Guys ten in a round is pretty easy. exemple with a finale of 16 people tourney!

so KAta, Seth-Cassiel, CaptainCHris and Grundaf are the player. It's Seth Cassiel, the winner (turn 1) who speak. He have a HttIt agenda with a dragon deck.

True-Queen's Harbinger , viserys et jhogo sur table at the end of marshalling. About Loc, Summer sea, Kingsroad Fiefdom (from set-up so 5 init to play Ambush with recrutement season) yunkaï, qarth, meereen. i have influ title. So 5 influ

I'm 4th player, Grundaf 1st support me, Captain Chris 2nd is my opposed

HAnd: 1 maegi's promisse, 2 make an exemple, Rhaegal, Daenerys, ambush from the plains

Captain attack in int so jump Rhaegal and daenerys with ambush,he discard make an exemple

Kataplay and took 12 pow and send me honor guard dothraki

My turn, Yunkaï on Rhaegal so renown

1st chall : power without opp in kata with Rhaegal. Without op' + claim+ renown + Dragon repsonse= 4. draw with meereen : superior claim

2nd chall: Mili in captain chris w op' with rhaegal. Without op'+ renown + opposition = 3 (+4=7)

3rd : power in Kata ,redirected, so go to grundaf and stelth the only powernot kneel. go with Viserys Rhaegal Daenerys and jhogo, th army stay to assure Dominance.Without op + renown rhaegal + renown daenerys + Make an example+ superior claim + claim = 9 (+7=16)

add he domm...

so 2player at 10 pow turn 1....

You forget superior claim, renown, make an exemple, opposition...

Last year at Calicon, I had TRV with 9 power on him first turn. First challenge of Turn 2, Ryan from San Diego takes him with Fury of the Stag for a win.

diana olympos said:

I did not say a player couldn't grab 10+ power in a turn, I've seen a player grab 12 power in one round. But your statement was that at your melee games its common for all players to have 8+ power by turn 1 or 2. That to me is confusing. Because for that to happen you essentially have to be ignoring your opponents and just racing each other to the victory kneeling out your board.

Your example strengthens my confusion. Besides the fact that you what you are illustrating is was only possible with a perfect hand and set up, and perfect mid challenge draw for the Superior Claim, not one of the other players did anything to give it pause. 3 events and no cancel, no character control, no text blanking, Kata giving an additional army for Dominance, and every other player leaving their completely board completely devoid of any defenders.

In the melee games I've played it is not uncommon for a player to grab a bunch of power in turn, but it is very uncommon for multiple players to do that on the 1st turn. And even more uncommon for their to be no control to slow something like that down.

Hunh, I know this is going to be taken as an insult, but it isn't meant that way, what you described is what I see from experienced joust players who are inexperienced melee players. Everyone rushing to win the game in the first game rather than working together or separately to defend challenges or attack the player with the most power and/or most likely to win.

I'm guessing that if everyone in your meta plays that way you guys will have some very different ideas about what kinds of decks and decisions to make when it comes to melee than people I've played against in the States.

Penfold said:

I prefer the slower starting decks myself. I find that the person who gets off to the early lead rarely wins unless the other players are incapable of shutting them down.

Penfold said:

A tricky statement that. (About experienced/inexperienced players.) The Melee game is so very meta-specific, when compared to Joust.

In an environment, where 3 out of 4 players are just rushing for the win, and not trying to stop/control the other players, being the only player doing this will only lose you the game (you just can't control 3 players alone). Similarly, in an environment, where 3 out of 4 players are controlling other players, being the only player to rush for victory will lose you the game (painting a target on your forehead).

A serious case of YMMV in a way. I'd guess that most metas polarize in one direction or the other quite easily because of this. (I'm often quite puzzled when looking at US Melee decklists because of this... hard to understand the environment they will work in.)

Yeah, that is why I clarified I was not trying to be insulting. I've played in metas where the majority tried to rush. I beat it out of them. The first person who went for the rush, I clearly pointed out that they were attempting to gain their 15 power as quickly as possible and all it would do to stop them from succeeding was for all of us to oppose one challenge from them and then when they were knelt out all aim one challenge at them to pull them down. It took a couple of games where I lost but clearly prevented the first person to rush out just by opposing and targeting them that everyone realized I might not be able to stop everyone from rushing for the win but I could stop anyone of them.

Sort of the whole movie situation, "I may not have enough bullets to kill all of you, but I have enough to kill one of you... who wants to be first?"

It creates a situation where everyone becomes much more cautious about it and recognizes that when they do rush they need to be able to get the win in one turn otherwise they'll get dragged back to the pack. Makes the games much more interesting to me personally.

OK i don't want to broke am your way to think...

But listen to this story!

Before French championship of 2011 there was two type of Melee deck in France : THe control one, represent by Lyon Meta, and the RUsh one represent by Tours and Nantes meta.

Guys from Tours and Nanates play lot of melee tourney and they are really experimented mele player.... and their meta normally evolve to a rush one...

On the other side Lyon guys don't play a lot of melee, and they like control in melee!

WHat Nantes guys explain before was that not a single party reach the 5 turn in their tourney, so what ppl decided in french forum was that the french championship will be a meta clash beetween Rush and Control!

But Rush win the clash!! the final table was sthg like all rush, the other top 8 table was a bot the same... and nanates guys win these table.. In fact now, sthg like all french guys play melee with rush decks.. cause it's win...

Soem deck like white book, the Wall or burn Targ are not play cause there are too slow !! in France now you have to win at turn 3 max !!!

Oh and you don't know the deals in fact in wat i explain before, so you can't know why kata send the army!

Really, we will see at Stahleck, but now in France, melee are like Dragster!!!

Penfold said:

I'm pretty much 100% in agreement with you, on what kind of Melee games are interesting and what I prefer personally, but...

(Insert quote from Benjen Stark in the TV series here)

...your experience has much more to do about how a person can influence his/her personal meta than about competitive Melee with 40+ player tournaments (which again is what Diana was talking about, quite clearly).

It doesn't really alter the fact, that sitting down against 3 rush players (of equal skill level to yourself) in a competetive tournament without being fast yourself will lose you the game. Or vice versa with 3 control decks, while running Rush yourself.

Nature of the beast and all that.

diana olympos said:

Interesting take on it. I still prefer the delayed rush or control deck approach. I won my regional, and took top 16 in worlds thus far. I think whoever said "it depends on your meta" hit it right on the head.

WWDrakey said:

Not at all. It isn't about Rush or Control decks, it is about players recognizing that trying to out race everyone else without taking any defensive steps or working in cooperation puts you in a position where the luckiest person, not the best deck or player ends up winning.

If no one is going to defend against my attack, and none of them will work together to steal my power and knock my board down then if I get the cards I need first, I win. If not I lose. Simple as that.

Delaying your rush and defending attacks against you just enough to disrupt your opponents, taking advantage of their lack of defending, and banning together whenever possible in the end gives you a better chance of using skill rather than luck of the flop and card draw to determine the winner.

But... obviously that is just my opinion.