Okay, I better get this TR going before I forget absolutely everything about the tourney(s). Some basic thoughts before moving on to the blow-by-blow (of the Joust only, of course!). Sorry if it seems harsh at times, you know the internets - it is hard to show humor or resignation or annoyance rather than anger!

1. After placing top 4 for five straight year (1st, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) that run ended, and probably that window has closed. I don't spend the time playing, looking at cards, etc. I was lucky to go 4-2 (losing to two Martell Summer decks), and just miss the cut. I will take credit for winning the Drunk Draft in that I was the last guy standing undefeated at 4.30am and I had certainly drank more than most that day/night.

2. In the same vein, congrats to everyone that did well! Obviously the usual suspects were very strong - Erick, Dobbs, Mathlete, Casey and more. But there were new successes, especially Corey and Zeigler. Big time congrats to Z ~for his first 'real' title.

3. The scoring system was just silly. Dobbs is the second person ever to make both finals (Erick the first, who did win the overall)...and he get third (!!!!!!). If he got 1st and 4th he still wouldn't have won, losing to someone with a 1st and a 9th. Just funny. It wasn't like Corey wasn't deserving, but Dobbs just had a better weekend *shrug* The fact that it was already decided after the Swiss round of Joust...*roll*...

4. Overall, the competative scene just left a bad taste in my mouth. Melee was...well, melee. I saw two people get mad enough to leave before the game was over, just pick up their cards and leave. Mathlete had someone call him an a-hole (Mathlete of all people)...by someone from the meta that king-made more than any other. Obviously the finals left a bad taste in many people's mouth. Anyone can argue as much as they want, but 95% of the people I talked to were not happy about it, people who were THERE. When the winner actually won, not one person clapped and the winning team left within 5-10 minutes. *shrug* Contrast that to a ton of clapping for the Joust champion (twice actually!).

4b. In Joust, it was just weird. Seeing at least 5 of pretty much the exact same deck wasn't cool (disclaimer, at least one of them basically invented the deck). Seeing 7 of the top 16 playing the same House/Agenda wasn't cool.

**Quick disclaimer - I like Erick. I like his meta, which in my mind is tied with Missou for the best meta in the country. I just don't quite agree with the ends to the means. There would be props if it was five different decks being used. There would be props if there wasn't obvious meta-specific kingmaking in the finals of two people playing the same deck. *shrug* Maybe the game has passed me by, many of us just play aGoT BECAUSE it isn't net-decking and MTG type 'drafting' of meta's and the such. I didn't know Corey, but he seems like an amazing player and deckbuilder. *shrug*

4c. I don't like Magic. aGoT isn't Magic. However, they know competative gaming. They have very good rules in place. I find it funny that FFG does the exact opposite in many cases. I know there are reasons to not allow concessions or the such, but basically it makes an environment where getting away with lying = winning more. This isn't anything on Ktom, who ruled (as always) perfect with the rules in place (gosh, he does a great job).

4d. FFG...stop with the overall champ. Just stop. It isn't working. Make a Melee champ - they have shown Melee is viable on its own. Make a Joust champ. But stop giving mythical championships to people who don't win anything...it demeans the accomplishments of the actual winners. Overall champ is the BCS of the game (for non-US-rules football fans, the BCS is a computer that tells us who should be the champion in football, and it sucks and is only there to make $$ for the bowls rather than an actual playoffs).

5. It is bad enough that I might not play next year. I have played in every aGoT Gencon since it started. I never thought about leaving the game when rotation was started. I never did when the game was moved to LCG. To be honest, in 12 months I will probably have forgotten all this and will play. But the fact that I am thinking of it at all, and waited three days to do my TR (usually it is the morning after I get home)...well, that says something. Either about me, or the competative scene, or (most likely) both.

6. Ghaston Grey is good. REALLY good. It was my secret tech, in that I put it in my deck the second I opened that chapter pack. The 2champs1chump podcast famously called it the worst card in that pack (although Dobbler did mention that I was using it for profit at Kubla). I got there and the card beat me up...badly. At least 5-8 people in the top 20 were playing it.

Okay, on to the TR!

Got in late - as usual. For some reason Con flying and me don't mix. Luckily, wasn't planning on doing anything except some fun games, but still annoying to wake up at 3.00am just to sit in an airport.

On Friday played a little Warhammer, and got to experience the Con a little more than usual. Was going to play L5R, but decided not to play competatively L5R for the first time in six years at a GenCon qualifier (that I wasn't planning on playing more of, even if I did qualify) was a bad idea. Plus I was a little hung-over from the Irish bar the night before. So, just got to do the exhibit hall, try some games (I love Acension!!!), and hang with friends in between round of Whack-a-Mole...I mean Melee.

