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.