Waves of Warships 2.0

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• 2.0
• 1.0

The jank is real, and it makes you kneel.

This is the deck I piloted to top 8 at The Storming of Starpike this weekend. Finishing 8th out of 49 far exceeded my expectations for my first tournament larger than a store championship and I surprised a lot of opponents with my play style and what this deck could do.

Before I jump into the recap and deck summary, let me say I had a great time at this tournament. Roy Rogers runs a great event and the community really showed up. Meeting a lot of the podcast guys, who I now consider friends as well as playing through some top competition made for a great day. And the after party...damn...I'll leave getting caught in Hurricane Sandy's party wake for another forum. ;)

So the deck. No Balon. No Mel. No problem. I got UO easy without Balon and he was too expensive for the curve. Mel required too many cards of support to make her more than a single trigger, and one kneel was not worth 5 and a deck slot.

The deck runs a low cost curve and is designed to control 3 of the 4 elements of the game well. Characters are controlled by kneel, which this deck has in plenty (Vic, the hammer, and Marya), and claim. Locations can be hit by Raiding and Sow. Attachments have Confiscation, Cressen, and Sow. Events...well I almost never had gold left over and if I did it was for Marya's ability so I kept having HJ be a dead card in hand during testing. It was eventually cut due to that. Considering 2/3 of my losses were event driven I would have to rework that in the growing Targ meta that is happening now.

I kept the cost curve low so I could play powerful effect or high claim plots and push the game pace without sacrificing my ability to play characters that could help me. With only 1 7, 1 6, and 2 5's (which only 1 can be out at once) I really loaded up on 4 cost characters. Ward vunerable, sure. Stark being played much? Nope...and I had answers to attachments anyways so I was less concerned by that.
Kneel was driven by Vic, the Warhammer (especially if surprise dropped by Salla for free), and Marya. Frequently I could kneel out whole boards or only leave 1-2 characters standing at the end of challenges. Longships and Stealth made sure challenges went UO for power gain (and to make sure Vic won by his full str for intimidate/hammer triggers). Part of what confused a lot of opponents was I didn't mind kneeling out going first and letting them get UO early game. I would leave them the challenges I wanted them to do and I could accept the claim on after my kneels and let more power accumulate on faction cards. I needed them to have power to steal on my 2 claim plot turns to push for the victory and that was one way to "encourage" them to do that for me. Risky, sure. It did bite me in the ass once this tourney. Otherwise it usually worked out.

Summary: Round 1: Tyrell Wolf. James McKenna. Win. He opens with KoF, Fast Eddy, and 2 chuds. Bodyguard on Eddy, dupe on KoF. I get Vic, Salla and both warhammers early which allows me to keep Eddy knelt, and surprising with the hammers for free while I peel through his saves with claim and confiscation. he gets out to a 12-5 lead, but his saves are gone. Valar. I have Vic and Salla with Great Kraken being free dropped by Salla. He had...-2 gold due to 2 pleasure barges and me sowing his positive econ earlier. He could not rebuild. 2 turns and Rise of the Kraken later 12-5 became 15 for me.

Round 2: Lanni Rains. Scott Levine. Win.
Setting up Euron is not normally what this deck does but it worked for me this game. I hit the Eyrie with his pillage on defense turn 1. He treacheried the trigger to keep me from taking it, but he felt he had to valar turn 2 to get rid of Euron in response. He had Cersei left after Valar. I had Esgred and Long Winter as my plot for 2 claim. wiped the board. He could never rebuild.

Round 3: George Hong, Lanni Rose. Loss. This was the one game I feel I lost due to mistakes. I think my ADD kicked in, or I just got flustered with a double Summer Harvest opening that he could use due to Tywin gold and I could not. It set me behind early and he had too man saves and dupes to valar my way out of the early mess I ended up in. I made it closer than it maybe should have been and could have made it 1-2 turns longer if I didn't make some dumb plays in the last round.

Round 4: Aaron Glazer: Tyrell Wolf. Win. First, Aaron may play the heel on the casts, but he's one of the nicest guys in person. Fun game for sure. I got Vic, Esgred, and Marya out early. He didn't get a mil icon until turn 3. Between ships, stealth, and kneel I won all 3 challenges every turn and there was not much he could do in counter attacks. Turn 4 was game.

Round 5: Dan Church, GJ Fealty. Win. Another no Mil Icon setup for my opponent with me having the 3 headed kneel machine going second turn. Core Aeron and a Throne was annoying to negate my kills, but I could keep him knelt easy, he forgot about the longship twice and blocked anyways, and a relentless assault on a long winter turn killed 4...which was a lot more than he could take the losses of. Neither player Valared as too many saves were out on both sides to make the tempo hit beneficial. Win by turn 5 for me.

Round 6: Pat Reynolds, Lanni Rains. Loss. Well, when you run into a former national champ and you mulligan into 4 limiteds, an event, a reducer, and an iron mine its sort of hard to win. I valared turn 1 as Jaime was out unprotected and with no board I couldn't let him wreck me with him all game. He only managed to play Tyrion with a Bodyguard out of that turn. Marched turn 2. Then he gets Tywin, Cercei and a Reducer out next turn. No valar left, no marched left, little hope left. I manage to drag it to 6 plots before he wins and made him think hard on every play. Could I ask for more out of that start?

4-2 after swiss, but I make 8th on schedule strength, putting current world champ, Joe Mirando, into the bubble spot of 9th. Sorry, Joe. I enjoyed talking with you all day...forgive me?

My reward for making the cut...facing my worst matchup: Top 8 game: Bryn Alcorn, Targ Fealty. Loss. you remember what I said I couldn't stop...events. So their events kill in ways I can't save and I can't stop the events. To be fair...I didn't think the new pack would be legal when I built the deck so I expected Targ to still be a minor percent of the field, not 1/4 of the cut. Bryn is a good friend out of my own meta in MD, which had 6 people at the tournament, 3 making the cut, 3 best of house (I was beat put for best GJ by my own meta mate) King of Swiss (and eventual runner up), and no one below 3-3. I think our little group may be on the rise. I managed to jump out to an early lead trying to rush him while he had a weak setup and no dragons/Dany early. Once he got Dani, burned Vic, and ate my board with mil claim with Drago it was done. More a matter of time in that matchup.

Thanks to all of my opponents. This was a great experience and I am hyped to do another big event as soon as money and time allow me.