Firstly, a big thanks to Steve and Eddie for running a great regional.
I'm going to start with a little pre-amble about me - if you don't care about the human element to this story, scroll down! 
I started playing GoT at the start of this year, no real equivalent experience beyond playing magic for a year or so in my teens. That said, I'm a big fan of these types of games, and my girlfriend Becky (refrigeratedraymond) and I quickly took to GoT, being big fans of the tv series (and, subsequently, the books). Other than a couple of house expansions, the first packs we got were the Oldtown cycle, and in the process of trying to learn about the game more we stumbled across cardgamedb.com, from which we came across competitive play and whatnot. I looked stuff up and found out there was a regional event in the UK in May, and we thought we'd go for a bit of fun, expecting to lose badly but thinking it'd be fun to meet up with other Thrones players for a day. Other than a couple of our friends (who aren't at all serious collectors) we didn't know anyone else who played, although we did attend a London meet-up the week before the event where we met a few others who helped give us tips and build our decks and whatnot. So yeah, in summary, first regional tournament, second time playing the game against people I didn't know, no expectations.
I went with Greyjoy Maester - the Maester was obvious because due to the cards we had it was the only deck-type we had the majority of the cards to build, and I liked the saves Greyjoy offered. I made a conscious decision not to play choke, because I really don't like the mechanics of it, and also because it's what everyone expects Greyjoy to run - not running it could give me an element of surprise. The deck was initially mainly built around trying not to lose against other decks - I thought of popular deck types and tried to put in defences against them. What eventually evolved from it was a kind of two-phase aggro deck - push out cheap characters and saves early on, force a Valar, keep most of my board out then sweep up with 2-claim plots, including my Restricted card Fear of Winter. If the opponent couldn't be persuaded to Valar I had it myself to force the issue. From play-testing on Octgn I felt pretty confident in the deck as a whole, and felt I at least knew my way around it inside and out if nothing else. Full decklist is below for those who want it.
Target going into the event: try to win 2 games, then I'll have done myself proud. I'd have probably taken 1 win, but been a bit annoyed and wanted 2. 35 people were present, and we had 5 rounds of swiss before a cut-off to top 8. I tried to get names where possible, but my info is a bit patchy, so sorry if details are missing - and sorry if details in the matches are incorrect, I kept track as best I could but over a long day it's hard!
Match One: Mark (Stark Siege) (Finish: ???)
I got very lucky here. Obviously with a stark Siege, military is kinda key. By the end of the first marshalling phase I had out all 3 Island Refugees, and 2 Distinguished Boatswains. Not much you can do when your opponent gets out 14 military strength for 2 gold combined. I had Baelor and Murenmure out too, and began with an intrigue challenge which took his lethal counterattack. From there it was pretty brutal.
Result: Win (1-0)
Match Two: Nick (Martell Maesters) (Finish: ???)
I later found out this was a netdeck of the deck that won the Fresno regional. From the "Things I Do For Win" article on that deck I knew there was a strong chance of Art of Seduction first turn, and as luck would have it Becky played Nick in the first round, and he used it then to trap At the Gates for her, so she warned me of the possibility. I got a maester out in set-up so, free from that restraint, I decided to let him stick Retaliation instead - he hadn't had a great set-up phase and I had a character-ful hand so I fancied my chances of overpowering him. He got out a couple of Maesters then the Conclave; I got out Archmaester Ebrose and some military strength, and forced him to kill off all his characters in the first turn except for Informed Acolyte (he saved that over his Conclave because the Acolyte had the links). 2nd turn he could only get out a refugee and, using Flea Bottom, a knelt Leyton Hightower. That made the challenges phase a walk for me again as once again he only had Informed Acolyte left, and rather than his intended turn 3 Outwit it was a turn 3 Valar - which I saw coming. In possibly my favourite play of the day, I knelt Ebrose pre-plot with VSL to give himself the Night's Watch trait with the Copper Link, then played At the Gates, went first in order to fetch Maester Aemon then knelt him to save Ebrose. With a couple of other saves for my Greyjoy characters I was in a strong position, and was just left to get the chains off. I won on turn 5 with about 10 power on my house card and 14 on Ebrose.
