Stoke (UK) Regionals Report

Stoke (UK) Regional Report.
Hello again readers! I back with something slightly different. Today I want to talk about a very important event for the United Kingdom meta: out very first Regional of the LCG era of AGoT! This event took place on the 20^th of May, on a cold and grey day (this was in England after all!). The UK meta is quite scattered across the country and is quite silent, with not much communication going on through forums or community sites, so as me and my meta-mates from London headed North we really didn’t know what to expect. To be honest we were thinking that we would be surprised if we had more than 20 players. To our great surprise and joy, 35 players had made it to the events! What a great turnout for a first Regional! The field included experienced players as well as newbie, with is excellent news for the game.

Because I didn’t know what to expect in terms of opposition, I decided to once again take my Lannister kneel/control Power behind the Throne deck to the event. This choice was based mainly on its performance in the North of France Regional earlier this year as well as it copes relatively well with many popular archetypes, with the notable exception of targ burn. The old-timers of my meta Tagore and Michael, where packing Targ Hollow Hil burn and Stark Knights Murder respectively. The lastest additions to the London meta, Becky and James where also coming and they were playing Targ Dragons and Greyjoy cancel.

After a long train journey (its longer to travel within the UK than to go to France) we arrive in Stoke and proceeded to get slightly lost. Hopefully we had a bit of time before us and found the store in time for the tourney. We were greeted by Eddie the organiser and Steve who would be head-judge, both top notch guys. After a brief rules heads-up and learning that british customs were holding the prize support captive in one of their warehouses we were underway for five rounds of swiss followed by top-8. The first two rounds versus Bara Knights and Greyjoy Maesters went quite well for me as I walked away with two wins, thanks in part to A House Divided. Third round saw me paired against James and had me register a loss as I just couldn’t deal with the Alannys/Murenmure couple with added Finger Dance. At time point I got a bit stressed as I wasn’t sure that 3-2 would be enough to make the cut and whether I could afford another loss. Luckily round 4 saw me paired against a Martell Brotherhood deck that poses little threat to mine a dealing with one character (Beric) is quite easy for me. As I said I was dreading Targ burn and guess what my fifth opponent was playing? I really wasn’t very confident going into this one. Luckily, I had a good setup and was able to flood the board on turn one and push through two claim-2 intrigue challenges which really hurt him. From then on I slowly got the win as I managed a couple of challenges per turn.

So I made the cut in third seed. Michael, Tagore and James were also through. I was paired up against James as he was ranked sixth. I was dreading this rematch as I realised there was not much my deck could do against his constant flow of cancels and saves. After a very intense game, where I really I think tried my best I had to admit defeat and walk away with my 6^th place. My consolation was that James went on to win the tournament. Grats to him!
All in all is was a thoroughly enjoyable day and tournament. Kudos to all my opponents who were all very friendly. Also congratulations to the London-meta, 4 of 5 in the top 8 is pretty sweet. Only Becky missed out, but to her credit she only been playing for a couple pf months and she plays the hardest house to master. Also thanks to the organisers Eddie and Steve who did a great job. They were also nice enough to provide me with detailed stats about the tournament that I will analyse now.

First things first, let’s look at the rankings:

Rank - House - Agenda - Restricted Card - Player Name
[Top 8 Cut]
1 - Greyjoy - The Maester's Path - Fear of Winter - James Waumsley - [4-1]
2 - Targaryen - Heir to the Iron Throne - Fury of the Dragon - Matt Pearce - [5-0]
3 - Martell - Knights of the Hollow Hill - Venomous Blade - Rob Hayes - [4-1]
4 - Greyjoy - Kings of Winter - Fear of Winter - Josh Nowicki - [4-1]
5 - Stark - Knights of the Realm - Narrow Escape - Michael Haynes - [4-1]
6 - Lannister - The Power Behind the Throne - Castellan of the Rock - Christopher Clark - [4-1]
7 - Targaryen - Knights of the Hollow Hill - Pyromancer's Cache - Tagore Nakornchai - [4-1]
8 - Martell - The Brotherhood Without Banners - Venomous Blade - Ian McDonnell - [3-2]
---------------
9 - Martell - The Brotherhood Without Banners - Venomous Blade - John Thornby
9 - Greyjoy - The Maester's Path - No Restricted Card - Tom Fownes
11 - Targaryen - Knights of the Hollow Hill - Fear of Winter - Mark Sherwood
12 - Greyjoy - The Maester's Path - Fear of Winter - Warren Jones
13 - Martell - The Maester's Path - Narrow Escape - Nick Hoose
14 - Targaryen - The Maester's Path - Fear of Winter - Neil Palfreyman
14 - Baratheon - No Agenda - Narrow Escape - John Platt
16 - Greyjoy - The Maester's Path - No Restricted Card - Dan Knight
17 - Greyjoy - The Maester's Path - Fury of the Kraken - Sam Burdock
18 - Targaryen - Knights of the Hollow Hill - Fury of the Dragon - Matt Hall
19 - Baratheon - The Maester's Path - Val - Gareth Arnold
20 - Lannister - No Agenda - Castellan of the Rock - Lee Marshall
21 - Baratheon - Knights of the Realm - Val - James Phillips
21 - Martell - Knights of the Hollow Hill - Venomous Blade - Timo Franke
23 - Stark - Siege of Winterfell - No Restricted Card - Daniel Armstrong
23 - Baratheon - Knights of the Hollow Hill - No Restricted Card - Daniel Townsend
25 - Targaryen - The Maester's Path - No Restricted Card - Becky Frith
25 - Stark - Siege of Winterfell - No Restricted Card - Si Irving
25 - Martell - No Agenda - No Restricted Card - Charl Lynch
28 - Targaryen - Kings of Summer - Fury of the Dragon - Carl Harrison
29 - Greyjoy - The Maester's Path - Pyromancer's Cache - Andrew Beadle
30 - Baratheon - Knights of the Realm - No Restricted Card - Kev Smith
31 - Targaryen - Heir to the Iron Throne - Narrow Escape - Tracy Nevatte
32 - Stark - Siege of Winterfell - Fury of the Wolf - Mark Greening
33 - Martell - The Maester's Path - Venomous Blade - Jeff Greening
34 - Baratheon - No Agenda - Val - Mark Chell
35 - Stark - No Agenda - No Restricted Card - David Smethurst

So, another win for the House of the Kraken. Could this be the beginning of a trend? Also, I was quite surprised by the absence of Baratheon in the top 8. I was expecting them to be very strong with TLS off the restricted list and all the shenanigans he allows. Maybe there was just fewer Bara players. Let’s look at House breakdown to check:

Houses:
Baratheon - 6
Greyjoy - 7
Lannister - 2
Martell - 7
Stark - 5
Targaryen – 8

All Houses were pretty evenly distributed except for the poor Lannisters who look set to receive quite a battering this regionals season. Te even representation of the different Houses is obviously very positive for the game, with many different decks making up the field. This means that if you want to be successful in a regional event over here you have to be prepared for everything. If we consider how many players reached the top 8 from each of the Houses we get the following ranking:

Lannister : 50%
Greyjoy: 28,7%
Martell: 28,7%
Targaryen: 25%
Stark: 20%
Baratheon: 0%

So all in all pretty even power rankings. The high number for Lannister comes from the fact there was only two of us which alters the statistic hugely. And again a poor showing of House Baratheon. My only explanation for this is that my compatriots have not yet picked up (no offense meant) on the awesomness that is the Stag right now. I feel Baratheon has many solutions available to deal with the dominant archetypes right now and could really shine this season. Did they play Val as restricted? Let’s have a look at restricted cards to see if we can get an explanation.