Sidenote: Melee had a huge turnout, and that was great! It was interesting to see quite a few more casual players playing.

Friday night took it a bit easier, to try and not be AS tired and hung-over as usual.

Couldn't decide between Martell Brotherhood or Lanni Maesters (very light on the Maesters). In the end, I went with Martell since I had played it a ton, and it had my 'secret' tech of Ghaston Grey. Another last second tech change (I thought) was putting in Good for the Gander as my 1st turn plot. I thought there would be tons of Maester decks so I could search twice, plus I ran Birds and Ill Tidings so if I played a Summer deck and they searched I could do that twice as well. And, as usual, I put Fleeing in the deck, and it worked almost every game per the norm. I like the synergy of Martell, the BH cards, Ill Tidings (although I forgot the card draw more often than not), all the control (Claim/Ghaston/Blade/Game of C/Seductive Promise).

**Disclaimer** I barely remember my own name some days, I have a horrible memory for names (not a great trait for a banker). Sorry if I miss yours, I can picture you but not name you!

Round 1: Canadian guy running Stark Tully's.

He started out great, I was so-so. Tully's certainly have some cards I dislike when playing Martell - especially the septon that doesn't kneel to defend intrigue, and the cancel Maester. However, I had a V. Blade and I think I played three Seductive Promises on his characters. I whittled him down, and finally won. 1-0

Round 2: Jonathan Benton running Martell Summer:

He flops 5, and proceeds to get great board control. I am hanging on, but not looking good due to Ghaston Grey. Again, I didn't think I would see this in the entire tourney, and it just owns Brotherhood. We both have it out, which makes for some 'fun' beginnings of challenge phases. I Flee which buys me some more time (he had 6-8 locations out, and then couldn't afford the Nobles as much after Flee), but I didn't run specific location control so it is basically an auto-loss. 1-1

Round 3: Rich (?) playing GJ Winter

We both had a pretty good start, but with Seductive Promise after a Fleeing I think I forced his Valar too soon, and I saved a few and canceled one of his saves? I always had pretty good board position, and end up winning on the back of Beric and Mad Hunts. I got rid of his season quite a bit as well with Birds and Ill Tidings. I think I probably only win this game vs. a good GJ winter deck player 50% of the time, but this was one of them. 2-1

Round 4: John/Feiras playing Martell Summer:

I had a really bad start here, and he (as most summer decks do) had a great one. He was moving fast, but I thought I was always on the cusp of turning the game (especially after Grey finally came out). However, it didn't happen. John played it well, and won. 2-2

Round 5: Kyle from MO playing Lanni shadows and stuff.

A pretty unique deck. This round was very annoying. I basically wiped his board clean 1st or 2nd round. Unluckily he Nightmare/Valars my Beric. I couldn't draw another BH to save my life. He had some card draw, but almost no income, so whenever he did get 2 characters out I would either Blade/claim or Game of C/claim or Seductive/claim both of them away. I was at 13 power when time was called during dominance, and would have won the game. He offered to concede (thanks Kyle) with us not knowing you couldn't do that. Ktom was standing close, and I didnt' enter the score, so I assume this meant that I was given a timed win instead of a full win, which made me miss the top 16. I don't mind at all, since that was the rules going in (although I didn't read those), but a tough thing since I dominated the game and would have won if time was called 30 seconds later. *shrug* 3-2

Round 6: Alex from CA, playing Lanni Maesters.

I don't know what to say here. Again I had a good start and wiped his board 1st or 2nd turn. He couldn't get anything out that wasn't controlled, and didn't even put a chain out I don't think. Sorry Alex! 4-2

So, ended up 4-2 and somewhere in the 18th or 19th place range. Again, at this point I didn't know about the 'no concessions' rule so thought I was in after looking at my SoS. But, I was strangely zen about it, and really didn't mind not playing.

I got to watch, and see some really unique deck ideas (and some not-so-unique ones). It made me excited to branch out and start building decks again, which was cool. I was happy to see who was moving on, and then got to go to the liqour store. I returned in time to be already 1/2 of the way to the drunk draft (Complord was 200% there), and see Z vs. Dobbs in a great game a little. Z 'won' twice, and that was funny.

Drunk draft was a ton of fun (as usual). I ended up undefeated, mainly riding the coattails of 5KE Eddard Stark who was a BEAST. I think someone else was undefeated, but I was there last so decided to post that I won Not that it matters (~although the prize support of nothing was not much less than the Worlds prize support!). In a surprising twist, the guy I thought would drink the most (the Joust Champ) bowed out early...to be honest most of the Mizzou meta punked out

Anyways, I did have a great time with friends. Played better than I thougth I would. Am still really tired. And that is what matters! Thanks to all my opponents, and all my friends, allt he people that showed up to the largest in recent memory, and to FFG for continuing such a great game.

