AGOT CCT CHG 5/6/06

Today was the Regional tournament for AGOT at CHG. I had to get up early to be at the soccer fields, as we had a game that morning vs. Regina, one of the better teams in the state (we are NOT one of the better teams in the state...). The boys got hammered 9-0, and I felt bad that I had to leave the varsity coach quickly after the game to hustle over to the store and get ready for the tournament.

I got to CHG about an hour before the tournament was supposed to start. I disassembled one of my old decks, and tried to make a couple changes. I wanted to make a new deck, but didn't have time. In the end, I settled on the basic Stark deck that I played to third place at ChiCon, with a couple changes. I hastilly scribbled down my decklist, and got ready to play. Our old friend Lucas Reed came down from FFG in Minnesota, and ended up sitting out to judge the tourney. One of the local M:tG players, Eric, had been conscripted to do deck check-in and run the computer. Jerod had a lot of great prizes lined up, and had set up the tournament to run smoothly.

Round 1 - Sarah F. with Targ

I've played Sarah several times, and her deck doesn't match up well with the one I was running. She has mostly event-based removal to rely on, and I run a large number (8) of characters that are immune to events. I got a good start and won the game fairly quickly.

Round 2 - Josh from Waterloo, playing Baratheon

The last time I played Josh, he sat down before the game and talked for a few minutes about how he hadn't played in a long time, didn't know the cards, and was all set to lose, and then commenced beating me in 2 and a half turns with power rush. He started the same thing this time, I reminded him about last time, and asked him to chill. We shuffled up, he won the roll to go first when we both revealed Gathering Storm, and he got an amazing draw. By the end of turn one, he had Renly with Lightbringer and Chosen by R'hllor, as well as fallow fields, Acolyte of Asshai, another location, and six power. He also had two Shadow Play in his hand, which I knew because he revealed them with turn one Massing at Twilight. I think I had a couple characters left, including Catelyn. He played 2 I am King here that turn, btw. Turn two he dropped a Bara Tourney Ground and Born to be King on Renly. I didn't have anything to stop attachments or locations, and his plays guaranteed him 9 power in challenges, and he was going first, so it was all over. He started to moan about how he was probabaly going to lose out the rest of the day, and I got steamed. I get tired really quickly of people complaining and acting like they're the underdog when they beat me in a turn and a half.

Round 3 - Kari with Martell Wildling Horde

Kari seemed to be playin a Martell/Wildling Scorching Deserts deck, but she only dropped one Wildling, who wasn't a mono-con, and one Martell mono-con character. She got the Deserts, and had a pretty good start on me, neutralizing my Gathering Storm claim by switching intio the WPS plot that reduces claim. I got a few characters on line, though, and used more high claim to take control of the game, neutralizing a Deserts with Frozen Solid. After the point where I got advantage, it was a slow, resisted, march to the finish.

Round 4 - Adam with Lannister Defenders of the North

I played Adam first round at ChiCon, and lost to him. I knew he was a good player, but I didn't know anything about his deck. He had a ton of kneeling effects, including some I'd never really seen before. I got a pretty nice start, ramping up to two Edmure's Hosts on turn 2. However, Adam Massing'ed a couple times, and had lots of cards. He knelt my stuff with characters, and events, and kept them from un-kneeling. I made a mistake, holding back a Trident Defender, worrying about Wildfire Assault. He got up to four doomed in his yard, and was drawing tons of cards and kneeling tons of dudes. My team pretty much looked like they were asleep the whole game. I never really got anything going, and he took the game around, I think, the sixth plot. I had a chance to win that turn - I had two Arya's Revenge left in my deck, but I didn't have any influence in play (I only drew 1 location, a reducer, prior to the end of the game, and that on like the 5th turn). So, I Benjen's Cached for Red Keep, hoping to draw into the Revenge that would kill his Jaime and give him 5 doomed. However, I just drew two, random, useless characters, while he drew into two stealth/renown dudes, icing the game for him.

Round 5 - Andy Mills - Lannister/Greyjoy Treaty

I've played Andy a bunch of times, but never with this deck. I saw him play it a little the week before, at the tournament I ran but wans't able to play in, but I wasn't really sure what it did. The one thing I knew was that it had a bunch of trait manipulation elements and Tavern Braggart. The thing I didn't know about turned out to be Greyjoy cancellation events. He had a Bard right away, along with a Braggart. He got one of my first characters with a Fallen Brother. He neutralized my high claim early. He cancelled the Arya's Revenge I tried to play on his Bard, and then he, in succession, dropped he Lanniser army that can get a trait each phase, and took control of one of my big dudes with the wildling gal that takes stuff, whose name I can't remember for some reason. At this point, things were looking prety grim. I was way down on characters, and didn't have a lot that could get me back in the game, so I just conceded.

