[London Regional] May 9th

[Vince]

LONDON REGIONAL - 9th MAY

Players from all the Kingdom. The London meta will be more than happy to welcome you for a day of Jousting in Darksphere for its Regional Championship of our beloved A Game of Thrones Living Card Game!

Where: Darksphere, 186 Hercules Road, London SE1 7LD
When: 10am, Saturday May 9th
Lunch: Multiple shops and pubs next to the venue
Accomodation: Local player housing possible, just ask for it in this topic
Entrance fee: 10£
Format: Joust, Number of Swiss rounds and cut to top according to the number of players
Legal chapters: Confirmed 2 weeks before the event
Prizes: Regional Championship kit + a big kiss from Tagore \o/ !

Do not forget your decklist.

Who's in ?
Do not forget to mention your House of heart, even if it's not the one you'll be playing at the tournament

Registered players:
Vince
Markdrive
OldShrimpeyes
Ryan4815
Mach
MrDav
Bambi
ShiftyMcNinja

[markdrive]

I'll be there

[OldShrimpEyes]

I can confirm my attendance!

[Ryan4815]

I'll be there, probably flying the banner of the stag!

[Mach]

In all likelihood, I'm gonna be there. Probably playing Lannister.

[MrDav]

Yeah baby! (I'll be there)

[Fingers888]

LONDON REGIONAL - 9th MAY

Players from all the Kingdom. The London meta will be more than happy to welcome you for a day of Jousting in Darksphere for its Regional Championship of our beloved A Game of Thrones Living Card Game!

Where: Darksphere, 186 Hercules Road, London SE1 7LD
When: 10am, Saturday May 9th
Lunch: Multiple shops and pubs next to the venue
Accomodation: Local player housing possible, just ask for it in this topic
Entrance fee: 10£
Format: Joust, Number of Swiss rounds and cut to top according to the number of players
Legal chapters: Confirmed 2 weeks before the event
Prizes: Regional Championship kit + a big kiss from Tagore \o/ !

Do not forget your decklist.

Who's in ?
Do not forget to mention your House of heart, even if it's not the one you'll be playing at the tournament

Registered players:
Vince
Markdrive
OldShrimpeyes
Ryan4815
Mach
MrDav

[Vince]

Good morning Fingers888, does that mean you're interested in joining us ?

If you have any question, please feel free to ask .

[ShiftyMcNinja]

Jamie and I shall be in attendance.

[JCWamma]

Tournament is over, and here are the final standings (all inputted into the annals already):

After 5 rounds of swiss:

