Warning: This is going to be a long read. SO much happened in such a short time and I wanted to get it "on paper" before I forgot it all.

Where do I start? This was an amazing weekend filled with some of the best thrones I've ever been a part of. I'd like to thank Eric Wood, John Bruno, Lucas Sydlaske and Joey Kreins for volunteering to run the 4 events. You guys are champs and I can't thank you enough.

I will post a full melee report at a later date, but in the mean time, here is a quick summary:

The melee was won by Eric Wood from the Sacramento meta. He was playing a Lannister Kingsguard deck that was designed by himself and Brooks Mitchell. I'll be the first to say that this was a strong deck and blew mine out of the water in the final. Jeff and Jen Lebow filled out the 2nd and 3rd place spots in the melee final. First ever Husband/Wife final melee table? Perhaps. More to come…..

The Joust took place on Sunday and was comprised of 30 participants. I have the house breakdown, but you will have to stay tuned for Joey's full joust report for the agenda/restricted/meta breakdowns.

Targaryen: 8
Stark: 6
Baratheon: 5
Martell: 4
Greyjoy: 4
Lannister: 3

(8) John Deatrick (Fieras) - Bara Treaty to the South def. (1) Chris Schoenthal (Imrahil) - Martell Maesters
(7) Jeff Lebow (Freerider) - Martell Maesters def. (2) Brooks Mitchell (TheKingg) - Greyjoy Summer
(3) David Hopper - Targaryen KotHH def (6) Danny Machado (Cha0s) - Martell KotHH
(4) Ram DeLeon - Lannister Shadows def. (5) Lucas Sydlaske (Syd) - Stark Siege

(8) John Deatrick (Fieras) - Bara Treaty to the South def. (3) David Hopper - Targaryen KotHH
(7) Jeff Lebow (Freerider) - Martell Maesters def. () Ram DeLeon - Lannister Shadows

(8) John Deatrick (Fieras) - Bara Treaty to the South def. (7) Jeff Lebow (Freerider) - Martell Maesters

I played a variant of my (inspired by BloodyCelt) Baratheon Treaty deck similar to the one I played (and posted) at calicon. I will post a decklist later.

Round 1: Justin Alterman - Targaryen KotHH
This was a faily one-sided match. Justin had to mull and the second hand was worse than the first. I got off to a strong start and finished him off early on turn 2. My deck was firing on all cylinders and there's not much he could do. 1-0

Round 2: John Kraus - Baratheon Wildlings (3)
From my experience, this is one of the toughest matchups for my deck. The amount of strength that wildlings can throw on the board coupled with all their stealth essentially stonewalls me from winning challenges. And oh yeah.. It's John Kraus behind the wheel. Not liking my odds here. John got out Massey's Hook and King Robert's Hammer on turn 1. Not exactly what I want to see on turn 1. He rolled me and had a pretty clear lead after the first turn. My turn 2 plot kneeled all his locations and allowed me to get back in the game. I played 3 characters to his 1, and I regained board position. This was over by turn 3. From what he said, I think he had some trouble drawing characters. 2-0

Round 3: David Hopper - Targaryen KotHH
I assume you can imagine the ideal starting hand for David's deck. Hatchling's feast, red keep, flame kissed, dragon pit etc. He wiped my board with threat on turn 3 and it was beyond over. Completely destroyed. 2-1

Round 4: Danny Machado - Martell KotHH
Feels good to see Danny back on his game. Danny is probably the nicest thrones player I know, and one of the strongest players in a stacked Concord meta. I thought I was going to win this matchup for about 3 minutes, when Danny played Viper and Ghaston Grey. I had no answers for the combo and he beat me down almost as bad as David did. 2-2
At this point, I feel pretty down on my chances. 2-2 with my first loss in the 3rd round. Fortunately, my 4 opponents had a combined 10-6 record, so I wasn't out yet.

Round 5: Kevin Greene - GJ Maesters
This was one of the luckiest/most epic matches I had on Sunday. For that matter, EVER. We both knew that we needed to win to even have a modest chance to get into the top 8. Kevin matched me character for character, and we both won a couple challenges a turn. I eventually got the TLS/Val combo out, but at that point, I think he outnumbered me 14 characters to 8 including raider Euron, 2 botswains, a 4 strength maester (from the collar), and a 2nd maester with 4 chains on it. I was able to go first, and I think I had about 9 power. He was like 3 away from winning. I played one character and was clearly losing the board presence battle.
However, I Val'd into 2 orphans and a smuggler's cove.

