Figure I’ll post a report since I made the top 16. I wasn’t even planning on playing the joust event b/c I thought my build wasn’t competitive; it’s basically the same thing I ran at Regionals with 4 cards changed. I did make the cut for Regionals with it but got knocked out after the first game and I could see some glaring weaknesses in the build (among other problems, Martell Maesters owns me unless I can get Meera pretty quickly). Glad I changed my mind and gave it a shot, I figured I would be 1-3 or 2-2 after four games and I’d just drop then, I never really imagined I’d make the top 16. At the cut I was in 14th, not sure where I placed when all was said and done, maybe bumped to 15th or 16th if there was an upset in the first round after the cut. So without further ado, the summary:

Stark Shadows
Kings of Winter
Restricted: Fear of Winter

1. Bara – No Agenda (Shireen maybe?) - Justin Fitzgerald
He started off with Shyra Errol, the new Stannis and some chump for claim soak; I had a pretty good setup and quickly made it Winter but there are no Kings in my deck to shut Stannis down so he began to amass power pretty quickly. I kept killing his guys since I have a bunch of Stealth and Deadly in my build but I just couldn’t get rid of Stannis; eventually I killed off some House Florent Scouts and got rid of the dupe on Stannis. At that point he had 14 power and about half of it was on Stannis, so I went ahead and played the Valar, expecting him to counter with Power of Blood; he didn’t, I had reinforcements in Shadows and my hand was pretty full since he hadn’t hit me with I challenges so I was able to recover pretty quickly and get the win.
1-0

2. Bara - KotHH - Amanda Eagle
I had a great setup with loads of weenies and went straight to FoW, intending to just go first and play Damon Dance-For-Me if First Snow came out; she just played Smugglers Cove, I got all 3 challenges for some unopposed and scouted her hand with Ghost of High Heart. Since I was way ahead on board position I played Minstrels Muse in Round 2, Meera droped a Bodyguard off her no-shadows Knight of Flowers leaving him all by himself with a couple of Attachments after I pushed 3 more unopposed with Stealth; made sure to win Dominance for the power grab. Duped Ser Eldon showed up in Round 3 but I knew he was coming (thanks Ghost) and Meera took care of him and KoF, with Winds of Winter giving me the win. Spent a bit of time talking to Amanda and her husband after the game, I love how nice and friendly everyone I meet is!
2-0

3. Stark - Knights of the Realm - Justin Fox
A pretty standard back and forth between two Stark decks; similar setups, I pulled a Raven right away and played it, had a bunch of 2-cost guys in my hand, Arya in shadows and 2 weenies on the board and said done Marshalling with the 3 remaining gold unused. He seemed pretty confused, I could almost see him running through the list of Stark and Neutral shadows cards in his head, wondering what I could be saving all the gold for. Spent one on Arya and made sure to quickly lose a challenge, allowing me to spend the other two on Winter Reserves, beefing my position up substantially. I made sure to block his Luwin every time and went after his hand as much as I could, but he kept blanking my Arya with his Meera which meant I actually had to satisfy claim. Winds of Winter then Loyalty Money Can Buy vs his back to back Power of Arms, with me winning Initiative and going first each time. Meera finally showed up for me too, blanked his Meera once before he murdered Meera and my blanked Arya with kill events. Board position looked bad but he only had two cards in hand vs my five (with three decent characters) so I took a chance and blew everything away with Valar; he could only play a duped Bear Island which would have been really bad for me with all the neutral guys I'm using, but I had just drawn a Frozen Solid and I got ridiculous-STR Silent Sisters out and took the unopposed. He conceded next Round after I started flooding the board again.
3-0

4. Martell - MP - John Bruno
After winning my first three I knew I would be hitting the top players, but Bruno running a tier-1 deck which I'm weak against was going to be really, really bad. I mulliganed into a bad flop (Meera, Arya, Carrion Bird) and pulled a Raven; he had a three or four card setup with TRV and I knew I was screwed. Meera got his only 2 Maesters right away but he pulled an AC, Tin and Copper and trashed my Raven, nothing I could do. Round 3 To The Spears! finished it off with 3 Renown guys rolling over me.
3-1

