9/8 WoW Regionals

Went to the new FoO format regionals over the weekend, deciding on one jank deck over the slightly more solid choice (daspien) because I couldn't beat shaman with the rogue deck and it was driving me crazy.

Top 8 decks (no lists yet) for the regional were:

-2 Phadalus Goodstuff decks
-2 Draenei Hunter Goodstuff decks (one running Hootie, the other running Master of the Hunt and Shelly among other pets)
-1 Gorebelly aggro/combo
-1 Bulkas Solo (running Dual Wield and Rampage)
-1 Blood Elf Rogue
-1 Horde Balance Druid (moonkin form deck)

I ended up going with the oomki- er, moonkin form deck. Mainly because Thugmotivation from wowrealms thrashed me one night with the deck and I really took a liking to it (the deck, not the thrashing). I tried some cutesy crap with the deck, including making it alliance so I can run Wisp with Stormrage Cover, but it was never necessary. Switched back to horde at 3 AM the day of the regional and ran with a more generic no-cutesy-stuff version of the deck. It really isn't as bad as it sounds, and Moonfire actually gets there for you a lot of games.

I'll throw out a list later this week.

GenCon

Not really going to get into any details about my experience at Gen-Con. It wasn't a very good one for me. I'd like to go back next year if only to visit Indy and all its nice people, as non-tournament wise, the city and its inhabitants are wonderful. However, I went 0-3 drop at Nats, played in a loot card tournament where you don't register your sealed packs (...wtf?), and got blown out by nuts decks all day at the Darkmoon Faire.

First, Nationals:

Round 1 I play against Derrick Lee, whom I've been playtesting with regularly for the past two months. 450+ people and I play against 1 of 5 people I don't want to get paired up against. Joy. I'm playing the Anchorite Kalinna list from a regionals while he was playing Gorebelly (I moved the shadow word: pains to the side-deck for Tristan Rapidstrikes). It's a coin-flip matchup essentially, and he rolls a 13 to my 11. He had a rough day 1 as well, with his deck consistently crapping out on him which hindered his overall record when he thrashed people during day 2.

Round 2 I play against a Phadalus control deck similar to the one Tim Batow ran, but with Medocs and (shit...) multiple main-deck Alas, Andorhahls. Needless to say I lost to the tech quests.

Round 3 I play against Keebler Powell with a Hootie Elendril deck sporting the Lady Kath/Demia late-game. I consistently couldn't find Brainwashes or Shadow Word: Deaths that would have shut down his 5 and 6 drop synergy or at the very least protect my active Medoc. He also topdecked a Lady Kath the turn he sent one into Magni, whereas if he didn't I'd either keep Magni around for a turn or force him to give up a Demia so I can recover. I just drop to conserve my rating at this point, distraught.

The loot card tournaments had people not registering their sealed pools. So needless to say a lot of people had nutty decks. I was already 1-1, but I felt losing to a deck with Vesh'ral, Karkus, 2 Outrider Zarg, Annihilator, Moko Hunts at Dawn, Intercept, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting was a little...fishy.

Saturday I played 6 rounds out of 7 (conceding round 6 to get some food because I didn't give a rat's ass at that point and because it was a local acquaintance). Out of the 8 games I lost, 5 of them were to turn 6 Norrend plays (the elusive untargetable 6-drop). Three of the opponents that beat me had 3 weapons in their decks, with a common sight being Splinter of the Warp-Tree. My only equipment hate main-deck was Malfunction and Kavai. I can't compete against 3 weapons. Sigh...

So needless to say, pretty awful weekend for me. I should have played Magic or Vs. Or brought some swim trunks so I could hang out by the pool on Saturday. *shrugs*

*ending bad beat story*

Tomorrow I'll start posting thoughts on FoO. And maybe some rough lists I've been working with since the tournament on my laptop.

-Mike

Bonus story: Tidbits of WTF I heard about after dropping at Nationals!

-Round 6, a friend of mine played against Gorebelly combo player who played Rak Skyfury...before playing his Twig. And still won. :///

-Round 5, Derrick played and lost against a hunter deck running Silent Fang...yeah.

-Day 2, friends tried to tell me that people were getting like 4th and 5th pick Chasing A-ME01, which unless you drafted Magni, is an auto-slam. This was all I heard about day 2 since I prepared for drafting a lot and hearing about people screwing up during the draft portion caused me to go, "LALALALALALA I'm not listening LALALA!".