Result: Win (2-0)
Match Three: Chris Clark (KAlindas) (Lanni PBtT) (Finish: Quarter Finals)
I knew Chris from the London meet-up and considered him the person to beat, so I was kind of annoyed to have to play him; I didn't realise at the time quite how bad a match-up it was for him though. Chris (who thought my deck was choke and perhaps to a fault focused on getting gold out) was playing hyper-kneel, which I've not played much of before, and I pretty much discovered through playing that Murenmure wrecks it. His restricted card was Castellan, and every time Castellan's ability was activated it diverted to Murenmure, leaving my other characters free. Getting Alannys out to divert extra kneel was the cherry on top, especially once I got Milk of the Poppy on the Castellan. He was forced into the Valar but I had enough save by that point to save both of them plus Asha, and since he couldn't get to her to kneel her she was able to run out the win.
Result: Win (3-0)
At this point I was understandably ecstatic. If I lost everything from that point I went home a happy, happy man.
Match Four: Michael Haynes (Zanda) (Stark Knights of the Realm) (Finish: Quarter Finals)
Another guy for the London meet-up, Michael and I both seemed a bit nervous about the match-up (his deck was pure murder and he was worried my saves would stop it from taking off, whereas I just knew he was probably better than me). His deck had a lot of focus on gold curve, but it really didn't matter - my deck stunk the joint up. I mulligan'd from a potential 2 card flop up to a 3 card flop, and only 1 character, Wex Pyke - which would've been nice had he not flopped two crested characters, one with military and one with intrigue. I got totally overrun on the first turn, had to Valar on turn two, saving Archmaester Marwyn - his Arya went back to the shadows and I knew that (since he had a 2 claim plot), to have any chance, I needed either 2 cheap characters (with gatehouses I had 4 gold to play with) or one military character that could hold off Arya's attack. I drew one character, Initiate of the Citadel, and it might as well have been over then as I couldn't get a character out. The following turn I drew into save that couldn't possibly help at that point. This was an absolutely brutal demolition.
Result: Loss (3-1)
Match Five: Tom (Greyjoy Maesters) (Finish: 3-2)
Tom was an even newer player than me, and did fantastically well - he estimated that before the tournament he'd played 10 games total, and was still 3-1 going into round 5! Apparently Greyjoy Maesters is a good deck for newbies to run, it'd seem. His deck was similar to mine but not identical, as his had more of an emphasis on choke. Which is to say, it had the slightest hint of an emphasis on choke - I saw a couple of Burned Pillaged cards here. I got fairly lucky here, he mulliganed but didn't get any love on the redraw, and I got a strong flop of cheap cards out. I didn't have a Maester out, and decided that rather than getting one off At the Gates I'd go with Search and Detain so I'd have an extra gold to play the Marwyn in my hand, and naturally got hit with Retaliation. It didn't matter though, I was able to dominate the first challenge phase, despite his getting out The Conclave. Marywn got VSL and Copper Link, and on turn two they combined with Dissension to get rid of the Conclave. It forced him into a turn 3 Valar, I had a couple of saves in play, went with Fear of Winter and for my one card played Risen From The Sea to have absolutely dominant board position, and the 2 claim and board dominance allowed me to push through the win.
Result: Win (4-1)
The cut-off to the top 8 happened, and due to strength of schedule shenanigans we ended up with this:
#1 Matt Pearce (Targ Heir to the Iron Throne)
#2 Rob Hayes (Martell KotHH)
#3 James Waumsley (Me!) (Greyjoy Maester)
#4 Michael (Stark KotR)
#5 Josh Nowicki (Greyjoy Winter)
#6 Chris (Lanni PBtT)
#7 Tagore (Targ KotHH)
#8 Ian McDonald (???)
Quarter Final: Chris (Lanni PBtT)
The rematch Chris really didn't want. Due to getting the Iron Throne out he was able to stop me having it quite so easily, but really it went very similarly to the first game, on the whole, as I knew to fish for Murenmure with At the Gates on turn one, and City of Soldiers took out Ghost of High Heart who otherwise could've been a continued pain. I didn't help myself by forgetting about the downside to his Agenda for about four turns despite winning a fair few intrigue challenges in that time, but ultimately the match-up was too disadvantageous for him, and I rode out to win in a fairly long game that went 8 plots and saw 3 Valars. It was unfortunate for Chris - he's a fantastic player and finished 4-2, with both losses coming to me due to the bad match-up.
