Those that take the time to read through this likely know me by now, so it goes without saying that most of you know I am a Stark fanatic. I have never played any other house card in a major tournament, though I may at some point just to mess with people. I build this deck shortly after losing in the top 4 at NY regional with my Stark/SoW deck that I love so much. The main thing that cost me wins was my lack of card advantage, and so this deck started out with At the Gate and Luwin. I just kept adding events(and riders of the red fork) until it felt like Luwin would constantly find cards for me. I have always liked knights, and the card advantage, sprinkled in some war crest and rolled with it. Deck list is up on both cardgamedb and agotcards.

Game 1 Vs Matt playing Baratheon KotHH

This game was over almost before it started, he was lucky enough to draw 2 copies of TLS at start so he kept his hand that was not overly great otherwise. The first turn I think he played TLS(duped), a card in shadows(black cells), and a refugee. My first plot was At the gates for luwin, and I had about half a dozen characters in play at the first turn. I was able to attack on military with greatjon umber or edmure tully I forget which. He killed his refugee, then i proceeded to no quarter his TLS, and Die by the sword his TLS. He was a great sport and played the rest of the game but after that first round he was really unable to do much, I think the only event he played was a firey kiss to bring back his TLS, who died again to a no quarter. I think he went on to go 1-3-1, extremely respectable for his first competative play ever!

1-0

Game 2 Vs DCDennis playing Martell Knights of the realm

Dennis and I sat at the same table for game 1 and laughed that we would end up being pared up at some point since we had the only knights of the realm agendas. Sure enough parings were announced and we were pared round 2. I had what was probably my best and most clutch set up all game, 5 cards with 2 knights and 3 income locations, he was unable to drop any knights at all. A few turns went by, I think the only time that we each drew 2 cards was on his valar turn, the rest of the time I drew 3 and he drew 1. He was a great sport about the game, and his highlight was probably being able to throw 2 burining on the sands to negate 2 of my challenges in 1 round. I believe the round before I was able to seductive promise his big house dayne army with renown. Dennis went on to go 4-1 with me his only loss, made the top 8 but I believe lost to Erick in the top 8 game.

2-0

Game 3 JR playing Baratheon Wildling

JR was playing a version of the same deck that won the French championship, with some personal changes. It seemed like a great game, and this was probably my toughest game of the day. I think he setup TLS and a few other cards, first turn he had Val+TLS and had played threat from the east first plot draw then discard. I was eventually able to kill Val with an event, I had to choose between Val and TLS, he had about 8 cards in hand at that point and 5 income locations out, so he could have used Val effectively without TLS. Even with the 3 rounds of card advantage my deck was sticking with him attack for attack. The highlight of this game for me, and possibly the entire tournament was for the first time ever I met the blackfish condition and I had him with 2 knights of the tumblestone not kneeling to attack! Time was called and I had 8 or 10 power to his 2, so I took the modified win and he took the modified loss. JR ended up going 4-1 and making the final table.

3-0

Game 4 Morgan playing Baratheon treaty with the south

I assumed I was going to see Art of seduction first turn, but I still felt like it was best to go get my riders of the red fork since I drew Luwin. I almost played retaliation for the 2 claim, since I knew she could win the game fast. Unfortunatly for her, she played first and had an amazing board, I know she had at least No shadow bob, no shadow KoF, king renly(4 str), edric storm and a refugee, orphan and house messenger. I was lucky that I had Meera in hand so that I could put a card in shadow to deal with their abilities. She made an intrigue challenge against me which I blocked with Greatjon Umber and Luwin to trigger his ability, and retrieved a die by the sword I believe. I realized then that I had forgotten that I needed Greatjon to trigger my No quarter, so I had to bring Meera out of shadows to use her and the riders of the red fork, playing kill events on bob and Kof. Third plot I had 2 kill events ready again, but she played power of blood, put out red viper with a dupe, eddard stark(noble cancel) and still had renly out. That round was pretty uneventful, but greatjon+frozen outpost was preventing her from winning any challenges and claiming renown. Forth plot I played forgotten plans to nullify her second power of blood, burned a nightmares on eddard to force her to use his cancel, and then was able to use 2 kill events on eddard and renly. From there it was just a matter of claiming 10 power. She finished 3-2, in 9th place 1 point of strength of schedule behind Dan.

