UK WARS Winner: Goats 'n' Roses 1.0

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• 1.0

Sitting on the long train back from an epic weekend, I thought it's a good opportunity to put up the deck list I used to win the individuals tournament at the first (hopefully of many!) UK Thrones WAR event. I by no means invented the wheel here, so I don't expect many people to be surprised. I just updated the very successful qohor list better deckbuilders than me have made and published, but adjusted it to include Rose, mostly because I fancied having a second beatstick character and some more stand tech. The consistency of the 'combo' did suffer a bit, but I was lucky enough to have it all work out in the end.

Here's my matchups:

R1: Rebecca Walker, Stark Kings of Winter I don't remember all the details from this one, except that Rebecca struggled for intrigue icons, which allowed me to milk and/or Craven Robb and slowly build up an advantage. Her early Karhold meant I struggled to gain power quickly, but I had a solid lead before Rebecca conceded to tend to her recording equipment. 1-0

R2: Ben Allen, Targ Hollow Hill I come in the game with the semblance of a game plan: Open Barring to stop the early jumping in, dump an attachment on someone big and slowly build a tower. This went quickly south when I didn't set up any economy after mulligan and I decided I couldn't afford to stall my At the Gates. Ben proceeded to burn my randyll with double consuming, drop Qotho and Missandei and a Freedmen, then next turn a Drogo, followed by Drogon and Plaza of Pride and generally methodically wrecked me, playing a flawless game. 1-1

R3 Hanno, Tyrell Kraken Vojta had played against Hanno recently online and remarked in our team chat how fun his mill deck looked. It however has an obviously bad matchup against alliance which is basically the only way I could realistically expect to ever beat Hanno. I had a pretty good draw with solid economy in this and everything generally fell to my favour. 2-1

R4 TBP, Baratheon Dragon I open with a range of small/medium characters to start with, against Tom's army of reducers (4 in the first round :p) and Core Bob. He makes the mistake of duping him, which means that after I Craven/Milk him he can't just immediately put him down again after Returning him to the Fields. After that, I can get on the offensive until Tom conceded turn 3 or 4. 3-1

R5 Sam Pigden, Martell Stag I lost to Sam in the top4 in Blackwater, where I was playing martell and he night's watch - so time for revenge! I drop a quick duped Jon but Sam is controlling the intrigue challenge with his negative attachments. Mullin however stalls him from deploying his Tyene Sand, and when Sam finally murders him I've got the Craven for her. Crisis averted! 4-1

R6 Joe Harrison, Lannister HwtRD Bowels. Another regent off, and a slog of a game. My plot line comes in super handy finally, with t2 barring, t3 KitNorth, t4 Disaster. He stops me from outright winning with a couple of Sparrow uses on a begging brother, but I'm at something like 13-5 up when time is called. Joe concedes but we play it out just for fun - in this turn I flip Dohaeris, go first, play my own begging brother to cancel his own, then drop Yoren to steal his brother with the two power on him to win in marshaling like a boss. :) 5-1

R7 Wamma, Greyjoy Qohor The actual game of this was a bit anticlimactic - my setup was roseroad/Isle of Ravens, with 5 attachments in hand after drawing back up my only character is Yoren, and he promptly gets Vinced. I concede, and we play a friendly game, where he crushes me with the help of his Goodbrother standing repeatedly and his Maester's Chain / Outwit tech stopping any chance of catching up. As usual, when we mere mortals are playing Snakes & Ladders, Wamma is playing 4D chess! 5-2

Play-in round Oliver Mcdonnell Greyjoy crossing Oliver is a bit nervous going into this, but he holds firm and doesn't make any mistakes. My deck however has a favourable matchup against flashy big characters - his Core Balon gets Cravened and I play conservatively to stop the We Do not Sow, until Jon comes online. 6-2

Top16 Jack Machin Targ crossing Jack gets a solid 6 card setup and also gets to go 2nd with Winter Festival vs my At the Gates. He makes the mistake however of not playing his Qotho from hand before my Bound to the Wall finds another copy. I add insult to injury by stealing his King Viserys 2nd turn with Yoren to allow me to also flip King in the North turn3. He concedes when all he has on the table are Drogo, Naario and Barristan all with Cravens against my tooled up Jon. 7-2

Top8 Buzz Tyrell Kingdom of Shadows There was a celestial conspiracy by forces beyond our comprehension for me to win this game, there's no other explanation. My set up was a duped Donal Noye with an attachment, so obviously he gets swiftly Marched. I spend my money on a duped Randyll with an attachment, whom I have get sworn to the watch. T2 I flip barring, Buzz puts more cards in shadows and hard buys a Bill, I get a begging brother with no bestow, just for the intrigue icon, a catapult and another (!) dupe on Randyll (kudos on my 76 card deck on giving me all three copies of cards with printed renown!). Buzz comes in for a military, and I decide not to defend. Poison coin happens of course, and a dupe is stripped for claim. On my challenges I swing for intrigue and translate the catapult into Lord Commander, double swing with Randyll and end up with a bodyguard to eat up the Coin. T3 I flip King in the North to Buzz's trade routes. I drop Crown on Randyll from my hand (yay, more unique combos!), and full on attack. Buzz gets out cards from shadows to defend but can't quite win the challenges. I end up my challenges at 14 after renown and lord commander, with 11 strength Randyll standing and no cards in hand for me. He's got 5 gold left, and I'm dreading the stealthy queen of thorns, who would win the power and force me down to 13 before dominance, from where he could start his comeback, but only a sparrow is forthcoming. Such a nail-biter! 8-2

Top4 Wamma rematch This, as well as the final, was recorded by the White Walkers, so feel free to watch my revenge! This game goes quite differently from the swiss. James has core Euron and Balon first turn and he proceeds to milk his own Euron to use the Milk for Qohor. I've got a range of mid-sized characters and we have a good laugh when I put my Crown of Golden Roses on his Euron. I keep 2g for Bound, but Wamma manages to fish it out of my hand with his intrigue. Fortunately after this turn I don't have much for Balon to steal and I manage to hold my own. T2 I think was his King in the North (Euron had also had King of Salt & Rock on), but thankfully I'm still rocking some blank efficient bodies like Ranging Parties and positive attachments. He drops a unique maester to get ready to Outwit and a Maester's Chain. I stay on defense to minimise the damage and next turn the mind games begin. He knows I'm on Valar D, I know he's on outwit. He correctly predicts that I won't immediately flip it, but my Forced march does just as good a job and I get a good lead, while Yoren steals his only maester. My valar d next turn leaves him with just one character to my 4 and it's basically all over. Phew. 9-2

Final Franke Roders, Bara Alliance Qohor Rose This game was also recorded, and I would definitely recommend watching it if you have the weekend to spare. Our two 'rush' decks, you see, went on to give us a 9 turn mega-slog, featuring me being 12-0 down, massive board states of 8 to 12 characters per side, catapults flinging heavy rocks at knights, explosions, fast cars, and loose women. With 20 elephants and 100 camels! (disclaimer, not all these are true, I'll let you watch for yourselves). But the NW proved to have enough green icons to finally claw the game back for me in an unforgettable final. 10-2

That all said, I don't pretend this is the optimal version of the deck, at all. I was unashamedly lucky and the format also worked well for the deck. If you have any questions about specific choices, please ask!

I'd do a props/slops bit here, but there really weren't any slops. So thank you to the organisers, all my opponents and my fabulous team.