Yeah, I'm finally done. I posted this over on cardgamedb before, but I thought some more exposure can't hurt. Hope there's something to enjoy there. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Here's my decklist:

House (1)
House Greyjoy (Core) x1

Agenda (1)
Kings of Winter (TWoW) x1

Character (31)
Alannys Greyjoy (RoW) x2
Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR) x1
Carrion Bird (ASoS) x3
Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK) x3
Fishwhiskers (CtB) x1
Ice Fisherman (TWoW) x3
Island Refugee (RoW) x3
Pyromancer's Apprentice (TBoBB) x1
Samwell Tarly (TRS) x2
Wex Pyke (KotS) x1
Wintertime Marauders (ACoS) x3
Gylbert Farwynd (GotC) x1
Maester Murenmure (CbtC) x1
Scurvy Cutthroat (KotS) x1
Maester Wendamyr (KotS) x1
Theon Greyjoy (ACoS) x1
Newly Made Lord (TftH) x3

Location (21)
Longship Iron Victory (KotS) x3
River Blockade (RoR) x1
Scouting Vessel (KotS) x2
The Inn of the Kneeling Man (FtC) x2
The Iron Mines (KotS) x3
Gatehouse (KotS) x3
The Searoad (KotStorm) x3
Sunset Sea (Core) x2
Aeron's Chambers (KotS) x1
The Iron Cliffs (HtS) x1

Event (8)
Support of the Kingdom (Core) x1
To Be a Kraken (SB) x3
Winter Reserves (SA) x2
The Hand's Judgement (TTotH) x1
Seasick (KotS) x1

Attachment (3)
White Raven (TWoW) x3

Plot (7)
A Time for Ravens (ACoS) x1
Retaliation! (ASoSilence) x1
Winter Festival (WotN) x1
Valar Morghulis (Core) x1
Fury of the Kraken (AE) x1
The Power of Arms (Core) x1
The Winds of Winter (TWoW) x1

My deck runs on five things: Setup, Save, Cancel, Claim, Control. Pretty much every one of my cards except the resources does something in one of those areas.

Setup: I run the usual bunch of weenies and cheap locations. I have no cards that cost more than three gold, and of 3G guys I have not that many either. When I considered a card for inclusion, usability on setup was a big factor.

Saves: Saves give me the opportunity retain board superiority at critcal times, to flood the board, even to Valar offensively (which I never did, though). 3 Iron Mines, 1 Iron Cliffs, Wendamyr were all golden. I might add another Iron Cliffs, but they're a dead card on setup, so I'm hesitant.

Cancel: 3 To Be A Kraken, 1 Seasick, 1 Hand's Judgement, 1 River Blockade, Murenmure. The decision to run TBAK has sweeping consequences for deckbuilding, of course. I need to build my plot deck around it; specifically I need a Military Battle plot I can start the game with. I chose to go with Fury of the Kraken - I can use the gold, it allows me to go first on turn one most of the time (and the chance to have a White Raven in my hand first turn is actually pretty big), and it hurts Stark, which I rightfully expected to be run a lot. Now that I think of it, the combo of Oxcross and FoW might be better, though. To pay the cost of TBAK before the challenge phase, I planned to use Alannys or Ice Fisherman, or, in rare circumstances, Fishwhiskers.
Murenmure didn't do much for me. I kept him because he's a cheap guy with an INT icon, of which I didn't have enough anyway. Maybe that slot should have gone to Asha.
Seasick is great, more of them wouldn't hurt, but you can't rely on them too much.

Claim: The plan was to get a White Raven in my starting hand so I could hold the search plot in reserve, start with Fury to get ahead, then hammer the other guy on three claim 2 turns, and then close with Winter Festival if necessary. I got plenty of cards that help hammering those claim 2 challenges home: Two Scouting Vessels, three copies of LIV, Wex Pyke, some stealth, lots of guys with good cost/STR ratios. Winter Reserves were pretty huge for me in one game at least, and provided me with much needed INT punch.

Control: Mostly location control, resource control and Wintertime Marauders. Alannys was sick,especially with Inn of the Kneeling Man. Newly Made Lord was great. Baelor Blacktyde, Pyromancer's Apprentice, Support of the Kingdom all had their time in the sun. AToR Theon was a late addition for my Stark friends. For dedicated attachment control I only had one Scurvy Cutthroat. He doubles as a setup weenie, so I guess he's OK, but maybe I should replace him with a better card and just leave attachment control to the Marauders. Then again, Horn of Dragons, Oberyn's Guile...
Gylbert Farwynd. I think that might have been a mistake. It's a good card, but I guess it's not a good idea to kinda build your resource locations around one unique character, and then run just one copy of that character. I guess he should go, along with some of the +1 gold locations, and they should be replaced by someone with an INT icon and some Streets or a third Sea.

