It turns out that there IS a good reason to book flights to Darkmoon Faires in advance. 

I would not advise anyone to begin a 12 hour-drive at 6 pm when you are going to lose an hour from a time zone shift, AND when half of the car has to work early in the morning.  I guess that was a play mistake.  But I'm getting ahead of myself— let us try this again from the top.

Going into Chicago, the original plan was to book a flight early enough to save money.  As the deadline grew closer and closer and the prices just kept rising and rising, we decided that getting a group together to drive wasn't such a bad idea— I mean 12 hours can't be THAT long of a ride…can it?  After a shuffling around of people in the car, eventually myself, Dave Witner, Blair Thompson, and Matt Markoff piled into the car for quite an adventure.  For those of you who have never gone on a long car-ride/trip for a tournament let me give you a few pro-tips.

            1.  Buy snacks ahead of time.  This is the easiest one.  Go to your local supermarket before leaving and save money.  You get more selection, cheaper prices, and it cuts down on stops.

            2.  Switch drivers often.  If possible, try and swap drivers every 3 hours.  Driving more than 3 hours in a row can become quite exhausting.  Some people get into "the zone" after 3, but it's safer and overall better if you can swap around.

            3.  Don't eat greasy food right before leaving.  We didn't follow this one.  We regretted it.

            4.  Don't drive through the night.  Sometimes it's not an option, but the drive goes by faster when everyone is awake and talking.  It is also much safer, because there's always a chance at falling asleep at the wheel.

            5.  If you're going to drive through the night, make sure two people are awake at all times.  When the late night beacons, the driver needs someone to talk to while they are driving.  This keeps them busy and alert enough to know when they are too tired to drive. 

            6.  Make plenty of stops.  While this may seem like it's a waste of time, you need to stop and take time away from the car. 

            7.  Find stupid things to do.  So thanks to multiple DMF car trips, we have invented many WoW games to play that help to pass the time.  The rules are that you start with a card, take the last letter of the card, and whoever goes next has to name a card that starts with that letter.  This goes on with no repeats until everyone gives up from headaches and no one wants to even think about WoW cards ever again.  This trip, however, was filled with the Magic Workstation game.  This game entails randomly picking a card, a class, a faction, and building a deck with those elements.  This DMF it was the unbeatable Paladin/[Renewal of Life]/Sirocco/[Valeera Sanguinar] deck.  With the handiness of a laptop, power converter, and a 4G modem phone, this deck was created.  I'm not one to brag, but this deck never lost the entire trip.  (Disconnects count as draws).

I'm sure there are a bunch of other tips for road trips, but those are a few of the ones I follow.  Anyway, we eventually got into Chicago around midnight, and we were able to take in some awesome Chicago-style pizza with Damien Dufresne, and get prepared for a day filled with events on Friday.  After meeting up with all of the guys from New Jersey that were smart and flew, I decided to throw my hat into the ring for a Core format tournament.  After scavenging for a deck, I ended on a blue priest deck that my friend had built, tweaked, and mastered.  I of course took this deck, changed all of the cards, and made it much worse.  I'm not going to post a decklist, because I would not recommend my version at all, but it was a basic [Katianna the Shrouded] rush list with the addition of [Halion Staff of Forgotten Love] for some [A Taste of Divinity] and [Shadowfiend] shenanigans.

Round 1: [Marlowe Christophers] 

My opponent won the roll, but didn't really do much.  I played some dudes, he played [Hesriana] I kept playing [Shadowfiend], and eventually he died…not much else to say.

1-0

Round 2: [Zorak'Tul] 

He went turn 1 [Swift Raptor], turn 2 [Boot of Utter Darkness], turn 3 [Enveloping Shadows], and I was dead right there.  I guess that [Oppress] card is actually good, eh?

1-1

Round 3: Erik Van Der Laan [Spellweaver Jihan] 

The BeeGee's song "Stayin' Alive" was the theme song to this game, as I was able to rush down Erik quickly with a bunch of blue allies and [Shadowfiend] but couldn't get him to fatal.  It came down to him being at 20 damage, and me having a [Searing Light] out.  I bricked on three draw steps and a completion of a quest to find an ability or a Ferocity ally, which gave him just enough time to [Spell Suppression] my [Searing Light] and keep me from having any outs once the [Searing Light] was toast.  He eventually dropped out [Muradin Bronzebeard], and that card absolutely took over the game.  For folks at home preparing for Realms Champs, put this guy in your decks, he is the real deal.