I played Martel/Brotherhood as well. After the first two matches it was an Encyclopedia of Ways Beric Can Get Owned. It was horrible. (One of them was a noob error where I walked into a Cyvasse.)

Thanks for the extensive report and impressions. Sorry to hear that some things left a negative impression, from players creating an atmosphere of malcontent to FFG ballsing up the tournaments.

JackT said:

I don't know how to feel about the whole net-decking and sharing of decks approach. On one hand, it's a good sign that there is more communication and cross-pollination in the game now than ever before. On the the other, it does have negative effects on the environment. In the past, it seems like many of the most powerful decks were also somewhat more difficult to play, so that even if someone copied a deck, at least they wouldn't play it the same exact way. Unfortunately, like the Lanni hyperkneel of two years ago, summer Martell is just very easy to play and excruciating to play against.

Man, I'm sorry to hear the tourney was kind of a letdown. Melee has always been a crap shoot, but it's weird seeing Joust the way it is now. Props on bringing the Brotherhood though. I laughed when I read about the nightmares on Beric into Valar, that is probably one of the more random things I've heard of happening in the game.

You should stick around though, at least LCG and HBO means the game isn't going anywhere for awhile. (And we've yet to open the wonders of the Lanni box~!)

thx for the report... just hope you change your mind cause I would strongly like to play with you some time!!!

Ps i'm preparing austrish national at the end of months and i'm not having so much fun in building decks. This is a "not phantasy" moment. I'm frustrated about how bad chain system is. I really hope at least apprentice collar can be reworded as "printed maester only".

It is about 2 months that on "our side of the world" tourneys are mastered by chains (I'm in contact with spanish guys and they have something like 30 page thread about this).

Anyway I still love this game so I strongly hope you will change your mind in a few days ;-)

Keep on rocking!

and you have more booze to drink with fun people in Iowa City before the year is out!

I would think that we'd see more netdecking in the LCG format than none. Having access to all the cards (except those OOP) makes it easier. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing for the game since it's good for new players to enter the field seeing what a tier 1 deck looks like and know what the good cards are. AFAIK it hasn't been the culture for deck secrecy in AGoT, although that might change and in the future no one will post regionals decks to maintain the edge of 'secret tech'. (~although it's not as secret for some as others) It doesn't seem like there were very significant changes in the meta this year, except that Martell got better despite Burning going to restricted list, and maybe people playing less attachments outside of Maester builds (which also didn't hurt Martell that much). It doesn't seem that was the case last year when Wildlings were coming out, true?

rings said:

Whoah, whoah, whoah! We only put it in the bottom 5! We didn't give it a particular ranking. Plus, I'm pretty sure Dobbler even talked us out of that much before the episode was over.

1. You must still be drunk because you still can't spell Zeiler's name right. Ive never even drank with the guy and I know how to spell his name

2. Someone actually called Mathlete of all people an a-hole? Good thing I wasn't there or I would have gone all National Treasure on that dude while drinking my green mouthwash

3. I can understand the let down of the competitive scene being what it is. With my son or with an ex's son, I've played many collectible games over the last 10 years from Pokemon to Heroclix to Naruto. I must say that the competitive scene of collectible games was always much more annoying than in any other game Ive played (like Battletech at old Strategicons) or any sports or martial event I have ever played. I just chalked it up to the younger generation that grew up with CCGs just have a different view of sportsmanship than people that competed in other types of competitive events. After experiences like watching a 25+ yr old grown man play absolute min-max at a local gaming night against my 8 yr old son, I pretty much decided that I wouldn't waste money on collectible games ever again...the communities surrounding those games were too petty and min-max whiny for my taste.

And then I found Game of Thrones. I was totally blown away with the type of community GoT had. Hands down, the greatest group of gamers I had ever come across. Everyone from the California meta was encouraging and helpful and even donated Rare cards to me (something that NEVER happened in any other Collectible game). I really was impressed with a gaming community that was competitive but also so down to earth and cool. That spread when I played a handful of other online games with members of this forum that I had never met in real life (like Kennon and Dobbler and a bunch that tried Travian). I have always been impressed with the type of people this game has always attracted. Champions like Mathlete, Dobbler and Rings always demonstrated class as well as skill. This pleasantly surprised me coming from other collectible games.

There was something very different and special about the old GoT players from the CCG era that really changed my perception of what type of people actually play collectible games. Many of the people I have met through Thrones are some of the greatest people and friends I've ever met. It would be really sad to see the GoT community degenerate into "just another collectible game community". Sure everyone wants to win but I hope that the GoT community collectively never forgets to have fun and remember why this community was and is the best in gaming.

