The Dirty Dornish: First Melbourne Regional Tournament Report

A regional tournament report carried by a raven, all the way from down under to the denizens of cardgamedb...

This is my first entry here on cardgamedb since my nationals report (found here) from last december, and I'm glad to be returning with news from the south!

I'll aim to make this one a little more succinct while still trying to give you some juicy tournament action details to satiate your appetites for a while.

The first Australian regional, and the first regional of 3 to be played in Melbourne took place last weekend (13/4/13).

Leading up to the event, unlike before nationals, I had no idea what I wanted to play. I had been testing a Martell KotHH build with The Viper's Bannermen (PotS) as my restricted card, with Westeros Bleeds and Ghaston Grey, and it was working well except for one thing: I was often losing coinflip matchups to rush decks.

About a week before I knew I wanted to play the Martell build, and I consulted one of cardgamedb's writers, and an excellent player and deck builder James (JCWAMMA), and he recommended I try Burning on the Sand (RotO). I thought it was nuts to forgo a 5 in 1 card like the Bannermen, but I was sick of losing to fast decks so I gave it a shot. Boy did it work like a charm! Coupled with Shadows and Spiders (LotR) I could shut down an opponents first turn of challenges, which works excellently against maester and rush decks, and hopefully play that all important Westeros Bleeds. I thanked my pommy friend, and proceeded to gut the deck.

The Ghaston Grey module went out, Burning on the Sand (RotO), Words Are Like Arrows (WLL), and Confession (KotS) [A great combo by the way] went in. After some test games cruising past rush decks I knew I had a contender on my hand, and felt happy going into the tournament.

Here is the list:
The Dirty Dornish

House Martell (Core)
Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM)

3x The Red Viper (PotS)
3x Flea Bottom Scavenger (AToT)
1x Darkstar (PotS)
1x Quentyn Martell (TGF)
3x House Messenger (PotS)
1x Arianne Martell (PotS)
3x Dornish Paramour (TTotH)
1x Palace Spy (WotN)
1x Harmen Uller (PotS)
2x Southron Mercenaries (TBoBB)
1x Herald of the Sun (SB)
1x Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS)
1x Asha Greyjoy (WLL)
2x The Red Keep (TftRK)
3x Dornish Fiefdoms (PotS)
3x Summer Sea (Core)
1x Tyrosh (AHM)
2x Palace Fountains (PotS)
1x Flea Bottom (TGM)
2x Hellholt Docks (TPoL)
1x Lost Oasis (AToT)
2x The Iron Mines (KotS)
3x Westeros Bleeds (Core)
3x The Prince's Plans (TIoR)
3x He Calls It Thinking (PotS)
3x Confession (KotS)
3x Burning on the Sand (RotO)
3x Red Vengeance (PotS)
2x Words Are Like Arrows (WLL)
3x Much and More (AHM)

Plots:
Marched to the Wall (LoW)
Valar Morghulis (Core)
Rule by Decree (Core)
Shadows and Spiders (LotR)
To the Spears! (PotS)
The First Snow of Winter (ODG)
Forgotten Plans (KotStorm)

A field of 16 brave souls attended, all vying for dominance over the seven kingdoms. It looked a little something like this:

Top 8 after four rounds of swiss (Cut to top 4):

1 Baratheon Long Voyage - Gav (4-0)
2 Stark Maesters - Chris H (3-1)
3 Stark Siege - Justin S (3-1)
4 Martell KotHH - Bert (3-1)
5 Lannister PBTT - Steve (3-1)
6 Targaryen Maesters - Justin D (2-2)
7 Targaryen Maesters - Tom S (2-2)
8 Targaryen Heir to the Iron Throne - Ben (2-2)
9 - 16:
In an order I cannot remember:
-Baratheon Long Voyage - Chris S
-Lannister PBTT - Baggo
-Lannister HoD (tunnels) - Brian
-Baratheon no agenda (shireen) - Tom O
-Martell Brotherhood - Tom D
-Targaryen Long Voyage - James
-Baratheon Black Sails - Jeremy
-Baratheon no agenda - Andrew

As you can probably tell, the meta was dominated by rush. In fact I played the only control deck in the top 8, and I barely scraped into the top4 cut.