1-2

Round 4: Niles Rowland [Velindra Sepulchre] 

I was almost able to pull this game out as Niles almost didn't make it back to the tables after a quick workout in the gym, but it just wasn't meant to be.  I won the dice roll and kept an opening hand that had double [Lady Bancroft] and double [Garet Vice].  Niles being the master that he is, was somehow able to take out my entire army of guys, despite me playing 4 [Lady Bancroft].  And he killed me with a Kel'Thuzad on 10.  To be fair I think I should have won this game, but his hand was well equipped to handle my Aberration and Bancroft army.

1-3 DROP - The deck I played was one of my favorite choices for the metagame before the world cup results came out, but unfortunately with druid ramp jumping on the scene, this type of deck just doesn't make the cut.  The [Halion Staff of Forgotten Love] was pretty awful on the day, as I never saw it in my opening hand.  The card could be pretty nuts if I were to play it on 2, but the amount of work you have to put in to make it work just isn't worth the benefits most of the time— drawing it after turn two just made me want to cry.

I ended up dropping from the tournament, because I wanted to be lazy…but at the last second I was convinced by my friend Aaron to play in the 2-Headed Ogre tournament with him.  The best part of this tournament was the fact that neither of our decks had any synergy at all, and Aaron didn't really know how to play the game.  He is a friend of Bobby Victory's, and is a recent transplant from Magic.  We decided to team up [Jumo'zin] and [Erondra Frostmoon] to make a mentally challenged 2-Headed Ogre.  As we sat down against our first opponents, we were kindly informed that we were in fact cheating.  Apparently we weren't supposed to have a combination that were from opposite sides of the faction.  Bah Humbug.  Luckily for us, Ming Zhang and his partner also decided to cheat…and so Ming and I swapped Death Knight decks and we were back off!

Round 1: [Jumo'zin]/[Tribemother Torra]

The opposing [Jumo'zin] started the game off by immediately locking down our resources with a [Band of Vile Aggression], switching between myself and Aaron on what resources to blow up, meanwhile the [Tribemother Torra] was playing a bunch of kites into my double [Vuz'din] (Thanks Ming!) with [Dethvir the Malignant] back up.  This game real showed how un-synergistic our decks were, as I couldn't really play many more cards due to a fear of [Utopia], and Aaron could only heal and stall.  The big mistake we made was tapping Aaron out for a giant [Avatar of the Wild] that wasn't fatal.  Right after that play we found out what their decks did.  Tribemother fetched up a giant [Garrosh Hellscream], and plopped down a free [Alexsrasza the Life-Bender].  This is what we deserve for not play-testing the two headed ogre format.

0-1

Round 2: The Zimmerman Family minus Baby Murloco   Double [Sarina the Immaculate]

Our opponents were running 2 of the same [Renewal of Life]/[Scimitar of the Sirocco] combo deck.  Luckily for us, the [Jumo'zin] deck has about a million answer for that deck, and with [Army of the Dead] and [Corpse Explosion] as back-up we were able to control just about everything our opponents wanted to do, and eventually got of a super attack with my red guys that had been sitting there all game twiddling their fingers.

1-1

Round 3: Double [Souldrinker Bogmara]

This was a very interesting matchup, because both of our decks were well equipped to handle fast decks…but when both opponents opened with free [Lessons of the Nether] to take out my 2 [Corpse Explosion]s, things got a little awkward.  Luckily for us, Aaron turned on his hyperdrive, and handled both Bogmaras by himself…while me and my [Broderick Langforth]s helped with moral support.

2-1

Our record was good enough to take home a $50 Best Buy gift card and a giant Tauren statue.  Aaron promptly gave his away for a hug, and mine ended up as a part of a friend's daughter's Barbie collection.  I was later informed that these statues actually have decent value.  Whoops.  The exhausting day of gaming ended there, and I headed back to the room to eat some cold pizza, and prepare myself to crack open some brand new packs of War of the Elements. 

Going into the tournament I had only seen a few of the spoiled cards, but I still had a great deal of confidence.  You see, I like to consider myself somewhat of a pre-release end boss.  I have won or at least came in 2nd in just about every pre-release event I've played in.  For some reason, when none of the cards are known before the tournament I have a knack for being able to open the stone cold nuts.  This event turned out to be no different.

