I was ready to play lanni PBtT at the Portland regionals, but I lost my decks on an airplane. I had to scramble to build a deck at the last minute. So if you are wonding why I didn't include a certian card, it is probably because I don't have it. I read an Forgotten Plans article on card game db about Dothraki. I had already purchased a lot of the chapter packs from the Brotherhood Without Banners cycle, so I had a lot of the cards that I needed. I bought a few packs and hoped for the best.

Here is my declist:

House Targaryen
Agenda:
Heir to the Iron Throne
Plot:
Spending the Winter Stores
City of Soldiers
Muster the Realm
Wildfire Assault
Twist of Fate
Loyalty Money can Buy
Retaliation!
Character (33):
Ser Jorah Mormont(WLL) x1
Bloodrider x3
Randyl Tarly x1
Bitter Crone x2
Hired Swords x2
Jhogo(OSaS) x3
Aggo x2
Rakharo x3
Khal Drogo (QoD) x2
Horseback Archers x3
Daenerys Targaryen(GotC) x1
Blood-Crazed Screamer x3
Pike Phalanx x3
Daario Naharis (WLL) x2
Drogo's Horde x2
Location (14):
Kingsroad Fiefdom x3
Tempe of Graces x2
River Row x1
Ocean Road x1
Summer Sea x3
Eastern Fiefdoms x3
Lady Daenerys's Chambers x1
Attachment (5):
Aggo's Bow x2
Jhogo's Whip x2
Rakharo's Arakh x1
Event (8):
Deadly Khalasar x2
Maegi's Promise x2
Die by the Sword x2
The Price of War x2

I arrived at the regionals and found that there were 4 people entering. Here is the breakdown for the houses, agendas, ect.

Houses:

2 Greyjoy (1st and 4th places)

1 Targaryen (3rd place)

1 Stark (2nd place)

Agenda:

1 no agenda (4th place)

1 Heir to the Iron Throne (3rd place)

1 Kings of Summer (1st place)

1 Knights of the Realm (2nd place)

Lesson: Run an agenda

Restricted:

2 no restriced card (3rd and 4th places)

1 Narrow Escape (2nd place)

1 Fury of the Kracken (1st place)

lesson: use a restriced card

Round 1: vs. Greyjoy Kings of Summer

Okay, I was not expecting this. I was unable to get Pike Phalanx out the whole game. My opponent played fury of the kracken turn 1 and discarded one of my characters from play and kill one with a millitary challenge. Next turn, I was able to win a millitary challenge, but he had saves Tarle and iron cliffs. He also had great draw and a lot of gold, so he was more than able to keep up with my millitary challenges. He cancelled my Die by the sword and price of war with finger dance and to be a kracken. I was able to get bitter crone out, but it was too late to do any damage. He had about 8 characters out, and I lost pretty quickly.

result: 0-1

Round 2 vs. Greyjoy no agenda

I was not expecting this, either. This guy said that he was a Nedly player, and I think his deck was more than 60 cards. I was able to get Pike Phalanx out, and I kept smashing him with 3 claim millitary challenges. I ambushed Aggo's Bow in for extra kill, and I shut down his whole military system by putting Rakharo's Arakh on Drogo, giving him 8 str. I would have loved to search for 8 dothraki characters. The Jhogo Aggo and Rakharo effects helped a lot too.

result: 1-1

Round 3 vs. Stark Knights of the Realm

I was in control the first two turns. I got Phalanx and Blood crazed screamer out, and was able to clear his board with two 3 claim millitary challenges. He played Narrow Escape, I discarded my hand, and he followed up with another one. Great. All of my characters were knelt from military challenges, so he was able to kill my screamer with millitary claim and use Die by the Sword on Phalanx. He got Brienne out, and kept searching for events with Luwin, so my Dothraki effects were useless and he got a couple no quarters and went in for the win.

result: 1-2

Well, not so bad for my first regional, right? The Greyjoy summer player, the Stark player and I decided to stick around and play melee. The GJ player played Bara Wildlings with all three agendas, and the Stark player played Martell Maesters.

melee:

I was still playing Dothraki. The Bara player got the wildling horde out, so I targeted him. I had Phalanx and Rakharo with his arakh out, so as I smashed the Bara player with 3 claim attacks, Rakharo kept getting stronger. I was able to wipe out most of the Bara player's line up. Jhogo let me hit my draw cap, Rakharo discarded cards, and Aggo stole power. My Retaliation got arted, so I had a turn to attack the Martell player. I used Daario to discard Darkstar, and killed three characters with mil. claim. Rakharo nailed narrow escape (which he intended to play) and Aggo and Jhogo's effects kicked in. The Martell player valared, but I drew another Phalanx and Drogo. I was also able to play a weenie (bitter crone) and my opponents resigned.

Best cards that I used:

Pike Phalanx: 3 millitary claim is crazy. Period.

