At the beginning, I have to make a confession.

I love playing GJ.

I have written a lot how broken they were in the last year and were enthusiast of restricting Vince, We Take Westeros!, Euron etc. Playing against GJ since the release of their box wasn't pleasure at all and I was really disgusted by standard Euron into Silence + 2x Forced March opening. I was whining and blaming GJ for all bad things that happened to the game and the meta. Most of my polish metamates knew, that I'm really big hater of GJ.

Well, that's not true.

I've played GJ/Brotherhood (even made some good result 2 years ago), GJ/Greensight mill, GJ/Wars... tried them a lot. I was particularly happy with the release of Corpse Lake, since this card singlehandedly allowed to finally utilize all these pillages around. I've built pillage deck for last year Fracas, but since it was in pre-Fanatic meta, didn't make a good result - GJ were underdogs these times and I made only 3-4 in swiss. Later on Fanatic and Victarion have arrived and after the box release and beginning of kraken madness everywhere I've stopped playing GJ for a year, hoping for restricts. Previous RL wasn't enough (actually it only cut off Iron Mines effectively), but I think that the latest one is really fair.

So, I got back to GJ. And I personally think they are still t1 faction - but not on their own; Shadows, NW, Bara are amazing and Targaryens are rising with the upcoming box. I was a little bit ashamed to take GJ to Grands then, but only a little bit - and while I knew I will have a huge hangover yesterday because of #FRIDAY, I decided to go with something easy to play for a change.

Deckbuilding process

As I've mentioned before, I really like Corpse Lake. I also think that it's absolutely amazing card in current meta, when there is almost no location steal (after restrict of Great Hall and hitting GJ with RL Dagmer Cleftjaw isn't as popular as earlier, Sea Bitch also doesn't show up too much). It collects power really fast and helps to outrush slower shadow decks or make a difference in matchup with other fast builds. So, 3x Corpse Lake was a good start.

Now time for characters: for dedicated pillage deck, there are staple 3 big bodies: Asha Greyjoy (Km), Euron Crow's Eye (Core) and Balon Greyjoy (KotI). Without Great Hall 9 7-costers are already enough, but for the pillage it was absolutely obvious that I have to find space for just a 1 copy of Gorold Goodbrother, because otherwise it would be as logic as Tyrell purposedly not playing Randyll. As I really dislike playing more than 1 copy of uniques that are not key pieces of deck, I've added 1 copy of Nute the Barber, Baelor Blacktyde, Tris Botley and Andrik the Unsmiling - all 4 of them are good/amazing cards with honorable mention for Nute, who was my emergency draw and worked VERY consistently. Pillage deck can't skip also Silence's Crew, who are absolutely nuts on their own and really help against SoB decks (as long as they don't have stealth) and against negative attachments decks such as Martell or NW. I've also found place for 2 copies of Nighttime Marauders, because this card is broken as well. For the lower end of the curve, I've added a bunch of reducers, 3 unique maesters because they are all good and 1 Old Bill Bone because I always add him. Special mention for Advisor to the Crown - they were amazing: they smooth the cost curve of the deck, helping during setup; they can oppose or go for intrigue and cover my huge weakness; finally they may boost the tempo, reducing Kerwin or Murenmure. Drowned God Fanatic doesn't need explanations - all these "which restrict is the best" discussions are imho pointless, since it's maybe the best card in the game.

Going to the location and attachments: 1x King of Salt and Rock was obvious choice and I really wanted to add more copies, but I always draw all copies of unique attachment together and hate it - so, just 1 of. Economy was easy: 6 0-cost locations and Iron Islands Market, because they start working here really quickly. Black Wind helps with draw when there is no Asha around and works even better with her. Scouting Vessel is crazy good with Asha, Euron or just Corpse Lake (I often fetch them with Asha to draw even more cards next round) and latest addition was Fishmonger's Square, which really helps in matchups with slower control decks and allows me to play topdeck. 1x Nightflyer is absolutely staple.

Event are simple: for all my bigs I need 3x Risen from the Sea; 2x We Do Not Sow are good because what's the point of being GJ Fealty without WDNS; Pay The Iron Price sometimes help against one of the worst matchups - Qohor and Loot was a silver bullet against shadows, but I've added it right before tournament and didn't use at all.

Plotdeck was almost the same from the very beginning: Late Summer Feast for the beginning because I need to play one of my big guys easily and it also allows my oppponent to overdraw and feed the discard pile. Supporting the Faith is really great plot, doesn't hurt me at all, gives me a lot of money and hits Shadows, NW Bound decks and so on. Barring the Gates is a must in current meta, I would like to find a place for 2 copies even while it struggles with Balon and Fanatic. The First Snow of Winter allows to return my Fanatics and already knelt reducers and it was my best reset during most games; on the other hand, Valar Morghulis rarely helped, but sometimes saved my ass. Heads on Spikes are amazing because even if they don't help me to rush hitting some character, they feed the discard pile (and I hit 90% times, especially after FSoW). Latest inclusion was Return to the Fields instead of Expose Duplicity - I tried ED because Shadows are nasty, but decided that Return is also good vs shadow decks and way more versatile. Tournament proved it was good decision.

