GenCon 2012 Tournament Report
This was to be my first Gencon and first major AGOT tournament. I started playing the game in late January and played in two regionals, but none of these events were like Gencon. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Would the field be full of types like Bruno, Atkinson, and Benton, or would there be a lot of mid range players. I approached the event with the mindset that I wanted to make the top 16, but I was terrified that I would go 2-4.
Choosing a deck was actually quite difficult. I played GJ maesters in the first regional of the season and really liked the deck. However, with the upswing of Targ I was nervous about the fragility of Maesters Wendy and Murenmore. I played a broken Martell Maester deck at the Pasadena regional, but to be honest I don't really like the deck and assumed (and hoped) the nerf hammer was coming. While waiting on the FAQ we all knew had to come I tried out a ton of decks but none of them were as good as the Martell Maester deck. When the FAQ did finally arrive a mere two weeks before the event and nothing was done to my broken deck I realized I didn't have much chose but to play it. Sure I could no longer run narrow escape and search and detain, but I had already been trying to convince my playtesting partner that Narrow Escape was a win more card that we didn't need and Game of Thrones was a fine replacement for S and D.
So with 2 weeks left before the event I decided that I would run a slightly different of the Martell Maester Chris and I had run during the regional season. The FAQ altered the meta in a dramatic way. Suddenly duplicates were amazing again. So I upped my Red Vipers (POTS) to 3 and during my play testing, in any game where I duped him early I steamrolled my opponent. Also I experimented with adding a slew of cancels and found the deck to be amazing with them. With the upswing of armies the deck had to protect itself against cards like Seductive Promises stealing Conclaves.
2 days before the event I was able to convince Bruno to play the deck with promises of its greatness. He tested it a few times and suggested we add dissension. I was extremely hestitant as the deck was already at 61 and no cards could be removed. However, after a 4 hour flight I emerged from the plane realizing that dissension was exactly what the deck was missing. I had experimented with Blood for Blood as character removal was somehting the deck lacked. In the end it wasn't quite efficient enough and I started relying on the Copper Link and Arys Oakheart to take out the really annoying characters. By adding 2 Dissensions, the deck suddenly had 4 direct character removal cards which was absolutely key in a number of matchups.
Wednesday
I landed at midnight and the SoCal crew stayed up until about 5 am.
Thursday
Having the warmup start so late in the day was pure genius. I slept in and was ready to roll. I decided to play a Greyjoy Maester deck that was tweaked for the current meta. Since I was so afraid of Targ, I added the Citadel of Oldtown to save my maesters. I didn't run into any Targ decks and didn't really use the location either. So much for that meta tweak. The highlight of the tournament was playing and chatting with Greg Atkinson. After listening to what seems like hundreds of the 2 champs and endless chumps podcasts I feel as if Greg and I are long time friends. It was nice finally meeting him and finding him to be a really great guy. Plus I was able to beat him and add him to my list of former champs I have beaten. He was playing a fun deck and got a terrible flop, but that still didn't stop me from writing "Dear diary today I beat "the" Greg Atkinson. In the end it turns out I was the jerk who brought a maester event to the warmup and went undefeated.
I went 3-0 or 4-0 (I don't remember) and was excited to make the cut at my first event. I asked Nate what the cut was and he said what cut, its the warmup. You play some games and go home. So alrighty then I ended the warmup in a three way tie for undefeated first with my fellow SoCal brother James and Darknoj. On a lark Darknoj and I decided to play a game to see how our decks fared against each other. My deck crapped out and as usual Darknoj pummeled me. For some reason he just whips me every time we play, my guess is that it's because he's substantially better than me.
Friday - The Melee
So since the melee was on Friday we again stayed up all night having fun because well who cares about the melee. We convinced Bruno to play one round of the melee before heading off to his Ascension tournament. I got some advice about making my deck melee ready and ended up changing out a few plots. I decided to run my Martell Maester deck with no chains and a substantial change to the character base and events. It was a strong deck that could easily wrack up 10-15 power in one turn.
Exactly what I feared would happen is precisely what happened. I found myself actually wanting to win and getting very annoyed. I took 2nd at a 3 person table and then 3rd at a 4 person table, but hated every second of it. I'm quite competitive and really dislike not being able to control my destiny. I also struggle with properly manipulating less experienced players. In my second table the other 2 players were able to convince the less experienced player that I was sure to win this turn despite a Wildfire which obliterated my board and left a player with 10 power, 2 dragons, and Danny standing. Instead of trying to manipulate this individual in a better fashion than my opponents, I asked her if she was really intending on giftwrapping my opponent the victory by choosing him to go first. The other two skillfully manipulated her decision then made a deal and I promptly was dropped from 2nd to 3rd. I dropped after this game because I was very angry at everyone at my table and did not like this feeling. I don't play AGOT to have to beg someone to not screw me into third place. However, on the plane ride home I met an elite Magic player to whom I described the melee format. He looked at me and said sounds like a board game and I realized what melee really is, a not that good board game. With that knowledge in hand I think I will be able to tolerate the format more next year. While I still detest it, I won't get angry when I lose. Okay that's not true, but I will only get about as angry as when I lose at Clue.
