Red Deck Wins(?) 5th Place Brawl 2018 (46p) 1.0

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"There's life in the old lion yet." :)

Welcome to my first (and probably last) tournament report! Back in the day during my "career" in "Magic the Gathering" I always had the plans to write something like this one day but never really managed to do so (due to my indefinete laziness :D). Anyway, as I enjoyed the event so much I just overcame the sloth for once and did it! :P

The deck:

First of all I have to thank @Nimer and @SoCalSandSnake for sharing their lists (and insight)! Without that a freshman like me would hardly stand a chance to find a competetive deck/strategy. That being said, I don't take any credit for the deckbuilding! :) Nevertheless, I want to provide you with the results of my own testing and think-tanking in the weeks before my first "big" tournament that eventually led to my version of "Red Deck Wins(?)".

Match-Ups:

During testing with the original lists I quickly got the impression that this deck was a massive beast which most of the existing strategies (especially the popular Mace.dec) could hardly keep up with due to the speed and just brute force. That was before the release of Dorne (cough!) and finally The Wall. I was really disappointed as it seemed almost impossible to beat the aforementioned so I decided to put it aside and play a deck that doesn't need any challenges (or maybe one) to easily win the game in form of TyrellGoodStuff. But the lion was still haunting me so I returned to testing some days past and started tuning the original list (including Nightmares etc.). To cut the long story short: After 20+ test games I drew the conclusion that I was in favour against all common strategies except NewWall.dec and Martell/MartellWolf with ultra-heavy resets. The latter was even OK with the help of Swiss Army Knife "Nightmares" which could blank Dorne for one phase or counter Varys. Expecting a long and exhausting tournament with several rounds to go I willingly accepted my fate to go with the lions rejecting other plans that would have been way more complicated to play especially for a noob like me (I still made enough mistakes...). :P

Plots:

Counting Coppers: Way better than You Win or You Die in this particular deck as you don't really need a finisher most of the time and it is digging deep for dupes and fueling up your hand for Myrcella Baratheon.

Forced March: Due to the inclusion of Tyrion's Chain (which I'm still not too certain about) made the cut instead of First Snow of Winter because the only popular deck it's been viable against in testing was Martell and there it got countered most of the time. But it's a meta-call. Heads on Spikes: Absolutely self-explanatory (hint: synergy ;)), wins games single-handedly, most important plot in the deck, period.

Trading with the Pentoshi: Best money plot for this deck's strategy not only because of the full 10 gold which can obviously be crucial for an explosive opening or a quick recovery after a reset but also because of the marginal drawback it has compared to the other alternatives like Late Summer Feast etc. Fun fact: Happens quite often that you don't open with it even if not facing MartellCancer.dec simply because of the great setups this deck regularly produces. Can also be a good against Targ in later plots to turn good old Tywin Lannister into an undying Juggernaut! :P

Valar Dohaeris: Didn't really have that one on the list in the first place but after an enlightening chat with the grandmaster himself @Nimer (thanks again buddy!) and some further testing I recognized the potential this little gem has for the deck. First of all it is a "surprise" reset (at least for many players) which is especially great versus TyrellGoodStuff.dec or Stark.dec among others. The characters you lose go under your draw-deck to reload your I Never Bet Against my Family, not too bad I'd say. Furthermore, VD can in fact be a counter for your opponent's Valar Morghulis as you are first player and simply choose 0 to save all your besties and store them under deck (see above ;)). One of the MVPs in the tournament!

Weapons at the Door: This card is so good! In the current meta with gallons of Milk of the Poppy and other nasty stuff around it often buys you the one challenge phase your "fairness four" (with fully active text boxes) need to finish off the game with HoS in the next plot phase.

Characters:

A lot of must-plays here but some decisions were/are still tough to figure out. I decided against Rattleshirt's Raiders despite their obvious power in the current meta simply because I wanted to keep the number of non-unique Lannister characters as low as possible and was relying on my Weapons at the Door. Ser Osmund Kettleblack also didn't make the cut as he was totally underwhelming in testing and I changed the original gameplan to not being so "jumpy" anymore. He was replaced by Janos Slynt who is loyal(!) which is really important nowadays (BT sucks big time!) and always good for some intimidate shenanigans. Ser Gregor Clegane also remained in there (despite being so clunky) because 1) He is very good against Targ. 2) He is one of my favourite charcters in general (fluff!). :P Ser Lancel Lannister replaced Bronn as he is also good in Setup, you only have one other big guy (or girl) until the first reset most of the time and has no drawbacks. The really hard choices appear when taking a closer look at the 3-cost-section. I chose to run the full amount of baby Cerseis (Myrcella Baratheon and Shae) and only one Grand Maester Pycelle (even though he is one of the rare but desperately needed loyals) accompanied by two copies of The Hound as you hardly want him a second time in most cases. Among the "fairness four" (with Cersei as their undisputed leader) Myrcella Baratheon definetely impressed me the most during testing as well as the tournament.

