On April 23rd the AGOT community celebrated the influx of new cards by holding their first official tournament in months. This is one person's view of that event. Names have been changed to protect the Greyjoys.
To be honest, me? I'm still exhausted. I'm not as young as I used to be, and last night we played til past four am. It was worth it, though: our first tournament, literally, in months. Everyone was excited, and everybody's schedules came together so we had a six-player tournament. It was our first time to play officially in forever, and our first chance to incorporate the new cards from the Chapter Packs. (I know, I had said I was going to write about the chapter packs after my last post on the Core Set. Forgive me.) So we expected a series of matches with both the delight of greeting an old friend, and the anticipation of seeing new tricks and strategies played out.
There were six of us: Gil, Mikko, Aaron, Ron, Peter, and myself. Peter was a surprise addition to the ranks: no-one had anticipated his interest in AGOT to resurface so strongly. And Aaron passed on his Bleach interests in order to join us, so it would be a memorable night, in so many ways.
First off, let me say, that I can only give a limited perspective of the event: I was so caught up in my own games and the new cards that I never even got to look over at the other matches going on. So on to what little I know.
Mikko brought his newly-developed Targaryen Ambush deck, which I had playtested against 2 weeks previously and found very strong. Indeed, it inspired me to rebuild my own Targ deck, no small feat considering. But it's true: Targ got a lot of great cards in the first four chapter packs. Their splendid Ambush characters have a lot to offer. I had also been inspired by Gil's use of certain new Lannister cards, which is one of the joys of playing with people who favor other Houses than your own: both Mikko and Gil had long since identified the standout cards of their Houses and integrated them well. The Targ jumpers, Lannister's Toll Gate, the excellent Pyromancer's Cache, all great new components.
For this tournament, though, Gil brought out his Baratheon deck, the one called The Tank. Iam not sure exactly what all is in it, but knowing Gil I know two things that you can rely on:
1. It's fast.
2. It wins.
However, these beliefs were to be shaken during this tournament, to the surprise of all.
Aaron played Martell, and I know nothing of his deck except that he was looking for Wildlings beforehand. (sorry, man. I looked, but did not find. I have them somewhere, but I didn't bring my Wildling to the night's games.) Peter was running, apparently, a Lannister War-Crest deck, but as these two guyhs were the ones I din't play against, I have little to report on their deck construction, except that at one point I looked over and Aaron had revealed The First Snow Of Winter, and I remember thinking, huh: an XP first? Amazingly for a card that has virtually defined the US environment, First Snow is almost never played over here. Guess we love our weenies.
Ron, in another surprise twist, brought his Martell deck to the tournament. Ron is a devoted squid, of course, and he says he likes to play all his decks like they were Greyjoy decks. Having played against his deck in the past two weeks, I can agree.
Me? Naturally, it was Stark. And I had made some changes to my usual deck. (As you know, I have at least five Stark decks.) I hadn't incorporated that many new cards, but I had a lot of differences. One of the fun parts of getting new cards is finding new combos with old cards, and in this case, I went the extreme route of not only De-Winterizing my deck (in preparation for the eventual Winter rotation, I pulled out all Winter Block cards) but I also tried some 5KE combos that I's always wanted to see in action. Not great stuff, mind you, but hey, it was a new day, why not experiment?
Of course, the most significant loss to my deck was Massing, but there was a lot that left along with it. A lot of my big characters, went too, and it was a wrench to lose them. But it did free up some critical deck space. I was able to go into the tourney carrying a deck that was only about, oh, ten cards overweight. Included among these:
Three Winterfell tutors. I had long felt that these cards, apart from carrying the rare-for-Stark intrigue icon, also synergized well with Stalwart. I also thought they could do well with the new Wolf Heralds, especially in conjunction with Gates Of Winterfell. To further speed through this process, I added:
Three Winterfell Hot Springs. Basically card filters, I thought these locatons would help the Tutors put more cards in my hand. As it turns out, they didn't do so well: Even when I was filtering my deck, it didn't help much. Lesson learned: Draw is better than Filter. Fortunately to make up for the missing Massings I had put in:
Three Watching The Heavens. More resource-intensive than Massing, these cards are still a great bargain. What more need be said?
Bear Island. Just one, it's unique. And it actually never came out in any of these games. Bt I like it, and I don't doubt it'll be a standard, despite its somewhat restrictive absolutely-no-neutrals requirement.
Jaqen H'ghar. Another card that will make the cut, although he isn't as massively game-breaking as the US boards said he once was. His strength doesn't rise above three now because you don't dare put power on him. Still, he's a keeper.
Gates Of Winterfell. I think this card has potential but like the Springs and Heralds, it needs combos to maximize it, and that means more Drae is needed. Wait and see if it ends up staying.
Icy Catapult. By far my favorite addition (I put in three Karhold Master-At-Arms to maximize them) the Catapults were the first cards I picked out of the Chapter Packs. In an environment without Arya's Revenge, you gotta have something, right?
To be fair, the new additions didn't fly as well as I'd hoped, but I'm very glad I tried them. The Winterfell Tutors are solid characters even without using their ability. The Hot Springs, I dunno. Probably they should go. The Heralds can stay, although I feel they aren't AS strong as I once thought. Still, they're good, and the Tutor means that Stark can use them better than most. Jaen stays. Bear Island stays, although it may need help.
It's late now, so I'll leave the rest for another night.
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1 comment:
The date was August 23rd ser. Hehe...
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