For Draw, I used two copies of Samwell (who doubled as a weenie) and three of LIV (which also helped me challenges). Not that great, but I never felt that draw was a problem. The Agenda, Alannys and claim 2 INT challenges helped with keeping opponent's hand size in check.

Also, yeah, I took Burned And Pillaged out shortly berfore the tourney. My arguments were the following:
- They're easily controlled, and I didn't expect them to be in play long, especially against Maesters, which I expected to see a lot of (I didn't).
- They hurt my setups
- Against KotHH, they're something of a dead card
- You need to invest one gold and have to wait one or two plots for the investment to really gain you something
- Support of the Kingdom basically serves the same function
I know, that last bit is pretty spurious logic, for a number of reasons. But the other points are more or less valid, I think. And I never felt I really missed Burned and Pillaged.
On the other hand, Martí, the champion, ran them, and they were huge for him. So I guess history has proved him right, and me wrong.

Round 1 vs. Rafael Lopez (Spain) Martell Knights of the Realm
I had played against Rafa in the Melee the evening before, so I knew him to be a good player. He had come in second at our table (me third) with Lanni KotR. He obviously likes that agenda, because he also used it in Joust, out of Martell.
The game went on for, I don't know, six or seven plots or so, but I never really felt threatened. Had board superiority early in the game and never lost it. He had the usual Martell tricks up his sleeve HCiT, Orphan, Arianne, Oberyn's Guile, Cyvasse, that kind of stuff. None of it bothered me unduly. His Venomous Blade gave me a bit of a headache early on, but I controlled his characters so efeectively it wasn't an issue after a certain point. The Newly Made Lord got rid of Lost Oasis, and Alannys and my Agenda made sure he didn't get too much card advantage. My Winter Reserves made an appearance, too. After some time I grinded my way to 15 power.
1 - 0

Round 2 vs. Maciej Janiuk (Poland) Targaryen Kings of Summer
That was the one guy I almost felt sorry for. My deck is just such a bad matchup for KoS decks. I had a White Raven in my starting hand and made it Winter, he made it summer, I got my second one with the Raven plot, and from then on the formula went like this: "OK, draw phase, we draw two each - waidaminit, you run KoS? Yeeeeaaaaah, you only draw one. How many do you have in hand now? Just the one? Uuuuhhh, let's see, hmmmm, aaaahhh, still in Draw phase, I use Alannys. You wanna kneel somebody? Oh, that's right, you have just a bunch of STR 2 weenies there - ah, please discard your card. What, you don't marshal anything? OK, then, let's do challenges, shall we? Hmmm., Military. Yeah that's right, claim 2. Oh, and what does it say there on my Wintertime Marauders? Ah, don't worry, it's not like you're gonna need your Myrish Villa anytime soon, anyway. OK, I win Domi. [...] OK, draw phase, we draw two each - waidaminit..."
When I made my 15th Power, the poor guy had zero cards in hand, one location in play, and zero power. That can't have been fun. Still, a nice and friendly guy. Was fun playing against you!
2 - 0

Round 3 vs. Fishiste (France) Martell Knights of the Hollow Hill
Now that was a match against a real celebrity - guy had won the Melee the night before. I swallowed hard and prepared to meet my doom.
Now, KotHH was the one agenda I had really, really, really practised a lot against in my pretty one-sided preparation for the tourney. Plus, I had run a Martell KotHH deck myself at the Austrian Nationals in August, so I knew what to expect. I really didn't fancy seeing Red Vengeance, what with all my Claim 2 plots, but I got lucky and he didn't draw one. He used Prince's Plans once, but I didn't mind too much, because I had Alannys and the Inn out, and combined with the Winter Agenda, that evened things up quite a bit in the hand department. I also got pretty lucky on the discard, because he usually had to discard stuff that hurt: Bannermen, Westeros Bleeds... And then I caught a huge break: Because Fishiste wasn't aware that the Marauder's Response can target duplicates, he brought a duped Viper into play, I won a POW challenge with the Marauders, discarded the dupe, the Viper died to MIL claim, and that was that.
3 - 0

Round 4 vs. Kralicht (Spain) Stark The Siege of Winterfell
This was the match that thoroughly grounded me again. Ouch, that was painful. Matchups between GJ Winter and SoW often come down to who comes out of the first round better, and what can I say, he did. He got a Roose Bolton out early who really hurt my hand, and he totally dominated me on MIL challenges. He discarded my locations with Price of War, shuffled back my Raven with Carrion Bird and generally toyed with me like a cat with a particularly inept mouse. I never knew what hit me and decided I'd never want to play against Stark SoW again. Ever.
I'd play against Kralicht again any day of the week, though, because he's the nicest guy, and I secretly rooted for him to win it all after the pounding he'd given me.
3 - 1