Hero: [Amaria Kelsur]

Allies: 19

[Boomer]

[Tesla]

[Fenton Guardmont]

[Garet Vice]

[Emerald Wanderer]

2 [Donatello]

[Dagin Bootzap]
3 [Erama]

[Jeniva Prescott]

2 [Nessera Gildenrose]

3 [Shadowseer Calista]

[Zooti Fizzlefury]

[Azure Enforcer]

Abilities: 4

[Detect Prey]

3 [Arcane Shot]

Equipment: 1

[Lightningflash]

Quests: 6

2 [A Bird in Hand]
[Entrenched]

[Cleansing Witch Hill]

[Corrosion Prevention]

[The Witch's Bane]

The new set brought some truly awful quests to us.  For those who haven't seen them yet, be prepared for the worst.  Just about every quest is worse than a quest that has previously been made.  I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of [Tabards of the Illidari] for three, or a [Zapped Giants] that only reveals the top card.  A lack of quests makes the format very curve and 2 for 1 dependent.  If you are able to hit your curve well enough and gain a bunch of tempo on the board, it means that your opponent will be unlikely to come back by drawing out of the situation by completing quests. Whoever gains an upper hand early in the game is likely to be able to keep pressure on and take the game. 

Aggressive decks are very good in the format, and weapons/equipment are just as insane due to a lack of removal.  The first thing you'll notice about my deck is the ridiculous amount of 3 ofs there are.  Something seemed to be off about the distribution of the packs, because I had a 3rd [Donatello], and [Shadowseer Calista] is an uncommon.  I built the deck based on trying to 2 for 1 as much as possible.  Allies in War of the Elements tend to have high defense and low attacks.  With this in mind, it makes one damage spells and attack pumps that much stronger.  Also, the Aberration keyword is just about absent in the new packs, so that also attributed to how I built the deck. 

I think I made one big error when constructing this sealed pool, and that was undervaluing the bronze dragons.  I had the 5-drop 4/4 ferocity when you exhaust out dragon, who is absolutely insane.  I thought that I already had too many 5-drops, but not having him in my starting 30 was definitely incorrect.  He was boarded in every game.  The other bronze dragon I ended up putting in just about every game was the 3-drop 1/4 that draws you a card if you exhausted out.  This guy isn't as good as the previous dragon, but he definitely should have been included, especially with my hole at the 3-drop slot. 

I tended to board out 2 [Eramas] for those 2 cards, but I sometimes dropped [Corrosion Prevention], because it was not very easy to complete in my deck.  I also swapped in the 3rd [Donatello] on occasions, but usually five pets are too many.  I was pretty happy with just about every ally in my deck, and I felt like after side decking my curve was really good.  I was fairly certain that my deck was insane and it was easily of top-8 quality.  Now I just had to execute.

I had notes on all of my matches…which I promptly lost.  I'm doing all of these on memory, so bear with me if some of these seem off.

Round 1: Bert Amoline [Vanira Raventhorne]  

My opponent's pool was not very exciting, but the new Blue Druid flip is actually very good with the cat-form ability.  Unfortunately for him, my [Boomer] and triple [Shadowseer Calista] took over the game, and I was able to take both games without too much resistance.

1-0

Round 2: Dusty Hostutler Some Red Hero…can't remember which.    

Dusty is a really strong player out of West Virginia with a really weak sealed pool.  He played a couple of bad cards back and forth with me, up until turn nine when he played the 9-drop Swift Raptor that threatened to take over the game.  Luckily for me in game one I had the [Tesla] to kill him, and in game two I made him play the raptor three times thanks to [Shadowseer Calista], and got him for exactly lethal through his protector wall.

2-0

Round 3: Mario Dotallico [Mindtwister Quimtrix]    

Mario was a cool guy from the Chicago area, but was unlucky enough to feel the power of [Boomer].  I hit [Boomer] in both games on turn two, and it was able to stay alive all the way until I was able to fatal his hero out.  I made sure to play around any TimRiv shenanigans, as that was basically the only card I was afraid of in his deck.  [Dagin Bootzap] was pretty good in this match, but [Boomer] was easily the MVP.