Result: Win (5-1)
Semi Final: Josh (Greyjoy Winter)
Due to the issue with a certain chapter pack key for Winter I hadn't really played against it before, but I felt okay with it as an opponent - I'd included a lot of cheap cards in the deck for precisely this kind of purpose, and the original reason for putting in the Copper Link was to combine it with Tin Link and take out Ravens. This was the only seasons deck I saw anyone playing all day (and not just in my matches), so I'm relieved I had to play it or it would've been a waste!
Josh was dominating me for the first few rounds. He made it Winter turn 1, got Wintertime Marauders, got an Ice Fisherman (and later on a second one). Fortunately for me he didn't draw into the Sparr or Burned and Pillaged, but he didn't really need it. I pretty much thought I was done, and was considering a Valar but ultimately decided against it, managing to call what happened. His mistake came when he got a load of save out and Valar'd - which did nearly sweep my board while preserving all of his apart from a Carrion Bird, but it also gave me initiative. I'd figured a Valar was coming and went with RBD, for the gold and to go first (both our hands were pretty empty most of the game so it didn't factor in). That allowed me to, in the process of saving Maester Wendamyr, use the Copper-Tin combo to rid myself of his raven, conveniently the same turn he had to get rid of his Carrion Bird. He had massive board control, but with 0 claim I could go for broke. I used my gold to play Archmaester Ebrose, who I'd held back for this exact opportunity, and won a couple of challenges to throw chains on him - he had a packed board, but other than his own Wendamyr he didn't have any intrigue out. Next turn I played Fear of Winter to stop him from getting any significant intrigue in play, and was able to dump my remaining chains on Ebrose and rush through the win on turn 6, right before I'd have had to Valar him away on turn 7. This was definitely the closest match I had all day.
Result: Win (6-1)
Final: Matt (Targ HttIT)
Matt's deck was Dragons, basically. I hadn't anticipated seeing this deck at all, and the fact that it had won 7 games in a row (including against Michael, my only loss) scared me, and (especially given that I later found out it wasn't even his deck!) is a testament to how strong a player Matt is. Fortunately, Becky plays Targ Dragons too, so I knew the score - stop the Dragons from getting out, preferably by destroying Influence to prevent ambushes, overwhelm with big plots and just control things as much as possible.
We both flopped 5 cards - I got Sunset Sea, 2 Island Refugees, Asha and Maester Wendamyr; he got 5 locations. I figured at that point there was at least a 50-50 chance he was Valaring, so I played Search and Detain so I could rescue someone if he did, and bounce one of his more expensive locations if he didn't. He did, so I bounced Asha, Wendy saved himself and the Refugees went away. However, he was stuck with 2 gold - which wouldn't've been a problem if I didn't immediately play Newly Made Lord to take out his Kingsroad Fiefdom, robbing him of the influence he needed to ambush in dragons. I also dropped Asha back out again. Matt got really unlucky, as the only character cheap enough that he could play that he drew was Viserys. As a result I was able to get in a couple of challenges and get some chains off. He had 2 more cards in his hand than me at this point and I was tempted to Rule By Decree, but decided to stick the knife in and went with Fear of Winter. With me having a dominant board position and his Valar already used there was nothing he could do and the turn went all my own way. Turn 3 I got Rule by Decree out on the turn he'd played Fury of the Kraken to let him get cards out, which was ruined somewhat as he had to go down to 4 from 10. He played Viserion, but on my go I got rid of him with Copper->Dissension, and dropped Distinguished Boatswain and Longship Iron Victory. I had 2 gold left and Wex Pyke in hand, but was unsure whether to play him or save him for if things got desperate later. In the end I decided to play him, as I had two finger dances in hand and while I had both Asha and DB out, I didn't want to kneel Asha if at all possible. This ended up being the decisive call, although honestly I probably already had the win then - he tried to bring Viserion back with Ambush From the Plains, and I knelt DB to Finger Dance; he then played his SECOND Ambush From the Plains, and I was able to kneel Wex to play my second finger dance. That gave me another free turn of attacks, and by this point Asha wasn't kneeling to attack so it was brutal. He now had no cards in hand, no characters in play, Valar used up. He S&D'd Asha (who had 4 power) to try to slow me down, but he couldn't draw into anything that would stop me, and after a third ambush from the plains wasn't enough to stop me overrunning him in challenges I was able to get the victory and win my first ever regional tournament!
