Martell/Lion Undefeated ETX Tacoma Regional Winner (36) 1.0

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Firstly, I want to thank Uncle's Games and everyone who worked hard to put the Evergreen Tabletop Expo together this year, it was awesome. So many cool events all happening simultaneously: X-Wing Regionals, Netrunner Regionals, Star Wars LCG, Conquest, Thrones Melee, ANR Draft, and even the Settlers of Cataan States, all featured prominently over the course of three days in a highly professional streaming area with a raised viewing platform surrounding it. I encourage all those on the upper west coast to attend next year.

As for the Thrones, there was a solid turn out for the Regional, first of the year in our area(not counting Bozeman, MT), with 36 players. A perhaps prohibitive entry fee of $40 (with one event entry included) may have kept the number from being as high as it could have, though the cost was certainly worth the experience.

My decision to play Martell/Lion was one labored over for a few weeks before ultimately settling in with confidence. MN Broncos Wausau, WI Regional winning deck was the backbone for the list, and after his victory it was quickly added to my playgroup's "Gauntlet". I found it's strengths to match my playstyle as well as it having favorable results against the Meta's top performers, i.e. Lanni/Dragon, Lanni/X, Barra/X, so on, in my games played with/against. With True Steel's release a week after Wausau, we needed to find the best things to be doing with these new cards, and to determine if those things were stronger than the things we had been doing before the pack. Obvious strong cards within the pack such as Ward, Tyene, Illyn, and Funeral Pyre, were all given their shot at convincing me to play them at ETX, or at least build with them in mind.

Changes to MN Broncos deck

Omissions:

  -2 Bastard Daughter
  -2 Ser Jaime Lannister
  -2 Maester Caleotte
  -2 Knights of the Sun
  -1 Gold Cloaks
  -1 Counting Coppers

Additions:

  +2 Ser Ilyn Payne
  +2 Tyene Sand
  +2 House Dayne Knight
  +1 Rattleshirt's Raiders
  +2 Attainted
  +1 Close Call

Bastard Daughter is a fine card, when you see Nymeria Sand, and when you don't she is mediocre. This change to House Dayne Knight was an easy one to make as the Knights added flexibility as well as keeping some fodder in the cost slot. Cutting one Maester Caleotte was easy, and after enough games against Stark/X or Banner Stark with Ward, as well as considering set-up math, 3 drops without ambush just weren't where I wanted to be, so we cut both. Knights of the Sun were too slow, and vastly inferior to Palace Spearman and we wanted some number of Rattleshirt's Raiders in the deck to help in the triple Milk matchups, so we cut them. Gold Cloaks were gone as soon as we knew was had to make room for 6-drops. The hardest cut to make was Ser Jaime Lannister, a fine thrones card, but ultimately Ser Ilyn Payne fit the aims of the deck much more. With Jaime, you want to go first to maximize his ability, and the deck seems to operate better from second position, with Ilyn you prefer to go second. As well, Ilyn vastly improves what might be the worst matchup, though I don't think it's a terrible one, in Targaryian/X by eating dragons and Jorahs and the like. Tyene Sand is a monster, so it was just figuring out if we wanted 2 or 3, we settled on 2 due to the restrictive cost, and Attainted seemed to fit well into this strategy. Close Call was another concession to the Targ matchup as it re-buys your dracarys-ed characters as well as adding a solid econ plot with slight card draw. Coppers was underwhelming unless I was always hitting my econ(Tyrion or 2+ Limited Locations), and all the other plots seemed necessary.

Cards we considered but didn't end up playing were, Sunspear, 2nd Quentyn w/ Close Call, more Rattleshirts, and Nightmares.

A week before the Regional one of my playtesting buddies, Kyle Duncan, guinea pigged the changes at the Hamilton, ON Regional placing 9th in the swiss and missing the cut on breakers. Zack Decoto and I both played the deck at ETX, he went 3-2 missing the Swiss and I went 4-0-1 with a modified win to earn the 2nd seed in the Top 8. Below is a description of what I can remember of the games.

Round 1: I had a bye from an SC win, so I used it. 1-0

Round 2: Martell/Lion Mirror match out of the gate. My opponent was Chuck from the Bremerton meta, I didn't know him, but we both had SC byes so I knew this had the potential to be a close game. His setup was much stronger than mine, he had Tyrion and location economy, so I knew his Long Plan into First Snow would be superior to my own; I decided to take a different line and play the initiative game. The match was long and attrition based, he missed some triggers with Tyrion that kept me ahead in power and on the final turn I used vengeance for Elia on his pow challenge just so I could extend the lead going into time. I do believe I win the game if it goes one more turn, but unfortunately I didn't get there so I took the modified win 12-7. 2-0(sort of)