4-0

Game 5 Gavin playing Baratheon Maesters

I finished my previous game early and got to watch Gavin play an epic game vs Martell Maesters, knowing that the winner of that game would be the only other undefeated player and be matched up against me in the 5th round. Gavin scared me because he had a ton of knights in his deck as well as the maesters and plenty of tricks to make me discard my card advantage. He started the game with a 3 card setup, including TLS and Maester Aemon. He said that he had a pre plot action and I said I did as well, he offered to give the first action to me, but I said lets flip for it. We rolled for it actually and he won so he knelt aemon to play citadel law and I assumed I was going to be down to 1 card in my hand before I even got an action… He actually revealed county favors so that we each drew 3 cards to draw cap me, then I played nightmares on his TLS to make our hands 10 vs10 so that he could not RBD me. Unfortunatly he also had a nightmares and he burnt it to keep me having more cards. I remember his RBD hit a lot of my zero cost locations because I knew my only chance would be to win challenges and target kill his maesters and TLS. The first few turns were back and forth, fairly even, but my constant 2 claim plots and card draw with Luwin, Harrenhal and knights won the day again, and was able to keep him on the defensive all game. He finished 4-1 and lost in the top 8 to a Martell Maester deck.

So at this point I was in the top 8 as the number 1 seed and fairly satisfied with how everything turned out.

Top 8 Matched up against Dan playing Targ KotHH

I had to mulligan an awful hand, 4 zero cost locations(2 limited) and 3 events, into 4 0-2 cost characters and 3 events. I knew that he would end up playing first snow, so I opened with forgotten plans and hoped for the best. I put out a blackfish(duped) first turn along with a knight of the tumblestone. He used dragon knight and flame kissed to kill the blackfish, went and searched for another flame kissed with red warlock. Second turn he had lady danys chambers out and was recycling his flame kissed and killing my characters almost as fast as I was killing his. At one point he building seasoned Meraxes and also played a summer encampment. The encampment protected his key characters from dying to military claim, but I was able to get some of them with 2 claim intrigue challenges. From about the 5th plot to the 8th plot I had, die by the sword, no quarter and seductive promise in hand, and he never played enough characters for me to be able to use them. He continued to burn almost everything i could throw down, and reduce my Knight draw to 2 and 1 a few times with his dragon knight. The game eventually went to time, but I was winning 13-4 and would have been able to play Brienne and Catelyn to ensure I could push a 2 claim power challenge through. Highlight of the game was the 8th plot he revealed Valar, I revealed At the gates to get my riders, I asked who was first and he said you go first, I was like sweet then I am triggering your plot first, he threw his head in his hands and said nooooo. He was like that is not what I meant, I meant to say I will go first and trigger your plot first. I laughed and put my riders in the dead pile, letting him go first. Probably my favorite part of game of throne, the players are often willing to let you switch something like that if nothing else has happened yet, even in a top 8 game!

I will add the top 4 games later.

Top 4 Erick Playing Martell Maesters

Martell Maesters was the top choice in decks I did not want to face off against going into the tournament, and honestly going against Erick had me feeling like I was in for a rough game. Erick does not have a great track record against the central, pa players though, losing to my wife at black friday, and to our other player at NY regionals, so he was sure it was my turn to put the hurt on. I would like to mention that Erick lost his first game, putting him against another 0-1 player the second round, turned out to be someone who just picked up a deck about 10 minutes before the tournament. I saw part of that game, Erick was playing his cards upside down so the other player could read them better, and also helping him throughout the game so props to him. Back to our game, first turn we both flipped At the Gates, i got Luwin and i believe he got a maester of the sun. After first round marshalling I think he had a maester of the sun, informed acolyte, orphan, house messenger and a carrion bird. I had Blackfish, Luwin, tumblestone, former champion(i think) carrion bird and a refugee. He orphaned luwin, then hit me with a cyvasse to kneel my orphan and put my carrion bird back to my hand. I was able to push through a military and trigger the blackfish. Second turn I had good board control, and Meera in shadows I popped her out to blank his carrion bird I think. He took away Luwins icon with the black iron link, but made the mistake of sending a carrion bird on a military challenge which I left go through, killed my orphan and triggered Meera to go back to shadows, he cancelled that with HCiT. When it was my turn I sent blackfish, luwin and a tumblestone on a power challenge, he was knelt out other than 1 maester of the sun, he left the power challenge go through and I tried to seductive promise his maester of the sun with 3 links on, he hit me with another HCiT. I still got to trigger luwin and got a No quarter. I pushed the military through with Meera and killed the maester. With no Valar in his deck, and me with complete board control he conceeded. One note is he had GG on setup and never drew a single noble character.

