The Secrets of Cancer Black - Top 32 Stahleck 2017 1.0

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Since the Red Wedding chapterpack hit some time in July I have been playing this Martell Stag list and evolved it since then. While I had been a Baratheon Loyalist for several years, I came to the realization that with the draw and economy Dornish Fiefdom and Secret Schemes give Martell-Stag is better at being Baratheon than Baratheon itself. This is once again a true banner-deck, where the main faction cards make only a fraction of the total cards of the deck. The idea of the deck is quite simple. Try to reset the opponents board multiple times with Varys/Valar/Marched while destroying the Opponents Hand with Seen in Flames, Vipers Eyes, Bastard Daughter etc. Then beat the opponent in the long term with superior draw and eco. A key plot in this is Annals of Castle Black. The powerlevel of the plot is just insane in the deck. It pretty much guarantees to play Secret Schemes turn 6 for 5 cards. It also means that the opponent usually ends round 6 with 0 cards in hand since you can take out the opponents hand with Seen in Flames from the discard pile. The special trick the deck does most of the time is using another Secret Schemes in Taxation after the faction card stands with Tourney Grounds for another 5 cards. Most of the time at the start of round 7 I have 8-14 cards in hand while my opponent has 0-2. I played a lot of this deck online and recorded my stats in a excel sheet, the deck has a 84% winrate with more than 500 games played.

I will try to give some detais about my matches but for some of them my memories are quite blurred. The Matches:

Round 1: Alex (France) Greyjoy Rains of Castamere Loss 0:1

After mulliganing I had 6 events and Ghaston Grey in hand. He set up a limited, Victarion and a location kneel guy. I valared him first turn but was not able to play any characters the next two turns. Turn 3 to make things worse I riddled nothing burns like the cold to lose my table and ghaston grey. I was able to stall out the game until plot 6 but never recovered from my truly terrible start.

Round 2: Daniel Sanchez (Spain I think) Targ Crossing Win 1:1

I expected Reinhards list and was quite happy since my deck is handling the deck very well. It was a quite different build that seemed to rely on a lot of 2 claim plots and Khal Drogo. I hit him with Giants-Varys first turn while reducing his hand down to 1 card. He never recovered from that.

Round 3: Michal (Poland) Lanni Rains Win 2:1 I dont remember a whole lot about this game. I think I varysed him first turn and then he did not have the eco to play out his other big dudes. I also remember that he ran disaster, which was annoying but not enough to bring him back.

Round 4: Hansen (Spain) Tyrell Rains Win 3:1 This was a really close and interesting game. We had one instance of cancelwar where it got really confusing with me playing both Words are Wind and a HJ and he playing 2x HJ. Took up some time to figure out what happend. I won it on time with like 9:6, dont remember the exact details of the game.

Round 5: Dimitar D. (Bulgaria) Martell Wolf Loss 3:2 This was a strange game. We both had Isle of Raven and Flea Bottom out and kept shuffling the opponents Hotahs and others back into their decks. He played a frozen solid turn one on my Iron Throne so I knew I just had to find that Cressen. Turned out Cressen was in the bottom 5 cards of the Deck. I know that since at the end of the game I had 5 cards left. In my last drawphase I drew a limited and another useless card and still made it to a 12-12 tie with way less cards in the deck for the tiebreaker. Had I drawn any other cards last turn or Cressen at any time of the game I would have had this. I gave the full win to my opponent as I had promised him in case of a mod win but I was really not happy after that game.

Round 6: Johannes (Germany) Tyrell Crossing Win 4:2 I was standing next to Johannes before the Pairings of round 6 where announced and he jokingly said that with his bad luck he would be paired against me next. Funnily he got exactly that. The only thing I remember from this game is that I utterly destroyed him. He did not draw any economy after his first kingsroad and was constantly choked because of it. After some resets he went into round 4 with 0 characters on the board, 0 cards in hand and 0 locations on the board. He gave up this round while being still in the lead in power since there was no way of him winning this game.

Round 7: Mario (Italy) Martell Watch Win 5:2 Mario was not happy to see what I played since its another matchup that favors me quite a bit. To make things worse he did not find his wall until something like turn 5. I also had my Isle of Ravens and kept shuffling back his Veteran Builder every time he hit the discard pile. Might have been a different game if he had his Wall from turn 1, but as it turned out a somewhat easy win.

Round 8: Theodor (Bulgaria) Greyjoy Rains Win 6:2 While in my first game against Greyjoy Rains nothing worked, this game was the opposite. I kept drawing exactly what I needed which made the game probably a quite miserable experience for him. Turn 1 I blanked his dagmer with nightmares, took the only save from his hand with vipers eyes and valared him cleanly turn 2. Then I riddled his summer harvest turn 3 so he was not able to play his duped Euron he had in hand making for another awkward turn for him. When he finally got Euron on the Board, a duped Melisandre was already waiting for him.

So i made the cut as 49th out of 49 players since my strength of scedule was truly awful. The only game I had played on a table with a number of 30 or higher was the one against hansen, all the others had been down in the field. I did not really care about that low ranking since in the cut all players are quite capable and Matchups matter alot more than who exactly you are facing.

Round of 49: Daniel "Kaikou" (Spain) Tyrell Crossing Win

Once again a match I do not remember all the details about but since it was played at Table 1 and recorded people can watch it later for themselves. I remember drawing all my locations in the first few turns while barely having any characters. Also I did not find a secret schemes until turn 5 which hurt alot with all the eco I had. As a result he got way more unopposed challenges as I would have prefered. He got up to 14 power at one point. After that I was able to reset him and then control the board and bring the game home. It was a way closer game than it probably should have been, usually my deck is able to handle those pure rush decks quite well due to its ability to take away power from his faction card.

Round 32: Marti F (Spain/Catalonia) Tyrell Rains Loss

In the Round of 32 I was paired against Marti who continued to win the whole tournament. I varysed him 2 times and valared him 2 times and he was always able to bounce back and rebuild some board presence. What he did perfectly was allways playing out enough to force me to use my resets while holidng back enough to not get wrecked by them. In hindsight my first varys in round 1 was too early but at the time it seemed good. The game went to time and he won it on time, I am not sure who would have won if there had not been a time limit. But that should not be an excuse, I think he outplayed me in this game (and everyone who knows me knows how much I hate to admit that) and was a deserving winner.

So funnily enough my top 32 finish was my worst Stahleck performance since 2014. Still I had a super good time all weekend, meeting great people and having a lot of good conversations. Hope to see everyone there next year again.