Calicon Joust Report (edited 11/10/12 to add decklist)
Stats
House Breakdowns further broken down into Agendas
1 Baratheon - 1 Knights of the Realm
7 Greyjoy - 3 No Agenda, 2 The Maester's Path, 1 Kings of Summer, 1 Kings of Winter
1 Lannister - 1 Kings of Winter
9 Martell - 3 No Agenda, 2 The Maester's Path, 1 Knights of the Hollow Hill, 3 Kings of Summer
2 Stark - 1 Knights of the Realm, 1 Siege of Winterfell
6 Targaryen - 4 Knights of the Hollow Hill, 1 No Agenda, 1 The Maester's Path
Agenda Breakdowns further broken down into Houses
7 No Agenda - 3 Greyjoy, 3 Martell, 1 Targaryen
4 Kings of Summer - 1 Greyjoy, 3 Martell
2 Kings of Winter - 1 Greyjoy, 1 Lannister
2 Knights of the Realm - 1 Baratheon, 1 Stark
4 Knights of the Hollow Hill - 1 Martell, 3 Targaryen
1 Siege of Winterfell - 1 Stark
5 The Maester's Path - 2 Greyjoy, 2 Martell, 1 Targaryen
Preface
Hi my name is Christian. For the joust, I ran Lannister Kings of Winter. I was the only Lannister out of the 26 players there. I can proudly say that I won the title of Calicon VI Lord Commander with a record of 9-0 and ended the first 5 rounds with 24 points.
Weeks ago I decided I didn't have the money to go to this event and told John Bruno that I would not be going because I didn't want to be a deadbeat and a mooch but he eventually convinced me to go and told me I could pay the flesh price (lol) for staying at his room for free. Later Ram and Norm offered to let me stay with them so long as I didn't take a bed and I ended up staying with them. However; if it were not for John Bruno I would not have even attended this tournament. So huge shoutout for John Bruno. Also huge shoutout for Michael Grugal for driving me, Jimmy Bagels, and Jasper to the event and back. Lastly, another huge shoutout for Lucas Sydlaske for running such an awesome event.
Oh and I will not be posting my decklist until at least after worlds. Even though I personally am not going to worlds I don't want people to netdeck my deck against my friends who will be going to worlds.
Decklist
Here is the decklist. This was my deck I played at Calicon. I've made a significant number of changes since then. I'm posting it now that I've been given John Bruno's approval since the Joust at Worlds already started.
House
: Lannister
Agenda
: Kings of Winter
Plots
A Time for Ravens
Rule by Decree
Valar Morghulis
Retaliation
Winds of Winter
Winter Festival
Men of Pride
Deck (60 total)
Attachments (4)
2 White Raven
2 Enslaved
Characters (29)
1 Qyburn
3 Mountain Refugee
3 Carrion Bird
2 Samwell Tarly
1 Tommen Baratheon
1 Penny
3 Lannisport Steward
3 Painted Dogs
1 Myrcella Lannister
3 Castellan of the Rock
3 Enemy Informer
1 Ser Aerys Oakheart
1 Chella
1 Shagga
1 Tyrion Lannister (LotR)
1 Timett
Events (11)
3 Paper Shield
3 You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf
2 Distraction
2 Dissension
1 A House Divided
Locations (16)
3 Goldroad
1 Flea Bottom
1 River Row
1 Street of Steel
1 Shadowblack Lane
1 Queen Cersei's Chambers
1 Inn of the Kneeling Man
1 Volantis Inn
3 Golden Tooth Mines
1 Lannisport Brothel
1 The Iron Throne
1 Lannisport Tourney Grounds
Rounds Report
Round 1
Opponent: Garret (his record: 3-2, 16 points total), Stark - Knights of the Realm
I've met Garret before at Kublacon where we were the only two guys playing Stark Shadows. He's a really amazing player and knows all the cards really well. This however, was the very first time I got to play with him. I don't recall him making a single mistake all game.