Attachments:

Not much to say here. I cut one Bodyguard because I needed room for events and in testing it happened quite often that it simply was a dead card. You could probably even cut another one.

Locations:

Fully self-explanatory! I never really understood why @SoCalSandSnake only ran two copies of Casterly Rock as it is one of the keycards of House Lannister in general (I tend to exaggerate from time to time. :D).

Events:

Here is the point where my own experiences and ideas led me away from the original lists (Thanks again for sharing!). Treachery and I Never Bet Against my Family as well as Superior Claim were/are still considered totally mandatory. When it came to Hear Me Roar I got the impression (while testing online) that it often didn't really fit into the strategy of the deck anymore as it prevented Myrcella from going wild and was often just sitting in hand doing nothing. In addition, the release of Dorne (cough again!) sparked the need for some more tricks and ways to temporarily handle the opponent's control machinery. That's why I gladly included the Nightmares in exchange for the above mentioned which won me several games. Tyrion's Chain was another tough decision to be made. It's obviously nuts to trigger multiple HoS or even Forced March but if you draw more than one copy too early it's also often staring at you while your a desperately longing for something better. Moreover, the cost of one gold (compared to 0 on SC) is in fact frequently a problem. My idea was run three or none (Even though @Nimer told me that he doesn't like the card at all. :P) and I was rewarded with the right amount at the right time. Present day I play only two copies to have room for some Hand's Judgement. We will see. :D

The Tournament:

First of all I have to thank Helmut, @Schwaig and the rest of TeamMunich for organizing such an amazing event! Even if it was my first "big" AGoT-experience I can tell the differences from my other "career" back in the day. It was a (hot) pleasure! Only tiny disclaimer was the cut to T17 which I didn't understand at all.

I was really surprised by the meta which included a great variety of decktypes and all the houses seemed to be represented equally (all of them in T16). In the following I will try to give you a round-by-round summary of my matches that day. Hopefully my opponents will forgive me any deviations from the truth but I didn't take notes during the tourney.

R1: Stepan K Bara/Rose Banner (Win)

First round of the day I had to face a very friendly guy from Czech Republic. I set up Myrcella, Casterly Rock, Great Hall plus Lancel, he took a mulligan and didn't look to pleased afterwards. As I knew that his deck struggles with heavy intrigue and expecting him to open with either Trading with the Pentoshi or Summer Harvest I gladly picked Counting Coppers to dig deep and enable multiple attacks with Cersei2.0. He revealed Summer Harvest and sighed. :P As a result he wasn't able to play Robert Baratheon (one gold short) and never recovered as the one true queen started to beat him next plot.

R2: Daniel Goe Tyrell/Wars (Win)

I knew Daniel from my very first tourney in our local store in Rosenheim (BB-Spiele!). When he revealed his house and agenda I felt quite comfortable as I knew the deck very well. He took a Mulligan and had to start with only The Arbor and Oldtown(?) whereas my setup was perfect with Cersei, Lannisport Merchant and Western Fiefdom. I never lost a match when I had that the whole tournament. He freaked out after my HoS hit his only non-character discarding Hightower with only one power for Cersei while he was opening with Time of Plenty. Afterwards I only remember having at least seven(!) power by the end of P1 thanks to Superior Claim him complainig about the speed of my lions. Game over P2 with 16 points when I spiked for the second time (Hit!) and simply trampled him with Cersei. That was fast!

R3: Tomas Trojan Greyjoy/Wars (Win)

Another nice guy from CZ! :) Another speedy start forced him into an early Valar Morghulis while I spiked his Victarion Greyjoy. I could fully reload afterwards and deny his military icons with Forced March the next plot. Game over!

R4: Sam "My new personal Nemesis ;)" Nowrouzi Tyrell/Wars (Loss)

"Another one!" I happily thought when I saw his deck expecting a version of @jcwamma's gorgeous list which isn't a terrible match-up at all as I mentioned above but unfortunately I was wrong... :D Sam played his deck slightly different abusing Brienne of Tarth and way more boosting events plus HJ. I don't recall too many details of this match despite him preventing my Myrcella from multiple challenges and me dropping at least two power by not calculating his events and my The Lord of the Crossing bonus correctly. It was still close. On his Wardens of the South plot he tried to trick me by spending all his gold and bluffing no more action with Paxter Redwyne's ability still active which was obvious for me. Nice try! ;) Problem was that I had no answers if his event be Lord Renly's Ride. Bingo...

