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It has been a couple weeks since the Darkmoon Faire LA, and despite my horrific showing I had a pretty awesome time. Because of my actual placing (67th, my worst result at a DMF level tournament or above since 2008) I'm not going to give a full report. I want to sum up my tournament report, talk a little bit about the Team Sealed event, and introduce you guys to a card/deck idea that has some huge raw power, but needs a home.
Going into the Darkmoon Faire LA, I didn't end up testing to much. Basically what preparation I had was going into playing decks against [Grand Crusader]/Hordestone Priest/random [Ethced Dragonbone Girdle] control decks/Murlocs for articles. I did a ton of testing over my winter break, and was thoroughly convinced that Priest was the deck to play, but I didn't want to play it in my local area and show everyone that it was what I was playing. The [Devout Aurastone Hammer] decks have a level of resource acceleration the game has not seen before its printing, and if you couldn't beat them, then joining them was the best option.
This was the case until I went to an RCQ to have a good time, and spoke to Kyle McGinty and Jonathan Hudson-Edrosa. They came up with (what I thought at the time was a joke of a deck) [Winter Veil Disguise Kit], [Crime Scene Alarm-o-Bot], [Grand Crusader], and [Sinestra] combo control if that's what you want to call it. My dad ended up winning the tournament with his Hordestone Priest, beating Kyle in the finals, but I was interested in this deck, and spent all my remaining time while in school perfecting it.
As Kyle said in his last article, we did testing in the back of the room of the DMF on Friday with completely proxy'd decks so no one could figure out what was being played, and we came four cards from our perfect list. With the help of Dan Clark, we ended up with the following:
Hero: [Saria of Stormwind]
Allies: 29
4 [Crime Scene Alarm-o-Bot]
4 [Bronze Warden]
3 [Ruby Stalker]
3 [Bronze Drake]
4 [Burly Berta]
4 [Faithseer Jasmina]
4 [Magni, the Mountain King]
3 [Sinestra]
Abilities: 13
4 [Stasis]
2 [Blessing of Faith]
3 [Righteous Cleanse]
4 [Grand Crusader]
Equipment: 14
3 [Shalug'doom, the Axe of Unmaking]
4 [Etched Dragonbone Girdle]
3 [Winter Veil Disguise Kit]
4 [Bottled Light]
Locations: 4
4 [Twilight Citadel]
The deck was awesome when gold-fishing with it, and it played very smoothly as well. I really only had 2 exciting matches on the weekend, one in round 3 versus a Horde Hunter, and the other in round 10 versus a Hordestone Priest deck.
In round 3 my Hunter opponent had a close to nut draw, which against this deck is basically a [Rosalyne von Erantor] and any follow up action. The reason this opening is so bad for the deck is because the deck only keeps on two conditions, the first being having [Etched Dragonbone Girdle], the second is having the [Crime Scene Alarm-o-Bot] and [Winter Veil Disguise Kite] combo set up. Obviously there are other hands the deck keeps, but generally those were the mulligan conditions especially when you go second, which I did 8 times on the weekend. Under those conditions, [Rosalyne von Erantor] prevents you from making your turn 1 play, and your best stall tactic, the Disguise Kit, doesn't work against fire allies.
To get back to the game, the opponent on turn 5 had a board of a Tauren Warrior token, [Boomer], [Timriv the Enforcer], a 5/5 [Avatar of the Wild] token, a damaged [Jex'ali], and a [Telor Sunsurge], in short I had killed zero of her allies. Thankfully, her first turn was only Telor or I was dead. My board looked like this: [Etched Dragonbone Girdle] and [Grand Crusader] entering my turn 5. Basically, I was dead, I felt like my only out was for the table to get flipped over, or for her to play [Gnash].
I had two [Bronze Warden]s in my yard, so I determined my best shot at this point was to make the board look as imposing as possible, so that the threat [Gnash]ing her [Mazu'kon] token existed if she played [Mazu'kon]. I ended up playing a [Burly Berta], and [Bottled Light], returning both my [Bronze Warden]s, and bringing me back to 14 damage, which yielded a [Gnash] from her as she didn't want to deal with combat and risk losing any part of her team. I feel like I played this spot really well, as I knew I had no out, and my only way to win was to hope for my opponent to feel like they were losing. [Grand Crusader] is so powerful that people see it in play and instinctively feel like they're behind (myself included). Therefore, flooding the board with some protectors to stay alive and a [Burly Berta] to mount an offense was my only hope, and I feel it led to her playing the [Gnash].
The second interesting match was where both my Hordestone Priest opponent in round 10, Brody States, and I mulligan'd into oblivion. Our hands were awful. I had none of the cards in the deck you want to play this deck for (any of the equipment and [Grand Crusader]). I proceeded to draw three [Winter Veil Disguise Kit]s in a row to give me a chance against his mounting offense, but multiple [Obsidian Drudge]s and [Edwin VanCleef]s did me in. The interesting spot may be my only mistake of the tournament. The board is very complex at this point, and Brody is at 6 damage to my 18. He has a [Shadowfang Keep], [Obsidian Drudge], three thug tokens, an [Edwin VanCleef], and a [Vanessa VanCleef] versus my [Ruby Stalker], two [Winter Veil Disguise Kit]s, [Crime Scene Alarm-o-Bot], and a [Burly Berta] attached with a [Blessing of Faith]. I ended up attacking my [Burly Berta] into his [Edwin VanCleef], giving the Death Rattle pump to my [Ruby Stalker], and traded that for his [Obsidian Drudge], then made a [Twilight Citadel] token.
