Joust Report (Melee will follow after)

I played a deck inspired by the one BloodyCelt ran at Gencon this year. It was bara treaty to the south, and is probably my favorite deck I've ever played. I built is as soon as I got home from gencon, and it was originally a chosen few deck. Once I played it a few times, I realized just how fast it was. I was beating non-chosen-few decks as well, and the only loss it had was to a Martell Summer build in which Danny Machado wrecked me with 3 prefectly timed Games of Cyvasse.

So, I kept playing it, and tweaking it, and eventually looked at BloodyCelt's decklist to get some ideas. I hadn't thought of the ring crest friendly eddard stark as well as a few other cards he was using. When it was complete, my deck was about 20 cards different from his.

The rest of the tweaking was pretty simple. I added pyromancers cache, Jeyne Westerling, Renly, Loyal Guards, and a few other plots once I was able to switch it out of chosen few. At the last minute, John bruno convinced me to run red wedding, which I was silly enough to have not included originally.

Here it is:

House: Baratheon
Agenda: Treaty to the South

Plots: (In order of frequency played)
Alliance
Kings Law
Red Wedding
Power of Blood
Valar
An Empty Throne
Fleeing the wall

Total Cards: 60

Characters: 36
KL Eddard 3
KL Robert 3
KL Knight of Flowers 2
Core Stannis 3
DotN Melisandre 2
Arianne 3
PotS Viper 3
House Messenger 3
Loyal Guard 3
ToR Renly 3
Orphan 3
Arys Oakheart 1
Non-trigger Brienne 1
Royal Entourage 3

Attachments: 6
Pyromancer's Cache 3
Taste for Blood 3

Events: 3
Distinct mastery 3

Locations: 15
Narrow Sea 3
Summer Sea 3
Seat of Power 3
Street of Sisters 1
Street of Steel 1
Shadowblack Lane 1
River Row 1
Roberts Chambers 1
Dorans Chambers 1

The deck was basically there to throw out a ton of threats, and rush to power asap. There wasa huge noble crest theme, and power of blood to back it up. I found I didn't need a second power of blood because I always won before it was an issue. It was extremely fast and every card in my hand was a good card.

Round 1: Josh From SD (Stark Siege)
Firstly, I'd like to say that Josh played perfectly. He did everything right and I made 2 crucial mistakes, and the better player won. I got to an early lead with KoF, Robert, a couple others and 2 taste for Bloods. He played Reek and stole my KoF with 3 power on it. During that turn I forgot to trigger both TfB's twice. I tried to steal KoF back the next turn and he used frozen moat on Arianne to stop her stealth. He won the challenge and kept KoF. The same turn, I stupidly sent a military challenge, which he blocked and won, and came back to win the same turn. I was at 11 power when he won. Just enough, that the 4 triggers on TfB would have won it for me. Well played, josh, and congrats on top 8. 0-1.

Round 2: Jeff (not Lebow) from Bay Area (Bara Winter)
Jeff is brand new to the game. He's been playing for about a month, and made a really creative deck. I flopped Melisandre. That's it. He played Blockade and played Robert. I played an orphan. I orphaned Robert, made 2 unopposed challenges to get to 6 power, and he won dominance. On turn 2, I played Red Wedding and killed Rob. The game was over a couple challenges later. 1-1

Round 3: Jimmy Bagels -Laughing Tree (Stark Knights)
I tried the best I could to empathize with Jim on this game. He mulled into a one card flop. Jeyne Westerling. I flopped 5 or 6, and won on the first challenge of turn 2. Not much he could have done, drawing into one character, a dupe, 2 attachments and 3 events. 2-1

Round 4: John Kraus (Martell KotHH)
John took me 5 rounds, but an early lead plus Taste for Blood and Ellaria out stopped him from being able to capitalize on his non kneeling Viper. We both played Red Wedding on the same turn, and I lost Renly. He lost Arianne with Oberyn's guile on her, and the game was sealed. I felt like I won this handily, but his deck was always really close to turning the corner on the matchup. 3-1

Round 5: Angela from Sac (KotHH Dragons)
Angela is brand new to the game and has improved fantastically. She even beat John Bruno She made top 8 at her first real tournament, and her deck was a fun take on dragons. I flopped KoF, Orphan, and a Messenger plus 2 locations. She valared first turn, but I was able to play 3 renown characters to her duped Dani. By turn 2, she lost one dragon and I followed up her turn 3 Balerion with a board clearing Valar. My dupes kept 2 characters in play and I cruised to victory after all her uniques were dead. 4-1

