Tourney report: Stahleck 2012

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog, which I'm mainly intending to use to keep track of reports for any and all tournaments I attend. What this will mean is expect one more blog post after this, then none for ages unless something important crosses my mind. First up I'm going to cover Stahleck, and then the UK event in Stoke-on-Trent, Winter Is Coming, which I'll post in the next day or two. As an advanced warning, this is going to be quite long as I'm terrible at being concise.

The trip began quite badly, truth be told. I went with my girlfriend Becky (refrigeratedraymond), and she had a terrible allergic reaction just before we left which meant it was a miserable trip over. We arrived at Frankfurt Hahn airport at close to midnight, got a taxi, and the taxi driver hit a deer. So our introduction to this crazy world was vehicular deerslaughter and lots of sneezing.

That said, overall Stahleck was an amazing experience. It's my first ever time going (unsurprisingly since I've only been playing for 11 months and only been playing with more than the core set for about 9), and I sincerely hope it won't be the last. The castle was a tremendous place to stay, the facilities good, the entire place atmospheric and the views amazing. The rooms were good, really spacious dorms with bunkbeds and an ensuite. We had a room of 6, as I shared with Becky, fellow London meta-mates Tagore (tomdidiot) and Michael, a really charming Scot named Stephen (thedaffodilfish) and a Norwegian named Roy who was also cool, and also Norway's sole representative for the tournament. The food wasn't really my cup of tea, although I'm a stupidly picky eater so no surprises there. This was made up for on Sunday night when myself, Becky and Ire, WWDrakey and Anette from the Quill & Tankard Regulars went to a restaurant in the nearby town. The menu was in German but they had an English version of the "translation, blind idiot" variety, and as a result we found ourselves ordering the "Big Slaughter Plate". That basically made our weekend.

So, general "how was it" thoughts out of the way, time to get on the interesting part with the bits of card. First up on the Friday was Melee. I'm going to keep this reasonably short since my view on melee is that it's a fantastic game to play for fun, but competitively it's too easy to get whiny over. Becky actually had this problem herself, to the point where she was having to answer the question "why are you attacking me??" with "you have 14 power and are winning dominance, so you win if I don't attack you". As a result I played the entire thing fairly relaxed, which was probably the wrong call. An even bigger wrong call was the deck that I took - Lannister PBtT with a Holy theme, running Melisandre (RotO) out of house. In theory it's good (as all decks are, I imagine) - get out Cersei and a couple of holy characters, preferably including Melisandre, then drop Power of Faith and rush to victory in the blink of an eye. I knew the numerous downsides - high gold curve, over-reliance on a couple of vulnerable characters, being a target for all intrigue challenges from my agenda - but decided I wouldn't win melee anyway (I think it's important to remind people at all times that I'm shit at melee) so I wanted to build a deck to have fun with. The problem was that not having a strong board makes you a target for anyone looking to push through challenges. And in melee, because of the prevalence of rush, everyone's always looking to push through challenges rather than kneel out opponents. I won't bother posting the decklist here because, simply put, the deck wasn't that good (and I apologise to NuFenix, who came up with the idea a while ago and who probably could've built and then pilotted such a deck far better than I). I didn't track names for melee because a ) I struggle to remember names in joust, tripling the number gives me no chance; and b ) I'm a terrible human being.

First game was against a Targ KotHH deck (using armies and the "attach to an opponent's house card" cards of the Blood Debt (TBC) ilk), a Stark deck using The Kindly Man, House Umber Berserkers and lots of Stalwart effects with Gates of Winterfell, and a Greyjoy Damphair deck using saves and discard effects. The Knight was played in set-up, so I opened with Condemned by the Realm, and for some reason managed to get convinced/convince myself that the person who should die was not The Knight, but The Kindly Man. This was an amazingly stupid move, both in retrospect and at the time. So the Stark guy got his agenda first turn, and he ran rampant with it. The match took ages, but Stark was always reasonably comfortable. I failed to acknowledge just how much of a threat he was for far too long, instead focusing on removing the GJ player's saves. I deservedly got 4th.

Second game I was at a 3 player table with a Martell guy who used no agenda (might've been a Quentyn but if so it didn't show up) and Icon manipulation stuff, and one of the other Brits who'd gone, Ross, who used a Lannister White Book deck. This is the one time where the deck worked well, as without a major rush deck on the table (and without that strong a military presence) I was able to set up, and rush from not much power to 15 at the end, just about holding off Ross who reached 14 (which for a moment I feared was 15 having lost count, given that he only got 1 extra because I forgot his agenda right near the end). Maester Creylen (who is always money in melee) just about won it for me.

