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Crimson and Gold - Gen Con 2013 Recap
Aug 23 2013 05:10 AM |
scantrell24
in Game of Thrones
Small Council Crimson and Gold scantrell24 Lannister
House Lannister made the top 16 of the Joust tournament 2 ½ times, an unremarkable yet better-than-expected result. I wasn’t there but I’ve tracked down Kyle, Jim, and Francisco, who made the cut and have humbly agreed to share their insights.House of Dreams (ARotD) + Tunnels of the Red Keep (CoS)
Kyle Szklenski
5-1 Swiss
Kyle posted his decklist and report over on agotcards. During the tournament he defeated Stark No Agenda / Kindly Man, Lanni Black Sails, Bara Black Sails, Martell No Agenda / Quentyn, and Martell KotHH, but lost to Lanni No Agenda / Kevan and Greyjoy No Agenda / Choke.
Kyle's build doesn't stray far from the classic Tunnels lineup, but there are a few interesting twists. First, the plot deck does NOT include Cersei's Scheme (TPoL); instead he opted for Forgotten Plans (KotStorm) to combat troublesome plots like Threat from the North. Enslaved (THoBaW) is also noticeably absent; Kyle states that he expected the meta to be defined by Targ Burn and counters to Targ Burn, so targets for Enslaved would be few and far between. After the tournament he stood by this assessment. Kyle doubled-up on draw, running a full set of both Golden Tooth Mines (Core) and Pyromancer's Cache (TWot5K) (the restricted card) to ensure a strong mid-game board presence. Finally, Kyle ran single-copies of events cards like Condemned by the Council (AToT) and Nightmares (LoW). When an opponent sees one copy of an event, he'll often expect another to follow and might alter his play even though that second copy is never coming. After the tournament Kyle conveyed his plan to add Seductive Promise (Core) to take full advantage of the strength boost from cards in shadows.
MVP cards on the day included Alchemist's Guild Hall (TBoBB), which can kneel both characters and locations, Cersei Lannister (AToT), one of the nastiest kneel effects in the game, and Tywin Lannister (LotR), the closer for an otherwise slow archetype. I'm excited about the future of Tunnels and glad to see someone have success with the build in a major tournament. Choke, location control, and cancels proved to be the end of Kyle's run, as if often the case for kneel-based control decks, and the new plot Rally Cry won't make things any easier for HoD, but on the bright side Kingsguard shadows cards are only a couple months away!
No Agenda / Ser Kevan Lannister (VM)
Jim McGovern (OrangeDragon)
Jim hasn’t yet provided a decklist, but I feel confident speculating that he probably ran 3x House Clegane Brigands (AToTT), and only a single of copy of Kevan himself. Beyond that we'll just have to wonder.
Baratheon Alliance (QoD) to Lannister
Francisco G.
Okay, so it's not strictly speaking a Lanni deck, but Francisco caught enough players off-guard with his noble-crest rush to make the cut, and he deserves a mention for the ballsy Agenda choice. Cersei Lannister (LotR), Ser Jaime Lannister (LotR) and Ser Kevan Lannister (LotR) can't be killed with The Power of Blood (Core) revealed. Little Bird (RotK) gives stealth to a renown character, or it and Devious Intentions (BoRF) can both lend an intrigue icon to Stannis Baratheon (VM). Widow's Wail (LotR) brings that Lannister draw to the table so the rush never runs out of steam, and Pentoshi Manor (AHM) (the restricted card) provides a pesky control element.
Francisco beat Martell Treaty to the Isles, Targ Maesters, Lanni HoD Tunnels, Greyjoy No Agenda Choke, and Lanni KotHH, but lost to Targ KotHH in Swiss and Greyjoy Black Sails in the elimination rounds. You can find his decklist and report here on cardgamedb. It's an impressive design.
