Hello, my name is Nick. May 4th was the Atlanta area regional tournament, which I won.
My deck was Greyjoy The Long Voyage, which was the latest evolution of the Greyjoy decks I have been tweaking and refining for about a year and a half now. I started playing Greyjoy seriously after the release of Where Loyalty Lies, which brought with it Asha, Theon, and Finger Dance. This original iteration of the deck was a No Agenda noble rush deck which used all of Greyjoy’s noble characters (and Lyanna Stark), along with a ton of saves, cancels, and a bit of choke and mill. I ran with charagenda Aeron for a while, and had been using House of Dreams with Seastone Chair up until the release of The Long Voyage.
The Long Voyage was pretty much perfectly suited to how I had been building my decks, which tended to include a healthy mix of Greyjoy’s strengths and effects. And I had never been good at keeping my decks at 60 to begin with, all my decks ended up around 64 or 65 decks. So throwing in another twenty cards to offer me more toolbox utility out of my decks was a no brainer.
I also got a lot of use out of the new naval characters; Greyjoy has in my opinion the best set of naval characters right now. I didn’t bother with the Apostle of the Drowned God, but every other Greyjoy naval character made an appearance, including two copies of The Reader and Victarion. In play testing, I experimented with running Naval Superiority, which I think would still be a strong plot for the deck, but it ultimately didn’t make the final cut.
For my restricted card, I ran Fury of the Kraken, which was my opening plot in every game I played. I knew that I absolutely wanted to be running To Be a Kraken; I had hoped that the A Clash of Arms reprint would be available by the time this tournament arrived, but I ultimately had to borrow two more To Be a Krakens from David, who I played in the final. The only other restricted card I seriously considered was Search and Detain, which I think would have actually been a stronger card than Fury in a straight side-by-side comparison. But with S&D, I would need another Military Battle, and in my testing with Battle of Oxcross I found it kept backfiring on me. My Greyjoy deck has a lot of military, but not enough that I was guaranteed to have military dominance in that first turn, and I felt I was better off with the higher income, higher initiative, no real downside of Fury of the Kraken.
Changes I would make: I think I would take out Victarion’s Scheme. I’m not sure I played it at all. My concern was that it could work as an alternative closer or aggro card if I couldn’t afford to take just the one gold from Rise, but that honestly never came up. And I wasn’t getting unopposed with enough consistency for Scheme to actually be 2 claim often enough I think. Pretty much every time I was in a position I might have wanted to play Scheme, Rise was the better choice. I don’t know what I would replace it with. I was definitely wishing I had had another straight 2 claim plot, though I also don’t want to give up high initiative.
A Song of Summer wasn't quite as good as I had hoped. I like it as a plot, it's got great gold obviously, and 5 initiative is enough to win most of the time. I had figured there was a good chance that I would see at least some Summer decks in the tournament, but as it turned out, my final match with David was the only person I played with Summer, and he didn't even play the raven during our game. (The Targ burn deck Jonathan played in my third game might've run Black Ravens as well, but I never saw them.)
I would also want to put in a Naval Escort or two. Throughout the day, I found myself with a To Be a Kraken in my hand, and a knelt out character that I wanted to use in the next challenge. But my opponents just were not being considerate, and wouldn’t trigger any effects for me to cancel. Naval Escort would have provided me with a convenient Any Phase action that I could have triggered and then cancelled on myself to stand a key character.
I would also like to go back and look at getting more Renown into the deck. Renown had been a largely part of the earlier noble rush iterations of the deck, but it became a much smaller facet of the deck once it swelled to The Long Voyage size. Throughout the day, I think Asha was the only character I got any Renown with consistently; I don’t think I even ever got Balon or Euron on the table. I considered putting in Captain of the Iron Fleet and Longclaw to give some of the other characters Renown, but neither card made the final cut. The lack of Renown never cost me a game, but it definitely dragged some games on longer than they should’ve, where I was essentially only getting power from unopposed and dominance.