Blood-Crazed Screamer: how about two 3 claim millitary challenges? Also lets Aggo, Jhogo, and Rakharo's effects activate a second time.

Jhogo: Allowed me to hit my draw cap often.

Drogo: allowed me to search for the Dothraki I needed. War crest doesn't hurt either.

Aggo's Bow: allowed me to kill a character out of thin air

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken said:

Narrow Escape has an errata to be once per phase. So that match should have went differently if it's any consolation.

I showed up briefly to watch the final round (and to meet the "Greyjoy no agenda" player as he's also coming to the Portland Call of Cthulhu regional in a few weeks). I was quite surprised there were only 4 players. I knew that only 2 people had preregistered, but I had hoped there were more who would show up on game day. Apparently not.

I even toyed with the idea of buying a Core set and just entering for the fun of it - and to give you guys another person to play against - but I wasn't able to get to Guardian Games in time.

Also surprising is the fact that at least 2 of the players weren't from Portland. The "Greyjoy Summer" player flew up from Sacramento, and the other Greyjoy player drove down from Spokane. Crazy!

Is there an active AGoT community in Portland? I wonder why GG decided to host the regional championship and yet few attended?

If you only need 4 people for a Regional, then eastern North Carolina needs to host a regional. We have around 10 people (not always the same people) at each of our meet-ups (three times each month).

On topic. That sucks about your deck getting lost.

Too bad as well. When the game first started, Rainy Day Games had the first year's regional and it was very well attended (2003?). A few other Pac NW regionals have been in Portland over the years (or Vancouver, WA) before I started doing them in Seattle. At one point, there was a decent meta out of there (Binder and Dave even made GenCon the year Luke Reed won it).

I called up there since I was in Portland that week and it originally was dated on Wednesday so I could have made it. Obviously that was a mistake, and it wasn't until Saturday so I couldn't go. However, they seemed very 'just doing it to see who shows up' and they said they didn't have a big playgroup but were hoping to make it bigger (props to them for trying).

Did the GJ player win (Brooks, TheKingg)? Maybe I just missed that…

Wow. You lost your deck on the plane??? That's awful!

~Were there any Pit Viper's on the plane with Samuel L. Jackson? Did you hear him say: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"

rings said:

It did seem like a laid-back affair, which I think is unfortunate as it could've been bigger and helped grow the local AGoT community.

When only 2 out of the 4 players are actually from Portland, it shows you that no one who plays AGoT here even knew about. The $20 entry fee was also too steep in my opinion. It's hard to justify spending that kind of money just to play when you're first starting out. For beginners, I can understand that buying more cards feels like a better investment than getting repeatedly beaten at a tournament, so only the hardcore players show up. In the end, that doesn't do much for the local base.

As the Tournament Organizer for Guardian Game's Call of Cthulhu regional championship, I've been working hard for the last two months to up our attendance by holding demo days, handing out free cards to those who try the game, giving away goodies to those who preregister, and designing and putting up custom fliers announcing the event. I also lobbied to have the entry fee lowered to $10. I told the owner that my ultimate goal was to gather as many CoC players in one place as possible, get their contact info, and then start a monthly league night. Plus, I wanted to focus on new players, which benefits the store as they still have cards to buy. She liked my idea and decided to take a risk.

So far the effort and the risk has paid off - we have 16 preregistered and 8 more "possibles". That's not bad for a game that everyone told me over and over again no one plays in Portland, and had no established community prior to April. The best part, in my opinion, is that 5 of those 16 are brand new to the game and came aboard after attending a demo.

None of that was done for the AGoT regionals, probably because they didn't have someone to champion the event. However, it does illustrate what a little legwork can do to grow a game's popularity.

Yipe said:

This is what it takes to grow a meta. Well done.

rings said:

Yeah, he won. Sorry about not making that clear.

Yipe said:

considering the prize package cost the venue $150 dollars, you are lucky it wasn't more. I bet you got way more than 20 dollars worth of prize support.

Great write up, Unbowed. I was the Stark player and have to say our matchup was an epic game, probably one of my favorite matches ever of playing AGoT. It was a little disappointing to have there be only four players, but am glad you showed up to represent Portland (I came down from Seattle, another guy from Spokane, and another guy from Sacramento). Guardian Games was a great host and is one of my favorite game stores, I always make sure to stop by when I'm in Portland. The staff was very friendly (and Yipe you'll be glad to know they put in a good word for the Cthulhu regional) and I even found copies of the War of Five Kings and Ancient Enemies Chapter Packs which I was missing. I think the main reason for the small turnout, besides the lack of a meta, was the lack of advertising, I only knew about it because I went to the original FFG Regionals announcement to see if there was one in Seattle coming up. But I never saw an announcement or further promotion on these boards or on CardGameDB.com.

