It's been quiet on here for a couple of weeks. Post-Realms I've been preparing for the event that happened today - the Ultimate Peon Championship, a win-a-box tournament in the Lazy Peon format.
For those who haven't heard of it before, Lazy Peon is a format that restricts your card pool to Commons and Uncommons only. This particular event was Core peon, best of one.
This was looking to be a pretty well-attended tournament and with a decent prize on the line and a completely blank slate of a metagame, I threw myself into deckbuilding and testing mode. The first obstacle with testing your new creation is how relevant the tests are - I took one of my first decks online and while it performed well, facing down
King Genn Greymane and three
Death Wish is not helpful when you're trying to figure out what really works for your deck. See also:
Hesriana,
Utopia,
Dethvir...
I eventually whittled my card pool down to two decks. Lost by the wayside were a Warlock hand disruption deck, Rogue hand disruption, Mage interrupts/
Everlasting Cold [all too inconsistent], Druid Dragonkin aggro [again inconsistent, but can shit out 12 damage from nowhere],
Witch Doctor Koo'zar [everything dies too easily], and a comedy version of the
Fel Trade/
Phylactery deck that did the rounds a while ago. Let's just say that Fel Trading into
Zophos or
Madrea Bluntbrew is amusing but not quite as effective as
King Varian Wrynn.
Anyway. Up until about three days ago, here's what I was playing.
General Lightsbane
3
Eye of the Storm
3
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin
4
Dark Horizon
3
A Rare Bean
8
Banshee Soulclaimer
4
Koeus
4
Mikael the Blunt
2
Pappy Ironbane
3
Bonefist Gauntlets
3
Greathelm of the Scourge Champion
4
Reaper of Dark Souls
2
Runed Soulblade
4
Plague Strike
4
Withering Decay
4
Blood Strike
3
Entomb
3
Tuskarr Kite
3
Death Strike
Yes; that is 64 cards. It was originally less, and went through a few variations - a version containing
Grumdur to help against early rush (and turning on my flip), a version running
Ymirheim Chosen Warrior, more diseases, no diseases... The biggest problem was that everything in the deck served a valid and important purpose so cutting was proving a nightmare.
Around this time I'd been doing some last-minute testing with Matt Cooper, who sadly couldn't make it in the end. He'd been saying all along he wasn't too fond of this deck, and I was beginning to agree - the more I played it, the less consistent the deck became, having originally contained largely even-costed cards so that
Concerted Efforts would have a very high hit rate, and against decks that packed a lot of removal - like Matt's, which contained four
Cromarius, four
Munkin, and four
Suspended Curse - it really struggled, as everything had a target.
It still destroyed the deck it was designed to beat (basically any deck with Aberration guys in it) but other than that, it wasn't performing as expected.
My other deck was more of a backup for a long time. It was the first one I really threw together that I was truly happy with, but again it needed cards cutting and was a bit rough around the edges, despite having enormous draw power.
Lord Benjamin Tremendouson
3
Eye of the Storm
2
Whirlwind Weapon
3
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin
4
A Rare Bean
4
Boots of the Resilient
4
Bonefist Gauntlets
3
Golem Skull Helm
3
Slayer's Waistguard
3
Draconian Deflector
4
Reaper of Dark Souls
3
Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver
4
Bloody Ritual
4
Absolute Poise
3
Heroic Throw
3
Payment of Blood
3
Chaotic Rush
3
Reinforced Steel
4
Mikael the Blunt
2
Pappy Ironbane
I'd fallen out with this deck a little - the initial draft was the best for a very long time, which was pretty similar to the above only containing three
Ornate Adamantium Breastplates over the Absolute Poise. Then I broke it a bit - trying to make my worst matchups better by adding
Taunt and
Annihilator - then deciding the other deck was better. Eventually the Taunt and Annhiliator came out, the armour numbers were tweaked a little bit, removing the Breastplate entirely and upping the Boots and Gauntlets to four-ofs, and adding in the Absolute Poise (Matt's suggestion - "Interrupt their Bloody Ritual, then win!") to give me some game against abilities before turn 7.