Friday night was really fun for me. The team got serious and did a few hours of testing before the big joust event. We each played our decks and suggested potential changes. I was able to give my meta mates good suggestions for how to handle Martell Maesters and they were able to give some more insight on particular matchups. So we all came away with good information and headed to bed around 1. The only problem is I was like a little kid on Christmas eve and just couldn't sleep. Finally about 5 I fell asleep and went to the joust pretty groggy.
Saturday - The Joust - or The Only Game that Matters
Finally the joust was upon us. I had been obsessing over this event for at least a month. Since I will not be able to make worlds, this is my worlds.
W Greyjoy - Some Nice Guy - In my first game I played a nice lad who upon seeing my deck said oh neat I've never seen anyone play the Maester's Path. Then he said oh yeah I guess I didn't bring power counters and started looking a bit worried. I said "don't worry you won't need them." Then I realized while it was a true statement it was a bit rude and said you can use my gold counters as power counters. Not surprisingly the game was over rather quickly. However, I had some early jitters and was rather sleep deprived and forgot a chain. It was good that I made the mistake in the game as it didn't cost me. We talked for a while after the game about his deck choices such as changing to the new broken Asha.
W Stark Siege - Kyle - Kyle is one of the first players I met outside of my meta. After I had been playing about a week I joined Staton's online tournament. Kyle was a really cool guy and I've thought of him as one of my early mentors. It was great meeting him and he supplied me with one of my favorite moments of the weekend. Upon meeting me he looked at me and said huh, you are much less Asian than I thought you would be. I still have no idea what that means. Overall, I played this game well. Kyle started the game with a preplot Epic event which i was able to cancel with a paper shield. This was the beginning of the importance of the extra cancels I added. He put out a lot of stuff as did I. He made it winter and started trying to abuse Meera. He left 3 gold and planned on bouncing her. I won 2 challenges but didn't bother with military so she would have to stay on the board. I had a HCIT but I preferred not to have to use it. Then during marshalling I used the draw link to kneel the maester with the copper link, made Meera an ally, and discarded her and a refugee. It was a huge turning point as I no longer needed to worry about chains falling off. From there it was the normal pattern. Get out a bunch of renown guys and go bonkers.
L Dragon Maesters - Darknoj - John Andrews -. This was John's secret deck that he had tested against me before the event. The problem is he had been absolutely crushing me with it. However, I had seen the deck enough times to form a plan which I thought would be quite successful. The plan was to get HCIT for Baelerion's kneel effect, put out renown guys, and win on turn 3 with to the spears turn. The first part of the plan worked to perfection I got a HCIT in my opening hand and put out a few maesters. Then my plan blew up as I drew no good characters and he proceeded to put out a bunch of dragons and Danny. This led to him winning every military challenge and killing an extra character with Drogon every turn. It got ugly fast and he rolled me.
W Martell Maester - Chris S. - Before this round my playtesting partner and I were both 2-1 and looking forward to the next round. Then he said "it would be so terrible if we played this round." Of course when we looked at the sheet we were paired. This was a big game as whoever lost would fall to 2-2 and have to win out and hope for some luck to advance. Neither of us were happy about it. We were using the exact same decks so there would be no mystery in this game. It would probably come down to who drew the better cards. Luckily for me I drew a viper in my opening hand. I flopped some stuff, then on turn 1 I plopped down the viper. Chris shook his head in disgust and the game was over shortly thereafter. When this deck gets an early Viper it's very tough to overcome. He was able to get out an early Harmen Uller. I knew he packed a million cancels like me so I was hesitant to try and dissension him knowing it might be cancelled. I asked him how many cards he had. When he said 7 I knew it was a winning situation. Even if he cancelled my dissension he would have to kneel Uller to attack. So I played it and he cancelled it.
W Greyjoy Winter - Mike Skau - The pregame chat with Mike was very interesting. He informed me that he is a new player and didn't feel like he had a competitive deck. However, he was 3-1 so I was nervous. Then he told me that Bruno had just crushed him. I knew my deck handled GJ winter well and Bruno and I were playing the same decks so I felt pretty good when we started. I put out my chains and Mike said "hmm those are the exact same chains Bruno played." Although I beat Mike handily, he played the game very well. I was impressed with his command of his deck. He didn't forget any triggers including his winter agenda, which I always forget both when playing GJ winter and when playing against it. He finished 4-2 and made the top 16 so congrats to him for a very impressive performance. I don't remember a lot of details about this game except that this deck handles GJ winter quite well and it was a fairly uneventful win.