Round of 8: John "the man" Bruno (GJ Winter)
I flopped 4 reducers and 2 characters against John, which was about the best you can hope for against Greyjoy (See next match for additional thoughts regarding this). John Kept me in check for 3 turns by kneeling and blanking my locations, but eventually I broke free and was able to win on the 4th turn or so. I was worried for a few turns, but was able to pull it out before he could get the lock on me. This was my first ever joust against Bruno, and was a pleasure to play him. 5-1

Semis: Joey Kreins (GJ Maester Choke)
So, when I mentioned "almost the best flop you can hope for", well: Thats because this one was THE best. I flopped 2 chambers, 2 seas and a river row plus Knight of Flowers and an orphan. Joey challenged first and stole some cards from my hand. I challenged back with an empty throne and ended the first turn with 14 power (Viper, KOF, Renly+Distinct Mastery). On the following turn, he valared, and I power of blooded. He conceded with me at 11 power (KOF lost his due to death). 6-1

Finals: Jeff Lebow (Bara Maesters)
An all Bara final! It's my favorite house, and at this point of the tournament, its nine pm, I already had a fantastic weekend, and well, it was all gravy. I played poorly and flopped a loyal guard for some reason. Don't ask me why. I don't know. Lack of dupes, and superior play by Jeff won it for him easily. On turn 2, he pre-plot reduced Roberts strength to 1. I expected threat from the north, so I didn't power of blood. He caught me off guard with a City of soldiers and killed Robert. The following turn he took out KoF and Renly with Threat from the north, and it was over. I think he offically won on about the 5th turn because it took him that long to get his 9 chains off. He was at 20+ power by the time he won. Jeff completely put me in my place this game. His deck and play was far superior to my own and he absolutely deserved the W. 6-2

I had a blast over the weekend. Thanks to Joey and Danny and everyone who had a part in making this tournament possible. I met lots of new people, and as usual, they were all great people.

Good to meet you, excellent showing overall on the weekend!

Melee Report

I'd like to call this deck "Writer's Block". I had a hell of a time coming up with a deck I wanted to play. My GJ unopposed was good at Kubla, and my Targ Summer Burn did well at Gencon, but I really don't like playing the same melee deck twice in competition.

After weeks of not being able to come up with anything, and masses of people saying "You can't successfully play brotherhood in the current game environment", well, I decided to take the challenge.

Lannister Brotherhood.

This is certainly not a brand new deck idea. With the release of Spending the Winter Stores, it was finally viable to play Brotherhood out of a house (lannister in this case) without having to use the agenda. I decided to run this deck for a few reasons.

1. Even though people say that its hard to play Brotherhood right now, I think that mostly applies to joust.
2. I had a pretty good feeling that I would see less maesters and martell decks because of the new FAQ. As a result, less tin link and ghaston grey.
3. I've seen various different builds of this deck, but mine included a power grab theme. I wanted to be able to grab a ton of power, but be able to protect it. With unkillable/discardable Beric and no power on my house, it was clear that people had to deal with Beric, or I would win.

In the end, in 4 out of 5 games, no one could deal with Beric. That is the underlying reason of why I succeeded. I am also happy that I kept with the trend of doing better in melee than joust. I like to consider it my specialty.

House:Lannister
Agenda:Knights

Plots:
Valar
Winter Festival
Summoning Season (for Beric)
Spending Winter Stores (for Devious Intentions)
Loyalty Money Can Buy
At the Gates
Muster the Realm

Total Cards: 65

Characters: 36
Beric 3
Lady Stoneheart 1
Tom Sevenstrings 1
Thoros of Myr 1
Orphaned Recruit 3
Coreset Joffrey 3
Anguy the Archer 3
Jhalabar Xho 1
Refugee 3
Tommen 1
Core Jaime 3
KL Littlefinger 1
Mad Huntsmen 3
Arys Oakheart 1
Balon Swann 1
Daven Lannister 3
Maester Creylen 3

Attachments: 7
Devious Intentions 3
Pyromancers Cache 3
Formal Petition 1

Locations: 14
Deep Den 1
Kingdom of Shadows 3
Goldroad 3
Golden Tooth Mines 3
Cerseis Chambers 1
Lannisport 1
Lions Gate 1
Stoney Sept 1

Events: 9
You Killed the Wrong Dwarf 3
Whispers from the Hill 3
Make an Example 3

The concept of this deck was to be able to claim power without necessarily having to attack people for it. With Recruits, Joff, Anguy, Daven, Creylen, Wrong dwarf and Lannisport, and winter festival, thats 20 cards I had that could gain me power without me having to attack.

