Season1Episode1 Lanni/Wolf(1st@31-player Singapore Regional) 1.0

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• 1.0

Strategy: Get to 15 power faster than the other guy. Heads on Spikes is a really good plot with Tywin's gold to back it up, and the initiative on it is amazing for controlling who goes second in the early game, and then going first in the late game to close it out. Banner of the Wolf provides the most power-rushy stuff in fast Eddard and core Sansa, on top of other good-stuff like Bran/Arya.

Round 1: Bye from SC win. 1-0-0 (5 prestige)

Round 2 vs Travis (Bara Sun): Travis also had a superbye so we were paired up. He setup a bunch of characters that were all under 3-cost and marshalled a Stannis turn 1 for fear of a First Snow next turn (which I didn't actually run). I Tears-ed the Stannis and the game went downhill from there. 2-0-0 (10 prestige)

Round 3 vs Charlotte (Bara Fealty): We took an ID here even though it didn't get us a confirmed spot in the cut. Played for fun and she beat me in a close 15-14 game. 2-1-0 (12 prestige)

Round 4 vs Jason (Lanni Sun): I setup a duped Sansa, a milked Hound, Rickon Stark and a Roseroad. Turn 1 Jason flipped Summons and I flipped Heads on Spikes, whiffing on it and simultaneously forgetting to cancel the Summon with Rickon. Managed to get Septa Mordane later on and was actually doing quite well despite not seeing anything bigger than Syrio Forel (no Lannister family members!). Jason was running the icon removal attachments on top of Nymeria and Syrio Forel was instrumental in letting Sansa get a challenge through (and kneel!) until he died to a Tears. Made another crucial mistake later forgetting to give Sansa stealth to get past a kneeling Tywin with an active Seal of the Hand, putting me down nett 4 power. Ended the game 15-12 so that mistake did come back to bite me in the ass. 2-1-1 (12 prestige)

Round 5 vs Yoke Ting (Greyjoy Fealty): I setup a Sansa with Widow's Wail plus some other stuff while she went with a bunch of 2-3 costers as well. I was extremely tempted to Heads on Spikes turn 1 to kill Balon but decided to go with Calm to play out Tywin turn 1 instead. Yoke Ting did indeed marshal Balon turn 1 followed by a Great Kraken but was unable to capitalize on it without a Seastone Chair. By the time she did get the chair I had a Syrio Forel, which prevented any shenanigans. Turn 2 Heads on Spikes also hit an Asha, which made the game a lot easier. Ended the game on plot 3 or 4 with another Heads on Spikes. 3-1-1 (17 prestige)

--CUT--

Top 8 Quarterfinals vs Travis (Bara Sun):

Rematch against Travis from Round 2. Setup pretty average stuff, I think it was a Jaime plus some chuds. I went second and he played Nymeria turn 1, which I milked and Tears of Lys-ed when it was my challenges phase, killing her and making him drop his own Tears of Lys from hand. Would have died without that Milk of the Poppy. Game went pretty smoothly from there since he never had quite enough control with Nymeria dead. Closed it out with a Seal of the Hand on Jaime.

Top 4 Semifinals vs Chuen Kit (Stark Fealty):

The resident Stark player and I face off again in the top cut. We're both pretty happy since we got the Stark house cards for being top 4. I didn't get any economy locations but thankfully managed to get and play a Tywin turn 1, which was all the money I ever saw that game. CK didn't have the Milk for him and so the game went on. I was ahead on power all game though his board was increasingly becoming more and more unmanageable (he knew I didn't play Wildfire). On the other hand, he was constantly playing off the top of his deck since I was dominating the intrigue challenges. There was a cute turn where he had Gates of Winterfell but couldn't use it because if he got a Stark character I would have 100% won with a Heads on Spikes next turn =p. The clutch turn was around Turn 2 or 3 where he had Ice on an Arya going first but I managed to Milk the Arya to prevent him from stealthing past my Tywin with his entire board of military folks. On the last turn I played Heads on Spikes against his empty hand just for the initiative, and went first to get to 15.

Finals vs Jason (Lanni Sun):

Another rematch, another @*(#&-ing Martell banner. Chewy Quah did a very nice live commentary so I will not attempt to do what has already been done better. Here it is:

