Game of Thrones Tournament Report - Thunder Bay ON Store Championship

This is my first time writing a tournament report, i wanted to get some practice to report our regional as well.
i tried to keep to the same format as everyone else. Here goes!

This last sunday, The Gameshelf hosted our Store Tournament which i had been anxiously awaiting all month.
Our playgroup suffered some last minute absences and a few of our core players were out of the city, but seven players attended and everyone brought their A-game.

Our Joust Competition deck representation:

Baratheon Agendaless, Val (Adam)
Baratheon Agendaless, Narrow Escape (Dave)
Stark Song of Ice, Meera Reed (Stefan)
Martell Song of Fire, Venomous Blade (Cheryl)
Martell Bloodthirst, Burning on the Sand (Matt)
Targaryen, Hatchlings feast (Joey)
Greyjoy Old Way, Fear of Winter (Tyson)

I managed to secure first place with my Greyjoy Old Way deck in a grueling match against the Bloodthirst challenge control deck.

My Old Way deck is actually a refurbished version of my Greyjoy Hyper choke deck i brought with me to worlds. it focuses on incredible setups to gain board position by first marshall, and a mix of high claim and character-location based cancel or control to keep tempo. in every card choice i asked myself if there was a character or location that could do a similar effect in order to maximize my setup potentials (huge props to the Setup Calculator that was posted by the Beyond the Wall folks).

Total Cards: (60)

House:
House Greyjoy

Agenda: (1)
1x The Old Way (FF)

Plot: (7)
1x Rise of the Kraken (KotS)
1x Victarion's Scheme (TPoL)
1x Breaking and Entering (LotR)
1x Valar Morghulis (Core)
1x Focused Offense (QoD)
1x Fear of Winter (BtW)
1x The King's Law (KotStorm)

Character: (30)
1x Aeron Damphair (VM)
1x Alannys Greyjoy (ODG)
1x Baelor Blacktyde (TIoR)
1x Bloodthirsty Crew (OSaS)
1x Dagmer Cleftjaw (KotS)
3x Damphair's Drowned (FaI)
1x Fishwhiskers (CtB)
1x Gormond Goodbrother (THtW)
2x Hammerhorn Raiders (THtW)
1x Iron Fleet Captain (CD)
1x Maester Kerwin (VM)
1x Maester Murenmure (CbtC)
1x Maester Wendamyr (KotS)
1x Moqorro (VD)
2x Newly Made Lord (TftH)
1x Qarl the Maid (AJE)
1x The Reader (TGF)
1x Theon Greyjoy (PotS)
1x Victarion Greyjoy (RotK)
3x Carrion Bird (ASoS)
1x Coldhands (THtW)
1x Gran Goodbrother (AHA)
1x Asha Greyjoy (FF)
1x Gorold Goodbrother (TBG)

Attachment: (2)
1x Captain of the Iron Fleet (TGM)
1x Veteran Marauder (KotS)

Event: (1)
1x Finger Dance (WLL)

Location: (27)
1x Aeron's Chambers (KotS)
1x Captured Cog (AHM)
3x Gatehouse (KotS)
1x Longship Iron Victory (KotS)
3x Naval Escort (ASitD)
2x River Blockade (RoR)
3x Sunset Sea (Core)
1x The Iron Cliffs (HtS)
3x The Iron Mines (KotS)
1x River Row (QoD)
1x Shadowblack Lane (Core)
1x Street of Silk (LotR)
1x Street of Sisters (Core)
1x Street of Steel (Core)
2x Bay of Ice (KotS)
1x Longship Grey Ghost (TK)
1x Longship Maiden's Bane (AHA)


Anyway, on to the matchup reports!

Unfortunately, i was chosen for a first round bye as we had an odd number of players.

VS Bara Agendaless (Adam)
Win

This game was decided first turn after a good icon spread on my setup and Fear of Winter start that countered his City of Lies to put one card into shadows and nothing else. hitting his hand, and wiping his characters paved the way to a swift victory as i banked saves to push through the inevitable valar. Adam is a fairly new player to our meta and this would be one of his first competitive tournies. to his credit he made the cut to top four!

VS Targ Burn (Joey)
Loss

I've had nightmares about Joeys burn decks, they constantly change formats but keep burn and removal as the central theme. i ended up losing this game, even though i had alanys and murenmure firefighting burn effects early. Longship Maidens bane slowed down his challenges but eventually his resets and removal got the better of me and he won in late game.

I made the cut to top four due to strength of schedule. the Cut consisted of Myself, Matt, Joey and Adam.

Top four first pair
VS Bara Agendaless (Adam)
Win

Unfortunately, this game played out almost exactly as our first game: a strong start with Fear of Winter opener to set the tempo. by this time we were all becoming exhausted and adam made some play errors that i was able to capitalize on to squeeze a turn 4 win.

After adam, we all watched Joey (targ) and Matt (Martell) play a drawn out game of probably two plot recycles between bloodthirst and burn. Matt ground out a win when joey began struggling for answers very late into the game. i knew Bloodthirst was going to be my hardest matchup of the year, a classic clash of the titans: Aggro Vs Control.

Final VS Martell Bloodthirst (Matt)

I jokingly had a meta mate keep track of how many challenges i sucessfully got through compared to the number of challenges denied over the course of the game. Needless to say the red denial dice surpassed the white success dice pretty quickly. i focused all my energies into intriguing his hand while preserving cancels like alanys and murenmure and slowing down his recursion wherever possible. i was praying for location hate but didnt see anything meaningful for a long time. Captured cog won me many rounds of dominance while i squeaked through the occasional ineffective mil/power unopposed. I breathed a sigh of relief when i drew into Baelor to slow his event spam, however he promptly got nightmared and bled off the table. Then it was back to the grind, just trying to keep ahead in power and mitigate losses wherever possible. After the first plot recycle i got Gran in play, and he was able to weather the storm until Gorold hit play on my Rise of the Kraken turn. some careful hand banking and bay of ice draw net me just enough cards to kneel out all his influence producers and let me get the big unopposed challenges i needed to close out the game before another reset wiped me clean again.
i never realized how true the outcry against Bloodthirst challenge denial was until i sat down across from it.

A big shout out to all my GoT meta mates for some solid play and i look forward to playing both our Thunder bay regional and hitting Minneapolis for their Regional as well!