Austrian Nationals 2011 Result:

1) Matteo „Septon“ (1*) 20TP - Baratheon/Maester
2) Wolfgang „thorondor“ (5) 18TP - Martell/Hollow Hill
3) Ondrej „Raios“ (6) 15TP - Lannister/Brotherhood
4) Josef Eckl (2) 20TP - Baratheon/Maester
5) Ben „Old Ben“ Jakob (3) 20TP - Targaryen/Summer
6) Gleb Popov (4) 20TP - Stark
7) Jiri „Rozy“ Rozman (7) 15TP - Martell/Alliance
8) Markus Kelnreiter (8) 15TP - Baratheon/Treaty Isles
9) „Nadir“ 15TP - Lannister/Maester
10) Helmut „Ratatosk“ 13TP - Martell/Hollow Hill
11) Michael Mateju 10TP - Lannister/Shadow
11) Kilian Schödel 10TP - Lannister/Shadow
13) Andre Sestak 10TP - Targaryen/Hollow Hill
14) Matt 201P - Targaryen/Maester
15) Francesco 10TP - Targaryen/Hollow Hill
16) Gunther Liebhart 10TP - Martell/Hollow Hill
17) Lanzes “Seznal” 5TP - Stark/Shadows
18) Andrea “Gualdo” 5TP - Greyjoy/Maester
19) “Garlan” 3TP - Greyjoy/Maester
20) Stefan Vogl 0TP - Stark

*after 5 preliminary Rounds

Quarterfinals:
Septon beats Markus
Josef beats Rozy
Raios beats Ben
Wolfgang beats Gleb

Semifinals:
Septon beats Josef
Wolfgang beats Raios

Final 3rd place:
Raios beats Josej

Final 1st place:
Septon beats Wolfgang

Here is the link to my deck:

http://www.agotcards.org/deck/v/2573

And here´s the deck:

Card Expansion set Amount

House Card (1)
House Targaryen Five Kings Edition 1

Plots (7)
A Time for Ravens A Change of Seasons 1
Fortified Position Lords of Winter 1
Summoning Season Core Set 1
Valar Morghulis Core Set 1
At the Gates Gates of the Citadel 1
Fury of the Dragon Ancient Enemies 1
Burning Bridges Queen of the Dragons 1

Characters (30)
Ser Jorah Mormont Princes of the Sun 1
Rhaegal Queen of the Dragons 2
Viserion Queen of the Dragons 2
Carrion Bird The Winds of Winter 3
Khal Drogo Core Set 1
Viserys Targaryen Core Set 1
Kraznys mo Nakloz The Raven's Song 3
Brown Ben Plumm Core Set 1
Jhogo Of Snakes and Sand 1
Samwell Tarly The Raven's Song 1
Advisor to the Crown Queen of the Dragons 3
Refugee of the Plains Refugees of War 3
Daenerys Targaryen Queen of the Dragons 2
Dragon Thief Ancient Enemies 3
Balerion the Black Return of the Others 1
Drogon Queen of the Dragons 2

Events (11)
Dance With Dragons Core Set 2
Forever Burning Core Set 2
Nightmares Lords of Winter 2
Field of Fire Queen of the Dragons 2
To Be a Dragon Sacred Bonds 3

Locations (16)
Crossroads Core Set 3
Street of Steel Lords of Winter 1
Astapor Queen of the Dragons 1
Meereen Queen of the Dragons 1
Eastern Fiefdoms Core Set 3
Khal Drogo's Tent Core Set 1
The Red Keep Tales from the Red Keep 1
Temple of the Graces Core Set 2
Summer Sea Core Set 3

Attachments (3)
Black Raven A Song of Summer 3

Unfortunately not a tournamnet reprot from my side. Just the addition that it was a weekend full of fun, good games and it was very enjoyable like always at the austrian nationals.

Another Bara maester deck won a big tourney? Congrats!

Twn2dn said:

Yes, but i think it must also be said that none of the two Bara maester decks went undefeated through the swiss mode.

Old Ben said:

Well, it also has to be said that of the four losses the two Bara Maester decks had between them, two were against the other Bara Maester deck and one was in the third place game, and I'm not entirely sure how much Josef really cared at that point. The deck was insanely strong at this tourney, and yes, people *did* try to tech against it.

I'd also like to say thanks to Wolfgang and to the other players for making this such a great event. I enjoyed myself immensely. Meeting Franz Miklis and buying some of his prints was a great experience, too.

I could post a decklist, too, or even write up a short report, but - although I'm happy with my result, if not entirely with my level of play - I kinda doubt there's much interest in the exploits of some midlist guy.

