Stahleck was an accident – I’m at uni in London, and it *just* happened that I was free on Stahleck Friday, so I decided to head over and see how badly I'd do. I’ve only been playing for a year or so (I started just before the release of the Brotherhood cycle), and was apprehensive about going to Stahleck for a first tourney. I’m very glad I did. It’s been an amazing experience, I’ve met loads of people, everyone was friendly and welcoming, and I walked away with plenty of loot . I'm definitely planning to make Stahleck against next year, because it really is amazing.

Melee was on Friday Night: I decided to stay safe and play my Bara Knights Unopposed deck - my Melee deck was perhaps my most refined deck and the one I expected the most out of – I joked to a friend that the melee was probably my only shot of designing a card this year. This deck was probably my oldest deck that I brought to Stahleck – I had been playing it since November last year, and the deck I was most comfortable with in melee.
Baratheon Knights of the Realm
Plots:
- Summoning Season
- The Power of Blood x 2
- Fury of the Stag
- The King’s Law
- Retaliation!
- Take them by Surprise
Characters (38, 15 Knights)
Ser Emmon Cuy
Ser Parmen Crane
Ser Guyard Morrigen
Marya Seaworth
Renly Baratheon (Song of Seasons)
Highgarden Refugee x 3
Bastard of Robert x 3
Hedge Knight x 3
Vanguard Lancer x 3
Melisandre (Defenders of the North) x 3
Robert (Core Set) x 2
Joffrey Baratheon (Princes of the Sun)
Stannis Baratheon (Core Set)
Knight of Flowers (King’s Landing) x 2
Knights of the Storm x 2
The Fox’s Teeth x 2
Eldon Estermont x 2
Brienne of Tarth (Princes of the Sun)
Royal Entourage x 3
Maester Cressen
Margaery Tyrell (Defenders of the North)
Locations (18)
Aegon’s Garden x 3
Stormland Fiefdoms x 3
King Robert’s Chambers
Narrow Sea x 3
Street of Sisters
Street of Steel
Bay of Ice x 3
Smuggler’s Cove x 2
Massey’s Hook x 1

Attachments (4)
Bodyguard x 3
Lightbringer

Events (3)
- Obey the King x 3

The point of the deck is to sneak a sudden win through unopposed challenges and just general power grab. Eldon, the Stealth characters, The Fox’s Teeth and Stannis all push through an unopposed challenge quite well, so they work very well with Defenders Mel. Selyse is great for giving intrigue icons to Eldon, The Fox’s teeth and stannis, and gives the deck an intrigue boost. The Bay of Ices are there to win initiative and for draw. Generally, the deck tries to set itself up for two Challenge phases in a row: It goes last in a challenges phase, and then first in the next one to stop an opponent from taking advantage.

Game 1: vs Matthieu (Targaryen/Knights of the Hollow Hill) and Stark Siege of Winterfell
This game was a mess. Matthieu was playing a horrific Targ deck that basically ran reset after reset after reset to clear the board, while jumping things in and out: Ambusing in Queen’s Knight, attacking, winning, then bouncing in Core Set Khal Drogo to clear the board. I got to 7 power on Turn 1, when he wiped my board with a Vale Rookery flipping over a Valar. I never really recovered, though did claw my way back with King’s Landing Knight of Flowers - only to be fouled up by a Valar Dohaeris revealed through another Vale Rookery. Meanwhile, the Stark player was getting lots of unopposed military challenges against Targ (who had no board position whatsoever). Finally, the Targ player realized that he was getting nowhere, and cut a deal, both of them would attack me, so that Stark would be 1st, Targ 2nd and me 3rd.
Game 2 vs Luca (Lannister/The White Book), Yves (Neutral/Brotherhood without Banners) and Christian (Martell Vanilla Viper Rush)
This game was another weird game. The neutral deck was basically running triplicates of multiple characters, and was playing lots of Renown Characters – though early in the game, he was only drawing weenies. I got some big Renown characters out early- particularly Knight of Flowers and Robert. I started doing attacks, and brought myself up to a respectable 8 or so power by the end of Turn 1, though Lanny had used “A Lannister Pays his debts” to kill my Knigt of Flowers duep On Turn 2, things started to go wrong. I lost initiative to Martell, and while attacking Lannister, ran into Two “A Lannister pays his debts”, killing Stannis and Robert. I then lost a Knight of Flowers to an “I’m you Writ Small” played on an attacking weenie which I was defending against with the knight of flowers. Luca then used a Hearld of the Lion to fetch Jalabar Xho. Given how important Renown was for my deck, I decided to go for bust, I flipped Fury of the Stag, won a power challenge against Martell, and then stole an Ellaria Sand with 8 power on it for the Win.
Game 3 vs Gael? (Targaryen/Knights of the hollow Hill), Michael (Baratheon Shadows Asshai), and Gerhard (Martell Maester)
This was another game against that crazy multiple reset and burn Targ Hollow Hill deck that wiped the board on the 1st round and 2nd round (thanks to Vale Rookery and Bungled Orders flipping over Valar Morghulis and Valar Dohaeris) and there was very little I could do to stop it. I eventually managed to claw back to 4 power, and managed to get to 8 on Turn 4 thanks to Eldon Estermont and the Fox’s Teeth – I felt I had set myself up quite well for a turn 5 win. However, the Targ player decided to Hatchligns Feast me to get some unopposed challenges, which had allowed the Asshai player to get 3 unopposed challenges against me and win the game.