Well, everyone I lost to ended up in top 8, and I finished 10th, out of 20. I ended up getting a pack and a shirt for my troubles, along with the Regionals promo cards. I was pretty frustrated, after two bad days. In fact, these were my worst performances since the day I learned how to play, when I went 1-1-1 in constructed (borrowing a deck from Jerod), and 1-2 in draft. I think with different pairings I could have made top 8 pretty easily, but, all the same, I got roughly the finish I deserved. I didn't put any time into building my deck or playtesting the environment, and that's how it goes. It ended up being Jerod and Nate Harmon in the finals. Jerod had already beaten Nate, in the Swiss rounds, but this time he got a horrible draw, mulliganed it, and pulled an even worse hand. He flopped one card, Harrenhall, which is, of course, a terrible setup phase. Nate couldn't have asked for better, and he pretty much walked away with the trophy, sword, box of cards, and 1,000 Gold Dragons from FFG.

Eight of us who didn't make top 8 sat down to draft. I ended up Greyjoy/Targ again. I ended up going Greyjoy with Euron, then getting passed a Viserion to go into Targ. Targ was overdrafted, again, and I managed to pick up no removal other than the little location that gives -1. I did get the Night's Watch guy that discards creatures and wildlings. My deck had pretty good characters, and ended up with a couple good locations, Damphair's Chambers and the one that switches two dudes' strength during challenges.

Round 1 - Amanda - Baratheon with, maybe, Lannister

We both got slow starts. Amanda got a big dude down, but I was able to get around him. She had a reducer on the flop, but was unable to get any more resources. Stuck with just plot gold, she kept replaying a Lord's Assassin to soak claim, and couldn't build up a team. Meanwhile, my side of the board was just getting more and more croxded with dudes itching to challenge. We played for several minutes, trying to talk casually, but I felt a little rough. It was a pretty big beating, and not very fun for her, I'm afraid. This game doesn't have an incredible number of mechanisms to get you back into a game when you are down.

Round 2 - Kevan from Waterlo - I don't really remember what he was playing

I don't remember much about the early game here, except that he got Tommen really quickly. He only had one Minor Fiefdom, though, so he was accumulating power slowly. He was playing out his dudes carefully, but at a good pace, and I could never threaten Tommen with claim or deadly. I was hoping for Euron's Servant to take care of his Minor Fiefdoms, but it ended up being the bottom card of the deck. He got out to a lead, and I had to stop military challenging him. I knew that we both had Wildfire Assault, and I couldn't afford to give him anything during challenges. I got Student of Subtlety and Band of Free Folk down, and started sucking away his power. I took the lead. Wildfire hit, and he went to 19, but I got to challenges and won. A very tight, fun game.

Round 3 - Jeremiah D.

For some reason, I don't remember a lot of this game, even though it's the last one I played. I know I had a hard time getting stuff out - I drew too many of my expensive characters, and ended up having to discard quite a few good cards to intrigue challenges. Jeremiah had a lot of deadly, notably Jaime and some big Lanni armies. He had student of subtlety, which was killing me, taking away my power icons, leaving me with only military since I couldn't draw intrigue. I got my own Student, to try to get back into the game, but he killed it by playing First Ranger on his. This made it vulnerable to my Fallen Brother, but I never drew it. I had good cards in play - Viserion, Tormund, two War Councils, but I just couldn't make much of a game with only military icons. Lacking the ability to get rid of Student or influence, I had to just sit back and watch him grind into the win over the next couple turns.

I ended up second. There weren't really any exciting rares here. I would have been happy to have the Winterfell Barracks, but Jeremiah took that first.

We cleaned things up at the store, and Jerod, Luke, and myself headed down to the pub to meet up with Roger and have a nice two or three hours of conversation, none of which seems really all that important, in hindsight...

And that's how it ended. I'm hoping to put some more time into making a new deck, and actually play it a little, followed by hitching a ride with Luke down to Missouri for the South Central Regional in June, in an attempt to redeem myself. We'll see what happens. It's too bad I can't make it to Chicago in a couple weeks, as that would certainly be good times.

GG, GL