I guess this article is a little late coming, but I feel it's going to contain some important information for people out there playing in major WoW:TCG events around the country. I wanted to start off with saying that I'm by no means an expert. I just wanted to document the preparation my team and I went through for the Dark Moon Faire:Orlando that was held back in March.
After the Thanksgiving holiday there where rumblings from people connected to UDE that the next DMF would be in Orlando, which excited our local play group as we're all in Tampa, only an hour ride or so. I'm limited in my ability to trav el to events, but something this big bei ng held literally in our backyard, well I had to free up some time. I eagerly awaited an official announce ment and put my time off request in ;a work.
The testing and deck building began in early December, only a few weeks after the release of March of the Legion. After a new set comes out, ideas are everywhere and build process was a bit scattered. My teammates and I sat down one Saturday afternoon to hammer out the details. There was one particular build that caught my eye that my friend had but together.
The deck was Filet Kneecapper rush, using Gauntlets of Vindication and Rends to get damage on, fast and furious. Obviously, being Gnome, he was packing the standard alliance weenie rush of Teeps, Merrys, Jealenes, and Lowdown Lupos. Xavar the Resourceful was also in the deck in the 1 drop slot and for weapons he was using the Whispering Blade of Slaying. The deck was pretty fun and seemed very competitive. The Xavar was an odd call I thought, but the idea was to drop him turn 1 with a Rend in hand, thus allowing him to ready a resources and Rend your opponent at the end of their turn.
I told my friend I really liked his build and I thought it'd be something worthwhile to expand upon. At this point, my friends and I weren't even a team and DMF seemed a far way off. I went home that evening with the intent to improve upon the build. The first thing I found was the lack of card draw. There was a low quest count and it caused the deck to stall out past turn 5 or so. The other thing I wanted to change was the weapon base. Only having 4 Blades main decked presented a very real possibility that you'd never even see them during the course of any given game.
The quest draw problem could be easily solved by switching to Halavar the Dreanei, as he's got access to one of the best draw quests available, Rescue the Survivors. Once you've got Rescue, the other natural card drawing engine would be The Defias Brotherhood, as finishing a Rescue puts you half way to completing Defias anyway. The deck had plenty of allies so it seemed solid. I rounded out the quest base with some One Drenei's Junk and a couple of Finkles. With weapons, I'd up the count to 6, including 2 Perdition's Blades to the mix(at the time I would have added 4 total Perdition's Blades but I didn't own that many). I also had a couple copies of Death Dealer Breastplate, which were quickly cut because they proved to janky with so few weapons.
So I came back to the table with my version of my friend's Warrior and it worked. It worked well. My friends and I at that moment decided we'd pool our collective knowledge and experience and play Halavar at DMF.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I played Halavar pretty exclusively. People on MWS probably remember me as I always had nearly the same deck. And it won a good share of the time. I tweaked things here and there and it ran better. Overall I clocked in over 250 games with Halavar and I knew the deck backwards, forwards, and every other which way. That's the first tip I'd give a player. Make sure you know your deck so well you'd be able to fill out a deck list from memory. If you can't, then you need to look at your deck a little more carefully.
I knew it's weaknesses and I knew it's strengths. I had seen a fair share of Boomkin on MWS and I felt it was a favorable match up with my main deck and sideboard ability hate. I didn't honestly expect as much Boomkin at DMF as there actually was. I also tested favorably against Control Priest(as long as your able to hold a Mortal for their Greater Heal), Paladin(knowing you'll probably have to combo them out), and Rogue. The biggest threat in my eyes was BloodyMary control, but the deck had been quiet in the weeks leading up to DMF so I thought I was safe.
Weeks went by and then suddenly it's two weeks before the big event. I'd been playing religiously every chance I had. Truth be told, I was at this point a little sick of Halavar. It was a great deck but I was bored. I naturally built other decks, including a revisit of Nathadan that had served me so well in the past. I then got a bad, bad case of flippy flops. This happens to me quite often so I'm assuming I'm not alone in this. Two weeks out and I was started to think Nathadan would be the better call for Orlando. I started testing Nathadan and it did well against rush and other control matches. It posted favorable results on MWS but the biggest kicker and hindrance was that it could not beat my own Halavar deck and it could not beat my teammate's Warlock Control(I would like to go on record and say I hate Eye of Kilrogg).
I kept both decks built and the time came to pack the car for Orlando. I still wasn't decided and I proceeded to write up deck lists of both decks. Friday's Gadget Challenge came and went with disappointing results. I had been passed a decent pack of cards, but there wasn't a lot of synergy. I was able to put together a Priest with an Infusion of Fortitude, a Mental Anguish, a Chastise, and Devil Stitch Leggings. This was over Warlock that had a Thulthun, Swallow Soul, and the 5 drop Demonology speced Pet. It was close but I really liked the Mental Anguish and Infusion over the Warlock removal. The deck was decent but I had some glaring holes in drops 4 through 5(I had none). I did also have a Weeble and a Gabble, so it wasn't all bad. I did well the first couple of games but then got handed a couple of bad beats. After the event was over I found out the winner had a pretty brutal Warlock deck built with dual Warlock Trainings, dual Bloodsouls, and Devil Stiched Leggings. Bad beats there...
Friday night we play tested in the room and I still didn't know what to do. I had to play something. The last games of the night I played Nathadan and it got beat pretty badly by our team’s Halavar. It was at that point I had decided to go Halavar. In my head, I still hadn't made a decision but it was that last game that I decided to trust what I knew.
The next morning dawned and I brought both decks with me. My best advise to someone traveling for any event would be to travel light. I had brought my messenger bag with a trade binder and other decks and my wife ended up babysitting the thing all weekend. I brought a hardcase UltraPro deck box and a felt bag of dice with a piece of paper and pen in my pocket. If was nice to not feel so encumbered carrying around playmates, gaming cases and binders all day.
We arrived early and the place was nearly empty. My wife, my friend, and I found seats and started to fill out deck lists. With the thrashing Nathadan received fresh on my mind, I scratched in pen Halavar on the hero line of the deck list register. I had to smile and I think we got a collective high five for Halavar from my group. My other teammate was late but I filled in his deck list for him because if I'm going Halavar, well then he is too(sorry no Warlock for you).
The final list looked like this:
HERO(1)
Halavar
QUESTS(10)
4XThe Defies Brotherhood
4XRescue the Survivors
2XCorki's Ransom
EQUIPMENT(11)
3XGauntlets of Vindication
4XWhispering Blade of Slaying
4XPerditions Blade
ALLIES(19)
3XParvink
2XChipper Ironbane
4XJeleane Nightbreeze
4XApprentice Merry
3XMagister Ashi
3XLatro Abiectus
ABILITIES(21)
4XMortal Strike
4XHeroic Strike
4XPuncture
2XBurn Away
3XSalt the Wounds
4XRend
SIDEBOARD(10)
3XWreck
3XWithering Shouts
2XBurn Away
2XChipper Ironbane
Next week, we'll find out if I made the right choice.
