A Dance with Dragons - Singapore Regionals Top 4 1.0

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I had the pleasure of competing in the recent Singapore Regionals, my very first regionals of 31 players strong. I have been playing Targaryens for a long while and I'm glad it finally paid off, with my deck holding up all the way till the semi-finals.

Total tally for the day is 4-2-1. With 5 rounds of Swiss to cut to Top 8. In my 5 rounds of swiss I won the first 3 games, and by the start of Round 4, Joey and I are the only ones who had 3 consecutive wins, so we had the luxury of taking an ID (We played a casual game nonetheless, with him piloting a Martell Lion deck which totally smashed my deck). Given the state of things, I took another ID at Round 5, which guaranteed my spot on the Top 8.

Brief report on how things turned out in the Top 8.

Quarter-finals (Top 8) vs Joey (Martell Lion):

I matched up against Joey again for the quarter-finals. From playing him earlier on, I knew his deck was super aggressive. I knew he ran Wildfire Assault, The First Snow of Winter and 2 copies Marched to the Wall for his plots, which will put me on a spot if I didn't get my board up to size early game. I setup with a Viserion, a duped Rhaegal and a Plaza of Punishment while Joey saw a duped Nymeria Sand and a Burned Men on his side. I drew into Khal Drogo and another Viserion when I refilled my hand. I was expecting a certain plot to come, and true enough, Joey opened with The First Snow of Winter, while I flipped A Noble Cause. I marshalled in a duped Khal Drogo with Drogo's Arakh. Going forward, he didn't make things easy for me in the subsequent rounds, with him attaching Attainted on my Mirri Maz Duur and Imprisoned on Khal Drogo, bringing in a Ghaston Grey and deflecting some challenges with Vengeance for Elia.

I was down to 2 cards at one point and Joey went in for an challenge which I could not block. I was scared that he would pull my Dracarys! but in a twist of fate, he didn't manage to. Which proved useful later when I used it to burn Tyrion Lannister in a subsequent challenge. If he did indeed pull my Dracarys! and Tyrion Lannister was left standing, it would make things very difficult for me.

Semi-finals (Top 8) vs Jason (Lanni Sun):

Jason is an extremely skillful player and I knew that I'm going to have a hard time. I could not remember much about this game, but I remembered that he had a dream set-up of Tywin Lannister, Lannisport Merchant and a location reducer, and marshalled in Nymeria Sand, Ser Jaime Lannister and Tyrion Lannister in the subsequent rounds. Jason has every answer to my deck; Daenerys Targaryen fell to a Tears of Lys after getting her icon removed by Nymeria Sand. Nymeria Sand was also used to remove Khal Drogo's icon and Mirri Maz Duur was rendered totally useless with Attainted and Condemned. Jason rightfully advances into the finals after overwhelming me with renowns on his side.

Thoughts:

I have play-tested this deck at least 20 times, which remained largely unchanged in the weeks leading up to the Regionals. It is a strong deck with a good track record, though not easy to pilot due to the many triggers and reactions easily missed by new players (practice makes perfect!). The draw is largely consistent, econ is well balanced, offers many options for play and wins most of the time. Despite this, I feel that this deck could be fine tuned a fair bit. Plots wise, I would remove Rebuilding for Counting Coppers. Cards wise, I would use Milk of the Poppy instead of Nightmares. Handmaiden definitely has to go in favour for another copy of Mirri Maz Duur. Maybe put in another Shadowblack Lane for that sweet draw. I have a few other ideas I could use to tweak this deck, and I'm even playing with the idea of bannering . Oh well, only time will tell how this deck will turn out.