Bootagot's Tournament Round Review 4

Round 4 – Michele (Itay) – Targeryen – TLV

Hey guys Boot agot here for round 4 of Dennis Harrison’s OCTGN Tournament, playing Grejoy TLV. This week I was up against Michele from Italy.

Setup: I had a strong 5 card setup Alannys, Blockade, Naval escort and 2 economy locations against her 4 cards: Jorah, Meraxes, Shadow Parasite and an economy location. Captain obvious told me her deck was more centric to the burn/recursion archetype opposed to Dothraki, Dragon or whatever else Targ does. I was actually worried about this match because Targ recursion acts is pseudo card draw and would most likely lock me out of the long term card advantage win (plus she opened with Meraxes) and my saves are worthless against burn effects. This means several things: 1) no easy way outs (premature valar, draw more than you, save more than you, cancel more than you etc), I will have to own the board and wrestle for the advantage, even if that means a grind; 2) Naval escort is going to be HUGE. A few further comments: playing Alannys ‘unprotected’ really could have backfired and there is no way I would have played her if it was Targ KOTHH because they 100% play Marched to the Wall, and that would end me first turn, as I would also lose my naval escort. I was fairly confident marched to the wall is not that great a plot and would not be played in a TLV meta. Also thoughts on playing Jorah setup: in this situation I think it’s good as GJ do not have many Mercenaries or Allies, which would mean playing him post setup would usually result in discarding one of your own.

Plot 1: I obviously open with Fury, but ultimately forget my plans and decide to go first. I play Qarl, Boatswain, Kerwin and Kingsmoot hopeful. She plays Long lances, brothel and kingsroad fiefdoms. I need to get Alannys activate to counter the lances; I have 3 warships to give +3 to 3 guys locking out burn. I attack with Qarl using his response discarding an event and location giving him + 2 strength, combine that with intrigue claim Alannys is online. I am feeling great I have the strength modifications to counter burn, the repeatable cancel for anything crazy plus the board control. 4-1

Plot 2: My Victorian Schemes against her Kings landing Coup: she wins. Just quickly; KLC has sweet stats but I have found rather ordinary when I have played both with and against. I remember listening to an interview with Bruno and I paraphrase how he put emphasis on the need for your plots to actually affect the game and not just be vanilla stats. Either way some food for thought next plot deck you make. I play more warships Victorian, Asha. Vic schemes plus naval Vic is always strong as you get pseudo 3 claim plot; it’s just awesome and comes up a lot more than you think. It is one of my favourite plays and works as Rise of the Kraken MkII late game. Because my game plan is board control I chose to use the 3 claim for the mil but late game I almost always use it for a last minute power surge. Clearly this strong board state is begging for a valar or threat from the north.

Plot 3: She valars I forgotten plans hedging against TftN. I have two saves up my sleeves and my candidates are Alannys, Asha and Victorian. I ultimately choose the A team, feeling Victorian has done his scheming and can sleep with the fishes. 9-1

Plot 4-5: She besieges my naval escort and her brothel. I needed some $$$ to play Euron so I took the bank by surprise and decide to go first. I have a duped Euron, Alannys, Asha, a hopeful king and a plethora of warships. She has built up her location base as well with a ton of influence and with my naval escort gone I am feeling vulnerable to burn, despite not seeing much all game. It’s time to close it out though and with Euron giving a non-kneeling renowned Asha stealth it’s looking promising. 13-2. I play my 5th plot and it’s all over red rover.

My thoughts on the game: It was another awesome game and an even better opponent. I was lucky to get naval escort, Alannys and Asha online early really making her decisions hard from the start, which is good because that is when they have the least amount of information and are more likely to make the wrong choice. Euron and Victorian are by far my favourite characters and they both ‘combo’ so well with Victorians schemes and RotK which are my two finishers. Another invaluable line of play for GJ is forcing the valar by appearing to over extend with a few good characters and an army of chud, they valar you save the all-stars kill the chuds and play out the remaining all stars in your hand. They don’t have much gold to recoup from valar, you should (plot selection). Your board is even better in terms of quality and you can just steam roll anything they do play and just own the board from that point on. It’s very hard to come back from that definitely if the GJ draws into more saves.

As of the time I wrote this I am 3-1 overall. Until next week, thanks for reading.