Third game was against Martell Brotherhood, Bara Asshai Rush and Bara Night's Watch Rush. No Shadows Bob dominated the early play, but after Power of Bloods had been used up a Valar killed him. He played Narrow Escape, and it was only really in my incentive to discard on the table, so I had to do so. At that point the Brotherhood player had triplicated Beric, stuck a Flaming Sword on him and a couple more attachments, and was good to go for the win. Very little I could do about it, my delayed rush deck suffered hard when paired against 3 traditional rush decks, and at no point was I close to doing anything, being the whipping boy for people's power.

Final finish in the melee: terrible! I finished 45th out of 66, which is probably better than I deserved to be honest.

On Saturday was the Joust. For this, readers of the Rise of the Kraken will be shocked to learn that I played Greyjoy Maesters. I will post the decklist in the deckbuilding section of the site shortly then link it in the comments, but the principles of the deck are basically those I lay out in the column - use the cost-efficiency GJ has with the likes of Distinguished Boatswain (TftRK) to synergise with the agenda and rush out to a good lead, then use various save and cancel effects to stop the opponent getting back into it. If I need to rush to victory I have Asha Greyjoy (WLL), The Conclave (CbtC), Archmaester Ebrose (CbtC) and Rise of the Kraken (KotS) to gather power with alarming speed.

I went into Joust with a lot of fear - it was only my second ever tournament, and while I did win my first one playing a very similar deck I was worried that that had been a fluke and that I'd get shown up on the grand stage of Stahleck. So my aim was basically not to embarrass myself. There were 130(!) players, so to make pairings more manageable the players were split into 4 groups (Winterfell, Sunspear, King's Landing and The Eyrie) or 32 or 33 players, with the top 8 from each group going through to the round of 32 and straight knockout from thereon. I was placed in King's Landing.

Round One: BYE (0-6 )
As a side effect of that aforementioned fluke regional win I was laughably listed as a "person of renown" and got a bye for the first round. Despite this, I almost played a game by mistake! There was a mix-up and I was given a match instead of a bye, against an Italian named Fabrizio. I made a complaint and it was looked into, and we got partway through the first marshalling phase when TO Wolfgang came over to tell us that there'd been a mistake and Fabrizio was meant to be playing someone else. How did he do? Maybe we'll find out later .
Result: WIN (1-0)

Round Two: Marta (SPAIN, Stark Winter, 3-3)
This was a reasonably close game for a while. In practice I hate playing against Stark Winter, partly because the save effects need to be rationed a lot more carefully than normal, partly because they're arguably the only house with better card efficiency than Greyjoy, but mainly because of two cards: Meera Reed (TftH) and Brienne of Tarth (PotS). The former blanks my maesters, making the chains fall off and limiting my saves; the latter makes those saves mean jack shit. Meera was the first one to come out, and I made stupid play of the day numero uno. I had the opportunity to keep her out on the table but instead made a challenge to try to get another chain off, thinking Marta would want to win dominance and it'd go through unopposed - of course she didn't, she wanted to lose dominance, discard a refugee and move Meera out of reach of a Valar. Which is what happened. Second time she came out I was able to keep her out and Valar, which my deck can basically shrug off. Then came the turn of Brienne, and here's where I made stupid play of the day Numero Dos. I had out Asha x2, Maester Kerwin (VM), Maester Murenmure (CbtC) and Maester Wendamyr (KotS). Murenmure had the Bronze Link (FtC) on him, I had Milk of the Poppy (Core) in my discard pile (top attachment), and Marta had a Brienne and Roose Bolton (DB) (I think, might've been a different character but one with a War Crest) in play, along with maybe a couple of chuds, on a 2 claim plot for her with me going first. I led with a power challenge with Murenmure, and said "I trigger Bronze Link". I then proceeded with the challenge, collected power for unopposed and claim, and got Pale Steel Link (FtC) off my agenda to stick on Kerwin, so that I could shove Mlik of the Poppy on Brienne before Marta's challenges. Then I declared the intrigue with Kerwin, and...realised I hadn't actually triggered Bronze Link. I just said I had done, but never got the card out of the discard pile, and moved on with the game forgetting about it. Which meant no blanking Brienne. Which meant no cancels and no saves when Brienne and Roose came at me for 2-claim military and then Die by the Sword (LoW) and No Quarter (TBC) both hit the table. Board wiped out because I apparently have extreme short-term memory loss. The guy in Memento would've remembered to get Milk of the Poppy back, but I'm special apparently. I had no way back from that one astonishingly bad misplay.
Result: LOSS (1-1)

