In many variations of the post title.
In case you hadn't noticed, I've spent most of this year writing for Starcity. Sadly Starcity is wrapping up its original content so all us writers are out of a job. Or nice little extra cash earner anyway, and let me tell you with the recent decline of the pound against the dollar it seems I was earning US currency at just the wrong time. Still at least the last check will be cashed at a favourable rate. So anyway, I'm back to writing here in the blog.
There's also finally been a move to Manchester since January, which means I can't post from work. I can still do all the spreadsheet gubbins for working out the math, but updates might not be as frequent as the good old days of being paid to sit on my backside.

The more I think about it, quite a bit has changed since January actually. I'm no longer playing the online game, old Zoroaster's online avatar has gone into retirement. My guild went on to finish BC content without me, the move cut my broadband for two months as we raiding Serpentshrine and I realised that I just wasn't having as much fun raiding in BC as I was in original WoW. So I stopped the subscription and now I'm a card game only rogue.

Speaking of which, yesterday was the Silverpine Forest Realms (UK+Ireland though I'd be hard pressed to think of any Irish who've attend either realms yet) and I went back to rogue. It's my favourite class and also the one I had my best result with back in the 07 Nats. This realms I shamelessly stole an idea that was being bandied around my store, which in turn was stolen from the American Realms, and went back to playing Rogue again. I could have played something like the Ressa Untargettable aggro decks, but in the last year I've become more inclined to play control over rush or aggro. It saw me dabble in such areas as Priest and Paladin, which would have my old WoW toon rolling in its digital grave (or perhaps suspended animation till I try Liche King out).

I am of course refering to the new Vestments/Finishing Move decks. Talking on the way home last night, I realised that what I like to play in a deck is cards that interplay with each other to build to a finish. Sure I can play monsters and turn them sideways with the best of them, but I'd prefer to get neat little synergies running. Sometimes that means I get fixated on nutty combos, but in general I've actually found it rare in the WoW tcg to really get them working in tier one decks. Combos and Finishing Moves was one of those areas that was crying out to be exploited, but there just wasn't enough there to justify the effort. The last two sets though have really raised the game for them, to the point they're now top tier and border line overpowered. So here's what I ended up playing...

Jonas the Red

4 Deathblow
4 Eviscerate
2 Gut Shot
4 Overkill
4 Surge of Adrenaline
4 Hateful Strike
4 Gouge
3 Thud!
2 Disassemble
2 Purloin

4 Blood Knight Kyria
2 Chromarius Blackfist

4 Vengeful Galdiator's Vestments

3 Illidan Stormrage

3 The Darkmoon Faire
3 Forces of Jaedenar
2 Swift Discipline
3 Counterattack
4 Information Gathering

Side Deck
3 Brok Bloodcaller
3 Detect traps
2 Cannabalize
1 Prince Kael'thas Sunstridder
1 Lady Vashj

Pretty much a direct lift of other's versions tweaked for the UK meta (which is often control heavy compared to elsewhere, hence maindecking Purloin). I really like the deck and the way you use the combos and finishing moves to work your way to a finisher. Games run in two or three stages, the first stage you simply seek to minimise damage incoming by use of the combo cards and damaging finishing moves to wipe their board or at least stop it  damaging you. The next stage you use those finishing moves you've played to empower an Overkill sufficient to clean up any remaining allies and equipment that's left and wipe their hand out. The next stage is you dig in for a a few turns till Illidan pops up. Kyria/vestments at this stage combine with the finishing moves you have left to deal with whatever threats they can top deck into. One Illidan hits - hopefully it's game. There's very few decks that can deal with Illidan backed up with kill spells.

And here's how I fared.

Round One:
Alistair Parker and Fizzlefreeze
I should mention I hadn't done a massive amount of testing with the deck. I'd been watching it played and playing against for two weeks and had takent he day off before work and used it to get some quality time with the deck. But Lee who was also piloting the deck this Realms had done a lot more. Fizzlefreeze isn't a walkover, but it's not a bad match up either. Lee's advice was to make a dude on three then just smash their little guys so your Hatefuls can deal with the Myriams. Seemed reasonable enough.