Round 5 against Mathieu Hosatte (France) Stark City of Shadows
I wasn't *that* worried about CoS decks, because my deck usually gets rolling fast, hurts their gold curve and packs lots of location control. I used Newly Made Lord and Pyromancer's Apprentice to get rid of his locations (I'm pretty sure I discarded both a Black Cells *and* an AGH) and also got off Support of the Kingdom. The game winner was To Be A Kraken, though, which I used to stand my Marauders and declare one more challenge that got me to 15.
4 - 1

Round 6 against David Perez (Spain) Lannister The Maester's Path
Another rematch from the Melee. Also the only Maester deck I played against. Before the tourney, I was a bit worried about Maesters because of the Copper Link/Tin Link combo, but it wasn't a problem here. I made it Winter early and used Marauders to get rid of the links as soon as they came off the Agenda. I used Seasick (I think, could've been TBAK) to cancel I'm You Writ Small at one point when it really counted. From then on, I was pretty much in control of the game.
5 - 1

So, I came in 10th overall, and anxiously awaited my opponent in the top 32.

Round of 32 vs. Bolzano (France) Stark The Siege of Winterfell
Another Stark SoW deck - *groan*. And against the second place guy from the Melee, no less. Although he doesn't post that much on the FFG boards, I knew Bolzano to be a rules guru. They had also made him a judge, like me, so I expected we'd be able to figure out any rules questions that would come up. None did, though.
What I said before held true here again: In this matchup, it's extremely important to get though the first plot better than the other guy. He got KotS Robb out early and used him to marshal a Northern Cavalry Flank, but I had a great setup and had better board position from the get-go. I flipped my Fury plot, went first, made it Winter, stole his Bolton Army (which I managed to keep the whole game) and discarded his Carrion Bird with Wintertime Marauders. I could have discarded his Cavalry Flank, but I needed to protect my Raven. From there he had to fight an uphill battle. I even pounded him on MIL challenges, unafraid of Lethal Counterattack because I always had a To Be A Kraken in hand. Newly Made Lord (or possibly the Apprentice, not 100% sure) discarded his Frozen Moat along the way.
I always expected him to Valar, but he didn't have one. I finally played Valar myself on turn 6, saving two of my guys with Iron Mines and Iron Cliffs. He'd expected me to sit on my Valar as long as possible and saved his Assault on King's Landing for the last turn, though. Ouch. If he'd played it when I played my Valar, that just might have turned the game around. I don't really think so, but who knows.
As things stood, I kept dominating the board and managed the win shortly after.
6 - 1

Round of 16 vs. David Gonzales (Spain) Targaryen Knights of the Hollow Hill
The was the most interesting and creative deck I played against all day. A char-lite Targ deck with plenty resets and a crapload of character control. I'd really like to see *that* decklist.
He surpirsed me with a first turn Valar and kept controlling my characters without playing many himself. Newly Made Lord shone once more and discarded a Dragonpit. I kept acquiring Power through unopposed challenges and Domi. Then I got lucky and David blundered twice. First, when he had Search and Detain and I had Valar as plot, he chose me as First Player. Of course I chose his effect to resolve first and he chose my Wendamyr to go back to hand. He hadn't realized that since Wendamyr was Moribund:Hand from Search and Detain, he wouldn't be killed by Valar and could be used to save *another* of my guys instead of having to save himself. The second mistake was that he simply miscounted my Power on the last turn. He had a Westeros Bleeds burning in his hand which he planned to play, but he let me get to 15 in Domi, although he could've avoided it. A lucky win.
7 - 1