Restricted Cards:
Fear of Winter - 5
Fury of the Dragon - 3
Fury of the Kraken - 1
Fury of the Wolf - 1
Venomous Blade - 5
Val - 3
Pyromancer's Cache - 2
Castellan of the Rock - 2
Narrow Escape - 4
No Restricted Card - 9

So only three Vals. All of which were played by Baratheon players (see below). My main question here is why did they not ALL play her? Apart from Fear of Winter I really think there is no contest right now if you are a Bara player. The other choices are also quite striking to me. First there is a large amount of players that did not play any restricted card. While there is no obligation at all to play one, I feel that most deck that don’t need one to work should use that opportunity to use one and catch their opponent of balance. This is also true regarding the Fury plots. Is it really necessary to run one nowadays with the big amount of decent plot the environment has. Even for their trait (Military Battle etc...) other plots make acceptable choices, like Lineage and Legacy in Targ for instance and thus free a slot on the restricted list for your deck. Finally, nearly every Martell player chose to go with venomous blade. This might be that the Brotherhood deck was very prevalent, but it still doesn’t fully explain the lack of Burning on the sand or The Viper’s Bannermen which we know can be deadly in the right deck.

What about agendas? Everybody thought the Maester agenda would be the most prevalent during this Regionals season. Let’s check.

Agendas:
The Maester's Path - 11
Heir to the Iron Throne - 2
Knights of the Hollow Hill - 6
Kings of Winter - 1
Knights of the Realm - 3
The Power Behind the Throne - 1
The Brotherhood Without Banners - 2
Siege of Winterfell - 3
Kings of Summer - 1
No Agenda - 5

That’s maybe the only breakdown that does not look surprising to me. A good mix of different agendas and different strategies. This reflects the good health of the metagame right now, with many different option that are viable. Nearly a third of the field ran the Maester’s path. Maybe its because of the toolbox effect that can help any deck fare better. It also seemed quite popular with newer players. But that is maybe because those chapter packs are slightly easier to get hold of. The other good thing is that the House specific agenda, while well represented, did not make up the totality of their House, meaning they are not compulsory to run, which is good.
The head judge Steve was also kind enough to provide me with a breakdown of Agendas and restricted cards by House. Here it is.

Detailed Breakdown by House:
House Baratheon - 6
No Agenda - 2
Narrow Escape - 1
Val - 1
Knights of the Realm - 2
Val - 1
No Restricted Card - 1
Knights of the Hollow Hill - 1
No Restricted Card - 1
The Maester's Path - 1
Val - 1

House Greyjoy - 7
The Maester's Path - 6
Fear of Winter - 2
No Restricted Card - 2
Fury of the Kraken - 1
Pyromancer's Cache - 1
Kings of Winter - 1
Fear of Winter - 1

House Lannister - 2
The Power Behind the Throne - 1
Castellan of the Rock - 1
No Agenda - 1
Castellan of the Rock - 1

House Martell - 7
Knights of the Hollow Hill - 2
Venomous Blade - 2
The Brotherhood Without Banners - 2
Venomous Blade - 2
The Maester's Path - 2
Venomous Blade - 1
Narrow Escape - 1
No Agenda - 1
No Restricted Card - 1

House Stark - 5
Siege of Winterfell - 3
No Restricted Card - 2
Fury of the Wolf - 1
Knights of the Realm - 1
Narrow Escape - 1
No Agenda - 1
No Restricted Card - 1

House Targaryen - 8
Knights of the Hollow Hill - 3
Fury of the Dragon - 1
Fear of Winter - 1
Pyromancer's Cache - 1
Heir to the Iron Throne - 2
Fury of the Dragon - 1
Narrow Escape - 1
The Maester's Path - 2
Fear of Winter - 1
No Restricted Card - 1
Kings of Summer - 1
Fury of the Dragon - 1

Obviously, this becomes much more difficult to analyse without knowing the decks. Two things jump out though. Fear of Winter in a Targ Hollow Hill deck? Honestly that would have never crossed my mind, but maybe it was a good choice (He placed 11^th in the end). Second, Castellan of the rock seems like the favoured choice in Lannister nowadays. I will not discuss this too much further, as I would rather have you make up your own opinion about the state of the game right now. Feel frre to comment my thoughts here. What is clear to me though is that the UK meta is quite distinct from both the US and the EU meta. I think that is a good thing.