Bonus Coverage: Melee Final Table
House of Dreams (ARotD) + Casterly Rock (LotR)
Jim McGovern (OrangeDragon)
Lannister isn't known for being a Melee powerhouse, but Jim struck gold with this deck. The stealth from Casterly Rock makes both defending challenges and winning unopposed challenges much easier, but the stealth is a supplement to the deck's goal, not it's focus. Generally the plan is to appear un-threatening while maneuvering the right pieces into position for a sudden, rapid power gain.
There are ways to slow down your opponents: Jhalabar Xho (TWot5K), Slander and Lies (HtS), Infamous! (LotR). Ways to redirect challenges (Varys (TGM)) or manipulate oppose/support (Myrcella Lannister (ODG)). All the while Joffrey Baratheon (TftRK), Maester Creylen (FtC), and Ser Jaime Lannister (Core) rack up power that can't be stolen from power challenge claim, and then in one marshalling phase you drop, for example, Formal Petition (PotS), Orphaned Recruit (OSaS), and 2x You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf! (Core), shooting from 10 power to victory in the blink of an eye. I don't play Melee nearly as much as Joust, but Jim's design looks like it's a blast to drive.
Joust Top 16
FFG hasn't seen fit to acknowledge Gencon on their Thrones page, so I'll go ahead and share the top 16 if you haven't found it elsewhere online.
1. Tim Peterson – Martell Quentyn – The Viper’s Bannermen
2. Steve Simoni (Kr4ng) – Martell Quentyn – The Viper’s Bannermen (report here)
4. Chris Schoenthal (Imrahil) – Greyjoy No Agenda Choke
4. Alex Hynes (Istaril) – Greyjoy Black Sails – Fury of the Kraken (deck here)
8: Kyle Vancil – Martell Quentyn – Negotiations
8: Andy Writt – Targ KotHH – Street Waif
8: Chad Jannik – Martell Quentyn – The Viper’s Bannermen
8: Erik Butzlaff – Martell Quentyn – The Viper’s Bannermen
16: Francisco Gobantes – Baratheon Alliance to Lannister – Pentoshi Manor
16: Kyle Szklenski – Lanni HoD Tunnels – Pyromancer’s Cache
16: Jim McGovern – Lanni No Agenda / Kevan
16: Jonathan Andrews (darknoj) – Greyjoy Black Sails – Fury of the Kraken (deck here)
16: Rick Branagan – Martell Quentyn
16: Ray Nerpal – Targ KotHH - The Hatchling's Feast
16: Jonathan Benton – Targaryen KotHH
16: Jonathan Madison – Greyjoy HoD Longship Iron Victory
So there you have it. Lanni failed to crack the top 8, but at least we outpaced Stark and Baratheon. I'd love to have a discussion in the comments about what Lanni needs to break through that ceiling and make top 4 at Worlds. A new agenda, maybe? Or must we wait for FFG to whack Martell (again) with another restricted list? Let me know!
- zordren and Ratatoskr like this
17 Comments
Mad props to Francisco for breaking the mold!
Anyways, as far as what is needed to push lannister to the next level. I think its just a balancing act really. I kind of think that Lannister players are focusing on kneel to much. As we can see with Kyle's list, the deck isn't focused on kneel. It has kneel in it but it isn't the main concept of the deck. Take a look at his events, he doesn't actually play any of the kneel effects in the list. Instead he is playing things that can actually do well against decks with standing tech in them. This type of thinking is what allows Lannister as a whole to do well. When you pull yourself away from the main gimic of the house and instead build the deck as spot kneeling with actual different controlling effects you see a more well rounded deck without the big weakness we see in so many other Lannister decks that focus on the kneel.
I have a contemplative "what-if" question: What if TLV was not soft-banned by being erratted to Neutral Faction only?
Would people be upset if there were TLV slots in the Top 16?
As a new player that started only playing in the Boston Meta after FAQ 4.0, I really felt that the Restricted List with King Seasons/Tin Link/Refugees opened up a lot of deck ideas for me and TLV moved up a lot of my deck ideas that lacked draw to something that could at least hold its own as Tier 2 decks (I can't build to the 1.5 level yet.)