W Martell Maester - Jonathan Benton - So here I was sitting at 4-1. Win and I'm in, lose and most likely I'm out. I head on over to the list and nearly have a heart attack when I see I'm matched up with Benton. I've never spoken to Benton before but was well aware of his legendary status. Then when he put out his Martell Maester deck I thought I was cooked. A mirror matchup against someone with four times my own skill is not the ideal scenario. However, I put on my gameface and hoped for a good flop. Thankfully I got a very good flop and he did not. I proceeded to dump good characters on the table while he was unable to put much down. I'm aware that most people play Art of Seduction on the first turn so I had a tough decision. Should I play mine and cancel his, or wait until turn 3 and play mine. I decided that since I had a far superior position I would enhance it even more with another maester and then try to lock up the game on turns 3 and 4. Thankfully the plan worked. I was able to dissension his turn 1 Harmen Uller and take a commanding board position. I kept waiting for the Valar that never came and locked up the game with a turn 3 Art and a turn 4 To the Spears. Victory was mine and the top 16 awaited me.
Top 16
When the pairings came out I saw I was the 6 seed playing someone I had never heard of before. Doing some quick math I noted that I would be playing Ram if I could get by this opponent. I knew Ram was playing GJ Winter and we had played this matchup at the last regional of the season and I had won handily. Therefore, although Ram is a much better player than I, I felt great about my chances to get by him and sneak into the final four. However, before that I had to get by Cristobel one of the Chileans that came to Gencon. This game was proof that I'm still a newer player who simply hasn't been there before. I started the game with some jitters and made a huge mistake at the beginning which lost the game.
He was playing a Lanny Maester deck. I opened with Art of Seduction and stuck his At the Gates. This would give me a huge advantage. I dumped a bunch of characters on the board including a Conclave. He put out a few characters and a ton of locations. I noted that he had the Iron Throne but my nerves kicked in at that point and I basically forgot everything on the board. He attacked me with some random character and I blocked with the Conclave. Aware that he might have Writ Small I declared deadly. He kneels the Iron Throne, plays Writ Small, and kills the conclave. This mistake cost me the game. Moreover, although the deck was full of cancels, which had carried me all day, they never showed up in this game. A HCIT would have saved my terrible play. Next turn he gives my maester with the chains the ally trait and plays dissension. Again, no cancel is in my hand. Then he plays Qyburn and grabs the Conclave. So instead of having 2 turns in which I dominate Cristobel, my terrible blunder causes me to lose 2 turns. He uses these turns to solidify his position and by turn 4 the game is well in hand. I was (and continue to be) disgusted with myself. After a day of really good play I managed to throw it all away and scrub out with one terrible game ending blunder. It's a good lesson for anyone put in that new position of success. Take a breath, focus, and pretend it's just another game. Don't let the moment overwhelm you. Hopefully I can take this loss as a learning experience and do better next year. After the game I told Bruno what happened and he smiled and said it's your first Gencon it just wouldn't be right if you went much farther.
Well with the main event over I watched my meta mates and cheered them on. I hoped Bruno would bring home the trophy with our Martell Maester. Alas he did not, but I'll let him tell that story. However, Ram kept on rolling along into the finals. Unfortunately, I missed most of that game due to real life drama but in the end Dan was able to beat our man Ram. But in the end I would say Team SoCal had quite a good run putting 4 in the top 16 and having 2 more finish 17th and 18th. It's a honor to play with such a great bunch of guys. I don't think I've ever been associated with a group that is so talented and yet so wonderful to hand out with.
Highlights:
Hanging out with the SoCal gang. We spent most every waking moment together and I had a great time.
Meeting so many great people that I had either conversed with online or had listened to their podcasts. The whole Missouri crew is a bunch of great guys.
Beating 2 more world champs. I fully realize they are better players than I and that I got much better flops against both Benton and Atkinson. However, when you are still a new player any win is a win!
Lowlights:
Scrubbing out in the sweet 16. It took me hours before I done wanting to punch walls and days before I could write anything positive about the event.
Getting no swag for making the cut. After my embarrassing finish I sheepishly went over to the scorer's table and inquired as to what I would receive for scrubbing out. I was a bit stunned when the answer was you get nothing.
Hating melee sooooooo much. I'm still baffled that FFG forces melee to be competitive. I can't imagine playing Candy Land as part of an overall title, but yet here we are.