Game one I didn't see any guys, nor any Hatefuls. You'd think that would be bad - but it turned out an early Purloin made it through the fizzle barrier to let me peek at his hand and see how the lay of things were going to be. Lots of the two drop enabling allies and a Water Elemental but only the one Nether Fracture and no Myriams seemed good for me. He did have a Portal, but I hit the Fracture instead. Lots of allies spewed forth but were kept manageable via gouges, thuds and kill finishers - when I say manageable I mean I was battered into the low tewnties. Myriam eventually hits the table when he thinks it's safe. Sadly for him he taps out the next turn allowing me a four point Overkill which wipes his hand and board. He never recovered after that but played it out till Illidan hit and was put onto thirty damage taken till Kyria and Vestments came down simultaneously to pull me out of the danger zone. that's pretty much what this match up seems to resolve around to me - making an Overkill that beats the Nether Fracture to destroy the board and hand simulataneously. Fizzlefreeze can't do enough damage in the early game to threaten you, the win condition is getting a Myriam on the table to burn you down.
Playing Myriam earlier than seven though and you can't have the fracture in hand to protect yourself from the Overkill. If they have four finishers in the discard pile, which is going to be most games, then the Fizzlefreeze player should resist the tempation to play them early because that will tap you out mid game and that's a bad idea versus a deck packing Overkill.

On to game two and he opts for first. In go my Cannabalizes and Broks for the Dissassembles and Chromarius'. On the play, he makes Myriam on four when I still haven't got any Hatefuls and he has an ally anyway. That's not a bad play as on the play I can't take advantage of him tapping out to Overkill as I'm one short. It runs the risk I can eviscerate/gut shot/Deathblow then Hateful on my turn, but at least that's card parity. As it was there wasn't a lot I could do except smack the ally down with a Deathblow. Passing to him though it seems the lesson hadn't been learnt from the previous game and a second Myriam hit the table. End of his turn I cycle a gut shot and Overkill to wipe the board. He drew a fair amount to try and stretch it out and my deck decided to go on hiatus so had to rely on a Kyria to keep me in it, but the window had closed on him and the inevitable Illidan hit the table.

I think the deck blindsided him a little, if you're unprepared for the new control Rogue it can be difficult to see where it's heading. Both games he walked into a crippling Overkill by tapping out. I suspect the fact that none of my abilities were doing more than delay or one for one him made him believe that they weren't major threats so simply rushing me down would be the better option. Certainly the double Myriam tap out was just plain greedy. The key to playing Feezlefreeze in my opinion is knowing what the threats are in the opposing deck and having the Fracture ready for them. You can perfectly progress your board at whatever pace you like around that and win, but get it wrong and your chance goes out the window. Overkill in this game effectively six for oned him then seven for oned him. Lee was latter to manage a nine for one versus Fizzlefreeze.

1-0

Round Two
Jimmy Chung and Bo'jo
Jimmy runs Manastorm cards, one of the main online card sellers here in the UK, so most people know him. He tends to turn up at most of the large tournaments. Sometimes he sells, sometimes he plays. This time round he opted to play as the local store to the tournament was going to be selling. We commented on the fact that because the local store had turned up late they'd missed the chance to sell to people needing cards for the deck for the day - probably half or more the sales they could have got. Anyway, as Jimmy's a pretty good player and nice enough bloke I figured it'd be a good game.
I hadn't really looked at the Bo'jo match up, I probably should have. The UK mostly hasn't played the weapon + turn guys sideways decks since late 07. Most of 08 has seen Fizzlefreeze and more long term focused games. I still wasn't too worried though as  the game plan was fairly simple - keep the hero locked down with Thud/Gouge and deal with the allies till Overkill into Vestments.
The first game the first part goes fine, but a chronic lack of quests meant that by turn six I was into top deck mode and Bo'jo was about to come out of lockdown with an angry Twig. Overkill for one managed to buy me a turn but Jimmy had been drawing cards like a madman so it was fairly obvious he had a replacement weapon and just smacked my hero down with a few swings. Annoyingly I managed to take that off the board, and get vestements in play. Staring at a a Rak Skyfury with nothing in hand and Jimmy with a Finkle ready for a Gora it was pretty annoying that for the want of one damage from a Rak I'd nearly brought it round. Oh well.
Game two takes longer but the story is much the same, except this time I didn't have as many gouges/thuds. Jimmy's pull fortunately wasn't as aggressive as last time, and Booming into Bloodrage was amusing but made me curse that I'd sided out the Chromarius' for Cannabalize. As it was I actually needed the Cannabalize to stay in the game, healing for fourteen off a Kyria. Sadly though, lack of quests again meant I was really running out of options so had no response to Kimmy's next turn of flip, Twig, rak, Twig, rak, Twig. I had the option of laying a Kyria from hand - but it was my only card and all I had on board was a Faire. I knew from a Purloin that a couple of turns ago Jimmy had a vexmaster. He might have rowed it, he might not. If he hadn't my Kyria does nothing. I figured he wouldn't have for precisely that eventuallity. I opted to cyle it with the Faire and maybe get a Gouge or Thud - I got a Counterattack I couldn't play. Great...

