievement." That's Joust. Melee is only "not a legitimate competitive format" if you measure it by the same standards you use to measure competitive Joust. Competitive Melee is completely legitimate - as competitive Melee. Although I'd agree it is illegitimate as competitive Joust.

And seriously, can anyone else honestly say that if it was you and a friend at the final table, you wouldn't both take the "if it can't be me, I'll help it be him" approach.

Ktom: I think the point is that people don't feel melee should be included in the overall standings because of the possibility of collusion, which makes it possible that two substandard decks get to the final table and one or the other takes it all. We both know (everyone here does) that Erick and Corey had awesome decks, but at the same time, *should* world championships (rightly named or not) be decidable by a format that in most other games would amount to cheating?