On the whole, the melee was weird. I can’t say I enjoyed playing against that horrific Targ Deck that wiped the board every other turn. Games are never much fun when your characters keep getting wiped off the table round after round after round, and I didn’t find it had the excitement of normal melee – other tables had games which were very back and forth, with players challenging, making temporary alliances, and the like. It’s interesting to note that, because they have no board presence whatsoever, none of the Targ KOTHH board-wiping decks actually did well – but they sure as hell were annoying to play against.

The Joust
My experience with the Joust was completely different from my expectatiosn to the Melee – I had a refined, tried and tested deck for the Melee, though I did lack practice and hadn’t played melee in a month. For the joust, I had been playing twice a week for several weeks, but had mostly been playing with a hyper-control Stark Winter Shadows build. At the last moment -20 minutes before the Tournament, I switched to a new Stark Noble Siege build that had only been playtested once, on the Thursday before, where it had won against my Martell Summer build (more on that later). I did it for three reasons –firstly, I didn’t think I’d have the stamina to pilot an intense control build for 6 hours, secondly, I was expecting a lot of Greyjoy Choke/Location destruction, especially with Newly Made Lord, and thirdly, I’ve always been a Stark siege player at heart, and have always wanted to just whack things. As I only had 20 minutes to take apart the deck I did some very very dodgy things – I forgot to Run King’s Landing Sansa (and since 6 out of 7 decks I played against had no shadows, she would have been amazing) , and, I was running 65 cards because I didn’t have a decklist of my Thursday deck handy, and I couldn’t decide what to cut.
House Stark: The Siege of Winterfell
Plots:
The Power of Blood x 2
Fear of Winter
Respect of the Old Gods
Retaliation!
Storm of Swords
Search and Detain