House: Greyjoy
Agenda: The Long Voyage
Restricted: Fury of the Kraken
Plots (7)
Fury of the Kraken
Rise of the Kraken
Victarion’s Scheme
Negotiations at the Great Sept
Loyalty Money Can Buy
A Song of Summer
Valar Morghulis
Characters (45)
2x Asha Greyjoy (WLL)
2x Alannys Greyjoy (ODG)
2x Victarion Greyjoy (RotK)
2x The Reader
2x Maester Wendamyr
1x Maester Murenmure
1x Maester Aemon (Core)
1x Maester Kerwin
1x Baelor Blacktyde
1x Balon Greyjoy (KotS)
1x Andrik the Unsmiling
1x The Sparr
1x Wex Pyke
1x Euron Crow’s Eye (TGM)
1x Fishwhiskers
1x Dagmer Cleftjaw
1x Aeron Damphair (VM)
1x Theon Greyjoy (WLL)
1x Moqorro
2x Bloodthirsty Crew
2x Iron Fleet Captain
3x Newly Made Lord
3x Kingsmoot Hopeful
2x Fleet from Pyke
3x Carrion Bird
3x Distinguished Boatswain
3x Ironborn Marauder
Events (7)
3x To Be a Kraken
2x Iron Lore
2x The Finger Dance
Locations (33)
3x Sunset Sea
3x Gatehouse
3x The Iron Mines
2x The Iron Cliffs
2x Bay of Ice
2x Refurbished Hulk
2x Scouting Vessel
2x Longship Iron Victory
1x Longship Red Jester
1x Norvos
1x Blazewater Bay
1x Captured Cog
1x Aeron’s Chambers
1x River Blockade
1x Fishmonger’s Square
1x Ocean Road
1x Street of Steel
1x Flea Bottom
1x Street of Silk
1x Shadowblack Lane
1x Street of Sisters
1x River Row
The regional attracted 20 players. A bit less than half of us were from the area, with most of the rest coming from Tennessee and Florida; dcdennis was also there, I believe, though I didn’t have a chance to play him. Greyjoy was the most played house, with six players (three of which, my own deck included, running The Long Voyage). Only one Baratheon, also TLV, though otherwise the houses were pretty evenly represented.
6 Greyjoy, 5 Stark, 3 Lannister, 3 Targaryen, 2 Martell, 1 Baratheon.
|
Baratheon |
The Long Voyage |
Knight of Flowers |
|
Greyjoy |
Black Sails |
Search and Detain |
|
Greyjoy |
House of Dreams |
Search and Detain |
|
Greyjoy |
Kings of Winter |
Kings of Winter |
|
Greyjoy |
The Long Voyage |
Fury of the Kraken |
|
Greyjoy |
The Long Voyage |
Fury of the Kraken |
|
Greyjoy |
The Long Voyage |
Search and Detain |
|
Lannister |
None |
None |
|
Lannister |
Power Behind the Throne |
Castellan of the Rock |
|
Lannister |
Power Behind the Throne |
Castellan of the Rock |
|
Martell |
Quentyn Martell |
The Scourge |
|
Martell |
The Long Voyage |
The Viper's Bannermen |
|
Stark |
Blood of the First Men, Freefolk, Last Giants |
Val |
|
Stark |
House of Dreams |
Fury of the Wolf |
|
Stark |
None |
Fury of the Wolf |
|
Stark |
The Kindly Man |
Meera Reed |
|
Stark |
The Kindly Man |
Meera Reed |
|
Targaryen |
House of Dreams |
Hatchling`s Feast |
|
Targaryen |
Knights of the Hollow Hill |
Hatchling`s Feast |
|
Targaryen |
The Long Voyage |
Long Lances |
Game 1: vs. Wade, Greyjoy (The Long Voyage / Choke). Results: WIN.
I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t remember this game super well. It was a long day of games, we started around noon and David and I didn’t finish our final game till around 9. Apologies to Wade, but I can’t really remember much in terms of blow-by-blow. Most of the game came down to winning initiative (thank you, Captured Cog) and keeping myself going first, and Wade couldn’t get his choke effects off. The first turn, he had an Ice Fisherman out from set up, but couldn’t use it as it wasn’t Winter yet. He did get some use of Cragorn, but I managed to intrigue that out of his hand. My Carrion Bird made sure it wasn’t Winter long.