Obviously both in-game skill, deck design skill, and the strength of the deck itself factored into D.C.'s success.
Basically it comes down to this. If you see your opponent drop Qeuntyn you do 1 of 2 things. Rush for the power win faster then they can or you starting hitting their hand hard. Guess who does this well? Anyways, if you hit their hand hard enough you can clear it out pretty quick. Once its cleared out, you can flip your valar and let them have their agenda. Once they are down to top decking, Quentyn being a character agenda isn't even a big deal. What you have to do after that is stop their draw outside of Quentyn.
I've done what i described above multiple times and won against Quentyn pretty easily. When it comes right down to it, the strength behind any Character agenda is the psychological effect it has on the opposing player. As long as you can over come that, you can play around just about any character agenda.
I actually think that Bara replaces targ in that list. Targ losing Street Waif hurt a lot i think. With their card advantage engine gone, its just about taking the game late and hitting their hand hard 1 or 2 times. After that happens it becomes fairly easy to beat burn now with Street Waif gone. Also, Bara BS is still a great counter to Quentyn.
Martell also has Manning the City Walls into The Viper's Bannermen, which what puts it over the top IMO. 8 gold and 2 claim, often on turn 1, just grabs the lead so quickly and puts your opponent on his heels.
Yes, Manning The City Walls + Viper's Bannerman is good but its still not the end of the world. I dunno, i just really hate to see all those other Martell cards get hit to the restricted list just because people are over reacting. Martell isn't leaps and bounds ahead of any other tier 1 deck. I'd still saying that Greyjoy and Bara have great answers to Quentyn.
1) Maester of the Sun if its the Summer version
2) Power of Blood if its the Ghaston version
3) the 2 cards the Bannermen net when they die
4) they can hit you with a 2-claim plot when you Valar
Tinman41, I've been pretty dismissive of PbtT lately. A well-crafted rush deck can win, but that build just lost Asha, and it's highly matchup dependent. It's one of those decks that can maybe make the cut, but won't win once it gets there, IMO anyways. I'll probably look at PbtT in one of the next few articles.
Greyjoy handles the bannerman pretty easily. Just canceling the draw works. It is true that they can hit you with a 2 claim plot on your valar turn but whats the chances of them doing very much damage with no hand and top decking 2 cards? Not a great chance they are going to be able to capitalize on their 2 claim when they are playing off of the top of their deck.
At the end of the day, here is the thing. Everything i've mentioned above and in this post are things that i fear when i'm playing with Quentyn. I think people don't notice these things because they aren't playing Quentyn but these are the holes of Quentyn. Often times you play out so many cards to the board that you have a low hand size. Focusing the hand down isn't hard at that point. Look at the Final game. Tim focused on Steve's hand pretty hard while Power Of Blood was in affect. He was flipping 2 claim plots trying to get those cards out of his hand so that when the valar hit, Tim would come out ahead. This is the key to beating Quentyn. He saw it because he was playing the deck.
Most of my success is out of Bara BS to be honest. I like to not attack military at all and hit their hand hard, build up my cards in hand through Val/Laughing Storm. Once i feel comfortable i drop no draw stannis into play and then Quenyn doesn't matter anymore. He can become an agenda if he wants but the stand alone isn't very threatening.
Plus, the one true answer to Martell is The Iron Throne (LotR)
That being said, I haven't played in any tournaments yet, but I regularly face solid competition (at least Tier 1.5 decks) from a gaming group of 6 friends, and I'm hovering around 75% win percentage.
Check out the Lannister "Big Money Decks" Thread!
Lanni No Agenda
This was a hasty rebuild of my Lanni KotHH that I used in regionals, done the night before the GenCon joust. It needs quite a bit of tweaks, esp. Pyromancer's apprentice which were useless. Need more characters. Superstars were the Brigands, of course, and Kevan, surprisingly. Kevan won me two close games.