Quick Tourney Recap, more to come:

22 players, 11 from out of state. 2 current & 2 former FFG employees. 5 Rounds, cut to a top 8.

1st, 2nd, & Sansa won custom Knights of the Corn power counters.

Top 8 included Martell/tMP - Venomous Blade (1st), Stark/KotR - Fear of Winter (2nd), Martell/KoS - Venomous Blade, Martell/??? (3rd/4th), Stark/None, Greyjoy/KoS, Stark/SoW, Baratheon/None - Fury of the Stag

Tim Lyons' winning decklist is here . He'd be playing AGOT at GenCon, but he's been too busy repeating as the Warhammer: Invasion champion. Hopefully next year, they'll schedule that event opposite the Melee so he can join in the fun.

Second place was Jeremiah "Shives McShivers" you rolled me in both Round 4 and the Semi-Finals. A slickly constructed deck, and played well.

Lukas Litzinger and myself didn't play a third place game, as it was time to head to Old Chicago for the afterparty. Which was most excellent.

I took my Martell/Summer deck from GenCon, added 2x Ghaston Grey, 2x Edric, 3x Princes Plans, 3x Red Vengeance, 3x Dornish Fiefdom, & 1x Red Keep, removing the 3 Viper's Bannermen, 3 Palace Fountains and some other cards to get me down to 64.

Won over Lannister/Treaty (Greyjoy) - ??? A Mill deck piloted one of our new player's, Shane Sedenka. He got off to a fast start with a 7 card flop, including two Frostfang Peaks, but he hadn't run suffered from Fleeing to the Wall before, and losing 9 locations Turn 3 hurt. Especially since he got rid of two Iron Mines and I Valar'd the following plot phase.

Lost to Baratheon/None - Fury of the Stag run by Josh Staton. His (w)Hol(l)y rush deck took beat me on Turn 2 w/o mean doing a challenge. It was so slick that we were able to back up to the plot phase and play the game out if I had Valar'd to start the game turn. In that case, I won on turn 5 or 6 but that one didn't count.

Won versus Martell/Brotherhood - ??? played by Katie Altieri... this was a "rematch" of sorts from Round 3 of the MN regional, with essentially modifications of the same deck. Her Beric on the flop got a dupe right away, and I was not ever able to use Ghaston Grey + a Game of Cyvasse the same turn to get him off the table. She broke 10 power before I made a strong push with almost all my renown characters.

Round 4 against Stark/Knights - Fear of Winter and Jeremiah. A Totally rolling on his part. He drew from his agenda & Bay of Ice (supported by 2 Karhold Rookeries) in the first five rounds, and I think was able to successfully trigger Luwin in all of those rounds as well. My Valar was not much help once Luwin & Ser Jorah had dupes on them.

Round 5 with Martell/No Agenda - Venomous Blade and Jerod Leopold. This was essentially a playoff to make Top 8, and we both were pretty familiar with each others decks as of the night before, though we both made tweaks. He was playing Aegon's Hill out-of-house to combo with Ghaston Grey (something I should have too). He finally had all three pieces on Turn 4 (Edric, Grey & the Hill) and on turn five he also got Arianne. I also got a Noble, and I was on the losing end of Grey-on-Grey action... but my renown that I got on the table was the clincher on turn 6.

Rounds 1,3, & 5 all saw time called on the turn I one the game, generally with a good cushion. I'd been rolled in my other two games. And in the out-rounds I got a rematch against both of my Losses. Princes Plans is way awesome, especially when you can play a Cyvasse with a non-defending Vengeful character, lose a challenge, play Plans and get back the Cyvasse and have a standing INT icon to use it with.

Josh & I's rematch in the octofinals was not terribly pretty. He got off to a slightly better start than me, getting to Confession in the post-Draw action window in both the 1st & 2nd rounds. He didn't see any renown other than 5-Gold, Extra POW challenge, King Bob, and I was able to Orphan him. He was pushed to play out his hand and a third turn Valar left me with 1 character in play to his 0 and 3 cards in hand to his 1. We both waited to drawer characters but he couldn't regain tempo.

My semi-final loss to Jeremiah started on the flop. I played Ellaria & a Maester of the Sun on my flop with a Black Raven, Red Keep, He Calls it Thinking, Dornish Fiefdom & Syro in hand. I should have gone with the two shadow cards & the Fiefdom, but I was planning on a first turn City of Lies. IIRC, Jeremiah had Jorah, Trident Reinforcements & Bay of Ice to start. His Fear of Winter made my City of Lies suck, and that was pretty much game. I skipped putting any shadows into play in case I was going to draw something game breaking (not that I think I had anything that would have made a difference) and then the rolling began. He got Agenda/Bay of Ice & Luwin off in most of the 5 turns we played, and my only cool play was getting to PP in the middle of an INT challenge to pick up some chaff to save my other good card in hand.

Fun tourney, more to come later, by several people, I hope. And a decklist soonish... after homework.

Congrats to Tim Lyons for taking down a field of 22 of the nastiest malcontents this side of the mississippi.

the tournament itself went off without a hitch at 1pm. 5 Rounds ended around 6pm with a cut to top 8. If my calculations are correct half of the field was made up of non-Iowa City meta! Thanks to all who traveled! Also, we had several last minute cancellations due to work schedules and one meta mate who broke his arm that morning.