In melee, giving people reasons not to attack you is one of the keys to victory. With no power on my house, people had very little reason to send power my way. I had 3 non kneeling characters (Jaime, Littlefinger, Huntsmen) who could attack without making me vulnerable to attack. I also had a ton of Military and Intrigue on the board, so people couldnt easily hit me on those challenges.

At one point, I had Superior Claim in the deck, but I found it hard for me to win power challenges by 4 or more so I cut it.

One of my win conditions was to try and get to 9 power then valar with Joff and Anguy out, effectively winning the game if enough Lords were out.

This deck was a slow rush deck. It usually took me 3-4 turns to get to 15 power, so I was vulnerable to other rush decks. Orphaned Recruits were SO good at slowing down other people while also benefitting me. Sometimes I woudl return them to hand with Stoney Sept and do it again.

I apologize if I forgot who was at any of my tables. A good portion of the day is a blur to me due to some consumption.

Round 1:
WIN against Jeff Lebow (Stark Boltons), Josh Bryant (GJ), Danny Machado (Lannister Reinforcements)
This was a funny game, as most bolton games will be. I sat tight, as no one was able to do anything about Beric all game. At one point, jeff had about 8 power, and had Minstrels Muse and Den of the wolf out in play. That turn, I got to 12 power and played three killed the wrong dwarfs on myself to win.

Round 2:
TIED for 2ND with JOHN Kraus (Stark Siege). JON Machado (GJ) took 4th, and JOHN Bruno (Targ Burn) won. Yes. All 4 John's at the Con at the same table. 1/35000 chance.
PAIN. SUFFERING. AGONY. I don't have enough adjectives to explain this game properly. Lets just say its Beric vs Wolverine, Godzilla, and Darth vader at the same time. On turn 2, John Bruno ambushed in a Dragon Thief to remove Beric's devious intentions mid challenge. POWER ON MAH HOUSE. Oh no. Fortunately, Lady Stoneheart died and got back into play to remove it that turn. The following turn. All hell broke loose. Thinking Beric was safe, i valared. Kraus played fortified position, and Machado played condemned by the realm, and beric was dead. For good.
Well, the next few turn were me sitting there crying. John Bruno continued to pummel my board with burn to the point where power was actually more safe on my house card. At one point, I accidentally flipped over John's Dragon skull that was in shadows mistaking it for one of the titles. To show that he wasn't upset about it, he promptly used it to kill one of my characters. On one turn, Bruno summoned for balerion. I thought I was super smart by making Arys Oakheart a Dragon with Lions gate, but Machado cancelled Balerions ability with a seasick. Near the end, Bruno played Rhaenys' Hill and won the game. I tied John Kraus, but from what he said afterwards, he acidentally forgot to claim unopposed on a challenge, so technically he beat me. Most frustrating game ever.

Round 3:
WIN against Jeff Lebow (Stark Boltons), Ram DeLeon (GJ Unopposed), Alex Esposito (Targ Dragons)
Once again, I got up against a group who couldn't deal with Beric. Alex was close to winning for a good portion of the game. Jeff got Reek out at one point, so I knelt him with Wrong Dwarf. He gave reek the army trait and stood him with High ground. He then attacked Alex to try and steal Rhaegal. Alex played Bloodrider and cancelled it. Awesome. I ended up winning because of several Orphaned recruits that stopped Alex from winning.

Semi Finals:
2ND PLACE. John Bruno (Targ Burn) won, Ross (Targ Heir Dragons) took 3rd, and Lucas (Bara Knights) took 4th.
This round was a cut to top 8, but was still points driven. By random luck, the top 4 seeds were at this table. Bruno and I knew that we were down 5-6 points on the other two, so our only chance of moving on was to beat them. Bruno tried to make a deal with me, but ended up winning the game when Lucas didn't oppose a challenge.