R5: Christoph @Schwaig Martell/Wars (Win)

This one was recorded. Another familiar face, in the end a greedy intrigue challenge by him won me the game with HoS to 15 power. Well spiked again! ;)

R6: Christian O Tyrell/Lions (Win)

I had another perfect setup (Cersei, Reducer, Fiefdom) against his strange good-stuff-composition. After a quick chat about him being unable to display the game state (amount of gold left, power tokens, stacking cards in play etc.) visibly for both of us and two hits with HoS the game was over pretty fast once more while he was constantly complaining about the quality of his draw. I saw loads of expensive characters including Varys(?) on his side of the board leaving me a little puzzled about his original strategy. I n addition, he told me about how his Valar Morghulis (even more puzzled) could have saved him next round... Thank you! :) Third place after Swiss, this wasn't expected at all! :D

T16: Christian O Tyrell/Lions (Win)

Rematch, yay! My setup was exactly the same (more conplaints) while he had to take a crucial mulligan which didn't provide him with desired options (only chuds). He milked Cersei to slow me down a little after getting spiked and beaten in P1. Finally I could counter his (now well-expected) VM with my own Valar Dohaeris where I chose 0 he seemed so surprised that he just wiped his board without saving his (few) uniques. Another HoS and my third INBAMF finally killed him with the help of Casterly Rock. Thanks again!

T8: Sam "impending doom ;)" Nowrouzi Tyrell/Wars (Loss)

Rematch again and as I mentioned above I found my master in Sam that day. The kind Austrian played it (almost) perfect and was also provided with a great draw (2 Growing Strong and 3! Nightmares) especially in our quarterfinals whereas I made some stupid and totally crucial mistakes. I kept a critical hand with none of my "fairness four" present but duped Myrcella, Podrick Payne, Casterly Rock and Fiefdom (As far as I remember.) well aware of a possible First Snow of Winter which I didn't see in our first match. He had economy plus I don't remember. :P Some of his plots were First Snow, Nothing Burns like the Cold (taking CR) and Wardens. I had CC, VD and double HoS (don't remember his last one, probably Time of Plenty). Anyway, the game went back and forth as he somehow managed to keep my Myrecella and Casterly Rock at bay the whole time (thanks to multiple Nightmares and Growing Strong) and denied any power challenges by abusing Brian of Tarth. Ser Jaime Lannister and the rest of the gang nonetheless constantly generated some power for me. During all the struggle I made my first big and totally unneccesary mistake. My challenges were finished and he decided to swing back with his Knight of Flowers against my Jaime and Janos Slynt with me having at least two gold left. Kneeling his knight he was seemingly a little annoyed about himself not having triggered Loras's ability for his Nightmares (only obvious mistake I noticed in two games). He had one gold left and - only the devil himself knows why - I decided to only defend with Jaime maybe already thinking about dominance... He obviously had his second Growing Strong to not only win the challenge without me having the Renown on the lion but also claiming Janos now which made the situation even more annoying for me. Well played, one power wasted! Another important situation (actually in the plot before the one mentioned above) that decided the game in his favour was when I simply forgot that his Renly Baratheon (his only intrigue icon for the whole match) still had the power bonus by his first Growing Strong and decided to not attack with Jaime for intrigue as well. He then just defended, no Crossing for me, one power wasted. In our final plot I was at eleven(?) power and had INBAMF, Tyrion's Chain plus X in my hand and decided to go for the second HoS which hit and I went first. I drew into Cersei plus X. Leaving me with several options as my plan was to somehow re-trigger HoS and hope for the best. If I played Cersei I would have no gold left. I chose the "safe" version and didn't play Cersei hoping for her with INBAMF and definetely having the gold for Chain which was totally wrong (not considering that all three Tyrion Lannisters were still in the deck). In the challenge phase INBAMF obviously revealed the dwarf who would have solved all my problems at once (gold, stealth etc.). He entered play with the option to pilot me to victory once and for all being able to trigger everything I ever dreamed of. :D Sam's third(!) Nightmares on Casterly Rock quickly ended my vision as I lacked the two power due to my errors before. Cersei would probably have been game for me because then he would have had to decide which one to blank with me either having the chance to initiate multiple intrigue challenges, raging Cersei or stealth plus gold for Tyrion's Chain to generate the missing power with The Lord of the Crossing. After considering my options over and over and hitting him with chained HoS going to 13 I scooped up and shook his hand. Well played and congrats again! :) Fifth place after all!

Unfortunately, I couldn't face @Diomedes piloting his latest invention. Would have been intersting! Congrats to a worthy champion! That guy seems to be the rainmaker these days. :D

Finally, thanks FFG for designing such an awesome game and again to my several adversaries online for teaching me lessons, the aforementioned pros for publishing their knowledge, the organizers for their great event and TeamRosencrime for being such good company every week! :P Hope you enjoyed! See you soon!