Tournament report

Round 1 - Arecki (Stark/Fealty, win) He didn't draw economy, I did. It was also very easy matchup for GJ. I started with marshalling Asha and dug 2 turns for some saves, didn't find them and was catched up by unexpected Valar Morghulis t3 while I was pretty sure he will play Wildfire Assault - it was hard since I lost Asha, Nute, 2x Silence's Crew and Tris and his Catelyn and Wyman survived, but I was able to play Balon and eventually win.

Round 2 - SirKamlot (Targ/Lion, loss) What a game... I knew SirKamlot's deck very well since we often played together lately and I knew it's killing rampage with Khal, Jaime, Gregor and Drogon. We were both disappointed with our starting hands - I didn't have any small characters, on the other hand SirKamlot drew only Ser Ilyn Payne. We were playing big guys turn after turn and on 4th turn there were almost all big guys on the table: Asha, Balon, Euron, Nute, Andrik and some Silence's Crew on my side and Gregor, Drogon, Khal, Tyrion, Ilyn, Hound on the other. And almost no one had dupes :D Tyrion stealth and Mercenary Contract on him forced me though to overcommit to less impactful challenges and SirKamlot was finally able to close the game since he won initiative with Marched. It was my only game when I regretted not putting some high initiative plot, but tbh, this deck doesn't really care about going first or second. Anyway, amazing game vs amazing player.

Round 3 - Tomek Buda (Tyrell/Wars, win) Well, this game turned out to be easy - Tomek made a small, but painful mistake: he setupped Arbor and played a bunch of small knights and let me go first. I made some intrigue challenge and then initiated power with Maester Kerwin. Tomek saw, that I don't have gold, so let it unopposed... and then I knelt Fealty - you know, what happened next. Next turn FSoW decimated his board, leaving empty Loras against my Euron, Silence's Crew and something else (Tomek played a copy of Arbor to prevent it from Euron though) and game was almost over.

Round 4 - Arturo (Bara/PtwP, win) Well, it was like pre-AtG meta game. We finished in 6th plot with no economy on table (!), because he had only 1 King's Gate from setup and got hit by Nightflyer before he gained just 1 gold from it and I only had 1 pillaged and stolen Kingsroad (next turn Euron got Milk of the Poppy). Slow, painful game, but since I had all 3 Silence's Crew (and Euron - what a nice situation in terms of fluff!), he wasn't able to push the power challenge and Prince Robert never hit the table. Also, it's hard to play him with no economy... Arturo on the other hand had a lot of luck with intrigue claim, since he discarded Vince 2x.

Round 5 - Trejo (NW/SoB, win) I was sooooo afraid of this matchup, because Bound is stupid card that should have never be printed. I started quite well though - he played 5 small rangers and I marshalled Asha and Nighttime Marauders together with Nute the Barber and Orkmont Reaver and was able to prevent win by 5 trigger. Second turn I played FSoW, destroyed his only location with WDNS and the game was already done. To punish him harder, I even marshalled Baelor Blacktyde while he had a copy of both Put and Bound in discard pile. Hard matchup, but FSoW singlehandedly won me this game.

Round 6 - SAPIkowski (NW/WtC, win) So, I thought it was the game to get to the top 8 (eventually we both made it, actually). I had quite decent start against setup with Haunted Forest, Maester Mullin and Dolorous Edd; main points of this game were though cancelling Yoren with Vince and playing Nightflyer on Gates of the Moon. He was kinda poor then since had only 1 Underground Vault and I put a lot of pressure on him. Sadly, he also didn't draw his Wall early and on this point of game I was too fast to stop me even while he played both Valars.

Top 8 - Radek (GJ/Fealty, win) Well, it was a little bit mirror, but we had completely different decks - Radek always puts something unexpected and didn't disappoint me, since his GJ Fealty had Valar Dohaeris (!) and Political Disaster (!!!). He started with Botley Crew, Maester Kerwin and Iron Gate against my Tris, 2 reducers and Iron Islands Market... and opened with Valar, surprising me hard! I was lucky enough to play Risen on Tris and having a lot more money started to play safely my big guys. Tris pillaged and then named Asha, which was crucial since it was first big character Radek drew. He played big Vic and tried to stop me t3 with Valar Dohaeris, but I've countered with Return to the Fields and the game was done. I allowed him a lot of unopposed because I knew I will be still faster, so he ended on 10 power I think, but single Victarion couldn't resist whole the rest of the family.

Top 4 - Hanno (Bara/Qohor, loss) Well, I'm happy I finally had an occasion to play with Hanno! Sadly, it was probably most one-sided game I've played for a long time :D I knew that his deck is probably the best anti-GJ counter, but tried to play King of Salt and Rock and Corpse Lake fast to rush him out - sadly Asha went for a hunting... On second turn I played FSoW since he had only Stannis and bunch of small R'hllors while I had 2 4-cost characters and 3rd in hand. And then his marshalling started: Selyse (FotS), bodyguard on her, bodyguard on Stannis, dupe on Stannis, Azor Ahai Reborn, Lightbringer, Red God's Blessing (sic!). So, later he didn't need to trigger Qohor at all, it was already the end. But, well, it's Hanno and he eventually won whole tournament :)

So, now it's time to use my promos from Euros and new cards from Targ box and get back to Lanni 3:) Polish Grands were amazing and I really hope that it wasn't really last big tournament here!