First off, I would like to apologize for the 180 days or more since I last sat down long enough to blog, but a lot has been going on in that time... An ancient family member passed away, leaving myself and my wife to deal with Estate issues which are just settling, my job got obnoxiously busy and we started to buy a new house. Fortunately the estate is settling this week, the house finalizes next week and my job is slowing down to a normal pace as well. That all said, I want to move forward and look back at this last weekends DMF Seattle which I managed to make 2 of 3 days, and had a hell of a good time in doing so.

Getting ready for the DMF, I had 3 different decks I had serious tweaked and looked at for a couple weeks, playtesting at night for about 1 hour a night before I HAD to crawl into bed to sleep. Not a lot of practice, but better than none. And in doing said practice, I went ahead and ordered any of the cards I needed for the 3 decks, just to make sure I had what I needed before the event. My son, on the otherhand, waited till the Friday night of the DMF before deciding that he definately wanted to go on Saturday to get a Leeroy Jenkins playmat, so we had to kludge something together fast. So.... I relearned a valuable lesson this weekend that I had learned all to well some 25 years ago.

Around the time I was the same age as my son, a mere 15yrs old or so, I wanted nothing more than to have a kick-ass, tricked out BMX bike. something like one of old skool Redline or Mongoose bikes. And you know the old saying of 'Champagne taste on a beer budget'? We didn't have a beer budget. We had no budget. So, I set out to earn enough money to buy me a tricked out bike, doing lawn work cheap. Only problem is I hate lawn work, so it sucked trying to make money. Finally I had about $60 saved up, after having to give my Dad about $80 to replace the lawnmower I basically burned to death. And knowing $60 isn't going to get me anything decent, I was rather dejected. My parents decided to contribute a bit, and between the three of us, we found ourselves at just over $90 to spend on a bike.

Now, keep in mind, I wanted a cool BMX bike to replace my old skool 'touring bike', you know the sort, with the tassles in the handgrips, the mile long banana seat, and all the metallic flake paint they could fit onto a bike. Yeah, I wanted to get rid of my metallic flake purple bike for something a bit tougher. At the time we lived in a section of Spokane, Washington that was being developed into a bunch of neighborhoods, and our street had a slight hill at one end, a bunch of dirt lots in the middle and a few driveway cutouts made for forthcoming homes. So, we kids of the area had borrowed spare lumber from the construction sites, built a ramp that connected to the entrance to a driveway and had been having 'jumping contests' for weeks. And my old, ancient touring bike, with tassles, just wasn't cutting it.

My dad worked at a grocery store, and knew the Produce manager pretty well. Said produce manager, a Russian, knew a bunch of other people, including a guy who made 'top of the line custom bikes for cheaps!'. In otherwords, recycled stolen bike parts. At the time I didn't know that 'cheap' meant recycled, but to be honest, I wouldn't have cared. I just wanted a bike. So my dad decided to surprise me with a rebuilt bike that was AWESOME. At least it seemed AWESOME at first when we went to pick it up. While I had hopes of chrome, I had to settle for spray paint silver. And while I did like the contrasting black, flat black spraypaint isn't the best paint job either. I did get the requested 'motorcycle' style handgrips though, and instead of the cool plastic wheel, my rims were heavy duty with extra thick spokes.

So, I settled... and figured it was close enough. The frame was a Mongoose frame, and due to the questionable origin, was spray painted black which hid the nice chrome beneath, and that was ok with me at the time. The most important thing was that I would finally be able to challenge the previous jump record with my new recycled bike. And as soon as I got home with it, that is exactly what I headed up the street to do. Everyone sort of complimented my new bike, because it was an improvement over my old bike, but still, they were a bit unsure what to make of the Frankenbike. I didn't let that daunt my spirits at all as I headed up the hill, turned around and peddled like a madman escaping an asylum. I hit the driveway entrance at a speed I only dreamt of previously. I hit the ramp with the air whistling in my ears and then I pulled up on the handlebars to get my nose up a bit and .. found myself leaning too far forward as the handlebars folded neatly down, not being secured correctly. The nose of my bike never got the lift it needed and I was sailing through the air, in what I was sure was going to be an epic crash. And for once, I was right. My front tire hit the marker spike we used to show the longest jump.. hit it squarely and bounced, driving the spike into the ground and the bike into the air. I was mid-360 flip when I fell off, hitting the ground in a awe-inspiring cloud of dust as the bike sailed another 10' and finally stopped. I tied the record, bent my handlebars in the process and managed to avoid stitches, but still require a quick run to the emergency room all within the first 10 minutes of having my bike at home.

In short, while it looked like a BMX bike, and had the parts of one, because it was put together from a mix of stuff, it just didn't do the job. And that, my friends, is my long into into my sons Pally deck that went 2-5 for the weekend. It had some great cards, but it was short some key cards and that is what I want to cover. 

First off, we found that we only had a single Blessing of Wisdom, and realizing we need the card draw ability of that card, we went looking for an alternative. Overall, Paladin has some great card draw ability, which makes it one of the strongest classes for card advantage, and in this case, we settled for some fast healing combined with card draw to make up the difference. The downside to this approach is the use of resources to spawn the card draw, which often left less than ideal resources for other essential plays.  Even sacrificing a single resource to draw a card can mean lagging behind your opponent in allies early game, as you have to decide between dropping a fast heal + card or another protector to buy you more time to set up.

Lacking any Lay on Hands also meant that games going to time had no 'emergency' reset for a potential win, which cost Keegan at least 1, if not 2 games outright. A Flash of Light just doesn't do the job ;)

I will post the actual deck he ran as soon as I get a chance, and break it down a bit more, but clearly we found that running sub-par cards lead to sub-par performance. Simply put, you can't undervalue your deck and hope to play on the same level as someone taking the time to get the cards they need to build the deck right.

