I'd come along with my man Steve, who unfortunately has to work Saturdays so is unable to join in at Chimera. We strode in at 11am only to find the tournament wasn't starting for another hour, so went and got a coffee and lamented the fact that we've both got varying degrees of man flu (his worse than mine). One Toffee Nut Latte later and we were back out in the -5C chill on the way back to the store.
Today's tournament was a slightly more modest turnout - six! The scene in Sheffield died around the time when Upper Deck lost the WoWTCG license last year, and hasn't really recovered. Patriot run monthly tournaments which have varying turnouts depending on whether a local group of players from Doncaster turn up or not, but it was good to see some old faces again from when the game was more popular in't Yorkshire.
Halfway through opening my first pack, someone starts whooping in the background. Mottled Drake Loot then. Here's my rares:
Mana Shift, Onslaught, Grim Campfire, Devout Aurastone Hammer, Kentro Slade, Korialstrasz
After flicking through those first two packs and finding Mana Shift and Onslaught (and a Lil' XT Loot) I was expecting to be in for a long day. The following four ended up making it in to my deck though - how fortuitous to open two pieces of equipment that can be used by exactly the same classes! That removes one awkward choice from proceedings. I remember reading how good the hammer was in a feature match from DMF Los Angeles, so was pretty keen to put it to use if possible.
Even better, the three classes I was ever likely to play after sorting my abilities were Druid, Priest and Shaman. I ditched Shaman due to a lack of direct removal, despite having Nature Resistance Totem; I then had to choose between the Priest's ability hate in Oppress and semi-removal in Psychic Wail, or the Druid's heal in Flourish and the double Entangling Roots (which proved useful when I saw it yesterday).
Having opened a Terina Calin I was sorted for equipment hate, so I decided to adopt a refined version of yesterday's strategy, picked up a Flourish, two Entangling Roots, the equipment, and said hello to my old friend Arturius.
Arturius Hathrow
2 Entangling Growth
Flourish
Grim Campfire
Devout Aurastone Hammer
Ruby Flameblade
Ruby Skyrazor
Ruby Blazewing
Korialstrasz
Emerald Tree Warder
Emerald Wanderer
Garet Vice
2 Loriam Argos
Bella Wilder
Terina Calin
2 Alister Cooper
Kentro Slade
Aresha Thorncaller
Marcus Dominar
Pixla Darkmist
Wazix Blonktop
Nightstalker Austen
Furan Rookbane
Bayner Cogbertson
Locked Away
The Key to Freedom
The Witch's Bane
2 The Essence of Enmity
The Torch of Retribution
Four relevant rares in a Sealed pool! ...well, three, but looking at yesterday's pool, I'm not sure why I left Kentro Slade out. He's a decent (if effectively blank) four-drop due to his five health - there's very little, if anything, in the four-drop slot that will kill him outright, so he will do some damage before he goes. When cutting my pool I was a bit more ruthless with the Dragonkin - yesterday I had the Skinned Whelp Shoulders, today not so. This meant I could cut out cards like Emerald Soldier and Lifewarden, who offered little to my deck that a blue ally couldn't do better.
I gave Steve a hand building his deck, and he eventually went with Horde Shaman, having opened an Exxi the Windshaper and a couple of bits of removal. I was just helping him cut a few cards out of his deck when the first round pairings were called, and we were to play each other first.
Round 1 - vs Steve, playing Goblin Shaman (1-0)
"So now you've just built my deck for me, what's a good hand?" came from over the table. "Do you have a two-drop, and do you curve upwards from there?" was about the best I could offer - a good two-drop is pretty crucial as you can generally trade quite favourably from there if you can keep curving. A 3/2 can still kill some four or five drops.
I drew my opening hand and found a lot of low-cost guys and the hammer. I snap kept, though I made a punt for failure early on by seeing Steve's 2/3 on turn 2, and playing a Ruby Flameblade "because that has Assault 1 and will kill it herp derp" before realising my mistake. Thankfully I was able to push board presence with the hammer and the two Loriam Argos in hand and eventually reached a point where I was holding three five or six drops and had no immediate need to play any more resources, so I had a steady stream of dangerous things ready to go.
Game two saw me draw the hammer again, so this time I did it properly - T2 Loriam, T3 Hammer + Loriam, and a couple of turns later I clear the board of danger and drop a Korialstrasz. Before you know it there are whelps everywhere and my friend is not my friend any more.
Round 2 - vs Man who used to TO at Sheffield, playing Draenei Paladin (2-0)
My opponent had been told he had paired upwards in this round - as there were only six of us, someone had to. My opponent had lost his previous game despite pulling a nice thing in Vigil of the Light, so I was preparing to tread carefully around that, and wasn't rushing in to anything.
This time I had both the hammer and the campfire in hand - was I finally going to be able to get some use out of my flip? Alas, no - after mitigating early ally pressure and replenishing my hand with Zuur, I set up camp only for my opponent to decide to withhold his army and drop Big Scary Weapons instead. It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it did save me the three resources required to flip. He dropped a Terina who broke my hammer, but I respond with Korialstrasz, which is enough to get a concession.
