Greyjoy+Dragon (ATL Regional Top 4) 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck needs some changes, and the ideal version, titled "Mega Kill Shit-ocalypse" is found HERE

We had 28 Players in the Atlanta (GA, USA) regional at Giga-Bites Cafe (shoutouts, those dudes are awesome). I helped run the event alongside @scantrell24 or whatever his name is round these parts, we were blessed with the presence of some cool Dudes+Dudettes from TN, NC, and TX - huge thanks to those folks for making their respective drives, 5+ hours for all. Anyways. Let's get to the hot fire that I'm bout to be spitting.

Round 1 vs. Ahmed (Lanni+Kraken):

Oppo sets up with Tywin Lannister + reducer; I set up with The Seastone Chair, Raiding Longship, a PoDGod, and a Handmaiden. I played Trading with the Pentoshi to his A Noble Cause. I chose to play first (Hereafter referred to as 'Greyjoy Privilege'). I marshalled The Kingsroad into Asha Greyjoy, and after bludgeoning the Pentoshi traders with 7 gold, Mirri Maz Duur decided I was worthy of her presence. Fun ensued.

He marshalled Ser Jaime Lannister and Tyrion Lannister to make one big (un)happy, incestuous, and testosterone-laden board of Lions. I manage a Mirri kill on Jaime and a chair kill on Tywin.

Mirri, seastone, and longship are pretty good when they're all in play together. Who knew?

I win. 1-0

Round 2 vs. Mike (Lanni+Crossing - Jumpy Kittens):

I set up Asha + Roseroad + a 2-cost chud + a 1 cost chud + IFS; He setup Ser Jaime Lannister and a Burned Men (I think. Could be very wrong.), he got out Tywin turn 1, I got out Mirri. Things were not looking good for me (Found seastone, but had only Asha out), and on turn 3 He has Tywin, Jaime, Bronn, and another burned men. I swing with Asha, Stealthing Tywin. He blocks with only bronn. I Raiding Longship. I kill Tywin. Game goes rapidly downhill from there.

I win. 2-0

Round 3 vs. Joel (Targ+Lion)

I Set up Mirri + chud + goldroad. He sets up Khal Drogo + Viserion and gold. I Taxation (Greyjoy Privilege) into kingsroad + sea tower, play a longship and Theon Greyjoy. He plays Ser Jaime Lannister and a dude. I push a Theon military challenge into Dracarys!, which I The Hand's Judgment. His drogo kneels to defend Mirri's Power. Gets longship'd. Jaime dies. Waking the Dragon. Intrigue. Drogo Dies. So...that was a game...

I win. 3-0

Round 4 vs. Jeremy (Stark+Fealty); tag-teamed by my own deck

2 of 4 X-0's left. I dodged my greyjoy nemesis in Shane. The plan was to win round 3 and ID R4 into the cut. My deck hates planning. I showed up today having not played in 2 weeks, and only played 2 practice games with this deck on OCTGN. Otherwise it was all in my head. Planning is lame. That's the lesson here.

He sets up Robb Stark + whatever. I setup 2 PoDGods, goldroad, and a Targ Loyalist. I draw limited locations, Aeron Damphair, and Alannys Greyjoy. Nothing really happens turn 1, actually. Turn 2 I draw more 1 and 2 cost cards. Not boats. Not uniques. he plays Fast Edd, the Gloom 'n Doom crew, and Maester Luwin (or at least, that's when I remember those things existing on the board). I'm winning intrigue challenges, I guess. Or whatever. He's doing things on the board. He's got Insight. SeemsGoodMan. He kills a couple of things.

HERE'S THE TURNING POINT!

Turn 3 I play some plot or other, draw and play Theon. He plots Calling the Banners, gets oodles of noodl- erm, money. oodles of money. He Milks Theon. He plays The Blackfish and Jon Snow. For those keeping track, that's Robb, Edd, Jon, and Blackfish on the board. You doing the math? He has 4 power on Blackfish the same turn that he plays it. Seems. Good. Man. Remember how I said turning point? My demeanor turned from normal and moderate to downtrodden, post-traumatized, and rapidly descending into mania.

Turn 4. Draw Balon. Play Balon. Balon gets milked. I don't even have to concede because he won too fast. Sweet.

