The Things I Do For Win- Effective Playtesting

Repetition and a willingness to change out cards create higher win percentages than declaring a deck ready for tournaments after two plays. Every time someone states they “threw the deck together” before the tournament hides the fact of countless hours logged by other folks with a similar build. I have yet to witness a truly unique deck built and piloted to a championship without a single game played.

Repetition
After crafting your chosen deck you need to play it, a lot. Chances are you have a few folks you get together with to toss cards with once a month, this isn’t enough. The advent of OCTGN gives access to more games. A rough estimate of playtesting should hit six against at least three different decks for the initial judging period. Now is the time to be creative and stretch the deck. Throw in Marwyn for a control deck or see if Brienne can get into play out of Martel if it fits the theme.

Exposing your idea to more people nets more experience. The AGOT gaming community is one of the best out there and we should explore it more. All those neat people that you meet at tournaments will take the time to give suggestions. Plus, during playing, you will find yourself in different situations.

Never be surprised during a tournament. You must know how your deck reacts to play styles. When someone drops eight dudes on turn one or sets up with an all location flop what can your deck do? You don’t have to have all the answers, but, you need to know what you can and can’t do reliably.

Dead Man’s Hand
During this time freely drop cards that stay in your hand the majority of the time. A five cost character or Westeros Bleeds may look shiny, but if it doesn’t see the light of day drop it or add more resources if you feel you need it. A dead card in your mitt reduces options. Instead of fisting up no-plays examine some alternate cards.

I usually have two small pile of cards next to my decks during playtesting; cards removed from the deck and idea cards waiting to make the cut. Keep those cards handy during all of playtesting. Sometimes a card seemed anemic during certain situations but are wreckers in others.

Identifying the Field
Every tournament year a couple decks rise to the top as world beaters. You need to know what they are and if you can beat them. The three types of decks I always want to make sure I’m competitive with are Aggro, Control, and Maesters. I’ll sit down with some playmates and do a best of three against each archetype. To uphold my end of the deal I always have a Stark Murder deck put together because it is the least represented in my meta.

Winning every game isn’t realistic (sometimes it happens though) but if you can put up winning percentages against most of them you should feel pretty good. If you can’t beat a certain deck start looking for replacement cards that fit your curve. Don’t add a card to beat Sandsnakes. If you lose to decks that don’t fall into the majority of tournament winners don’t worry about it. During a large tournament the odds of facing exactly the wrong deck is minimal unless it’s a top four type deck, then, plan accordingly.

This year, if you couldn’t top Maesters or burn you didn’t have to show up to a tournament to know you weren’t going to win. When changing your deck to handle certain archetypes go back and play against casual decks. Sometimes getting you ready for one deck gets you killed by the field.

True Story
Two Iowa Regionals ago Lucas Reed and myself out meta’d ourselves. We tested against kneel, choke, and Ghaston Grey until our hands bled. Come tournament time neither one of us made top eight. Both of us were defeated by some power rush decks and stark large armies that we hadn’t gone back and played against. Looking at the top eight decks we made the correct calls and would’ve done quite well considering they were choke full of ghaston grey and kneel. Oh, except we didn’t even make top eight.