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Limited! Limited! Limited! The Gencon week of events was a competitive card flopper’s dream. If you want to win the World Championships this year, you have to get better at limited. If you want to Top 16 one of the Continental Championships next year, you have to get better at limited. The weekend was full of broken windows, a terrible choice of Underoos, and water being the key to life.
Andrew Trebing, Mike Dalton, Matt Markoff, and I decided to drive out to Gencon for two reasons. Skyline Chili and Country Pride. These are two fine dining establishments that are perfect for curbing any healthy diet. All you can eat chicken-fried steak for breakfast...that was our first play mistake. The gaseous aroma that fills the car can be quite choking. The car ride moved along in a timely fashion until we hit Ohio. Apparently, some people don’t like putting coolant into their car in the middle of the summer. The same person fortunately brought a gallon of water with them for some reason. If they had not, we would have been stranded taking a bus. After a quick stop to double check everything was okay, we were back on schedule.
We pull into Indianapolis just shy of midnight. We start driving around looking for our hotel. The roads turn into dirt and it seems like a zombie apocalypse was ready to take over. Treb notices multiple broken windows outside of our hotel as we are ready to check in. Some would say this is not a good sign of a place to stay. We venture further into the abyss. We grab our bags and start heading up to our room where we are greeted by a bum begging for change. Some would say this is not a good sign of a place to stay. We enter our room and turn on the light. “Did something just crawl under the bed?” asked Treb. We scour the room to see nightmare after nightmare. Words can not describe how much of a dump this place is. We jet out and find somewhere else to stay.
The first day we roam the hall as everyone should do at Gencon. The deals are amazing. You get to see sneak peeks from tons of companies. I have attended this gamer heaven for nearly a decade. If you can only get away from work and life once a year and you want to get your game on then Gencon is where you want to go.
We decide to jump into the Gadgetzan that Thursday. I open up a [Gargoyle] and [Withering Decay]. Awesome! As long as my blue ally suite is good enough, I would definitely jump on Aric Stonejack as my hero. After looking through, my pool is locked up. About 2 months prior to this, Bobby Victory would come and practice limited with us at Mighty Titans Hobbies and Games. He was very fond of the [Aric Stonejack] approach. He was very big on [Withering Decay]. We as a team at that point in time did not like Death Knight. We felt passing [Withering Decay] was the right move as we did not like a lot of the common support cards. [Withering Decay] also kept my board in check keeping me from top 8 at nationals. After being taught the vital lesson of Aric Stonejack’s flip from Bobby and losing to Withering Decay at nationals to Jim Fleckenstein, I decided to jump on board with Death Knight. Some matches were tough, but Gargoyle, Withering Decay, and the powerhouse flip stood strong. My biggest problem with card games in the past was that I always wanted to play a different deck than what others were playing. This was the casual gamer in me always shining through. Sometimes you need to go with what the power cards are to compete. Synergies can pay off big time like in Spider Solitaire, but you always need to keep the big dogs in mind
Friday rolls around to the event that was getting the most buzz. The team sealed event. I had teamed up with Ben Isgur and Matt Markoff for the World Cup where we had great success. A small problem occurred since then. I had decided not to make a website like everyone else on the team. I needed to look for a new team. Luckily, close friends Andrew Trebing and Mike Dalton were there to compete. Everyone had an hour to build decks. I know an hour may seem like enough time, but we were still trying to figure out our third deck when the ten minute mark hit. We had to decide on the class and write up lists. It seemed like everyone else was struggling on time, too. I think 1 hour and 15 minutes would be a better time frame for the next team event. We did not have a great pool. We decided to send all blue to one deck and put the power cards into a split up pool of red. Treb went blue mage with his rare being [Abracadaver]. Hopefully, getting all of the blue ally suite could help upgrade his deck. Dalton got the [Rend and Tear] combined with [Twilight’s Hammer]. His bombs should just win games with tight playing. I ended up playing a synergy aggro deck. We saw 2 [Gerwixicks] in our pool. I really wanted to abuse this. A majority of my allies were fire allies to interact with [Gerwixicks]. My only rare was [Obsidia]. I went horde warlock because of the flip combined with the pets I was using. 2 [Selora], 1 [Mazhuum], 1 [Grimdron], and 1 [Twisted Infernal]. Grimdron had nice synergies with [Gerwixicks]. There were some games where I would get out 2 [Gerwixicks] and my hero would get assault 4. He can be a powerhouse. I would even side in [Gavin Haverston], [Onnekra Bloodfang], and [Gorz Blazefist] when on the draw to get more abuse out of [Gerwixicks]. 2 cards kept crapping out for me. [Robe of the Waking Nightmare] and [Twilight Wyrmkiller] were getting sided out after every game 1. I feel if we had a little more time to work on decks we would have possibly gone Death Knight instead of Mage, but we made do with what we had within the time constraints given. We ended up finishing 9th place with an x-2 record. This tournament was so much fun. Team events are a blast to play in. All I kept hearing from players was “When is the next one of these?” Everybody truly had a blast.