Jimmy later went on to top 8 with Bo'jo. Personally I don't feel I made any play errors during the games aside from taking the Chromarius' out. Not sure what I'd have sided for the Cannablize's instead though. When you walk away from a double loss without making any play errors there's only two things that could have led to the drubbing - either your deck crapped out on you or you chose the wrong deck for that match up. I certainly think my deck crapped out on me in the second game, and could have been a bit more forgiving in the first as well. No quests just a Darkmoon Faire for six turns in both was pretty crippling. Without them or the Surges to refill your hand you're going to lose on card advantage to aggro decks. Was it the wrong deck for the match up? I don't think so, in fact I'd say the matchup is actually favourable for me. If the cards flow then gouge/thud should keep Bo'jo sidelined for the game and the allies are easy to deal with. Oh well, in six matches the odds are good you're going to get a couple of crap outs with all but the most consistent of decks. When it happens back to bakc it's irritating.

1-1

Round Three
Martin Cairns with Rip and Flip
Martin's one of the Scottish players, who are pretty cool bunch of players. Of course they believe they're the best playgroup in the UK even though Manchester clearly is, but everyone has their delsusions. Typically martin was half cut already, which is not a bad way to play and with a bar right outside I might have joined him if I wasn't one of the Manchester drivers.
Anyway Rip and Flip is an awful matchup for the control rogue. If the pieces come together for the Ripper on their turn seven and they have the play there's nothing in my deck to stop it. Kick or Cloak of Shadows would be answers but with the rip and flip playing both Kilrog and Retainer Marcus actually having them available is slim. They're not even in my deck as I judged them not essential in the UK meta. On the play the control Rogue has one option, make Vestements on seven and have a Deathblow in hand, as that allows you to create a resource in response to the Rip then use it for the Deathblow to interrupt it. If you hit that then you're gravy. If you don't and they have the rip then you're doomed. It's massively in the Rip's favour though as they're diggin tools are much better than yours, and the threat of Kilrog means you don't actually want the Vestments to arrive before your ready to play them. you basically need to get the right cards at exactly the right time on both sides - but they've got the better odds of achieving it.

Game one was truly bizarre as it just went on and on and on...
Around about turn eleven martin hard cast Greench after looking at my hand with Marcus. An error on his part meant that though he'd seen the two Hateful Strikes he hadn't realised they were instant - so in response I completed Counterattack, took down marcus then killed Greench withthe second. Quite a big error on his part, but I was wondering what the hell was going on. His deck had been miled a huge amount and still no rip and flip. I was beginning to wonder if he simply hd it in hand and was holding out as long as possible so we'd only finish the one game as all kinds of odd plays were coming from his side of the board. On my side I'd had to row an Illidan early, and if I'd known the game was going to go this way I wouldhave simply skipped placing a resource and played it out. As it was I was diggin gthrough my deck almost as fast and couldn't find a damn vestements or Illidan. As we're both diggin for our win conditions, I figured I had six of mine left in the deck to his four, I might as well play it out and see if they turn up. After forty minutes and only twelve cards in his deck martin finally found a Rip before I found either of mine.
Shuffle up and on to game two. He had Rip on his seven - I had the vestements but eviscerate rather than Deathblow. Darn, one more turn and I would have been safe. Oh well.
Even more so than the last match, I don't feel I made any play errors. Perhaps I should have scooped the first game much earlier and got on with the second - but I didn't like the match up as it was and figured once we were both into a frantic dig for answers I actually had a better chance than from cold. In the end it made no difference.
In the post match chit chat, the judge wandered over and made comment on the fact that martin was using a Magic top eight playmat, on which he'd scrawled WoW too. This led to martin divulging he was number two in the UK for limited. After the judge wandered away, I remarked 'well, you know who's the guy above you don't you...'. Turns out he hadn't realsied I was Vince Turner. Apparently I was just 'some scrub playing a scrub deck'. It's pretty amusing, as I remarked I got my limited points the 'easy' way of 6-0 ing premier events. With high K values, it makes the rating rocket. Martin got his the much harder way of winning week after week at a store. I'm not going to try that, right now 2-1ing a pod loses me points. Not that the ranking points mean anything aside an easy qualification for Nats/Worlds, aside from comedy banter at events.

