Tournament Report: Valar Midwestis

So Team Covenant hosted their first annual Valar Midwestis tournament on Saturday, Dec 8. And of course, Saturday morning I was in my bed room trying to decide what to build. I nearly took a Targaryen Knight of the Hollow Hill deck but in the end I just wanted to play Martell so I took a Martell KotHH deck that I'd had significant luck with instead. The tournament starts with 22 people and a single round of melee (which is only used for tie breakers) followed by 4 rounds of joust.

The Melee saw me and my neutral brotherhood deck up against a Greyjoy player with no agenda (I believe the player's name was Keith), a Martell brotherhood played by Dennis and a Lannister House of Dreams with Cersei's Wheelhouse (BtW) played by Darryl (sorry if I misspell your name, I never caught the spelling though I think I did hear it mentioned that it was with 2 r's) which basically means he's got the initiative the whole game (even though he didn't get an initiative booster during the flop so we had a 4 way tie). The Greyjoy deck was running a bit of a discard theme with a Corpse Lake (TBC) and 2 Frostfang Peaks (TWH) in his setup, the rest of our setups were decent but unremarkable.

First plot sees 3 summoning seasons and a building season (from the Lannister). The Martell player trades with the Lannister player and the Greyjoy player and I trade so I get 2 summoning seasons, I have a Beric in my hand, but no Hollow Hill (ASoSilence) so I decide to play it safe and grab 2 dupes for Beric instead of trying to grab a cheap body (or 2 cheap bodies) to start my draw. (I'd lost a previous game with this deck because I chose to grab a refugee off of a summoning season, which did jump start my draw but left my 11 or 12 power Beric facing nightmares + Valar without a dupe.)

The greyjoy player who is going first gets out non-kneeling Asha and some trash to protect her and a save or two, I get out Beric with his 2 dupes. The Martell player who had grabbed the Mad Huntsman with his summoning season and plays him out with a dupe and a diplomatic something or other attachment that gives him a power icon. Lannister hasn't hit any economy (and won't for the whole game) but is playing hyper kneel and so kneels out Beric and someone else (I don't recall who but it wasn't the Mad Huntsman because the Martell player supported him, maybe Asha).

The Martell player jumps to an early lead in the challenges round, with me and Greyjoy basically tied. Lannister looses both of his characters (I believe). Hyper kneel is just so dangerous to play in melee.

The next round sees Beric and the Mad Huntsman both get fishing netted, which reveals one of my weaknesses, I really designed the deck for my meta and control attachments aren't very common so I don't have any attachment removal. I do however get my Hollow Hill out and start drawing like crazy with a Boatswain and a Spearman. Boatswain gets stolen by an enslaved. The Martell player however is packing attachment removal and discards the fishing net on his Mad Huntsman. This round continues much like the previous round, Martell pulls further in the lead, Greyjoy and I stay close together, and Lannister doesn't get anything going at all.

Third round sees me marshall out Bran Stark (Core) but is really just more of the same. The Martell player gets up to 11 or 12 power with the Mad Huntsman who it is pretty much acknowledged no one can really deal with and it looks like I'm headed for third place, which I'm really trying to avoid. So I preplot into Valar Morghulis with Bran, eating up the Mad Huntsman's dupe (but unfortunately leaving the Greyjoy player unharmed since he had flopped power of blood the previous turn) then with my plot I jump to Condemned by the Realm (Core) and offer the Greyjoy player a choice of who to kill, when the only characters on board are his Asha + Euron, my Beric, and the Martell player's 12 or so power Mad Huntsman and a knelt Maester Aemon. The Mad Huntsman hits the bin, and that pretty much leaves me and Greyjoy fighting for first and Martell and Lannister fighting for third. The game continues for another two rounds, long enough for Martell to gain a single power and claim third place, before Greyjoy takes first.

The joust sees me matched back up against Darryl who is playing Stark House of Dreams. He pulls Bear Island as his location and I think this is going to be an interesting matchup, and it is quite possible that the whole game was determined by a coin flip. My first turn draw includes a fleabottom scavenger so I drop First Snow of Winter, bouncing a couple of his weenies and drawing me some cards. After we bounce our weenies he asks me how many cards are in my hand, and I reply 11. He's at 9. I know what that means and I know I have to figure out an out. Unfortunately it doesn't look good for me. I do get to Red Vengeance his military challenge which brings me down to 10. I do somehow end up with a point of power, which counterfeits my fleabottom scavenger unfortunately and leaves us tied on power. I know rule by decree is coming and that it will quite possibly end the game, I mean I have really good draw power, but I'm not holding any at that time besides a single fleabottom scavenger which isn't turned on.

However, I do have an out. As tech against Burn I had added 4 armies to my deck and I'm holding one in hand. He flips rule by decree and I flip Manning the city walls. I win the coin flip and drop in my army leaving us tied at 9 cards apiece. My draw sees me with The Red Viper and a copy of the only attachment I run in the whole deck, He Calls It Thinking. I play him out and hope that the Stark player will have a response. Sure enough, when I let the military challenge through (and red vengeance it) he has a kill event, which I cancel with he calls it thinking and attach to the Red Viper. I know at that point either the Stark player has Valar or I pretty much win. He does have Valar, which was fine, I'm glad to get rid of it (and stick him on 2 gold, he wasn't drawing into any economy this game either). He doesn't play any characters, while I flood the board with weenies. I get a couple challenges in and prepare to go for the win next turn with To The Spears. The next turn I do indeed flip to the spears, play out a Ser Aerys Oakheart without a target (c'est la vie) and Ghost of High Heart in a Darkstar securing my win through renown.

