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