R&D Journal
How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Multiplayer
and Love the Stag
by Jonathan Benton
I have a confession to make. I, Jonathan Benton, the reigning ChiCon Melee Champion, have played a total of 3, count 'em, 3, multiplayer AGoT games in my lifetime (the number of games required to win the ChiCon III Melee, as it happens). Even worse, I'm one of "those" who lent his voice in outcry at the thought of this game turning away from a single-player focus to multiplayer, even though I had (gasp!) never played multi before.
In my defense, I had at least read the rules, and having a somewhat extensive European boardgame/wargame collection, noted obvious similarities to other games — just not the kind of card game I had come to equate with the AGoT CCG. Traditionally, I've always played those boardgames and wargames for fun, but competitive chess-like card games fill a different need for me, one that I really dreaded losing.
When FFG listened to its players and gave us the best of both worlds with a two day World Championship split between Melee and Joust and crowning an overall winner to the player who finishes the best in both categories, I can't describe how relieved I was. It was a simple and elegant solution capable of not only making both sides happy but also creating interest in another format for people who may have only considered playing one of the two beforehand.
I would consider myself to be in that latter category, but now I had a reason to work on my Melee game, and what better opportunity to do that than ChiCon? Being new to multiplayer, I had little to go on when it came to building my deck other than a few expectations of the differences between Melee and Joust. Some of these expectations were valid, as it turned out, but others were not.
;)
Expectation #1: Longer Games
It stood to reason that it would be more difficult to achieve any win condition when a player was matched with three opponents rather than only one. More players mean more opportunities for cancels, kills, challenges, all of which can disrupt the best laid plans of mice and men. So I needed a deck that had some staying power. I decided whichever deck I played should incorporate some "Cannot be Killed/Cannot be Discarded" tech to keep some kind of board presence. Band of Free Folk and Septon of the Eyrie would work nicely for that, as I figured someone would usually have 6 power after a couple of turns.
Expectation #2: Control would be difficult to establish
When I make a control deck, it is usually all I can do to keep control of one opponent, much less three. I didn't want to put myself in the position of not knowing what to cancel through lack of experience in multiplayer, so I decided to forego control decks in favor of a little more of a rush build. This decision didn't mean I couldn't use standard cancels like Paper Shield, but it did narrow down my choices for a particular house. I momentarily considered Greyjoy, but I typically enjoy playing Baratheon more, and thought the mix of utility characters and renown with which Baratheon is blessed might be nicely suited to a Melee game. With that train of thought my House was decided.
Expectation #3: Early Lead = Early Target
Even though Baratheon is arguably the best at power rush in the game right now, I could see that it may not be advantageous to jump out to an early lead, as that would be akin to painting a big bulls-eye on your posterior. I decided to take a much calmer approach to winning my games, one that could be classified as a delayed rush, with the ability to close it out quickly once I reached 5-7 power by either dropping Winter Melisandre or Winter Robert and using their powerful abilities to win.
The Deck
With these things in mind, my deck evolved into the following iteration:
PLOTS
5KE U222 Conventions of War
5KE F241 Wildfire Assault
AHoTh U137 Winter Storm
ITE R223 Bounty of the Realm
ITE U223 The Good God's Own Kiss
ASoN U143 Muster the Realm!
