Returning to the Game - First tournament in 8 months

Hi all,

I haven't written a real tournament report in quite a long time. The reason for that is I haven't played in a long time. Last November I got hurt pretty badly, and decided to quit for good, then. Of course, people like Nate French, Jon Andrews, Dan Strouhal, and others are hard to not want to be around and play with, so instead of quitting permanently, I decided to at least come back for local tournaments.

After moving to New York City (I have moved several times recently, NYC is the latest), I found someone who was just getting into the game, and bought back into the game with him. This was a lucky turn of events. Thank you, Ryan, for being a really good guy. I wish you'd done better in the tournament, and next time we'll have more practice and you'll be better prepared!

Last night, I was not sure what to play. The deck I had built on Thursday for our regular practice nights was not doing well - it saw only one win out of four games on Thursday. I decided I'd shill out and net-deck it. I took the GJ holy TLV deck posted on this very site in one of the articles posted here: Rise of the Kraken - Holy Voyage Thank you to both the author of the deck and the article for their analyses and solid deck. I made some intentional changes and some unintentional changes, but it would have done better without either of those. (I'd added Qarl the Maid and inadvertently removed a Confession, which explains why I just couldn't see any of them most of the day.)

Let's get restarted on the games.

Game 1: vs Stark Siege

I got completely owned here, had no chance at all. There was literally nothing I could do. He got Robb who kneels to reduce armies to zero, one other character, a card in shadows, and 4 epic events pre/post plot. This constituted his entire hand. Incidentally, I had exactly one character with a military icon, and he didn't have stealth. Guess who was in shadows? Of course it was Syrio, and of course he got all five military challenges unopposed that turn, and of course I immediately lost. I was pretty upset after this, partly because my deck so fully crapped out, but mostly for other reasons.

Game 2: vs Bye

I got the bye, so I was even angrier. That may sound weird, but I was hoping to go at least 3-2 with a decent tie-breaker, and byes count as zero in the tie-breakers. Getting the bye meant that I needed to basically win three games straight, which I was not terribly confident in doing. I played the Matt I call "Tall Matt", though also acceptable would be "Grumpy Matt" (he's got to be shaking his fist at neighborhood kids 99% of the time), who wasn't playing today, and kind of tooled him. Sorry about that Matt. You're a good dude, shouldn't have sloshed you in a fun game!

Game 3: vs Stark HoD Bear Island

The guy playing this deck is a super-solid player. However, he was playing a deck built by someone else, and was a lot less familiar with how it worked than he is normally with his own decks (he already won a regional in Connecticut, I believe, so decided to do something fun). This wasn't very fun for him, though. In fact, I'd say it was downright frustrating for him. I first-turned Fishing Net his Brienne, whom we all know is the bane of GJ. I then continued to cancel every kill event he played, and/or saved my characters, and/or put characters to the bottom of my deck and then put new ones in play from said deck (Aeron). When it ended, I was clearly in the lead and won, I believe, with a High Septon death.

Game 4: vs Lanni no agenda

This game started off quite badly for my opponent. I feel like he just couldn't draw into any tricks that would necessarily give him a win. He House Divided once, but I played Baelor the next turn. He got out the Iron Throne, but I immediately threw it to the dogs with a Newly Made Lord. I began to find my cancels, and more or less just did a quick rush for the win, using (I believe) a non-kneeling Asha for two turns, and a Victarion for two or three turns (non-kneeling for two of those).

Game 5: vs Targ Long Voyage (eventual winner of the tournament)

This was the only game of the tournament in which I felt really bad for my opponent, as if they just had no chance ever. I had everything I needed to counter Targ shenanigans, from Finger Dances to, and most especially, three Risen from the Sea within the first two turns. Without being able to burn most of my characters, and with the ones he could burn going back into my deck and causing effects like claiming power and bringing out other characters, and my Godswood Attendants hammering at his deck, setting him up for terrible cards while turning Asha on, it was not a fun game for him. Luckily, he went on to do quite well.

Game 6 (top 8): Vs GJ Long Voyage

This game was pretty one-sided too. I had Asha and/or Victarion out by second turn, with Asha turned on. That's all there really was to it. I believe I won the game on turn three, possibly four. Nothing you can do when the deck has a ton of rush potential, and characters who very, very rarely die.

Game 7 (top 4): Vs Martell Long Voyage

This game was pretty straightforward. Both players made a few mistakes, but the primary one I made was canceling a Godswood Attendant death-by-Areo-Hotah when I should have canceled the later Condemned by the Council on my Longship Iron Victory with Alannis. I think if I'd been able to pull any cards when I needed them, it would have been a very different game, but ultimately my opponent just kept hammering my power away with 2-claimers and Arianne, and there was not much I could do about it. Good game. Very good deck.


All in all, going 5-2 for my first tournament back after months of personal problems and not playing at all felt pretty good. I was only a little rusty; the deck really plays itself. One issue with it is a large number of 3-cost characters, making drops frequently less than adequate (in my opinion). There were only two games the entire tournament where I got more than a 3-card drop. I prefer a higher average. Similarly, I don't think it had enough gold in it. In at least the last game I lost, if I'd had more gold at any point in time, I'd have been able to play quite a few more characters. As it was, I had virtually no gold or reducers for most of my games.

Thank you, and good night.

Kyle