3-0

Round 4: Timbo Slice  [Kadus Frosthand]   

This match was covered at http://www.wowtcg.com/live-coverage/dmf-chicago-2011/round-4-tim-rivera-vs-andrew-trebing So I'll let you read through that one for what happened.  I made a mistake in game three by not using [Boomer]'s tapping ability on a protector, but luckily my deck was insane enough to still power through.  Small side note, I don't think I've ever lost to Tim Rivera…just saying.

4-0

Round 5: Rob Jenson  [Victor Baltus] 

Rob won the dice roll in this one, which I think is actually what ended up deciding the match.  Game one he put on a ton of pressure, and I was just never able to stabilize.  Game 2 I was able to get him with a bunch of [Shadowseer Calista]s and [Tesla].  Game 3 ended up being very close, but the entire time I was just trying to keep my head above water and not die.  When I was finally able to stabilize the board he got me with [Intensify] on one of his 4 ATK allies to dent my head in for 8-damage.

4-1 

At this point I knew that I had to win out and really grind out the last couple of wins, because the opponents I would be playing against would not only have good decks, but they would also be strong players.

Round 6:   Kim Caton  [Tazrik Crankrust] 

Kim was playing with the new Shaman flip that gives your hero assault: 1 for each elemental you control, along with the new 4-cost totem that makes two ferocious elemental allies.  While the synergy with her deck was good, I had a ton of pinging effects and ways of controlling her board.  Both games I just ended up clearing her board and keeping control with [Shadowseer Calista].  No LTAG for me!

5-1

Round 7: Trevor Jones  [Victor Baltus] 

Trevor was a really cool guy, that had a very interesting fire elemental theme.  He was running two [Something That Burns] as well as the location [Firelands].  I won the dice roll, and was able to barely pull out the first game by flooding the board and using [Arcane Shot] and [Boomer] to control his ever growing number of fire elementals.  In game 2 his fire elementals really gave me fits, as he was able to use the location just about every turn to pump out 2/1s as well as mill 2 cards from the top of my deck.  In the 3rd game, [Lightningflash] made an appearance and was able to control the board to the point where every turn Trevor couldn't play anything out as it would get eaten by [Boomer]'s ability and [Lightningflash].

6-1

Round 8: David Bodimer  [Arturius Hathrow] 

David opened both rare loots when cracking his six booster packs, so I didn't really mind crushing his soul by knocking him out of Top 8 contention.  Game 1 would have been close if he could have found his [Lockjaw] stashed somewhere in his deck, but alas he could not.  Game 2 he DID find the [lockjaw], but [Lightningflash] came to save the day, as he had no way of dealing with the dual-wielding shotgun. 

7-1 and into top 8!

It always feels good to Top 8 an event, but in sealed it's somewhat of a different feeling.  In my opinion there are 2 ways to top 8 in a sealed event:  You can open a nuts pool and play just good enough to get by (what I did) or you can open an average to above average pool and just play perfect all day (what Watson and Dan Clark did). While it would be nice to say that I got into Top 8 the second way, it's just not true at all.  I played pretty poorly in a lot of match-ups, and it just happened to be that my deck was able to bail me out.  Regardless of this, I was ready to bear down and get my draft on!

That night after eating steaks I couldn't afford with Damien, Blyden, Van Der Laan, Bodimer, Alextrasza, and a few others, I was able to sit down and do some pack evaluations from the new set.  What we found was fairly interesting.  For the most part, in every pack the rare card is usually the best card— if you didn't know what class you were in.  Also, there are almost no good quests.  Horde allies seemed to be better overall in War of the Elements, which meant that you could actually draft horde and not be embarrassed about it.  The key classes we wanted to get into were Warlock, Shaman, Mage, or Hunter.  If I was able to open a good weapon, it meant that I should probably play one of the classes on the card.  The stacked Top 8 also meant that it wasn't out of the question of trying to build an all-in rush deck. 

Pack one of Top 8 I opened a mediocre 18 with no good quests and only a few playable allies.  I ended up taking a [Ruby Flameblade], which is not even close to how I want to be starting the draft.  When the second pick gave me no quests and a [Sava'gin the Reckless] I knew that I was going to go with an all-in type of rush deck.  I made one big mistake in pack one by not taking a 3-cost draw a card quest when I was given the chance.  My thought process was that in a super aggressive deck, I didn't want to be completing quests most of the time anyway— but that turned out to be a definite mistake.  I ended up picking up a bunch low cost allies in pack one, as well as some mediocre mage burn spells.  My hopes were that in pack 2 I would be able to cut off any mage abilities coming my way in order to make sure that I was the only 25 health spell slinger at the table.  When I opened a [Draconic Flames] and was passed a second [Draconic Flames] in the second pack, I knew that I was balls deep in Mage.  My suspicions were confirmed that I was the only Mage drafter at the table as well when a [Flash Freeze] ended up wheeling around. 

