17/12/2010 06:00 SHEFFIELD, GB OUT FOR DELIVERY
17/12/2010 06:00 SHEFFIELD, GB THE PACKAGE WAS NOT DISPATCHED
17/12/2010 04:00 SHEFFIELD, GB ARRIVAL SCAN
Thanks, UPS!
That was Sealed practice out the window anyway - and to date, the cards haven't arrived. However, practice or no practice, I was attending two release parties this weekend - one at Chimera Ripley on Saturday, and one at Patriot Games in Sheffield on Sunday. Sealed is my favourite format and despite my first few attempts at playing the format (Fields of Honor Sneak, Realm Championship 4 Open) being an utter disaster (last and second-last respectively), it's been the format I've overall been the most successful with, following a Realm Championship qualifier win and a decent amount of release event win/runner-up finishes. I was a little dismayed by the lack of practice, but arriving at Ripley in plenty of time, finding out the parking is free for Christmas and cracking some quality rares certainly helped me feel a bit more confident:
Earth and Moon, Jhuunash, Seeping Shadows, Venerable Mass of McGowan, Ysera the Dreamer, Kentro Slade
I'd promised myself that if I opened a Master Hero that I wasn't going to include them in my deck - I've seen people play Kel'thuzad to devastating effect in limited, but Alexstraza and Ysera don't have nearly as much of an immediate impact on the game, so while a pleasant surprise to see peeking out of my first pack, Ysera was put on the sidelines.
Kentro Slade didn't get played as I was overflowing with four-drops in the Alliance, though amusingly I had all the pieces to make him workable - Venerable Mass of McGowan, Etched Dragonbone Girdle, Swift Hand of Justice, Ysera. A five-card combo in a thirty card deck didn't seem like a particularly sensible idea though!
Venerable Mass of McGowan isn't so good without something to stash, which left the remaining three. I reckon Seeping Shadows will be a nightmare in this format - milling is always powerful in limited due to the half-size decks, and Worldbreaker brings with it very little by way of ability removal. Jhuunash is a monster at any point in the game, and Earth and Moon is devastating if your deck contains enough Arcane and Nature damage.
I was a little disappointed with my ally pool - Alliance was very low-end heavy, and the Horde had lots of scary-looking gaps in, but after taking a peek at my class abilities (2x Fear vs Earth and Moon and Entangling Roots) I picked Alliance Druid and resolved to simply overpower my opponents with big numbers rather than trying to stall them. I ended up with the following.
Pairings are called and I sit in between two other Druid players, one of whom also pulled Earth and Moon. After not seeing much play in Scourgewar block, it's proving quite the popular choice, likely down to Entangling Roots - it's no-nonsense, difficult to remove, and instant.
We're playing best of one due to time constraints, so opening hand is vital...
Game 1 vs Josh, playing some cards (1-0)
Josh is a youngster who seems to play just about everything going, and he certainly knows his stuff. I can't remember exactly what he played, but I do remember seeing a Mottled Drake in his deck. I pulled a ridiculous hand and curved out nicely with the Worgen crew and the game was over in a few minutes. Taking a quick look through his deck he'd committed the #1 Limited Error: Playing the class with the most abilities.
Game 2 vs Nik, playing some other cards (2-0)
Every month or so I travel to Birmingham to play boardgames and stuff with a couple of friends who I met through the TCG. Nik is one of those friends and as a result this was a must-win for fear of mockery. No particular details but it was pretty even until I managed to drop a five-drop for three turns in a row, then Earth and Moon; after that I had the upper hand and wasn't about to let it go. Nik probably called me names as a result. <3
Game 3 vs Pukey, playing Alliance Druid with Earth and Moon (2-1)
Two wins in and I was just getting in to the swing of things. The Druid player I mentioned earlier was now sat opposite me and it was shaping up to be a pretty even matchup. I started off aggressively with T1 Worgen, T2 Worgen, T3 Earth and Moon into Big Numbers, but it wasn't long before the opposing EaM hit the table and his hero went facedown.
This was where I started to struggle. Contained within my deck was precisely zero healing, and also zero hate for equipment or abilities (none in the Horde either). Pukey dropped a Lockjaw and immediately got to work being nasty - each turn he could pay 2 to heal something using the Lockjaw, and ping an ally for 3, enabling him to refill his hand whilst keeping control of my board for a low price.
The game effectively ended when he dropped Koeus, killing my Earth and Moon. I continued to drop allies but they were merely fodder for his flip, and I was left to lament not attempting to rush out while I had the chance earlier.
Game 4 vs Jack Fejer, playing Alliance Death Knight (2-2)
"I'm only playing one Death Knight ability," announced Jack as he sat down at the table, before showing me a copy of Unholy Ground, followed by a copy of Frenzy, proving once and for all that he doesn't really understand numbers. I was pretty surprised to be facing Jack as he'd been steamrollering everyone else in his path, but he'd lost his third round to his missus, who was also playing Druid. Unholy Ground just didn't come up for him that game.
It did in this one. Turn four, to be precise, at which point he told me he was going to make me sad, before trading all his allies away only to be replaced with stinky Ghouls. And that was that really!
As this game had also gone incredibly quickly, we had a rematch. Now I knew the main win condition, and knew that I couldn't destroy it - so I needed to take an aggressive approach.
I didn't win that either - every Worgen I had was thrown at his face and I was two damage short of the kill. Unholy Ground is an absolute monster.
2-2 placed me about half way down the field, nowhere near the big prizes - I took my 'Sympathy Pack' (Chimera like to give all participants a prize) and cracked a Boomer. Not too bad. After this was the Feast of Winter Veil, which I would rather not talk about in depth as I finished 2-2 in that as well, getting humped by my own backup deck (a shoddy Gnome Priest I threw together a few days before) after running out of cards and seeing all four Snipes and Both Kel'thuzads in the bottom ten cards of the deck, and Mike from Birmingham, who destroyed my Pappy Ironbane with a Betrayer of Humanity - and then three turns later I was dead, having milled through half of my deck looking for a card that would save me.
I shouldn't have lost to either deck - I was playing the updated version of my Snipey Idiot Hunter and on paper both of the decks I lost to should have succumbed pretty easily, but them's the breaks :) I did have fun slowly taking a Gift of the Earthmother Druid to pieces with it though.
I gladly took my sympathy pack, containing another Boomer, and left the store via the cash desk having purchased an entire box of Worldbreaker as it was discounted. Oops.
Today's escapades to follow...
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