I'll admit HoD + Bear Island is a match I've been afraid of for a while, but with the He Calls It Thinking and enough draw + economy to flood the board and enough control to only allow challenges when I feel like it, it wasn't a problem. (I think he only ate one character that I really cared about, my no attachments army that had already done its duty by protecting me from Rule By Decree.)

After that I went up against another Stark HoD deck, this time bringing out the Dreadfort. This is Shawn's deck and he's good with it. I loose the mulligan game this game, drawing an opening hand with 2 Viper's Bannermen and 3 copies of Westeros Bleeds. (Side note: I really don't think the deck needs 3 copies of this, I only played it twice the whole tournament.) He floods the board first turn and I know that without a reset I have virtually no hope. So I valar, getting rid of a host of Boltons, only to face down yet another host of Boltons. (Dreadfort is so good!) I end up drawing into the influence to play Westeros Bleeds and I wipe the board again during the dominance round and despite his draw power there are only so many boltons and I'm able to build up and win this game.

My third game is against Ben's Hyper Viper deck, using Treaty with the Isles. I know his deck pretty well, I helped design it, but he's made some changes I don't know about. I get the best possible draw I could against his deck, Ghaston Grey and Doran Martell. However, I don't have the gold first turn to play them both so I play out Ser Aerys Oakheart to discard his Farwynd (who is horrible for my deck and its 15 or so reducers). He plays out Arianne Martell, letting him get a 2 claim intrigue against me, and I just have to hope he doesn't pull my noble or my Ghaston Grey, which he doesn't. Also at this time I terribly misplay A Game of Cyvasse. I had no intrigue characters out, and instead of just using it after my challenges to force him to kneel someone or even just holding onto it to let it be potential claim soak (and so reduce the chances of him pulling GG or Doran) I played it out after he's attacked with Arianne, and he just chooses her. (I knew better, I don't know why I played it that way. I can be an idiot at times.) The next turn I draw and play a prince's plans returning 3 events and a character to my hand and he shakes his head, turns out he'd drew two copies of non-kneeling Asha but he goes ahead and plays her out. I play out Ghaston Grey and as it just takes over the game.

After 3 games there's only 3 people who are undefeated, Matt with his Baratheon wall deck, Zach with his shadows burn, and myself. I get matched up against Matt, whoever wins has a seat in the finals. The first turn is kind of bad for both of us, he runs out a ton of characters, but only one with renown, while I play out only a single location and a single character. I know I have the resets to come back from being down as long as he doesn't draw into a large amount of renown and end the game. And that's basically how the game goes for the first four turns I defend challenges as much as I can with no regard to winning just to keep him off power while I try and draw into influence and a second reset (I've got Valar, of course). Luckily for me his draw has went far south, he only ever draws into one other renown character, the Knight of Flowers and he draws him at the same time I draw Ghaston Grey. Ghaston Grey takes over the game and coupled with a Valar (I never did draw Westeros Bleeds) I wipe out all his momentum in a single turn and take the game only a turn or two later. I'm in the finals.

And what to say about the Finals? I'm up against Zach and his shadow burn which is also undefeated on the day. I'd tried to include a bit of tech against burn, but honestly I think it is the worst matchup for me. Still, the game is extremely close throughout the whole of its 14 plots (or was it 15?), I draw my entire deck, despite only getting 1 use of fleabottom scavenger, but between my misplays and his disgusting amount of burn I'm facing I'm never actually able to seal the deal and I offer him the hand after he burns out my last remaining character while I'm sitting at 14 power. I think the highlights of that game were probably watching him burn down my Viper's Bannermen with a forever burning, (Seriously, 6 plays of forever burning and threat from the north.) and when I bled my own army away so that I could prince's plans my best characters back to dodge a Valar. (Although to be fair the valar just came a turn later, but it still got me some power for a turn.) Oh, and the fact that I drew my whole deck. I played Bannermen so many times that when I drew into my third copy I went back and checked my discard pile and dead pile thinking surely I'd already played 3 of them. (I hadn't, I'd just played the 2nd copy many many times.) Lowlights were being so afraid of getting Doran burned out by flame kissed + tourny grounds that I didn't attack with him 1 turn, not realizing he was no attachments (probably cost me the game) and when I payed my last 5 gold for a Starfall Cavalry instead of paying 4 gold and using a reducer (which would've let me keep a gold for that stupid burn guy who killed my Cavalry). Still, if I'm going to choke under pressure I'd rather choke in a local tournament than at Gencon or World's. (Of course, I'd rather not have choked at all, but c'est la vie.)

In closing I'd like to thank the guys at Team Covenant for the tournament and all the guys who travelled from out of state to be there, especially Greg Atkinson who signed my copy of the Knights of the Hollow Hill.