I decided early on in my realm champs playtesting that I wanted to play something that worked against the meta game.  Stuttgart DMF results were all anyone was talking about, and local Indianapolis scenesters as well as nationally recognized players were stuck on how well Runetusk and Lionar ruined the game we had come to understand thus far.  Serpent form turned twig combo in a new beast that wasn’t a rocket car anymore, but was a full-fledged off road rally racer, climbing hills and taking sharp corners on dirt roads. I’ve tried being the metagame before, and I’ve had less than stellar results, and I wanted to bring something new to the table.

Early on in our testing we found rushing out runetusk was the most consistent way to get in for the win.  We also found that we were in a perpetual game of rock paper scissors with the 3 top deck archetypes, and wanted something that really blew out the whole board.  While I don’t think we found that, we at least found a deck style that made a lot of games completely unfair – ripping cards out of your hand, 2 for 1s, inspiring allies that you do NOT want to inspire, and in short just trying to “get there” the quickest way possible.  I’ll forgo listing the reasons for every card in the list, as it’ll be apparent in the tourney report… so without further ado:

Ressa the Leper Queen

Quests

4 x Orders from Lady Vashj

3 x Dr. Boom!

3 x One Draenei’s Junk

2 x Corki’s Ransom

Allies

4 x Apprentice Merry

4 x Zandar Shadesprocket

4 x Jeleane Nightbreeze

3 x Marksman Glous

3 x Vindicator Kaldel

3 x Chipper Ironbane

4 x Myriam Starcaller

Equipment

4 x Perdition’s Blade

3 x Whispering Blade

Abilities

4 x Purloin

3 x Pickpocket

3 x Prey on the Weak

2 x Jackknife

Side Deck

2 x Jackknife

3 x Dismantle

3 x Vanish

2 x Kick

The tournament results list 71 people, so we did 7 rounds.  

Match 1 (incomplete info… sorry bud) Ended up 49th

Leper Queen Mirror Match

I am all excited that I’m taking my homebrew deck to a fairly big tournament, and that at least I’ll be playing something different.  I see my opponent put Ressa out on the table and I chuckle… I think at this point he thought I was being cocky, until he saw I was playing her also.  We shuffle up and I win the die roll, so I think if this is a mirror match I have the advantage.  Slowly but surely we start dropping the same guys, except I’m noticing he runs only untargettables.  Prey on the weak becomes a resource, but I curve up to my turn 3 and pass, only to have the 2 Myriam Starcallers left in my hand Pickpocketed out.  This is one of many unfair things that will occur with this card throughout the day, and I’m the butt of the joke to start out.  Game 2 I side out my prey and jackknives to bring in kick and dismantle.  I’m going first, again, and I hit my curve this time, with Gut shot for 4 & kick putting us into game 3.  Game 3 I am on the play, but I achieve Myriam & Kaldel synergy, followed up by the early onslaught of blue guys.  The start of my turn 6 I tap Myriam for the 3rd time in 3 consecutive turns and deliver a gut shot for the final 1 point of damage.  Amongst probably 50 of the same maindeck cards, I notice he runs vanish and escape artist.  

Match 2 (Delmar Edler) End up 43rd

Victoria Jaton Strike Out

Del was a super cool guy, but his old school Victoria build, which I only saw the improvement of adding smash to the old classic, was no match for the Myriam chain guns.  Game 1 I dropped Merry turn 1, turn 2 purloin/pickpocketed out a perdition’s blade and 2 heroic strikes.  Later on (5 maybe) I picked a mortal strike, but I also dropped my second Myriam on top of an active Myriam & Kaldel.  Game 2 looked even worse for the Victoria deck on paper, as I only took 3 damage, but the pilot did a good job of picking off allies so the field never stacked up.  Unfortunately for Del, I pick pocketed 2 more heroic strikes and Gut shot him twice for 7 & 5 to seal the deal. 

Match 3 (Michael Jacobs) Ended up 2nd

Ozzati Burn/Rush

Mike is a reserved guy, who didn’t really talk at all.  Game 1 I got to purloin/pickpocket on turn 2, and that set me up for the rest of the game.   He had me to 16, and at the end of his turn I got a 7 point gut shot in to let me win with dudes on board the next turn.  Game 2 he was on the initiative, and got the dude rush going hard core.  Some highlights of the game were my double jackknifes and perditions blade pretty much clearing his board.  Jackkniving 2 zandars feels almost like cheating… but in the end I lost out from the mage burn.  I had an active Myriam out, with a Kaldel in hand, but I never got to play them together.  Game 3 I kept a hand that had a whispering blade and 3 jackknives… I thought this was a lock.  Turns out, Xavar & Marksman can be used for things other than completing quests, such as fizzling my removal.  With 3 failed attempts of trying to jackknife his dudes, I was way behind in tempo, and by the time Myriam got active it was way over.  First loss.

