Congratulations to Pojo (mrw01 on the UDE boards) the Durotar Realms Champ! What's it like to be a Realms Champ? Well we got him to tell us first hand...
F.E.E Fie Foe - by Pojo
What a crazy, crazy weekend!
F.E.E Fie Foe - by Pojo
What a crazy, crazy weekend!
First, mad props to Jennifer Ayers for running a fantastic weekend of events. Things appeared to go off without a hitch, which is always great. Both judges and event organizers did a great job of getting everything together and hosting some awesome events.
My weekend actually started pretty rough, regardless of how I ended up on Sunday.
When I first started play-testing weeks ago with Chad Lathrop (3rd place finisher and Wulfgar5150 on the boards!) we began by focusing on two aspects: killing or hilling. Vashj is an obvious killer, so we didn’t bother testing her much as we knew that Michael Allen’s NACC build was about as solid as it comes. We were quite familiar with her and started looking for other ideas that worked well on the map.
We made a fantastic change to our Worlds team (Amalar, Amalar, Kayleitha) by dropping Kayleitha and adding in a third Amalar. Chad had piloted this team to very solid successes at our local battlegrounds, but after the match on Vassal we decided that Jaina, her Greater Water Elemental, and another caster most likely spells doom for the team. Chad and I both tried an Amalar, Amalar, Haruka variation at a later battleground, but it didn’t do much in building our confidence. Jaina and another caster were just too much of a threat.
Ice block became the obvious weapon for most players, so we began looking at how to create opportunity there. Chad had a very solid notion that we were to either play Jaina, or play to beat Jaina. There was no middle ground. This theory held throughout all of our playtesting and was certainly the deciding factor in our team building. We decided that although Jaina was great, she was too vulnerable.
About a week or so before Realms, the basis of my team (F.E.E.) was formed. It was pretty obvious that you could run a mage with ice block and blink to hop the hill on tic1. Obviously players would be packing heat to melt off ice blocks, so we assumed that blinking and ice blocking would only work against teams that weren’t prepared for it. With Elizabetha, you can move her behind cover on tic1 and summon a jhuroon or piztog into cover for 1tic. On tic2, the pet moves onto the hill (assuming it’s unoccupied) and Elizabetha moves into cover. On tic3, Elizabetha uses her Expendable instant, sacrifices her pet, and moves onto the hill, then tics up four and attacks an opposing character. This move puts her at a 4/6/9 on the hill, where she’ll remain until tic7 unless she gets moved. This should net you four victory points, equaling one kill, for simply summoning a pet and attacking. By bringing both Elizabetha and a mage that can blink/ice block, you force your opponent to have an answer for both possibilities. Most teams don’t.
Firewing, aka The Glass Cannon, was an obvious choice for the mage. The hardest part of the Elizabetha/Firewing team was finding the third character. Horde is quite lacking in the department of solid characters, and it didn’t appear like there were many options for helping out the duo. We toyed around with Haruka, who just didn’t bring enough to the table. An epic seemed like a bad choice for the map, as we assumed most teams would be in the 20-23 range and we didn’t want to give up eight victory points. It was down to either another Firewing or another Elizabetha. Double Elizabetha stood a much better chance than double glass cannons.
Chad and I spent a day playtesting the team against several team variations, mostly against the Jaina/Savin/Namrah team that has been so dominant lately. F.E.E. (Firewing, Elizabetha, Elizabetha) seemed to lose badly. Daelas would blink/ice block the hill, have the ice block removed, and then get farmed while Elizabetha’s sat back trying to get as much damage in as possible. Essentially, the team couldn’t do damage quick enough and had some strong problems holding the hill. However, we discovered later that we had accidentally played Namrah as having a 2tic attack, as opposed to her 3tic attack. In case anyone was wondering, Namrah is SICK adjacent to Savin with a 2tic attack. Realizing our mistake, we assumed the F.E.E. team wasn’t too bad.
The week of Realms we decided to try removing Jaina from the Jaina/Savin/Namrah team and replacing her with Velen, as he can bring shaman cards and is a better hilltopper. The team worked well, until I played Michael Allen (syphonhail) online via Vassal against his NACC team and he polymorph’d Savin. It became pretty clear that the team falls apart as soon as Savin becomes a sheep. If I hadn’t played this game against Michael, I wouldn’t have seen the very large weakness. Polymorph just isn’t played much at our battlegrounds.
Our group of four planned to head out Saturday morning at 6:30am and by 10pm Friday night I still hadn’t locked down a team. I didn’t want to bring all of my miniatures to the event because of car space, so I tried to travel light and only take what I thought I might play. F.E.E. was tossed in, as were four-five other teams.
