Following a rather light prep-schedule, Ayon, Brian and Gavin attended Labyrinth's Store Championship in DC yesterday. In all, 20 players participated in the event, 5 players dropped out by the end of the fifth and final round of swiss, and team HOBO left feeling somewhat unsatisfied by its performance.
Ayon placed last* with his Bara Knights of the Realm deck, with an emphasis on shadows and stability over hard-on rush. While this deck has struggled to find its footing against a few top builds this season, it really didn't help that Ayon's first opponent was cheating and no one caught it till the end of the game. (drawing 3 cards whenever Ayon had fewer Knights during the draw phase is an interesting re-write of the KoR agenda but certainly not what it does) Play errors aside, the day put an end to Ayon's love affair with Black Cells. They just don't provide enough control for what they cost their own deck in speed and gold. (and are especially ineffective amongst most Hobo decks in local play)
Brian placed 3rd** with his fairly unique self-mil Bara Recursion build. Of the three of us, Brian probably had the least to learn from the experience, as he lost to 2 time-outs and against a Stark Siege Epic hyper rush deck that stomps anything short of hyper control or hyper counter rush. The first time out was particularly annoying because he had a guaranteed win the next round.
Gavin placed 5th** with his Stark Song of Winter shadows deck. Like Brian, Gavin did well against everything except the Siege deck that ultimately took the championship. Unfortunately, Gavin and Brian had to face off in 5th swiss, which is usually a sign that Gavin will draw >2 economy cards over the course of 5 rounds. (Additionally, Gavin forgot Rule by Decree was in Brian's plot deck and missed a chance to play nightmares and even both player's hands pre-plot) At least the last minute addition of 3 Parting Blows worked as well as Gavin expected, providing unexpected advantage against Lannister removal and his Bara/Martell opponents during first snow of winter.
In closing, HOBO came away with a few thoughts for our own Store Championship. First, we won't be requiring deck lists because they just slow down the registration process. Second, we will do our best to prevent meta-mate match ups. Not only is it really annoying to drive an hour+ to an event and then have 1-3/5 of your games be against the people you play with every week, it's also not very instructive or illuminating about the state of the larger meta. Lastly, given the lower 'prestige' of winning a store title vs a regional, we saw too many early bail outs by players who knew they would not make the cut to the final tables. So we've decided to format 4 rounds of swiss, with a cut to top 8. (this will also give us more time to host the draft event for anyone not making the final tables)
*Technically 2nd to last, but the last place player bailed after the 4th round of swiss.
**Technically I don't know, since at least two of the top players dropped out by the 4th round of swiss.
