Doesn't sound too good on paper, does it? Well, seeing as I lent practically all of my cards out for EUCC I've got no decks of my own to talk about, so I'd like to discuss Marko's instead.
The deck can be described quite succinctly as "aggro". The key cards are Azjol-Anak Champion, All Things in Good Time, and the cards that benefit from entering or being in your graveyard - Uruka, Incendiary Totem, Stormstrike Mace and Broderick.
I had chance to play a couple of games with a very similar version of this deck before handing it over to Matt Light (who Top 64d with it - well done mate). Despite looking a bit like a horrible pile on paper, the deck is surprisingly explosive in pretty much every way.
It draws tons of cards - Elemental Vision will quite often draw you a card and net you another positive effect from the cards that hit the bin, Conversing with the Depths has drawn me five cards for three resources more than once, and if all else fails, All Things in Good Time will draw three for eight resources. Grazzle Grubhook sifts through your deck for you, and has a funny name to boot. Grazzle Grazzle Grazzle.
It does stuff 'for free' - Grazzle Grubhook is a miracle worker in this deck, and quite often you can streamline your hand and gain benefits from the cards you discard. Activating Grazzle and discarding a Uruka in response to your opponent's draw is a surefire way to lose friends - and best of all you got a card out of it.
It shits out damage like you wouldn't believe. Let's say it's turn four. On turn three I played an Azjol-Anak Champion. It is a 3/3. On turn four I attack with it, and after it enters combat, I complete All Things in Good Time, discarding a Uruka, an Incendiary Totem and a Stormstrike Mace, readying the champion and also turning it into a 6/6. Combat concludes, you take 6 from the spider, 3 from the Totem and however many from Uruka - and the spider can attack again.
Then I drop a resource and play Edge of Oblivion or Feral Spirit. Does that sound good?
Of course that's something of an unrealistic expectation to have happen every game, but the deck shines in its resilience - even when you don't deal twenty damage on the third turn you will still be able to put your opponent on the back foot for very little effort on your part.
This deck was a breakout hit at the North American Continentals, though Marko has made a subtle change to the decklist that did so well back then. See those two Wavestorm Totems? They were Wind Shears in the original decklist - and given the furore over the Bunny Deck which I spoke about briefly a week or two ago, it was largely expected that the deck Marko played would pack extra Wind Shear to deal with it, as it was suspected the deck would be ubiquitous at EUCC.
Instead, it had a mere eight pilots, only two of which finished with a positive win/loss record.
Wavestorm Totem is a great card for the mirror match, and a lot of other matches to go alongside that. Not only does it prevent your opponent from doing too many shenanigans readying their allies several times during a turn, it also lets you make extra use of the Stormstrike Mace - readying your opponent's allies to bounce them back to their hand!
A pretty inspired choice all in all. Congratulations go to Marko once again for taking the tournament down - if you want to know more, maybe read some of the feature matches that are linked to here.
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The Spectral Safaris are coming up soon - there are ten locations in the UK hosting one and I will be lucky enough to attend one on both days of the Safari weekend. Like last year, the Safaris will be played with Class Starter Decks and a Spectral Tiger will be given out as a door prize to one player who completes the entire event.
I, along with many others, wasn't especially impressed with last year's Class Starter decks. They were a nice idea and were probably great for new players, but as a player of about two years at that point, they basically boiled down to one thing - stall to turn 7 and play the big powerful guy whilst having something in hand to kill your opponent's big powerful guy. Add to that the randomisation aspect of the decks, where you were given a set pack of abilities for your class but a random selection of allies, and the relatively low power level of the decks, and they made for something of an awkward experience.
This year they've got things right in a lot of the places that matter. Steve and I have four decks between us - Horde Warrior, Horde Death Knight, Alliance Paladin and Alliance Priest. Each deck is a fixed sixty cards so you always know what you're going to get, and the contents have been themed somewhat.
The Horde Death Knight hero is an undead, and his ally friends are all Death Knights, Undeads, or both. The Paladin deck features a large number of Humans and Paladins, and so on. As a result the decks feel thematically cute and also make it more reasonable to prepare for what your opponent might be playing when they sit down with a particular deck.
Last night we swapped the decks around a bit and had a few games. Before we started the Death Knight was the clear favourite - Gargoyle is very good indeed and Unholy Ground will just run rampant if left unchecked. However, on the night it did not perform as expected, losing every game that it played. The Priest deck is very heavy on healing (including the excellent Holy Talent, Circle of Healing) and can make games go very long; the Warrior is not so reliant on armour to win now and can quite easily rush you with the aid of Battle Shout, and bizarrely, the Paladin deck was my personal favourite - full of cantrip* effects, this one is swimming in card advantage, as well as some quality rare cards - Holy Shock is excellent whichever way you look at it, Wrath of Turalyon has its uses and Seal of Wrath is... well, it's ok I guess.
What makes Seal of Wrath playable is the inclusion of weapon cost reducer effects - Edgemaster's Handguards lets you swing weapons for 1 less, as does Andiss Butcherson. Have both in play and that Angry Dread you control is swinging for free, dealing 2 and then a further 2 from Seal of Wrath. Add in cantripped heals, Hammer of Justice and a solid (if expensive) flip, the Paladin deck is a surprise package that I would not be at all unhappy to unwrap come Tiger Day.If I had one complaint, it would be about one of the cards in the Horde Death Knight deck - Dark Cleric Jocasta. Remember how I said that all the allies were either Undead or Death Knights? Well, Jocasta was printed as a way of recurring your allies from the graveyard, and she works great. Unfortunately, when Whitney Gravecaller exists, Jocasta seems like an awkward choice to include...
Anyway. Go win some tigers. If you're a new player then this is the absolute perfect event for you - find out where your nearest Safari is, turn up and wreck some face. It will be worth it.
*A cantrip effect is basically a card that gives you an effect, and then draws you a card - Hammer of Justice for instance.
The great thing about Wavestorm is that as long you have it with a Squall Totem you can stop the Bunnies on the big turn, then bounce them back to hand when they ready.
ReplyDeletere: Class Starters
Have you seen anything in those decks which lets you handle Loque? Otherwise playing against a Hunter you better pray its at the bottom of their deck.
What is the fancy doodad which shows the card text in the tooltip?
It's a cute little thing offered by Deckbox.org - it's no more effort to do than linking to WoWTCGdb was and it saves people from having to load external sites to find out what a card does.
ReplyDeleteAs for the class starters - I hear killing your opponent before Loque kills you works quite nicely. I played against Morgan, who was using the Hunter deck, on Wednesday - I found that I could outrush him with the Claymore, but he then dropped a Cobra Shot for 8 on me the turn before I would have killed him.
So, umm, that didn't work.