There's an amazing number of Hollow Hill decks. That's excellent. I'm glad people are starting to use it more effectively.

WolfgangSenff said:

~Well, considering only one one of them made the cut, that's kind of a bold statement.

Thanks for the report Thorondor.

I send it in the french forum. Congratulations for player

Bara Maester's Path vs. Martell Knights of the Hollow Hill .... why does that sound familiar...?

Grats to Septon, though.

No multiplayer for your national?

Retrospective on this years Austrian Nationals:

it was the evening befoer the tourney when i finally put together the deck i was going about to play at nationals. first, i didnt want to play Martell (which has always been my favorite house), but then i wanted to play a deck (a)using The Princes Plan before it eventually goes the way of the Laughing Storm ...
so lots of events had to be in this deck. and martell isnt short of some that are quite playable. how to avoid a bad setup? having no setup at all playing the Hollow Hill agenda., which fits perfectly with the influence boost. so this is going to be the typical Martell deck that is played by many these days? my arrogance (there is a lot of martell in me, you see!) didnt allow that. so i tried to toy around with some not so often played plots and doing without Valar Morghulis (which "infuriated" one of my opponents ...). here is the deck i was playing:

plots:
the power of blood - to protect the viper obviously
to the spears! - no martell deck without
retaliation! - very good first plot, sicne I don’t want to go first anyway
Snowed under - loved that one!good in combination with flea bottom scavenger/vendor of venoms, also quite effective against single uber-characters working together with Sunstroke
Assault on Kings Landing - prefect anti-valar plot, best choice!
Feast or Famine - THE starting plot, especially when you are afraid of blockade.
The Red Wedding - just one of my favourites, but most likely the candidate for removal. I was thinking of Loyalty Money Can Buy (but I already have 2 good starting plots) or another Power of Blood (but I didn’t rely that heavily on the Viper in this deck, and there is only one more noble Arianne). was also thinking of Burning Bridges, which would have been a good choice against Robert Maester decks.

characters (30):
the red viper POTS 2x
vendor of venoms 3x
berric dondarrion 2x
lady stonehart 2x
ser arys oakheart
darkstar POTS
Arianne 2x POTS
ellaria sand
the bastard of godsgrace
house messenger 2x
orphan of the greenblood 3x
refugee of the citadel 3x
flea bottom scavenger 3x
Vipers Bannermen 2x
Starfall Merchant
Maester Kendry

attachments (5):
bodyguard 2x
Sunstroke 3x

locations (10):
palace fountains 3x
sunset sea 3x
dornish fiefdoms 3x
Shadowblack Lane

events (16):
red vengeance 3x
burning on the sand 3x
westeros bleeds 2x
The Princes Plan 3x
He Calls it Thinking 2x
A Game of Cyvasse 3x

The plan:
No power on your house card (vendor, lady stoneheart). That should slow down the opponent, while I am building up my hand and let the Prince´s Plans commence. Later rush with some renown characters, when I call To The Spears!
The usual Martell control with Burning, Red Vengeance, Orphan, Cyvasse. And Westeros Bleeds.
The usual Martell Draw/Reveal: Messenger, Flea bottom Scavenger, Vipers bannermen.
And a little surprise with Sunstroke. The response effect might help, but its enough to make big characters “cannot be saved”.

The performance:
1st round: Garlan Greyjoy Maester.
He had a good start, annoying me from the very beginning with Baelor Blacktyde. All I did was preventing him from rushing me. But I had a plan …
Soon he also had Maester Wendamyr, Maester Aemon, Iron Mines in play and probably some more saves on his hand. I have played the Viper without protection, preparing the ideal situation for him to play Valar Morghulis. And play he did. And howled (well, not really) when he saw my plot: Assault on Kings Landing. I sacrificed the Viper, while Beric and Darkstar (with Lady Stoneheart joining them next round rising from the dead) were ready to take over. Next round the Call to Spears brought me a quick victory. 1:0

2nd round: Septon Baratheon/Maester
I knew what would be coming the way, and I knew I would have barely a chance to stop it. And when I saw Robert Baratheon in the setup, “barely” changed to “not at all”. He played it perfectly, I felt not playing at all in this game. Fortunately it was over after a few minutes. 1:1

3rd Round: Matt Targaryen/Maester
My recollection fails me a bit here. I remember it was a long game, him burning my character (but not the vendors when he played Threat from the East), me controlling him with lot of success not to win too many challenges. Of course he was able to finally start collecting chains on some Maester, but I caught this one with Sunstroke/Cyvasse. Time call was near so I started to gain as much power as possible, saving me successfully a time win. 2:1

