Come listen here as we go over results from the major recent tournaments and talk about the state of the game.

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A regular Friday schedule - I like it!

I wonder if maybe the game should have a few more anti-agenda cards (Northern Cavalry Flank-esque) to discourage "dabbling" in Maesters.

Also, for anyone wondering, I upped the sample quality of the recording all the way up in hopes of defeating whatever is suddenly interfering the audio quality of our episodes.

Obviously, it hasn't worked.

Blame the maesters.

#occupythecitadel

I don't think the idea of more anti-agenda cards is great, because people trying to make a deck with KotHH or The White Book work are already facing a difficult balance. If somehow there could be cards that punished just the Maester agenda...

I don't really think that house loyalties are that much stronger in Europe. At least in the UK, most people have a favourite house and tend to prefer that house (I lean towards Stark and Bara, one of my meta mates leans towards Martell/Targ etc.), but people are completely committed to that house - I regularly play (and enjoy playing as) Martell, Greyjoy and Lannister, and I played 3 different houses at different tourneys in Stahleck (Bara Knights in Melee, Stark Siege in Joust, and Martell Summer in the 2 vs 2)

The one exception is, I think, in Spain, where the Madrid Meta does have very strong house loyalties. Apparently, they stick with the same house and get really good with the various different builds that are avaliable to that house.

I haven't finished the episode so far, but it sounds like you guys didn't discuss what was probably the 4th largest Thrones tournament in history, the Spanish Nationals, which took place the same weekend as Days of Ice and Fire, if I remember correctly. By my count, 2011 Stahleck was #1 with 120, the first GenCon #2 (mid to upper 90s), 2010 Stahleck #3 (92?), 2011 Spanish Nationals #4 with 87. I'm doing all that from memory, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Alberto Garcia (stukov) won the Spanish Nationals with Martell/Maester. The second place deck at the Spanish Nationals, which also placed top 4 at Stahleck, was Kralicht's Stark/Siege which Gualdo placed second with at Black Friday (awesome crossover statistic ). I believe Alberto played the same Martell/Maester deck at Stahleck, but not sure how he finished up.

Just wanted to give credit where it's due, and to point out the awesome showing of Spain in their Nationals along with how dominant they were at Stahleck.

longclaw said:

He did play the same, or a very similar, deck. It's published over on agotcards. At Stahleck, he made Top 16, I believe. It's more of a standard Martell Summer deck with Maester tech sprinkled in for toolboxing than an all-out Maester deck.

Just finished listening to the episode. A few comments.

- I'm not sure about House loyalties either. It may or may not be a factor, I really don't know. People do have preferences, sure, but they have in the US, too. I tend to think that top level players will play whatever they think gives them the best chance to win. You mentioned Gualdo - while it's true that his favourite houses are Stark and Greyjoy, he won Stahleck last year with a Wildling deck out of Martell. Go figure. I think the main reason why Stark is much more popular in Europe than in the US might be that players evaluate their power level differently, pure and simple.

- The prevalence of Stark also explains the relatively high number of No Agenda decks at Stahleck. Lots of Stark means lots of Northern Cavalry Flank, and that alone is enough to make players wary of Agendas. I bet if Wisconsin was in Europe, Butzlaff would have left TMP off his DoIaF deck.

- The Bara Treaty with the Isles deck is the brainchild of the Salzburg/Austria meta. It's a pretty slick, very fast rush build that utilizes GJ saves and unopposed tech to get even more mileage out of DotN Mel. Markus, who, I believe, created the deck took it to Top 16 at Stahleck and came within a hair's breadth of beating the Maester Robert build at the Austrian Nationals back in August. I'll ask him for the decklist.

- The name of the Stahleck Joust winner is Martí Foz.

Does anyone have a list of the houses and agendas from the Spain event? If I can get one, I will include stats in the upcoming Thrones Times newsletter.

Twn2dn said:

I will send you the list of eight of so houses/agendas from our local tournament at christmas so you can get some Canadian input

Twn2dn said:

Dan, try this page:

http://rocacasterly.blogspot.com/2011/11/campeonato-nacional-de-juego-de-tronos.html

Abbreviated translation;

The weekend before Stahleck, Spanish National Tournament, 93 participants. Tournament started late due to registration issues, and so it wasn't possible to play a 7th round - instead, they used a top 32 rather than top 16, as originally intended.

The numbers listed for top 16 ranked from the swiss that "should" have been the top 16, not the 16 winners of the first match-ups of the round of 32.

The last column is the "Strategies" (aka agendas), in order , including "Maester's Path", "Siege of Winterfell" x2, "City of shadows" and "Knights of the Realm".

Thanks guys, I'll check this out!

So accuse me of thread necromancy if you must, but I am way behind on my podcast listening and just finished this one. Please excuse me if what I mention gets discussed more fully in one of the ten episodes I have lined up.

As far as the House popularity/strength discussion, I would love to hear you guys talk more about the car and driver aspect of things. Like you mentioned, I am more inclined to think Targaryen placed so highly at GenCon and won Black Friday because Dan is such a skilled deckbuilder/player, not because Targaryen has the cards. And with Martell and Lannister, the decks sometimes do seem to build themselves.

I still would love to see how things would play out if a number of the top U.S. players played European-style decks, like Stark Siege, and the top European players played U.S. popular decks.