Post tournament fun was had by all, including the traditional bombs to kick off the festivities. It should be noted that I overheard several newer players and their positive impressions of our community. It's a credit to us all. I'm sure there will be more reports to come. And stories of changing decks at 2am for better or worse!

clu said:

Well known fact of these types of games: decks always change at 2am, if not as last minute as 5 minutes before the tournament gets underway.

Soudns like you gusy ahd a lot of fun. I look forward to reading a lot of the tourney reports and analyzing deck lists. This has always been one of the more competitive metas and events around - its definitely on my bucket list.

Sounds like a great tourney and a lot of fun.

clu said:

Dittos on the congrats to Tim (and Jeremiah, those games just left me bruised).

Condolences to Jason Burns on the broken arm, we missed him. His new, but coming on strong. Hopefully we'll have a pinch-arm available to play his cards to the table.

I'm sad I missed out on the bombs, but it was probably for the betterment of my liver. I only wish I'd played the deck I was going to play some the night before... but I didn't have it assembled til the next morning. :/ Here's the decklist , constructive criticism is always welcome.

Here's a badly formatted copy of the list in case someone can't follow the link.

House Card (1)
House Martell Five Kings Edition 1
Agendas (1)
Kings of Summer A Song of Summer 1
Plots (7)
City of Lies City of Secrets 1
City of Soldiers The Battle of Blackwater Bay 1
A Time for Ravens A Change of Seasons 1
Fleeing to the Wall Core Set 1
Building Season Core Set 1
Valar Morghulis Core Set 1
Retaliation! A Song of Silence 1
Characters (30)
Maester of the Sun A Song of Summer 3
Carrion Bird A Song of Summer 3
Syrio Forel Tales from the Red Keep 1
The Red Viper Princes of the Sun 1
Arianne Martell Princes of the Sun 1
Edric Dayne Illyrio's Gift 2
Varys Secrets and Spies 1
Darkstar Tourney For The Hand 1
Ellaria Sand Princes of the Sun 2
Samwell Tarly The Raven's Song 2
Lost Spearman Mountains of the Moon 2
Southron Mercenaries The Battle of Blackwater Bay 1
House Messenger Princes of the Sun 2
Refugee of the Citadel Refugees of War 3
Pyromancer's Apprentice The Battle of Blackwater Bay 1
Orphan of the Greenblood Princes of the Sun 3
Gilly Refugees of War 1
Events (9)
The Prince's Plans The Isle of Ravens 3
Red Vengeance Princes of the Sun 3
A Game of Cyvasse A Change of Seasons 3
Locations (17)
Ghaston Grey Forging the Chain 2
Dornish Fiefdoms Princes of the Sun 3
Lost Oasis Time of Trials 1
Water Garden Princes of the Sun 1
Summer Sea Queen of the Dragons 3
Shadowblack Lane Core Set 1
Kingdom of Shadows Kings of the Sea 1
The Red Keep Tales from the Red Keep 1
River Row Queen of the Dragons 1
Street of Sisters Core Set 1
Alchemist's Shop Of Snakes and Sand 2
Attachments (6)
Black Raven A Song of Summer 1
Rusted Sword Princes of the Sun 1
A Pinch of Powder Princes of the Sun 1
Venomous Blade The Battle of Blackwater Bay 3

clu said:

As one of the newer players, I just wanted to reiterate that I was heartily impressed with the hospitality offered by everyone in the Iowa AGoT community. You're a great bunch of folks. Thanks for organizing this. I got to meet a lot of nice people, recognized a few familiar faces from GenCon, played a lot of games, and had a lot of fun.

Hope to see many of you up here for Days of Ice and Fire.

Papa (aka Rick)

PS
I'd like to take this opportunity to offer a special greeting to both Jeremiah and Kyle. Rest secure in the knowledge that I'm still repeating the mantra... "Leave the card in shadows. Leave the card in shadows." ; )

Papa Khann said:

I love how no matter what meta you are in, this is always the case. We have such a great community.

Fieras said:

So, so true. Thrones players are in general the best group of gamer folks I've ever interacted with.

Cross-posting from a merging topic from Jeremiah's TR. Also, dittoes on Freerider.

Staton said:

I can understand your point. If I was going to cut the four cards I needed to reach 60 it would have been the 'Shops, aPoP and the 'Sword. Since I'd added them before the MN Regional I don't ever think there's been a time where I was sad to see one. The synergy always seemed nice, and as I mentioned the ability to push through Cyvasse in a mirror match or opposite Lannister has always been money. If there's a downside, it's that the addition of Deadly making me want to go first when I'm generally wanting to go second.

That being said, I'm not sure what differing changes I would make in the main deck (and we should really have this in thread with my deck... I may cross-post). I would certainly adjust the plots, and probably pull both of the City's, preferable for something with 4 gold like Spending and Loyalty.

Maester_LUke said:

And this is really the point I was trying to make. That card really encourages you to go first, while the rest of the deck makes you want to go second. So I could see some really awkward turns. I'm really interested to see where you're going with this deck. I'd really like to see you take the aggressive stance with the deck. Probably throw in some Maester tech too. Just run tons of cheap beefy guys with deadly. maybe throw in Scorching Deserts or whatever its called now.

Consider that taken under advisement. My initial plans for an NPE, "How many times _can_ I play Prince's Plans" deck is a bit too kludgey, so I'll probably see what I can do trying to "fork" this build into a offensive/defensive build. Thanks for the suggestion.