Stahleck 2025 Joust Finalist 1.0

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• 1.0

What to play at the biggest tournament of the year?

I decided early to play martell this year. I was tired to play Baratheon so i decided to play my main faction of the the early days of the game. When the new cards where released and i saw Ser Gulian Qorgyle, it was clear, that i will play him in combination with 7 cost Doran. The combo of these two guys is just amazing. After this decission, i had to look up for an agenda. The first selection was the faction kneel. I only tested agendas without faction kneel to have the kneel for Doran. The realistic options where, Summer, WTC, Qohor, 321, Knights of the realm and crossing. After building the decks it came down to two. Summer and crossing. I played my last Stahleck in 2019. As i remembered, the saturday of Joust is a very long day. With this in mind, my preference was leaning to crossing. It is allways nice in a long tournament to play straight forward. So i started to play the deck allready 2 months before Stahleck. Of course i changed some things from the fist version to the last.

The plotline

This was easy:) It is the classic crossing plotline. Opening Winter festival, followed by another into heads on Spikes. If you are not on 15 power try to close with our restricted card, You Win or You die. If something goes out of control, we have VD as our reset. If we get choked or do not see any economy we have Trading with the Pentoshi to get Doran on the board. If we dont win the challanges we need(Power) we have The Palace of Sorrows as our last plot. Of course very important against burn or Tyrell with a lot of Str buffs. The choice of the restricted was easy. There are no other options. The choice of the reset was not so easy. With 3 desert Raiders and some Dupes in the deck, VM is also an option. Because of initiative, claim and the low draw in the deck i decided to play VD and i was happy with the decission.

The Main Deck

Locations

Easy. we dont need locations. Just 9 limeted

Attachments

I started with The Sword of the Morning. It is a very good card and it is very cool for the game plan. Start with military, loose the challange, remove a power icon and get easy second and third challange win. But in testing i saw that 3 cost is very expensive and when you face some Attachment hate it is wasted money. so removed it out of the deck. In testing i had some issues with milks. when doran gets milked it can be very hard. There are some matchups where Doran is the absolute key card. So i went for 2 Sweetsleeps to protect him. In Stahleck i did not see one Milk against me:)

Events

Tought calls. For the most time of testing i played 2xDorans Game, 2xSuperior claim, 2xHands judgment, 2xNightmares. The day before Stahleck i changed this. 3xNighmares, 3xHe calls it thinking, 2xSuperior and 1x Dorans game Nightmares is to good. Some times you need 1 blank to get a good turn. Finally i changed HJ t he calls it thinking. I love the card. it can be bad if the oponent has a lot of money. but it is allways the option to cancle important stuff. My main concerns where Chef BOB and Nopethrone. 2 cards where i have no answers. Specially against Chef BOB the chances are not hight to get it canceld with HCIT...haha. but at least i tried to find a solution:) Dorans game is a one off option for the late game, when i could not finish early and if i can not win the power challange in the late game.

Character

Cheap stuff. Good Icon spread are the important things. The main "COMBO" is Doran with Gulian. The alternative is Nymeria with Tyene. The loose Dom stuff is pretty good with our plotline, the agenda and the icon control we have. 3 challanges and sacrifice the shadow city bastard to ge the draw and the steal is amazing.Our last Unique we play 3 times is Ser Cletus. He is just good for possible initiative win when we need it. Ariane, Mellario, Tatterd Prince and Myrcella are and Tristane are some good cards, specially against first snow(THE PROBLEM OF THE TOURANMENT) Desert Raider has to be named too...He is amazing!!!!!

Problems

First snow of winter can be a disaster:)

It felt like i played allmost every game against it(in reality it was 6 or 7 games) All my losses where against it. For the future i will try to optimize the deck a bit agsinst the plot. not sure how, but i will try. The longer the tournament went, i started to take more mulligans just to get sume of my 4 cost chars into setup or find some dupes for the 3 cost. It is crucial to get a board state where you end up with 2 chars after the first snow turn. When i managed this to get, i won my games against the plot. The 3 games i lost, i had only low cost chars in setup and ended up with an empty board after first snow. it is then allmost impossible to get back in the game.

Chef BOB

i was pretty lucky. I did not see him all day. He was my biggest fear before the tournament startet and the reason i was thinking until friday evening to play a different deck.With all the low cost chars, he is just a killer for the deck. He calls it Thinking and Tristane are the only 2 options to get him controled for 1 round. Still, the deck can be fast. we have loose dom tech and maybe it is not an autoloss. i dont know exactly. i was happy to dodge him the whole day:)

Burn

Burn can allways be hard for low cost martells. We have the plot, He calls it thinking, nightmares and a lot of chars. Burn is not that bad. but it can be.

