Realm Championships

The top 8 was:

Matt Walsh with Alliance Rogue Solo
Gavin Price with Daspien Blackblade Solo
Jon Loucks with Vorna Control
? Warrior Solo
Daniel Hanson (me) with Taheo Skyspeaker Midrange
Chris with Kil'zin
Kevin Lambert with Black Ice Myriam
Alex Kim with Midrange Warlock

The top 8 was great for a few reasons:

• It was very diverse with the only deck represented twice being Rogue Solo (and they were different heroes)
  
• It shows that skill is very relevant in WoW Constructed (I saw a lot of the same people repeatedly top 8 realm qualifiers)
  
• Seattle players are awesome

I'll post a short tournament report later.

I played a midrange Taheo Skyspeaker deck. It looked like this:

4 Offender Gora
4 Scout Omerta
4 Marksman Glous
3 Himul Longstrider
4 Johnny Rotten
4 Quakelord Razek Warhoof
4 Munkin Blackfist
1 Doshura Risestrider
4 Ras'fari Bloodfrenzy
4 Insect Swarm
2 Wrath
4 Stormfire
2 The Natural Order
4 Orders from Lady Vashj
4 A Rare Bean
4 Kibler's Exotic Pets
4 One Draenei's Junk

SB:
3 Doshura Risestrider
1 The Natural Order
2 Rebirth
4 Roktar Blackfist

Biggest problem with the deck: The More the Scarier crushes it.

Round 1 against JP with Arcane Mage Control

Game one: He gets a poor draw and I curve out under slow.

Game two: He gets another poor looking draw and I play 3 Roktar Blackfist to keep him from getting anywhere.

Round 2 against Matt with Alliance Paladin Aggro

Both games go about the same. I put on a lot of pressure, kill some weapons with Munkin and he draws no Holy Shocks so I win easily.

Round 3 against Chris with Kil'zin

Game one: He's on the play and has just enough burn to kill me the turn before I would kill him. The location that gets a counter everytime a guy dies then removes 4 to burn for 4 is awesome here.

Game two: I punt by forgetting Lightning Arc exists. 3 Dead 2/1's later and I'm a turn away from winning this game. I'm certain I would have won if I'd just completed a quest or ran two Goras into Bloodsoul on turn 2.

Round 4 against Richard with Black Ice Myriam

Game 1: He doesn't get many early protectors, I kill Sayge with two burn spells and Myriam with Ras'fari.

Game 2: Rinse repeat for the most part but this time I kill two 2 drops with two burn spells instead of Sayge.

Round 5 against Alex Kim with Warlock Midrange

We both have a bunch of guys but mine seem to be better for the most part. I make sure he doesn't get Apocanon + -1/-1 for demons combo out and win. He sideboarded in Great Sword which would have been awesome against me.

Top 8 against Jon Loucks with Vorna

Game one: I curve out and he draws nothing. No Tidal Burst, no the More the Scarier and maybe one Fireblast. Usually game one is close in this matchup, but not when his draws are this bad.

Games two and three: I destroy some resources but he wipes my board repeatedly with The More The Scarier.

"Game one: I curve out and he draws nothing. No Tidal Burst, no the More the Scarier and maybe one Fireblast. Usually game one is close in this matchup, but not when his draws are this bad."

I didn't draw an Invisibility, either, which would wipe his board. But, it happens. Its one of those things that if I would have drawn one of those cards I'm still in the game, but don't necessarily win it. I'l post my list an report soon, but its laundry time now.

Edit: OK laundry done!

Here is the list I played to top 4:

VORNA THE WRETCHED

2 Illidan Stormrage

4 Blood Knight Kyria

2 The More, the Scarier
4 Metalmorph
2 Mana Agate
3 Invocation
4 Invisibility
4 Nether Fracture
4 Fizzle
4 Fire Blast
4 Tidal Burst
2 Mystic Denial
3 Polymorph

1 The Bringer of Death
1 Blade of Wizardry
2 Seer's Signet

3 The Darkmoon Faire
4 Solanian's Belongings
3 Counterattack!
2 Swift Discipline
2 Super hot Stew

Sideboard:
1 Lady Vashj
1 Kal'thas Sunstrider (or whatever the 8/8 resource stealer is)
2 Mystic Denial
2 A'dal
1 The More, the Scarier
2 Counterspell
1 The Bringer of Death

I originally started by playtesting Paladin. I played against Dan and Kevin L, but after all our games I felt like I was losing to decks that Vorna would just crush. I told Kevin that i was done fooling around, I should just play Vorna. He warned me against switching so close to the tournament, but what do I care? I didn't want to struggle through long paladin games away. I had some experience with Vorna just testing it against Dan, so I figured I would be Ok.

Things I would change:

The best card for me all day was probably Super Hot Stew. Its Hot! The way most Vorna games went is I would control the board early, then win by popping off an Invocation on turn 7ish and overwhelming them with my cards. Super Hot Stew acted like another Invocation, but a quest! Its so good, and I was never ever unhappy with it coming into play untapped - you can always work it in. I want another one, so I think I would cut a DMF for the third stew. DMF was pretty good, the deck has a lot of matchup-dependent cards, but it might have just been better as a normal quest. I saw most versions running Draenai's junk, but that quest scared me. Counterattack is really good, so it makes sense that you have to run Swift Discipline in order to turn it on in matchups that don't have creatures. As a warning, contrary to how I was playing all day, counterattack does not infact read "If your opponent controls an ally..."