This was probably the second closest game I had all day and was by far the most complex game of my day. Garret outwitted my valar on turn 3 or so and we both flooded the board with all kinds of characters and there were several effects to take into account like painted dogs and frozen outposts. Garret even managed to nightmares my Lannisport Tourney Grounds for 3 turns straight and then finally frozen solid it. It was pretty close but I eventually was able to get a modified win with something like 12 to 8.
Had I been thinking clearly though and not been so nervous this first game I would have correctly remembered that the Men of Pride plot says all non unique characters lose all keywords and not all text. When time was called I was at 11 power and had Tyrion, Timett, and Painted dogs on the table as well as several other characters. I counted 10 str in power icons on my side and 11 on his side. I used Chella's ability after winning a military challenge to return his one frozen outpost to his hand. Even though I had planned earlier to use painted dogs to help win a 2 claim power challenge with Timett and other characters, my brain took a time out and thought for some reason that Men of Pride was Fortified Position and that my painted dogs was inactive. So instead I lost the power challenge and sat with 12 power or so by winning dominance.
In fact I could have used the painted dogs with inn of the kneeling man for 2 +4 str pumps because it was winter and Garrett had more cards in hand than I did because Chella returned the frozen outpost to his hand. If I had remembered correctly I would have won the 2 claim power to bring me to 13 and gained a power for Timett's renown putting me at 14 and was able to win an intrigue challenge with Tyrion bringing in my clansmen as well which he could not win with what was on the board and that would have put me at 15 with Timett's renown again. I realized my mistake immediately after the game but decided not to dwell on it and just learn from it and move on. This attitude served me well because this first game was the only game all day where I was at all nervous.
Round 2
Opponent: Kevin (his record: 3-2, 15 points total), Greyjoy - The Maester's Path
Kevin is also a phenomenal player. I'm pretty sure I also met him at Kublacon. I also do not recall Kevin ever making a mistake all game. Were we to ever play again I'm sure I would be at a severe disadvantage because he would know not to put his chains on a 2 cost maester and would probably rethink when I would play my valar. The mind games during the plot phase is so amazing in this game. This was quite possibly the closest game I had all day.
All I remember from this game was that Kevin got an insane early lead on me with something like 8 chains on Maester Murenmure. I knew at the beginning of the game, that because the only maesters he had out were 2 cost or less, and because I had two enslaved in hand, I just needed to bait him into putting tin link on one of his maesters along with other chains so I could steal the maester and take away his many chain advantages. So first turn I played white raven and like all TMP players usually will do, he grabbed copper link and tin link and put it on his maester (Murenmure) and discarded my white raven. No big deal I don't need it to be winter all that bad.
But then on turn two he went first and played Leyton the freaking bastard Hightower. At this point I couldn't play my enslaved on any maesters because they were all immune. Kevin over the next few turns got up to something like 12 power and I had to set up a way to kill Leyton Hightower, so on the 2nd or 3rd turn I used Chella's ability to bounce iron mines back to Kevin's hand hopefully telegraphing that I was about to valar. I knew he would think I would valar and I counted 6 cards in his hand so instead I played Rule by Decree the next turn which cannot be cancelled and luckily I was right and he played outwit. That set it up for me to return iron mines again to his hand and valar next turn killing Leyton Hightower along with everyone else except Kevin played a Risen from the sea on Maester Murenmure.
Earlier I had two copies of enslaved but he intrigued one copy out of my hand. I guess he thought I probably didn't have another one in my hand. So that turn I enslaved Murenmure with the 8 chains and just let him sit there for dominance because he had apprentice collar and risen from the sea and was at something like 11 strength. I didn't ever want to kneel him because he could still trigger the tin link on him to discard my enslaved. Also for those wondering he could not trigger his other chains in order to kneel him because although he does control cards like valyrian steel link he could not pay the cost to trigger them (kneel) because the character was no longer his. Next turn he valar'd to kill Murenmure and from then on he had no more chains on his agenda or on his characters and I was able to gain card advantage on him and win the game.