So, does that make WoW TCG a money game? Well, the answer is as varied as the decks you find in competative events. Of course it is a money game, at the high end, as you want to build the best deck possible if you are going to compete at a high level. But one doesn't need to invest hundreds of dollars into the game to compete or have fun. There are various decks that have a low overhead cost but allow some signifcantly viable competition. The downside to most of those decks is that they tend to be more complex than the straightforward heavy hitting of some of the more expensive decks.  

One can also compete in local battlegrounds with a less than optimal deck if they are looking for a challenge, or a bit of lower keyed fun.  It really depends on the level of competitiion you hope to achieve or seek.  

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One of my stated goals, particularly in the last few weeks, of tracking my deck and my success at Realms/Regionals, has been to learn, improve and net a playmat as a result of said efforts.  With the change in the prize structure coming into play as of April 11th, I had one last chance to try to get my own 'Holy Grail', a playmat.

Portland, Oregon is 167 miles from my home, according to maps.google.com, and by their best guess, would involve a 2 hour and 51 minute drive. In order to have a shot at a playmat, not only would I have to tweak my deck a bit more, but I would have to consider driving about 340 miles round trip, at a cost of about 6hrs of travel time total, and a full tank of gas. ( Thanks to my shiny red Kia Rio getting around 34mpg freeway, the math on that was pretty easy.)

So.. with the blessing from my wife, I spent a week testing 101 minor tweaks, including some really random stuff, and finally settled into what I thought was the best possible deck I could run.  I stripped out some Protectors I had put in after the last even, I dropped Magister Ashi entirely and added two cards that I hadn't really considered in the past.   Those two, it turns out, are great tech, and actually turned a couple games around for me.

Adding Vindicator Kaldel served two purposes. Firstly, it allows me to inspire an ally, allowing me to ready half of my 'new tech', as well as allowing me to get much more use out of Jazmin Bloodlove.  Yes, I know that Jazmin is generally regarded as weaksauce, but with Kaldel in play, not only can Jazmin drop for 1, and attack immediately, even if just for 1 damage, but she can be inspired back into a position to be able to defend, keeping at least 1 attack off of Kagella or another ally that can be handy.   Secondly,  Kaldel is a 3/2, for 2.   And a 3/2 is enough to trade even with Bloodsoul, take out a Kagella or, providing she drops after a Gifts, become a 5/4 for 2 which is just beastly.

My other added tech came as a suggestion from two folks that I regard as being bright enough, and skilled enough to know what they are talking about, so I took their suggestion and just ran with it. I added my 2 Borlis Brode to the deck. Yes, I know he is just an uncommon, and that I should have more, but sadly I didn't get more than 2 in the single box of FoO I had aquired.  At an amazing 3/4 for a mere 2, Borlis can take out a pair of Bloodsouls, or a couple protectors before falling, making him a great trade. And even with his drawback of not readying during my upkeep, I rarely had the problem of having him just sitting there idle, between Broan and Kaldel.  And in the one game that I did have Borlis just sitting idle, he was joined by his twin, both of them being ignored turn after turn.  I left them there as well, until I was able to capitalize on them on turn 8, when I was able to drop 2x Broan, readying both of them  and finish the game with a pair of Gifted Borlis swinging in for 5 each, and their eager companion Broan swinging in for 4 each, giving me a turn 8 delivery of 18 damage after I sacrificed the rest of my board to clear holes in the defense.

So, without going into long drawn out report mode, I did indeed make the trip to Portland where I was able to go 4-1 on the day, losing only to a netdecked Omedus rush that was more aggressive than I was.  My wins were against 1 Beastmaster Hunter, 1 Alliance Druid that was supposed to be the equivolent of Taheo Gifts, 1 Morova Gifts/Moonfire combo and an Alliance Mage deck.  Aside from the struggle to force Omedus to 3 games, the roughest contender on the day was the other horde druid deck, which came close to beating me.

 Facing Morova, I knew that it was going to be a close round regardless and I had hoped I could win the initial dice roll to set some tempo. Sadly, I lost the roll and the first game as my opponent stayed 1 turn ahead of me on every aspect. Our decks were very similiar, nearly mirror, except he invested in early drop protectors where I prefered some more beats and speed.  Second game, I am on the play and our positions are reversed. I am a turn ahead, drop Gifts first, finish him cleanly that way.  Then on to the third game, where I was really worried.  I draw into 2 resources, 2 Jazmin, 2 Borlis and 1 Kaldel in my opening hand. I opt to keep.  He got off to a good start, dropping Magister Ashi, then passed to me. I drop a resource, drop Jazmin, swing in to clear Ashi, end turn.  His turn 2 nets a resource and nothing else, where mine is a resource and Borlis. Turn 3 he drops Tyrennius Scatheblade, which Borlis will run over and eat, and when I drop Vindicator before passing, my opponent realizes that Borlis is here to do some damage.  The rest of the game is sort of back and forth until turn 8 when I double Broan the ignored Borlis twins, as I mentioned above. 

Because of the odd number of players,  and going 5 rounds, it was possible that we could end the day with 3 folks going 4-1 and due to the other two guys being buddies that rode up together, and the only 4-0 after round 4 double conceeding in round 5 to his buddy, that is exactly what we ended at. Three players sitting at 4-1 for the day. I figured my chances of Top2 were good as I had beaten one, so the tiebreaker should be mine, and it was, allowing me to finish in 2nd place on the day.  Payout for my efforts included my treasured playmat, where I had to pick the hot bloodelf over the squidfaced dude, a deckbox I promptly set aside to give my son, a Molten Core loot pack with netted nothing fantastic, an Onyxia loot pack that  burped up my 2nd Cull the Weak and Backpack cards, and 8 boosters of MotL which produced some tradeable stuff.