Ranking) Player (Score, SoS) - House - Agenda - Restricted
1) Vince Tee (5-0, 84) - Greyjoy - The Old Way - Naval Escort
2) Ryan Wood (4-1, 88) - Baratheon - Dark Wings, Dark Words - Melisandre's Favour
3) Ryan Kelly (4-1, 81) - Baratheon - Knights of the Realm - Ser Preston Greenfield
4) Kostas Adamopoulos (4-1, 73) - Baratheon - The Maester's Path - The Maester's Path
5) Tagore Nakornchai (4-1, 59) - Stark - No Agenda - Meera Reed
6) Marco Guida (3-2, 90) - Greyjoy - House of Dreams (Thunderer) - Search & Detain
7) Jamie Bamfield (3-2, 85) - Lannister - Dark Wings, Dark Words - Castellan of the Rock
Lol Craven (3-2, 80) - Greyjoy - House of Dreams (Thunderer) - Search & Detain
----------------
9) Tom Clarke (3-2, 73) - Baratheon - The Maester's Path - The Maester's Path
10) Darren Clare (3-2, 70) - Targaryen - Heir to the Iron Throne - Fear of Winter
11) Rowan Gavin (3-2, 60) - Lannister - No Agenda - Negotiations at the Great Sept
12) Michael Clarke (3-2, 60) - Stark - Aloof & Apart - Fury of the Wolf
13) Ian Pollard (3-2, 50) - Lannister - Conquest (Martell) - Castellan of the Rock
14) Marek Ustymenko (3-2, 48) - Martell - No Agenda (Quentyn) - Venomous Blade
15) Becky Frith (3-2 [1 mod win], 69) - Lannister - Knights of the Realm - Ser Preston Greenfield
16) Sam Wilson (3-2 [2 mod wins], 64) - Baratheon - Knights of the Realm - Ser Preston Greenfield
17) Hadleigh Lacey (2-3, 61) - Stark - No Agenda - Meera Reed
18) Rheece Kennedy (2-3, 60) - Stark - Conquest (Martell) - Fury of the Wolf
19) Sam Jones (2-3, 60) - Targaryen - Aloof & Apart - Narrow Escape
20) Kat Marshall (2-3, 59) - Stark - Aloof & Apart - Negotiations at the Great Sept
21) Tom Peel (2-3, 44) - Greyjoy - Black Sails - Fury of the Kraken
22) Dave Bamford (2-3 [1 mod win], 48) - Lannister - House of Dreams (Tunnels of the Red Keep) - Ser Preston Greenfield
23) Stefan Fotheringham (1-4 [3 mod losses], 61) - Lannister - Dark Wings, Dark Words - Castellan of the Rock
24) Bryan Bradley (1-4 [1 mod loss], 77) - Martell - House of Dreams (Doran's Solar) - Venomous Blade
25) Mark Trewren (1-4, 59) - Martell - Aloof & Apart - The Viper's Bannermen
26) Alex Anastasiou (1-4, 52) - Targaryen - Heir to the Iron Throne - Daenerys Targaryen
27) Andrew Dunn (1-4, 40) - Stark - House of Dreams (Winterfell) - Unknown Restricted

In the top 8:
1 loses to 8
2 beats 7
3 loses to 6
4 loses to 5

8 beats 5
2 loses to 6

8 loses to 6

Making Marco our champion after our Thunderstruck final of an HoD Thunderer mirror!

Congratulations to Marco (and the others who did well), and thanks to everyone who showed up and helped make it an amazing day and one that I enjoyed TOing immensely .

House Breakdown:
Baratheon - 5 (3 in the cut and 1 bubbling)
Greyjoy - 4 (3 in the cut)
Lannister - 6 (1 in the cut)
Martell - 3 (0 in the cut)
Stark - 6 (1 in the cut)
Targaryen - 3 (0 in the cut)

Some thoughts, both on the tournament and on TOing it:

- Firstly, for those doubting, HoD Thunderer is definitely a thing. I've heard it compared unfavourably to LIV1, but the let's be honest, either way round you're running both cards. And if one is going to be the HoD location and one is going to be played in marshalling, it only makes sense to play your HoD locations as the one that draws pre-marshalling and the main-deck one as the one being played post-marshalling. It is also worth pointing out that our two finalists, Marco and Craven, have been working on this deck for many weeks now and are both excellent players besides, so results may vary elsewhere!

- I was pleased with the split of houses in the field, with every house getting played between 3 and 6 times. The cut was somewhat less well-balanced, but I think possibly the calibre of our Baratheon and Greyjoy players skewed the results somewhat in their favour.

- There was a nice mixture of decks throughout the field, with only a few decks 'repeated' as it were (HoD Thunderer S&D, Stark N/A Meera, Bara Maesters, Bara Knights Preston, Lanni DW Castellan). I believe that makes 22 unique house/agenda/restricted combinations.

- Winner of "best most original deck" award goes to Vince, who topped the swiss with a deck built around the new Iron Throne (and I won't give any more details than that unless he wants them given). My personal apologies to Vince for not featuring him on the stream - for the last two rounds I didn't feature people who seemed almost-certain to make the cut under the assumption they'd feature later, and then in the first round of the cut his opponent politely requested not to be featured on the stream, and Vince promptly suffered his only loss of the day to be knocked out, with the cameras beckoning for his top 4 match. Rheece ran him a close second with his Stark Conquest Martell monstrosity, part of his quest to play The Red Viper out of every house before the end of first edition, which was basically built around the core set event Guilty!.