Looking back if I played valar on that one turn instead of rule by decree I would have very likely lost that game. God I hate Maesters and outwit!
Round 3
Opponent: Ben (his record: 2-3, 10 points total), Targaryen - Knights of the Hollow Hill
Ben is a great player who top 4'd at the Fresno Regional with another Lannister deck. I haven't seen him around for awhile but I was glad to finally see him playing thrones again. Ben had a terrible start and the winter choke was really hurting him. He had trouble paying for Rhaenys Hill over and over and he had to use The Hatching's Feast during a non-threat from the north turn in order to defend challenges. Eventually I played Winter Festival on plot 6 and gained 2 power and again on plot 8 to gain another 2 power and I still had two You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf in my hand when I was at 14 power. I knew he only had one card in his hand so he definitely couldn't paper shield both of them.
At the end Ben realized he had Meeren Tourney Grounds since the first turn and never used it all game. If he had it may have been a very different game. He was so mad at himself he almost flipped the table lol.
Round 4
Opponent: Chris (his record: 4-1, 20 points total), Martell - Kings of Summer
I've never really had much of an opportunity to play against Chris before this tournament but I knew he won the Fresno Regional I was at and that he knew how to play Martell because he played it at a lot of the tournaments. You can't be a bad player and win a Regional. He and Tiny both also have an AGOT podcast Summer is Coming, in addition they both write for the small council on cardgamedb for AGOT articles. So I knew he was a very serious competitive player.
Chris and Tiny to my knowledge both ran identical Martell Kings of Summer Decks and ended up in 2nd and 3rd place respectively, I'm not all that sure what happened in which games because I basically had to play against that deck 5 times. I remember there were at least 2 games where I had absolutely terrible flops and still somehow managed to win. There was even one or two games where it was either never winter or always summer and yet somehow I still managed to win. One of the reasons I built the Lannister Kings of Winter deck was because I tried building a Lannister Kings of Summer deck and realized it had a serious disadvantage against any kind of winter deck. Whereas the Kings of Winter really had no disadvantage against a summer deck (the penalty for my agenda triggered maybe once or twice the entire tournament and even then it was mitigated by a follow-up Rule by Decree).
One thing I noticed was that in all 5 games they both played Manning the City Walls first turn for Viper's Bannermen and were hellbent on drawing a billion cards early on, I didn't mind because they didn't have very many reducers or income locations to pay for it all (I guess they figured they didn't need it because it would be Summer - or they were extremely unlucky in all 5 games). I'd let them draw their billion cards and set it up for a turn 3 or 4 Rule by Decree.
In one game where I had a terrible flop I had Sam Tarly, Penny, and a Carrion bird as my flop and either Tiny or Chris (forgot who) also had a Sam on the flop. I didn't mind that we both played a bunch of ravens early because once their hand got to about 15 or so cards I played rule by decree. In each of the 5 games RBD ended up being totally huge against their decks. Then in each game I slowly gained card advantage over them with either making it winter and making them only draw 1 or with Golden Tooth Mines or with Tommen and Inn of the Kneeling man (drawing 2 per turn).
Another thing I noticed was that both of them after playing game of cyvasse would kneel their character even though I said whoa whoa wait there buddy and played paper shield. I don't know why they kept their characters knelt after my paper shield. The kneeling is part of the effect and not a cost. Were it a casual game I would have told them about their mistake but in a tournament it isn't my responsibility to play their cards for them. Anyway I don't think that would have mattered as it only happened twice in all 5 games.
In this matchup Lannisport Tourney Grounds, Volantis Inn, The Iron Throne and Lannisport Brothel were all huge. 3 of them had the ability to keep The Red Viper locked down and 1 of them potentially denied them card advantage as well as kneeling their characters (house messengers, flea bottom scavengers, the viper's bannermen, etc can all be boned by the iron throne). Also Men of Pride really hurt the deck because most of their characters lost vengeful during that turn. Additionally, enslaved was a complete money card in these games taking control of maesters of the sun or their carrion birds, or even their orphan of the greenbloods. A lot of times they had to return The Red Viper or Ariane Martell to hand just to liberate whatever I was enslaving. Eventually they couldn't handle the economy deficit and could not afford to ghaston grey over and over compared to what I put out.