Characters (38)
Hungry Mob x 2
Bolton Refugee x 3
Carrion Bird x 3
Hodor
Lucas Blackwood
The Bastard’s Elite x 3
Ser Jorah Mormont
Guard at Riverrun x 3
Maester Vyman
Syrio Forel
Brienne of Tarth (Princes of the Sun) x 2
Arya Stark (King’s Landing)
Meera Reed
Catelyn Stark (Lords of Winter) x 2
Maester Luwin
Riders of the Red Fork x 3
The Blackfish x 3
Eddard Stark (King’s Landing) x 2
Robb Stark (Lords of Winter) x 2
Northern Cavalry Flank x 2
Locations (18)
Great Keep x 3
Narrow Sea x 3
Lord Eddard’s Chambers
Godswood
Street of Steel
Street of Sisters
River Row
Frozen Moat x 2
Frozen Outpost x 2
Widow’s Watch x 3
Evemts (5)
Die by the Sword x 3
The Price of War x 2
Attachments (4)
Frozen Solid x 3
Nymeria
The deck is simple: Deny your opponents board position and put pressure on them until you get your heavy Renown noble characters out, which you then protect with dupes, Nymeria, and Power of Blood. Brienne stops stupid Martell and Targ challenge tricks, Die by the Sword is for dealing with annoying characters, and Frozen Moat and Frozen Outpost are there for defence – I have to be able to maintain board position and hand as well, and if their presence on the board is deterring my opponent from attacking me, then half my job is done. I made a conscious decision not to run Valar, because I’m not supposed to have trouble hanging on to board position with this deck – it is very strong on the defensive, and at military icons in general and the only situation where I’m going to have trouble with board position is against Greyjoy weenie choke, where Valar wouldn’t help me.
Round 1 vs Gerhard Latzinger (Martell Maester)
I went up against Martell master expecting a slow and boring matchup, with Maesters slowly grinding me down yet this was actually one of the most exciting games I played in the tourney. He had a much better flop than me, and I was desperately trying to claw back into the game from very early on. I was stuck on one resource location for a while, and he was able to play Conclaves. His Maester of War meant I had trouble pushing military challenges through, and he slowly began to grind me down. He played Search and Detain to my Power of Blood on Turn 3, which meant my only resource location got bounced back to my hand and I was pretty screwed on resources. I played Ned and a dupe on Ned, and managed to claw my way up slightly to around 5 or so power, but I couldn’t do much against 7 or 8 maesters. As all I had left on Turn 4 was Ned, Brienne and their dupes, He expected me to Valar (like any sensible deck would do), and played outwit. He instead found a Retaliation! Staring at him in the face. I dumped a bunch of cheap weenies, and die by the sworded his source of draw. By turn 5, I was fighting back – I was sitting on 11 power, and was setting myself up for a Turn 6 win with storm of swords. I knew he had a burning because he had revealed it with House messenger, so I threw a big military attack against him to use up his Burning on the Sands – only to find another Burning on the Sands waiting for my power challenge. Next turn, I was able to get up to 13 power, but his Maesters of War meant I couldn’t push through a second military and he won.
0-1
Game 2 against Jakob (Greyjoy Maester)
I’m not going to lie, this was not a nice game for Jakob. Once I saw he had a small flop, I Fear of Wintered and starting plowing through his characters straight away with a Guard At Riverrun for draw. Next turn, I bounced his resource location back to his hand with a Timed Search and Detain, and used Frozen Solid to take out his Strength pumps and his saves – I drew 3 Frozen Solids this game, and he drew no resource locations. He never really recovered from that turn, and I quickly got the Blackfish and Robb out with dupes thanks to Widow’s Watch. Power of Blood meant they stayed on the table and gained a lot of power for renown
1-1
Game 3: against Alberto (Greyjoy Choke)
I was choked to death pretty early on this game. Alberto went first, made it Winter and burned and pillaged my resource location. I didn’t have much I could do with 3 gold against a horde of greyjoy weenies, and my big expensive nobles like the Blackfish and Robb really hurt me in this game. I think I eventually did get a Robb out with a dupe, but I wasn’t able to fight back with 1 gold a turn. Alberto also wasn’t running the agenda, so my Northern Cavalry flank was pretty useless as well. Overall, a very solid win for him, and I believe Alberto ended up going 4-2 and making Top 16.
1-2
Game 4: Miriera (Targ Summer)
I realized how fast my deck was after this game. An early Fear of winter and a black raven shuffled back into her deck pretty much ended the game for her. I kept up the Pressuer, playing Respect of the Old Gods to keep her board clear and went on to win with the Blackfish and Robb during two consecutive Power of Blood turns
2-2
Game 5: Andrzej (Martell Knights of the Hollow Hill)
This was, perhaps my dream matchup – KotHH decks have very very slow starts, and I knew a first turn fear of witner would absolutely destroy him unless he played Forgotten Plans, which I could deal with because of the crazy amounts of reducers I had drawn to replace my setup hand. I wiped his board with a claim 2 challenge, then started discarding his hand. Again, I played Respect of the Old Gods to keep up the pressure, but then I had misread uneasy truce and wasn’t able to military him because I used my gold to pay for Robb. He then played Wildfire to knock down my 5 characters to 3, but I had reveald Power of Blood and had 2 noble characters, so ended up not losing anyone. I believed, however, that he still had a valar, so held back my Brienne. Sure enough, 2 turns later, he tried to valar, but ws foiled by my Power of Blood. I then Storm of Sworded on Turn 5 with Brienne, the Blackfish and Robb on the table to get my 15 power for the win.
3-2
Game 6: Florian (Stark City of Shadows)
This was hardly a contest: Again, I was playing against a deck with a slow start, and again I was able to pile up the pressure very very quickly – again, a First Turn Fear of Winter did in the deck. He had to valar early, but without resources, or shadow cards he could do little to stop a duped up Robb and the Blackfish (Courtesy of Widow’s Watch) from rushing to a Turn 3 win with Storm of Swords.
4-2, and made the cut (30th out of 32 who did)
Round of 32 vs Tomas Macho (AKA Kralitch), playing Stark Siege
This was the matchup I’d been waiting for: Stark Siege vs Stark Siege. A quarter of the decks in the joust were Stark Siege decks, and I was surprised that I went through the Swiss rounds without facing a single one. It was close: By far the closest game in the tourney I had: We had two back to back turns of Fear of Winter: My Northern Cavalry Flank screwing up his board followed by His Northern Cavalry Flank screwing up my board. We then both flopped Respect of the Old Gods on the same turn – I had enough money to play either the Blackfish or Robb, but not both. I chose Robb, because I figured the +1 strength would give me a serious edge in the defence/attack, with the boards being almost symmetrical otherwise. We both threw Claim 2 military challenges against each other, and I killed his Northern Cavalry Flank with a Die by the Sword and a Brienne. Thanks to my Claim 2 military and power challenges, and Renown from Robb, I was sitting on 10 power, He, however, had managed to intrigue me and discarded my Blackfish. Next turn, he played Valar despite a decent board position, but I had been semi-expecting it and played Power of Blood. I played the Brienne in my hand, and then let out a low groan when I realized that the loss of the Blackfish had cost me a win on Turn 4- If I had both Robb and the Blackfish, I would have had 5 power that turn (2 Renown, 1 claim and 2 from Siege) – instead, I was stuck on 14, and couldn’t go any further – he had held belk some characters form a valar and stopped me from winning any military or power challenges on turn 5, before turning around and swarming me on Turn 6, despite my best efforts. Quite ironically, he won with a card I had forgotten to put in my deck – an intrigue challenge with Sansa Stark got him his 15th power to my 14. Tomas got to the semi-finals, where I believe he lost to Lannister city of shadows.