Quarterfinal vs. Asier Martirena (Spain) Lannister City of Shadows
And here, it all ends.
Lanni CoS is not a particularly bad matchup for me; in fact, it's probably one of the better ones I can encounter. It is slow - I am fast. It relies on locations - I eat locations for breakfast. It is best against few strong characters - I run lots of weenies. It relies on triggered effects - I have a ton of cancel. It is expensive - I hurt their resources.
That I lost anyway was due to two factors: First and foremost, my opponent had an excellent deck and played it extremely well when it counted. Second, I made mistakes. Big and stupid ones, and smaller, more subtle ones. I'm guessing the small and subtle ones were ultimately what cost me the game. The big and stupid ones only followed from there.
It started even before the game, really. I should have taken a moment to think about how his deck works, what he probably runs, what he can do, what I need to counter it. I didn't, and that lead directly to what was probably my most costly mistake. I should have taken a Mulligan. I really should have.
I had a 4 card flop, which is thoroughly average for my deck, maybe even a bit on the bad side. The bad thing about the setup wasn't the number of cards, though, it was the composition. I had both LIV and Scouting Vessel in there, but only one character. And what you really need against a Shadows deck is characters. Lots of them. The Warships help you win challenges. But with only a few characters, you don't even get to declare challenges, because your few characters will get controlled. It was my paucity of characters that did me in.
Then came the big and obvious mistakes: One time, I did manage to win a POW challenge, and I forgot to use my Support of the Kingdom, which got promptly discarded during an INT challenge the next turn. Then, my biggest blunder of the whole tournament, I marshalled Alannys, only to realize one second too late that KL Cersei is a Queen. Ouch.
Asier, being a thoroughly nice guy, even offered me to take her back. And, what can I tell you, for a second there, I was tempted by sin. Luckily, my sense of decency returned in time, and I declined. But if I had had one last glimmer of hope left, this was the moment it died. The last nail in my coffin came when I played Valar. He had Search and Detain and took Queen Cersei back to hand. Shortly thereafter, it was done.
7 - 2

Asier went on to the final, where he lost by a hair to another GJ KoW deck, not least because his Alchemist's Guild Hall got Burned and Pillaged. Thrice.
As I said, it was Asier's skill and my own ineptitude that did me in, not the deck. The deck performed marvellously all day. There were so many great cards, but the all stars were
3) Alannys. Great hand control in a deck that's light on INT, especially with the Inn.
2) Wintertime Marauders. So versatile.
1) Newly Made Lord. Lost Oasis, Ghaston Gray, Frozen Moat. Dragonpit. Two Black Cells. Two Alchemist's Guild Halls. And that's just off the top of my head. The guy was golden all day.

So, this concludes the tale of my marvellous travel to Castle Stahleck, where I met the best knights this side of the big sea, dared cross blades with them, and whence I returned a wiser and richer and slightly less humble man.
To say my weekend was awesome does not even begin to do it justice. Thanks to my opponents and to all the other great people I had the honour of meeting. And thanks, most of all, to Wolfgang, who brought it all into being.

Oh, and one more thing: Mad props to Mathias Fricot, who predicted the Rise of of the House of Greyjoy at a time when nobody gave them credit, and whose post encouraged me to actually run them. Kudos, and thank you!

I was that poor guy from Round 2 (actually that was round 3, but dosen't matter).

I made a big mistake at the beggining - insteat of burning Alannys I was more affraid of Gylbert. And than I just coudn't draw into just one burn card to take this b**tch down So the winter wasn't my worst nightmare, but Alannys and the Inn of the kneeling man.

But was still nice to play. I trained a lot wiht GJ winter and had a hard time winning so I had no big expectations when we played together Hope to meet again... maybe in Poland when we make our first big tournament

Ratatoskr said:

At Black Friday, in round two, I played Gualdo who was playing this Stark deck. I played Greyjoy Choke Maester. Knowing what type of deck he was bringing, I put together what I thought it would look like the day before and did some testing [seems my test deck was very close]. I found your statement to be very true: whichever had the best first round -or even best setup - won with ease. This was true in our real match-up. I probably should have mulliganed my 4-card setup, but I didn't and it was all downhill from there. Of course, his flawless play and my noob-ness may have had something to do with it.

I think it is making your final strength equal to the number of participating characters. Anything else doesn't factor into it... well it does, its just then made to be the total number of participating characters.

Why did that get posted in the wrong thread.... sigh.

Great report Ratatoskr! I hope my GJ list will be close to as successful in its due time

HemAhn said:

Hope to meet again... maybe in Poland when we make our first big tournament

Looking forward to seeing that happen. Not that I have much chance of making it, but spreading these kinds of gatherings is great.

Late - but just wanted to say GREAT TR, and thanks for posting it.

HemAhn said:

I'm really very sure it was round 2, but let's not argue about that, OK?

Great to see you around here. I sure hope we get to play again some time. I'd love to go to Poland some time. Please make sure you post the date of your tourney on this site when you know it.

Mathias - thanks, and I'll root for you whenever you play your GJ deck.

Rings - thanks a lot. I had fun writing it.

Thanks for sharing a great tr! Proving that just because I can't put together a GJ winter deck right, doesn't mean it isn't good!

Great tourney report, Helmut. Glad to see all those teeth you sunk into the game paid off and you had a great showing. Well done!