I play A Game of Thrones for the community. It’s a great gaming system from a tactical and strategic standpoint, with a number of twists unique to it, but the community is what has kept me in the game for years. These are people that I might only randomly see at tournaments a couple times a year, but I always still feel like I can pick up the middle of a conversation we left months ago. I got into the game after reading George RR Martin’s fantasy novels (the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones ) in the summer of ’02. For the first few years of my involvement in the game I stuck exclusively to local tournaments in Joplin, MO, but gradually I grew more and more competitive. With a now former World Champ in my meta (Greg Atkinson of the Springfield area) I had to expand. I have several 3rd place finishes at larger events and a winning record at last year’s World Championships, but not quite enough to break all the way out yet. Which brings us, of course, to the last weekend of April; The South Central Nationals 08.
This was not the first event of this nature that I’ve hosted, thankfully. It’s good to have a little experience under my belt and make things a better event this time around. This was the first time that I’ve run an event at Meta-Games, though it’s the second event of this level (formerly Regionals) that has been held at the store. This year I think was a success for a number of reasons. First off, I’ve got to say it was a total pleasure to work with the staff at MGU. The guys are all a blast to talk to and were more than willing to do whatever I thought needed to be done to make the event a success. Next we had a solid core group of players from all over Missouri that turned out to play. Out of our 15 players, we had some from Neosho, Springfield, Columbia and St. Louis! Also, the event was attended by travelers from Indiana and Iowa. It was also great because it gave at least one retired player that I know a chance to check the game out after an absence for a few years and see what it’s about. He’s since told me he wants to get back in rather heavily and possibly get another ex-player or two.
We began Friday night, the 25th, with a dozen players for the multiplayer (henceforth known as “melee” in the medieval spirit) Championship for our national region. This worked out beautifully as the revised melee rules call for 4 man tables, so this allowed 3 tables very nicely. We played two rounds of essentially random pairing, with the the second round leaving me witness to something I had not seen in AGoT before- and infinite mill deck. Well, ok, so it wasn’t quite infinite as he couldn’t had to mill his own deck and then recycle it the next phase before he could begin again, but it was near enough for our purposes. That might have been the most boring game I’ve ever set through, but I have to give him congratulations on turning out a pretty complicated idea and making it work. Let not the naysayers claim AGoT does not allow for combo decks. With the way melee games tend to drag on, even with a time limit, we had to cut the tournament here to allow for a finals table, which bent the rules slightly and allowed 6 players so that we wouldn’t have to cut someone with a record essentially even with two of the people that did make it. This was a knockdown game of setbacks if I ever saw one. People were turning on each other left and right. It was amazing to watch. I once again witnessed something amazing- the highest claim I’ve ever seen on a card- 34, I believe, on The Things I Do for Love. For those of you not familiar with claim, I would try to explain it in M:TG terms… it’s very, very vaguely like having a 34/34 creature smack you right in the middle of the face.
The Championship game ran to time, but by the end, Josh Staton pulled the victory!
On Saturday, we fielded 15 players for the head to head (henceforth known as “joust”) tournament at noon. For the joust tournament we played 5 rounds of Swiss pairings, then had a break for dinner and a cut to a final four, with the remaining players opting to head home, watch the finals, or play in a classic draft tournament. I’ve been working on tweaking different revisions and slants on a certain deck for over a year now for my main tournament mainstay, and while this often means that people have a good idea of certain cards to expect against me, I still feel that the decktype itself is so strong that it warrants my continued tinkering and tweaking. Unfortunately, this tournament, things just didn’t pan out for me as well as I had hoped. I wound up 2-2-1 (with the time coming from my first round game that went to time). Guess I should have gone with the previous revision that got me into the top 8 at a 55 player tournament in Chicago. Go figure. Things went much more fortuitously for our ex-World Champ, Greg Atkinson, who made the top 4 cut, and last year’s South Central champ, Justin Fox, who finished 5-0 in Swiss to enter the top 4. The semi finals round wound up with a bit of an upset as Fox was upset by newcomer Kevin McClure, and Atkinson by Lukas Liepzinger (whose last name, I think my memory has sadly butchered). The two new comers then faced of in a best two out of three to determine who would be the last man standing.
The first two games of the series were swept by Kevin McClure who became our new South Central Joust Champion!
Filed under: A Game of Thrones
