Winter Court 2018 – Decklists

The Winter Court this year was described as a ‘bloodbath’ with a super competitive environment and many upsets. To try to get an idea of what happened, let’s look through some of the decks that players have posted.

We don’t have a great selection of decks unfortunately. Without FFG actually posting the decklists they collected we have to rely on players posting them. With the new roles out and the future Kotei season to look forward to the focus for competitive players from Winter Court is to the future. Below are the decklists we have been able to find. Special shout out to BushiBuilder where they’ve been putting together their own list.

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Crab had a super poor performance, but Pablo made the brave choice to step away from the typical wisdom and instead developed what essentially is a new deck type for Crab. It’s had to know whether the key elements of fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms will remain in the future.

Pablo Pintor Espinosa	Top 8
Alexander Diaz	Top 32
Daniel Schroder	Top 32
Alex Dunseth	Top 64
Jared Wright	Top 64
Max Williams	Top 64
Stephen Didion	Top 64
Hussain Bandy	Day 2
Robert Perry	Day 2

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Crane came out as the unexpected top clan. The expectation had been that Scorpion and Dragon would take that slot with Phoenix and Crane following closely after. Instead, Crane edged the other clans out in day 2 players with Erik going on to claim the title of Shogun. The three decks we’ve seen all share the same core idea of controlling the board with the option to win through either dishonor or conquest.

Erik Baalhuis	Shogun
Bradley Emon	Top 16
Ronny Szutu	Top 16
Tony Kwok	Top 32
Travis Cooper	Top 32
Yanik Richard	Top 32
Alexander Magoulas	Top 64
David Winner	Top 64
Elijah Teed	Top 64
Gilles Molina	Top 64
Jeremey Campshure	Top 64
Joel Hjortness	Top 64
Marc Soifermna	Top 64
Nicolac Simonpietri	Top 64
Adam Horvath	Day 2
Christian Szloraz	Day 2
Erick Leong	Day 2
James Balthis	Day 2
Kyle Wslocky	Day 2
Paikan Brabant le Faou	Day 2

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Kingsley’s deck was the classic ‘test’ with -1 mendicant and +1 Wandering Ronin for a bounty. Aneil and Christopher would have most likely been running the same without the adjustment. Unfortunately, that specific deck no longer has a copy posted with Aneil’s version already moving into the new environment. I think by now we’ve all encountered it. Dragons terrifying province line, solid characters, using Void Fist to win out.

Davis Kingsley	Top 4
Daniel Trujillo	Top 8
Aaron Frede	Top 16
Christopher Pottorf	Top 16
Luiz Bretas-Ferreira	Top 16
Daniel Habes	Top 32
Aneil Seetharam	Top 64
Arash Afghahi	Top 64
Joseph Eckstrom	Top 64
Kyle Wolfson	Top 64
Anthony Edwards	Day 2
Emran Omar	Day 2
Gabriel Caban	Day 2
Jasper Mangus	Day 2

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Not a great event for Lion. The top Lion Philippe-Andre made top 32 with a Scorpion splash deck that had a dishonor option. For clans without many options, you’ve got to get creative.

Philippe-Andre Pelletier	Top 32
Andreas Lundin	Top 64
Elliot Dawson	Top 64
Trevor Holmes	Top 64

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Phoenix had a great showing, but performed worse than most of us expected. They received some super efficient cards in recent releases like the Ethereal Dreamer and the Feral Ningyo. The decks that performed well seemed to run a few interesting 1-off options like Consumed by Five Fires and Karmic Twist which have the potential to win games in the right situations. I guess those situations didn’t present themselves or the cards didn’t appear at the right times.

Jose Luis Saenz	Top 8
Travis McDaniel	Top 16
Alexey Sidorenko	Top 32
Evan Gibbs	Top 32
Matthew Beck	Top 32
Dustin Horn	Top 64
Even Sorgherd	Top 64
Joseph Scalco	Top 64
Merlin Davis	Top 64
Austin Carey	Day 2
Richard Reinhart	Day 2

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Scorpion had a great showing. Not only did they have a great performance but there was a significant variation between decks. This reflects the great pool the Scorpion have to draw from which allows different players to find their own rhythm and style.

Johnny Shen	Finalist
Samuel Benies	Top 4
Andrew Case	Top 8
Marc Payment	Top 16
Zachary Devine	Top 16
Benjamin Szymkow	Top 32
Josh Johnson	Top 32
Kyle George	Top 32
Liang Zhong	Top 32
Steve Palumbo	Top 32
Brandon Lane	Top 64
Jakub Irzyk	Top 64
John Perry	Top 64
Kevin Ho	Top 64
Marcos Yerga	Top 64
Mark Armitage	Top 64
Dustin Drake	Day 2
Matthew Swinburne	Day 2

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Despite all the new cards, Unicorn didn’t have a great performance. These seem to be the other side of the Scorpion variety coin. While Scorpion had lots of successful decks, Unicorn had a great amount of variety but poor performance. This suggests that the winning formula has yet to be found and the Unicorn puzzle hasn’t quite been solved yet.

Ben Wooten	Top 32
Antoine Lepagnol	Top 64
Robert Jordan	Top 64
Scott Sims	Top 64
Lynden Engelhard	Day 2

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As you can see there are still lots of gaps. There are also a few decks out there on BushiBuilder and FiveRingsDB that are from Day 2 of Winter Court but aren’t attributed to anyone yet! If you see a deck that could be added to the above list please post below.

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