LaughingTree said:

I had the pleasure to meet Mathlete for the first time at Gencon and he was very pleasant and a truly nice guy to be around. So when this guy called him an a-hole I was a little upset. Sure, Mathlete was playing Targ burn and killing everthing the guy had, but that's no reason to get upset. It's just a card game. Not only that, but when the game was over and my friend Wade said good game and went to shake the guy's hand he shook his head no and refused to congratulate him. That's pretty sh*tty if you ask me. Some people have no class. If you can't be a good sportsman then don't come to Gencon. You beat my ass at Gencon and I'm gonna shake your hand, smile at you, and thank you for the beating.

I wonder Rings, how much of your disappointment was with this specific (martell summer-heavy) environment, versus the competitors themselves?

I really don't care for the Martell-focused environment. I was outright angry when FFG ruled that the fourth chapter pack wouldn't be legal, because I knew it would lead to a martell-dominated metagame. (I realize the fourth chapter pack has a lot of crazy powerful stuff in it, but at least there would have been some variety.)

Honestly, Mathlete completely DESTROYED me in Joust. I mean, yes, I definitely made some major play mistakes that helped him along, but his deck was great and his play of it even better. Not only that, but he had me laughing really hard the entire time I was playing him. After we finished, I thanked him for the thorough thrashing, told him it was a pleasure to meet him, and shook his hand. He told me he liked my deck and hoped I did well. I don't know how you could dislike a guy like that, I came away extremely impressed (actually impressed with all the players I met from the California meta, and elsewhere!)

I also had the pleasure of being thrashed by Mathlete at Kublacon, and he was quite pleasent the whole time (probably because he was winning! ). I can't imagine someone getting so mad at the game to get up and call him an a-hole, unless that person was themselves an a-hole. In any case, that kind of behavior is really uncalled for.

I don't know if I'd call the whooping Mathlete gave me a pleasure, but I sure don't see how anyone could get that pissed at a guy that nice.

Twn2dn said:

Probably a combo. Again, nothing personal against anyone, but the reason many of us play competative aGoT (as Laughing Tree said) is that it ISNT like many other ones...mainly since all you get for winning is a pat on the back. So to see net-decking and 'drafting' (I guess what I call it - like in racing when an entire team plays for the goal of one) just seems...odd and a bit wrong. *shrug* I certainly didn't like seeing so many Martell builds, but I was hoping if there WAS a lot of Martell, that people would have played slightly different versions of it. I think 4-6 players were playing pretty close to the exact same deck (let's call it Erick v2, Martell Summer w/ Ghaston Grey) with another 2-4 playing something VERY similiar (let's call it Erick v1, w/o the Grey).

Let's just say I was happy that a deck I never had seen or even thought about won. I love unique decks, and by-and-by most Champ decks (Joust of course) have been surprising...both 1st AND 2nd were actually!

I AM surprised you thoughts the 4th chapter pack would have stopped Martell. IMHO I think we would have saw MORE with Prince's Plans (or Doran's Game?...whatever the one that recycles your discard pile is) and the pretty strong 'discard X Maesters to make your opponent discard X characters' consiering their refugee is a Maester...

Okay, enough of that. ~Let's let the Mathlete loving thread that this has turned into return...

rings said:

On a more important note -> mathlete Just to rile up a bit of interest, John has graciously agreed to author a guest article for the next edition of ThronesTimes. I'm really looking forward to reading what he writes!

I think the important question here is- Does the AGOT community love Dobbler or Mathlete more?

Kennon said:

I don't think anyone said they like John, just that he's a nice guy

Twn2dn said:

What if Prince's plans was errata'd to say that it can't return duplicates of itself? Would that help?

@Twn2dn Tell him you won't publish it until he finishes reading Dance

@Kennon I would love you the most if you would actually send those Valar Midwesteros power counters to me before Cali Con

FRAK! I totally had it in my head that I was giving them to you at GenCon. Except then I.... you know.... didn't and such. *sigh* Remind me to to be the one in charge of sending out contest prize support in the future. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I still have your address, so those should go out shortly.

Kennon said:

Hah no worries, I was trying to make GenCon happen last minute but didn't work out

I will have to try harder next year...

To be fair, when someone in agot is completely owning me I tend to curse at them... but then I usually mean it as complimentary, since the decks are usually THAT good.

I only remember two players that really deserve the title of *******, one called for a deck list every time he lost, and IIRC screwed one of my friends out of cards. He hasn't played since 5KE AFAIK.

The other is me of course

Mathlete is awesome!

I remember one time I brought a friend to Gencon that was new to Thrones, and John made him believe he was also new to the game. Then at the end of their game, he busted out The First Snow of Winter and was like "Hey, whose name is that?!"