Wade made the mistake of broadcasting that his Valar was coming by playing Nightmare on my Iron Mines. I chose to go for the complete board clear and Valar’d alongside him; technically, Wade could have saved one of his characters, a duped Sparr, but he messed up and saved something else on the first Valar. I bounced back quickly (it didn’t hurt that I had the no longer blanked Iron Mines and one gold on an Iron Cliffs to keep characters around) and kept the pressure on Wade with 2 claim turns (with some 3 claim challenges thanks to Victarion), and I closed it quickly.
Game 2: vs. Morgan, Lannister (Power Behind the Throne / Kneel). Results: WIN.
For once, overextending myself paid off, as Morgan just couldn’t kneel me out enough. The first two rounds, things were working for her; she got a lot of good use out of Castellan and some Enemies Informers. With Mycella Lannister, she had three 2 claim intrigue challenges her first turn, destroying my whole hand. I was actually able to get an Intrigue challenge in against her this first turn, getting the draw from the agenda (and also from The Reader if I remember correctly) and pulling one of her Castellans out of her hand. Second turn, she played Cersei’s Scheme and won initiative; going first she was able to kneel out everyone.
I Valar’d offensively next turn, killing her Jaime, Tommen, Castellan, and some other chuds. I had enough saves to keep my heavy hitters. Morgan had tons of gold coming her way, but she was never able to regain board position. The best she could muster was an Enemy Informer or two for kneel, and I was able to push through military and power challenges, many unopposed through either stealth or a poor spread of icons on Morgan’s side, the rest of the game.
Game 3: vs. Jonathan, Targaryen (Knights of Hollow Hill / Burn). Results: WIN.
Jonathan’s burn deck got plenty of its influence up and running, but he didn’t get any characters for quite a while. I started out with a strong set up, with the stand out starting cards being the Captured Cog, which let me win initiative every time and counteracted the dominance strength of Jonathan’s Meraxes, and River Blockade, which managed some key cancels for me through the game. I didn’t get the benefit of Fury of the Kraken against Jonathan; his opening plot was First Snow and he had no characters out. I opted for no challenges, keeping Wendamyr, Victarion, and a Boatswain (who must’ve had no strength from the shadows cards) and getting Dominance.
Jonathan got barely any characters out the whole game, I got most of my power from dinging UO challenges at him. I forget if Jonathan’s Threat from the North was turn two or turn three, but it didn’t go how he wanted it to. The plot hit my Wendamyr and Boatswain, but he couldn’t get to my Victarion, Alannys, The Reader, or even Theon. He played The Hatchling’s Feast, but I cancelled it with Alannys; Jonathan tried to cancel her with his Iron Throne, but he hadn’t triggered any locations yet that round, so River Blockade cancelled it. He then ambushed in a Dragon Knight, and I played To Be a Kraken, standing Alannys, to cancel the response. He got the DK back in with Recruitment after I killed it and got through his only challenge, killing Theon (which is the whole point).
The next and final turn, Jonathan played Fortified Position against my Rise of the Kraken, which mainly kept me from using Victarion’s claim boosting and Alannys’ cancel. Jonathan finally got some characters in play, with the Dragon Knight, the strength boosting Dany, and a King’s Landing Assassin. My military challenge either killed his DK and KLA, or he knelt them out to win the challenge; then with unopposed on one challenge and two claim for power, I won.
Game 4: vs. Rick, Stark (No Agenda / The Kindly Man). Results: LOSS.
Rick was playing a Kindly Man deck, though this first time I played him, he never had TKM out, so it was effectively No Agenda. This screwed me up greatly. One turn late in the game, when I was already dangerously on the ropes, I was looking to play a Fleet for 1 gold with Street of Sisters and Blazewater Bay, until it was pointed out that I sadly wasn’t facing any agenda.
Things started out poorly, despite my having gotten a good number of my saves. I attempted to Valar offensively, but Rick was able to put out something like 4 or 5 characters that turn. It was all over from there.
Game 5: vs. Chris, Stark (No Agenda). Results: LOSS.
