Tyrell Qohor Knights and ladies rush - 22nd in Fracas 1.0

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• 1.0

I struggled a lot on what deck to take for Fracas joust. I tried to make Stark Alliance Rose Qohor Blackfish deck work but it didn't feel right. I had a Greyjoy Stag hand control deck which seemed to be just too slow and had trouble against Qohor. Stark or Targ Qohor seemed like too common choices. Finally I came up with idea to do Tyrell knights and ladies rush with Qohor to get reliably a Knighted Randyll Tarly in play. At the same time Qohor provided some welcome control with Milks and Seized which I feel the best rush decks need as a plan B. They are also a good way to slow down you opponent to get ahead.

I know when you look at this deck the first thing people say but yeah, Breaking Ties. It's true, this deck is weak to Breaking Ties. However Compelled by the Faith let's you get your power on faction card before Breaking Ties hits. It's also works against Valar Morghulis. So basically you just need to make sure your power is divided in a way Valar Dohaeris. So I just decided not to care. I'm a big fan of Knights and Ladies theme and/or Lady theme. Unfortunately first it was The First Snow of Winter and now Breaking Ties and the restricted list that hurt these themes. But luckily there is a way to work around these things. In addition to Compelled I tend to search aggressively for dupes with Pleasure Barge. But there is a one thing I would change in the deck to make it better. I would add Trade Routes in the plot deck instead of You Win Or You Die. Trade Routes is needed to recover from Breaking Ties. It also neutralizes nicely the Pleasure Barges. Also I would add another Seized by the Guard since sometimes opponent removed my only copy from a key location or discarded it with intrigue challenge. Basically you never want to draw Seized by the Guard but have it in your deck to find it if you need it. It gets you more value that way. I would probably cut Margaery's Influence even I think it's great but slightly on the expensive side.

And now lets go for a tournament report (game wise, Fracas is just much more that card game tournament).

Round 1 - VegetaZen, Martell Watch, a loss

VegetaZen was in the same melee top 16 table the day before so I knew he is a good player. His deck was unfortunately a hard counter against my deck. He set up duped The Wall (Core), The Roseroad, Flea Bottom and Starfall. I immediately knew this is going to be tough for me. My set up was vulnerable to The First Snow of Winter but I had econ so I got 2 characters on board first turn. Unfortunately VegetaZen had two Shadow City Bastards from the beginning and The Prince's Pass so I rarely had icons on a small board and he could easily bounce my characters. It took me too long to get a Seized by the Guard on his Flea Bottom to make some sort of come back for couple turns before he closed the game. Not a good start for the tournament. I was slightly surprised to meet this kind of deck since it's rather weak against Tyrell Wars in my opinion.

Round 2 - Lukasz, Martell Wars, a win

If I got crushed in my first match this one went the other way round. He opened Behest into Long Plan against my Time of Plenty so I made him go first and let him do couple of unopposed to get power to steal. Then came back, Seized his Dorne and crabbed a lot of power. Next plot I played Name Day Tourney and could have even won that turn but got a bit greedy and ended up with 14 power. However I was able to close it the next turn.

Round 3 - Remko, Tyrell Wars, a win

This was a really close game that went on time. He setup up The Hightower and The Arbor but I had a good setup too. I started bit slowly but Seized his Hightower with bestow 4. It was a bit risky play if he had Confiscation and slightly smaller bestow would have probably been ok too. Next turn he played Nothing Burns Like The Cold to get rid of his The Hightower and my Seized by the Guard. Luckily he didn't have a second copy in had. He had all the gold but luckily didn't find that much draw in addition to Renly Baratheon (FFH). I controlled most of the challenges with knight synergy and attachments and got ahead in power. He made some spicy plays like dropping Blessed by the Maiden on Milked Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) with Leyton Hightower in the middle of my military challenge. Luckily he made a mistake turning his Breaking Ties turn and I was able to stay ahead when they called time.

Round 4 - Istvan, Tyrell Summer, a win

This game was even closer than the one before. We had pretty even boards in the beginning but my knight synergy and control from Qohor helped me to stay ahead. He relied on passive power gain with Oldtown and Mace Tyrell (HoT). Fortunately I was able to keep his Mace and Randyll Tarly milked until late in the game. I did make a mistake of not playing Seized by the Guard on his Oldtown and it got discarded for int claim. I was waiting for The Hightower but just should have played it on Oldtown to slow him down. The game went on time and there's a specific rule in Fracas that after time is called you have 5 minutes to finish the game and that's it. However there was a lunch break and Istvan wanted to finish the round. I in the other hand knew that I was ahead of Istvan by 13-10 before challenges and knew if we just do challenges he would not get ahead of me before 5 minutes ended. This made me give him extra power on renown on Renly Baratheon (FFH) because I just wanted to keep challenges going. Finally we agreed to finish the round but take back that one power challenge and renown on Renly. He did his Mace and Oldtown triggers in Standing and Taxation and the game ended 14-14 on power. Skaven counted the cards and fortunaly I had 11 cards more than Istvan :) Istvan's deck has a lot of draw and he ended up decking himself in top 64 game against Tupaq :)

Round 5 - Jezuz, Baratheon Alliance Rose Qohor, a win

This was an interesting game with between two Qohor decks with stand and strength boosts. Both players had relatively good starts but I was able to Milk his Maester Cressen and Robert Baratheon to slow him down. He was able to get rid of those Milks but I had Standy Randy and non-kneeling Brienne of Tarth (GoH), some attachments and Wardens of the South that made Robert Baratheon look like a small boy. In the end I was just able to generate more strength than he which helped me to win the game.