Final JR Playing Baratheon Wildling

So rematch against the wildling deck, with me being his only loss, and even that game if we would have had time to finish it could have gone either way. He had slight card advantage in the previous game with 3 turns of TLS+Val, but in this game he was not so lucky. He tried a mulligan of a 4 card set up to get TLS and hit himself with only a 2 card setup. One of the 2 was Val, but I had knights so I was already drawing more than him at this point. I know the people watching probably remember the game better than I did, I was just excited to receive the wooden house cards, and a second targ playmat for my wife. At one point one of the guys walked away, and the other guys said he is not gonna believe the board when he comes back. With no resets we were both clearing each others board almost every turn with 2 claim military challenges, first snow of winter at one point, and targeted kill. The turning point came on the third plot I believe, he revealed first snow, I should have seen it coming and almost cost me the game, the only characters I had left on the board were Luwin, Former champion(1 power on him) and greatjon umber. I also had a frozen outpost, and he had skinchanger, renly and the wildling horde. I had been trying to play out the round in my head, assuming he would military me, I would kill former champion, then win challenges with luwin and greatjon. For some reason right after he declared the military challenge I came to the realization that if he had a die by the sword and killed greatjon then I would be unable to get my 2 claim military challenge through to weaken his board, so I killed Luwin, and he did play the die by the sword on greatjon. He also hit my river row and outpost with a price of war. He thought he had me right where he wanted me, making a power challenge with renly, with a seductive promise in hand. After he declared the challenge I played narrow escape for the first time all day. He deliberated on it for awhile, with 6 or 7 cards in hand I figured there was no way he would pitch his hand to cancel, but he did. My former champion came through with the military challenge to hit 2 of his 3 characters on the military claim. Even with the rule by decree the following round forcing me to discard 6 cards, with my knights I was at too much of a card advantage for him to come back. That round he top decked 2 refugees, they both died to military claim, and either a no quarter or die by the sword killed the wildling horde. Overall it was a good game, but the 2 card setup and the narrow escape were both too much for him to overcome.

Props:

*DC guys for hosting an awesome tournament

*Shives and Darknoj convincing me to stick with the Stark Knights and helping me out with the deck from time to time

*Dan 2.0 for lending my wife 7 or 8 martell cards on short notice because we forgot to bring the deck that had them in to transfer them to hers

*Great play by all, and seeing a ton of new players, including 1 that is in the central, pa area right now(he had never played before the tournament)

*DCDennis for making top 8 with house dayne!

*Greatjon Umber+Frozen outpost…enough said

Slops

*The 2 million girl scouts that made the metro ride, and generally trying to move in DC a pain in the butt

*Everyone who still plays Maester decks, its basically cheating!

*Regroup and Narrow escape not helping me win many games all day, even though in play test they were both amazing.

i only lose to champions

Great Writeup, and Congrats on winning the DC Regionals, particualrly winning with Stark! I'm mostly a Stark player myself (I played Stark at Stahleck), but played Targ at my only regional of the season, just to see how I could do with a control deck.

SirDuck said:

Yeah, Thrones is like that - I remember how in my Top 32 game at Stahleck I let my opponnent go back and resolve his Time for Ravens properly (to get a Riders of the Red Fork), even though it was already halfway through my marshalling phase. I was playing in a Magic Draft the other night, and my opponent was harrying me to end my turn so I forgot to soulbond my creatures, and would not let me take it back even though there had been no actions taken in between. It left quite a sour taste in my mouth - and reminded my why I love the Thrones community.

Gratz agin SirDuck. Great victory.

congrats to Stark player.

Well done Sir. Glad to see you still playing Stark and getting the win with them. Represent PA

Congrats, Derek, on a great run!

As for the plot, in my head I was thinking "you go first to get your maester and so it dies to Valar." It was the logical move, but what came out was "You go first". Whatever happened, though, we both know it wouldn't have made a difference. Great game and great player! You're welcome in DC anytime.

AGoT DC Meta said:

hehe i disagree with the latter point because of the true former point. It's hard enough to win a game around here without adding stiffer competition ;P

Oh come on Dennis, I still haven't beaten you in a tournament when you were playing a deck that you had practiced with a good deal. Besides while winning is awesome, if you aren't playing against the best competition then that takes some of the fun out of it. I have fun every time I play against the good players from NY and DC, even when they destroy me which does happen. Besides since Dan hosts the tournaments his invite stands strong than your uninvite!