Most importantly, it got me the invite to Realm Championships and the last Playmat available for some time to come.  So, I can relax a bit now, and spend the next month figuring out what I can take to Realms that will hopefully serve me well for the day.  At the moment, I haven't really had the chance to look deeply at the possible contenders, but I am planning on cycling through a few prospects before I start tweaking and tuning whatever I think I will be most comfortable with. At the moment, I am looking at Warlock, Hunter, Shammy or Priest, but I still want to take a few existing decks such as a rogue or warrior deck, tweak them without disrupting their core concept, and see if I can find something that can handle a variety of challenges.

And to be upfront and honest, I don't expect to Top16 at Realms. I really don't. I want to go, have fun, get an EA Wraith Scythe, play as well as I can until it is clear I am out of the running, then I will look at the side events of the day and see what I can manage.  However, as I gear up for Realms, I think I will continue to publish my thoughts as well as the deck ideas I am toying with, in hopes of giving others a bit of insight or help, and with luck, drawing some insight and help from the friends that watch this blog.  

For those who are interested, my 'winning' Taheo decklist:

 
Hero: Tahoe

Allies:
2x Borlis Brode
4x Vindicator Kaldel
4x Bloodsoul
4x Broan Charges-The-Fight
2x Nyn'jah
2x Shadala
1x Shawn of the Dead
1x Varimathras
4x Broan Charges the Fight
4x Jazmin Bloodlove

Abilities:
4x Force of Nature
4x Gift of the Wild
2x Innervate
4x Cyclone
4x Moonfire

Quests:
3x Torek's Assault
3x Poison Water
3x Finkle Einhorn at your service
3x Hellfire Fortifications
2x Chasing A-ME-01

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Feeling less scrubbish now than I have in the past, I have set my sights on making it into the Top 8 at a Realm Qualifier, or should I need to persist, a Regional Qualifier later this year. Why set my sights on Top 8 of either? Is it for the Realm Champ event? Nay!  Is it for a potential Nationals Invite? Nay!  I have set the goal so that I may... gain a new playmat.

Yeah, I tweaking a deck for about 5 weeks now, playtesting it online via Magic Workstation or  www.onlinetcggames.com (check it out if you haven't yet..) all for the sake of earning a playmat. A playmat I have seen trade for about $20 in cards following such events.  I want the playmat, but do not want to have it without having earned it.

So, to that end, I have been playtesting and tweaking my Taheo Gifts deck for several weeks, often using MWS for a fast test after making a minor change. Sometimes it is swapping out Varimathras for another ally, or adding 2 Barkskin and 2 Twig of the World Tree in place of 4 allies or so forth. Recently, during one such test, I ran into an opponent that delivered one of the best backhanded compliments ever 'Nice deck... where from?'

The intent was clear... They were indeed noting and commenting on the deck having a nice pace, strong presense and generally reliable play, but were inferring that such a deck was beyond my ability to design, so I must have found a netdeck list for it somewhere and then just mashed buttons like a monkey to play it.  A compliment and a veiled insult in one fell swoop. Or rather, it would have been seen that way if I wasn't so pleased that it had finally started to play solidly enough to frustrate someone who clearly thought themselves the better player in the match.  I did take the time to explain that while the core engine (4 Force of Nature + 4 Gift of the Wild) was something I had seen in a decklist, the rest of the deck around it was my own mix based on a metric buttload of testing.  Sure, I have 4 Bloodsoul like every other version of the deck, but that is moreso due to Bloodsoul almost being an automatic include in Horde rush/beats deck. Bloodsoul is just that good for his cost.  My other 1 drop, as of this writing, is Magister Ashi, another almost mandatory in a horde deck, due to his ability to rotate cards through the deck.  Kagella Shadowmark has found a home in my deck, which only makes sense with Force of Nature, as I can drop Kagella turn 3, and should she survive to turn 4, drop a Force and add another +3 to her, pushing her to a minimum of 5/3 on turn 4. And with her being inside the range of Finkle's restrictions, she is an ideal member of Team Rush.

I recently started testing with a pair of Barkskin, which is all I have in my collection, knowing I want to aquire at least 1 more, and a pair of Twigs, which provide at least an alternate or additional bit of damage. At one point in testing I had swapped out the Twigs for a pair of Thorns, but found Twig to be more useful in general, although Thorns kept the counter rush of Teep and Merry down to 1 run each at me. 

So what drives someone to drop a backhandedd compliment when they lose a game in a format (online play) that has no bearing on any real ratings, etc? Why take the time to type in what is clearly meant to be an insult just because the guy you thought you could out-tech happened to have the better deck for a series of games?  And while I really don't want to write an article about 'netiquite', I do want to write a bit about my own experiences playing/testing online and how I prefer to interact with my opponents.

1) Be social but not overly so: While I can be a Chatty Nancy at a gaming table, the fact that I am testing online means I have to type instead of just talking, so I try to be sociable, but not release a wall of text at my opponent. Jedion, a semi-regular I have played online, is a great example.. We chat in a small amount, such as me wishing him a Happy St. Patty day, and he explaining he is messing around with non-standard decks. I explain I am still tweaking my deck and we both know where  we stand on seriousness of play, etc.

2) Polite is good: Part of the reason I am still tweaking is that I want my deck to be as lean, efficient and deadly as possible, within the constraits of my wallet or card pool.  To that end, I can find myself overplaying, ie: I have brought a much stronger deck to the game than my opponent. Rather than gloating, or apologizing (afterall, why would I be sorry my deck is working?) I let my opponent know that I have other less serious decks if they want the next game to be more interesting or balanced, and I let them know that I have been tweaking my deck quite awhile, so if the game seems lopsided, it is because I have put that much effort into the deck. 