Game 2 and the hammer eludes me! My trusty campfire has reported for duty though so I dutifully trade all my allies for a few turns, drop the campfire, and the opposing allies dry up again. Big Scary Weapon is back shortly after, and the hammer turns up for duty too; this time Terina snuffs out the campfire and with it, any hope of doing funky things with my flip. Eventually I am able to drop Bayner Cogbertson and it doesn't take long for the damage to rack up.
One round to go then - I go to perform some recon on the two decks I might be playing against only to find them finished, and my fellow Druid making his way over to my table.
Round 3 - vs Matt Cooper, playing Troll Druid (3-0)
Matt has, to the best of my knowledge, been on the WoWTCG scene in Sheffield for a while. I remember he was the first player I faced at the Fields of Honor preview - the first time I'd played Sealed, and back in the day when I had to double-check that damage on allies was permanent - and he offered me biscuits before beating me senseless. In a way I was out for revenge.
He had a sealed pool that was alarmingly similar to mine from yesterday - Earth and Moon, Ysera the Dreamer and Kentro Slade! I only found out about this the hard way after something of an epic battle during our first game. I had managed to build up a small board presence but on my fifth turn with the hammer in play I make a misplay. I play the campfire, and then facepalm as I am short of resources to play Zuur; Matt proceeds to drop Mahna Lightsky and I'm kicking myself as Zuur, along with whoever he fetches back, will be a bit useless now. So I dig for allies.
It doesn't help much. The campfire is more of a pile of ash, my allies are largely useless, but I'm able to drop a couple of protectors and cross my fingers. The next turn, the campfire fizzles out completely with the help of Drizzie Steelslam and we find ourselves at a stalemate - a moment where we need the big guns. The MVP.
Bayner Cogbertson. Matt's reaction is to pick the card up to see what it does, and concludes "Oh hi, I am fat."
Bayner doesn't last long - an Entangling Roots to the face leaves him useless, and Kloxx Dedrix enters the field to stop me from trying anything funny - and I'm left puzzled as to where to go next. Thankfully Matt is happy to sit behind his wall of Protectors, and passes back to me. So I dig some more, and this time, recruit the real MVP - Aresha Thorncaller. Thanks to Mr. Cogbertson over there who isn't going anywhere any time soon, Aresha will have Nature Resistance for approximately... forever. Splendid. With two protectors on the field now it's looking slightly better for me - my Marcus Dominar can eat Matt's Drizzie Steelslam, and the remaining three resources I have go towards my own Entangling Roots on Mahna Lightsky. Matt brings Dorladris Spellfire and Earth and Moon to the table and passes back.
Pixia Darkmist jumps off the top of my deck and gives my Hero Protector, which I put to good use getting in the way of Dorladris - meaning I take five to the face. I'm looking a little haggard right now on about 15 damage, and with Earth and Moon out I had to clear the board before something bad happened. So, on my next turn I get to work, trading my allies in, getting rid of the pesky Kloxx, and dropping Wazix Blonktop on the table. With my remaining three resources I hold my breath and complete The Essence of Emnity, lay out the top five cards of my deck, and look for something that's going to help me finish this game.
I take Ruby Skyrazor - on my next turn, all my allies will be Untargetable. This spurs Matt into action - he clears my board up as much as possible with Wrath and Sura Lightningheart, and sets out to draw some cards with his remaining quests. One card in particular makes him grin. I don't like that, and at that point I had no idea what it was.
I make my board untargetable, finish off my own remaining quests (completing Locked Away for 5, and drawing The Key to Freedom from it), and pass back.
Matt plays Ysera the Dreamer after counting his resources a few times. Steve looks over my shoulder at this point, having won his final round and wondering where I'm at. "You're boned," he tells me. I scan the board, and tap Aresha.
Ysera was carrying five static attack thanks to Earth and Moon, and only Aresha was carrying Nature Resistance, so I needed to tread carefully. Thankfully I still had a (heavily damaged) Marcus Dominar on board so could keep the two of them ready and just hope Matt is unable to get his hands on something that would kill either of them. Thankfully my next couple of cards were Korialstrasz and Ruby Flameblade - two further allies later and I do some counting, before offering "Attack you for 43?" in conclusion.
We have 15 minutes left, and given my last performance I'm hoping that we'll get munged up in the mid to late game. Matt has different ideas, playing Zakis Trickstab on turn 3, Earth and Moon on turn 4 and taking me out in about seven minutes while I frantically scrambled to find an Entangling Roots. It was the next card I would have drawn.
Four or five turns in to the final game and I'm one damage behind, and time is called. I kept a reactionary hand featuring lots of low-cost allies and both Entangling Roots. I take the calling of time as the perfect moment to slap an Entangling Roots down on whatever Matt had on the board, and some irrelevant ally; he plays a protector, I roots that too and attack for victory.
I stride out of the Organised Play area with my chest puffed out and claim my zero packs of prize support and my lovely new playmat which I gave straight to Steve as six playmats is quite enough thank you very much, and disappeared into the freezing night to get a cup of tea and boast about my achievements to the women.
They didn't care.
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