I loved Stahleck - everyone was incredibly friendly and helpful, especially to a newbie at his first major tournament. Props to Wolfgang (Thorondor) for organizing and running Stahleck, and for the incredible prizes he had. Also, props to Gualdo for designing Meera Reed (though she never, ever came up during my 7 tournament games), and for being really friendly and an amazing guy to talk to – unfortunately, we never had a chance to play because I had a flight to catch. Props to the Spanish metas (especially the Barcelona and the Madrid metas) – you guys were incredible all weekend and it was a real pleasure watching you play thrones. And of course, I have to thank Chris and Michael, my Joust meta-mates in London – without them, I’d never have had the practice I needed to do well at Stahleck, and I really might have gone 0-6.

Slops to British weather and Frankfurt airport for delaying my flight until Monday and forcing me to stay in Frankfurt overnight, and slops to British players - we were by far the least represented major European country at Stahleck, and that's completely unacceptable.

Wow, nice report! Thanks a lot!

Congrats on making the cut with a deck that was basically untested, quite a feat. And impressive that you managed to bring Tomás to the brink of annihilation. My game against him gave me nightmares.

It was really cool meeting you. Looking forward to seeing you again in Stahleck next year.

Helmut

hey there, Florian from Joust Round 6 here

nice report and nice meeting you.

Generally I thought Stark Siege to be a good matchup for my Stark Shadows deck and I won the other two encounters, but aside from the fact that I had the most horrendous flop against you, your deck seemed very different to the others, so Kudos on making the Top 32.

Since this was my first LCG tournament, I wasn't really that upset to lose against you, though making Top 32 was my goal before

Great report and congrats on the top 32 finish! Hopefully this will be a lesson to have your deck ready to go the night before the tourney! Just think, if you made top 32 here you might have done better!

Thanks for the report! it's always nice to read a well-written and detailed report.