Round 6 - Linus, Martell Wars, a loss

Linus was running nice Martell Wars deck with The Red Viper (SoD) and bastards. Unfortunaly he had Flea Bottom and Shadow City Bastard from the first round. I don't remember if I found Seized by the Guard for Flea Bottom or not or did it just get removed. Linus had also Arianne Martell (JtO) which caused me extra trouble. I had to play Forced March to win the initiative, go second and Milk her. Luckily I had a Milk in had since it's hard to Milk Arianne in challenges. I think my Lady Sansa's Rose got discarded for int claim and I wasn't able to get a good Compelled by the Faith. I had 3 power on Ser Jon Fossoway but I decided to Valar Dohaeris his big board instead of Compelled by the Faith. He on the other hand had good Breaking Ties turn and was able to find enough loyal chuds to make it hurt. I would have needed a Trade Routes to come back properly on the last turn but maybe that would not been enough either. It seems that Flea Bottom and Shadow City Bastard slows this deck down a lot! Linus also had Ghaston Grey and His Viper Eyes to get rid of my Randyll early and all my other characters can be controlled by the Bastards.

Round 7 - Donovan, Stark Dragon, a win

Donovan ran an interesting Stark Dragon armies deck with Aegon Targaryen, Daario Naharis and King Robb's Host. Fortunaly I was able to Milk his Robb Stark (Core) and Catelyn Stark (WotN) first round to stop him from doing tricks. I controlled the challenges with Knighted Randyll Tarly and other knight synergy so I was able to postpone my Valar Dohaeris late in the game. Late in the game the board balance evened out a bit when Donovan got out King Robb's Host and Begging Brothers to control my tricks. However I was too far ahead and got a win. It was nice to meet Donovan and we traded some playmats before the tournament and played in the same melee top 16 table too.

Top 64 - Tamas, NW Wars, a win

Tamas was the reigning champion of Fracas and won the melee day before with Tyrell Lion ladies combo. I supposed this was a good matchup for me beforehand since I don't necessarily need a single good characters for my power gain but can use the knight synergy in a similar way he uses the NW synergy. He did setup The Wall (Core) but didn't have economy. I had a good setup too with duped Brienne of Tarth (GoH), chuds and econ. I was able start strong with Brienne of Tarth (GoH) and The Knight of Flowers (Core) with help of Jousting Pavilion, Knight of the Reach and Highgarden Courtier. He was able to The Crow is a Tricksy Bird me second plot face and made me play You Win Or You Die to get rid of my cards. However I got a lot of power with help of Name Day Tourney, Knight of the Reach and renown. Next turn I marshaled Randyll Tarly and got to 13 power on my You Win Or You Die turn. Next turn Tamas played Valar Dohaeris and I played Compelled by the Faith. I kept Brienne of Tarth (GoH) and The Knight of Flowers (Core), lost only one power from Randyll Tarly and got lucky topdecking another Randyll Tarly. Since I discarded one Milk on int claim and Tamas was only able to find one Craven he decided to go out with style with all out attack :) This game showed weakness or You Win Or You Die and I rather keep Forced March for closure. You Win Or You Die is a desperation plot that can hurt yourself really bad.

Top 32 - Massimo, Tyrell Wolf, a loss

Top 32 round was played early next morning. I stayed up until 3 AM and Massimo said he slept only an hour. So this was a game of two tired players and probably not the best quality thrones. I was supposed to play against Targ Crossing but there was some mix up with pairings I was paired against Tyrell Wolf attrition. Not really a deck I would like to meet. In my first hand I had The Kingsroad, 2x Highgarden Courtier and Desmera Redwyne and negative attachments. I could have set up 4 cards but with no military icons, no Pleasure Barge, no characters costing over 4 I decided to mulligan. The setup would have been vulnerable to The First Snow of Winter and every attrition card he he had. However I mulliganed into no economy which is really bad against attrition also. I setup duped The Knight of Flowers (Core) and Knight of the Reach. I was afraid of Marched into Ramsay play because he had Olenna's Informant, Flea Bottom, economy and Ser Jon Fossoway. I think I made a mistake opening Forced March into his Trading with the Pentoshi since he didn't have that much econ for tricks. fortunately I got the Trading gold and was able to establish some board. I just would have needed extra draw from Time of Plenty to find economy early as possible. First round was ok but after that I was just one step behind all the time because of the economy disadvantage. I over defended military to protect my board and Massimo played wisely concentrating on power challenges instead to get a comfortable lead. He seemed to find his tricks and I struggled to keep up with him. Finally Breaking Ties killed me. I'm not happy how I played but there was also bad luck. If I would have had some econ, or Randyll to get into multiple challenges etc. I could have kept up in the game. However I concentrated too much preventing his game instead of playing my game and focusing on power like I usually do. But considering I made the deck 5 days before Fracas and played only 5 test games and none of them against attrition I'm happy how the tournament went. In this game I would have really needed the Trade Routes so there are ways to improve the deck.