Round 3: Greyjoy Fealty My opponent, Matt was his name I believe(I'm sorry if that is incorrect), set up Fishwiskers, Reducer, 2 drop, Roseroad, Ironfleet scout. Seeing Fishwiskers was disconcerting; he opened with snowed under to my long plan, played Ahead of the tide and chose to go first marshaling a Seastone Chair and some other stuff. I played a hound and kept up gold for Vengeance. He swung mil with Fishwiskers and used the seastone chair targeting Tyrion, which I played Vengeance to overlap. My military challenge and a Tears of Lys left only one character on the board the next turn for my marched to the wall. Next turn Balon and chud came down and I HJed a risen when trying to kill the Balon with a second tears. He spent the next turns drawing dead and the game was over quickly. 3-0

Round 4: Tyrell/Stark Nick Miller was up to his usual Tyrell wackiness, though his build would not be the Tyrell deck that was the talk of the tournament. He was 3-0 at the time we played getting paired down to me and my plebeian mod win. I setup Arienne and stuff, and marshaled Tyene off Long Plan and some location econ. She killed Randy, Knight of Flowers on consecutive turns and he couldn't recover. 4-0

Round 5: Lanni/Sun As long as no one below me IDed, I was guaranteed in even with a loss, and the pair below us couldn't be guaranteed in if we IDed, so they played for the spot and Jimmy Morris and I IDed and got to relax knowing we would both be playing on Sunday in the Top 8. 4-0-1

Quarterfinal: Barra/Lion My top 8 match was against Brendan, from my playgroup in Seattle, and we were disappointed having to face each other this early in the Top 8. I set up Arienne and some stuff and he set up all 3 cost or lower characters. I knew this was a bad start for him, and he would be weak to First Snow in all likelihood so I opened Long Plan. He Nobled into Mel kneeling Arienne and I played Tyrion. I popped in Nym stealing Mel's int icon and tearsed her, claiming Even Handed Justice, which he told me later was the best card in his hand at the time, and the game was already going poorly for him. Next turn he marshaled Stannis, who I had another tears for, and the turn after he dropped Robert and I played Tyene. 5-0-1

Semifinal: Targ/Lion My opponent, Matt Phillips, was all the way from Tulsa and he was piloting my worst matchup. The whole Martell/Lion lineup is pretty soft to dracarys so I knew I would have to play a conservative game. After his marshaling I had a fairly interesting decision, I flipped calling the banners to afford Ilyn he countered with Nightmares for Ilyn, which I HJed and then had to choose between killing Rheagal or the Hound. I chose the Hound to play around a potential Fire and Blood, knowing the dragon would die soon if he didn't have an answer for the Payne train. He gave Jorah stealth with Syrio with 2 gold up and I knew something was afoot. Sure enough he got through the mil chal UO and had to make the difficult decision of killing either Tyrion or a knelt Ilyn with PTTS. He chose the Ilyn in the end which may have been correct, I'm unsure. I responded with Viper's Eyes seeing another PTTS and Dracarys. I figure I can play around Drac, but not so much PTTS with Syrio in play so I take the 2nd PTTS. From here on in my Tyrion and eventual Nym are relegated to being pseudo Dom package with solid abilities, which was fine as I eventually was able to grind the game out without ever attacking with them. Ghaston grey solved mirri, and with a careful int claim she was gone, and the Drogo came into the fray much too late to contribute. 6-0-1

Finals: Tyrell Crossing The matchup can be seen here at about the 35 minute mark, https://www.twitch.tv/etxlive/v/69372313 This deck was a surprise to see doing so well. It had knocked Zack out earlier in the tournament, and had just defeated a similar list to mine in the Semifinal match with Chuck, my 2nd Round opp. I knew my deck should be favored as long as he didn't just rush me out of the game. I drew pretty much the ideal opener of Arienne and three reducers with Tyene in hand, the only thing I could have asked for was zero cost location. I really wanted to be able to marshal both tyene and my attainted so I flipped Calling the Banners on my opp 2 char setup, which seemed odd but I knew was correct. He marshaled Knight of Flowers and Randyl with only the Paxter ability up for challenges shenanigans. My double Viper's Eyes hit Lady Sansa's Rose and Growing strong, the second viper eyes was questionable but I didn't want him to manufacture ways to win Int challenges in the future and the rest of his hand wasn't frightening. Tyene killed Randy. Turn 2 he summons for a Flo Rida(Florent Knight) and I marched his Paxter away retrieving my attainted and bottle necking his econ some. Here was his first and perhaps biggest mistake. I only had 4 gold and a reducer in play, on my marshal, with all 5 drops in hand. If he Flo Ridas first to kill my scavenger, I can only marshal hound and immediately lose board position, but he marshals a reducer location giving me a window to activate my scavenger. The rest of the game was close but after killing Knight of Flowers and Randy turn 1 and 2, I just had to keep up in the power game to seal the win. 7-0-1 and the trophy!

I was definitely pleased with the deck and the results, and think the list should be a strong player in the Meta for quite some time. The Control/Tempo allows you to set the pace of your games, and give you the flexibility to have solid matchups across the board. Thanks for reading, Cheers.