Going into challenges he had me absolutely destroyed on intrigue and military and outnumbered me 38 to 19 in power. I popped all 3 orphans (had one previous to Val) and stealthed past his beefy maester. The final count of my game winning power challenge? 19 to 19. Yes. One more strength and I would have been done for the day. 3-2

My other 4 opponents went 2-2 in the 5th and final round of the swiss. I figured my chances were about 50/50 at making the cut. How right I was. Get this: I was in a 3 way tie with Jeff Lebow and Garrett Greene (Kevin's brother) for 7/8/9th place. Two of us were getting in and one was going home empty handed. At this point, we called in a small council of John Bruno, Joey Kreins (the TO) and Eric Wood (Kublacon Staff and AGoT veteran). I was not part of the decision making process here, but from what I gather, we were all tied on head to head tiebreakers and shared opponents tiebreakers. If I remember correctly, Jeff had more losses against top 8 finishers than the 2 of us, so he was ruled as the 7 seed. Garrett and I would have to play off for the 8 spot.

Playoff Round: Garrett Greene - Stark Shadows
Garrett and I played in SF 3 weeks earlier with the same deck matchup. In the previous meeting, my threat from the east made him discard 2 white ravens and a carrion bird, and I rolled him as a result. This time, my flop was less stellar. To be honest, I was stressed out at this point. Last year at Kublacon I took 9th place (missing the cut) to a 5th round 15-14 loss to Ram DeLeon. Was I destined to miss the cut again? Not this time. I recall the match being pretty one sided. I think I won by turn 3. Sorry for the lack of details. I was under a lot of pressure. 4-2 (8 seed)

Top 8: Chris Schoenthal - Martell Maesters
For those of you who don't recall, Chris won the Fresno regional earlier this month with this same deck. We had been talking earlier in the day about how we both had pretty solid rush decks in an environment where rush is mostly nonexistant. We agreed to play a game for fun after the tourney if for some reason we didn't get an official match against eachother, but that ended up not being necessary.

This was a stressful/amazing/challenging/taxing matchup and is easily the most memorable match I have ever played in a tournament setting. I had NO idea how I was going to matchup against him. I knew my deck was faster, but his deck had more utility and remember, he only needed 10 power to win. I gave him roughly 60/40 odds here.

He flopped a maester of war and a couple reducers if I remember correctly. I flopped a couple reducers, TLS, and a messenger. I took about a minute to choose a plot as I couldn't decide between First snow and Threat from the east. Chris was really cool about it and mentioned that there was no time limit. I finally decided that if I could limit the number of cheap maesters on the board, I might be able to slow him down. I played first snow of winter, and he played at the gates bringing in a 3 strength maester. After round 1, I had pretty good board position on him and about 4 power. Round 2, I chose to play threat from the east. I had a val in hand, so I chose to make him discard 3.

Long story short, the game ended up going into a turn with us both at 9 power. I played the red wedding (having all my lords and ladies duped) and he played outwit. I expected him to cancel it, but he didn't. With the score 11 to 9 (him only needing 1 power to win) I quickly came to the conclusion that whoever won the first challenge would win the game. I had 5 renown characters to his 2 (Viper and Conclave). Having won initiative was my only saving grace here. He had a lot more characters out that me, but with stealth, I actually had a chance. He had one card in hand and I was 80% sure it was cyvasse. However, with his conclave out, I determined that I couldn't do anything about it if I tried. I swung for 18 power and 2 stealth, stealthing viper and conclave, his 2 biggest characters. At this point, all my chickens were in one basket. I stood up and allowed him make his decision. I think nearly 5 minutes went by (no joke) but I wasn't stressing about it. Finally, he said "I can't find any outs" and the challenge was over. I had won the game.

In hindsight, we found out that Chris should have won the game. He didn't realize that my KL Eddard couldn't cancel Cyvasse. No worries Chris, you're still a champ in my book (Fresno thinks so too). It was a pleasure. 5-2 (edit: Looks like Cyvasse might not have made a difference afterall)

Top 4: Rematch with David Hopper - Targaryen KotHH
I flopped 2 messengers, 2 orphans and a reducer. David made what I consider his only play mistake of the entire match. He played threat from the north. I was quietly thinking to myself "Too soon". I flooded the board in the subsequent turns, knowing that his best weapon against me was wasted on some filler. I cruised to victory and moved on. 6-2

Finals: Jeff Lebow - Martell Maesters
Jeff and I matched up in the final match of CaliCon 2011. I played sloppy in that matchup and Jeff fooled the hell out of me with some clever jank. Was I going to be able to get revenge? Well, his flop of 2 maesters of war, maester of the sun and refugee combined with my first snow of winter certainly tipped the scales in my favor. His bad flop combined with a solid one from me put me way out ahead early.