Day 1
Our morning was a bit slow and by the time we managed to get the four of us together (all four of us live roughly 10-15 minutes away from one another), it was almost 7:30am. We pulled into Katy around 9:45am, found the card store, said our hellos to all the familiars, and headed inside. Chad and I tossed around theories on what teams to use to qualify with, and I had settled on triple Harukas while he went with a pre-Worlds concept of Amalar, Azarak, Azarak.
My first match was against Scott Morris (Critshappen owner and Steelwing on the boards!) and my triple Haruka heat was up against the NACC team. I was pretty worried about the matchup, as I’ve seen Vashj one-shot Harukas before and my intention of running the HHH team was that she’s hard to defeat. Against Vashj, not so much.
Both Scott and I had very solid dice rolls throughout the game and it was a lot of fun to play. I focused on farming the Ogre with Flame Shocks while trying to hold the hill as much as possible. Three ogre deaths and twelve turns on the hill was enough for me to pull out the win, even though Scott farmed Harukas with ease throughout the course of our game. It was a very solid matchup, but Harukas on the hill pulled out the win for me.
My second match was against a fellow who I believe rode down with Derek St. Pierre. He was running Phadelus, Phadelus, Jaina and I got my face smashed in by the most epic dice rolling I’ve ever seen. He was a solid player with a solid team, but there’s not much Harukas can do against Phadelus’s rolling a seven dice Lightning Bolt attack when adjacent to Jaina and critting on every single one of them, for another five dice attack. When rolling well, that team is smokin’ hot.
After my loss in that match, we were about fifteen minutes shy of the sealed qualifier starting up. With only two games left to play, I didn’t want to force myself to have to win them. I figured that if I played my third match, I would cost myself a chance to play in the sealed event, which would be devastating if I lost. There were only three players registered for the sealed, so I decided to drop from the constructed and hop over to sealed. I like the triple Haruka team, but I prefer my skill level in sealed events much better, especially since I was already facing a loss.
At the sealed Mount tournament at Worlds, I paid a $30 entry fee and had two monster boxes passed to me. At the DMF Austin, I paid $35 and opened two monter boxes. Thus far, my ‘skill’ in sealed was pulling the absolute worst pieces to play with, and I was praying that wouldn’t happen again in this qualifying event. Needless to say, when I opened my first box and saw Horde, I was slightly relieved. When I opened my second box and saw Vi’gor staring at me, I was thrilled. We had six players in the event and the only epic pulled was an Arugal (by Scott!). I was feeling pretty confident with my Vi’gor until Derek pulled out two Horde boxes, one with Elizabetha and Jhuroon, the other with Haruka. I was pretty confident that he had pulled the event winning team.
I had to play Scott during my first match and Vi’gor in Bear Form proved deadly for Scott’s Arugal. Scott’s dice also failed him a bit during this match and we were both disappointed that it wasn’t nearly as balanced as the first.
My next match was against Derek, and although I made a mistake by not placing Vi’gor in Bear Form after taking the hill, I’m pretty sure Derek had my number anyway. Our match started out friendly, and then after my mistake turned a bit ugly, but by the end of it things had calmed down and returned to normal. Derek’s a nice guy and a tough opponent, and he certainly knows how to play the game.
I was 1-1 after that and had to face another 1-1 opponent going into our final match. Our match was tough, and there was some epic dice rolling going on, but Vi’gor was just too much of a tank. I pulled out the win (my opponent didn’t qualify here, but qualified in the next constructed!) and after Derek lost to Scott, I leapfrogged into the lead and was considered the winner of the event.
Chad received a box of Spoils of War for his qualifying finish, and managed to pull a Rexxar. Scott also received a box and pulled a Prince Kael, ending the epic run. Jennifer was quick to point out that my two boxes were from a different case, and might actually have an epic. Sure enough, I pulled a Rexxar as well. This was quite humorous, as Chad and I had been eyeing a Rexxar team (look for it later!) that actually made Rexxar not only viable, but I’ll claim it to be the absolute best version of a Rexxar team ever constructed. Pulling two Rexxars in one event where we both qualified certainly seemed like it might be a sign to give the Rexxar team a run on Day 2.
The other two players we rode down with, Stephen and Tim, were both playing the last constructed qualifier. Tim was already qualified, and with Stephen running a Vashj team we were quite confident he’d get in. We grabbed a late lunch with Scott, then Chad and I headed back to the hotel as we still had no idea what we were playing for Day 2. I needed/wanted to playtest the Rexxar team.
... To be continued