And we are back! A little banter between Jason and Martin as they shuffled. Both players evaluating their hand. Jason sets up Tyrion, Red Cloaks and Roseroad. Martin flops fast Eddard with Widows's Wail, Winterfell steward and a roseroad. Plots. Martin flops Calm, names intrigue. Jason goes Noble Cause. Martin chooses Jason to go first. On to draw and marshaling. Jason marshals Tywin and a Lannisport Merchant. Martin marshals Western Fiefdom and a duped Tywin! Jason goes with Intrigue with Tyrion. Unopposed. Tears on Fast Eddie. Passes the rest of challenges. Martin starts with a chump power with the steward. Unopposed from Jason. Then swings with a mil with the dying poisoned Eddard. Jason opposes with Red Cloaks and claims the merchant. End of challenges. Jason wins dominance and Ned dies. Jason flips summon and grabs Nymeria Sand. Martin flops Noble Cause. Martin is first player. Martin deep in thought contemplating the marshaling. Marshals Jaime Lannister, attaches Seal of the Hand to his Tywin. Jason marshals desert scavenger then promptly attaches Bodyguard and his own Seal of the Hand on his Tywin!! Tit for Tat!!! Jason now attaches attainted to Martin's Jaime Lannister. Challenges begins with Martin declaring chump power challenge with the Winterfell steward. Jason opposes with desert scavenger. Martin goes in full swing with Mil with Jaime and Tywin. Jason ponders....There are two gold sitting on Martin's plot card. Could he have a (Put to the) Sword in hand? 13 STR. Jason opposes with Tywin and Red Cloak at 9 STR. Martin wins. (Jason was afraid that I had the PTTS in hand at this point, since I was bluffing with 2 gold up to his 1 gold) Jason claims desert scavenger. Power goes on Jaime and Tywin. Martin passes challenge to Jason. Jason starts with Intrigue. Using Tyrion to stealth Martin's Tywin. Unopposed. Drops a Widow's Wail. Jason the stands Tywin and goes for Power with big daddy. Martin gives unopposed. Challenge phase ends. Round 3 plots. Jason flips Confiscation, discards Martin's Seal of the Hand. Exposing Tywin. Martin plays Close Call, returning Eddard to the discard pile. Marshaling: Martin plays out a roseroad, milks Jason's Tywin denying Jason the two gold before his marshaling, then puts down Bronn. (I had the Milk together with Seal the previous turn but chose to go with Seal first to try to bait out his Confiscation, which paid off quite well here) Saving seven gold. Jason dupes Tyrion, marshalls Nymeria Sand. Two gold remaining. On to challenges. No pre-challenge actions from either player. Martin swings first with Mil using Jaime. Jason responds with an icon steal, Nym stole Tywin's mil icon and opposes the challenge with his 6-STR Tywin. Jason wins that challenge but with a milked Tywin there's no renown gain there. Martin pushes on with a power challenge using a 13-STR Tywin. It goes unopposed. Jason's turn at challenges beginning with a 6-STR Red Cloak. Martin responds unopposed and drops a rattleshirt's Raiders. Jason stands the milked Tywin with the Seal. Initiates a Power challenge using Tyrion steal thing Winterfell Steward. Unopposed as expected. And then a military challenge with both Nymeria and Tywin. Wins the challenge and Puts Jaime to the Sword! Going into round 4. Martin at 8 total power and 4 cards in hand. Jason at 4 power and 3 cards in hand. Martin flops Heads on Spikes. Hits an Attainted . Jason flops Counting Coppers. As Martin made Jason first player, he opts to trigger spikes first. Good move. (He actually had Burned Men and Hound too. I think he made a mistake not choosing to go first and trigger his Counting Coppers to mitigate the Heads, but got lucky anyway) Jason marshalls another Red Cloak. Saving one remaining gold. Martin drops in a Kingsroad to play out Littlefinger. Martin clearly has the economic advantage now but Jason has the board advantage. With 5 gold remaining will Martin Marshall more to improve and bolster his board positions? Martin marshalls Bran and a knelt Sansa. One gold remaining. Challenges: no pre-challenge actions. Jason contemplates... And then swings in with intrigue of 6-STR with a single red cloak loaded with 4 coins. Martin unopposes. Drops an Arya Stark from hand. Jason then does a chump Mil with the other Red Cloak of 2-STR. Martin blocks with Bronn successfully. Jason steals Martin's intrigue icon from his Tywin. Nymeria gains the green eye. Then hits hard with a Power challenge using both Tywin and Tyrion. Stealthing Martin's Littlefinger. 13-STR on attacking side. Martin declares unopposed. Jason stands Tywin with Seal. Martin begins with a chump power using Bran. Jason gives the unopposed. Then a military from Martin's 7-STR Tywin. Jason gives the unopposed. Kills the coin-less Red Cloak for claim. End of challenges. Moving on to round 5. Martin at 12 power total. Jason at 7 power total. Martin flips another Heads! Spikes a bodyguard (*missed again T_T My other option this turn was to go Marched which would give me initiative, but I decided on Heads instead since I thought my 2-character board wasn't much better than my 3-character board compared to his) . Jason Wildfires!!! Martin kills Bronn, Winterfell Steward and Littlefinger. Jason kills the rich Red Cloak. Martin marshalls Cersei and the 6-cost Eddard Stark! No gold remaining for Martin. He's going for the full kill here. Jason marshalls nothing but a roseroad.Jason didn't take his pre-challenge action with Nymeria. Martin goes in for Power. With The entire board. Martin wins!!!!! (Jason definitely made a mistake here not choosing to go first. He later revealed that he had both PTTS and Treachery for my Bran Stark, so going first would have swung the game around and likely won the game for him.)

Overall, I thought Jason let through too many unopposed challenges and made a crucial mistake at the end which would have allowed him to swing the game around. Admittedly it was a long day and we were probably just tired. Good game Jason! Lanni brofist

Final thoughts:

I liked the deck quite a lot and was glad I chose to run it over other options. Milk of the Poppies were extremely key all day and I think Heads on Spikes was MVP too, allowing me to control initiative and get power / kill some key characters sometimes. Going second with Milk in hand is extremely strong, and the high initiative on the 2 HoS/Marched allowed me to do just that. Slops to Tywin for always appearing on Turn 1 instead of in setup, I never once got the Tywin setup all day long. Props to Sansa for showing up instead of old man Tywin during setup and handing me all dat lovely power. Thanks to Battle Bunker for organizing the regionals and everyone for the great games played today! Special thanks to Chewy for always taking painstaking efforts to rep the Singapore meta by going the extra mile with stuff like live commentaries and posting stats to the Annals. u da man