The Tournament

I can not remeber all the games in detail. It was a long and intense day. In general did my deck what i hoped it would do. At some points i ad the luck you need if you want to have a run like this. At 3:2 i faced i faced my friend Argento for the first deciding round. Loser is out. We both where not happy with that pairing. He got Winterfell in setup and i drew both of my superior claims in the first 2 rounds where i had my winter plots. I was to fast and could close the game early. @argento It was a pleasure to see you again after a long time. I was very happy to meet and talk to you. It was sad to play you at that moment of the day and the luck was on my side. hope to see you next year! i managed to make the cut with 6:2 and i was very happy about it.

Top 32

Again i had to play against a friend. I met him for the first time in real life. We played the 8 Regents 2024 and he was my captain. Andy Boyd with Bara Assault. I had a god start. i do not remember the game exactly, but my gameplan worked pretty well and i was to fast for his deck. @Andy It was a pleasure to meet you in person. I enjoyed the time!

Top 16

Against Pulpodzilla with Targ SOB

The crazyest game of my life!

I had a perfect start. I had Doran with dupe, Nymeria and some chuds. I had 2 nightmares in hand and 2 He calls it thinking to control his big dragons. from the beginning i was very optimistic to close the game early. After a short think i decided in round 2 not to play Palace of soorows which was my first mistake. he played Blood of the Dragon an the danger was on. He found the event with SOB to kill my board exept for Doran and Nymeria and Nymeria was on Str 1. And then the drama started. I was to attack and managed to put Nymeria into the first challange to kill her instantly with the -1 str from my agenda:) What a Blunder. Nymeria died. Doran with dupe got Marched to the Wall in the next plotphase. My board was empty and he had 2 big dragons. I was hating myself and menatly i was done with the game. But it is the top 16 game. So, i had to play the game until the end. I was ahead with power but it looked horrible. I cant remember what happend exactly. but in the end, i was ahaed 14:13 in power, he was to attack witout claim because of VM. he made a UO challange to get to 14, but as reaction i could bring my dessert raider out of the deadpile to win Dom and the game. We both made mistakes. It was a very hard intense game after a long day. The luck was on my side again on this amazing day.

Top 8

Against Marton Lanni SOB

After the Top 16 game my brain was working. i cannot remeber the game. It was a fast game. we both made power. i was leading 13:10 or something. I played heads and he played YWOYD. After i revealed my plot Marton showed me 2 Chars and shaked my hand. It was a mistake, because he could draw first 2 cards where he drew 2 locations. No one knows what would happend if he did not concede early. i could have gone my way or his. i was very sad for him to decide the game that way.

Top 4

THE GAME OF MY LIFE

I made it to Sunday on Stahleck. Only 4 players left and the graet SUPERDUCK on the other side of the table. It was the rematch. I lost one of my Swiss games gainst him. He played GJ Kings of Winter and the ods where not in my faour:) I knew i had to survive his first snow. and the choke of course;) I mulligand a good 5 card setup with economy. i had no dupes and no chars to survive first snow. And i got Nymeria in setup after mulligan with Doran in hand. so my plan was to open Festival, and second round against his first snow to trading with the pentoshi to cast Doran. And i drew perfectly. first rund dupe for Nymeria and second round i drew the dupe for Doran. i was in the game. he had Balon with dupe and Ralf Kennig. It was still super hard to play. We both had not much economy locations. it was a hard fight for 6 rounds. I think we both played very good. it was close on power the whole game. i played my plots very good. i waited for VD long. he had a massive board but not much economy. after my late VD the game state was a bit in my favour. but still close. i had some Nightmares for balon and than his Baring the gates helped me a bit. He could not Stranger, because he lost his dupe for Balon with 4 Power on him, and Doran still had the dupe. After an intense fight, he had to concede. i would have reached 15 power in turn 6. What a game. What a fight. @Superduck It was a pleasure to meet you in person. I enjoyed the talk to you and to play against you twice. I hope to see you again next year!

Final

Against Raius. Congrats Raius for your deserved win of the tournament. After a lot of good results in Stahleck YOU are the deserved winner. Amazing Player, Amazing Deckbuilder and amazing Person! I could not be happier to play you in the final of Stahleck. Sadly it was not the amizing game i hoped for. i did not see the setup i needed against your deck. After VM first turn and first snow the game was over before it started.

Final Words

Thank you for the oranisation of the amazing tournament. Special thanks to Schwaig and Philine! Thanks for the community to keep the game allive! After 6 years missing Stahleck, it was a pleasure to see you all back playing the game we love. See you next year!