WED U217 Called by the Gods
CHARACTERS
5KE R59 Ser Davos Seaworth x2
5KE U60 Stannis Baratheon x1
5KE U66 Nightfire Convert x2
5KE R132 Myrcella Lannister x1
HoTal R22 Ser Robar Royce x1
HoTal R71 Vale Ward x1
HoTal U87 Mord x1
HoTal U97 Knights of the Vale x2
HoTal C100 Septon of the Eyrie x3
AHoTh R15 Sister of Fire x2
AHoTh U61 Knight of Flowers x1
AHoTh R64 The Queen of Thorns x1
AHoTh R74 Highgarden's Finest x1
ITE R48 Melisandre x1
ITE C53 Brightwater Lancers x2
ITE U54 Knight of the Rainwood x2
ITE R130 Brienne of Tarth x1
ITE R131 Joffrey Baratheon x1
ASoN R33 The Bastard of Nightsong x1
ASoT R26 Edric Storm x1
WED R45 Melisandre x2
WED U47 Robert Baratheon x1
WED P7 Band of Free Folk x3
LOCATIONS
5KE U70 Tarth x2
5KE C75 Stormlands Hamlet x1
5KE R159 The Vale x2
5KE R161 The Riverlands x1
5KE R162 The Reach x1
HoTal U26 Hallowed Ground x1
AHoTh R91 The Shield Islands x1
ITE U61 King Robert's Chambers x1
ITE U142 The Narrow Sea x3
WED R58 Storm's End x1
ATTACHMENTS
WED R43 Chosen by R'hllor x1
WED P8 Old Bear's Crow x1
EVENTS
AHoTh R124 Put to the Question x1
ITE LP F45 Paper Shield x3
ASoT C127 Massing at Twilight x3
WED C186 I Am King Here! x3
Nothing fancy, but fairly effective. I would never build a Joust deck like this for Baratheon, as I would incorporate more straight rush, but it seemed to play fine for Melee.
Specific Card Choices
I surmised that others might come to the same conclusions as I had and think Baratheon would make a good Melee deck, so I went with 2 Nightfire Converts for those situations. This turned out to be beneficial, as out of nine opponents in three games, four were playing Baratheon, including three of us at the final table. Mord and The Shield Islands, in addition to being powerful in their own right, served to make me some coin (we played the Littlefinger variant at ChiCon in which each player is given 5 coins at the beginning of the tournament, used for bribing opponents to bend them to your will, and prizes were given to the "richest" player in addition to the top finishers). Winter Edition Storm's End combos well with Highgarden's Finest or Davos, but also works well with any renown when needed. I figured Robert would ensure that no one would want to initiate military challenges against me if lots of renown were on the table, so I included Wildfire Assault for the option of killing him myself. I only owned one Put to the Question at the time, or I would have worked more in to help protect my heavy hitters.
So how did my expectations hold up in the final analysis?
Expectation #1: Longer Games
To some extent, this was borne out, with one notable exception. One opponent, Josh Staton, was winning fairly consistently on turn two with his Baratheon rush. He got to 14 power on the second turn of our semi-final game and I did a quick assessment and determined that if he won the game, I would be second place and possibly make it to the final table. As it looked doubtful that I could come back, I offered him the use of Mord in order to get a military challenge through unopposed for the win on turn two. Luckily for me, an early Nightfire Convert slowed him down in the final game, however. To be honest, my mid-game tech of "Cannot be Killed" and “Cannot Be Discarded" characters never seemed to show up, even though I had dedicated 8 slots to it in my deck, so the jury is still out on the effectiveness of those cards.
Expectation #2: Control would be difficult to establish
I saw nothing to change my mind on this point. There are probably exceptions, or players who would vehemently disagree with this assertion, but right now, with my extreme inexperience with the format, I'll stand by this one.
Expectation #3: Early Lead = Early Target
Again, there was some evidence for this, although the point was not entirely illustrated in my games. I overheard lots of complaining by players who made it to 12-13 power, then the rest of the table trained their sights on the early leader and brought the leader back down to earth. I think this is a consideration which might possibly make for an adjustment of playstyle as opposed to an adjustment in deckbuilding.
My first encounter with multiplayer was a very enjoyable one (obviously bolstered by the fact that I did well). My first goal in going to ChiCon was placing top 8 in the Joust on Saturday, and I did that, losing in the finals to Adam DeWulf in a great match. But I honestly had zero expectations of doing well in the Melee, so that was just an added bonus. I look forward to my next clash of arms in Westeros which includes more than one opponent!
