Targ X (GenCon Melee King of Swiss) 1.0

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• 1.0

Leading up the Gen Con I played Martell for a good long while and was pretty sure I was taking that for Joust. I tried to make Targ X work in joust, but I just couldn't get as happy as I wanted to with it. But, I thought for sure it'd be a good melee deck and so I decided that's what I'd bring.

I won all 3 of my tables in swiss, making me the top seed going into the Top 16. Which, let's be honest, doesn't mean anything...it just sounds nice.

The idea is to have Khal Drogo, Rakharo and the Master of Ships. MoS rivals Hand of the King and Master of Laws, which are both usually always chosen when available. So I felt pretty confident that if I saw all 3, there was a good chance I could grab 6 power (not including renown,uo, or agenda) just for doing 2 out of my 4-5 challenges.

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Table 1 - Tyler - Martell BofT Rose, Adam - Martell Fealty, Kyle - Tyrell BofT Wolf

So this game was pretty close, i closed in turn 3 but Kyle was a real close 2nd. The Silver Steed was good for me here. What really sticks out about this game was our plot phase of Turn 2. I flip Varys' Riddle, Kyle flips Pulling the Strings and Tyler flips Heads on Spikes. Adam flipped Trading...I triggered Spikes on Kyle. I pulled his Eddard. He copied Tyler's turn 1 Varys' Riddle to copy my Varys' Riddle which copied Tyler's Heads on Spikes as well, and pulled from Adams hand - hitting a desert scavenger. Tyler hit my hand and pulled Khal. 3 Heads on Spikes triggers on 1 revealed plot.

Table 2 - Dan - Targ BofT Sun, Zach - Bara Fealty, Shey - GJ BofT Rose

Zach had a really interesting deck, using Baristan and Lightbringer to rack up power real fast, as well as using Ours Is The Fury to stand and just claim renown. He shot up to i think 7 power by the end of Turn 1. Shey was able to go up to about 5 or 6 and I had a measly 4. Dan had some pretty solid control with Targ Sun and he slowed down both of them, allowing me to at least keep up with Shey and Zach. On turn 3 or 4 I was able to sneak my way to 15 power with Rakharo and MoS.

Table 3 - Sean - Stark Fealty, Jessica - Tyrell BofT Rose, Chris - Lanni BofT Rose (or reversed)

This game kinda went how I envisioned this deck playing. Jessica saw the Arbor on setup and was able to play anything she could even dream of turn 1. She flew straight to 8-9 and i only had 6. So for turn 2 I took a chance and chose not to try stealing initiative. Having a pretty good hand, I thought Varys' Riddle would be a good play. One of the opponents had 6 characters out I was sure someone would flip calling. And they did. I grabbed Master of Ships and collected 13g in Marshalling. Jessica was first and luckily, she played more conservatively than I thought and didn't push for the win. I had Jorah, Khal, Rakharo, Dany, Rhaegal and a chud.

I rivaled Jessica and Chris. I powered Jessica first, taking 1 off her house card and 1 for Rival. I then looked towards chris for mil. He had 3 chuds, Jamie and KoF. I swung mil with Jorah, which would bring Jamie or KoF down to 4 with my Dany standing. He defends with Jamie and I Dracarys him to make it UO, and the 2 claim put 2 power on Rakharo as well as Jorah's renown. Then to close I had to unfortunately push another Mil over Chris' way with Khal and Rakharo to grab 4 more power with Rakharo, Khal's renown and Agenda. That made me 3-0.

Top 16 - Roy - Tyrell X, Keb - Bara BofT Lion, Bretton - Targ BofT Rose

The night before, Roy, Keb, and myself were in a bar with multiple metas singing karaoke until they closed the doors and persuaded us to leave, and now here we are, sitting at the Top 16 table at my first Gen Con. I was glad to be with friends and it was nice meeting Bretton, who was as excited as the rest of us.

