Hey my name is Steven and I'd like to provide a short Worlds recap.

I just started playing thrones in August, but learned quickly under the tutelage of three time world champion Erick Butzlaff. Dan Ack should also get some credit for helping me prepare. My favorite card is Northern Cavalry Flank, so I ran three of those in my joust deck.

I'll skip the Swiss portion of joust (I went 5 and 1, the spanish champ thrashed me one game) and get right into my top 16 recap:

Game 1: Stark Winter (me) v. Targ no agenda (Matthieu)

Matthieu is a pretty svelt dude. I enjoyed our time in between games during Swiss when we talked about how the game is played differently in Europe. I hope to see him again next year. He told me that Europe moved on from Stark Winter-but I guess they should take another look at it. When he played Wildfire Assault turn 2 I began to suspect he had no valar, so I flooded the board and went to town.

Game 2: me v. Lanni Tpbtt (Greg Atkinson)

I had to read his agenda because I wasn't quite sure what it all did. I tried to mulligan into Catlyn Stark (the good version) and shut him down. It didn't happen. He played a house divided on my Flank turn 1. I had never seen that card before. Then he proceeded to outplay me. He is a world champion so I suppose I can't be too upset. He also was really nice guy; I hope I can play him again next year.

finish: 7th

Melee recap: A lot has been said and will be said still about the 2012 melee. In play testing I will just say that that martell deck had some cards that shut it down. I won't say which cards but even if they errata hellholt engineer, it is still the best deck, so everyone should play it next year.

finish: 7th (but actually 10th because Rick, Dennis and Erick all bested me until they totally cheated in the finals)

overall finish: I don't know they haven't posted it, but it wasn't first, that dude got a sick warhammer. I'm sure he will put that to good use.

Final Word: thanks Bruno for signing my first snow of winter ( second favorite card behind the flank), congrats to all the winners, i should really read what all the cards do in the other houses besides stark, and one more thing…

YOLO!

I put forth a motion to nominate this as the best TR ever written. Seconded?

It's sure less boring than mine. Congrats on such a strong showing after picking up the game so recently. Had you played other card games in the past?

Good job man, especially for your first big tourney! Yeah, not surprised that you have never seen Lanni in our meta. lol

DC Meta is broken and should be put on a restricted lists for Melee and Joust. :-P

Kid Gruesome said:

Yes. I played competitive magic for a few years from 9 to the 12th grade in high school. Best I ever did was win a pro tour qualifier, but would always win the weekly local card shop tourneys.

Thrones is much better than Magic on game mechanics alone.

The only difference is the community. In magic, netdecking and sharing decklists was always encouraged--or no one really cared anyways. In thrones, that seems to not be the case. People don't like that people are playing the same stuff over and over, like stark winter, or that zany melee deck. I would argue that constant netdecking is a way to push the game to its limits and truly find the best, most interesting decks.

I will be back at worlds next year, hopefully with the best decks--if I can find them…

AGoT DC Meta said:

Yeah Dan, I blame you for not showing me what lanni could do! wtf…

And the Flank should totally be immune to events =P

I agree the flank should be immune to events! What other army did you have out to get house divided triggered?

I had a flank out and played a second flank on turn 1. Not the best move considering it wasted both narrow seas. But these are the harsh realities of not knowing what all the cards can do.

Doesn't seem like a bad play, you can't play every game against lannister and never put out a character with a like trait. Besides those flanks are awesome to keep the pressure on against lannister since some of their kneel effects don't work on armies.

kr4ng said:

Well you should have done your homework. That's something that 2C1C and 2G1T podcasts are good for, since they provide some perspective into Lanni. They go into depth about A House Divided and Iron Throne, so you should have expected it. lol

Still, great overall. I got 11th my first worlds, so you're already better than I was after the same amount of time.

AGoT DC Meta said:

I'm still looking for my first break into top 16

Well you beat be pretty hard this year at gencon, Rob!

AGoT DC Meta said:

kinda made me his ***** at tennessee too.