Overall, I'm obviously absolutely ecstatic. To go in with no expectations and come out with the championship was an absolutely tremendous, surreal feeling. I won a whole bunch of goodies, although due to ffg's poor planning they were stuck in customs. I'm looking forward to getting them sent to me though!
Day on the whole was tremendous fun, even putting the win to one side - as I said I'd barely had the chance to meet other players before the day, and it was a really fun experience. It's said all the time, but the people who play this game, somewhat ironically given the brutality of the source material, are just the nicest people. I had great fun chatting to everyone, including a fellow Greyjoy Maester player who was running a very similar deck to mine and was unlucky enough to finish #17, one place below the prize-winning spots.
Thanks again to the GTG guys for running the tournament, it was an amazing experience that was helped a lot by an incredibly friendly and welcoming atmosphere (the day before Becky and I went to scout out the place and make sure we knew where it was, and after a brief mention that we would look to get some food we were given a review of all the restaurants in the area!), as well as competent officiating and general TOing. It was a great day 'cause you guys made it so.
Thanks also to the London Game of Thrones meet-up group - I only met Chris, Michael and Tagore once before, but they'd been very helpful and helped improve my deck a lot - stuff that in retrospect seem like obvious includes such as Alannys and Ebrose only went in the deck under their advice. Tagore also lent Becky and me a lot of cards (City of Soldiers was in my deck thanks to him, and a few cards to round out Becky's deck were his too). Also, once I was the only London-affiliated player left in I found I had a group cheering me on, and a couple of times they noticed passive effects neither I nor my opponent had noticed, for which I'm grateful. That 4 of the 5 of us made the top 8 was a tremendous achievement given that London doesn't really have anywhere to play the game!
Thanks to John, a good friend of mine who was a willing sparring partner on Octgn a lot the last couple of weeks.
Most of all thanks to Becky, who is basically the reason I'm playing the game at all and provided a lot of help - we basically built our decks together, bought the packs together, and playtested against each other extensively. That's not even mentioning the fact that she went out and bought a pack of Nice biscuits to keep my sugar levels up for the final .
Star Cards of the Day:
- Asha. This wasn't surprising, but her lack of kneel really helped me out in multiple squeaky-bum situations.
- Archmaester Ebrose. As I mentioned in the acknowledgement-y section, he was only a late addition to make sure I had a couple of stronger maesters in case I faced Targ Burn (which I didn't all day), and he performed admirably - the amount of power he got in the second match was fun, but he really shone in the semi-final, I doubt I won that match without him in the deck.
- Copper Link. Copper Link was originally only in the deck to combat seasons, but throughout the day it and Dissension teamed up beautifully to remove whatever the biggest threat was at any given time, be it a Castellan, a Conclave, a dragon, or whatever else. Gave Copper Link the star slot because it also featured in my favourite play of the day, as well as performing when required to remove the white raven.
- Maester Wendamyr. I only had one copy of him in the deck thinking Murenmure's strength and power icon would see him playing a larger role, but soon found Wendy was the best one to summon with At the Gates as save became more and more needed, if only so I could save himself and get the links off.
"Why did I take you?" card of the day:
- Bronze Link. I went in thinking the attachment recursion would be invaluable; as it was it activated once all game, to return a VSL to my hand which didn't get played. As it was its only role was slowing my win in a couple of games where I needed time to get the chains off, and, I guess, to lower the number of cards in my deck.
I've mentioned most of the key cards in the report, but if anyone wants a full decklist posted I'm more than happy to oblige.
Sorry also for the long report - we do not sow, but we do go on.
It was a great turnout and even though i did particulary rubbish i really enjoyed it!