Still looking for the Khaleesi - UK Nationals semi-finalist 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

My original VS deck went heavy on Bloodriders but ran no Dany, hence the title "Where is the Khalessi?" It won every game it played - in friendlies! In tournaments, it went 2-3, 2-3, and 1-3. However, all bar one of the losses were really close games, which usually would have been wins but for a crucial draw for the opponent (eg a topdeck of a 1 of Hotho on a First Snow turn!) or me not seeing a power icon after drawing lots of cards. Clearly the deck I had built just wasn't quite good enough. So, I figured I would make changes and see if that helps.

I decided that Qotho and Aggo were tying me to needing too many summer plots, so removed them. At that point there weren't enough other Bloodriders to justify running Jhogo (good as he is) or the Devoted Bloodriders, at which point you may as well replace Rakharo and Haggo with cards that actually have better abilities. That left Not Clever but Very Big - given my deck has searchable icon granting attachments he wasn't going! I also kept The True Voltron because he can turn losses to wins pretty much single handed.

I decided my replacement theme would be based around Aegon Targaryen, who even with cards like The Spoiler of Fun around could still do a lot of work in a lot of matchups. At this point a lot of the characters picked themselves. Drogo is a lord, Illyrio is a lord and a source of stand, and Easily Forgotten Trigger Number One is a lord. Duckyboos saves lords, buffs Aegon and feeds into a card discard theme as do Plaza of Prid, Easily Forgotten Trigger Number Two, Obvious Targ Trick and Cheeky Jhiqui, the latter of whom works well with lords. Once Aegon was in Targ Seven autoinclude, The Ultimate Baiter and Rare Stealth in Targ were easy enough 1 ofs.

At this point attachments that only went on Dothraki were cut leaving me just Guaranteed Valar round 2 if I see this on Drogo round 1 and Angry Horsie. Of the newer attachments, 0 Cost, Yes Please and Helps Against Qohor were included.

I also added in Please Not the Pillow, which as well as helping keep my characters around also provides extra agenda and Wherefore art thou Groleo triggers.

On plots, I know the deck is money hungry and once you get voltrons up and running I don't mind giving opponents cards too much, hence the double LSF. The Smith is an obvious choice in VS, and with a lot of 2 costers in my deck Return should in theory be a lot of profit. In practice I never triggered it all day! I have a good amount of saves for important characters so VM edged out VD.

All of my games except the semi final went to time - the deck is not fast and neither am I!

Tournament itself was 4 rounds of swiss, cut to top 4.

Round 1 - Joe Zimmer, Greyjoy Fealty (he went on to win the tournament) - Win

Best moments

• Pulling Risen for intrigue claim to allow my Drogo and Plaza to kill Asha for military claim.
• Pinching core Balon.

Worst moment

• Joe used VM on me in round 2, using Why, Vince, Why?! to cancel Duckboos' save of Drogo.

Round 2 - Juan (sorry I don't know your surname), Martell Many Faced God - Win

Worst moment

• Round 1 seeing my board of 5 characters reduced to 1 by The World's Most Aggressive Juicer, together with a 3 claim military challenge (Elia and Sarella, with You're Not Invited to my Party No prizes for guessing the next plot revealed either.

Best moments

• Having This Card Never Triggers for me trigger to get me a Bodyguard - twice! It involved a Meereenese Market and a deck reshuffle from Aegon.
  • Voltron Aegon together with said Bodyguard and Valar M allowing me to come back from the board state from round 1.

Round 3 - Ben Cotton, Martell Qohor - Loss

Best Moment

• Voltron Barristan together with Illyrio to stand him after all of Ben's various intimidates.

Oddest Moment

• Khal Drogo had an interesting game. At the end of the game he had Milk of the Poppy, Blood Magic Ritual, Bodyguard, and Locked Away attached to him. Ben chose not to trigger Locked Away as I don't think he wanted me to play out an unblanked version for some reason!

Worst Moments

• Seeing Not Bashir (Core), Not Bashir's Wife, and Why Ron Wood? win many challenges and cycle through nasty 3 cost attachments.
• Both of us lost track of time and were expecting to be playing 1 more plot. Ben had a lead but I had just got Barristan set up and he was doing more work. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if we had played 1 more plot. My own fault as I could have played a bit quicker.

Round 4 - Eric (sorry I don't know your surname either) - Lannister Greensight - Win

Best Moments

• My Summer Harvest hitting his Loan From the Iron Bank
• The Smith together with Seized by the Guard locking down The Other Iron Bank (BtB) for a couple of rounds. I would have tried for more but he had Summoned Richard E Grant so that would have been a bit risky. I'd say that the loss in tempo for this really hurt Eric's board for the first few rounds, and the power lead I built up was enough to ensure Eric couldn't catch me in the last round.

Worst Moments

• Me not seeing that Gulltown was in play when I revealed At the Gates round one.
• Facing down Eric's monster board in the last round; The Spoiler of Fun (thankfully Aegon had already turned up before him), Daven, Tyrion, Pillage Tywin, Emo Bronn, The Mountain, (poor Jhiqui), turbo charged Red Cloaks...I had stuff myself but not quite that much!

Deck Check - I had forgotten to include Sweetsleep in the printed decklist so had to have it as a blank card. I didn't draw it in the following game however.

Semi Final - Paul Humphries, Lannister Trident - Loss

Best Moments

• The playmat is lovely!

Worst Moments

• The game.
• I have never beaten Paul and this was no different. Paul's deck destroyed me, his plot reveals from the agenda were all impactful and with so many ways to jump in characters that only way I would have any chance to stop the agenda would be to make no challenges that left my characters knelt ever. I didn't see Selmy so that option was out. Voltron Jhiqui just wasn't quite strong enough to deal with all the nastiness.

Thanks to

• All of my opponents for some great games (well, maybe not the last one, though I at least got to see what looked like a really fun deck to play in action)
  • Adam for hosting the tournament and for the cakes
  • Rebecca for running the tournament

Now to see if I can get Greyjoy Valyrian Steel to work, using Is he really that bad? to help.