On October 26-27 in Bloomington, IL, I'll be running a pair of events at FlatCon, our local gaming convention.

Friday evening will be an open demo, with 2-Core-Set pre-built decks.
Saturday evening will be a Clash of Kings tournament, as designed by FFG and played at Days of Ice & Fire 2012.

Each player plays on behalf of one of the six great houses, and the players of each house are paired up to face off against rival armies in a series of 2v2 co-op joust games.

Each match between house armies is waged at any of several major locations throughout Westeros, each with its own unique game effects. For example:

The Wall : Unless the Black Raven is in play, it is Winter.
Highgarden : The draw cap is equal to the first player’s initiative each round.
Oldtown : When a player wins an Intrigue challenge, that player may randomly discard from an opponent’s plot deck to the used pile instead of normal claim.

Each location is worth a certain number of points, and at the end of three rounds, whichever house controls the most points' worth of locations seizes the Iron Throne and rules the Seven Kingdoms. Progress from round to round will be tracked on a large, full-color Westeros wall map.

Official FFG Prize Support is offered to winners and participants, including playmats, custom deckboxes, custom tokens, and custom House Card sets.

If you're within a few hours' drive of central Illinois, hope to see you there! Admission to the Clash of Kings event is $5 in addition to convention badge cost, and all proceeds collected beyond my costs for prizes and printing will be donated to Gamers For The Cure.

For more details see www.flatcon.com or email me at [email protected] .

(Special thanks to Stuart Wilson and Mark Larson of FFG for all their assistance in helping me set up this event!)

i am so confused.

Sample play through, assuming 24 players:

Stark: Sam+Sarah, Scott+Simon

Lannister: Leah+Lester, Larry +Leon

Greyjoy: George+Gina, Geoff+Gary

Targaryen: Tom+Terry, Topher+Tim.

Martell: Mark+Mary, Mike+Morris

Baratheon: Bob+Barry, Boris+Barbara

Round 1:

Stark v. Greyjoy @ The Wall (Winner: Greyjoy, 4 pts)

Stark v. Greyjoy @ Pyke (Winner: Greyjoy, 3 pts)

Lannister v. Martell @ King's Landing (Winner: Lannister, 6 pts)

Lannister v. Martell @ Sunspear (Winner: Martell, 3 pts)

Targaryen v. Baratheon @ Harrenhal (Winner: Baratheon, 5 pts)

Targaryen v Baratheon @ Summer Sea (Winner: Baratheon, 3 pts.)

So at the end of round 1:
Baratheon leads with 11 points of locations under their control (Since Storm's End starts under their control for 3 points.),
Lannister next with 9, (6 for King's Landing and 3 for Casterly Rock, their home locale)
Greyjoy next with 7 (Pyke and The Wall).
Martell holds onto Sunspear for a total of 3 pts.
Stark didn't have to fight for Winterfell, so they still have 3 pts.
Targaryen lost its starting location and the Neutral location, so they have zero points.

Next round a new set of locations will be contested. Baratheon and Lannister will be matched, Greyjoy will fight whoever scored the most total Power during round 1 between Martell and Stark, and the other will fight Targaryen. After three rounds, whichever house has the most points worth of locations, wins the tournament. It's a lot of fun because, as noted, each location has different game effects and you're playing on 2-person teams against other 2-person teams, so it is a novel play experience on several levels.

It's also worth noting that the house affiliation you're playing for need not dictate the deck you're building. You can play a Martell Icon Control deck and represent Lannister for scoring purposes, it doesn't matter.

I'm curious to see what the ramifications of each variable are. It's an interesting little mini-experiment. What decks are going to benefit when the gold curve is lower? What decks are going to benefit when they don't discard cards to intrigue challenges. What decks are going to benefit with the modified draw cap? You might even want to check the initiative values for that if you do a tourney report. See which decks benefited from raised draw caps and which benefitted from lower draw caps.

Also, Stuart is awesome. LoL.

Clarification needed:

Update: To avoid any confusion: Decks should be compliant with FAQ 3.4 Melee Restricted list. I know described them as 2v2 Joust, but that was for flavor; technically you do have more than one opponent.

I am interested in this event for Saturday event. How many are coming, roughly?

ZiM946 said:

/checks crystal ball. 23.

Are team pairings random? will they be changed each match? Will there be time to evaluate partner deck?

Great! I know we have enough just from the local meta to have it get rolling, and I've cross promoted it enough places I hope to have more come in from outside the immediate area.

Players will be initially assigned based on their deck choice, but this is not set in stone. If I get 12 players and three of them are running Lannister, then one of them will be a "sellsword" to another House's armies. I'll take volunteers or decide randomly, I'm not particular.

Since it's 3 rounds of play, we will be rotating partners so that each player is paired with a different member of their team each time.

Another wrinkle, and one thing which I think makes the event fun and interesting in addition to the various Location Effects, is that partners actually merge their Plot decks into a single seven-card deck, which one of them will control as "Captain." Plots played will provide their gold/initiative/claim to both partners as though they owned it, but the Captain will designate which of them enjoys the benefit of any "When Revealed" effects.

This means that huddling up with your teammate before the match is essential. Partners are welcome to discuss strategy and intentions such as "I like to play At The Gates if I don't get Maester Wendamyr on Setup," or "for the love of god don't drop Balerion when I have four Influence standing" (HI DAMON!) but once the game begins all table talk will be out in the open. When turn 3 rolls around you're welcome to tell your partner that Valar would be a great idea, but your opponents can then react accordingly. (no dugout-to-pitcher signals either, I will thwap you =)

Put two on your list coming from the north- what time should we get there to safely discuss rules, structure and register? I was thinking about leaving Chicago around 10am Saturday…

The event is 2-6 so that should have you here in plenty of time.

They did this thing at Days
Focused Offense was the winner