Jeremy seemed like a really cool dude, and we actually had fun at the table despite a shitty game - I think we both would've liked to actually play a real game against one another. Maybe next time.

I lose. 3-1

Round 5 vs. Michael (Lanni+Sun) Math works out so that 4 people at most could pass us in standings. At #3 and #4, that makes us safe.

*Intentional Draw. 3-1-1.

Jeremy has to dip out to drive home (glad to have NC down representing, thanks for making the drive!), so top 8 shifts up one, 9th place makes it in!

Cut Round 1 vs. Richard "The Dragon" Targaryen. (I'm fairly certain that's his legal name, as he is never found not playing those godawful cards):

We BOTH setup Mirri + a chud. LOL. Fortunately, I have Ahead of the Tide in hand, so I play Taxation into his Marched to the Wall, win initiative, and play first. Long story short, and one stupid missed Mirri trigger (turn 1, hilariously), His Dany and Mirri are dead turn 2. I'm still terrified because of Targ bullshit, and he has all 3 dragons out to my Asha, Theon, Reader, Mirri, and a couple non-Iron Mines locations. I navigate the waters of Dracarys! and Blood Magic Ritual to finally win on turn 6. I still don't feel like I've won. I hate Targ so much.

Cut Round 2 vs. Mike (REMATCH, Lanni-Crossing): I start Asha + dudes. Never draw Balon, Mirri, iron mines, longships, seastone, or really anything that's in my deck. Bouncing Lions win. Didn't feel good about the match-up going into round 2, wasn't surprised about the result of the rematch - well-played by Mike regardless, and Mega congrats to Michael (Lanni-Sun) N. - who managed to bring a deck almost identical to his store-champ-winning Lanni-sun and just waltz all over the competition today. Goes to show you, if your deck has 3 of the 5 best characters in it, it's probably pretty good.

Thoughts moving forward-:

• Iron Mines is dope, wish I could run 4.
• Mirri is a god.
• 4-cost characters are not in a great spot, despite being pretty integrally above-the-first-snow-line.
• Initiative is important.

I'll speak specifically to the last two points, which were my biggest take-aways of the weekend: Drowned men and NML were seen several times, but played only once (6str drowned men are still good, turns out). I think this is largely due to the weekend's meta - played against only fast, rushy, and/or aggro decks, so dudes like drowned men that sit on board weren't really important today. Opponents' locations were/are largely irrelevant to greyjoy outside of those long, more grindy matchups, so I never needed NML (game against Rich I was able to play around plaza fairly easily). Initiative won me the weekend - ok not really, obviously, as I only ended up in 3rd-4th, but I think I ceded first-player twice all day, across all games. My Pentoshi turns (Vital and important for this mega-high-curve mirri build) either ended up out-initiativing Noble Cause, or were accompanied with Ahead of the Tide (it's a good card. get over yourselves.), and otherwise, I built the plot deck to maintain a fairly high initiative-curve (I'm trademarking that term. Pay me.) The lack of a Rise of the Kraken and/or Naval Superiority were not missed. On two occasions I thought "I wish I had Heads on Spikes or Counting Coppers." The former is always situationally-awesome, and otherwise just pretty good. The latter is a serious consideration for this deck. Coppers is a big gold loss over its obvious cut, A Song of Summer (which was a last minute switch from Calm to help push Mirri challenges through), but without Kraken out, this deck can just die to hand starve and bad draws. The only other thought is adding a Rattleshirt's Raiders over a Drowned Men for more attachment solutions. Other than that, Mega Kill Shit-ocalypse is a more accurate representation of where this deck should probably be in the current state of the game.

Bad draws/setups were the major weakness of this deck, as the curve can be punishing on setup, and untimely otherwise. Fortunately, your setup is almost always (damn stark wolves screwing with my mojo...grumble) sufficient to buy time/avert some pressure until you get dudes out.

If you got this far, cheers, thanks for reading! Life's been hell recently, but hopefully I'll have more time and better internet for streaming/playing thrones in general. I can be found @BrzinskiBear on both Twitter and Twitch. So yeah, if you like seeing a talentless, salty asshole play games - or I guess if you just like salty assholes in general, you weirdos - come say hi.