3) Don't be a ... : It goes without saying that if you are doing any of the above, the chances of you being labeled a douchebag jerk are slim, but you could still pull it off if you tried hard enough. I make it a point to not try to be a jerk. Don't disconnect midgame just because you are tired of losing or being beatdown. Take a moment to message your opponent with 'Dude, I am just not in the game at the moment, and this is just making my head hurt, can I just scoop now and save you a few turns?' Folks will appreciate this, will not be stuck waiting forever for you to play, or won't assume the worst if you disconnect after that point. 

That all said, I did want to discuss briefly my thoughts on playtesting a deck and tweaks to the deck.

First off, I always print a hardcopy of my current decklist so I can make notes on it as I playtest, and those notes can be useful in evaluating the value of a card in the game. It was using such methods that I finally decided to cut Voss Treebender, as I had note after note indicating he would come into play, and then soak a burn spell, leaving me with one fewer Voss and the opponent with 1 fewer burn. However, I always felt that I was getting the less useful side of the equation.  

Another must in testing and tweaking is consistancy. And by this I mean does the card show up enough, on a regular basis, to make it worth including. To determine that, I will play each version of my test deck at least 10 games, just to make sure I have a fair assessment to work from.  More is better of course, but 10 is really the minimal number of games to throw at a deck. 

My third and last point to cover today is the ever mysterious Synergy, which I previously wrote about.  While it does turn out that Debros + Into the Fray has great synergy, relying on a two card combo, mid to late game, in order to maybe secure a win is not the ideal path to travel.  Finding the synergy that makes each card in your deck valuable is more important than finding a coupling that, if it happens to come into existance, is godlike.  Kagella + Force is great, but Kagella + the rest of my allies I planned to play anyways is good as well. Clearly Kagella has significant synergy with my Gifts/Rush deck. Instead of asking 'Which card can this best pair with..' when tweaking my deck, I find myself asking 'Would I run this card even if I wasn't running Card Y?', and if the answer is yes, such as it is with Bloodsoul, I keep the card or at least look for one that is a bit of an improvement but with the minimal downsides.

Ok.. there you go, another long winded screed, as I prepare my deck for April 5th when I will travel down to Portland in an attempt to get a playmat. If that doesn't work out, I have April 12th in Seattle, then April 26th in Portland again.  3 more chances to get into T8 for a playmat before Realm Champs, which I would love to attend. And with my 3 Realm/Regional rankings of 19th, 18th and 13th, I see steady improvement which keeps the hope alive that I can slide in at some point.

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So the Realm Q has come and gone, and for better or worse, I ran my Taheo Gift Rush as posted in my last blogging effort.  While I did not fair as well as I had hoped, I did learn a bit, which in itself is a valuable thing.

First, I suppose I should just jump to the results: I placed 13th of 24, running my deck to a 3-3 on the day. It performed well, in general, but my losses did reveal holes that I hadn't thought to look at. One loss was in a mirror match game, but against an opponent who had an even more streamlined, faster rush than I managed. I learned more in that game than I had thought I would, which I plan to use in tweaking my deck.  The other two losses were to players who, in spite of me having answers to their biggest threats, simply outplayed me in skill.

My first match of the day was against Seth, who was running Memri, and while I had the answer to his Aegis with my Hur, and even given that I managed to beat him once, I fell to him 1-2.  He outplayed me in the last two games, staying a step ahead, or making better trades, and just kept his head about himself much better than I did. There wasn't anything significant in the games we played that would have made me change my deck, and I give props to him for being the more skilled player.

My second loss of the day was to a Blaize Burn+Untargettable deck, and I simply didn't have the answers to Firepower. Even sideboarding Shadala wasn't enough, as she arrived far too late to save me. With him being able to drop 2 firepower into play unchallenged, my 'rush force' was rapidly reduced to ashes and I really couldn't do much. So, my lesson learned is that I need to have something other than sideboarded Shadala as a fallback if I run up against a deck like this, or be able to rush faster.

My third loss of the day was against another Taheo deck, which took advantage of faster rush, or heavier damage, primarily in the form of Kagella Shadowmark, as well as having a small cadre of solid defense to slow my own rush. Lesson learned here is that Kagella is hands down more solid than Debros, especially if played smartly.  Not only is the growing attack power a serious threat, especially after playing Force of Nature, but Kagella has a big butt... urm, I mean, sufficient health to ignore the simple 1pt burns that kill Debros. Also, Guardian Steelhorn is amazing at trades early game, and if used wisely, still improve Kagella, doubling their efficiency nicely.

So.. what am I going to change in my deck? At the moment I am still tinkering, but I am looking at removing Debros entirely, even though I did manage to get a turn 7 or 8 Debros, with Into the Fray, in 3 games, which won each game nicely. It is just too much of a glass jaw combo to rely on, especially when I can do more early damage with someone like Kagella, and then push with fewer if needed later to finish off my opponent.

Into the Fray is great.. and I still feel it is under-appreciated for what it can offer. I managed to Fray a Zy'Lah in one game, which turned the game around for me. However, as great as Fray is, it doesn't always move me towards a win condition. And considering that I faced more than a few big butted Bloodsouls and such, often having to use my flip to deal with them, I think I may rotate Wrath back in to replace Fray, giving me a burn of my own capable of dealing with Bloodsoul or Kagella.

Possible considerations:

By the end of the weekend I had traded some blue chaff for a few things I had been looking for, including a pair of Barkskin. And while two isn't quite solid in a deck, I am half way to a playset that could be useful. Against Blaize, Barkskin may have saved my ass.. not from the fire, but allowing me to get my Gifts out, which were denied thanks to Counterspell or Nether Fracture.  

I still believe Taheo Gifts will be viable for me, especially since I so enjoy the style of play that it provides, I just need to find the leaner, faster plays to make it not only viable, but hard to stop. And right now it is too easy to stall.

