Where do I start? I was almost literally in Indianapolis for 48 hours, arriving after midnight on Thursday night, and leaving halfway through the drunk draft on Saturday night to catch a plane (or 4).
This was my first gencon, and despite some disappointments and travel fubars, it was a pretty great weekend.
MELEE (if you are rings, please skip to joust below).
I talked to a magic-playing friend of mine and was explaining some of the nuances of game of thrones and he asked me "Whats in your sideboard". I replied with "We don't play best of 3". His first reaction was "Well, gimmick decks have a huge advantage then". I took this to heart and built a Targ Summer burn deck built around a super-gimmicky Kings of the Sea Viserys Targaryen. I ran Flame kissed, field of fire, Danys chambers, Sun stroke, Forever Burning, Meerenese brothel, and the typical Summer burn type deck, but I made sure every attachment I ran (Sunstroke, unburnt, aegons blade, flame kissed, crown of mereen, shade of the evening) would be able to be thrown onto Viserys at the end to lock down a win.
Round 1:
Playing against Bara White Book, Greyjoy Cups, and Neutral Agenda.
This was probably the easiest table of the day. And by that, I mean it wasn't difficult as hell. I was able to keep the rush decks under control with help from the GJ player, and dropped Viserys on turn 4 or 5 with 7 attachments on him for the win. Nothing special here.
Round 2:
Lanny/Stark Treaty Deck, Targ BURN, Baratheon Rush.
This was one of the oddest games I have ever played. Props to Jeremiah on actually winning a game with his "mess with everyone" deck. If you didn't have the pleasure of playing against this deck, you missed out. First off, playing against a treaty agenda with a Baratheon at the table is scary as hell. It doesn't take much for Bara to claim 10 power. It also sucks that Viserys doesn't stack with the free 5 power from the agenda. Sorry to the Baratheon player, who I am pretty sure suffered a NPE as a result of 2 Targ burn decks killing anything he put on the board. This game stalemated. Anytime burn couldn't stop a challenge, Jeremiah would throw an honor guard onto someones board to shut it down. Jeremiah ended up winning 9 to 8 to 8 to 7.
Round 3:
Bara/Martell Treaty, Bara White Book, Martell
Are you kidding me? Another Treaty Deck? And this time with 3 rush decks? As soon as I started this table, I though there was NO chance I would move on in the tournament. I basically needed a win here. I went back and forth with the Bara player, and offers of "Let me attack you and you can have second place" were rampant. I had no idea I would win until the 5th or 6th turn when I marshalled 17 gold worth of cards including a Samwell and A raven to BARELY get my 15 power on 10 attachments on Viserys(had 5 on house). I was as surprised as everyone else when I finally won that game.
SemiFinals:
Jonathan Benton with Dragons, Chad (from Ericks meta) with Dragons, John Kraus with Stark.
Great. My burn relies on attahcments and field of fire. How much of a tougher matchup could you ask for? Well, at least there wasn't a treaty agenda this game.
I killed Chad's Dany on the first turn, which is good because he had two dragons out already. John Kraus threw two frozen moats out early and with his assistance, I was able to kill about four of the six dragons on the board. The other two I wasn't about to touch because both of them had mereen out. I made too many play mistakes and John ended up winning (Summarized below)
1. Forgot to draw off Samwell twice
2. Tried to kill a Rhaegal and Eddard in the same turn with a double Field of Fire, only to realize I had forgotten that power of blood was out.
3. Had Kraznys out and didn't save gold to take control of shaggy dog and greywind.
4. Planned for a redirect and didn't realize there were no supports on the board, so the challenge got sent to the wrong person.
All in all, it could have been a much closer game if I had played it right. I am sure to everyone else at the table, I looked like I had no idea what was going on, or how to play melee. Ironically, I had about 7 power, and would have been able to kill Robb (King) and win the next turn if John hadn't have won when he did.
Made top 16 and crapped out on my own mistakes. I wonder if I would have been able to stop the Martell combo at the final table if I had made it there. With the help of Fortified position, I might have been able to kill a viper or two.
JOUST
Not much to say here. I beat a Tully Siege deck in round one, then lost hard to Tim in the second round. Didn't feel very good about being 1-1 at the get go, but I managed to win 4 straight after that against Rings, Chad, and Dan S. (Can't remember the 4th player for some reason).
This report will be short, because it's not exciting. I went 5-1 in joust with a deck I Copied (Except for about 5-6 cards) from Erick's Martell Summer deck from regionals. I didn't want to be one of those people, but this was the only deck that was consistently winning for me. I tried Bara, Targ, even Lannister, and this one had the best win ratio by far. I lost in the first round of the top 16 to Dan S., who admittedly shoudl have been me in the preliminary rounds anyway. He deserved the win, and he got it.
IN CONCLUSION
I took 6th place overall, which is pretty good by my standards. I came to Gencon with no expectations, and confirmed my suspicions that I am not a top tier player. I am on the cusp, however, and will be back next year, hopefully with more experience under my belt. (Afterall, I have only been playing joust since May).
It was great to see so many familiar faces, and to meet those of you I know by board name only. See you all around, and thanks for making this a fun experience.
