Targaryen Lion (4-0 GNK) 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Winner of a Game Night Kit tournament (10 players) @ GameStorm Gaming in Lemont, Illinois on 10/2/2016

Round 1: Win vs. Martell/Fealty (Steve) When I saw my opponent set up Tyene Sand, I honestly didn't know what to think. He probably had Tears of Lys (which he did) to compound the poison factor, but I knew I had the tools to take care of her. There were two rounds, back-to-back, where my opponent went first and kneeled out their entire board on an intrigue challenge trying to trigger Tyene. I won the first round, but I lost the second round. That's when he Tears'd and Tyene'd my Daenerys Targaryen (with dupe), ensuring she would die at the end of the phase. Luckily, with his board knelt out, I was able to hit back and PttS Nymeria Sand and Plaza'd Tyene Sand. After that it was pretty easy to gain the power for the win. 1-0.

Round 2: Win vs. Lannister/Banner of the Rose (Ed) This was a fun one for me and one of the reasons why I'm playing Ser Gregor Clegane over Mirri Maz Duur. He had The Hound and Ser Jaime Lannister (Core) pretty early in the game, which was not pleasant, but I was able to get the Mountain on the board pretty quickly myself. The first Pillage for the Mountain was Margaery Tyrell, so I chose to kill The Hound as well. A lucky pillage and two great characters dead. The next (and final) time I triggered the Mountain's pillage, I hit Randyll Tarly and then chose to kill Ser Jaime Lannister (Core). My opponent decided to concede (hey, I would too) and I went up 2-0.

Round 3: Win vs. Lannister/Banner of the Wolf (Jackie) All day long I did not want to play any House Stark because of their Winterfell and Catelyn Stark (Core) shenanigans. Thankfully with the banner of the wolf, I did not have to worry about this. We both set up and continued to add many powerful characters to our boards. We both had the Mountain out too. There was a lot of back and forth and I was eventually able to chew through her board and send the majority of her characters to the dead pile. 3-0.

Round 4: Win vs. Greyjoy/Kings of Summer (Donald) So this whole afternoon I had yet to see a single Dracarys! - and this is the game I needed it the most. I assumed my opponent was going to open with Summer Harvest, so I chose to Summons to play it safe. Thankfully he played Trading with the Pentoshi and I was able to fish for Daenerys Targaryen and play her out. With him setting up a Balon Greyjoy (Core) and The Seastone Chair, I knew I had to be careful with challenge math and I had to protect my big characters. Along with Daenerys, I played all three dragons to get her to work. With renown, Dany was racking up the power for me, but she was also the obvious target for the chair. I was able to draw and play Dracarys! on two different turns and a Dragon Sight saved me on the third. Without these saves, Dany would have been dead really quick. In the end, she had 7 power and I took the win. 4-0.

My Thoughts: When I originally put this deck together, I wanted to make sure it wasn't completely obvious which cards were in it. This is one of the main reasons why I run Ser Gregor Clegane over Mirri Maz Duur. I was most worried to play against Stark with their event-hating during challenges. I still think I need to find a way to counter them. I only had to deal with Milk of the Poppy on a couple of occasions, but I was easily able to remove them. There were no Nightmares or The Hand's Judgment to worry about either. And while I know I was playing against Lannister players that had Treachery, I didn't have a single trigger cancelled. I included a Fire and Blood, but didn't find a need to play it at any point.

Shoutout: My first time at this store; checking out the meta down in Illinois. I thought it was run really well and everyone I encountered was fun to play with. Thanks to Jeff for helping organize the event and for sharing it to the Milwaukee Meta Facebook group. I look forward to coming back for a SC!