Knights of the Realm: Atlanta Regionals 1st(ish), Gencon 22n 1.0

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• 1.0

This deck placed 1st at the Atlanta regionals, kinda. This also placed 22nd of 174 at Gencon. I'm pretty happy with these results. I've been playing Tyrell Knights since it got it's best card, A Tourney for the King. I brought that deck to a store championship, got 9th just missing the top cut. The deck works by hitting a critical mass of knights on the board, then bursting with a ton of renown. All knights have , so the challenge is often the best to win with. While building up the critical mass, use your renown characters to get some power. Lady Sansa's Rose is also useful in getting a little bit of power.

As for the elephant in the room, Valar Morghulis, knights have the advantage of being mostly non-unique. I often find it useful to force the Valar early by heavy pressure (Lady Sansa's Rose works GREAT for this). Hold back some knights for just after the Valar.

The plot deck is a little unusual, being 6 Summer plots and Confiscation. There is no reset, as you don't want to have to reset your own board. And I don't find that I really ever need it.

Decks it has trouble with:

Jumper Lanni: If they get their bouncing combo, they can target your guys with power. The only tech this deck has is Mare in Heat (you'll see it's recurring theme), and Nightmares + The Hand's Judgment.

Reset Decks: This is a race. If I can win before you get your reset, well, I win. If you can reset my board, Nightmares + The Hand's Judgment(see another theme going on here?) will be needed to stop your Varys shenanigans. I played badly against the two Martells, letting them intrigue challenges. I've not played much against them, and wasn't very familiar with their play style. Now, I would play differently, trying to defend my hand better so that I wouldn't be top decking after the reset.

Positive Matchups:

Builders: The look on peoples faces when Margaery Tyrell (Core) pumps your guy defending against The Knight of Flowers with an attached Mare in Heat is hilarious. This easily lets me get an unopposed challenge off once, doesn't work after people get hit with it. He then gets all the Milks and Cravens right afterwards.

Other decks without Resets: Letting me get a critical mass of renown characters often is very good for me. Not having to deal with a reset often works in my favor. Especially when they tech heavily against it, as they are less valuable against me.

Things that were pretty good meta calls:

Minimal Winter Plots: The new Arbor Vineyard makes you so much gold when there are very little to no winter plots coming out. You get so much gold, it's hilarious. Throw Kings of Summer into that, and you have ~8 gold per turn with 1 of the Arbor Vineyard out. A lot of the knights are cheap, so you can potentially bring out 1 or 2 a turn.

NOTE: I didn't have Nightmares in my deck at the Atlanta Regionals, I had Great Hall, which in retrospect was a mistake. Nightmares was so much more useful.

Atlanta Regionals 1st(kinda)

Round 1 Stark Fealty - I saw econ early, and was able to maintain a strong board presence. They didn't see Robb Stark (Core), and wasn't able to enable his deck very well. They also didn't run any resets, which ended up in my favor. I had many characters with no dupes, while almost his entire board had dupes or Bodyguards. He had many opportunities to wipe my board and leave me with little, so I dropped my hand. I was able to use A Tourney for the King to close it out with a huge challenge.

Round 2 Start Fealty - Saw a double duped Renly Baratheon (FFH), Garden Caretaker, and Rose Garden on setup. This matchup ended up very similar to the previous one, but they never had a superior reset position. I made a slight mistake, and could have ended the game a little earlier with Lady Sansa's Rose, but it ended up not mattering. They managed to see their Robb Stark (Core) and Eddard Stark (WotN), but I was still able to come out at the end and seal it with a ton of knights and A Tourney for the King.

Round 3 Greyjoy Fealty - Saw a decent setup of Margaery Tyrell (Core), The Knight of Flowers, and Rose Garden. They opened up with Heads on Spikes, trying to kill something early and get a nice power start, but missed. They Valared turn 2 to kill a very successful The Knight of Flowers and Margaery Tyrell (Core), but I used Close Call in anticipate of that, gambled on Marge, and it paid off after using a Pleasure Barge. The game ended shortly after the Valar, as his Balon Greyjoy (Core) was unable to use The Seastone Chair to get specific kills off. Another close out with knights.

Round 4 Nights Watch "The Rains of Castamere" - Strong setup on both of our parts. No big guys, all knights the entire game for me. First few turns were a little back and forth. Was able to keep Quorin from triggering thanks to Renly's Pavilion. The game once again came down to A Tourney for the King.