That all said, I just finished an overnighter at work, after working a full shift ahead of it, so I am tired as hell and will continue this review later.

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Sometimes something simple can make a world of difference, and in WoW TCG, that is no exception as some of the more basic cards which are often overlooked can change the feel and flow of a deck. Or even adding a non-conventional card can cause the opponent to have a 'Wtf?' moment that buys you a turn or two extra.

These two lessons were planted into my head many long years ago by my father, a former Marine, who believed in using any tool necessary to get the job done. I recall back in 1978, when I was a mere lad of 10yrs of age, when my dad had to have me help me remove 3 stripped bolts and lug nuts from the front wheel of our ugly as hell station wagon. We had, earlier that day, taken the car in to have new breaks and tires put on it, and through some oversite or just blatant stupidity on someones part, the nuts on the right side of the car had been incorrectly re-attached. The net result was a rear passenger side wheel coming off while we were driving, and front passenger bolts becoming bent. So bent in fact that we couldn't drive the car well enough to return it to the tire store even after finding our missing tire and remounting it, having found its missing nuts on the side of the road some quarter mile back from where it came off. So.. we used a bizarre assortment of tools in the garage to force the wheel off, replaced the bolts and eventually headed back to the tire store to complain. Sadly the manager was less than caring, and on learning that we had a complaint, basically told my dad 'Crap happens.. learn to deal with it'. My dad asked the guy if he lived around there.. and he did. My dad then asked the guy if he had fire insurance... The manager asked 'why?' and my dad simply said 'See you tonight...' then turned to leave the store. We didnt' make it to the door before the manager realized what my dad wasn't saying, and offered to fix everything to my fathers satisfaction. Again, using unexpected tools worked to my fathers advantage. Nevermind the fact that technically my dad was illegally threatening another guy.. it got the job done. So.. how do you find a common tool to use to your advantage?

Two weeks ago I attended a Realms Qualifier in Seattle, placing 19th out of 34 participants, after taking a loss for the first round due to arriving late, and going 3-2 for the rounds I did play, running a Tahoe Gifts Rush deck. While the deck performed well enough, and generally avoided the troublesome decks I had worried about (Paladin and Mage) it stumbled against a Warlock deck, and went to the wire against a Shammy deck that managed to get the Morlug/Wrath/Faesha combo to drop in a single turn.

Reviewing my deck, I started looking for minor changes that would improve it a bit, speed it up if possible, and drop non-useful chaff. Being the sharing kind of guy, I decided I would walk through the process here in the blog, and open my analysis to review of others.

Original Deck:

Hero: Tahoe

Allies:

3x Doshura Risestrider

3x Magister Ashi

4x Bloodsoul

2x Voss Treebender

2x Waz'luk

3x Debros Cousin-to-the-Moon

2x Acid Hands McGillicutty

2x Confessor Mildred

1x Shawn of the Dead

4x Broan Charges the Fight

1x Varimathras

2x Zy'lah Manslayer

Abilities:

4x Force of Nature

4x Gift of the Wild

2x Innervate

1x Ultimate Triumph

3x Cyclone

3x Wrath

Quests:

3x Torek's Assault

3x Poison Water

3x Finkle Einhorn at your service

3x Hellfire Fortifications

2x Chasing A-ME-01

When looking to change the deck up a bit, I looked at what had caused me the most trouble, and aside from a well built Warlock deck with exceptional removal, I didn't find anything that stood out short of armor, which I couldn't really touch. The damned Aegis which I kept seeing in Pally decks forced me to stall and stumble, although I generally could Gift my way past it.

My revised deck ended up as:

Hero: Tahoe

Allies:

3x Doshura Risestrider

3x Magister Ashi

3x Bloodsoul

3x Waz'luk

3x Debros Cousin-to-the-Moon

2x Acid Hands McGuillicutty

1x Shawn of the Dead

4x Broan Charges the Fight

2x Zy'lah Manslayer

3x Hur Shieldsmasher

1x Varimathras

bilities:

4x Force of Nature

4x Gift of the Wild

2x Innervate

2x Zephyr

3x Cyclone

3x Into the Fray

Quests:

3x Torek's Assault

3x Poison Water

3x Finkle Einhorn at your service

3x Hellfire Fortifications

2x Chasing A-ME-01

My changes explained:

One of the first cards to be cut and replaced was Voss Treebender, who has a great ability, but lacked the chance to stay in play long enough to use it. At best he was a target for a burn spell, which can be useful, but not nearly as useful as I needed him to be. In 5 matches played, I think I was able to successfully use him maybe 3 times.

Another 'coaster card' for the deck was the single Ultimate Triumph I kept maindeck, as the reality hit me that if I truly NEEDED this card, it was going to be pretty rare that I would have it in hand... that reality reinforced by the fact that I never once got to play it when I really needed it. So, I cut it, and decided to sideboard the more cost effective Vanquish in case I need that ability.

Confessor Mildred, in spite of being a more stable alternative to Shadala, simply ate burn spells, cycled into the grave and rarely made a useful appearance.

So, after trimming a bit, I had to look at what to add, and this is where I started to have a bit of fun. Adding another Waz'luk seemed logical, and trimming a Bloodsoul hasn't seemed to hurt his appearance in testing so far, both still serving the purpose the are in for. Waz'luks enter play ability triggers Torek's Assault, meaning a turn 2 Waz with a Torek in play nets me a free draw. Bloodsoul still sucks up at least 1, if not 2 allies or burn spells, giving me a bit of breathing room.