Round Three: Jiri (CZECH REPUBLIC, Stark No Agenda, 2-4)
After the previous match I was worried my pre-tournament fears would be justified; however, in this game everything clicked. I believe Jiri drew into a hand of kill, but I had too many cancels and saves. I flopped Kerwin and grabbed Maester Wendamyr, and that immediately doubled Wendy's usefulness since he could save himself and then use Kerwin to stand again for a second save. He got a couple of Refugees out which both fell to a Dissension (QoD), giving me a strong board position. In the first two turns I tanked a whole heap of kill events, to the point where I almost felt guilty when he played his final one, my board knelt out, and I was able to save Wendy with Risen from the Sea (KotS). A Valar came, and the deck did its wonderful trick of leaving me with a completely full board with Jiri having nothing. Rushed to victory quite comfortably after that.
Result: WIN (2-1)

Round Four: Christian (ITALY, Targaryen KotHH, 1-5)
This deck came from the John Bruno school (I don't know if it was a netdeck, but it was at least similar). I knew from play-testing that I had to rush hard against Targ KotHH to stop it from being able to get off the ground, so I opened with all my 2 claim plots in succession. He was able to slow me down somewhat with a The First Snow of Winter (ODG), especially when he then played Aegon's Hill (TTotH) leaving Wendy tossed to the dead pile. It wasn't enough though, especially after I was able to get a duped Alannys Greyjoy (ODG) on the table to cancel burn (or, if there wasn't any incoming, Aegon's Hill). Threat from the North (PotS) would've been a problem, but Citadel Law (MotA) paid its entry fee for the deck and stopped him from being able to discard the board. I won this on turn 5, although it perhaps would've lasted a turn (maybe 2) longer if Christian hadn't forgotten the rules of Search and Detain (HtS), electing himself to go first and trying to bounce my duped Asha with 3 power on her. That was the final cut, really. It says something about the control I had throughout this game that he played Rhaenys's Hill (TBoBB) and activated it on that final turn, and the three cards he got from it were Kerwin, Wendamyr and Maester Aemon (Core). Not that useful for stopping my power challenge for the win.
Result: WIN (3-1)

Round Five: Sebastien (FRANCE, Lannister PBtT, 3-3)
Becky had actually played Sebastien in round one of the swiss, and their match was brutal. Becky was running Targ KotHH, and it was vulnerable to rush. He flopped Ser Jaime Lannister (Core) and a couple of resource locations, then played Fear of Winter (BtW) and for his one card played Cersei Lannister (LotR). Becky went first with Viserion, but he was happy to kill Jaime and then Cersei swept through for 2 2-claim intrigue challenges, plus a power challenge to put him on 6 power after the first turn with Becky's hand decimated. The game was bascially already over then.

With this in mind, I was mindful of a first turn FoW, especially after my flop was middling (Kerwin, Murenmure and Aemon which could be swept apart by 2 claim military, and he'd flopped a military icon). I opened with At the Gates (GotC), grabbing Wendamyr so I could protect myself from both parts of a military challenge. I was still lacking in real intrigue strength though, so he happily played Cersei for his one card again. My one card was 1 cost - The Conclave (CbtC). I could basically see his face fall at the sudden change of fortune. His military was absorbed by Wendy and Kerwin, and Conclave was able to push through an intrigue challenge to let me get the Black Iron Link (MotA) into play. This card basically made Cersei its bitch all game. At least, until I got a Milk of the Poppy on her. I got Asha out next turn, and she stomped all over this game, ending up with a large amount of power. I was able to win at a canter in the end, and it was turn one that decided it.
Result: WIN (4-1)

Going into Round 6 I was feeling good, thinking 4 wins would be enough to qualify, until I noticed my strength of schedule - as you might've noticed, it was close to as low as it could be given the record I had (and Stahleck byes are not "Super Byes", rather than having a perfect Strength of Schedule, their SoS is equal to your average SoS across the other 5 opponents). So I went into the final game knowing I had to avoid a loss (a tie or modified loss would probably do) to finish in the top 8 and make the last 32.