It was quite a match between Unbowed and I. My Stark knights started off slow against the Dothraki, as Unbowed began to play his unique Dothraki characters and quickly built off the synergy of their Dothraki response abilities. The Dothraki horde swept in from the east and engaged in wholesale slaughter of the northern Stark forces. The Phalanx came in to up the claim, and the Blood Crazed Screamer added to the massacre, with Stark forces dying left and right. Maester Luwin tried to rally the Stark forces with intrigue counterattacks that sometimes resulted in additional events being drawn, but as my deck was built on killing an opponent fast, things were certainly looking grim seeing as I was the one doing all the dying.

On turn two or three, I played Narrow Escape to stave off defeat, but Unbowed chucked his hand of 6-7 cards and had my board nearly wiped, with only Luwin and a knight remaining. Still, that Knight and Luwin were clutch, as they helped me maintain my draw advantage, pulling some more knights and another Narrow Escape on the next turn. I hoped that Unbowed would play out his two cards and he did, allowing me to sustain another attack, play a guaranteed Narrow Escape, and launch a withering two-claim counterattack with No Quarter. I was still at a disadvantage, but the second Narrow Escape + counterattack + No Quarter was probably what saved the game for me.

I received further luck in the form of then drawing Brienne right as I was coming close to achieving board parity, and used her to single-handedly fend off a Dothraki military challenge and block their response triggers, which would have been insane and likely game-winning at that point.

For those of you who read the novels, I also solved the mystery of who Azor Ahai Reborn is: Ser Kyle Condon, savior of the Stark forces, who died and was resurrected almost every single round and kept those 3 claim military challenges from completely wiping me out.

It was a struggle to crawl back from the devastation my knights had suffered in the first few turns at the hands of the Phalanx and the Dothraki leaders. Key cards were Kyle Condon who helped me always keep a knight in play, Luwin who helped me draw into all my key events (and turned my weak spot of intrigue into my sole strength the first few rounds), and Brienne who helped fend off the Dothraki from getting too powerful with their response actions. By the sixth plot, we were each down to five characters or so, and had a good laugh when we each played Wildfire Assault. I think we both played it proactively, each expecting to bounce back by the seventh plot. I had the Blackfish out though and once he hit three renown, I was able to throw enough challenges with him that I squeaked out the win.

It was a great game Unbowed, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. You have a great command of the game and its rules, and I learned a lot playing against you. Good luck building up the Portland meta. Sucks that you lost your cards, your deck was fierce, I can only imagine how much more devastating your first choice deck would have been…

Fieras said:

The 4 players in the tournament surely did - I wasn't participating. I just came down to watch for a bit and see how many people showed up. I had checked with the Guardian Games staff a few days prior and they said only 2 players had preregistered. I was hoping at least 5-6 more would show up so they wouldn't lose too much money on the event (as the CoC T.O. I'm fully aware of the prize package's cost). This was their first time hosting an official FFG regional championship and I wanted it to go well so they would be inclined to host more next year (like Warhammer: Invasion). Sadly, that didn't happen.

To be clear, I'm not disparaging GG in anyway. They are an awesome game store, with a dedicated, friendly staff. I play there, and more importantly, I shop there. I feel bad that the AGoT tourney wasn't more of a success for them, but obviously something went wrong. After reading this thread it appears only 1 player from the entire Portland-metro area entered the regional championship. Portland isn't a big city, but there have to be more AGoT players in town than that!

I still think $20 is pricey to enter an LCG tournament - I know it would make me think twice. That's not to say the prizes offered by FFG aren't incredible, but that level of buy-in is undoubtedly a roadblock for beginners. As a game store, I would imagine it's those players in particular you want to attract as they have yet to buy everything. Why not set the entry fee as low as possible to hook a wider audience and make your money back on future sales? Or use the prize package as a loss leader to start up a monthly league night? GG even has a secret weapon - a bar in the back where the big kids can play. You can't tell me friendly competition + alcohol wouldn't result in a few impulse card buys on league night. Trust me, I've seen it happen during our CoC demos.

In the end, perhaps it has more to do with a failing on FFG's part for making the prize packages so expensive, but that's another topic all together and I've already derailed this thread more than enough. Who knows, maybe by next year GG will host again and I'll actually have a playable deck so I can enter the tournament (with hopes of winning one of those awesome game mats).

I'll wrap up by saying it was very nice to chat with the "Greyjoy Summer" and "Greyjoy No Agenda" player as they wound down their final game. And congratulations to the champion!

My Stark Knights deck list is now up at CardGameDB. Though I put Myrcella in the deck, to cover the weak areas of a lack of intrigue and a lack of stealth, not once did I even draw her into my hand.

Good write up Unbowed! I wish I could have afforded to fly up with Brooks (thekingg21) from Sacramento to play. He had only good things to say about you. And if ever in Sacramento, the Mafia's doors are always open!

A number of months late, its unfortunate to learn that portland had a regional tournament at GG, where I frequent, without me knowing. I started playing about a year ago with two other friends and we havent been able to find any agot organization. If we had known, that would have been +3. I guess all I can hope is that next year the advertising is taken seriously.