With the World of Warcraft TCG Worlds event going on in Amsterdam, all of the players at Grasshopper’s were completely enthralled in anything and everything Wow TCG. Whether it was speculating how the new Dungeon decks would affect the metagame or checking our iPhones to see who was doing well at Worlds, everyone at the store was talking about WoW. With everyone so focused on the game, the only logical conclusion was to sit everyone down and run a Battlegrounds tournament. With everyone eager to play we got the tournament off the ground and the six of us went to battle with dreams of playing in the Worlds event floating in our minds.
The Deck
I choose to play the same Druid rush deck that I ran the week prior in the Hallow’s End tournament but with a few minor changes. I know longer had Deathwing in the deck and instead replaced him with Avatar of the Wild. I had always been skeptical about Avatar of the Wild as it always appeared to be a “win more” card to me, but I wouldn’t really know that for sure until I put it in the deck and playtested it. For more on what exactly a “win more” card is, be sure to stay tuned for one of my upcoming articles.
Round 1 vs. Bill Powers (Horde Holy Paladin)
This was a rematch from the Hallow’s End tournament a week earlier that did not go so well for me. In that game I had a horrible opening hand and a curve that was exactly one turn off from the optimum curve, allowing Bill to effectively shut me down quickly and quietly. This game, however, went quite differently. I opened the game with a stashed Magni turn one, followed a Verdant Boon on turn two. Surge of Power hit the table on turn three and I was breaking through for quite a big of damage. On turn four I played a Fungal Growth and it was rather smooth sailing from there. This was large in part due to the fact Bill never drew into a Holy Wrath, a card which is the absolute bane of my deck. It is essentially a turn six reset button that puts my opponent in the driver seat, and it is extremely hard for my deck to come back from. He never drew one, though, so my army of Treants plus two 5/5 Behemoth tokens were enough to finish Bill off on my turn seven.
1-0
Round 2 vs. Ricky Hahn (Alliance Holy Paladin)
Unfortunately for Ricky, this game went exactly as it did the week before in the Hallow’s End tournament. I mulliganed into an amazing curve that saw me swarm him with Treants far too quicky for him to handle. It didn’t help him that his deck is in a sort of transition period where he is tweaking it a lot, but that is something that will be worked out with time. To put it plainly, I steamrolled Ricky and can’t recall taking any damage on my hero.
2-0
Round 3 vs. Dan Sotelo (Monster Warrior)
This was going to be an exactly match for me for two reasons: first, that I hadn’t played against Dan in a game of World of Warcraft since Origins, and secondly, that this was my first game against a Monster deck. I knew going into the game that it was Murloc build and figured we would be trying to out rush each other. Our first couple of turns saw us both drop a few cheap allies, mine being Treant tokens and his being cheap Murloc allies. On turn three, however, I played a Stevrona to pump my Treants, allowing me to wipe his board of allies while keeping a few of mine alive. From here I was allowed the chance to build up my board a bit because Dan was low on cards in his hand and was unlucky with a few of his quests. He did start to stabilize, however, when he played the Murloc that makes himself an all other Murlocs have Elusive while ready. This meant that I couldn’t suppress his board at all and instead had to go in for the win before he could take board control. I secured the win by dropping a Surge of Power and a Stevrona on the same turn (I was holding both as to not overextend myself) and him with a bunch of 4/4 Treant tokens to end the game.
3-0
Round 4 vs. Joe Yackel (Horde Mage)
I knew this game was going to be a rough one going in as Yackel lent me the cards to build my deck and therefore knew it card for card. Also, I am not terribly familiar with Mages (which is my own fault) so I would have to be on my toes the entire game. It ended up being a very back and forth game with a lot of swings, which was really exciting for me as my deck had been playing pretty straightforward all day and I didn’t get a chance to test my deck against any huge problems.
I opted not to mulligan my hand as it had a really nice curve but was slightly dependent on Yackel not having a turn 1 kill card. I used an Avatar of the Wild on my first turn to get a 1/1 token in hopes of using it to fuel Verdant Boon on my next turn. Unfortunately, Joe had a Scorch in his hand that killed my ally token and slowed me down. Thankfully, though, his first few turns were used to uses quests and draw cards, allowing me to breathe a little bit as I didn’t have to handle any pressure. I used this time to play a Davius on turn three, accelerating my resources. I then played a Starburst and a Bottled Life on turn five, accelerating my resources even more and getting some Treants on the board. Turn six saw me play the Verdant Boon that I had had from my opening hand, plus a Surge of Power, leaving me with five 2/2 Treants on the board.
Despite his large handsize, Yackel didn’t have many ways to deal with these Treants and ended up taking quite a bit of damage on my turn six when I played another Surge of Power. The game changed completely, however, when Yackel played a Mana Shift on his next turn, taking both of my copies of Surge of Power. This is a prime example of why knowing what options your opponent has is of critical importance. Had I been more familiar with the Mage and known that Mana Shift did, it is likely that I would not have played my second Surge of Power. Playing it did give me extra damage that broke through to his hero, but saving it would have been much more beneficial. It is likely that he still would have played the Mana Shift just to take away the one Surge of Power I had as it was his only real option to stay alive. Had I held onto the second one I could have dropped it on my next turn, re-buffed my allies, and have a much tighter control of the game.
Unfortunately for me, though, I played it as I did and was left with no Surge of Power or allies as he quickly dispatched them with ferocity allies and a Scorch. At this point Yackel was in complete control of the game with board and hand advantage. Luckily for me, though, I drew into a Jessa the Lifebound and a Bottled Life. The Jessa allowed me to stop a hit from Mazukon and put a serious hurt on him while simultaneously giving me three Treants. This, coupled with Bottled Life and a recently drawn Fungal Growth, really got me back into the game as I now had five 1/1 Treants and one 5/5 Behemoth.
From this point forward Joe and I were basically trading blows and trying to get through for as much damage as possible. He had the edge on me, however, as a few of his late game allies had Protector and stopped my small Treants from getting through to the hero. A late game Lordann the Bloodreaver from Yackel really shut me down as he alone could tackle my Behemoth token and live. As hard as I tried I simply couldn’t handle the number of protectors he had, and without any of my own I had no way to stop him from breaking through and winning the game.
3-1
Conclusion
My 3-1 record saw me finish in first place and take down the tournament. This was my first tournament victory in quite a long time and it felt good to get one under my belt. It also was a strong indicator that my deck is working as I want it to and that only a couple more tweaks are necessary. I am definitely going to make some changes to it that I hope I will be able to test out in the tournament this week.
Also, I really have to remember to start reading through all the cards that way I never fall prey to a situation like the one that came up against Yackel. Losing that game was simply due to the fact that I was unprepared to play against a Mage and I had had the knowledge that I have now it is likely I would have come out of that game the winner. I will certainly learn from that mistake and be much more mindful of all cards in the future.
Final Results:
1st – Terence Dorman (myself)
2nd – Dan Sotelo
3rd – Joe Yackel
4th – Adam Teitelbaum
5th – Ricky Han
6th – Bill Powers
Funny Anecdote: As I’m sure most of you know, Horde Paladin decks were wildly successful at the Worlds Tournament, taking quite a few spots in the Top 16 and Top 8 of the World Championships. In our Battleground tournament, held on the same day as Worlds, we had three players playing Paladin decks. Those three players came in the bottom three of our small six person event. To be fair, only one of them was playing a Grand Crusader build, but I still think it is pretty funny that the Paladins were outperformed on the same day they dominated the World Championship.
Pingback: New Tournament Report on Diannara | TerenceDorman.com