Adding 'Into the Fray' is one of those 'Bwah?' moments from my test opponents, as this card rarely sees play from what I can tell... but in games where I can pull it post turn 6, it pairs nicely with Finkle to bring back Debros, give ferocity and strike for 6-7 damage easily if I still have ally advantage. Lacking the chance to run an unimpeded Debros at my foe, it becomes a turn 8 powerhouse as I drop Zy'lah, Fray her, and proceed to clear my opponents allies with a hopefully Gifted Manslayer.

Additionally, lacking a Gifts for turn 6, I have found that Fray'ing Shawn of the Dead can usually net me protector at the least, if not something fun. In at least one test game, against a Spirit Healer deck, I managed to Shawn an Ishana and a Greench, which pretty much handed me the game. Shawn isn't by any means a win condition, but he can be a 'lets throw off their tempo a bit' card that nets me a turn or two of confusion to take advantage of.

Hur Shieldsmasher was added to just that.. smash that freaking Aegis so that my early game doesn't become a game of 'ooo, how many allies can I put into play that just stand there..' and in testing he has paid for himself time and time again by just entering play.

Zephyr... Remember that game I mentioned I lost against the Shammy who managed to Morlug/Faesha/Wrath in one turn? Yeah.. holding a Cyclone and Wrath in hand, on his turn, was not the most useful combo to have. So, I added a pair of hopefully timely Zephyr to snipe if necessary. So far, in testing, they have had some reasonable success in showing up in a timely manner.

My changes are pretty minimal, yet have a bit more synergy than the deck had before... being able to bum rush a few key allies with Fray, or being able to stop a soft allie on the other side are a couple of the things I really needed to better handle whatever my opponent tosses at me. As to how well the changes will work out in the long run... Well, I will be driving the 214 miles from my tiny town of Enumclaw to Salem, Oregon to test it out in the morning, as I head to another Realm Qualifier. I'd have prefered to not travel some 400 miles round trip to test it in live games, but an untimely death in the family will prevent me from making the Seattle based Realm qualifier next week, so I have to take what I can get.

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My dad... Not sure how to describe him other than 'He was in the Marines in the 1960's.. and even though they discharged him, I don't think he ever left.."  He is that typical movie Marine you see on TV. Loud when he needs to be heard. Gruff as hell.  I remember, years ago, when he took me fishing.

We were in a small aluminum row boat, trying to hook anything with gills and some guys in a speedboat decided to buzz us a few times as they pulled their buddy around the lake, as the guy was waterskiing.  I don't know if they were trying to freak us out, or their buddy who almost collided with us, but I do recall my dad standing up as they passed, yelling 'You corrugated c*cksuckers!' and casting his fishing line across the tow rope.  Keep in mind, that since we were fishing, this meant a large lure, with 3 sharp points, was basically wire-guided right to the guy on the skis. And while it only hooked his vest, it did snap the fishing line, which resulted in my dad throwing a full, unopened bottle of beer at the waterskier who proceeded to wipe out between trying to dodge, trying to figure out what hit his vest, etc.

Anyways, that is my dad.. and my dad used to say 'If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, why f'ing play?'  And with that mentality, I trucked myself down to Game-A-Lot again this weekend, taking in a new deck to try out in the weekly Constructed tourney.

This deck was a combination of ideas I had partial developed, and partially the brainchild of one of the regulars who plays down there, and it was a very low cost (as in $$) warlock deck featuring Pagatha. The deck list was:

Hero: Pagatha

(4) Bloodsoul

(4) Kagra of the Crossroad

(2) Vindicator Belian

(4) Thulthun

(4) Kagella

(2) Kalnuff Eaglewhatever

(3) Hur Shieldsmasher

(3) Barak the Shamed

(3) Bloodblade

(4) Deathcoil

(4) Eye of Kilrogg

(3) Warlock Training

(3) Shadowbolt

(2) Curse of Agony

(4) New Plague

(4) Chasing A-me-01

(4) Toreks

(4) Forces of Jaedenar

In three rounds of Swiss, I managed to go 2-1, and come in 2nd place. So there isn't really anything to be shamed over, but I had to have a nice segue into Barak the Shamed.

Barak, I learned tonigh, is a beater at 5/5 for 3.. if you can hold onto him. He is also a one-shot-wonder, as the first time you drop him, and your opponent wins him, and you steal him back, it makes them VERY shy about bidding more than 1 for him in the future.  I did manage to get a bit of use out of him though...

In my first game, I drew my opening 7 to find him there, as well as a Warlock Training, so I waited till turn 4 to drop him. Opponent bid 5, I had bid 1.. so off he goes to their side of the board, I drop Warlock Training on my Bloodsoul, exhaust to attack and put Barak back in my hand.  That surprise wouldn't work again, so I resourced him a turn later, but it was a great way to drop 5 extra damage on my opponent.

Later, in another game, I was able to get Barak out 3 times, for a total of 6 damage, in the fashion of 4-1-1 in bids by my opponent. The first return was compliments of Training again, and the next two were Deathcoils taking Barak away, then tossing him back in play.

My loss of the evening was from a mostly solo Warrior deck that I simply couldn't stabalize against.. ever.  I didn't have weapon hate, so I got bludgeoned down fast.  

So I got a couple more EA cards, and had fun running a mostly competative deck with a janky twist that made it fun deck to play.  And even though I came in 'first loser', I feel pretty good about its showing.  

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Back long ago, when the land was still young and fertile, and I had 17 seasons behind me.. (ok.. some 22 years ago..) a good friend of mine called up, seeking a favor. My buddy, Ron, had newish girlfriend, and wanted to hook up with her, but she had promised a friend that she would hang with them. Yeah, I got the Wingman call. And being a buddy, I answered. So off to 'blind date' night I go.

Now, to be fair, at least I didn't get set up with some hideous fat cow that would stare blankly at me as I tried to crack a joke.. no, that would come a few weeks later and strain my friendship, but thats a story for later. This time I got a gnome.