Round Six: Fabrizio (ITALY, Baratheon Knights, 3-3)
The swiss came full circle as for my final match I played the guy I'd almost accidentally played in the first round. It was kinda sucky that one of us would be going out (he had to win to get top 8, I had to not lose), 'cause he was a really nice guy (which to be fair everyone was, but I got on well with Fabrizio in particular for some reason). I knew against Bara rush it was necessary to weather an early storm, try to limit the damage as much as possible, then come back at him after the Valar. It didn't go too well, with him getting a fantastic flop and me getting a subpar one. Robert Baratheon (TTotH) was dropped and he put the smackdown on me, and he got to over 10 power very quickly. I knew I had to Valar much earlier than I wanted to, and that if Fabrizio played The Power of Blood (Core) I was out just like that. I umm'd and ah'd to myself for a while in a "he knows I have to play Valar so he'll Power of Blood, so I shouldn't play it, but he knows that then I shouldn't play it so maybe he won't Power of Blood, but then maybe I should..." loop, before eventually deciding that, screw it, Valar had to drop, even if I played something else he'd probably win that turn, and that if he didn't play Power of Blood and I didn't play Valar, I'd kick myself so hard I'd end up on top of the Castle. I played Valar and...no Power of Blood. After all that, I later found out he didn't even have it in his deck! What he did have was Narrow Escape (KotStorm), but I could swat that away with Paper Shield (QoD), and suddenly I was back in the game with the biggest threat on the board dead (and my stuff surviving, as per usual). From there it was a slow slog. He spent the next few turns trying to accumulate power anyway he could, the most principle way being a Knight of Flowers (SaS) with Lightbringer (Core). That got some power before I put a stop to it with Milk of the Poppy and then later combined Copper Link (GotC) with Dissension to dispose of it. He also had quite a few smaller renown characters, but I was able to use Men of Pride (THoBaW) to stop him from rushing with them until I could get my own power characters out. He didn't have Valar in his deck and we were both able to put out an obscene amount of strength, but with his deck lacking in intrigue icons I was able to push through unopposed intrigue challenges with Asha and the Conclave (who was loaded with chains and protected by two The Iron Mines (KotS)). It was a hardfought game with lots of difficult sums near the end (I joked that the main advantage I got from Retaliation! (ASoSilence) was making him have to do the maths while I could relax, and there was probably a fair amount of truth in it), but after I dealt with the initial rush I felt like i always had it in the bag, albeit with it constantly squirming and trying to escape.
Result: WIN (5-1).

With a 5-1 record I'd finished 4th in my division, comfortably made the top 32 (with the 13th best score in the Joust at swiss level) and, most importantly of all, not embarrassed myself. Hoorah! I later found out (from this very site in fact) that of the 130 players, 8 had gone with Greyjoy Maesters, and 7 of us had made the top 32. Take notes kids, this is the deck to play apparently! I knew the column was on to something.

Before the round of 32 there was an absolutely agonising wait while the judges had to check each top 32 deck one by one, comparing the cards in it to the decklists submitted pre-tourney. This took about an hour and a half. I fully appreciate that that was an appropriate amount of time for it to take, especially given there were a couple of issues with one or two of the decks, but let me tell you there is nothing more nerve-wracking than spending 90 minutes panicking that you might've accidentally written Men of Honor on your plotlist instead of Men of Pride. As it turned out I was fine, as was Michael, the only other Brit in the top 32 (although he almost wasn't because he'd stupidly left the last 2 cards he'd cut from the deck the morning of the tournament, still sleeved up, in his deck box and had to go and fish them out and explain the mistake). But after it was all over I honestly, genuinely felt like I'd be delighted to lose 15-0 in the last 32, 'cause it wouldn't be as bad as that ordeal. This proved fortunate.

Round of 32: Massimo (ITALY, Stark Maesters)
Stark Maesters is a terrible match-up for me. They have all the stuff I usually hate about Stark like Meera, Brienne, better card efficiency and whatnot, but also can pull off a number of the same tricks, along with some Stark specific ones (Poisoned Coin (THoBaW) suddenly looks a lot more dangerous when paired with Bronze Link and Pale Steel Link). This was doubly compounded when I had my first truly terrible set-up all tournament, mulliganing from a two card flop into no characters. What's more, the long day had made me start making errors. Mistake numero tre: I made a challenge with a refugee in a hopeless bluff to try to make him think I had something up my sleeve, completely forgetting that I love it when people do that to me because it means a free chain off the agenda. Mistake numero quattro: I had 2 dissensions in my hand with him having targets on the board, I held onto them with the aim of getting the Copper Link and putting them to better use and he played Maester Vyman (TWoW) so they became useless, then stomped me harder with the characters I'd elected not to remove. Then the doozy, mistake numero cinque: on a Threat From The North round, I tried to play Wex Pyke (KotS). Wex. frickin'. Pyke. I realised literally as I was putting the card down, to the point where I was able to say "I pay 2 for Wex Pyke, which is discarded because of Threat from the North" seamlessly as though it had been my intention to get him discarded. That was by far the most awful play I made all day. Truth be told though, the match was already over long before that point, and Massimo was a deserving winner.