- Of the field at this tournament, 7 players had the opportunity to use a Store Championship first round bye. Of those 7, 3 of them (Ryan Wood, Ryan Kelly and Jamie Bamfield) did, and may consider it a good decision that they did as all 3 made the cut. In particular, the only thing that saw Bambi make the cut (his winning of games aside, of course) was the high strength of schedule his super bye offered him, being one of the three (out of eleven) people on 3-2 to make the cut. Of the other four, only one of them didn't make the cut anyway, so they may consider their decisions not to use their byes equally valid!

- The thing that pleased me most about this event was the turnout, and the mix of players new and old, from near and far. Thank you so much to everyone who turned up, for helping make this tournament a great success .

[Vince]

Thank you everybody for an absolute great day . It was much needed and appreciated . I'm already eagerly looking forward to our next tournament!

I'll try to do a quick report of my tournament, so please, bear with my mistakes :p.

I think I must say I thought the Regional was on Sunday, and therefor did not really worried about my deck, thinking I would a whole Saturday, or nearly, to try to test it and optimize it. When I learnt it was on Saturday I went from "What?? Wouf, luckily I won't miss it" to "WHAAAT?? But I'm definitely not ready at all!". I spent the evening with Craven aka OldShrimpeyes aka Shrimp playing a few games against his HoD Thunderer, the same one he owuld bring to the finale on the morrow. I did just a few changes, but no real optimization. But anyway, I liked my deck and was already happy to play with it. It's an Old Way deck you should soon find in the Greyjoy part of this forum.

I arrived at around 1030 at Lambeth North just on time to meet as agreed with Shrimp and to find also a few other players there. We went to Darksphere, which was in the end only for us for the day, which is realy great, we had space, even a streamed table, this was really great. It was a pleasure to see the Paramours that were in Amsterdam a week ago and here about how great the tournament was there. After a few greetings and laughs we could start with the tournament.

Round 1 with Becky in Knights of the Realm
Arf, Lannister... And played by the latest best player of the Frith-Waumsley house. I know they are a real threat for me, they have consistent draw, and a whole collection of events to mess with my challenges. I don't remember very well this game, but I know I was only trying to cling onto what I could. Becky was leading the dance. Luckily for me, even if she played her plots really well as usual, she also made a few mistakes within the challenges phase, which could be blamed on a lack of exprience against Old Way, and that was what hold me in the game. I finally was lucky enough to win a game I feel I did not deserved, if becky had had a bit more experience, it definitely was for her. But well already a 10 turns game ^^.
Victory 1-0

Round 2 with Kostas in Maester
My first game against an Edinburgh player . Kostas is an amazingly nice person and clearly a great player. He took the lead in the firsts turns, especially after Salladhor (and his dupe) discarded 5 or 6 of my locations with Robert's Hammer and Marya (bye bye LIV, Great Wyk, Street of Silk, Iron Throne and something else). And as he had harrenhal into play it was really complicated for me to get anything going. I finally drew into a NML to discrad harrenhal, I then waited for the dominance phase to bring back the Iron Throne with Iron Lore and Valar the following turn, getting rid of Aemon and Saladhor, and the rest of his board. I had held him low on draw by stealing for a turn Aemon with Taken Captive, so he didn't have that many cards to come back after the valar, using the discard with Saladhor took many of whta he had. I could then take control of the game abit more but it was still very tensed until the end. This report doesn't do justice to this game, Kostas did play really well, playing efficiently his stoic resolves, same for defneding and playing angainst OW. I'm reallu happy I managed to win this game.
Victory 2-0