I could only find one Blade of Wizardry before the tournament! Thanks to Gavin for the 1. (also, biiig thanks to Kevin Blaze Smith II and his cards, and a special thanks to Lee for having so much stuff on site that I could use. And the dealer Eric for lugging singles over. You guys rock!) I had to creatively adapt to the missing cards, and Dan Hanson pulled through for me, suggesting Polymorph. That card is awesome! It does so much for you, and I was so lucky I had it instead of the random cards I was going to fill my deck with. I really disliked the card disadvantage that the Blade of Wizardry had built in. You CANT skip playing a resource, I only did it once all day, but when you have Blade of Wizardry you run out of cards really really fast. Polymorph is returnable with Solanians, and triggers Blood Knight. Still, I like the one blade. It keeps them honest, and some decks do just lose to it.

Speaking of blood knight, there are four ways to play it. First, you play it on turn three, and that usually only works on the play. You make them deal with it, and it slows them down a lot when they have to spend their third turn doing that. Next, you play it on turn four or five with a Polymorph, fire blast, invocation, or mana agate backup. Third, you play it on turn 9 or so and unload like three spells, pulling you way out of their range. Lastly, you resource her, because she sucks sometimes.

The sideboard was decent. The traitor cards were good, though I usually just grabbed Lady Vashj anyway because she often won the next turn. I made a choice to get wrecked by Form of the Serpent (and other ongoing abilities) and played counterspell over spellsteal. I was pretty happy with it, you just have to make sure you leave fizzle open. Adal was interesting, but not nearly what I thought she would be. I figured she would be a cheaper win against kilzin and an actual lock, even against other decks, but i was forgetting about retainer's blade in those decks. I think Munkin Blackfist needs a place in the sideboard.

Last note on playing the deck: go fast fast fast! I had to try to play each turn very very quickly. Some of you may have heard my groans when time was called. I was constantly hassling my opponents the whole day. I was actually really frustrated most of the rounds and really mad at this game because of the time thing. Playing against Kevin Lambert was the most frustrating. I'm sure he was playing at a reasonable pace, but I was going as fast as I could. I was rushing him the whole time....time was still called. I mean seriously, why play a game when no matter what you do you lose because they call time? (never mind the fact that I actually won that game.) Also against Joel I even asked Kevin to come over and watch our match. I don't know what Kevin actually ended up doing, because soon after I called him over I looked behind me and he wasn't there anymore, and wasn't helping somebody else. I didn't mean "come watch this turn" i mean "come watch this game because I want my opponent to play as fast as humanly possible." Its probably unreasonable to think you should have a judge with you at all times, but that's what you need when you play this deck.

I really hope none of my opponents were trying to play slow on purpose, but when you play this deck it feels like your opponent is shuffling as slow as they can, agonizing over every resource, and can never decide if they want to keep their opening 7. Luckily the match I lost in top 8 was legit, we didn't need to go to time for it.

Because of the time pressure I was making mistakes a lot of the day. Any time I couldn't figure out exactly what to do in around 10 seconds I forced myself to make a move. (This usually meant I resourced the wrong things a lot of the time, or didn't do simple things like popping my Swift Discipline before a Bringer of Death) I was constantly thinking about what I was going to do on my turn during my opponent's turn, which was actually really simple for a control deck. Usually when I got my turn I would quickly draw, resource what I had planned, and pass the turn. It helps when a lot of your cards an instant.

Then came the tournament.

Ok, so I just typed way more than I meant to, so I'm taking a break. Maybe i'll update you with actual tournament goings-on later.

I think 1 Kael'thas and 1 Vashj is the right numbers for the sideboard, based on various testing. The only bad thing is against warrior/shaman (or maybe now druid) where they have the instant kill for Vashj (unless you have a counter) which is why we considered 2 Vashj, but it worked out fine for me (well, Alfax anyway).

wrotesfortcgplayer wrote:
Last note on playing the deck: go fast fast fast! I had to try to play each turn very very quickly. Some of you may have heard my groans when time was called. I was constantly hassling my opponents the whole day. I was actually really frustrated most of the rounds and really mad at this game because of the time thing. Playing against Kevin Lambert was the most frustrating. I'm sure he was playing at a reasonable pace, but I was going as fast as I could. I was rushing him the whole time....time was still called. I mean seriously, why play a game when no matter what you do you lose because they call time? (never mind the fact that I actually won that game.) Also against Joel I even asked Kevin to come over and watch our match. I don't know what Kevin actually ended up doing, because soon after I called him over I looked behind me and he wasn't there anymore, and wasn't helping somebody else. I didn't mean "come watch this turn" i mean "come watch this game because I want my opponent to play as fast as humanly possible." Its probably unreasonable to think you should have a judge with you at all times, but that's what you need when you play this deck.

I really hope none of my opponents were trying to play slow on purpose, but when you play this deck it feels like your opponent is shuffling as slow as they can, agonizing over every resource, and can never decide if they want to keep their opening 7. Luckily the match I lost in top 8 was legit, we didn't need to go to time for it.

Yeah, part of the problem in my case was I'd only played Mother Misery a couple times before, and the deck had a bunch of cards I wasn't entirely familiar with. Also, my sleep schedule had been messed up for a few days prior to that tournament.

But really, when you have a grand total of 2 win conditions in your deck, you can't be surprised that you go to time most rounds.

I believe the slow play policy for WoW is something like 'playing with deliberate haste' and not intentionally be going slow. Assuming that, I (personally) think it's fine for the judge to leave once he sees that everyone is going fast enough.

Report posted at http://forums.starcitygames.com/viewtopic.php?t=314505