Match 4 (Nate Phillips) Ended up 11th

Halavar Control

Nate and I have been playing each other in tournaments since the game came out, and I have an ongoing joke with him that he’s my arch nemesis, cause I’ve never beaten him.  Game 1 I remember purloining a deafening shout, and getting a Myriam active, with a second one threatening to go active.  On my turn I brought Halavar to 24 damage and had a Gut shot and Jackknife to seal the deal.  Game 2 I got Havalar to 20 damage, with a 7 point gut shot, but my scorepad shows 5, 10, 15, 20 so I think this is the game he got double Myriam out on me.  Game 3 I got to purloin a perditions blade and pickpocket 2 chasing A-me… Nate fought valiantly through halavar, when I played Kaldel after having my 4th Myriam finally become active, he succumbed to the pressure. 

Match 5 (incomplete info again) Ended up 31st

Taheo Moonkin

My scorepad says it all for this matchup – Game 1 I took 1 damage, and ended start of my turn 5, game 2 I took 4 and ended start of my turn 6.  My opponent was unfortunate in getting paired up, but I know that purloin and pickpocket annihilated his hand until turn 4 I could get Myriam & Kaldel active, both games.  

Match 6 (Cory Dawson) Ended up 6th

3 card off mirror

Cory is a playtest partner and rode up with Darren Miller, Jeremy Grey and I.  He was undefeated, but I got more Myriams out and won the match.  During this match, I purposely tried to kill Luppo as fast as I could, or render him useless, because this was the 3 card difference in our decks.  Luppo ended up being an all star for cory, but as much as I tested with him and without him, I ended up not running him because I felt he was a little too slow.  You won’t be the first person to call me crazy on this one… 

Match 7 (Nicholas Schian) Ended up 9th

Taheo Moonkin

With the utter (no pun intended)  slaughtering of moonkin I had earlier in the day, I didn’t think this match would be that tough.  Nick was packing wastewalker armor though, with other pieces of armor for moonkin form abuse, and certainly had some tricks up it’s sleeves.  Game 1 I won the die roll, and achieved the amazingly great purloin pickpocket turn 2, yet again.  It almost feels like you’re cheating.  Wastewalker leggings and 2 susvayin’s straight to the yard, Nick had a tough time catching up and at 20 damage faced a Myriam & Kaldel that pushed him over.  Game 2 was much more in his favor, as he was able to clear my board of all threats.  At one point I corki’s-ed into a corki’s, only to draw a dr. boom and corki’s into a orders of lady vashj.  I let Nick get to the point where he’d built up quite a hand and field, knowing that if I’d draw into a couple of well placed gut shots that’d be game… but soon we were shuffing up for the last one.  Game 3 I had a million answers for Nick’s armor, as well as the wealth robbing rogue abilities, and I show a damage spike from 13 to 25 (dual Myriam + one Kaldel, minus armor?) and a gut shot to seal the deal. 

Quarter Finals (Cory Dawson)

Well, 1 n 8 chance of playing Cory and we hit the odds… I had more Myriam. 

Semi Finals (Michael Jacobs)

Game 1 I got the dude rush on Michael, and I only took 1 damage. Maybe I was getting careless, or chalked up his win vs. me as a fluke, but I totally punted my side decking.  In came Vanish (try and steal a turn in dude rush) and Jackknives, but out went 4 zandar and a marksman.  I guess I took them out because they were targetable and he had dragon’s breath, arcane missle, magma spike and fire blast.  In hind sight, I should have kept all my dude rush in there, because he blew me out with untargettable dudes game 2.  Game 3 he pulled double Myriam, and I skipped killing one with my perditions & whispering blade combo to go at his head and have the kill next turn.  Then I see Metalmorph, and I now can’t push through enough damage to get the kill before Myriams add 10 to my damage total… so I extend my hand. 

I feel 3rd place isn’t the first loser (it’s the second) but I was a little bummed I got beat, I think If I’d thought about side decks and possibilities of outcomes, I would’ve done things differently against Michael in the Semis.  David Bodimer took my list, via Dusty Hostutler, changed about 10 cards and took it to first place in Philly.  I won’t clue you in on what he changed, except for saying that he didn’t have Vindicator Kaldel!!  That guy was an all star for me all day long, inspiring Myriam to turn her into a ridiculous chain gun of damage reigning down. 

I’d love to hear some feedback, or hear from the other players in Columbus, Ohio that day.  Now I’m off to play some GTA IV, newly purchased with some of my $275 best buy bucks. 

*”we” as used when discussing deck construction refers to the Indianapolis “Gamerz” crew, specifically Sam Gilly, Mark Slack, Vince Greco, Cory Dawson & Jason Green.