Seriously. She was about 4'6" tall, had chubby gnome arms and legs, and her name was Mirna. Now, keep in mind that in high school I barely hit the towering-over-Ted-Evans height of 5'2" so I wasn't really that much taller than her, but it was enough.

The date was for a church dance, which I figured meant my chances of getting some scratch out of it, even before seeing Mirna, was pretty much slim to none. Then seeing her, I was still betting on the none part.

I was terribly wrong, and I think she may still have 'beauty bark' from the flower bed we got busy in tucked in her ass crack to this day. Still, the night was one of the more strange and filled to the brim with 'omg, I made a bad decision' moments. Which is a really wordy way for me to segue into this entry in my scrub blog...

Recently I made it to a constructed event at the local gaming store, dragging a completely untested mage deck with me. And when I say untested I mean 'I built this 10 minutes before I left the house, and didn't bother to sleeve it..' untested. It had a craptacular mix of burn, allies and such. Horde mage.. no, not that one.. not even that other one. The weak ass arcane one.

The entire deck was one long list of bad choices... a sub-par hero, an unfavorable mix of allies that didnt have synergy, a resource curve that was horrid and then factor in the fact I have never tried playing 'control' mage.. much less rush mage. Ever.

I got my ass handed to me 7 ways from Sunday, although I couldn't find fault with those handing my ass to me... it was entirely my fault for going untested, and more importantly, not at least netdecking enough to see what the normal mix of stuff was.

So why, given that I read more posts on building and decklists than most folks can stomach in a day, and given that I have built successful hunter decks that rely on rush, did I build such a crappy mage deck?

One of the first bad decisions was to deviate from my normal mode of play, without testing it at all. I switched from my favored Alliance to Horde without really reading the ally cards or looking for synergy.

I also switched play style from 'throw everything at them, including the Fury in the kitchen sink' to 'wait for a good time to counter or zap something' without understanding what a good time to do so was.

For example, in one of my first matches, my opponent tossed down a Zephyr at a 2/1 ally, and I opted to fizzle it, allowing them to exhaust a few more cards to drop something that ended up hurting me a lot more. I could have lived without the ally.. it was disposable, but I poorly opted to defend it. After the match, I had a chance to discuss my allies with the other player and he helped me build a list of good 1-3 drop horde that would work for 'steady beats' that are floodlike, but not quite a rush. Using his formula, I have tweaked the list to become outright rush and tried it with some decent success on MWS. My current rush list is:

4x Kagra of the Crossroads

4x Jazmin Bloodlove

4x Hootie

4x Broan Charges-the-Fight

3x Fury

2x Shadala

2x Sileas Dawnwalker

4x Seamus Sommerset

As you can see, its a hunter rush, with a heavy focus on Ferocity to get damage rolling on turn 1 and keep it rolling, turn after turn, till 5-6 when I drop Fury for some big beats. And in coming up with this mix, I looked at why I was using the selected cards, such as having a pair of Shadala as 'emergency' ability removal, and Sileas to do a late early, or early midgame hardware removal. I also wanted to have Jazmin as a soak for other allies, using her uninspiring 1/1 status as weak damage or as a means to handle a rampant ally from the opponent.

While the hunter deck it is attached to isn't a T1 deck, it has been doing very well in MWS, and I feel that this last weekend/early week has moved me a few steps ahead because of the time I have put into finding synergy with the allies I have chosen. All I need to do now is get the rest of the cards I need for the deck and try it live this weekend, which means I will have 20-30 games on MWS played using it by then. And that, I am hoping, will prevent me from making another bad choice in deckbuilding...

Tags: WoW Warcraft Gnomes Midgets

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A few weeks ago, I wrote:

My first chance at attending a regional event is just over week away, when the first regional of the year will take place in Seattle.

My goal? To attend and have fun.

So.. how did it go? Was I prepared? What was my deck? ... Yeah, I know, I got buried under work and skipped the blog for a bit.

So.. the week leading up to the event I did some trading, but not nearly enough. Then I did some borrowing, which filled in a couple gaps I had in the deck I wanted to run. Then I got a meager amount of testing done on it, and off to regionals I went.

Out of 39 participants, I placed at 16th for the day, netting me a neat EA card for the effort. I went 3/3 on the day, losing to Mazar, Daspien and Ozzati.. I took out a Nathadan, a Rotun and um.. damn, I can't remember what my first opponent had as hero.. only that every one of his allies was Elusive. Its almost as if he had sorted his collection into two piles: Elusive and everything else.. then grabbed the elusive pile and said 'Damn, I build a fine deck!'.

So, recapping Regionals isn't my strong point.. But the basics are: I got up, made my son get up, we got ready, grabbed our stuff, headed into Seattle. Finding parking wasn't as bad as I had expected, and we were within 1 block of the event.

We registered, then sat waiting for the Yugioh kids to start their stuff.. then we started. My day was basically alternating between Win/Loss.

So, in retrospection, I wasn't nearly prepared. My deck, while not sucking entirely, wasn't trim or lean. It has an assload of bloat, and worst of all, not a single Fury in it.

Still, for my first event, coming in the middle wasn't bad, and it put me ahead of some folks that I had thought were going to do far better than myself. And not that their misfortune pleases me, but rather, I was pleased to find that I wasn't as bad at this as I had feared.. it was a bit of a confidence boost knowing I could manage to hang with the upper 50%.. if only making it to that level by half a body. ;)

So, the next Regionals is Feb 23rd, and I still haven't settled on a deck. I love the hell out of hunter, but my common sense side is saying 'Hunter isn't what it was.. its too expected, its soft now.." and I am considering netdecking what could be a better deck.

