The New York Night’s Watch is excited to announce the 2012 Kingsmoot in the East, New York City’s regionals event.

Date/Time: Saturday, April 28 @ 11:00am (Joust); Sunday, April 29 @ 10:00am (Melee)

Location: Citigroup Center Public Atrium, 153 E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022

Entrance Fee: $10 for Joust, $5 for melee; $12 for both (cash payable on-site)

Contacts (for questions): Rich Allison and Dan Strouhal, [email protected]

The competition will follow standard FFG guidelines for Joust (1v1) and Melee (multiplayer) competition. FFG lists full rules for competitive play on its website (www.fantasyflightgames.com). The Joust will include four 50-minute preliminary rounds of “Swiss” styled 1 vs. 1 pairing, with cut to top eight for quarter-finals. (The cut to top 8 regardless of tourney size is intended to ensure anyone with a good record has the chance to break to out-rounds.)
Decklists will be required for this event but will NOT be shared after the tourney. These will be used only to resolve any questions about deck legality, if needed.

Prize Support
In addition to the official FFG regionals kit, the NYC Kingsmoot in the East will award the following prizes:
--Kingsmoot in the East glass trophy for the Joust Champion
--Custom-designed, double-sided “NY Champion House Card” for both Joust and Melee champions (view photo https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxAvkuucRC6RZ3pHaVE5UlhUejI1c2xtNy1sdFlEQQ/edit )
--2x Gift Cards for a free chapter pack from the Compleat Strategist

For questions about the event, prizes, or legality of cards, please contact Dan with the NYC Night’s Watch at [email protected]

I've already heard from a few players in the DC meta that they plan to attend. I'm hoping we'll have around 15 players. Post here if you plan to attend!

There are 5 or 6 people from the DC Meta looking to attend this event. We are hoping that we can work out a lodging swap with someone who is looking to come to our Regional in June. My wife and daughter will be out of town the weekend of the DC Regional so I'd be able to host 5 or 6 people comfortably. If anyone from NY (maybe someone that came down for our tourney in Feb) wants to work something out so we can all save some money and increase the attendance for both events please post here.

dcdennis said:

Dennis, sounds like you are looking for a place. I'll let others post here, but meanwhile I'll also ask around in NYC.

Twn2dn said:

How sad. Is there anything we can do to convince you guys to share post tournament? It can only help the community at large.

Kennon said:

Keep in mind that many of the participants who attend NYC will attend other tourneys (possibly as many as 3-4), and given that the NYC tourney is so early in the season, I do not want to spoil the decks. The last thing I want is another season like last year, where the DC regionals had a decent Martell deck that became the dominant deck not only for many of the regionals events, but also for GenCon (with some adjustments due to expanded card pool).

On the flipside, I would argue that if a deck is strong enough to be that dominant, then greater knowledge and more widespread dissemination and discussion of that deck will speed the rate at which it is examined, teched against, and accounted for. I think the problem last year is likely that it was in an awkward middle ground where just enough people knew fully what was going on to lead several to play it, but with not widespread enough public examination to help bring equilibrium back to the meta at large.

Kennon said:

But looking closer at your argument, I'm still not sure I agree. In theory I believe it's true, but in practice what I tend see is widespread adoption (net-decking) of the "dominant deck" (let's call it "deck X"). If the AGOT environment were truly rock-paper-scissors, we might see more "anti-deck X" tech (let's call this "deck Y"). In practice though, teching against deck X usually makes deck Y weaker to everything except deck X. So unless you happen to play against only deck X, then overall the competitiveness of deck Y is lower.

The result is that more people play deck X, a few determined people play deck Y, and most people just play whatever they were going to, hoping that they don't play against deck X or, if they do, that they happen to have the answers.

The bottom line is that I think there's probably not enough evidence to suggest that the environment corrects for a dominant deck. At best, playing the dominant deck becomes more risky; at worst, the dominant deck redefines the environment and competitive play with many more people playing it. Either way, I think it would be better this early in the regionals season to leave the choice up to the individuals. (I would feel differently if this were at the end of the regionals season.)

Twn2dn said:

Sooo... while we're talking hypothetically here... the only ways to balance the environment are through errata/banning/restriction/new releases? That's a sobering thought.

Twn2dn said:

I may be horribly wrong but I guess that's the situation where a sideboard in the game would be quite handy (At least if you play your opponent more than one round...).

Kennon said:

Its an agency/structure disconnect.

Those who simply want to play the game will never seek to change the game through playing the game.

Twn2dn said:

As far as FFG is concerned, will the Regional Champion be the Overall Champion or the Joust Champion? I think a number of us considering coming from DC would find it much easier to only attend the Joust, but would like to have a shot at winning the Regional too.

I hope its only the joust champ that will be considered the Regional. I was arguing to not even hold a melee and i am sure there will be far fewer players on Sunday than for the Joust on Saturday. Joust champ should be considered Regional champ IMO, Dan and Ricjh will have the final call though.

Meanwhile - i am counting down the days to this. Its a little early in the Regioanl season for NY's event - which is kind of fun. I have practiced nearly enough yet, but will be ramping up my efforts in the next three weeks. its great to be preparing for a high level event once again.

___

The regional champ will be the joust champ.

The regional champ will be me.

...just kidding.

...or am I?

As OrangeDragon mentioned above, the joust winner will also be the official "Regionals Champion" for the NYC regionals competition.

There will be prize support for the melee tournament, however, and still much glory to be had in that event (Don't let Finite talk you out of attending that one too!) Actually, these days I find I'm enjoying melee just as much or more than joust, so long as you take victories with a grain of salt...meta mates tend to stick together.

Looking like there will be decent turnout this year. Post here if you plan to attend!

DC crowd still trying to lock down travel plans. Nothing concrete yet.

Curious to see iof Stark makes a big showing here. The wolves have always been popular here in the Northeast. I'm certainly building with them in mind.

I am a new player (got a full set collection end of last year), I play with my kids mostly, played a few games on-line and with one friend, I will probably make this tournament just to see how terrible I am at this game. It will be my first games live with people who actually know what they are doing, probably not the best idea, since I will most likely get trounced in a few turns every game, but I am in the City that team, and have time, which is rare.

Troopershark said:

I wouldn't worry about that. I have no expectation to do well either. It's more about having fun and meeting the people from the boards in person. Community building ftw.

dcdennis said:

I've enjoyed pretty much every event I've gone to, and it is rarely because of the cards. As fun as this game is, it's the human interaction that makes it fun. Of course, winning is occasionally fun too...

Just FYI, I got a place to stay that's somewhat near the place, I believe, and have 2-3 spots available for both Friday and Saturday evenings. If any of you are interested, let me know at kyle dot szklenski at gmail dot com.

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finitesquarewell said:

Man, I'm getting excited for this!