Finals:
Due to the way the tournament was run, the Final table was a rematch of the semi finals. Even the lowest score from our table got more points than the other table by fluke. In this game, power went back and forth between the players. Ross rushed to 9-10 power in the first turn, but couldn't hold on for the win. His Dragon Rush deck was amazing. As a result, he was clearly the threat and was held down by the rest of us. John Bruno failed to get a dragon thief all game, so Beric kept his infamy. On valar, I used Whispers of the hill to keep myself at 14 power. I tried to play wrong dwarf during the plot phase, but Ross played Paper Shield. I drew into another orphan and won the game during marshalling. On a side note, Lucas has never missed a final table in the melee.

Awesome report! Sounds like a lot of fun.

My turn now I guess. WARNING: This is huge cause I can't seem to write in small amounts - mispent years studying Lit probably.

My wife Jen rarely find the time to play much these days, and with a kid at home it’s hard to get away for a weekend so were weren’t sure until just a couple days before that we were going to be able to make it up to Calicon. So, as per our standard tradition we were still building our decks for each competition the morning of. The deck I brought for joust was my personal version of the 1st place Gencon deck, though I’d been considering the idea before Gencon and decided that shadows Robert was clearly far too risky a platform to depend upon as a way to stand a chained maester character (shows what I knew) and I needed to find a way to stand ANY chained maester. The entire setup is based around Robert’s Hammer, Massey’s Hook, and the Steel Link to create a 1 per phase continual kneel/stand cycle. Post faq update (which I agree was almost certainly needed) Massey’s Hook became dependable as a standing platform until I remembered that Maester Pylos of Baratheon is the only maester right now with the printed maester trait.

At the start of every game I’d look at my setup hand and my opponent’s house card and choose my focus – either Pylos or Lomys. Againts Martell or Targ I’d want to use Lomys for the extra strength in case of 1st turn VB or burn. Most everyone else I’d try to go with Pylos since could stand from either location rather than just the one, unless I’d drawn a Lomys for setup so I could have a duped maester instead. My second focus was on lords and ladys. I played very resource tight so the Royal Entourage was key to being able to out-marshal my opponents on a budget till the masters could take over from the background. Of 29 characters 9 were maesters, 14 were lords and ladys, 3 were free and the rest just cause. Anyway, here's the deck I played:

House (1)
House Baratheon (Core) x1

Agenda (1)
The Maester's Path (GotC) x1

Character (29)
Maester Lomys (CbtC) x2
Maester Pylos (KotStorm) x2
Maester Aemon (Core) x1
The Conclave (CbtC) x2
Oldtown Scholar (FtC) x2
Robert Baratheon (TTotH) x2
Melisandre (RotO) x2
Salladhor Saan (KotStorm) x1
Renly Baratheon (TRS) x1
Knight of Flowers (SaS) x2
Ser Cortnay Penrose (KotStorm) x1
Brienne of Tarth (PotS) x1
Ser Guyard Morrigen (KotStorm) x1
Royal Entourage (TTotH) x3
Marya Seaworth (KotStorm) x1
Shireen Baratheon (FtC) x1
Stormlands Bastard (TIoR) x3
Old Red Priest (Core) x1

Location (14)
King Robert's Hammer (TBoBB) x2
Massey's Hook (ASoSilence) x2
Smuggler's Cove (KotStorm) x2
Seat of Power (WotN) x3
Narrow Sea (Core) x2
Shadowblack Lane (Core) x1
Street of Sisters (Core) x1
River Row (QoD) x1

Event (6)
Prosperity and Plenty (Core) x2
Ill Tidings (IG) x2
Nightmares (LoW) x2

Attachment (11)
Apprentice Collar (GotC) x1
Valyrian Steel Link (HtS) x1
Lead Link (CbtC) x1
Gold Link (TIoR) x1
Copper Link (GotC) x1
Steel Link (TIoR) x1
Tin Link (CbtC) x1
Bronze Link (FtC) x1
Iron Link (MotA) x1
Horn of Dragons (ASoSilence) x2