Below is a round by round; beware my memory is hazy.

Round 1: vs Ben playing Targaryen Heir to the Iron Throne
Ben is a pretty new guy to the game and was from out of town, and when he announced he would not declare intrigue challenges I knew it'd be a tough one for him. I must have played westeros bleeds 3 or 4 times in this matchup, and a duped hyper viper made quick work of the Dothraki/dragon deck. I told Ben his next matchups would be a lot easier (later he came to me and told me he won 2 in a row, so I felt less guilty about the mismatch). 1-0

Round 2: vs Chris H playing Stark Maesters
Chris is a vet by our meta's standards and an excellent player. This game essentially was 8 plots of me wiping his board and stalling him from pulling chains from his agenda, but I never got my own characters going. 1-1

Round 3: vs James playing Targaryen The Long Voyage
This game was pure brutality. James is a newer guy, and he obviously has a knack for the game. I managed to play Westeros bleeds 2-3 times, and confession 6 times in the first 3-4 turns. I also had 2 He Calls it Thinking for his Dragon dupes. 2-1

Round 4: vs Justin Dyson playing Targaryen Maesters
I knew if I could win this game I had a chance at making the top 4 cut. This was a hard game because Justin and I are great friends and one of us was getting knocked out of contention. We both played the best we could and threw everything at eachother. It was a 10 plot game that I eventually won, managing to control his maesters and set up for long enough to get my viper and Southron Mercenaries going. 3-1

After some tense games I scraped into the top 4 (sorry Steve) and had to play top seed Gav, playing a mean and green (literally) Baratheon Long Voyage deck.

Top 4: vs Gav Baratheon Long Voyage
I knew the key to this game would be to stall his power grab until I could get established. Gav is an incredibly good player and was cracking skulls all day to end up undefeated. Turn one I managed to play Shadows and Spiders into Burning on the Sand into Westeros Bleeds, and in the following plot phase played Forgotten plans to his Melisandre's schemes. I was off to a good start, but it wasn't over there. I had to recycle burning multiple times and red vengeance some power challenges to grasp control of the game. Confession, Words are Like Arrows and Burning on the Sand were stars in this game. Gav got to around 11-12 power early from memory. I got viper establish, and recycled his duplicates 2 or 3 times surviving many Valars (8 plot game) to seal the deal. What a game.

Finals: vs Justin Shearer playing Stark Siege
This was to be a replay of our Nationals showdown. Justin is one of the best players around and I knew it'd be a tough game. Having dealt with rush decks all day long I knew what I needed to do to win this one, but I needed some luck with my draw deck. Justin's Siege build was pure speed. He utilized a TONNE of epic battles and chuds, and used
Negotiations at the Great Sept (TPoL) To great effect on turn 2. My memory is a tad hazy, but Justin managed to play about 4 or 5 epic battles throughout the game, and stole my The Red Keep (TftRK) with his naval event. It was very tight, and I owe the win to Burning on the Sand. I played this event 4 times in 3 turns, and it saved me from sure defeat. Justin climbed to 12 power before I established board and hand position and used Viper and some Mercenaries to get to 15. Another fantastic game.

So there we have it folks. Another one in the books and more to look forward to!

some props and slops:

Props:
-Justin Dyson for bringing those super cool custom acryllic house cards and giving them away as door prizes
-The 3 new guys for showing up and having a crack
-Steve for playing Lannister (again)
-Games Lab for running a top notch event
-All my opponents. Had some really epic games and enjoyed every one of them
-FFG for breathing life into the game with the new FAQ, and for the excellent new mechanics

Slops:
None