"Shadow of the Guile" - TOP8 / Best Tyrell at Barna Dohaeris 1.0

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• 1.0

Hi Acolytes of the Rose! Just came back from the magnificent Barna Dohaeris 2019 tournament in Barcelona, where I led this beauty straight to TOP8 becoming Best Tyrell. However have the feeling that I could have gone farther with a bit more of luck than I had with the last pairing, which I will explain later, as the deck felt strong and I was inspired.

I was ready for a lot of shadow-hate decks, which was the case. Surprisingly and probably because of this, we were only 3 Shadow decks in total.

Based on my testing, I refused to counter shadow counters. They are poor solutions that make your deck weaker. So I decided that my counter was: MONEY and some smart selection of the cards kept in hand. Carrying a weak plot like Forgotten plans in my opinion is not very competitive. In the end what you want during TKITN and BTG rounds is too avoid unopposed challenges or even win some in order to stall the most you can. So decided to switch my FSOW for Trading with the Pentoshi. Which also helped me to boost things if I had experienced any economy issues (lots of Greyjoy Winter...) or in cases of not many locations on the board like against KOTHH decks. But the key point is to have 3 strong economy plots to reiterate powerful effects such as Mandon Moore's or Shadow Priestess' by using Guile up to 3 times and beyond every round. I ended up including one copy of Nefarious Acolyte by removing Hagen's Daughter, as it has interesting icons and is a strong cheap body anyway. About Exposed Duplicity, I think it is a matter of just not only build your shadows dashboard but also keeping a copy of the key cards in your hand (Guile, Qot, etc). Coming from Castamere decks should be easy to predict and avoid the triggers. On the other hand, if you play against WTC you know it is in there, so you can play smart around it and not seeing it ever again after revealed once. Lastly, if it comes from a 7 plot deck, will always be unexpected, so better to keep it in mind for every decision you take. What a bummer!

Another key card which should not be undervalued is Shadow of the Rose. During the trade Routes turn you can pretty much design your ideal shadow board and find solutions to the current state of the game. Also it is recursive which is pretty nice :)

If you ask me now, I don't think I'd change a single card in here.

I know so many people dislikes this Agenda. Guile in particular. But to be honest, in so many games the attachment didn't even feel necessary. I considered SOB way more toxic back on its day. Shadows is a great dynamic of this game with heaps of counters that deserves a time of glory. Fun and very strategical. Love it.

THE TOURNAMENT:

https://thejoustingpavilion.com/tournaments/7052

SWISS

1. NW / Red door (Antilles) WIN 1-0 So many locations, so much money. A 3 times per round abuse of Mandon Moore with Guile, plus Flayers just made it. Marauders kept him out of cards in hand. Not much more to highlight.

2. Baratheon / TPTWP (Hockemberry) WIN 2-0 He opened with cost 6 Stannis + chud and a shadow. I had the Arbor plus a couple of shadows including Shadow Priestess and Poisoned coin. I went with Valar Morghulis as an opener to his Late Summer Feast. He chose me to go first and marshalled Melisandre, Bastard of Robert and some econ locations. Priestess knelt Melisandre, played intrigue challenge, poison on her, brought Flayer and wiped his board again at the end of the challenge phase. After that there was no much more game to highlight.

3. Martell / KOTHH (DavidDave) LOSS 2-1 And here I met my nemesis. I set up Arbor and Guile + Undercity in shadows. He opened with Ravages for War and the downfall is evident. I didn't anticipate that. Anyway with Pentoshi and some luck I got myself draw and econ locations again. But a deck that is immune to Marauders (Flea bottom + Kings landing), using the new Iron Throne to choose Robert Strong and Guile and with so many icon removers made the game a nightmare. I think we recycled plots and he finally got the game. Later I'll had to play against him again in TOP8 which was bad news.

4. Lannister / Kingdom of Shadows (Hansen) WIN 3-1 As soon as I knew I had to play against Hansen's shadows deck I thought: what you need is Loras duped sticked to the board. And it happened! Protected recursive renown immune to Robert Strong. From there, a lot of killing, a lot of drawing, a lot of money and in 5th round Guile appeared and despite of having the game pretty much controlled all along, this made a huge difference.

5. Martell / Valyrian Steel (Ermengol) WIN 4-1 Very cool deck. He had lots of tricks, draw and money. But the board control with Priestess, Diplomat + Marauders on easy hand targets + Guile / Mandon / Robert was too much. Fun game.

6. Targaryen / House of the Red Door (Sazy) LOSS 4-2 Sazy, what a champion. He plays always these Targa decks full of strong bodies + Mereen with so much skill. In principle I'd say Targa is my best pairing. Win rate is brutal against them, but not when he is driving definitely. Pretty quickly he had so many big fellas on board (tripled Qotho, Daario, Khal with mercenary attach, Aegon, etc). Two claim 2 plots and the luck of the champion having an Iron Bank to save Khal from a poisoned coin made the difference. Too fast to control. Nice!

TOP 16

Targaryen / Qohor (Ilk11) WIN

Hard game! Small targa girls like Missandei, Jhiqi, Irry, etc carrying a thousand attachments such as Tokar or Queensguard put him ahead around 10-2. Also had to survive plots such as TKITN or Fortified position by adding bodies on the board and doing all I could to hold him. My Valar Morghulis killed 2 of these little girls plus Qotho and that was a bit of a downfall for him. And all changed in the last round's challenge phase when Catspaw made his star appearance by bringing Irry back to hand with all the attachs along. QOT plus the three Priestesses and Guile kneeled and trolled his Second Sons for several unopposed tokens. Next round closed the game easily. Well played mate.

TOP 8

Martell / KOTHH (DavidDave) LOSS

Yikes! Not again! Any other pairing would've been better. I was ready for Ravages and I made sure I had a chud on board plus the Arbor. And money never was an issue. But for the first time I never had draw and losing my only Guile by getting Mandon nightmared was pretty rough. My only hope. Went straight to Top deck for two rounds which got me copies of limited + attach or event every time. No characters, no draw, no game. Also the Throne naming some of my key cards was not helpful definitely... Well played mate!

And this was it!

Congratulations to my meta buddy Sazy for the win with Targaryen HRD!!!

Feel free to ask me any questions.

See you at Stahleck people!