The deck isn't very subtle really. I spend the first turn doing nothing, the next four or five adding bits of armour to the table, then doing something to clear the opposing board, dropping a big weapon, and ending the game in two or three turns. Also I draw cards. Lots and lots of cards. Especially off A Rare Bean, with the deck's ~50 Uncommon cards.
Unfortunately the event wasn't as well-attended as hoped. Despite the prize pool (24 packs for the winner, 12 for second, and the rest declining based on attendance) only eight people turned up. I don't know how much of this is down to the Zapped Giants Open being scheduled for the 18th of June, but all the people who were travelling from far away for this are now going to that instead. It's a shame, but that's how it goes I guess!
Round 1: vs Asher playing DK DoTs
This was pretty textbook - that plan I mentioned earlier about tanking up, clearing the board and ending the game? That's just about what happened here - I had no play until the third turn, but after a few turns where I had less armour than there were DoTs on my hero, I resolved a Bloody Ritual, drew into several new pieces, dropped a Pappy and he ran riot for the rest of the game.
At one point I had all three Reinforced Steel out on the table. "This armour prevents five, this one six, this one... nine." [1-0]
Round 2: vs Ryan Taylor playing the Druid deck I mentioned earlier on
Ryan prodded me on Facebook the night before, mentioning that he was unlikely to come as he'd been unable to sort himself out a deck. Five minutes on MWS and five minutes in the cards box later, that was rectified with some recyclings of the decks that didn't quite make it.
The deck is pretty simple really - untap with
Azure Skyrazor and win. It also has other Dragonkin and the
Skinned Whelp Shoulders to pile on the early damage.
I mulliganed from an armour-less hand to something slightly better - Bonefist and Boots. This didn't faze Ryan much though as he proceeded to god-draw me - turn 1
Emerald Captain, turn 2
Ruby Flameblade, turn 3 Skinned Whelp Shoulders, turn 4 Azure Skyrazor, turn 5
Natural Repossession to destroy the Boots and hit me for a disgusting amount.
I flipped on my fourth turn to drop the first two dragons so that the shoulders wouldn't be quite so useful, and the only benefit of not having any cards to play early in the game is that I still held six in hand. Amongst them, a Reaper, a Cleaver, another Bonefist to join the one still on the table and a Heroic Throw, along with some other armour and a Reinforced Steel. On the opposite side, Shoulders and the Azure Skyrazor. I have five resources - I need to kill the Skyrazor or I'm buggered.
After a good four or five minutes' thinking, I opted to Heroic Throw the Skyrazor, discarding the Cleaver; I made a Reaper with 1ATK and finished off the dragon, preventing the damage with the gauntlets, and then played my new set of Gauntlets over the top. Sat on 24 damage and knowing how the deck can just do a ton of damage out of nowhere, I may have effectively used four cards and tapped out just to kill one ally, but desperate times.
It was the right choice. A dragon surfaced but the Shoulders weren't able to get through the wall of steel, and a few quest completions later I was sat with Pappy on board, seven cards in hand, fully suited and still holding that same Reaper - only now it was hitting for significantly more thanks to the Reinforced Steels on the table.
Still on 24 damage. [2-0]
Round 3: vs Dan Goodman also playing DK DoTs
This wasn't really a match I was looking forward to. We'd played pretty much this exact matchup over MWS a few days back and it hadn't ended so well for me. Luckily the deck threw me a bone - a couple of quests in the opening hand and a lovely curve of armour. I believe it went something like this:
T1 N/A, T2 Bonefist, T3 Boots, T4 Draconian Deflector, T5 Bloody Ritual, T6 Waistguard and Helm, T7 Pappy
By this point I was preventing each and every damage dealt to me by the DoTs Dan had laid over the course of the game, and when Pappy came down, popping one of Dan's diseases, he had to
Obliterate and
Blood Boil just to kill the Dwarven dickhead - leaving him with no cards in hand. He topdecked two diseases in a row but I'd killed him with a fat Reaper way before the damage became relevant. [3-0]
Round 4: vs Jack Fejer, playing Worgen, Warlocks, and a Worgen Warlock
Oh look - Jack in the final round! This has only happened at two individual Realm Championships, a Stoke RCQ and, randomly, the Scourgewar Release Celebration at Ripley all that time ago. On all but one of those occasions, Jack has been the victor, and the Realm Qualifier was an extremely similar situation - I'm 3-0, he's 2-1, and he knobbed me on tiebreakers to take home first place.