I tend to make a lot of play mistakes around this time in a tourney. 9 games in a row tends to be extremely exhausting. However, I think I can say with some certainty, that I didn't make any mistakes this game. I had all the bases covered. I made sure to keep Renly standing in case of a Cyvasse, and my plot selection kept him on the defense all game. (exactly where I want a deck like his to be). Jeff drew his first location on about the 4th turn (compared to 5 or 6 of them for me) and his board position suffered as a result. His deck crapped out on him, and there was nothing anyone could have done in his position. Always good to play you Jeff.

So that was it. I got my first Joust win. How did I feel? I think euphoria/exhaustion/disbelief pretty much sums it up. I'd like to thank Eric Wood for keeping me focused with so much drama/distraction surrounding me. I don't mean to be a drama queen, but keeping my composure for 9 hours of thrones wasn't easy, especially given the circumstances.

Again a big congratulations on the win. Your deck is a real beast. I wish I could fill in more of the blanks on that 8th seed qualifier match, but aside from a bad flop and venomous blade not being any kind of help against your big renown characters, that game was just a blur. Lots of fun playing you again, and I'll try to make it down to CaliCon

Said them the other day, wanna say em again here - Congratulations John. Deck crapping out on me or not you deserved the win. You're a great player and you had a great deck, and I remember thinking after Cali-con how strong the deck was, especially given that it's a Treaty (meaning super risky). I might have had you back at Cali-con last year with all my "clever jank" but this year you were totally ready for anything I might have been able to throw at you (assuming I'd had it to throw). I think based on that game and this one not only have the new cards (and un-restricted Laughing Storm) only made the deck stronger but your play has really ramped up too.

Looking forward to our next rematch. Gonna plan for that to be epic.

Hopefully by then I'll have had some time to build a different deck. I can't decide whether I'd prefer to try new things or just hone a single deck to call my own.

My original decklist from November can be found here: (Link isn't working, here is the url:) http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=16&efcid=4&efidt=558739&efpag=0#563988

The deck has since changed quite significantly (for the better, I think). Here is my 2012 Kublacon decklist:

Note: I have put an (*) next to the cards that haven't changed since the first rendition.

House: Baratheon
Agenda: Treaty to the South

Plots:
Threat from the East
*Kings Law
*Red Wedding
Power of Blood x2
First Snow of Winter
Attack from the Sea

Total Cards: 60

Characters: 42
*KL Eddard 3
*KL Robert 3
KL Knight of Flowers 3
*Core Stannis 3
DotN Melisandre 1
*Arianne 3
*PotS Viper 3
*House Messenger 3
*Loyal Guard 3
*ToR Renly 3
*Orphan 3
*Arys Oakheart 1
*Non-trigger Brienne 1
*Royal Entourage 3
Val 3
Laughing Storm 3

Attachments: NONE

Events: 3
*Distinct mastery 3

Locations: 15
*Narrow Sea 3
Summer Sea 2
Seat of Power 2
*Street of Sisters 1
*Street of Steel 1
*River Row 1
*Roberts Chambers 1
*Dorans Chambers 1
Street of Silk 1
Smuggler's Cove 2

As you can see (or not if you didn't click the link), I switched out 5 plots and 13 cards since Calicon.

Naturally, I threw in Val/TLS/TftE, at a loss of all 6 attachments in the deck. As a result, the number of characters jumped from 36 to 42. Wow. I didn't realize I ran so many!

With all the kill in the environment, I decided to play the 2nd power of blood. I also swapped out valar for first snow of winter. Weenies are popular at the moment, and I don't know if you did the math, but I have 2 characters (6 cards) in the entire deck that even get hit by it. I didn't include Orphans in that list for obvious reasons.

Attack from the Sea was in the deck specifically to kneel targ burn influence. It was actually not as effective as I had hoped, but it still helped. (Especially on Masseys Hook and King Roberts Hammer)

That's pretty much it. If you have any questions on why I included specific cards (or why I omitted any) please feel free to ask!

Congrats on piloting a Baratehon deck to the win in a tough field Fieras. it does my heart well to see the Banner of the Stag raised in triumph (even if yours is too "sandy" for my tastes). Congratulations - your continued success is very impressive and you are clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Stag Lord said:

I think this is the beginning of a new player type: the Tyrion, a player who takes an underdog house and shores up its weaknesses with a strong OOH alliance or dominant meta tech.

AGoT DC Meta said:

I am flattered by the comparison, Dan. To be honest, my intention was not to shore up the weaknesses of Bara. It was just to gain access to additional noble crests. (Perhaps I killed 2 birds with one stone?) I am yet to figure out how to build a rush deck that does not rely on power of blood. Rush decks MUST have an answer for valar or do not bother. (Outwit works too, but I hate maesters)

Fieras said:

What about Art of Seduction turn 1 to gain another round? Round 3 and 4 you can do your PoB to get 4 rounds of unkilled nobles.