5. Martell - MP - Tiny Grimes
Whew, paired down… oh god another Martell MP deck! Not a great setup again but better than last time. Round 1 Winter again, waited until AC and Tin had come out and blanked the Maester and AC so they dropped off - no more Raven shenanigans. Kings of Winter got him a few times but his board position was quickly better and I ended up in a bad place - he had Art of Seduction, and if I didnt Valar I probably wouldnt last the Round, but if I somehow did survive then I would need to Valar the following Round, so playing Art gives him the win no matter how I play it. I cleared the board and he easily recovered and took the game.
3-2

6. Lannister - PBtT - Podcast guy whose name I cant remember (sorry, brain starts shutting down and focusing only on AGoT after so many matches)
PBtT is almost a foregone conclusion for me - just mulligan for no-Intrigue Cat, hope for a shadows card along with her and find my Raven. Six card flop put Cat into my hand but I couldnt afford to get all three pieces out in Round 1; I had shadows cards, but with only a single copy of Cat and the Raven in my hand and two Intrigue challenges coming my way I decided to play Cat and the Raven, at which point he offered to concede if I got a card into shadows. His setup was huge and he went first and flooded a ton of I guys with some gold bonuses so I flooded a ton of stuff too… battle of the weenies! Intrigue challenge pulled KL out of my hand; he had played Breaking and Entering and I had no KL locations in play, so he got to abuse it a few times before I got a Frozen Solid. Thankfully I beat him in I first Round to trigger the card draw and by Round 2 I had drawn a shadows cards and a dupe for Cat. We played it out and Cat pretty much handed me the win. He was a really good sport about it despite knowing from Round 1 that Cat doomed his build.
4-2

My record doesn’t guarantee me a spot, but strength of schedule should help me out since my only losses were to 2 decks I knew had made the cut and I had a win vs Justin who I was pretty sure had made the cut… waiting with fingers crossed for the announcement… 14th place!

1. Greyjoy - Kings of Winter - Ramsea
A great match, and Winter vs Winter! Six Rounds and no Winter. I flopped Meera, weenies and a gold location, he got Iron Mines, Street, Bay of Ice, Ice Fisherman and Baelor. Having no idea what plot he would play I went with Minstrels Muse to get the BoI card, figuring the card swing could be a game decider; he played Time for Ravens and picked a Carrion Bird after much deliberation. Played more weenies, Frozen Solid his Iron Mine, he played more discount and Iron Cliffs, Burned and Pillaged my gold producer (the only discount I got the whole game). No Winter. Got an Ally with Varys, leaving him with just the Fisherman and duped Baelor - I got two unnoposed, he killed fisherman and I won Dominance, putting me at 6 power. Round 2 I went with FoW because I had serious board control and virtually no characters left in my hand. He played Valar, not surprising but I really needed to delay for a Round or two and hope to get some guys… he got an LIV out and I Froze his Iron Cliffs. Round 3 he played FoW and I blew up another Iron Mines with a Pyro Apprentice, still didn’t get characters. As the game progressed I got Reek and stole his duped Baelor, Valared when he had too much control for my liking (River Blockade, Alannys, Murenmure) and eventually just couldn't keep up; he discarded his own Frozen Iron Mines with a Newly Made Lord (I had no non-Limited Locations) just to get him into play. Last Round he Nightmared my Bird’s Stealth, I tried a Paper Shield and he threw one right back, at which point I conceded the game since unopposed was going to get him the win.
We talked about the lack of Winter afterward – he said he knew the power of Stark Winter and didn’t want me to get the benefits, whereas I know GJ choke pretty well and didn’t want to turn on his card effects and choke myself when I only had one discount location out the whole game… also, Marauders make me nervous since I was running a lot of non-uniques.

Even with the first round elimination I’m really happy just to have made the cut, a big improvement over last year when I went 3-3 and ended up squarely in the middle of the rankings. Speaking for the whole Cincinnati meta, we’re really happy with our performance – four of us went and two made the cut in melee, two made the cut in joust! For me GenCon also reinforced the fact that playing outside of your meta can really impact your deck; a few cards that had made a big difference in the deck earlier in the year were almost useless this time; one of them had saved me multiple times in Regionals games and I would still cut it now.
Everyone I played was nice and friendly, it was great to see the guys from Chicago (where were you Luigi?) and everyone else I had met last year, as well as getting to meet in person some of the guys I see on the forums a lot.
Thanks to ktom and Nate for TOing, look forward to seeing you all again next year!