The problem with this play is I'm on a three turn clock from the [Vanessa VanCleef], and I have no way of fighting it now. I ended up dying three turns later to that Vanessa, and I'm left to wonder what would have happened if I just gave the Assault 2 to my Alarm Bot and ran it into the dragon. I feel like I ended up throwing away my Stealth, and only way around Brody's thug tokens, and this was likely a mistake. Stealth is a huge problem for this deck because it needs time to set up its victory plan with [Sinestra], and instead I just threw that away to protect my [Crime Scene Alarm-o-Bot] from a possible third [Vanessa VanCleef].
In the end, the group of four of us that played the deck put two people into Top 16, sadly on the same side of the bracket. Both Kyle and Niles both lost to Seth Miner's Hunter deck, which we determined we were 70-30 favorites over, but I think overall we'll accept the result. I feel like we were a few cards off the best possible list for the tournament, and Kyle again summed that up well in his article last week, so you should definitely check it out if you haven't already. Again, congratulations are in order to Brad Watson, as I only imagine what it's like to Top 8 a DMF, let alone win 200,000 of them like you do.
Overall though, I was happy with my play, and the bounty event that night and the Crown of the Heavens release event the night before were both awesome. I teamed up with David Bodimer and my dad, Scott Burkhart, and we did reasonably well. We had about seven dead rares and epics out of twelve, but we got to build two theme decks and one bonkers deck. My dad played our ridiculously overpowered Mage deck with [Shroud of the Archmage] which might be better in Limited than it is in Constructed, and I already know it is insane in Constructed. David piloted our token deck that featured [Tyrande, High Priestess of Elune], multiple [Stonebranch, Ancient of War] who I'm in love with right now, and 2 [Overwhelm]s to pump his millions of tokens. His deck looked so cool that we asked the judge for exactly 32 Treant tokens. Unfortunately we had to settle for eight, which I think Bodimer ended up having more in play than that in every match he won.
I on the other hand had a sweet combo deck with [Monstrous Totem] and a bunch of big fatty Ogres in the Monster Shaman deck. I never drew the totem, nor did I get to go first and make my combo of [Grag'tok] and a ton of large guys enter play. I didn't do well, but playing the format is a blast, and I think this set may be one of the best we've ever seen for Limited, and it's the most inspiring set for Constructed.
The bounty event was also a blast. I got to spend my time hanging out with a bunch of the Cryptozoic guys trolling them in any way possible. I got to help some people out telling them they could draw extra cards, destroy the opponent's biggest ally, and just all around had a blast with everyone while I was supposed to be helping Kyle test his Top 16 matchup. If you ever get a chance to play in the bounty event, do it! The event is the least stressful on the weekend, but it is also likely the most fun event. Every round you get to two pack against a new opponent, and with all the bounties in the event, you're likely to play against someone with the chance of winning sweet prizes.
Lastly, here's a deck I threw together about a week ago now that I've been working on:
Hero: [Zin'sul]
Allies: 38
4 [Rosalyne von Erantor]
4 [Alethia Brightsong]
4 [Jex'ali]
4 [Sava'gin the Reckless]
3 [Ruby Enforcer]
4 [Moharu the Skyseer]
4 [Carine, Earthmother's Chosen]
1 [Soridormi]
4 [Garrosh Hellscream]
1 [Amani Dragonhawk]
3 [Nefarian]
1 [Archmage Argual]
1 [Ozumat]
Abilities: 10
4 [Frozen Core]
4 [Chains of Ice]
2 [Withering Decay]
Equipment: 4
4 [Scimitar of the Sirocco]
Quests: 8
4 [Seeds of Their Demise]
4 [Essence of the Enmity]
The concept of the deck is very similar to that of the decks from State Championships last year. Play [Scimitar of the Sirocco] and give your allies Ferocity. Except now, the deck has some real action in it thanks to [Moharu the Skyseer]. The deck used to rely on [Kwee Q. Peddlefeet] to steal opposing allies, but now with [Moharu the Skyseer], you can dump your hand on the table and win that turn. Generally, the deck can go off on turn 5, and a normal sequence of plays looks like the following:
Turn 1: [Alethia Brightsong] to Delve.
Turn 2: Flip your hero.
Turn 3: Complete [Essence of the Enmity].
Turn 4: Play [Scimitar of the Sirocco] and attack something with it.
Turn 5: Strike with the weapon, give your party Ferocity, play [Moharu the Skyseer], attack their hero, put three allies into play, preferably one being [Garrosh Hellscream], and kill the opponent.
The deck is fairly fragile, but I do like the concept. The problems I see with the deck are that [Commander Ulthok] is playable by decks with [Devout Aurastone Hammer] and Harmonize. Both of these can result in [Commander Ulthok] hitting play naming [Scimitar of the Sirocco] before you can get the card into play. Thus far, the deck has been playing fairly well against the [Victor Baltus] Demon deck, Hunter, and [Grand Crusader], decks I predict to be very big at the 3k. However, the deck has tested very poorly against control decks. Decks with tons of instant speed removal seem abysmal for this deck, and something as silly as [Frost Fever] can cause issues as well.
I'm not saying to go out of your way to test this deck and put it in your gauntlet, but keep it in the back of your mind that something like this turn 5 kill exists and is not dead to [Miniature Voodoo Mask] like the Murloc deck is. I feel this deck has potential somewhere as a fringe combo deck you can take to an unsuspecting RCQ and win, but I doubt it will be Realm Championship worthy. Good luck to those players playing in the Metamart 3k series this week, and when we return we'll start building a gauntlet for the Realm Championships that are quickly approaching!
-Corey
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