The deck I ended up with was exactly the kind of deck that I wanted, except the part where I had no good quests at all.  Usually when I draft I like to get 5-7 GOOD quests in my deck.  Quests are very important in chopping up your turns efficiently as well as keeping up with your opponent.  What was awkward about this draft format is that all of the quests are kind of junky.  I mean do you really expect me to first pick a 3-cost [Tabards of the Illidari] instead of a good ally or removal spell?  I'm sure the guys here at DMG are already cranking out draft strategies with the new packs, but I'm just not sure how to handle the lack of good quests.

Hero: [Suvok Frozeneye]

Allies: 20

[Drizzle Steelslam]

[Kistix Shockvat]

[Kloxx Dedrix]

[Onnekra Bloodfang]

[Rosalyne von Erantor]

[Sava'gin the Reckless]

[Ruby Emissary]

2 [Ruby Flameblade]

[Emerald Soldier]

[Drax Felfuse]

2 [Shaera Strikewing]

2 [Talaan Solaras]

[Yoza'tsu]

2 [Bronze Drakonid]

[Bound Torrent]

Abilities: 9

[Fire Blast]

[Frostfire Bolt]

3 [Arcane Missiles]

2 [Draconic Flames]

2 [Flash Freeze]

Quests: 2

[Aessina's Miracle]

[Breaking the Bonds]

I had 2 other [Yoza'tsu]s in the board, and I think I probably should have ended up playing them.  The card was surprisingly good for me in my rush strategy, and may have been important for me in some of my matches.  The good thing about my deck was even though I did lack quests, I had five solid stash effects that were all useful.  It is not exactly the perfect deck, but I thought for sure it would be good enough to at least 2-1, if not take home the trophy.

Top 8: Ray Tautic  [Zin'sul]  

Ray told me after the match that this was his second tournament playing the game, and only his second draft…the first being the night before.  Despite all of this, Raymond played fairly well as far as I saw.  He made a few errors, but I also am not sure if his deck was really prepared for this kind of early aggression.  Game one I was able to [Draconic Flames] away 2 of his guys as well as burn his hero for 5.  From there all I had to do was get through enough damage to put his hero in range of my burn— which is exactly what I did.  In game 2 [Kloxx Dedrix] took total control of his allies along with some removal in order to build up my board and get in with lethal damage from ally attacks.

Top 4: Peter Beckfield  [Aric Stonejack] 

This match was featured here: http://www.wowtcg.com/live-coverage/dmf-chicago-2011/semi-final-andrew-trebing-vs-peter-beckfield   Peter's deck at first glance seemed pretty average with the exception of his [Warmace of Menethil].  Him hitting his full curve is eventually what did me in, but the key points in both the games I lost were his Ferocity guys being able to take out my [Kloxx Dedrix].  If Kloxx was able to stay alive, I think I would have been able to eek out a win in one of the 2nd or 3rd games.

While I was really disappointed in my semi-finals loss with such a good deck, I was happy to have made Top 8.  Congrats go out to all of the Top 8 competitors as well as Dan Morschauser for having to wait to read this whole article to see his shout out.  The drive back was awful…I was stuck on the anchor shift from midnight until 7am while the entire car slept, and one of my friends talked my ear off in hopes that I wouldn't crash the car.  Luckily it worked, and we got home safely just in time for everyone to not take a shower and go to work smelling like the bunch of gamers that we are.

I'm going to try and get a write-up out and ready about the format leading into Realms Championships, so be on the look-out for that!  This weekend wasn't as crazy and wacky as the last DMF, but I'm sure the lack of insanity in this report will be made up for when I eventually do a Nationals report from Vegas.  Yikes.

Andrew Trebing is a regular Darkmoon Faire competitor, having Top 8ed multiple events across the years. Most recently he finished in 4th place at the 2010 North American Continental Championship. Andrew can be found locally in northern New Jersey where he recently graduated with a psychology degree in order to accomplish two things: improving his bluffing skills and tricking the top players into giving him their decklists.