-Tym Bradley made day 2. That guy is like the total stains. I should go /wrists now. (kidding. he's a friend of mine for 9 years, but as someone who day 2'd from our group while I didn't, I am obligated to make fun of him. Due to envy. I guess. Congrats to him...damnit!)

FoO is out, Gen-Con is coming up...oh crap

Fires of Outland has been released. I'll go more into detail with a full analysis next week, touching on each card. For now though, since I'm a tad busy, I'll just go ahead and say that I really like the set and that it is a MAJOR improvement over the bore that was Through the Dark Portal. Lots of playables in this set. Lots of cards that can replace filler in many current decks. Much assistance for some underdeveloped themes.

Gen-Con, and wow nationals, is coming up this week. I'll be flying out Wednesday. I still don't know if I'm playing in WoW Nats or PC Indy for vs system. Vs System has money in it, but WoW is a game that I actually like (whereas their big February announcement all but killed any life of the game in San Diego, so I never play vs system). I'm most likely going to go with WoW for this weekend.

I will try to update during Gen-Con, based on what I see and my thoughts on what's going on there all weekend. Be sure to check back regularly. :)

-Mike

More FoO stuff

Fires of Outland FAQ is up here.

I'll comment on cards later, but just to start off:

Readiness is 100% INSANE.

new FoO heroes

New FoO heroes have been revealed. It's been talked about for a few days now and Bryon Lyons is writing a feature on it over at TCGplayer (found under my links section), but I figured I'd share my own thoughts on the cards. After all, I typically can't shut up about my opinion about cards. Enjoy!

Pictures of horde heres here.

Pictures of alliance heroes here.

Cul Rendhoof:
Solid, solid card for druids. It's also the first solid permanent and not crappy resource acceleration currently available. Makes turn 4 Kulans and such a solid possibility. Does nothing to speed up turn 4 Mokos but it does allow for turn 4 Zy'lahs, which is definitely worth mentioning (yes, turn 4 Zy'lahs. I heard those may be decent). Dunno yet though. It does lead to a huge loss of card advantage, and the flip really can't pull you out of bad scenarios, so it's probably cute at best. I do like it though.

Ona Skyshot:
This hunter's lucky she's marksmanship, because that's all she has going for her (and I do hope you're not playing marksmanship hunter for Silencing shot. Egads).

Exaura the Cryptkeeper:
I may be playing her for Slow. She's better than Varanis in my opinion because The Haunted Mills more than Solanian's (I'd rather pay 3 and draw a million cards than recur a card, but really this comes down to personal taste I guess), but we'll see. The flip is solid too. Cheap card draw and graveyard-nerfing.

Nathadan:
Whatever. I guess. At least I can Solanian's back Holy Shield now.

Raesa Morningstar:
Cute, and that's probably it. Though it's worth noting her flip encourages aggressiveness by playing Power Word: Shield, swinging the attached ally into something, and then bouncing the shield to your hand with its destruction trigger on the chain.

Zomm Hopeslayer:
Cute name. Because it's still slashing away ay my hope that rogues will ever be decent.

Mojo Shaper O'jomon:
Solid flip. Encourages control moreso, as it's essentially a free Guardian Steelhorn or whatever. I think I'd want to recur a Debros with this guy, but the troll quests are very attrition based, so Steelhorn with Kolkar Aggression seems like a better pair-off.

Harrigen Soulsunder:
At first I thought this hero was pure crap. Actually...nevermind. Still crap. At least she's a blood elf warlock, as locks have the best abilities to recur with Solanian's.

Indalamar:
Next please. Though this flip is fairly good in limited.

Now onto alliance...

Yanna Dai'shalan:
Captures the flavor of balance well. Kind of a joke on its own but it can be very potent when grouped with a ton of casters. It's essentially "pay 3, kill something", and I certainly can't complain about heroes that do this efficiently.

Kana Nassis:
Meh. Mundane flip. Better than Azarak's though. I think I'm still playing her for Lightning Reflexes. Rescue the Survivors is kind of like your super-counterattack anyway. What's an ally when it comes to survival hunter anyway?

Ozzati:
Probably one of the best heroes in the set, juding by this flip and dragon's breath. Hoses allies on its own and the fire-ability line-up is a huge encouragement to go aggressive. This is probably the new goodstuff alliance deck, dethroning Phadalus as the new set becomes legal for tournament play.

Thatia Truthbringer (can these names get any cornier? I mean really):
Better than Graccus in every way. Except she's holy (this is a compliment on the mmo, not so much in the tcg). Unless holy gets something better than Holy Shield.