Now, when it comes to netdecking, I normally defend the hell out of it.. for some folks, the best way to learn of how cards interact is to see a decklist then look up all the cards they are unfamiliar with and see why they are in the deck. For others, its an easy path to a slightly better than 50/50 chance to win a game. For me, I try to work on my own decks, which I will flat out state suck, and then tweak them a bit based on netdecks.

Case in point: This weekend at Game-A-Lot was our weekly constructed game. I dropped $5 to discover the mage deck I built wasn't good. At all. I annoyed folks with it, but as far as win conditions go, I was all over the place trying to figure that out 0/3 on the night and the mage deck retired in shame.

So, I asked a couple of the resident 'pro' players for some help and one of them gave me a tentative "hypothetical' list to work from, for a warlock deck.

Having just recently finally gotten around to setting up MWS, I built it and tested it 14 times before I tweaked it. It was ok.. winning just over 50%, but not much over. So, I went to test a theory that one of the resident guys had, that you could substitute in any hero and 16 abilities and make it work. So i went with Ona Skyshot and my wins went up to over 65%.

However, in doing that tweak, I changed out the hero, 16 ability cards and the 'secret tech' portion of the deck since a hunter deck won't be able to capitalize on that bit.

The new hunter deck is playing very well online, and I am likely to test it out over the weekend, if I can get a couple cards I am still needing.

Short of it doing well, I will go back to the original Warlock design and see if I can get that tweaked a bit more.

So, no point in blogging with some relevant points:

-When preparing for a bigger event, play-play-play-play! You need to put some serious decktime to good use. Learn what to expect from the deck, decide on what paths are open and what to look for to spot them.

-Relax: First game, I was so nervous I pelted my opponent with flying cards when a shuffle escaped my hands.

-Think before acting: I can't stress this enough, nor can I claim to do it often enough.. what I can claim is that when I took a moment to look at the game board, and THINK about what the best trade at anytime would be, I did much better than when I was racing to finish my turn.

-Don't name your kid Richard.. my first opponent was a younger player named Richard, and the entire time we played I had to fight the urge to jump up and say 'Just play a card Dick!' when he seemed to take forever to play. Mind you, this wasn't him thinking before playing, but rather, him reading me the flavor text on EVERY card as he played it.

So.. upcoming week is a quest to find 2 more Fury, 3 Silencing Shot and maybe Hemet's Elekk Gun x3 or x4. Oh, and 2 Rapid Fire.

Hunter deck tip: skip the Bloody Welcomes unless you want to put some in the sideboard. Load up on Trophy Kill if you are anything other than Survival. The 1-3 drops you see shouldn't slow you down much, and being able to kill that turn 6 drop with just 3 resources is pretty damn sweet.

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note: [OT] in this case refers to 'Off Topic" since it is not quite WoW TCG related, but in a sense, ties into some of my feelings at the moment

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Late in the summer of 1977, at the age of 9yrs old, I learned a lesson that has stuck with me for the last 30 years. As with most lessons, it was one learned through an extreme situation, this particular time it happened to involve death.

I grew up in a small farming community a couple hours north of Seattle, Wa. And like most small communities that draw on crops or weather or luck, there was, for many of us, a lack of financial stability, which is a nice way of saying that a whole lot of the folks in the area would be considered poor. As a result of this condition, many families still kept with the old school approach of housing, meaning that larger homes tended to have multiple generations of the family living under one roof.

My friend Matthew was one such case of this, with his grandparents sharing the same house with his parents, his two sisters, a brother in law and his twin nephews, for a total of 10 folks, comprising 4 generations, in a 5 bedroom farmhouse. Now, most of that isn't truly vital to the telling, but it establishes that my roots are pretty simplistic and organic compared to the more sophisticated city dwellers.

Matthew's mom would, for a small fee, watch over me while my own parents worked, however she refused to call herself a babysitter, realizing that it was less trouble to herd cats than keep an eye on two active boys in the prime of childhood. I spent a fair amount of time at Matts house, usually from about 7am till just after 6pm most weekdays, and as such, felt almost a part of the family, to the point that I too addressed his grandparents as Nana and Grandad.

Grandad was a nice old guy, and really was too nice for us to find his empty shell the way we did. Coming in from outside, Matts mom had a rule that in order to eat lunch, we had to at least make an attempt to wash our hands, which meant we normally barrelled into the house, right to the bathroom, washed up a bit, then gulped down our food as fast as possible so we could get back outside. It was this near ritual that led us to find Grandad expired, seated a bit less than regally on the 'throne' in bathroom. Or at least MOSTLY seated, as he has sort of slid a bit. Eyes wide open, one showing a crimson red splotch that I still haven't forgotten, and mouth stretch into a tall O shape. He had died on the crapper, in the most ineloquent manner possible.

We would be told later that his death was likely due to him straining in vain to dislodge some severely stuck poop, and that the strain led to an aneurism bursting in his head, killing him outright. Right then, after hearing that, and remembering how he looked, I decided that I never wanted to be found that way. As such, I found my own mantra to live by, that being 'Don't push too hard... the crap will work out in due time'.

I have to remind myself of this from time to time, particularly when I am learning something new and really struggling to get it. When I feel the frustration level rising, when I can feel the blood pounding in my temples and the headache I have self induced from trying too damn hard to accomplish something, I remember that face, and tell myself to back down a bit. And without fail, I eventually get my task done, my lesson learned and so on.

Now as to how this is even remotely related to WoW TCG... I see myself, as well as others, trying too damn hard, and forgetting that this is, first and foremost, a game. And in that effort to push, we sometimes let the frustrations of not attaining our goals immediately get the best of us. Which leads us to push hard, which narrows our focus, and often, blinds us to possibilies that we would see if we weren't straining so much.

So, in my long winded, well meant eulogy of sorts, I offer this tiny bit of wisdom: 'Don't push too hard.. crap will work out when its time.'

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