4th round: Andre Targ/Hollow Hill
After having faced 3 maester decks in the first three rounds I was relieved to face something differently. But I definitely didn’t wish for a burn deck. But I had a plan: it looked good to start the Princes Plan machine early (I think I had 2 in my starting hand). And since he played with dragons, I knew I would be able to control him. Also, he had a gold problem from the very start. I played very defensively in the beginning, just trying to not giving away any power. i only killed one none dragon character in this game, though I had the chance, but I knew that would open the door to To Be a Dragon, enabling him to stand the monsters. Since I got some Games of Cyvasse being able to recycle them, I had some control, and finally I played Westeros Bleeds in the nick of time. He completely lost his field position, while I was rushing next round. 3:1

5th round: Gunther Martell/Hollow Hill
Hmm, this wont be a quick game, we both knew. While he needed a full win to advance to the finals, for me a time win would be enough. Also, with Gunter being a buddy of mine and having played that deck several times before, I knew his deck inside out (while not vice versa). He had a much better start than me, being able to play Princes Plans from the beginning. Soon I changed my plan try to gather as much power quickly as possible. I knew he had 2 Red Vengeance on his hand. But I never made any military challenge, and intrigue only in the late game, when I was hoping for some renown power. after some time also started with Princes Plan and it was a sort of stalemate then, me being in the lead with power. all I did was making sure it would still be so when the time was called. I was extremely lucky, when he pulled Darkstar from my hand (which had at least some 12-15 cards), enabling me to gain even more power (To The Spears was on the table). 4:1

So I made it to the top 8 …
In the quarter finals I met Gleb and his Stark deck, he announced the Martell would be his doom before the game, and he was right. My deck had an answer to almost everything. He had all the big stark guys (blackfish, robb, eddard) in his hand and sometimes in play. But with cyvasse and orphan being recycled soon they couldn’t achieve much. Then I lured him into playing Catelyn to answer my intrigues challenge (he had only big guys in his hand), giving me the chance to kill her with a military challenge when Retaliation was out. gleb complained that he didn’t draw a duplicates of his big guys – but that’s what I way even hoping for, since I got He calls it Thinking in my starting hand and never got to play it. Then he played Valar quite early (was it to get rid of the viper?), giving me the chance to build up a strong position on the board. Before the seventh plot it looked quite good for me, but it was not a lost cause for Gleb either and he still had hope to turn the game. When revealing the last plot he was shocked: how did I dare not to play Valar Morghulis? He would have played more characters much sooner. Also in this round he made an error which closed the game for me: he was going first and attacked me with full force. That was okay, cause I had some weenies, and too many cards in my hand anyway. That left all his characters knelt. He wanted to play To Be A Wolf, not being awarer that there are no used plots any longer. So I could gather some easy power enough to win that game.

Semifinals: Andre “Raios” Lannister/Brotherhood
In my meta nobody ever played a brotherhood deck. So I felt quite uncomfortable facing it now. He dropped Thoros in the setup (or was it in the first round?), but I had my weapon of choice as well: Cyvasse. Unfortunately I had no vendor and also lady stoneheart was late, so I couldn’t avoid to get some power on my house card (winning dominance). He took care that at least one power stayed on my house card, so my beric was vulnerable, and my draw was hurt badly (scavenger being useless in my hand). I was able to play Cyvasse early, but he countered with Paper Shield. I remember I played another Cyvasse soon after, but he had another Paper Shield. And when I had a good moment to play Red Vengeance, he played the third paper shield. Bummer!! But all I needed was some more influence and a princes plan. Till then all I did was to avoid him rushing me.
Finally there were 2 crucial moments in this game. First: before revealing plots he made one of his characters a lady with old Nan (the only one in play). I had the viper as the only lord. So I expected Red Wedding. I have already played Power of Blood. But Raios was expecting a second copy of Power of Blood, so all of this lady making was a bluff. Well, I didn’t have a second copy of Power of Blood), so the Viper survived,starting to gather some power. And he also got some bodyguard (or was it a dupe?), so he was likely to be safe another round.
The second game deciding happened at the beginning of this next round: he played The Song of Bael the Bard turning one of my characters into a refugee. I finally had some luck and drew into my first Princes Plans. I had enough influence (agenda and Maester Kendry), but I waited till the marshalling phase. Then, Old Nan turned another character into a refugee and Raios played Dissension, discarding that other character and … WHAT??? … Maester Kendry?? I was sure he had chosen Arys Oakheart with the plot, who already had some power and was obviously the stronger character. But the watchers around confirmed that he has chosen the maester. Of course I would have played Princes Plans still in the draw phase then, recycling a Red Vengeance and 2x Cyvasse (and a forth card I forgot). And here Raios showed he is great sports! Cause he allowed me to play Princes Plan. There was a similar situation before, when he knelt a learnt master announcing an intrigue challenge, when he was changing his mind asking if he could play Ill Tidings instead (on a bodyguard). That’s what made it easier for me, still I felt a little bit odd though I accepted gladly his offer. Even worse: I was able to rush him in this round gaining exactly 15 power. Big respect for Raios!
The next day we played 2 rematches, and he won both of them. So probably it should have been Raios playing the finals.