Not this time sonny Jim. He nicked my Bloody Ritual with a turn 3
Horatio Plaguetouch/
Lesson (I did have to stare at Horatio for a couple of minutes as I've not seen him played since the aforementioned Scourgewar release) but after I flipped on an
Alister and a
Garet, then tanked up enough to prevent any hope of further damage being done, Jack declared a mis-row (perhaps another Bloody Ritual, I forget) and scooped up his cards in the face of impending sword/face action. [4-0]
So yeah - I won a thing! My prize was a box of War of the Elements, a pack of Archives, an Icecrown Citadel Treasure Pack, and a t-shirt that I'm not ever wearing because it's, umm, too big and for no other reason honest:
Anyone want to trade for a t-shirt?
With the benefits of hindsight, I wouldn't want to change a great deal of the deck; however, an extra Pappy would go a long way, and the Colossal Skull-Clad Cleavers really should have been Annihilators so as not to cause hand-count issues with the Draconian Deflectors, but I kinda don't own any which may be an issue.
--
A footnote regarding the two-pack we played earlier. Two-pack is a format where you open two packs of product, shuffle them face-down, pick a hero from the two that you opened, and start playing. This much is pretty much set in stone these days.
What differs from place to place is what you do when you play more than one round of two-pack. Some places open more packs, others use the same decks, but in Stoke, they have a unique twist on it. At the end of the game, you swap decks with your opponent. I'm not sure how I feel about this format, though there is some satisfaction to be derived from beating people with the deck they just told you was shit. Unfortunately I ended up with a genuine pile during the fourth game and faced off against my original two packs, which contained a
Soridormi - which is not far off being a bomb in limited! Needless to say she joined the field and only left when my face was smashed into a bloody pulp.
Either way, I'm not sure how I felt about this format, and I'm old and don't like change, so I'm christening it 'Tard Pack'.
 |
| Dan Knight, thinking up new formats to play in Stoke |
So. Starting off with the new ability pairs. Each class will have a pair of cards like these - one that destroys something and one that does something for you when it is destroyed.
Zor'dul Deathbinder is about the only thing I can envisage destroying with Twisted Death Pact, and even then - you've spent two cards, drawn one, and gained a blank 3/3 for a net cost of three resources.
Probably proving why I am no good at this game is Flamebringer Gaxix - an ally which interests me much more than Lyrana, simply down to how much easier it is to make his power useful. A potential 8/7 for 6 is simply good value and while his five health leaves a little to be desired, the potential bonuses make him highly playable in limited and worth pissing around with in constructed at the very least.
I don't know what to say about Blade of the Burning Sun. It can be used on turn 4, doesn't require any additional resources and merely requires you to put a load of fire cards in your deck. You can even reveal Alexstrasza and give your allies Assault 25 if you're lucky.
Is it too good to be true, or will it end up being one of those cards that is just not quite good enough, like Worldbreaker's Aspect of the Wild? As the UK's resident 'Pinprik Guy' I am looking forward to going back to flinging fire around for a living even if my little impish friend can't be with me.
Having to pay 6 for Terrastra does take the shine off that a little, and while you can now stash that second Adam Eternum for a little extra firepower, I don't think he's likely to make too many waves on the tournament scene. Maybe we'll see a new version of the Paladin Lava Dredger deck that also spawns 2/1s?
The Obsidian and Twilight dragonflights make their debut in this set too - bringing with them some much-needed utility with their ability to destroy things when they themselves hit the bin. The Obsidian Drakonid pops abilities, and the participation card for the Twilight release celebrations pops allies when it dies.
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.