The Darkmoon Faire had come to Indianapolis. Matt Spreadbury drove all night and had an hour of sleep. Cryptozoic made some positive announcements about the future of the game. This is the event where you want to open up a good pool. Fortunately, I opened up what I believe to be a pool good enough to x-2 or better. At first glance, I had a [Troggbane] and a [Withering Decay]. If I had a good blue ally suite, I was going to be somewhat happy with [Aric Stonejack] again. I looked through my blue dudes, and they were miserable. I don’t think one ally had more than 2 health. Okay, I needed to go red. Prior to this event I had grown rather fond of Horde Priest ever since War of the Elements came out. One draft I tried out [Power Word: Endurance], and I fell in love harder than my first sweetheart. I liked the flip on [Mindtwister Quimtrix]. There were nice synergies with [Dread Pirate Ring] and [Abracadaver] spitting out tokens that could ping for one and then shoot guys from the flip after they die. Sadly, I did not have either of those cards. My priest pool was nice though. I had 1 [Power Word: Endurance], 1 [Dark Extortion], 1 [Psychic Melt], 1 [Shadow Word: Death], 1 [Power Word: Absorb], 1 [Blade of the Witching Hour]. I also opened up a [Nefarian]. My red ally suite was looking really good except my two drops were suffering a little. I only had 4 playable 2 drops and no 1 drops. Normally, I like to play 6 total cards between my 1 and 2 drops. The combination of no token makers and lack of 2 drop plays made me go with [Suncaller Hurah]. This way my turn two would not fall short when I mulligan into a bad hand. I did pull out a game with 33 damage on my hero thanks to my flip and [Power Word: Endurance]. [Power Word: Endurance] combined with a line of protectors can easily win the long games. I fell short of the top 8 finishing x-2. I was very happy to see a lot of friends top 8. We decided to grab some food now that the top 8 had been solidified.
The toughest thing I have come across at big tournaments is organizing dinners. The crowd continuously grows, which is fine, but it takes quite some time to actually get to the food. After about an hour of hunting and waiting for food, we grab a seat with Damien Dufresne and the Daily Metagame crew. Fortunately, the UFC pay per view was on. We enjoy some food, quite a few laughs, and the fights. I will say that I have never felt so sick to my stomach when watching an MMA fight. Not because of the most brutal knee to a chest I have ever seen. Not because of the violence or blood. I was more disgusted by the choice of underoo-esque junk sporting shorts that the one fighter was wearing. How do people get away with that garbage? Unbelievable.
The week was so much fun. This is why we play card games. To enjoy trips with close friends and get some competitive games in. Congratulations to Ben Bellis on his Darkmoon Faire win. Congratulations to my teammate Mike Dalton on his top 8 finish. The aroma of the convention was not as bad as previous years. More gamers showering daily gets a big thumbs up. Thank you to Cryptozoic for a smooth weekend. It is always a blast to hang with friends at these events. Thank you to everyone for such a great time.
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