So I made it to the final,

only to meet a deck I have already played against before - and lost to desperately. Septon won the semifinal in a meeting of 2 Maester Roberts. Of course when reaching a final one always has hope (and dreams), so I tried to concentrate and offer at least a good battle. but facing Robert again in the setup was definately not rising any hopes. I was able to slow him down with an orphan first round. I was able to play Sunstroke on him, when Robert had only the Apprentice chain. All I needed was a Game of Cyvasse now. And then I made a terrible mistake: I attacked him with intrigue, forgetting about his Lady Selyse. So Robert himself could defend, take the anti-attachment chain and use it immediately. From the point on it went downhill. I felt I had a small chance in this game, still I completely screwed it up. He played Threat from the East third round and got rid of all my characters. At the end of this round all I had to do was shaking his hand and congratulate Septon Matteo to a well earned victory. So Austria has an Italian champion!

Franz Miklis has been arriving by now showing lots of his AGOT artwork. And part of the winners prize was to pick one original artwork. Septon shouldered a whole hill and took it with him back to italy (the one named after Aegon).

Overall it was a great time we spent together. Though there have not been as many players as I was hoping for (some last minute cancelleations), still having 4 nations taking part made it a wonderful event. Lots of thanks to the guys from italy, germany and the czech republic for showing up.

See you all at CastleStahleck!

Katagena said:

thanks to Eddy Salzburg is a MP-free zone for all eternity! (and personally i am not complaining)

thorondor said:

Huh? What happened there?

oh, thought i added the explanation. well, in short he played a deck exploiting Blood Trident (there was much more like that in his deck, but i forgot)

first it was a good laugh, but when having played hours and still not having any seen any powers, it became a very tedious thing ...

anyway: it was the only time back then we had a MP tourney. and itlooks like it was never missed much.

Twn2dn said:

Was is quite the same deck as the 1st place worlds?

Well, it was updated with stuff from TIoR, obviously (Gold Link in particular), but otherwise from what I've seen it was quite similar,

People should start OOH Reek in martell, make sure you win that intrigue challenge and take control of robert. Then Ghaston Grey your (other) noble to get Reek back. Think about it.

Awesome report thorondor! I love when deck comes with description (why those plots, the plan).

Mathias Fricot said:

House Stark only.

thorondor said:

But Red Vengeance has an influence cost!

Thanks for the report, the deck you used looks really interesting/

Mathias Fricot said:

~ I must have some misprinted Reeks in my collection. They have the "house Stark only" line, where can i find players that want to trade those rarities for the ones with the right print ? ;-)

Alando said:

you are right of course. most likely my memory failed me, it was anohter event card, maybe burning in the sand. however, in thebeginning of the game he was able to play 3 paper shields on 3 of my event cards.

thorondor said:

Actually you played game of cyvasse and he canceled it with the third paper shield and we all began joking about a little error in the deck list, because it seemed that there were maybe 10 paper shields in the deck. After the first game of cyvasse was cancelled you played another one.

That was also the game with "Lady Beric Dondarrion", we started speculating about how Thoros of Myr failed the ressurection ritual when Raios gave Lord Beric Dondarrion the lady trait before the plots where revealed.

Lol ya I guess it is house stark only eh.... never actually noticed that before. I love him in melee, and am going to try him in a Martell/Stark deck that uses Reek + ghaston grey to take control of characters and recycle reek by bouncing him back to my hand. should not work, but i will try.

~What, after meta'ing against the deck it still did well? I can't believe it, everyone said that as soon as people see how good the deck is they can put in a few cards and beat it fairly easily. That is what I get for trusting in the boards.

On a serious note though - thanks for posting, and especially for the TR. Some very interesting ideas, and we appreciate the details!

rings said:

~ Meh, i was the unluckiest guy at the tournament i wanted to play against Maester Bob, but never had the chance too, which is a little bit surprising with a result of 4:1 in swiss. :-) But than again at least i played against Lannister maesters and the chains were very soon gone.