Round 5 Barathon Banner of the Kraken - A really annoying, well piloted deck. Very good use of Robert Baratheon, Victarion Greyjoy, and Stannis Baratheon (Core). The stasis from Stannis was crippling, and slowed me down drastically. The game was really close, and I ended up losing due to a lucky intrigue claim on his part, snatching a Lady Sansa's Rose, and the last turn I went second, which in retrospect was monumentally stupid against a board with 2 intimidates. I would have won had I gone first, and this was my loss for the day.

Top 8 Martell Fealty - This was a looooooooong game. We ended up going to about turn 12. I was about to close the game, when they managed the "The Last of the Giants" Varys combo. I managed to Nightmare's the first one, but they got me the second time. This lead to a back in forth, which resulted in me paying for Renly Baratheon (FFH) 4 times, him Valaring twice, and seeing all three Varys. I ended up eeking out a win when they were up 14-13, getting enough knights to win with renown. Was a very good match.

Top 4 Nights Watch Rains - This was the same person I played Round 4, so we both knew each others deck. The game ended up going to time. If he had done his last two Rains triggers in a different order, the game might have ended up in his favor, but I was able to win on time by 1 power.

Finals Martell Fealty/Lannister Banner of the Rose - This player didn't want to play their Deck anymore. So they conceeded to me if I agree to play the other deck they brought that they had wished they played. They didn't care about winning, and instead just wanted to play a different deck. I felt I had a solid matchup against Martell Fealty due to my matchup in Top 8. Their other deck is they should have played. It slaughtered me, abusing Cersei Lannister (LoCR), Ser Jaime Lannister (Core), Randyll Tarly, and The Honeywine to get a ton of big challenges, steal a ton of power, and just annihilate your board.

Gencon 2017 (22/174)

Round 1 Tyrell Wolf - This was a Margaery Tyrell (AMAF) deck. I was able to keep her from triggering by refusing to do a military challenge until it mattered, at the end. Game took longer than normal because I couldn't get them to win dominance, and they stayed low on steal-able power.

Round 2 Tyrell Kings of Summer - A mirror matchup! Was a very close game, and came down to the fact I managed to get a critical mass before them. They had a King Renly's Host, which I thought was a very interesting include. This was a huuuuuge board on both sides, as we both didn't run resets. I had less power and was able to go first, winning a military challenge. I would have won after the Lady Sansa's Rose if I had remembered to trigger Ser Robar Royce (as I was at 14 power).

Round 3 Greyjoy Banner of the Stag - Was a brutal and close matchup. They were able to get Balon Greyjoy and the Seastone Chair out early. Allowing easy targeted kill threats, due to Melisandre (Core) kneeling out key pieces that could have opposed him. They thought I was going to Valar, so delayed their Rise of the Kraken, which is what ended up winning me the game. I was able to fend off a huge unopposed challenge with Renly, Knight of Flowers, and Randyll against his Theon Greyjoy (Core) and Balon with Great Kraken. I was able to just barely win.

Round 4 Lannister Rains - This wasn't a very good matchup. They saw a poor setup, and I got a huge board advantage. What was surprising to learn, this player was at the top table with only a small amount of games under their belt. Very impressive on their part.

Round 5 Lannister Rains - This was a very well piloted Clansmen deck, that ended up going onto the top cut, which you might be able to see on Rob St. John's channel. They ended up winning this game due to a HUGE mistake on my part. I've (hopefully) learned my lesson to not throw a chump intrigue challenge just after they put down the Tower of the Hand. It's not the first time I've done that. I was about to secure the win, but that mistake let him claw the victory back.

Graduated Gencon Cut 2017

Round 6 Nights Watch Rains - This was a very long, grindy game. This was a timed victory on my part due to me having a clutch Nightmares on the wall after I made a bad mistake in letting them win an intrigue challenge. Not the best win, and I should have just opposed it. If the game had been able to continue, they would have probably won.

Round 7 Martell Fealty - Due to my previous matchup against a reset heavy Martell deck, I thought I had a positive matchup. What I didn't take into account was the player skill. I started with both Nightmares in hand, but they slowly whittled away at my hand. I got to 14 power, and was JUUUST about to win with Ser Robar Royce revealing into a Summer plot, when they played the Varys combo, and wiped my board, knocking out ~6-8 power in the process. They then handled my board masterfully and got tons of unopposed. This deck got 2nd place overall, losing to the Martell Stag deck that won Gencon. I look forward to see that recording.

Overall, I'm happy with how the deck functions. It works in the right meta (as do all decks), and has it's place. I hope the Tyrell box will bring much to this deck, and make it even better.

I plan to start a blog about the math behind AGoT and L5R, the decks, and what the 61st card actually means. Check back here in a while. When I get it going, I'll post it here.

For you 61 card haters, my 61st card was Mare in Heat, which is crucial to most matchups.