World Cup 2023 - Team Germany (4th place) - Targaryen 5-1 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

This is the Deck Team Germany opted for Targaryen in the World Cup 2023. Team Germany made the 4th place (of 20) and I went 5-1 with it, reaching first place in my team and place 17 (of 178) overall. https://thrones.tourneygrounds.com/tournaments/8271

Short Report on the games see below.

For the general Strategy and Card choices I refer to the Team Tournament list: https://thronesdb.com/decklist/view/15012/2022-team-tournament-fire-and-blood-1.0

The Changes
Only two changes made, but for the Plots: The Maiden and the Mother were kicked out and Time of Plenty and Return To The Fields were put in.
Time Of Plenty
As the more solid opener. One extra-draw on turn one doesnt sound like much, but it helped me so much for the card-starving deck. The loss in initative from The Maiden is ok. If you play against Aggro or super passive decks, they will play The Maiden themselves so it doesnt change much. Also, nice about this deck is that it can deal with going first or second in most situations anyway. No fear of Naval is also nice.
Return to The fields
2 Gold less than The Mother can hurt, but saving your darlings from an expected reset easily closes games. Worst case you put Freedmen or Mother's Men back to discard for extra draw. Also nice with open decklists as it can delay your opponent's resets when they expect it. Also good if you really need the draw or as a preparation for your own reset the turn after to get a good position through the draw.
No more changes!
Yes, I didn't feel the need for further changes, as already said in the previous version. A card I was biased was as described in the previous version was Meeren. Now I feel 2 copies is exactly the right amount. You need Meeren in matchups that go longer, otherwise you will loose your breath. In fast matchups, you just drop it for the discarders. The deck did not fail me throughtout the whole run of the World Cup (but I failed it once), so at the moment I still do not see any needs to change.
Cards from the Arryn pack
As Axxo would point out, Targ doesn't get that much ;) Lysono is a very funny card, but would in my eyes dilute the deck. The Balerion is pure crap. From the neutrals, the highroad looks good at first glance, but you run MKC and have reductions via the Agenda anyway. So I guess also a NO here. Nothing else from the latest pack seems to fit in any way to the brutalness of the deck.

Tournament Report
(as far as I can reconsider)
Swiss Round 1 against Poland: Targ VS (Michalku)
https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/c0ca8a3b-8b7f-45cf-9a26-d297b8f394dc
I completely fucked that game up. I was afraid of Dracarys, so I thought I have to get rid of the small dragons. He set up some Locations and a duped Rhaegal. I marshalled him. Super-Stupid decision: Marching a 3 coster, low reserve. I spared some gold for burn stuff, so Michalku simply didnt do anything. I wasted my gold and had to discard 4 cards for Reserve. I had 2 copies of Drogon in hand. As he had no VM, I was easy to not have a dupe for him, so I discarded both and planned to unexpecetly return Drogon...but...I also discarded Unexpected return! Braindead. The game went on and it was HOT. Selmy was burned on both sides. Then, on his BOTD Turn, I had Dany, he had the Khal. I had First Snows. I had Meeren and...USED IT DURING MARSHAL. So stupid. With Dead Selmy and Dead Drogo on my side, the only useful card I could draw was Drogon, with 2 copies already in discard. What the hell was I thinking? Obviously nothing. Braindead. Even worse: Meeren fetched me Dracarys. If I would have Meerened in the challenge phase, I could have killed Drogo instead of Drogo killing my Dany. .
The only game I lost during the Tournament (well deserved loss!).
Two very stupid plays that cost me a game I would have won otherwise.
Swiss Round 2 against Berlin: Bara Rains (Ilja Muromez)
https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/b4d23097-14d7-480c-a7ec-edf49cac78fd
A matchup in my favour, but was afraid of all the strength buffs that also caused problems in training. First Snow helped a lot here. I burned stuff. Quite NPE game for Ivailo tbh. Beware of Ser Vardis Egen!
Swiss Round 3 against Hungary: Martell KoS (Jamie hun)
https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/aaf60452-11c7-42f9-94d0-1cd8eb7fef03
Doran making all Lords/Ladies str monsters, as well as the Greenblood? How Can I burn them? Easy: you cannot! Luckily, he didnt see Doran so I was able to do my thing.
Swiss Round 4 against Spain: Lanni Crossing (Adkadi)
https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/722bed35-62c0-4535-9486-e0107965d310
A completely bonkers deck. 40 Characters, Jumpers and Jumper-Cards en masse. I highly recommend to test the deck. Hard to burn through. I lost a lot games in testing, but I made it when it counted. The game was recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm3YhLQlEbw
Quarterfinals against Czech Republic: Stark Fealty (Tomáš Hrnčiar)
https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/79500012-a261-4f9b-b52f-994287fe1bd1
Absolute worst case matchup. Winterfel, Meera, Nightmares, Last Hearth Scouts, Barring The Gates, Rationing..."CANCELPALPASSTUFF". The game was super intense and very demanding. Fortunately, I was able to burn Meera turn one, what I think was the game maker.
Semi-Finals against China: Bara Wars (Vodka)
https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/96d4cc42-0f1d-47a3-a032-985e1f71f2be
When I saw the matchup and the deck, for the first time in this Tourney, I was "ahh, easy". But we faced China, the then champion, so I wanted to train this matchup. I was able to recruit NiL, ODRL, Ilja Muromez and Feuerbart besides my teammates dom and MSQI2 for training. I had 16 training games in total, ending 7:9 against me. The Bara Deck makes so much passive power, it just doesnt care for my kills. In the final game, vodka discarded the Table turn one. I guess he thought I would MKC and he needed the money (weak point of his deck in my eyes). I think this cost him the game. It was recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nLhZZQmVDs
Unfortunately, Team Germany could not beat the champion, so this marked the end of our journey.

Final Remarks

Again, the deck proved to be fun and competitive. Open decklists help a lot, as Targ itself is quite predictable due to their very limited useful cardpool, so the opponent doesn't have the same benefit from the open decklists. Knowing the resets makes it fairly easy to ration your "Dicke Lieblinge", Dany, Selmy, Drogon and the Khal. Again, now that I am allowed to change the list, there (at the moment) is nothing I want to change.
I had a lot of fun. Thanks to all the players, my great team that had a great spirit and especially the organizers who had to deal with all the wrong formatting of play-scheduling!!