As an American fan of Stark Siege decks, I'm fascinated by how it dominates the European scene.

I had a couple questions regarding your deck, though.

- Why no Battle of the Mummer's Ford or Battle of Oxcross? I'd think the extra military challenges would help you rush faster.

- Why no To Be A Wolf? Is Widow's Watch and Jeyne enough search?

- Was the 11 resource locations enough to keep you solvent most of the time?

- Why no Epic Battle cards? I'd think Whispering Woods would be especially nice.

I really didn't mean for my questions to all sound so negative. I really am just curious.

Tomdidiot said:

I played against a similar Targ deck at Gen Con; it really turned me off to melee in some ways b/c it didnt seem like the Targ player was even trying to win, just kingmaking his buddy that was in the game by burning the characters that belonged to me and player 4 and handing search/draw to his buddy from all his plots (he ran Building & Summoning Season and Counting Favors, I don't remember if he had StWS or not). He then dropped from the tournament after playing that game.
I asked about the deck later and was told his strategy was to try and burn renown characters which he could bring back with Rhaenys's Hill for a quick and unexpected win. Though I have tried Targ decks in melee that are similar to this one, it makes for an NPE in my experience, especially if the Targ player is completely ignoring one player for kingmaking purposes.

Shenanigans said:

Here in the UK, the Meta is much more similar to US Metagame, mostly because it's a lot easier for us Brits to read reports about Days of Ice and Fire/Gencon etc. than to trawl the French/Spanish forums and try to make enough sense of what they're saying with secondary school French/Spanish. A lot of us also listen to 2 Champs and a Chump. For what it's worth,my deck was certainly considered very unusual, and a lot of the people who looked through my deck afterwards were incredibly surprised about what I put in it.

I had a couple questions regarding your deck, though.

- Why no Battle of the Mummer's Ford or Battle of Oxcross? I'd think the extra military challenges would help you rush faster.

I basically didn't stick them in because the deck is Stark Nobles/Siege, and I figured I'd find 2 back-toback Power of Bloods much more useful than a plot that can backfire (Battle of the Mummer's Ford will backfire badly if you're against claim 2 plots and a deck with lots of stealth/ways of pushing challenges through), and I didn't run Oxcross because I figured I'd rather run Search and Detain - and search and Detain was amazing all day - it choked my oponent of resources, slow my opponent down, allowed me to bounce a key character before a valar etc.

- Why no To Be A Wolf? Is Widow's Watch and Jeyne enough search?

I'm not running Jeyne, and I wasn't runnign To be a Wolf because I didn't have any military battle plots - back when the Furies were unrestricted, 1st Turn Fury and TBAW was a nobrainer, but To be a wolf forces you to play a military battle first turn/second turn or have a dead card in your hand, and this deck would much rather Fear of Winter.

- Was the 11 resource locations enough to keep you solvent most of the time?

In most of the games, I had enough resources to play everything I wanted. There was only two games I can think of where my resource curve didn't work out - my 3rd game against Greyjoy choke, and my Round of 32 game where I didn't have the 8 gold to paly both Robb and the Blackfish in the same round and meant that I lost the Blackfish to an intrigue challenge. In retrospect I'd probably play another Godswood

- Why no Epic Battle cards? I'd think Whispering Woods would be especially nice.

I think it's the same reason as I'm not playing Battle of the Mummer's Ford - I was scard of the Stark siege meetup and didn't want several Claim 2 challenges smacking me in the face. Also, there's plenty of character control, and it can be a bit of a wasted card if your Northern Cavalry Flank gets knelt.

I really didn't mean for my questions to all sound so negative. I really am just curious.

Oh no, it's fine. It's definitely an unusual deck and I find it takes a certain mindset to play it. (When it was being played by other people as part of the Driver, Not the Car Tourney, it lost 3 games horribly). It's not a typical Stark siege deck by any standard.

Great Tourney Report!

Sounds like your deck was having pretty much the same effect on slower control builds (especially ones that utilized shadows) as my knighs were... And the same problems against choke. I also heartily agree with After the Mummer's Ford being a pretty risky choice, since badly timed it can really make your whole deck implode...

Anyways, was fun to meet you at Stahleck, hope to see you next year again!