Congrats SirDuck! Winning in such a strong field and beating Bara Wildlings twice on the way is a momentous feat.

Can we all agree that Wildlings are officially back? Bara Wildlings won the French National and the Regional in Prague and made 2nd place in DC. And out of Stark they can't be much worse than out of Bara, if at all. Be afraid, you southern girly men. Be very afraid.

Ratatoskr said:

Not really back, he was playing the same deck that was posted from the previous championship.

Congrats Duck. I knew you were due to take home a trophy at one of these Regionals. Glad to see you do sow ell at a very competitive event.

dcdennis said:

Someone sounds salty.

It doesn't matter if he used a deck from a previous championship. If the same deck proved its worth in multiple tournaments, then it probably has some mettle. It might not mean that it is a tier 1 deck, but it does mean that people should be coming to tournaments prepared for it.

sWhiteboy said:

I do not think that JR did anything wrong in playing that deck because he was honest and up front that he took the idea and modified it slightly to fit his playstyle (as opposed to someone net decking and trying to take credit).

All I meant was that having 1 deck do well in two tournaments does not mean that a whole sub theme is now "Back".

dcdennis said:

In three, actually, but whatever. Let's see what the future brings.

I will agree that Wildling is a strong deck right now, especially out of Baratheon. I have tried it out of stark with marginal success, but honestly without the Val/TLS combo the card draw is not quite good enough to keep up with certain plays. The advantage out of stark is frozen outpost combos extremely well with the wildling horde. I also like Wildling out of greyjoy, all that stealth helps win challenges unopposed and the saves out of greyjoy help create card advantage.

Either way the first game I faced him having 3 turns of TLS+Val, was considerably more challenging than having no TLS the second game, even with Val. I do not feel like Val+TLS is broken, but I do feel like it is too strong.

SirDuck said:

Val/TLS/TftE IS too strong. They unrestricted it specifically to give bara some more strength to compete.

Even i agree the Val-TLS combo is too strong. TLS is fine on his own - but I have always had an issue with Val. I won't play the combo becuase its talentless and i think Val should probably be banned. i just don't think the game needs that kind of draw in a neutral card.

Like Duck says - its not broken, but its too easy.

Just errata TLS to say opponents card effects. that way you still have to discard from val and your own tfte but are free from int claim and RBD. done and done.

Congratulations Duck! Does this mean an end to Siege?!

dcdennis said:

Of course that works too - and I wouldn't shed a tear if ti came to pass…but is glossing over the bigger problem that val is a poorly conceived card that doesn't add a lot to the overall health fo the game. Neutral card draw has been a tricky issue in Thrones - both CCG and LCG over the years - and i would rather see her go for good. She is the latest example fo poor execution in neutral card draw.

INT claim would become vulnerable with said errata because it's not an opponents card effect, however we know what you are trying to accomplish.

Basically you want your hand to only be vulnerable to your own card effects.

Well, that is tough. I think she is approprietly 'costed' at her ability plus being restricted. The issue IMHO is the combo rather than the card, and combos by nature are weaker.

By herself she is a restricted card, so you can't run other restricted cards (duh). She has a draw mechanic, but there is a decent chance you get nothing or it changes your own strategy. For many houses, you use her in combonation with other, 'real' draw effects, further limiting her actual usefulness.

I would certainly rather see the erratta on TLS (which will bother Bara playtesters forever as printed) than further regulating Wildlings to the dustbins of history. And I am certainly not a 'neutral draw is good' sort of guy (it is supposed to be the strength of two houses).

Siege will never die Robb. I will always be a siege guy, but at this time it just is too weak against certain things, wildlings and lannister being the two that I have the most issues with. If stark gets some access to better draw options or characters that can bypass stealth then maybe it will be well rounded enough to compete against the top decks(and players.) I know there was at least 1 regional that was won by stark siege, which is part of the reason why I choose not to play it at DC, so it is still competative. It just has too many issues against a good deck that gets a strong setup, give me siege against any deck that sets up 2 or 3 cards and I'll probably win 90% of the time, but when a deck flops 6 or 7 cards that flips the scales a good deal. As much as I like the deck, the card draw that knights, luwin, harrenhall provide is amazing, not to mention the fact that I got tired of winning dominance every round and not claiming for it.