In seven short days I will be leaving the oh so comfortable unemployed slacker lifestyle and picking up a real life job. It's a scary proposition for a couple of reasons. The last several years I've enjoyed the freedom that comes with grinding card games for meager amounts of income. Being able to stay up as late as you want, wake up whenever and generally be your own boss is worth quite a lot in my book. But 2010 wasn't the best year for me and so I'm forced to join the monkey suit club and rejoin the corporate monster that is typical adulthood.

With just a week to go before I find myself permanently attached to a brand new career, I recently had the opportunity to relax and have some fun playing my favorite TCG. Magic Workstation curator, Tinytode hit me up on messenger Friday asking if I was going to play in the MWS tournament.

tinytode: playing in the tournament tonight?

Phillip: link me to the details, been out all day

tinytode: Link

tinytode: fun format

Phillip: ah, doesn't look like

Phillip: dont have a deck, and no way i can start in 15 minutes

Phillip: sorry :(

tinytode: ironically, only 3 players and 2 are top tier players

tinytode: Luca Magni and Anssi Alkio

Phillip: jesssh you have sweet prizes

Apparently all it takes to lure me into anything is something shiny.

So with less than 15 minutes to go I went ahead and constructed a 75 card highlander deck to go to battle with. I had 0 experience with this format in wow, but highlander used to be a favorite of mine in other games so I generally knew some good strategy.

The things I look for are cards that create card advantage and cards that take over games. After spending about 1 second to mull my options, I decided to jump into Mage and take the first 75 that came to mind.

Hero: [Nicholas Merrick]

Master Hero: 1

    1 [Kel'Thuzad]

Allies: 19

    1 [Magni, the Mountain King]

    1 [Marundal the Kindred]

    1 [Scrapper Ironbane]

    1 [Pappy Ironbane]

    1 [Myriam Starcaller]

    1 [Bolvar, Highlord of Fordragon Hold]

    1 [Varandas Silverleaf]

    1 [Muradin Bronzebeard]

    1 [Jaina, Lady of Theramore]

    1 [King Varian Wrynn]

    1 [Corvus Promaethon]

    1 [Chipper Ironbane]

    1 [Burly Berta]

    1 [Archbishop Benedictus]

    1 [Ashnaar, Frost Herald]

    1 [Mikael the Blunt]

    1 [Weldon Barov]

    1 [Adam Eternum]

    1 [Flint Shadowmore]

Abilities:  30

    1 [Everlasting Cold]

    1 [The Taste of Arcana]

    1 [Smoldering Blast]

    1 [Roaring Blaze]

    1 [Metalmorph]

    1 [Invocation]

    1 [Portal]

    1 [Fizzle]

    1 [Mystic Denial]

    1 [Mana Shift]

    1 [Mana Sapphire]

    1 [Mana Ruby]

    1 [Mana Jade]

    1 [Mana Diamond]

    1 [Mana Agate]

    1 [Nether Fracture]

    1 [Nether Fissure]

    1 [Brittilize]

    1 [Freeze]

    1 [Conjured Cinnamon Roll]

    1 [Engulfing Blaze] 

    1 [Dragon's Breath] 

    1 [Counterspell]

    1 [Flickers from the Past]

    1 [Spell Suppression]

    1 [Blast Wave] 

    1 [Blizzard]

    1 [Arcane Intuition]

    1 [Arcane Intellect]

    1 [Arcane Essence]

Equipment: 5

    1 [Battle Mage's Baton]

    1 [Seer's Signet]

    1 [Arcanite Dragonling]

    1 [Gladiator's Regalia]

    1 [Mana-Etched Crown]

Quest: 20

    1 [A Question of Gluttony] 

    1 [Everfrost]

    1 [Darkness Calling] 

    1 [Cleansing Witch Hill] 

    1 [Concerted Efforts]

    1 [Rise and Be Recognized] 

    1 [Counting Out Time] 

    1 [A Matter of Time] 

    1 [Rituals of Power] 

    1 [The Torch of Retribution] 

    1 [Fordragon Hold]

    1 [One Draenei's Junk] 

    1 [Mystery Goo] 

    1 [Manhunt] 

    1 [Zapped Giants] 

    1 [Eye of the Storm] 

    1 [Call to Arms: Alterac Valley]

    1 [Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm] 

    1 [Call to Arms: Arathi Basin] 

    1 [Corki's Ransom] 

Most of these selections are probably self explanatory but I'll cover a few.

I knew I wanted to run all of the best draw abilities in Mage, so I wanted my deck to go to the end game. Therefore I tried to get a solid collection of removal together to insure that I wouldn't get rushed out. I also went with a significant number of quests so I could be sure to resource a face up basically every turn while I marched to 10 + resources.

I felt pretty good about all my selections, though I'm sure I missed some obvious ones. [The Missing Diplomat] would have been awesome, as would [Sayge]. Also, [Manhunt] it turns out is pretty bad in a singleton format. I was thinking that I looked at their hand and picked any ally. Whoops!

After jamming together my list in ten quick minutes the tournament was set to start. We ended up getting six people together which meant four rounds of swiss.

