WolfgangSenff vs the Antimacassars – Worlds 2012
Hello, one and/or all, to my tournament report for worlds. I’m only going to do the joust report because while I did okay in melee, I don’t recall most of what happened in those games. I was originally not going to write a tournament report at all, but then was insanely bored tonight, and decided to get over the anger I had gotten from the whole weekend (I will not explain this statement, so please don’t ask). I should also mention that I’m sorry to everyone I met – I believe I had bronchitis, and couldn’t talk very well because of it, and when combined with a raging case of IBS, I was probably not very fun to be around this weekend.
In the run up to worlds, I had a Lannister deck that was doing fairly well until it faced opposition. Then it consistently lost. I still tried to get it to work, but as a certain Red Woman once put it (paraphrasing), “He gets obsessed with really bad decks and can’t let them go, trying them in tons of ways to get them to work.” I realized this at the time, and decided to just take two decks I played previously this season and combine them, to see if the resulting monster did at least as well as the two separately, which had both gone 3-2 in regionals play (not bad, considering it was NYC and Tennessee). For reference, I’m talking about Martell wildlings with claim raising and Desperate Tactics (to pull a challenge-or-Flea-Bottom-knelt-Viper’s Bannermen back to my hand, or to put Pike Phalanx out of house straight into play), and Martell summer – just a very standard summer deck. I put this deck together a week before the tournament, and then proceeded to not test it at all, as all my playtesting partners were out of town that week, and my computer was broken, so no OCTGN. I was super-comfortable with both decks, and knew the real potential of claim-raising in challenges.
I landed there and cabbed it to the hotel. It was $60 I believe for the ride; not shabs, considering I had budgeted $200 for total cab fares. Mostly I just waited around, cause I got there early, and got food and such. I headed over to the tournament hall to meet Jon, Dennis, and others playing in the warm-up tournament. I played a game with one of Dodd’s melee decks against a different of his melee decks, and got crushed. It was still fun.
Went to bed, got up the next day, got breakfast with Jon and Mike and talked tech. They had given me some great advice on the deck I ended up taking, but especially on my melee deck, so I owe them a lot. Cheers, OCTGN meta! We got to the hall and got our stuff, and then proceeded to shoot the crap with everyone from all the other tournaments I went to.
That’s enough foreplay. Let’s get into the meat and antimacassars.
Round 1: vs DCDennis, Martell Summer vs Stark Winter
Dennis got the worst hand I’ve ever seen, starting with, I believe, a Great Keep and Old Nan. If that. My deck went off without a hitch though, and I was able to raise claim with Pike Phalanx and new Red Viper early on, and he just could never get a foothold. After a couple rounds of torture, I won. Sorry to Dennis for this – he’s a stand-up guy, and to be fair, he went on a 5-0 tear after getting nusted so thoroughly.
Round 2: vs Anthony, Martell Summer vs Bara Char Agenda
This game was rather intense…but painful to watch. I knew Anthony to be a fantastic player, as he won the melee at Days of Ice and Fire this year. I was worried a lot because I had never played him, but also because he was Bara with no agenda, and I have always worried about those decks. This game proceeded to be a total route. I felt quite bad for Anthony. My deck clicked, he Valared early to get rid of my crazy Viper, and then I proceeded to flood the board with armies and weenies. He could just never get much going. By the end, his Knight of Flowers had maybe 8 power, but there was really no question (in my mind) as to who was going to win. I had used Viper’s Bannermen probably five times during this game, and had it summer from the get-go, and by the end of the game, I had a 22 card hand, only not decking myself by 3 cards. To quote the tournament judge Nate French, “I call that a smallish-medium hand.”
Round 3: vs Maekar, aka Matthieu, French champion of France, Martell summer vs Targ Char Agenda
And here comes the exact opposite of my first two games! My deck finally completely shuts down, and the dude played the game flawlessly. I was unable to get anything going, and couldn’t find the resources or draw to be able to put up much fight against his infinite recurrence.
Round 4: vs Justin Fox, Martell summer vs Stark Knights
This was the third game of the day that was totally one-sided for my deck…and little did I know, would be the last win I’d get! I gave him a couple 2- and 3-claim military challenges that he couldn’t defend, and that’s basically how it went. Justin is such a cool guy, I felt pretty bad about winning in this way. Not much memory of this game otherwise. It was a good try, at least.
Round 5: vs Chad J., Martell summer vs Martell maesters
I knew his deck pretty well, as he played nearly the same, if not exactly the same, at Days of Ice and Fire, where he trounced me solidly. In this game, I somehow pulled off a 4-claim military challenge and Chad basically ate it in the face. I then had a 3-claim power challenge, which he ate. After all that, he kept getting characters in hand and I ran out somehow, despite running quite a few in this particular deck (I think at least 34, possibly 36). His maesters just stuck around and he was able to get his 7,000 chains off his agenda, and after that, it was an easy win for him, despite the incredibly slow start to his deck (the slowest I’ve ever seen it go). One cool move was him using Lead Link pre-plot to get Viper to exactly zero strength, and then flipping Threat from the North…when I flipped Power of Arms, keeping him alive at 1 strength. Otherwise, after the first few rounds, this was all Chad.
Round 6: vs Ben C., from Team Covenant, Martell summer vs Martell maesters
My deck didn’t go off as well as it did against Chad J. in this game, which may be why it lost. It was a terrible game, but I was just too slow to keep up with the plethora of stuff that Ben was able to throw out there. I have to say though, Team Covenant is awesome, and Ben is a really stand-up dude. I appreciated that, having been trounced pretty effectively.
So, that’s all. I had a great time, and loved meeting everyone, new and old. Thanks for reading! Until Black Friday!