Chris was running a fairly standard high claim, war tech murder deck, and murder is exactly what it did. We both revealed our Fury plots, and through the cruel tyranny of a coin flip he went first. Brienne probably won him the game. I flippin’ hate playing against that card, even though she’s my favorite character in the books. (That’s right, haters.) Chris came at me with Brienne and a Northern Cavalry Flank: military claim killed one guy, Fury another, and then, of course, came the Die by the Sword. What makes Brienne so aggravating is that I always know exactly what is coming, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Note to self: Nightmares.
It was a desperate move, but I had to Valar early, I couldn’t allow Brienne to run roughshod over me like that again. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. Chris kept up the pressure with a seemingly endless series of 2 claim plots, and I couldn’t keep anything on the board for long. I was able to get Baelor Blacktyde out, which put a stop to Chris’ Die by the Sword and To Be a Wolf shenanigans, but unfortunately by then he had already played two of each, so the damage was firmly done. Chris had board position down cold, and other than some pointless challenges I could get through that really only served to leave me open for his attacks, there was nothing I could do to stop him.
Cut to top 8. Fifth seed, top seed of players with a 3-2 record.
Game 6: vs. ???, Greyjoy (Kings of Winters / Choke). Results: WIN.
Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten this player’s name. I apologize if you’re reading this. He never could get his choke up and running. I flopped a Carrion Bird in my set up, and played another my first turn, so he didn’t chance making it Winter till the second turn. I played A Song of Summer, he played The Winds of Winter. The birds and another, stronger character (Victarion, maybe) went in for an unopposed Military, and I put an end to the White Raven. A follow-up intrigue challenge discarded another White Raven he had in his hand. It was never Winter again the whole game. If anything, I was the one choking him. I had Murenmure in my set up (or maybe I marshaled him first, can’t recall) and I hit one of his major resource locations with a Red Jester at an opportune moment.
From there, I just kept on the offensive. I went first every round, I stealthed through a lot of unopposed, and I cancelled whatever I could with Alannys, To Be a Kraken, and Finger Dance. Victarion helped immensely, boosting military up to 2 or 3 claim when necessary, or, when I could kill enough without him, using his claim boosting on power. I didn’t get any of my renown characters, so it took a while to build up enough power, but after a few rounds it was over.
Game 7: vs. Rick, Stark (No Agenda / The Kindly Man). Results: WIN.
My rematch with Rick, and this time I found out it was a Kindly Man deck. Rick just had crap for resources. The whole game, all he had was one gold producer (maybe he got a second one out right at the very end), and a Flea Bottom. I played Newly Made Lord my first turn to get rid of that. I, on the other hand, got a pretty great flop, five cards with Blazewater Bay, Aeron’s Chambers, Wendamyr, and I think a Boatswain and a reducer. I don’t play with that much influence (a lot of it is temporary stuff like Sunset Sea), but having those two out made Wendamyr into a damned super star.
Wex Pyke deserves special recognition for his role in this game, along with his new best friend, Maester Kerwin. I played both characters my first turn, and in hindsight, I made what should have been a huge mistake: I played Wex first. Rick ultimately chose not to play his Dissension then (perhaps believing there might be a more tempting target for it later), and I got out Kerwin, who nobly sacrificed himself to protect my deck’s one and only Ally. (Wendamyr was also ready to save Wex from discarding if need be). Rick had a pretty good board position after his first marshalling, including the Mad Huntsman and a bunch of good non-uniques. He did not, however, have any crests on his cards. Wex went off on a military challenge, allowing me to use Fury of the Kraken’s effect for the one and only time that day, discarding the Hunstman.
Wex kept the unopposed coming over the next couple rounds; Rick eventually got out a few crested characters, but they either didn’t have the right icons (Luwin), or I had an Iron Fleet Captain or Carrion Bird to join Wex and stealth past The Kindly Man or Robb Stark. And I was just flush with saves. Wendamyr would save himself, stand, and save another; I would play an Iron Mines, and get it right back with Iron Lore (one of my favorite combos). Rick had Grey Wind on Robb, and he kept trying to dispose of Wex, but I would either save Wex or cancel Grey Wind. Rick also played Twist of Fate as one of his plots, which backfired for him a bit when I was able to go first and hit him with three 2 claim challenges, which I believe I rendered as two military and one intrigue (I was aiming to get enough in the discard pile to turn on Alannys and Asha).