All in all I'm delighted with the Joust, I proved (at least to myself) that my previous win hadn't been a fluke, and had shown that Greyjoy Maesters are as awesome as I keep saying (although the Italians proved that far, far better than I did as it turns out). I got some nice loot for placing in the top 32, grabbing a Game of Thrones TV Show poster, some house cards and a really nice large art print of Griff (CD). He's one of my favourite characters in the books, but whether you love him or hate him I'm sure you can agree that the artwork on his card is incredible, and to have a fine quality print of it was really cool. I also got some smaller art prints of The Blackfish (LoW), Chella, Daughter of Cheyk (Core) and Ser Jaime Lannister (TTotH), although I gave/traded away the former and the latter to others who hadn't got them when they'd wanted them.

That evening was the Driver, Not the Car tournament which sadly I was not able to enter due to progressing in the joust, but which I hear was a lot of fun and I'd definitely want to participate in next year if given the chance.

On the Sunday was 2v2. My meta-mate Tagore ran it, and I'm sure he'd admit that the running wasn't too smooth. He'd agreed to organise it even though he had to leave reasonably early for his plane, and there should have been enough time for it to run; unfortunately in a tournament where you need a multiple of 4 number of participants to make it work there's going to be problems, especially when people have to drop out, and so it proved. The tournament overran, he had to dash off during the last round of matches, and it left the organisation a bit of a shambles to be honest (although Ross stepped in to do a fine job organising the prizes). In fairness to Tagore he tried to make amends by offering up some of his own house cards as one of the prizes available. I took a Greyjoy Unopposed/Mill deck that I hadn't had time to playtest properly. I wish I had, or I'd have realised it was terrible! The theory was that with a partner to divert attention I'd be able to find more unopposed challenges, get some discard effects going and rush to power with Corpse Lake. Unfortunately what happened in practice is I was bullied because my poor gold curve meant I couldn't get a proper footing on the board, my partner couldn't overcome both opponents on his own and they romped home. The exception of this was the first game, where I paired with Grejoy Holy against Ire's joust deck (Greyjoy Holy with a Winter subtheme) and Ross's Martell. My partner (terrible with names, sorry)'s deck and mine synergised perfectly, our Theons helping power each other, his Euron helping power my Corpse Lake and Fishmonger's Square. I actually also synergised with Ire's deck, as when he made it winter it was to my benefit, doubling the potency of my Frostfang Peaks. Meanwhile Ross and Ire did not combine well, their decks just pulling in different directions. I was still unable to establish board position, but Corpse Lake did the work for me and I contributed about a third of the power in our very narrow win. The other two games we lost badly and it was my fault. Somehow due to other people dropping, either during the tournament or before the prize ceremony, I was still able to get the 8th of 8 prizes, which was a Secrets of Oldtown deck container box thing I'm very happy with.

That was it for Thrones - other than the aforementioned Big Slaughter Plate the only other thing of note I did was play the FFG Game of Thrones board game, which WWDrakey had won as a prize for coming 2nd in the melee. If anyone's interested in potentially getting it (and has enough friends to play with 3-6 people), here's my short review: for the first quarter of an hour it seems like it's the most complicated game imaginable and just stupid, somewhat like the card game; unlike the card game however, when you understand how it all works and what the pieces do it's refreshingly simple, while still being nuanced enough to allow for real strategy. We had to abandon the game for dinner, but I did have time to backstab Ire (me as Stark, him as Greyjoy) before we stopped so I could tie for the win . After dinner we also played a game of Stephen's called Jungle Speed, which is the most hilariously complicated version of Snap that I've ever seen. If you ever get the chance to play it I strongly recommend it, especially if you're drunk when you play. One of the core game mechanics involves grabbing a totum in the middle of the table, with one of the cards that can be played being "whoever grabs it quickest empties their discard pile" basically. My own personal highlight was Stephen and I grabbing it together, him with a much firmer grip, and me meticulously holding on until he had to haul me over his head and onto the ground, me still clinging on and him only then being able to wrench it free.

As I said at the beginning all that time ago, Stahleck was an incredible experience. If anyone's thinking about going I can't recommend it highly enough, even if you expect you'll do terribly - the experience itself is just fun, and as everyone (correctly) points out the players of this game are some of the nicest people you'll meet. Major props go to Wolfgang for running a tremendous tournament, and hopefully I'll be able to prop him again next year!