Art can pin an opponent's when revealed Plot, and maybe buy you time - but you need a set of steel ones to play this in a Rush deck.

The stats SUCK for pricey uniques and a deck that needs to go first.

Stag Lord said:

Well, I've never claimed to understand Bara. All my Bara decks have really sucked. My thinking was that turn 1 is simply to pin the plot, like a crappy At the Gates or Fear of Winter. The 3 gold is just 1 less than the usual lead plot of Threat from the East, and if you use it as a setup turn, you can still claim power for renown. Turn 2 you could play Threat and go crazy. You would still have to be careful not to pin Fear of Winter turn 1, but if your setups are good, that won't be too much of a risk.

AGoT DC Meta said:

For starters, I wasn't complaining about noble rush. Noble rush works fine, and I don't need art of seduction for that archetype. My issue was that I don't know how to build a deck that is a non-noble type of rush.

That being said, there is no way in hell I would open with art of seduction. I almost exclusively open with Threat or Kings Law. You NEED to be able to beat the initiative on search and detain (Which is played first by my opponent in more than half of games this regional season).

AGoT DC Meta said:

Actually, Tyrion was the name posited for one of three types of deckbuilders (as opposed to generalized "players") by Casey Galvan back in the old Designer Journals from 2004/5. Tyrion's refuse to play the dominant deck, and build a deck to beat it, usually with some success (unless they're unlucky enough to miss games against those decktypes). I'll have to see if I he remembers what the other two were.

Also, congrats to you John. I still wish I was ballsy enough to play that kinda rush.

Maester_LUke said:

If you don't mind me asking, why do you need to be ballsy to run noble rush? Seems like the safest type of rush to run.

It's not the noble rush that's ballsy. It's the Treaty Rush. Or the Treaty at all. For those of us who have been around since CCG days we were used to playing Treaty decks that needed 20 to win and your opponent still needed the standard 15. To a lot of us the idea of playing vs an opponent that only needs 10 power to win is outright terrifying.

Freerider said:

I was hoping you would say that.

For the record…. I have yet to lose a game that (had my opponent needed 15 to win) I would have won.

My opponents have gotten to 9 quite a few times, but they have never hit 10 when I was still challenging to win. I think its almost not a downside at all. It is SURELY better than me needing 20 to win.

Fieras said:

Freerider has the right of it, I think Noble Rush is fantastic, especially after seeing bloodycelt play it at GenCon 2 years ago. I guess I'm just a 10-power coward. But I like what your saying, and I need to get out of my comfort zone. I think I'm going to put it together (any changes with VM available?) and play it at our weekly meetup tonight, if only to work on my mindset.

Maester_LUke said:

I don't think so. Willas seems cool but I don't like the new stannis.

Additionally, you might look into playing the treaty to stark or GJ variants of the deck. They are pretty solid too.

Fieras said:

I don't think Willas wouldn't be that great in this deck, because he affects all participating martell characters, including yours. Though I guess the Viper wouldn't care too much.

I threw together a deck like this after you rocked it a calicon, it really is a ton of fun. Congrats on the win! Also, what do you think of using Obey the King instead of Distinct Mastery? I always liked the option to kneel an opposing character to push through that last challenge.

Funny - I personally use them both and Marya. Those two events and Paper shield pretty much wrap up my event slots.

Fieras" Why the Starks? i can see the GJ Treaty and its unopposed tech - but what are you getting from the Starks to hlp the rush? Eddard is already cheap for Baratheon - so they have other cheap nobles with renown?

Stag Lord said:

Narrow Seas reduce either Stark or Bara, and they have Robb which can boost all Lords! And the Blackfish. Catelyn also is another option to shore up intrigue weaknesses. Also no-shadows Sansa.

Stag Lord said:

This is essentially a response to all 3 of you.

Crevic: I had obey the king in there for a while. I just don't have enough event slots for it. Obey the king just targets less of my people. I could usually care less about kneeling theirs. I just think DM is usable on more of my characters.

Staglord: I don't like marya because she is hit by too many effects and also, people can prepare for her. I prefer the sneakiness. As for the starks, they essentially have Robb, Sansa, A slightly cheaper eddard, and if you want, widows watch and jeyne westerling. Catelyn is okay, but not an offensive card. I think its the weakest of the 3 variants for sure.

Dan: Can't use blackfish. He is stark only.

Fieras said:

Man, Erick really screwed up there.

It would have to be core set Catelyn. Jumping Cat is stark only. Core set Cat is good for this purpose anyway

AGoT DC Meta said:

Sadly, I think it's just a vestigial afterthought from an earlier Shadows possibility.