What a great day and a great tournament!. Shout outs to Jonathan and the whole Kingsport crew for making us welcome. The numbers were a little under what we were hoping for at 17 players, but the room couldn't have held many more so we had just the right amount. There were several players that came in from out of town which was cool and I got to meet several new folks from the boards face to face.

I was playing a Stark Wildling deck that I had been working on all regional season. I played a version of the deck in Cincinatti and took 2nd place. I was contemplating playing another deck type and had a Bara Holy Deck and a Lannister Kneel deck in the works, but in the end just decided to keep to the Stark/Wildlings with some additional cards I had thought about since Cinci.

Round 1. CD Harris - Amuk - Lannister PBTT

Outside of the first round jitters, which I always get, I felt pretty confident in this match up. My deck has a ton of Intrigue in it (for a stark deck) and I felt that I woiuld consistently be able to draw or claim power off of his agenda. This proved to be true. However the game was not as easy as I had anticipated. The new Hugor Hill made a pretty big impact as my opponent was able to steal cards from my discard pile. He successfully swiped Brienne which locked down my event killing capacity for a couple of turns until my opponent was forced to kill her for claim. Mistakes made on both sides, but in the end I pulled it off.

1-0

Round 2. Gordon/Louisville - Stark/Knights

Gordon is a relatively new player, but he had a very tight deck and once he gets more familliar with the rules will be a force to be reckoned with. Stark Knights can be a tough matchup if I do not get some of my more beefy characters out early. I was able to do this though and I felt in control for the entire game. This helped me relax a little bit and enter "teach" mode where I helped Gordon out with some of the rules, things to think about etc.

2 - 0

Round 3. Jonathan Benton - Martel/Maesters

I knew my deck could beat a Maester deck. The key was just to kill every Maester I saw. I was concerned though, both with the quality of my opponent and with the fact that I had playtested with him extensively and he probably knew my deck as well as I did. Further complicated by the fact that he was playing a deck that he had not playtested against me. Mental note. Do all the quality players adopt this scheme? Anyway I had my strategy.. just kill his maesters.

Jonathan has a pretty solid board with ArchMaester Ebrose an Orphan, viper and a few others. Mine wasn't too bad either. A couple of wildlings and a horde. No direct kill in my hand though. Jonathan proceeds to use his orphan on my horde then plays narrow escape gets the orphan back (I'm not gonna ditch my hand for an orphan) and uses it again. Things quickly go downhill from there. Between the viper and ebrose he gets to 15 power quickly. Game over.

2 - 1

Round 4. Chris Perry - Martell/KotHH

My deck clicked this round and Chris' didn't. Due to the fact that he does not get a setup, I opened with Retaliation vs my traditional opening of At the Gates. I pretty much kept him pinned down and was able to use Seductive Promise to steal a Viper's Bannerman at an optimal time when he was trying to make a comeback. Basically Chris didn't get any of his control out and I was able to pull a victory.

3 - 1

Round 4 - Dennis - Martell/Summer

Tough match, but I felt Dennis was in control the whole time. I couldn't seem to draw a direct kill the entire game. Don't remember much about it other then I lost and that he had 2 He calls it Thinking on the Viper before it was over. I think he essentially won with the Viper in a traditional Martell sort of way.

3 - 2

I felt my strength of schedule was pretty strong and thought I should make the top 8, but with 3 - 2 you never know. Turns out the competition was pretty stiff that day and there were a lot of 3 -2. Dennis was the only undefeated deck with Jonathan 2nd at 4 -1. I made the top 8 cut in 4th right behind Nathan and his Targ deck.

Quater Finals matchup - Kyle Running Martell/Wildlings.

My initial thought was Martell , Martell, Martell, (spoken in that Jan Brady voice) all I'm going to see is Martell. I wasn't sure what to expect with this matchup as martell/wildlings is not a deck concept I have ever considered. Kyle had a truly unique deck with a ton of tricks. The new Red Viper was a beast in this game as well as the Pike Phalax out of house. The first 7 plots I felt like I was continuously behind and was just trying to dish out enough characters to withstand his onslaught of 2, 3 and occasionally 4 claim challenges. I was able to keep pretty close in power count though, usually just 1 or 2 behind. I think the game finally started to shift when I played Wildfire Assault. After wildfire, I had a board of 3 Hordes and 2 Frozen Outposts with Jumper Cat in hand. I drew my 3rd Frozen Outpost and then settled in for a long game of defense. I think the game when another 6 plots before I was able to secure the victory. I think the total was 21 - 18. Epic Battle. By far the longest and most intense game I had ever played in AGOT. Kudos to Kyle for an excellent deck and an awesome player. I'm excited to try out some of the tricks I saw in that deck.