Plot (7)
At the Gates (GotC) x1
City of Soldiers (TBoBB) x1
Fury of the Stag (AE) x1
Marched to the Wall (LoW) x1
Threat from the North (PotS) x1
Wildfire Assault (Core) x1
Forging the Chain (FtC) x1

Round 1 – Jen Lebow (my lovely wife) playing Targaryen Kings of Summer)
We ended up running a little late arriving because of spending over 20 minutes trying (and failing) to find the Starbucks right down the street from the house in the tangled maze of shopping centers there so we could get a little caffeine to start our day. (a GoT tourney that was going to start on time? – not part of the plan, there’s always a bit a time) so my wife and I were paired against each other so we wouldn’t hurt anyone else’s chances by starting a couple minutes late. Maester Lomys arrived at the gates in case Jen was running Flame Kissed (no, I had no idea what was in her deck). At the end of the first round Jen had Dany, the unique 8str Horde can not defend army and a bunch of fodder characters. By round 3 with Daemon, Dany, Long Summer, Power of Arms in play all her characters were plus 4 (or more) str with war crests and she was coming after me with challenges for 20+ str using only 2 characters. Lucky for me she capped out at 12 power at the end of her challenges. Fortunately that round I had dropped a Smugglers Cove and Massey’s Hook and they powered my counterattack. I won all three of my challenges, hit 15 power and the following round won the last challenges I needed to pull my last chain off my agenda. 1-0

Round 2 – Jim (Laughing Tree) playing Stark Knights of the Realm
Jim surprised me with a Stark deck (as he tends to be a Targ loyalist). I like KotR since unlike KoS it gives immediate draw. This game was no exception and Jim started off with a strong board presence – King Robb with 2 dupes and a duped Grey Wolf attachment Ser Gerald Hightower and some fodder. With Grey Wind I couldn’t keep any spare claim soak on the table and Jim almost wiped me out between Grey Wind and claim (helped by a well timed Winter is coming), but he couldn’t quite get to my maester. I got all the right cards right away though, Robert’s Hammer was out, I pulled my lead Link and Steel link, then threw Threat from the North and had wiped Jim’s board by marshalling. He chose not to marshal as nothing would have survived to the end of the round and was incapable of recovering. 2-0

Round 3 – Luke Sydlaske (Syd) playing Stark Maesters
Head to head with another maester deck. I was worried cause Luke is a great player and maester vs maester meant we would each be able to duplicate the other’s tricks, and he needed to pull fewer chains off his agenda to win. As expected he Gated Luwin and I Gated Lomys I think. We rolled off for initiative and I won and chose to go first. I duped my master, swarmed some characters (love those Royal Entourages) and he couldn’t prevent me from pulling 3 chains off my agenda. Between my remaining standing characters, an iron link, and a lead link Luke was unable to win any challenges against me. It took me a number more rounds to pull all my links off and win but the game was basically decided by that initial toss of the dice for initiative. Had he gone first I could maybe have stopped one, perhaps two challenges at most but he would have gotten through and it would have been a very different game. 3-0

Round 4 – Ram DeLeon playing Lannister City of Shadows
Ram is a old school Lannister Loyalist player who learned to play GoT in the harshest training program I can imagine – playing in the LA meta with John Bruno. I’d expected to see some shadow cards here and there in decks, I had not expected anyone to be running City of Shadows. I know first hand how good it can be, but it also tends to be slow. City of Shadows meant I would probably see the Alchemist’s Guild Hall, and a bunch of copies of the Black Cells, but since I wasn’t sure if he might also be running Venomous Blades as his restricted card and drawing with King’s Landing I chose to Gate Lomys rather than Pylos. I found out too late he was not running VB. Ram ran the popular Pyromancer’s Cache and though Pylos would have been incredibly useful vs all the shadows cards I had been unwilling to risk the pre marshalling kill. By round 2 I had a powered up maester, Standing King Robb, the Knight of Flowers, and additional power claimed Mel all out along with some fodder but Ram had a Guild Hall, a Black Cells, and a bunch of additional kneeling tricks. Despite his best efforts I claimed power like crazy and the chains were pilling up. By the end of round three I think I had something like 26 power and only 2 chains left on my house. But… I never drew a dupe for Lomys and was unable to use him in any challenges to put a power on him to be able to activate his ability on himself. I had no other maesters in my hand, and I knew Valar was coming. I chose to draw 2 cards and hope for a maester. Ram played Valar. I kept Mel and either Robert or KoF I think but lost Lomys, a Conclave and a 1 str maester. I drew no masters. Ram’s next plot was City of Soldiers and he killed Mel I think. Next round I drew Pylos. I played him but was unable to get through Ram’s Black Cells and kneel effects. Ram’s next plot copied City of Soldiers and Pylos went away. I drew both Conclaves but could not afford to play one that round. Ram intrigued them out of my hand. I had only 2 playable master characters left in my deck – I would draw neither. Ram won on round 7. I believe I still had 18 power on my house and 2 chains I could not remove. 3-1