Deacon Markus Hallow (I guess they can):
Terrible terrible TERRIBLE flip. Probably the worst of the set by far. Too bad for shadow priests. You're still stuck with Omedus. Oh well, cry some more. Whatever. You guys get Shadowfiend. That ally is insane.

Rotun Daggerhand:
Cute at best. It's still not making rogues tier 1 and probably not solid into tier 2, unless they get a huge boost in abilities this set. There's little reason to run a rogue over any other class.

Moala Stonebinder:
Not bad. I guess. I think I'd rather play Phadalus because recurring Totems is just better it seems.

Mazar:
Damn efficient. Dizzy's been dethroned for alliance warlock of choice (poor Zenith is ignored. He's really pretty good seeing as how most players will be playing really awesome heroes with solid flips). Vanquish for 3 is good.

Fillet:
Pretty bad flip, seeing as how fury encourages solo with Cruelty.

I'll talk about revealed cards later. It's late. I want to go to sleep.

-Mike

Post-regionals thoughts from 7/21

Hey all. Sorry for the total lateness of this report. This is regarding the 7/21 San Diego regional. A whopping 30 people attended this one, making it the least attended Socal regional yet (unfortunately). Either people are waiting for the new set to start playing again, or the game's already having problems in San Diego (most likely the former, as this four months in between sets is brutal). The fact that a PTQ in Costa Mesa the same day was taking place didn't help, and cut a few entries from the tournament which would have brought it up to around 38-40 I'd imagine (Kelvin Young was busy winning the PTQ. Grats to him, btw).

Anyway, I went down there with two friends. One was playing Telrander because...well, it was a hell of a lot better than the guy's Elendril deck. The other was playing Phadalus. I was playing Anchorite Kalinna.

No, seriously. Anchorite Kalinna. I was going to try something else but said "oh what the hell" and brought Kalinna to test it out on the regional level.

Before going on, here is the deck list.

Hero: Anchorite Kalinna
Characters: 30
4 Kryton Barleybeard
4 Korthas Greybeard
4 Parvink
4 Warden Ravella
4 Vindicator Enkallus
3 Medoc Spiritwarden
1 Kal'ai the Uplifting
1 Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker
1 King Magni Bronzebeard
1 Lynda Steele
3 "Chipper" Ironbane

Abilities: 13
4 Shadow Word: Death
3 Power Word: Shield
2 Shadow Word: Pain
2 Heroic Pressence
2 Brainwash

Quests: 17
4 Rescue the Survivors
4 The Defias Brotherhood
4 Chasing A-ME01
3 The Missing Diplomat
2 Are We There Yeti?

It's basically a Medoc control deck. It's not meant to be rush, but it can deal some damage quickly with the right draw. The emphasis on lower drops is primarily to fuel Defias Broterhood along with survivors, while also allowing me to trade 1-drops with other 1 or 2 drops (important against untargetables).

Why priest though? Good question. The original reason to going priest was because of Power Word: Shield, which used to be a 4-of. It's a blowout card in just about every matchup, as it can wreck combat math and board positions easily while allowing you to maintain your own field. The whole idea was that it was the shield (heh) I needed to protect the Medoc engine and to get it online as it was cheap and effective. Then it became a three-of because I hated drawing it instead of an ally sometimes. Death is just good, and Pain is primarily a gameplan against other slower decks as, when combined with Kryton and Medoc, can lock an opposing player out of the draw phase and as such out of the game.

Heroic Pressence was because I need to win fast sometimes. I can stabilize a field and then not win for ages. Or I can draw a Pressence and deal like 30+ in one turn.

Anyway, here's a round breakdown (no names, sorry. I can't remember as I was not taking notes):

Round 1: Timmo Shadestep
Won this one 2-0. He got close game 2 but I was fortunate he didn't draw a way to burn me for a couple of turns as I widdled down his health. His deck was like a solo rogue strategy.

Round 2: Phadalus the Enlightened (ie Whatever)
This guy decided to add the trinity with his Diplomats to the Phadalus deck, giving him an aggressive opening and a ridiculous late-game. He won game 1 on the "I got lots of untargetables" draw and I couldn't deal. Game 2 he ran out Lady Jaina Proudmoore, which should be death for me as I have few ways to deal. So I play out a Korthas with another protector out there, count out my 6 resources for Yeti, and pass. He attacks with all of his guys.