In all 5 games I don't think any of the Viper's Bannermen ever got to participate in a single challenge because they were always knelt out by some card effect.
After the tournament Chris and Tiny told me that they had built my very deck about a month ago. Let me clarify that I know this to be a patently false statement. I know this is not true because Tiny showed me the decklist and probably more than 50% of the cards are different than the deck I ran at this tournament. Even if what they claimed were true (which it is not), the deck originally was posted on the FFG forums by jmccarthy ( http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=20&efcid=4&efidt=677442 ).
Actually the deck they had was jmccarthy's deck with a few changes to focus on a 1st turn Rule by Decree with cards like Battle of Blackwater Bay. Jmccarthy's deck and my deck in comparison only share 3/7 plots 37/60 cards (if you think about it that is an extremely small number of cards considering the decks ran the same house, agenda, and restricted card, and Just because they had a deck that ran Lannister with Kings of Winter does not mean that they made my deck. I actually took a few pointers from jmccarthy's deck so I will give him some credit, but mostly I built the deck out of my old clansmen deck that first ran KotHH, then second Kings of Summer, then eventually Kings of Winter.
Chris said they didn't run it at this tournament because they expected a lot of Targaryen and it was a terrible matchup for the deck. Actually I played Ben (again also another great player) and won pretty soundly and in between rounds I even played David Hopper (another phenomenal player) who also played Targaryen and won that game as well. So I don't think Targaryen is a bad a matchup for the deck I ran as they think it is. I even played John Bruno twice against his Targaryen KotHH deck before the tournament and went 1-1 against it before I made some changes and John is a World Champion and the best Thrones player that I know. Thus, further evidence that this was not the deck that they built "a month ago."
Round 5
Opponent: Tiny (his record: 4-1, 20 points total), Martell - Kings of Summer
Tiny is a great player who can sometimes succumb to what I'd call tournament jitters. By the way, I am not talking about this tournament when I talk about Tiny and tournament jitters I am referring to a story he told me when he attended his first tournament a long time ago. Let me further clarify that I am not saying he choked at this tournament because he didn't he got in 3rd place and his deck still got in 2nd place with Chris. Anyway I've played him multiple times on OCTGN and also in person and though he knows the cards he is human and sometimes makes mistakes because of anxiety especially during tournament games. We've all probably been there, I used to get these real bad, especially when I am tired. As a matter of fact this was the very first tournament where I didn't complain at all about my lack of sleep. Though I didn't sleep at all Thursday night I was able to get about 5 hours of quality sleep on Friday night something unheard of for me in a tournament setting.
Just goes to show that for me it was best to treat these tournaments like I treated taking the CA State Bar. Get lots of sleep, get a good breakfast, and whatever you do - do not panic! I learned actually a ton of strategies for managing my anxiety while I was studying for the Bar and amazingly enough they worked and I passed the Bar the first time (the CA Bar is supposed to be the toughest in the nation - sometimes argued 2nd toughest with NY State Bar). Just as amazing is the fact that all of these skills and strategies I acquired during taking the Bar translated almost directly into preparing for a tournament. Even little things like taking deep breaths and not dwelling on mistakes go a long way.
The thing I would have done differently had I been playing as Tiny is definitely not starting my first turn plot with Manning the City Walls as it basically sets himself up for a rule by decree the following turns. Although you get to play The Viper's Bannermen for free and essentially draw 2 cards and perhaps another 2 later, you only get 1 gold out of that plot and you will not be able to play all that much - especially so if it is winter. There were also a few times where he chose me to go first after winning initiative where it ended up being completely to his disadvantage and should have been apparent with the state of the board.