Round 3 with Shrimp in HoD Thunderer
I have quite a good idea of what the deck can do. The orientation is a bit different than what Marco chose but I basically know the deck, as much as he knows mine. I know that between my 3 River Blockade and the 2 Iron Thrones, I have things to simply shut down his Thunderer, and with Naval Escort enough to hold in respect his Marauders. But things don't always go the way you want . This game was definitively tensed, Euron providing the draw the Thunderer couldn't, S&D got an Asha back in my hand and his NML managed my Iron Throne and Rive Blockade at least twice. I managed to win after a thrid very very close match. Got this is extenuous ^^.
Victory 3-0

Round 4 with Markdrive in HoD Thunderer
I knew the previous deck quite well, I know this one card by card, talking about it a lot with Marco. And I just had the perfect start. A lot of draw, Naval Escort, Salt and Iron, even one Command the Winds, it was perfect. Maybe my deck decided to give me a round of relief after 3 very harsh games . As usual Marco, it's a pleasure to play with you and I'm looking forward to our next time!

Round 5 with Ryan in Dark Wings Dark Words
Ryan is a really cool Baratheon player located in Southampton, but regularly going the distance to come to London and play here. I would really love to see a meta growing in Southampton, he would clearly deserved it. When it comes to the game, I know it can be an even match-up. The Mel's Favor can be annoying but the Iron Throne could stop Dale from triggering, though the real threat here comes from the Brightwater Man at Arms, being a real thing to control challenges. Even more when there's a Smuggler's Cove to help. We were both certain to be qualified at this stage, so the pressure was gone as well and we clearly played this game relaxed, making quite a few mistakes, mostly forgetting passives. But in the end it turned out that when DWDW can't trigger its response, it's a real blow . Despite 2 Mel's Favor I made to win in 4 or 5 turns.
Victory 5-0

Well, here it is, top of the Swiss. I honestly like my deck and what I do with it. And being first after swiis is a real blast . I know it is not optimized, and I think that's the regret I'd have with it, not being able to play it more in order to make it stronger. But even with its flaws I like it as it is and it time to face the Top8.

Top8 with Shrimp in HoD Thunderer
A bit like before, I know I have tools in my deck to counter his, but I also know he has what is needed to block mine. To be fully honest I don't know much what to say about this game. Shrimp had a very strong set-up and an even stronger turn 1. Seeing my plan was to play the Iron Throne and Valar turn 2. But in plot phase he played Nightmares on my Throne which kind of ruined this plan. I should have gone on the usual taken captive, but s I felt under pressure by his board I decided to play aftermath where he played forgotten plans, and basically that was it. On this turn he drew 3 cards, played a NML on my Throne, played a Coldhands on my Gran and maybe another mine. And it was basically done for me, he was too high in power for to stop him and a valar would just give what he wanted. I did my best and hold him until his valar but of course he finished before that. So well, that's it ^^.
Defeat

In the end I felt a bit frustrated, I wanted to play more, and more with this deck, as I said I know it wasn't as good as it can be, and I regret not playiing with it more before. Not that it would have changed the outcome of this tournament, but it leaves a strange sensation . Nevertheless I had the pleasure to see Shrimp moving towards the finale after a very good match from him against Tagore in a not easy match-up, and to assist to a great finale between him and Marco. Somehow I've beaten three of the four semi-finalists throughout the day .

After that we went to the pub/restaurant that will most likely welcome us for BlackWaterBay and had a great evening with the guys. I already miss you all and thanks for this great day again!

A special word for James who hosted the tournament and therefore did not play, thanks a lot Mister.
Thanks to Darksphere for letting us the place and setting up the streaming, this was really cool.
Thanks to all of my opponents and especially to Shrimp, man apart from a good player, you're someone great and playing with you always lessen the important of the outcome, whatever it is .

[markdrive]

Congrats Vince - your deck seems really strong and reliable! As I said in my report you stomped all over me....I will have my revenge

[OldShrimpEyes]

Vince, great report and thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate what you said.

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