Sunday AGOT etc.

Sunday should have been a day for me to get some important things done. Kristin and I just sat down and made a big list of things to do to get ready for the wedding and the move. The big thing I have on my agenda right now is getting my teaching license transferred to North Carolina and looking for a job. Instead of getting anything done, though, we went to Hu Hot for lunch, and then I headed over to Critical Hit, laptop in tow, with the intention of getting some work done there before AGOT.

I managed to browse the Praxis test website and check out test dates. I have to admit, I'm a little underinformed about this test and exactly what I have to do, and I have a lot of reading to do. I'm also a little worried - I've always done well on standardized tests, but I haven't taken one in years!

AGOT regionals are coming up, and Jerod and I sat down to schedule the store's events leading up to, and just past, regionals. I entered the tournaments, along with the results for some tournaments Jerod had run. Before I knew it, the afternoon was gone and it was almost time to draft.

I squeazed in a game of Lost Cities with Dan. He had just gotten done with a game of Ticket to Ride with Tom, Nick, Tim, and Gigi, which Gigi won. It looked like everyone had a really good time, which is normal for TtR, and I should have asked Gigi about her strategy. My game with Dan went to form with all my games so far, until the last round. I won the first two rounds, although they were close. Then, Dan started too many expeditions in the third round, and, even though I didn't score that many points, he had two negative expeditions and couldn't keep up. Lost Cities seems to be sort of two-player, but sort of solitaire. I think to be happy playing, one has to really just judge one's own situational decision making. You can make very good decisions in a bad, or neutral situation, and still end up getting wrecked by the draw. LC can certainly frustrate people, if they let it.

Six o'clock rolled around and we had 6 to draft. Myself, Jeremiah, Tim, Steve, John, and Tom sat down at the table with our packs. My first pack was terribly disappointing, with nothing really exciting in it. I ended up with a playable two-cost Martell character, which ended up being out-of-house for me, and I didn't even put it in the deck. I took a couple neutral characters after that, and then went into Targ when a Dothraki Sea was passed my way 5th or sixth. Overall, the first pack was not good, and I ended up with nothing exciting. The second pack was a little better, but still didn't give me much other than a festering wound, which ended up being my only removal. Pack three I dipped into Lannister for an eternal guy and a kneeler, and some late-pick events. Fourth pack gave me serious Lannister cards, including a 11th pick kneeler, and solidified my deck. This was an odd draft in that I couldn't pin down a house, mainly due to the packs. I started out with Martell, and really didn't know I was going to Lannister until the last pack. In the end, I had a decent set of creature, my curve was ok, and I had decent, if unexciting non-setup cards rounding everything out.

Round 1: Steve. Steve had Martell and Stark, I think. He had an early student, which I festered, and a lancer, which was a pain while he was drawing cards. He had a good turn with his claim two Stark plot, getting through two intrigue challenges. I stabilized the board with some timely kneeling effects, and started coming through with fat military to thin out his team, and, eventually, he couldn't keep up and I got the game.

Round 2: Tom. Tom was piloting Stark as well, although he had a lot of Greyjoy. He probably should have played a second house card, but thought he was playing enough gold production to use only one. He got a slow start, putting out one big guy a turn. However, I was able to get by with stealth and kneeling, and he could never build up a substantial force. Eventually, I overwhelmed him for the win.

Round 3: Tim. Tim had Martell Targ. Tim is an excellent gamer, mostly playing MtG and boardgames. Recently, we talked him into an AGOT draft, and he's developed his skills quickly. Like any competitive gamer, he's been driven to improve his play, and it shows. Tim had a bit of a slow start, like Tom, with a big fattie and few locations. This trend held up into the midgame, with Tim's ability to play out of hand limited every turn. I wasn't able to keep pressure on, though, as I wasn't drawing a good spread of icons, or very large men, and the game stayed pretty even. With limited resources and tough board position, each of us had a lot of hard decisions to make and the game moved slowly. We were still in a pretty stable board state, each with about 10 power, when time was called. Neither of us could win, so we called it a draw.

I ended up winning on strength of schedule, thanks to Steve's win over Jeremiah in the last round, and I took home the Red Viper, which was really the only strong rare in our pool.

It should be an exciting month or two for the game, and I'm looking forward to it.

GG, GL