Round 5 – Joey Kreins playing Greyjoy Maester (with White Ravens and Choke)
Joey outflopped me and went first. He won a couple of challenges and then passed play to me. I came back with my challenges, won my first one and pulled a chain at which point Joey realized he had forgotten to pull any chains. 2nd round going into challenges he had 3 maesters – Wendymar, and Oldtown Scholar, and the Conclave plus Val and a Refugee I think. I won a military and Joey saved and returned his scholar to his had at which point I played Nightmares on both his remaining maesters preventing him from pulling any chains the second round. At this point however things started turning. I only drew three resources all game, River Row, a Narrow Sea and a Seat of Power. I was only able to win a couple of challenges to grab a couple of chains and did not pull the Gold Link thinking I’d need other effects first. At this point the choke starts. Burned a Pillaged comes out, then White Raven, then a couple of Ice Fisherman and I have no gold for marshalling. I get whittled down a bit farther but hang on long enough to make it to the next round. I throw Threat from the North and discard all but one of Joey’s characters who were almost all str 1 – Wendymar, Val, the Fishermen. I draw into an Ill Tidings and discard the White Raven. It’s not enough, Joey has another Raven and I count 0 gold again. At this point the game is over though I believe it takes Joey another round to close. Of all the decks I played all day this one was the one that just trashed my deck completely. 3-2

At this point Jen and I almost left after being told that I had placed 9nth. Just as we were packing up though people realized that the results of one game had accidentally been miss recorded and when the math was redone I ended up making the cut to 8 in 7th place.

Round 6 (Final 8) – Brooks Mitchell (Kingg) playing Greyjoy/Lannister Alliance
We both Gated 1st plot – Brooks played Murenmure and I grabbed Lomys I think. His aganeda proved to be no drawback as he used Murenmure to cancel my attempts to collect extra gold or cards again and again. Despite Murenmure pretty much everything went right for me this game, I was able to grab some chains had a standing location in play. Eventually Brooks threw Valar to my Threat and most of the board wiped. I had a dupe for my maester though and at this point Brooks was unable to recover.

Round 7 (Final 4) – Ram again
I had a health respect for Ram’s deck after our previous game, however at this point I had a better idea what I was facing as well and that knowledge probably helped me more than his knowledge of my deck helped him. This time I Gated in Pylos knowing he was safe from attack from Venomous Blades. Ram of course loaded up the shadows. In challenges he pulled out a Black Cells keeping me from using Pylos, however I was still able to win challenges with my other characters and grab some chains. 2nd round I dropped the best anti-Lanni Shadow tech card I had in the deck – Salador Saan and the Black Cells went away. Ram continued to play well, kneeling and killing my characters off but he was unable to take down my maesters like he had before and without drawing any more Black Cells I quickly claimed power and chains.