Then I brainwash Jaina. Who needs Yeti?
He got close to killing Jaina but I finally drew a Korthas to protect her from dying to a Perdition's Blade ping, and he used all 4 Chain Lightnings at that point. He actually misplayed when I played Korthas as it was sick and could not activate the turn he drew Perditions. This most likely came down because we both had Magnis generating their 10th tokens, and it came down to the control-on-control status of the match causing him to miss a few details. I explain to him that I'll win when I draw a Pressence as I have around 8-9 attackers more over his protectors (including infinite tokens on each side), and that the pressence will push through well more than 40-50 damage in one turn. He opts not to concede, so I don't draw a Pressence until I have 5 cards left in deck.

Game 3 is on time, and he gets unlucky and doesn't draw a way to deal with my Kryon without Earth Elemental Totem, which gets Death'ed so Kryton deals the 2 damage needed to win. It's worth nothing he could have avoided this by conceding in game 2 when I mentioned the pressence. On one hand, he knew my deck is at a disadvantage in time, but on the other hand the time scenario is still heavily luck oriented and he chose to go with the latter choice.
2-1

Round 3: Human Warlock
My opponent was a friend I've been playing against often throughout my days of Vs System at the PCQs in Socal. His warlock deck was really nice too, but it needed a few changes to really be pushed over the limit as incredible. Great start though, and we discussed it afterwards. I got blown out by a Hellfire game one (oopsie. Forgot that existed. I'm sure a smart one), but managed to recover that game with a Magni I recall. Game 2 was him behind the entire time. Touch of Chaos was just too slow for him, which he ran as his winning card, and it's too fragile as well.
2-0

Round 4: Phadalus the Enlightened (Tym Bradley)
He's one of the friends I took down. As such, we are total assholes to each other because we love making jokes at each other's expense. The match is really sloppy with me conceding a turn early (though it didnt matter), the allowance of take-backs, etc. We both came to the conclusion that my deck is somewhat of a die-roll against Phadalus, as either deck with the tempo advantage of going first will have a much easier time winning. Though I believe I could have made a difference in the game had I bluffed Brainwash late in when I didn't have it (the importance of priest cards over warlock cards I've found is that the priest cards are bigger blowouts, so bluffing them can put your opponent on guard). Oh well. I learned something at least.

1-2

Round 5: Phadalus the Enlightened
Game one went to me. Game 2 he had two korthas with two damage on it and a Kal'ai in play. I shake my head and said go (five open, guess what?). He played another Kal'ai, I frown and concede a turn later. Game 3 we get to the point where he plays a Magni. I get to the point where I play Lynda Steele, pay 1 to make Magni attack into the Brainwash he now knows I have from game 1. He shortly loses after this play (this is the reason Steele's in there, as a weary control player will simply not attack with their big bomb into the Brainwash).
2-1

Top 8 features me, Grennan, Ruby Gemsparkle, Elendril, Telrander (my friend omgwtf how'd he do it), troll priest, and 2 Phadalus

Top 8: Grennan
I had an invitation but was playing for points towards worlds, so unfortunately I had to work as a dreamcrusher against a local from Chula Vista. The match went 2-1, ended up being close. Grennan has no answers main-deck to Magni, and I don't think he sided Vanquishes, which really hurt. Sorry man, but last regional I went 3-3 due to conceding to two people and lost 30 rating points. :(

So I top 4ed with Draenei priest. Cool, I guess. Troll priest top 4ed as well, and was a similar strategy to mine but was using the horde cards (protector heavy control with power word as a super-blowout card). While the priest is generally weaker in terms of abilities than the warlock, I've found that I actually prefer the priest to the lock since you can't really mind-game much with the lock. Their abilities are very generic and, while good, don't auto-beat your opponent other than Eye of Kilrogg at times. Shield, on the other hand, blows games out and wins games you shouldn't win. Same goes for Brainwash.

I don't know. I'm actually considering Priest for Nationals. If I do I'll probably be the only one from around here playing it, as my friends have been bitten by the shaman bug. I need to test variants of the deck for other classes, like Phadalus (because they have a real 2-drop protector), and Paladin (the Nimassus flip isn't bad and the pally cards are all right). We'll see.

I'll post more later concerning other decks I've begun to dismiss from my consideration for Nationals if I'm playing in it, including what its strengths and weaknesses are and why they were pushed aside.

Regionals in San Diego tomorrow

I'll be sure to have some content up Sunday or Monday regarding the WoW Regional in San Diego tomorrow, including top 8 breakdowns, decks, etc.

And this will be actual content. Sorry for not getting much up recently. I've been trying to get my epic flying mount in WoW. It's...kinda expensive.

-Mike