Martell Rains - 1st Place at Stahleck 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey folks,

another year has passed and Stahleck is already gone aswell as my voice witnessing the great weekend that lays behind me. It was great as always and the only thing I regret is that I didn't had the time to hug all of you.

Somehow I managed to win this one which was very surprising to me as I didn't spend that much time in preparation as I normally do and didn't test my deck that much before. I knew it was kind of beefy but playing it was more like a choice of heart.

Orange cards feel the warmest you know...

As always a lot of luck was involved dodging Stark fun police all day and having doran's game whenever I needed it. I also have a very high skill level when it comes to cutting enemy decks, my apologies to Serwus and Puky at that point.

Now let's talk a little bit about the Deck:

I had a bit of a Deckblues this year testing different things one more boring than the other until Sebastian whispered into my ear

"Far in the south they have this card they call War Scorpion and it is a thing"

and I decided to give it a try building the first Martell Rains Deck of my life I think. War Scorpion gave the idea of sloting in other attachments so we can play smith to counter Winterfell while still being good in all the other games.

As I always loved the old "Wars to trigger doran's game on Ricasso's Boneway"-Decks a lot of other choices were obvious. Since Tattared Prince is very good in Rains together with Shadow-Arianne the Lord/Lady-Trait fits very good here, because I wanted to run Secret Schemes as the restricted card and therefore Host of the Boneway was out anyway.

The Agenda was nice but it's more like a "nice to have". It's always good to find a Secret Schemes with wheels since there is no draw in the plot Deck and tutoring Doran's Game has always been good, cheating prince's Plan into the discard pile on the way and congrats you have created a card advantage.

Desert Raider is also still a thing, you pay two gold and one card and you get something that will be thing for the rest of the game. Since the Deck does not have that much claim soak he's ideal and often a choice for Meadowlark (well at least in theory to be honest).

Game of Thrones helps you to slow down the game which is what you want and it works so good with War Scorpion making the opponent unable to win the intrigue themselfs. The Sword of the morning and Secret Pact have been very good with helping me here too.

Valar Dohaeris was most of the time annoying since I needed to play around my own reset, but it was important to have it in some of the matches when the start wasn't ideal. I really felt the pain playing a used pile Deck with just six plots in some games.

If you have any questions about the Deck feel free to ask me anything!

I will not go through all of my matches. This text is already long enough and there is still a lot left to say. Some of the games are recorded so I don't want to spoiler anything anyway since they will me commented #Hype!

So here a few thankful words.

First of all thank you organisation team for keeping the tournament alive and creating year per year a place with an enviroment I can call home. It has always been the event of the year for me and I can't be thankful enough.

Thanks to all my opponents for not falling asleep when I was again to late for the next round and for the great games we had.

Thank you Design-Team. I know I already said it a lot but you are doing a great job and these are not empty words. You have been critizied a lot, because people who are complaining are always the loudest, but we "the silent majority" (and I know I'm not alone) are very thankful to you for keeping this game alive and investing your freetime for making us able to play this game. Keep your heads up and look at the diversity of the extended cut. There were 28 players with 20 different House+Agenda combinations. We had a Top 16 game with Targaryen Conclave versus Targaryen Brotherhood. We had a choke-Deck as King of swiss. Who would have thought that a few years ago? This is your victory and no matter which melee title I have to take I will always support you!

Thank you Niki for giving me the insights of what the people play and what they don't. You are the true Master of Whisperers.

Thank you Sebastian for all our testing matches and for all the discussions about card choices, we are a great team with our deck-cooking Station and I would not have played this Deck without you.

Thank you Julia for not enduring me in the couple of weeks before Stahleck, where cards are keeping such a large space in my head, but for even jumping into the game right away yourself and thinking, playing and talking together with me about these small lovely printed sheets of paper. I never saw someone that enthusiastically. I am so happy to have you to share these memorys with and it was a pleasure to see you and your emotions on your first tournament and to compare them with my own when I nervously stepped into the game store for my first tournament so long ago.

Finally thank you Werner for all the games we played and for all the time we spent together over the last eight years. We grew together and without you I would not have been the player in general that I am now. It was a great time and one of the greatest experiences of my life. If you would have offered me to stay in Hannover in return for my concede in the final you would have seen the brightest smile you ever saw on a liars face when I would have shook your hand without hesitation.

Cheers!