Round 8 (Final Table) – John Deitrich (Fieras) playing Baratheon Treaty with the South
John was unfairly disparaging himself and his deck in his above report in my opinion. By the end of marshalling it was clear his deck was a sick speedy power claiming machine and I was fully aware that the drawback of his agenda was no drawback against me as I was far more likely to claim 15 plus power (let alone 10) before I pulled all nine of my chains. First round I believe John had the standing Robert, KoF, and Int/Pow King Renly plus a Loyal Guard he played in setup for lack of better I assume and a House Messenger. Fortunately I had my Maester, Mel, a Bastard Lord with a couple of Royal Entourages and Guyard I think. Still I couldn’t stop him completely and we both started building up power and I was able to pull 2 chains. I really tripped John up second round by pre-plot using a Lead Link on Robert dropping him to 1 Str. A joke about “Burn Bobby Burn” and I’d set the stage for the expectation that everyone who read Brett’s Gencon Tourney report knew to expect, so John didn’t grab his Power of Blood as he figured it wouldn’t do him any good. But I didn’t throw Threat. With the Royal guard and all the nobles it seemed reasonable that he might be running 3 copies of his top nobles and I wanted to make sure at least one of his top characters couldn’t come back so instead I threw City of Soldiers and chose to kill the now 1 str Robert getting rid of him for good. John played Red Wedding killing Mel (I’d thrown the bastard for claim) and claiming 2 power on Renly. John replaced Robert with the Viper and Mel I think maybe? Plus a dupe and Taste for Blood on Renly. I dropped Mel I think and we both went and claimed a whole bunch of power. Round 3 I now threw Threat. Now at this point I still had not yet been able to pull any standing tech so I waited till challenges to take anyone out figuring I’d save the effect and hit the character that was the biggest danger. The Viper and KoF I was able to mostly deal with so Renly with his dupe, 4 power and TfB had to go. Then in the Standing phase while Threat was still active I burned the Knight of Flowers. At this point it was pretty much over except for pulling chains off my agenda. John was unable to come back and overcome my board presence. The effectiveness and speed of his deck were very clear however and playing him gave me some ideas for some new decks for myself.

Despite winning the tourney I would certainly go back and do a couple things differently with the deck if I could. Nine chains was far, far, far too many. Six of my 8 games I at some point hit 15 power before I could pull all of my chains. Forging the Chain was a dead card. It never mattered. I’d played it thinking if I lost my initial maester I might need to pull the chains back from the discard pile fast but really either I lost the maester and couldn’t win more challenges, or I lost my master and never got/kept another out or I found another master but didn’t need anything but to pull my final couple of chains from the agenda. Marched to the Wall was also rarely as useful as I had hoped. I figured I could use it without risk to myself by discarding a Royal Entourage and then replaying them from the discard the next time I played a Lord or Lady, and that was true but I think I only ever managed to discard a worthwhile character of my opponent’s once.

Thanks for all the awesome tourney reports, and grats to Jeff for taking the win!

I'm loving these recent tourney reports, both from Calicon and from the Iowa tourney. There seem to be quite a few offbeat builds, which is great. It looks like The Maester's Path is still in a strong place (but not unbeatable), but generally the environment seems diverse and healthy.

Freerider, you mixed up the rounds, we actually played in Round 4, not 5. I played Brooks in round 5, we were the only 4-0s.

I dont feel like writing up a huge report, Fieras already said most of what needed to be said. My deck rolled all day and I was really satisfied with how it ran, and I got beaten by the worst possible flop against my deck (for me) in the semifinals. Another undefeated swiss, and yet another tournament where I just couldnt get past the semifinals. *shrug*

Thank you to everyone who helped out and made it a great weekend.

My bad, honestly I remember most of the games but I lot of the weekend is a bit fuzy. There wasa lot more drafting, deck building and last minute touch-uping than sleeping going on. I think bewteen both Friday and Saturday night I got maybe 3 hours of sleep.

Great, incredibly detailed reports to the both of you. Jeff, I don't think anyone's ever going to complain of too much detail. I'm excited to see that the deck played well post errata, even if you had games in hand, waiting to free yourself from the chains. How useful did you find the Horn of Dragons?

Er, and congrats to both of you on your performances. Were there any matchups that you tech'd against that you were surprised you didn't see?

Fleeing the wall and kings law for lanny shadows/kneel, as well as other shadows and location based decks.

I didnt see a one. Kings law not only didn't discard any shadows cards, but Robert and KoF never had their abilities shut down. Also, I don't think I ever ran into a deck where they had more than 3 locations.

I rarely found the Horn of Dragons useful actually. I only actually drew it a couple of games but in general if I had the Horn and the chain to use it and the gold to play it, I didn't actually need it (though it did get used to close a couple games out faster at those points). That lack of use also made Marched to the Wall less useful than planned as I had hoped to get the Horn use the maester and horn pre-plot to steal a character and then use March discarding one character of my choice and an extra character my opponent would choose. While a fun idea, it never happened, I never got the Horn in hand and in play early enough to do so. Might be a nice trick in a Greyjoy deck if you ran all 3 copies of the Horn though.

