The Sun and the Lions @Ropecon (2nd place Helsinki Regional)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet.

BlueHill 30

The Long Plan, the Longer Story:

When preparing for Helsinki Regional, I decided to play my favorite house, Martell with help from house Lannister. Testing showed that this was my kind of deck and it was holding up nicely against variety of decks. Biggest concern was finishing and closing the games fast enough and the hardest match up was Stark with their Winterfell as it could stop my poisoning shenanigans. I was prepared to face lots of Stark but only 2 Stark players in 20 player tournament and 6 Tyrell players! Finnish meta tried hard to get Tyrell's win their first regional title.

In swiss rounds I went 3-2. My first two games were against Tyrell/LotC decks. I won against both, mainly because of being able to poison, Marched to the Wall or The First Snow of Winter their characters off the board and control the pace of the game. Good games versus very good players. Third game was against Greyjoy/LotC, which was piloted by a bit of a newer player. I knew this could be a hard match up but again I got to remove characters like Asha Greyjoy with Tears of Lys and bounce duped Balon Greyjoy with Ghaston etc. He got early lead but through all that I ended up winning. 3-0 before lunch, I was super excited was I had never been this succesful in AGoT tournament before!

After the lunch my tide started to turn. First against other 3-0 player, who was playing Stark Fealty. Super tight game as we both feared each others decks (both thought that this was their hardest match-up). In the end Stark were stronger, it was hard to control Winterfell, Catelyn Stark, Eddard Stark and The Blackfish. I think changing Imprisoned to Condemned would have helped this match-up a lot. 3-1, not bad but to make sure I make the cut I really should win the next game.

Fourth game against Lannister/BoK. In a first turn I made horrendous mistake with Arianne Martell as I didn't put Areo Hotah in play to remove Tywin Lannister from military challenge with Asha Greyjoy to stop that challenge completely. Arianne was put to the sword and my board never recovered from that, 15-0 loss.

With my 3-2 I managed to make in top 8, which was big suprprise to me. I have never been in a top cut before or ranked this high in a tournament. Top 8 match was against Greyjoy/BoS. Really good game from my perspective as again I was able to remove characters like Asha from board and control the game as my opponent didn't draw what she needed to turn the game in her favor. Top 4 game was against Lanni/BoD, he had very good start I thought that I couldn't stop him from just running me over but small things turned the game to favor and in the end I ended up winning. I'm not really sure how thr game went to that ending but we had great chat about the game afterwards.

The final game was against same Lannister/BoK deck I faced in the 5th round. This time I didn't make big mistakes but again I couldn't control the military presence and money to stand against Put to the Sword and flood of good Lannister cards. It was over in about 4 rounds, 15-0 again.

In the end I was very joyful about the day. I could have never imagined to be in the final table but somehow I made it. It was happy suprise to me and to other players, in last 2 tournaments I got 17 out of 18 and 22 out of 26 so this was a major improvement. Certainly playing with one deck for longer time and trying out different cards helps a lot when preparing for tournament.

All in all Helsinki Regional was great experience, we had great games and even greater players to play with.

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