Thronestoberfest 2019 Top Tyrell: Crossing Knights Rush 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

There's no Randyll or Renly in my list. I wanted it fast, starting with setup, and I wanted to leverage Valar D, so there's no room for big dudes. Another advantage is that I don't really care about opponent's Milk, Yoren, Bound for the Wall, etc. If one Knight gets blanked or killed or stolen, there's another one waiting to take his place.

The downside is that it's susceptible to Valar M and First Snow. Dupes on Margaery and Alerie are key, as well as timing Return correctly.

If everything goes according to plan, games will be 3 or 4 turns max. With that in mind, I decided to take the risk on opening Riddle instead of Gates for both the extra gold but also the initiative. I always made my opponent go first, with the risk of running into intimidate, but the benefit of having power to steal during my challenges (let at least one challenge unopposed on turn 1).

Rd 1 Win vs. Martin N. Bara Assault

• Riddle vs At the Gates: He's got Black Cells, but otherwise a good turn
• Return vs Valar M: Great turn, triggered Lady Sansa's Rose and Superior Claim
• Barring vs Trade Routes: Martin marshals both Chef Bob and Stannis, plus nixed what would have been my winning Power challenge with a Traitor to the Crown from shadows. What looked like a quick win is now uncertain
• YWoYD vs Building Orders: He brings out a Shadow Priestess but it's not enough to stop a 3 power LSR for the win

Rd 2 Win vs. Daryl W. Stark Crossing

• Riddle vs. At the Gates: Rickon cancels my Riddle, he's got Wyman and Greatjon
• Tourney vs. King in the North: Daryl marshals Core Robb and Dacey. Rather than initiate any challenges, I defend an intrigue with 3 Knights to get renown on them and protect my hand, knowing that I'm going to Valar D next
• Valar D vs. Barring: He keeps Robb & Dacey, loses Wyman and Greatjon. I'm down 12 power to 10 at the end of the round
• Forced March vs. YWoYD: I win initiative and make the decision to risk kneeling an extra Knight with FM to kneel Robb, knowing that if Daryl draws a sacrifice trigger his board stands and he probably wins. He doesn't, and I get to 15 on my Crossing challenge with Brienne's renown, claim, Beacon and Sisters

Rd 3 Win vs. Chris K. Night's Watch KotHH

• Riddle vs Fallen from Favor: I lose an Arbor Knight to the plot, and a Green-Apple Knight to Yoren, but I'm still ok
• Forced March vs. Building Orders: He looks for NuWall and doesn't find it. My discard pile is just chuds anyways. I'm up 10-0 at the end of the round from Superior Claim and Sisters
• Return vs Valar M: Refill the board, GG

Rd 4 Win vs. Matt G. Lanni Kingdom

• Riddle vs. At the Gates: An early Nefarious Acolyte ruins my plan to flip Barring next
• Return vs. Pentoshi: I'm digging for dupes. Varys kills Knight of Flowers
• Tourney vs. Valar D: He makes a mistake and loses the Nefarious Acolyte
• Barring vs. Trade Routes: I get to 15 with Sisters, Honeywine, and power claim. He had to marshal his Knight of Flowers and another shadows character normally to try and defend. I was worried about First Snow but he didn't have it. If the game went another round, I still had YWoYD against this Valar M and would have been fine

Rd 5 Win vs. Mike L. Martell Wolf

• Riddle vs. At the Gates: I have a great setup, Mike's isn't bad, he brings out Bolton Flayer who sticks around and causes problems for a few rounds
• Barring vs. Retaliation: Desert Raider does annoying Desert Raider things, I'm struggling to keep a board
• YWoYD vs. Marched: Mike marshals Ghaston and Prince's Pass but doesn't use them, wanting to wait until after his Valar M next. Luckily for me, Mike didn't bring out a 2nd Venomous Blade because his own promo was mislabeled as unique and so he thought it was
• Return vs. Valar M: Refill the board, GG.

Rd 6 Win vs. Aneil Greyjoy Lion

• Riddle vs. At the Gates: This game is streamed, so you can see me forget how intimidate works and make a poor decision leading to a slow start
• Forced March vs. King in the North: I kneel Asha and pillage Balon but he plays two more bigs using my own Kingsroad via Balon
• Valar D vs. Valar M: He keeps Balon and marshals Core Euron, but LSR plus Fossoway's renown get me close enough that he conceeds.

Rd 7 Loss vs. Chris S. Targ Sea of Blood

• Riddle vs. Vanquished: After my worst setup of the day, and no economy on the redraw either, I'm on the back foot immediately, which is not where my deck wants to be. He has Rhakaro with intimidate and Queensquard plus 2 claim. I oppose to prevent a Blood trigger but can only win a single challenge when it's my turn to attack
• Forced March vs. Time of Plenty: Aggo comes out, Chris uses Waking the Dragon to stand a dude and push through a Blood trigger, Put to the Sword kills Green-Apple Knight
• YWoYD vs. Exchange: I finally see my first limited location way too late. Drogon clears my board and I conceed

After the swiss rounds, there's no way team Tyrell can catch Bara for total wins, and the top 16 bracket doesn't look favorable (namely a rematch with Targ Blood), so I drop to draft 1st edition.

Thank you

• Roy for putting on a great tourney
• My regents, Talia and Mira, and my teammates for making the whole experience a blast
• The Palmers for letting me crash at their place, and McKenna and Todd for driving me around all weekend. This community is awesome and I'm hoping to travel as much as possible this year before the end

Potential cards:

Heads on Spikes

Pulling the Strings

Summer Harvest + Name Day Tourney + Robar + Knight of Summer

Garden Caretaker

Lady-in-Waiting

Highgarden Courtier

Begging Brother

Randyll

Heartsbane

Mare in Heat

Arbor Marketplace

Starry Sept

Renly's Ride