Yes I did tech against a couple of things I didn't see, though most of that was multi-purpose. I originally put in Nightmares as protection primarily against dangerous locations in challenges phase. I chose Nightmares over a destructive options because for another option either I had to win a challenge first or depend on my opponent spending all his gold in marshalling. With the recent popularity of Ghaston Grey especially I figured I needed control I could use before the challenge even began. Now I remember the original Nightmares from way back and no one played that card - ever. In the LCG environment though I LOVE it, wish I'd had 3. I never needed it on locations though, and never saw a Ghaston Grey. The most dangerous locations I saw were essentially immune - The Black Cells and the Alchemist's Guild Hall. I primarily used it to steal the maester trait from my opponent's maesters so they couldn't attach any chains all round even if they won any challenges. Used it to good effect on a couple other charcters as well to take away dangerous game text. I feel exceedingly lucky that few of my opponents were running it (or if they were rarely pulled them).

The other thing I thought I should tech heavy against was attachment discard/chain loss replacement. With the popularity of the Maester's Path and a number of attachments in the LCG environment I expected to see a LOT of attachments. I figured for my discarding needs all I really needed were my Ill Tidings and my Tin Link (since I could re-use the link multiple times a round). But I assumed more people to think like I did and to tech anti attachment effects. I was so concerned about losing my chain attachments I played a couple Prosperity and Plenty and the Forging the Chain plot. I never played a single Prosperity and Plenty in 8 games and in every single game I wished Forging was pretty much any other plot. The only time I ever lost my chains were in the 2 games I lost when I had lost all my maesters as well and had no platform to put anything back into play on. I guess maybe everyone assumed that post errata the Maester's Path was a dead agenda? We did have a fair number of people playing it though, but maybe they all felt that the Tin Link was enough. Anyway, I think I had one Ill Tidings played against me all day and saw no other anti-attachment effects.

Oh, and Fieras, I say ha! I WISH I had played the King's Law. Would have loved that plot vs a certain player' s gosh darned, mean ass, sneaky, effective Lanni Shadows Deck.

Freerider said:

Are you talking about my Arch-Nemesis Ram?

Fieras said:

Hmm, however could you tell? Ram was the only person I played twice so yes I was wishing I had that card, especially as it was the card that came out of the deck so I could put in Forging the Chain. Baka, baka, baka.

Great TR's! Thanks for posting - see you all in 6-7 months at Kubla

Good morning!

I carefully examined your decklist, and I was wondering: did you frequently used the Winter Festival? Wouldn't it be better if you had played The Minstrel's Muse? I mean, Winter Festival makes you win 1 power at the plot phase, which is good, but it seems that you don't attack much with this deck, so do you often lose dominance? I'm asking this because I'm playing a rather similar deck, and the way you grab power allow you not to attack as much as I do, providing you the opportunity to take dominance. But maybe (and certainly) there is a detail that I don"t see clearly ^^

Thx a lot!

lecharentais said:

I assume you are referring to my melee decklist. I am pretty sure Winter Festival won me at least one game. It effectively makes it so I only need 14 power to win if I can claim the 15th during the next plot phase.

Minstrels Muse is Stark only, otherwise I probably would have run it.

@Fieras: You should copy/paste this tourney report on CardGameDB. Their articles have labels for "tourney report" (I think), and a lot of people check that site that may not ever visit here. I think a lot of people would enjoy and learn from what you've contributed.

Anyway, great job!

Fieras said:

I read this for the first time as Corset Joffrey which conjures a disturbing image ...

Now Cor(e)set Cercei, on the other hand...

You assumed well... And indeed, I totally forgot the Muse is Stark Only.

Thank you anyway!

Twn2dn said:

So... Lazy.... Ok, I'll get it up on there sometime this weekend.

Hello!

I have another question concerning your melee deck: as an Agenda, I used to play the White Book, which can eventually allow me to grab one more power, or to lose one from my house if one has made his way to it. But you do play the 2-2-2, right? The KotHH? Isn't it too much dangerous?

Thanks a lot!

lecharentais said:

Are you talking to me? I didn't play KotHH. I love the agenda, but I didn't use it for this tournament. I think its highly undangerous in melee. Its very powerful if used right.

Great TRs!! They were both well written and fairly insightful! I have taken away a couple things to try and definitely learned once again that each meta/country location is different!