[Stahleck 2016 Top16 Joust] More of the same 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is the deck I took to Stahleck this year. Until the day before the tournament I was set on playing a Clansmen Leaping Lions deck, pretty similar to the one that made it to the top 8. But then I freaked out in the last moment because I was imagining myself seeing Last Hearth Scouts across the table in every single game. So I decided to play something boring but reliable, pretty similar to the lists I played in a few previous tournaments at Vienna, Pilsen and Graz.

Since I couldn't get the Last Hearth Scouts out of my mind, I decided to put one of them into the deck, just in case my opponent would set up Harrenhal (FFH) or a Dothraki Sea. Needless to say that this didn't happen all day long and I should have brought either a third Bran Stark or Ser Edmure Tully. I was pretty happy with how the rest of the list performed though.

R1: Win vs Philine (GER) Targaryen LotC I saw both of my Tears of Lys and was able to poison Rakharo and Khal Drogo. That plus a Nightmares on Aggo in one early key challenge phase and a steady flow of good characters for me produced a rather one sided game.

R2: Win vs Krisztian (HUN) Night's Watch Fealty My opponent opened with A Noble Cause which left me wondering what to expect from his deck. He played Old Bear Mormont with his raven attached and would have had a solid board if he had skipped challenges. But he attacked with his second Mil icon, which allowed me to put what was probably the centerpiece of his deck to the sword.

R3: Win vs Federico (ITA) Stark Fealty Stark generally isn't the match up I want to see when I play Lannister, but this one went fairly smooth since he mulliganed into a bad setup and drew no economy other than Donella Hornwood and Bear Island the whole game and ran out of steam pretty quickly.

R4: Win vs Adam K (POL) Lannister KoW We both had a slow start into the game where we didn't see any big characters until I decided to let him go first when he flipped Famine on turn 3. I was promptply rewarded for that smart choice by having my board wiped after a Trial by Combat and Mil claim. I was close to conceding, but at least I had three Roseroads in play an could send his whole board up to his hand the next turn with The First Snow of Winter. From that moment on I got extremely lucky and topdecked exactly what I needed: Eddard with a dupe, Arya next and then a Ward for his Ser Gregor's Marauders while he continued to draw support characters only.

R5: Mod Win vs Martin (ESP) Baratheon Fealty This was the most dense game I played the whole day. I focused my whole attention on Stannis Baratheon (Core) since he is Bara's biggest threat to Lannister decks in my opinion. In the second attempt I managed to put him where he belongs after my first try was stopped by an In the Name of Your King!. I thought that things were looking good after that, but Stannis promptly made a Close Call reapperance. I don't remember much of the rest, except that we both had all our bombs in play at turn 10 when time was called. We both calculated our moves like forever and I was saved by Lannister richness from Tyrion and Tywin, allowing me to jump block Robert with the Hound to prevent unopposed and still win dominance. We both had 13 power after that so we shook hands and started to count the cards left in our decks. We actually did it twice, the second time aloud and one deck after the other, because we couldn't believe it: we both had 25 cards left. So I got lucky again and took this crazy game because of the dominance win in the last turn.

R6: Loss vs Florian (GER) Stark Fealty A Mulligan left me with a pretty sad starting position. Florian didn't make any mistakes, kept the good characters coming and grinded me down. He then went on to win the whole thing, which was well deserved from what I saw and heard.

R7: Win vs Ruben (ESP) Baratheon Watch Since I had a mod win, I knew that I had to win this one to make the cut. I was pretty happy to see my opponent play only small stuff during the first two turns while I could play a random bomb character every turn. He did have a lot of that no name guys though, so I was about to flip The First Snow of Winter. I don't know what made me reconsider, but he really did flip Forgotten Plans this turn while I drew some more random good characters with Counting. First Snow fell the next turn and he was unable to defend the Wall after that.

Top 32: Win vs Tomek (POL) Baratheon Fealty Yay, another Bara. I was really looking forward to having my whole board kneel again ... The game started with my opponent asking me if I wanted to do shots for plots. I declined and he promptly set up my special friend Stannis to punish me for that. I did have a really good starting hand with Eddard, reducer and a Kingsroad in setup and another Kingsroad, Ser Gregor Clegane and a Put in hand. I drew back Tywin, which left me with some pleasant options for the first turn. I won initiative with Harvest and chose to go second. He spent all his gold and knelt his house card for Fealty during my marshalling, so I knew that I didn't need to fear another In the Name of Your King!. I marshalled the Mountain to get past his City Watch plus Stannis defense with him and Eddard an put Stannis where he belongs. As icing on the cake, Gregor wiped Cressen from the board with his free hand. This pretty much was game already and I felt kind of cheap for a second since you don't have to play well with Lanni if you have a start like this. But really only for a second.

Top 16: Loss vs Eric (ESP) Lannister Wolf So in the end I received some of my own medicine, which was only fair I guess. My opponent set up Ser Gregor and a reducer versus my two 4g support crew characters. We both flipped Screw that plot and I lost the coin flip. He went first, so I couldn't use the poison for Ser Gregor that I had in hand, because I had to defend with everything I got against the looming Put to keep my intrigue icon on the board. I managed to poison the Mountain later, but he put Eddard to the sword and I didn't draw into any of my other big guns while they kept showing up on the other side of the board. I managed to stall the game a bit with a double marched and by warding Cersei after my opponent had used up his Confiscation for a Milk, but I never really got close to coming back into the game.

Thanks to Wolfgang and everybody else from the organisation team! Stahleck is simply the best and I hope that it will be there for many years to come.