Semi- Finals matchup - DC Dennis Martell/Summer

After a 2+ hour matchup against Kyle I was completely wiped. I asked Dennis if I could take 10 minutes to grab some caffeine. He graciously said no problem. I knew he had been waiting along time so I kept it quick, gulped down some caffeine and a couple of crackers and it was off to the races. Obviously I was concerned. Dennis was undefeated and had beat me in the swiss. This game turned out to be different though. I was able to build a solid board presence, and win a Military challenge with my carrion bird to turn off summer. We went through 7 plots and I was up to like 18 power. I figured his next plot would be a reset again. Fortunately I had Old Nan on the board. I played Outwit and knelt Old Nan to cancel the reset and went on to victory. Good game. Good Deck. Tough Opponent.

Finals Matchup - Chris Perry/KoTHH

Well I thought My matchup against Kyle was long. I'm not sure which was longer because the final matchhup was another 2 hour slugfest. Chris got his control going early in this game with plenty of cancels to deal with my direct kills or Red Vengeance to deal with my 2 claim plots. I was able to climb to 15 power, but couldn't seem to budge from there. Twice in a row, because yes we went through our plots at least twice, Chris would play a reset when I flopped At the Gates, thus I would go first and have to kill whoever I brought onto the board. The old adage. "Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me comes to mind… :-) "
In the end Chris is able to pull out the victory. Awesome deck. Awesome player. Chris's first regional championship and well deserved.

Thanks for reading.. I'll post my deck list in another thread.

Oh man that stung lol. Nothing like getting outwitted to end the tournament I'll add what I thought was the turning point of our matchup. I thought we had about equal board position but I had Viper and a Maester of the Sun out, so I preemptively valar'd to wipe your board and save my Viper, only to have you predict my move (i assume) and throw fortified position. Once Viper was gone you took over.

GG, revenge next year!

dcdennis said:

~You know what happens when you assume :-).

I don't think I anticipated the valar per se. I knew I just needed to shut the viper down for a turn or so, and fortified position was my only option. Funny, that plot was a last minute addition to deal with the Laughing Storm Threat from the East combo. I never saw laughing storm all day, but that plot was great in so many other situations.

dcdennis said:

But you can't save the PotS Viper with Maester of the Sun. TRV is immune to character abilities.

Ratatoskr said:

Yes, this was told to me afterwards as well. This was my first real foray into traditional Martell play.

Ratatoskr said:

DOH!

Like I said over at agotcards, I think this was the most fun game I'd ever played. I do actually think I could have pulled it out if I had played the Viper correctly early on. I was continuously worried about a No Quarter or Die by the Sword taking him out, so kept wanting to go first. That makes it so you can't really effectively use his ability. Doh. That Viper has to go in a deck that prefers to go second, that's for sure.

i used to watch WSOP on tv and call BS on the guys that said 'i don't even care about the money, i just want the bracelet'. i never really believed that was possible. but after coming 2nd in nyc and 6th in DC (thus obtaining all the swag that i could get from the prize packs) i completely understand where they are coming from. i didn't care about anything in tennessee except that trophy, and was so disappointed to come up an inch short once again.

in some ways though its a good thing. losing again has re-ignited my fire and motivation to try for the win (in the days since tennessee i have built 3 decks that i consider my most creative to date). it just stinks that i have to wait til next season to go for it. congrats to all who won this season. someday i shall be among your ranks, and oh how sweet it will taste!

Long day for you, Rob. I thought our Round 1 game was tough (and it was, for me ) but to 2+-hour games must've been brutal.

And while we both made mistakes, I don't think the result would've been different even if we'd both played perfectly (maybe if I'd ever drawn Cersei and not made mistakes). Your deck was just too good. Very nice to have met you.