Eventually, Rick Valar’d, and that’s where Alannys came to ruin his day. Wendamyr and Asha were sticking around, but while Alannys was on the way to the dead pile, she made sure to cancel the duplicate save on Robb Stark, killing the only character he’d have on the board. Asha came in, killing whatever Rick was able to play on his Valar turn and coming back with unopposed intrigue. I closed with Rise of the Kraken, and Rick had no luck drawing into anything that could stop Asha.
Game 8: vs. David, Martell (The Long Voyage). Results: WIN.
David and I came together, and it was great for it to come down to the two of us. Our small meta (we really only have the five regular players, though hopefully after this tourney we can meet up with some of the other scattered groups in the Atlanta area) had been playtesting pretty extensively this last week or so, so David and I both knew a lot of what each other’s decks could do. In a lot of ways, David’s deck is similar to mine. It’s also a Long Voyage deck, and it uses that huge deck to be a massive toolbox of Martell’s favorite tricks. There’s some Summer tech, some icon manipulation, plenty of stuff that screws you over when you win against him. (I’m thankful he didn’t get the new Areo out against me, he wrecked a lot of people with that card.) He’s got tons of great events—he’s done some amazingly cruel things with Deceit in particular, that card has ruined many of our days—and he uses a lot of Martell’s effects that you could cancel with influence (Brothel Guard, Greensblood Merchant, Lost Spearsman), counting on there either not being a lot of influence from most decks, or there not being enough to keep up with all the effects he’s got going. Hellholt Docks has also been a standout annoying effect of his deck, though thankfully I didn’t see any of David’s till the very end.
I’d played against this deck quite a bit, and I’d found I was actually doing pretty well against it, even with all of those infuriating Martell shenanigans. David and I had even played each other earlier in the day for a quick practice game before the tournament started, and I had won. This practice game had actually screwed over most of our meta; we got there early (David and I were the first ones there) and were making last minute adjustments, but we ultimately ended up actually putting our names down near the end of registration. As it turned out, they only had enough of the regional House cards for 16 players, and the store chose to give them out to the first 16 to sign up. I was #16, everyone else I’d come with had been after me. But I digress.
As I’ve said, my deck usually doesn’t have much influence on the board, but like the second game with Rick I lucked into having two out almost right away: Aeron’s Chambers again, and Norvos. Though I also had Wendamyr, I couldn’t use it for his standing, I used it to keep David from stripping icons with Greenblood Merchant and kneeling my guys with Brothel Guard. Other than that, David had out Harmen Uller and The Viper’s Bannerman. I had a non-unique or two, Aeron, The Reader, and Wendamyr; also, I got out both Iron Victory and a Scouting Vessel early. Until David could get to his Hellholt Docks, those two guys helped push through several unopposed challenges, as I could stealth Harmen and David didn’t want to defend with the Bannermen.
Second plots, we both played A Song of Summer, though David didn’t actually bother to make it Summer at all during the game. Despite all that gold we had, not much changed in our board positions, though I was firmly entrenched enough that there wasn’t much David could do. For the next plot, I played Loyalty Money Could Buy, and David played Bungled Orders. I knew exactly what David was planning; if he lost a challenge, he’d flip the plot to Valar. I planned accordingly, thanks to the Moqorro (and maybe an Iron Mines?) I happened to draw that phase. David didn’t challenge me, and I decided to play his game. Power challenge with Aeron, stealthing so The Bannermen were the only defenders; David defended, I Scouting Vessel’d, he Valar’d. His board was cleared, I saved what I could, including using Moqorro to boost Asha. She did her challenges unopposed, I won dominance, and I moved onto Rise of the Kraken. David wasn’t able to field much in the way of characters, though he did manage to Deceit off Asha’s renown, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from getting to 15 with unopposed.
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