Rd 1 Jaron Tomsky [Obliveron]

Jaron, or as I know him as, the [Obliveron] guy, has managed to etch out a piece of notoriety as being 'that demon guy' who will always chime in with a card being good in [Obliveron] over the forums. I think he has also piloted the demon hero at some notable events such as the 2010 World Championship.

Our game ends up going into the later turns after I deal with all his Traitor allies and pets. I end up establishing control with [Gladiator's Regalia], but he has racked up a reasonable amount of damage on my hero. I'm sitting around 15 damage and he plays [Crushing Shadows]. It turns out I only have one card in hand and it happens to be big-papa-pump himself, [Pappy Ironbane]. Luckily I had a [Mana Sapphire] in play with a few spare resources, so I drew to dilute my hand. I ended up discarding a quest to avoid the random blowout and he scooped shortly thereafter.

1-0

Rd 2 Luca Magni [Pidge Filthfinder]

Our game started with me rattling off a pile of damage to poor ol' Pidge. An unanswered [Flint Shadowmore] on turn three followed by a turn five [Muradin Bronzebeard] put Luca close to death rather quickly. He used [The Bringer of Death] to wax my board, but I re-trumped with [Gladiator's Regalia].

A [Zealot Kalinov] hit Pidge's graveyard somewhere in that mess, and the Mend 1 was now keeping Luca alive. He was hovering around 1-2 points of health remaining, and staring down my recurring [Fire Blast] from the Regalia, he was able to land two pieces of armor in [Belt of Blasting] and [Incursion Vestments].

A couple turns passed where I snuck in some small amounts of damage to keep him within a point of dying. Eventually I drew five off an unanswered [Mana Sapphire] and was able to land both [Mikael the Blunt] and [Everlasting Cold] in the same turn. A draw step later, and I was 2-0.

2-0

Rd 3 Tinytode [Xia, Queen of Suffering]

My opening hand was the nuts. It looked something like: [A Question of Gluttony], [The Taste of Arcana], [Nether Fracture], [Flint Shadowmore], [Mikael the Blunt], [Everlasting Cold] and [Blizzard]. I'm not sure what the nut draw is for this deck, but I figured that's pretty close.

The game is effectively over when Mikael kills his team and I interrupt running cards followed by Flint and [Blizzard].

3-0

Rd 4 Anssi Alkio [Nicholas Merrick]

Anssi won the roll and started with a [Garet Vice] which looked pretty awkward for me to deal with. I ended up quickly finding a [Freeze] to lock him down, and then I used my hero flip on the next turn for [Bronwyn Lightborn].

A few turns pass where we are just resourcing and drawing cards, and then he played [Sayge]. It went unchecked for a turn and he pealed a [Chipper Ironbane]. I spent his end of turn drawing a fist full of cards off quests, and then I [Roaring Blaze]d to one-for-one his ally before he would get out of control.

A few more turns pass where really nothing is happening beyond drawing cards and rowing, and then eventually I landed [Kel'Thuzad] for the full amount. His deck doesn't have [King Varian Wrynn] sadly, so I settled for [Muradin Bronzebeard] which is enough to basically kill all his guys. He readied and comboed [Blast Wave] with his hero flip, and it was enough to kill all my fresh recruits. Well that was fun. At least I was still in Kel'thuzad.

I drew some cards with my gigantic pile of resources and then landed [King Varian Wrynn]. Anssi played some desperation cards to fill up his [Eye of the Storm] to buy a turn, but with no top decked [Kel'Thuzad] of his own, I was able to take down the game and tournament.

4-0

As typical when I win any event, I took a moment to dance a jig to Bing Blang Blaow.

I'm pretty sure there is a correct list of 75 cards that you should more or less run. Which class and configuration? I have no idea. This was a fun tournament and format, and I would definitely play again.

Before I go, I thought I would leave you with a recent LOL moment over MWS:


RAWR you didn't say respond til after i ended turn 
Unemployed101 lol 
RAWR you didn't even say thinking til after i ended turn 
Unemployed101 ok, its not that big of a deal 
Unemployed101 untaps facedown card 
Unemployed101 untaps facedown card 
Unemployed101 puts Hibernate to Hand from Play 
RAWR doesn't matter 
RAWR i hate noobs who try to take back mistakes they make 
RAWR thanks but i need a pro player 
Player Lost

To put this in context, RAWR played an ally and immediately said 'end of turn'. I started to debate using [Hibernate] and said, thinking, respond and then I played it. Never mind the irony that you can infact respond to someone ending their turn, I'm not sure why people feel like they can just be jerks over MWS. I'm sure a big portion of it is the anonymous nature of the program. Anyone can say they are anybody and there's no repercussions.

At any rate, something like this happens to me quite often, and I'm sure its happened to you too if you have played much online. All you can do is sit back and laugh. Do you have any good MWS stories? Paste them in the forums for the world to enjoy.

Phillip Martin has been playing the WoW TCG for years, and has become an active member in the Las Vegas WoW TCG community in early 2010. He has multiple high-level finishes to his name, including a top 8 at the 2009 World Championship and a win at DMF Indy in 2009. He is also actively involved in the online community with his writing for the game, and he has been one of the commentators during the GGslive tournament coverage in 2009 and 2010.