Roy threw me a Dragon's Tail in exchange for not hitting him with Mil. My turn 1 marshaling saw me with Khal and plenty of mil icons and I rivaled Roy, so it was a very good deal for him. Bretton had a Marg with Randy and Heartsbane. And that is a pretty significant problem. He won initiaitve and chose to go last, making me first. I chumped an intrigue with Jorah to Bretton and he paused for a bit. He was mulling over playing Dracarys. So right then and there I tried making it clear that Drac has gots to go. (Spoiler alert - It didn't). My int didn't pull it. Keb wen't second and couldn't attack me so she got up to my power and passed to Roy.

Roy couldn't attack Bretton, which was kinda bad news with that standy Randy. He had the Hand of the King, letting him do 2 power challenges and he was able to get up to our power as well. He turned to me for an easy Intrigue so he could trigger his Queen of Thorns...which pulled a Superior Claim out of my hand (dammit). Bretton did his thing with Randy. We were all pretty even here.

Turn 2 didn't see too much change to the boards. Except Keb now had a Bob with a Lightbringer on him. So that was pretty scary. The round was very interesting. No one wanted to over extend and become a target. There was a lot of very cautious, calculated play. The round ended with most of us around 6-7.

So I know it's melee, and that someone could shoot up to 15 in a blink of an eye, but the board state didn't give any hints to that going in to turn 3. I did think if anyone had a chance to close with what was on the board, it was Keb with Bob and lightbringer. Bretton won initiative with Clash of Kings and he was mulling over who to choose for FP. Keb was sitting to my left, and since I truly thought she might be able to close I recommended he pick her. That would have made me last, and obviously going last = best chance to close, but that wasn't my intentions. He chose me to go first, thinking I was trying to talk my way into the victory.

I had Dany, Khal and some Bloodriders out, but no Rakharo in hand. I chose Master of Ships again as my title because I both of my rival titles were in there and if I drew into Rakharo I was confident I would then actually be able to close. Roy and I talked about both of our decks during the swiss. So when he saw me reveal my title I could tell he knew what could happen here if I marshalled Rakharo. I didn't draw him. So my goal here was to get as close as I could while not leaving my board empty to set up a close next turn. I traded UO power challenges with Roy and used [Shierak Qiya](/card/04015) to stand Khal. I could have gotten to 14 here, but decided to not claim my power for Jorah's renown and kept myself at 13. I hoped this would let me win the next turns initiative if I flipped Clash, because 2 Clashes had already been flipped and with less power I would have been able to go first.

Keb got up to 13, I think Roy got up to 9 and now it was Bretton's challenge phase. I think he was at 6 or 7 and Randy was looking like his biggest threat. We all kind of did the math and were certain Bretton couldn't close. Until he says to himself, "I think I can do it"... and Roy replied, "Do what? Close?"

If Bretton got a power challenge off on anyone here he'd be able to trigger his Clash to grab an extra. So he rival powered Roy with Randy. Roy's only option was to defend with one of the Redwyne brothers, so he quickly did. And what I think everyone forgot here was that Roy had Hand of the King, which gives him +1 Str So the challenge was actually 5-5. So I had to call out that as first player I had an action. What Bretton was obviously about to do was kneel Marg to give Randyl 8 + Stand. So I Dracarys'd him to give him a maximum of 4 to Roy's 5.

"Hooray!", I thought to myself.

Bretton did pump Randyl to stand him, and then, knelt his Viserion to Dracarsy down Roy's only defender making it UO. I forgot about that Dracarys. We all did.

I placed my cards down on the table and watched Bretton claim the rest of his 15 power.

Read Bretton's awesome report here.

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Thoughts

I selfishly chose Funeral Pyre over The Dragon's Tail because I thought for sure with 3 opponents i'd trigger it often. Not once actually.

The Silver Steed is kinda nutty in melee

Heads on Spikes = a mandatory melee plot. I watched a few other games end in the plot phase.

Varys's Riddle = mandatory melee plot. 2 of my games saw me collecting 12g.

Rightfully so, there was A LOT of Tyrell and BofT Rose decks in melee. But, with all the stand in Targ right now I really do think Targ X is a really solid melee deck.

In the Joust I went 4-2, making the graduated cut and ultimately finishing 6-3 - 21 over all. But these 4 melee games were by far the most fun out of all of them.

Grats to Bretton for making the final table. And big congrats to Darknoj for winning it all.

South Jersey will most definitely be making the drive again next year.