I got up at 7.30 this morning. That's no time to be up on a Sunday. I was making the trip down to Daventry for a sealed Realm Championship Qualifier - probably the only one I'd get to play in this season. The original plan was for Dan (whizzwang) to meet me at Derby train station and we'd make the journey down the M1. Instead, we discovered that there are no trains heading Eastwards until 2:30pm.
We got there in the end.
The destination was VaultCon, a tournament weekend held by Daventry's The Games Vault. It had already been going for a day, hosting a Magic: The Gathering tournament, a two-day Blood Bowl tournament (which was packed) and other bits and bobs.
Turnout was ten - three from Norwich, one local, four from Beeston, Mister Warcraft In Japan himself, and me. Format was Worldbreaker Sealed, best of three, four hour-long rounds.
Was hoping for a good sealed pool, didn't open anything super-bomby but opened enough quality cards for three classes - Hunter (Boomer, Stakethrower), Rogue (3x Aggressive Exploitation, Gutbuster) and Warrior. Unused rares in the end were Boomer, Dancing Rune Weapon and Abracadaver.
Contained in the first pack was Gutbuster, and immediately I knew that if I had a decent set of blue guys I'd be in a strong position.
Peter Hottelet
 |
| I heard this card is quite good |
Hira
Nami Dabpox
Varandas Silverleaf
Fenton Guardmont
Laenthor Shademoon
2 Bella Wilder
2 Andrew Ulric
Alador Stonebrew
Wazix Blonktop
2 Furan Rookbane
Bayner Cogbertson
2 Ruby Enforcer
Emerald Wanderer
Ruby Skyrazor
Emerald Acidspewer
Crushing Strike
Thunderous Challenge
Polished Breastplate of Valor
Gutbuster
Warmace of Menethil
2 Challenge to the Black Flight
Counting Out Time
Corrosion Prevention
A Matter of Time
The Key to Freedom
I eventually decided on the weapons-based removal rather than the targeted damage removal of Rogue due to the likelihood of meeting Aberration in this format. Drawing a card off the Warmace seems kinda good too.
Round 1: vs Red Paladin, played by Phil Monk
There seems to be a theme where whenever I end up with the Polished Breastplate in limited, I will invariably end up facing a Rekwa at some point. At least it means I have an extra face-down resource in this matchup!
I started off pretty aggressively and eventually dropped a Warmace. In response, my opponent's Cadon Thundershade received a Blessing of Defense. Attack him if you dare - he'll hit you back for nine.
I dared. It paid off, the board was kept clear and the Warmace started getting even bigger thanks to Peter's flip.
Game 2 involved a slower start for me, but after trading allies for a few turns I dropped the Gutbuster this time, flipped the following turn, and swung for two. There was little my opponent could do but drop a Cadon and a Ruby Skyrazor.
"I'm going to kill the fuck out of those!" I confidently declared, smacking Cadon with the Gutbuster, readying my hero and the mace. I took another Blessing of Defense to the face for my cockiness, and with the buster sat at six ATK, passed turn only to find my new best friend Stasis'd. It was too little too late and my deck fed me a string of large men to compensate for my loss of hitty stick. [1-0]
R2: vs Damon McCartney, Blue Hunter
Damon opened a nice set of Hunter cards including a disparate amount of equipment, and after having my Breastplate blown up by Terina Calin in game one, I knew he had the tools to deal with my key cards too. Lucky for me the Warmace did the job in the first game, 'safe' from the expended removal ally that was sat in Damon's graveyard.
I sideboarded out Nami and added a second Crushing Strike as taking out the Stakethrower Damon was toting would probably prove key to the matchup. It turned out the Stakethrower was the least of my issues, as on turn three I was facing down a Charmed Ancient Bone Bow instead.
It picked off a good few of my allies but no stash bits were showing up for Damon, nor any quests - and despite running out of cards myself I managed to rip a Crushing Strike off the top ("Don't destroy it yet, I've not even stashed anything on it") and then close out the game from there.
I was lucky that Damon was still in MTG mode - there were a few times he didn't attack when it would have done a few damage to my hero and maybe stopped me being quite so reckless with the Warmace in the first game, and was attacking my hero with the basic Stakethrower rather than spunking it on the first five-health ally that hit the table. [2-0]
Round 3: vs Tom Robinson, Blue Hunter
"I was hoping to avoid playing you - I hear your deck is good."
Tom didn't necessarily share my opinion of his deck but I was pretty wary all the same. Like most games the Warmace decided the first, but I saw two Tesla turn up for duty, taking out any dangerous allies on my table with little trouble.
The second game I mulliganed into a no-weapon hand but could curve out nicely. I untapped on turn four with a Ruby Enforcer in play and started dropping progressively bigger guys. It took a few turns before Tom drew a Tesla, and the damage was racking up on his hero at this point.
Neil was sat watching, having finished his game, and the turning point of the game came when Tom took out my Furan Rookbane with his Tesla rather than taking out the Ruby Enforcer. I guess it all depended on what I might have in my hand - killing the enforcer would slow the game down, but killing the big guy would hopefully quell the stream of damage.
I had Bayner Cogbertson. [3-0]
We played the third game as a friendly and I got rushed out - I could only drop the Warmace towards the end of the game when there was too much damage on my hero to make use of it.
Round 4: vs Neil Rigby, Blue Warlock
Yeah so I won game 1 with Warmace yeah. I can't think of a way of making it sound interesting.
Game 2 was full of disgusting Rigby-shaped rush. I had a slow start and Neil opened with Sardok, then double Emerald Captain, then Robe of Whatsitcalled to give them all +1/+1. I threatened to stabilise a couple of times with protectors but Neil had the Nether Inversion for them and even after forgetting to attack one turn, he still took me down with relative ease.
I can't remember anything about game three, other than that I won... [4-0]
"I've not lost a game in limited that hasn't been down to weapons," Neil lamented. "There's just so little removal for them in the format."
This is true - I'm 2-0 against Neil so far, the other time being when I made a turn 3 Mass of McGowan and then stashed a thing to make it big.
So I finally won one! Nine packs for my trouble, and Neil who I'd just beaten cracked a Mottled Drake loot. All my pack contents were shit.
We had a six-man draft with the prizes, and I came third going 2-1. I had a class switch which I'm not convinced was the best idea - I started off drafting druid, with my first three picks in pack 1 being Mark of the Untamed, another Mark, and an Entangling Roots.
After this the Druid stuff dried up and I noticed some good Warrior stuff tabling, so I took that as a backup.
Turns out I was the only druid at the table, but there was just no good stuff doing the rounds after the first pack! I had a relatively solid red ally suite but after losing the second game to a heavy Nature-based Shaman removal deck, I began to have doubts about my choice.
Jumo'zin: When Jumo'zin is dealt combat damage while defending, he deals 1 nature damage to the source of that damage.
2x Mark of the Wild, Entangling Roots, Faerie Fire, Flourish, Savage Bear Form
vs
Jai Dawnsteel: Your weapons have +1 ATK.
2x Execute, 2x Thunderous Challenge, Crushing Strike, Citadel Enforcer's Claymore
I'm still not fond of the claymore. It's great for taking out big guys but when you're faced with a board of small allies and no way of removing them in hand, the claymore is a terrible option. Pay 4, swing into your 1/1 Mighty U'cha token? Errr.
What would you have done?
--
Big ups to The Games Vault for running Vaultcon, Gary Stevenson for walking home with the draft and a King Genn to go with his Alexstrasza playmat.
Anyone want to buy a foil Freezing Band?
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