I think what must have happened was that Chris and Tiny playtested a lot and figured this was the best strategy in "all" games. I would say that this was a mistake against a deck like mine. Though I would hardly consider myself an expert, I believe one of the keys to success in a game like this is being able to adapt to a wide variety of unforeseen situations.
In my own testing I realized that whenever I won initiative I almost 100% of the time wanted to go second. However, last minute changes to my deck including putting in Lannisport Tourney Grounds and realizing that with two claim plots when my opponent doesn't have very many characters it is usually advantageous to go first - I realized this during my very first game of the tournament and decided to stop choosing to go second every time and assess the situation before automatically making up my mind.
Lastly, I'll add that during both my games against Tiny, he started the game off with the attitude that his deck had no chance against my deck because I ran winter - in fact he pretty much explicitly stated that at the beginning of both games. In my experience from various other games, I don't think this is the right attitude to have during a bad matchup. There were several different plays both Tiny and Chris could have made that could have drastically altered the state of the game. Instead when facing a bad matchup I think one should have the attitude that of trying to beat the player and not just the deck. As one famous man once said "it's the driver not the car." This can hold very true in AGOT.
For more See Round 4 above.
Round 6
Opponent: Greg (his record: 3-2, 15 points total), Greyjoy - Kings of Winter
I've never met Greg before this tournament but during the weekend we realized we were both big Warmachine buffs - particularly we both played Cygnar in Warmachine. Greg is the other lawyer in our group and so we had a lot to talk about other than just gaming. Greg is both a really great player and teacher as he taught us how to play Wiz Wars where I made John Bruno really mad by trolling him with some awesome cards. Greg ended up winning that Wiz Wars game but I had a ton of fun trolling John Bruno.
Greg was playing Greyjoy Choke. I had to mulligan because I knew I would lose this match if I didn't draw income/reducers for the flop and in my first hand I didn't. I mulliganed into a flea bottom, a river row, and a lannisport steward. Greg played burned and pillaged on my Lannisport Tourney Grounds on his first turn going first and for the rest of the game it was the only choke card he drew. I don't think he had a great start because that was the only choke card he played all game.
On the first plot we both played A Time for Ravens and we rolled dice for initiative. Greg won and decided to go first and made me show him what raven I was grabbing. I grabbed a carrion bird and he grabbed a white raven. Although I am running the Kings of Winter agenda my deck doesn't benefit a whole lot from it being winter. True there are a few cards that are better during winter or only work during winter - Inn of the Kneeling Man, Winds of Winter, Winter Festival, I knew I didn't want it to be winter against a Greyjoy Choke deck because that deck absolutely depends on it being winter.
First turn he had 2 Wintertime Marauders and I was able to win his military challenge against me with a carrion bird and painted dogs and inn of the kneeling man. I shuffled away his white raven and turned off his Marauders and from then on I steadily gained card advantage and eventually won.
Round 7
Opponent: Tiny (his record: 4-1, 20 points total), Martell - Kings of Summer
See Rounds 4/5 above. In short, I won.
Round 8
Opponent: Chris (his record: 4-1, 20 points total), Martell - Kings of Summer
This was the first game of the best of 3 for the finals round. In short, I won.
See Rounds 4/5 above.
Round 9
Opponent: Chris (his record: 4-1, 20 points total), Martell - Kings of Summer
This was the second game of the best of 3 for the finals round. In short, I won.
See Rounds 4/5 above.
Aftermath
After the tournament we had a great time celebrating and Norm managed to convince the Hotel to comp us a conference room for our afterparty. It was an unforgettable night of g-style dancing and resistance where I finally got to play a cylon! Anyway I drank enough to where I had trouble getting up for the builders event in the morning and instead slept in a bit. There's a video somewhere of me leading the g-style dance on the dance floor. I'm ashamed though because even though I'm Korean I realized only today that we were all doing it wrong.
All in all, what a legendary weekend! I am now placing my Lord Commander card over all of my house cards when I play thrones because you can see through it. So awesome.