1-2

At this point I'm pretty annoyed. Having done the math (the only reason they bring me to events as Lee put it), I knew that only 3 or 4 of the top eight from a field of 42 were going to be X-2s. That meant I almost certainly was going to lose out on tie breakers. If I'd known I was going to lose my next match I'd have dropped after round two to play in the open. As it was there was nothing else going on, so I decided to play it out and see what happened.

Round Four
Kye Etherton - Kil'zin
Kye's one of the Oxford players (him and Adam Povey) as there's only the two of them, they've decided to go the judge route and are pretty much the defacto judges for premier events in the UK and often travel to europe for the DMFs. Adma was head judge for the realms, didn't ask why Kye was playing not judging but I suspect it might have been last minute when they realised the realms wasn't as popular as the last one (76). 42 isn't bad, compared to some of the US numbers, but a dissappointing drop. Missing were some of the Scots, Birmingham and South East players.
Anyway, Kye's playing Kil'zin the deck jonas was practically built to beat. Both games it's a matter of locking down Kilzon once he has two daggers and blowing the allies away as you can to manages the incoming damage. Pretty much plays out to plan, I get beaten into the low twenties, wipe the board with Overkill, play Kyria stabilise into Illidan. Nothing particularly of note here, felt a bit sorry for Kye as it's just a horrible match up for the Kil'zin player.

2-2

Round Five
Dean Coundon - Bulkas Warstomp
Dean's one of the Lincoln players who usually attend in force and are headed up by karl Bown their store owner. When I saw Bulkas I wasn't sure what I was going to face. Cruelty had been off the radar for so long I discounted it, but wasn't sure what that left so kept a hand that had a couple of quests, a gouge and some burn figuring it was middle of the road.
Turn out his first play on the play was Gladiator's Bonecracker so I figured it was aggro of some kind, and felt fairly happy with that. I let it get a couple of swings in before strating the gouge chain on his hero. As time went on allies started appearing on the table and Thunder Bluff was placed. Quakemaster was pretty huge but went down to Hatefull then Sarn started cropping up and I was blowing them up left right and centre. Eventually an Overkill stripped the hand and led into an Illidan which beat him down. Both my Vashj and Kael'thas met sticky ends so didn't prove as game ending as you'd hope. The damage track has me taking one then two, and only three instances of damage on his side till he scooped. It really was a match dominated by the management of on table assets.

Second game and he comes out the blocks fast with Sorga. it dies to a Deathblow. Hamul came in on two and was taken out by a second Deathblow. Arcanist Atikan is his three play. I'm out of burn spells and no lock down so cycle with the fair to try and find something. Sadly I didn't and atikan sabotages my sidedeck. For the rest of the match I can't remove cards from it. As Illidan that's a bit of an inconvenience.
I never even made it to Illidan though, huge Taurens powered up by Finishing Shout just smash my face in. I just couldn't deal with their incredibely fat asses.

The first time I see a game three, and still not allowed to sideboard. Fortunately I'd already put the Cannabalizes in before Atikan had his fun. Turns out that was pretty key. I took a battering from Sarns I ran out of tricks for until a Overkill - Kyria - Cannabalize took the game away from Dean. From then on he was in top deck mode. Cairne was in hand but got stripped with an Aoverkill for one then vestments came down. We played it out until I dropped Illidan then he scooped as even though I'd dealt nothing and wasn't going to bring anyone in I was just going to beat him to death.

3-2

Round Six
Mike Chomyk with Lionar the Bloodcursed Curve
Mike's one of the Leicester locals, and I'd played agianst his block version of the deck at the Realm Qualifier there so as he remarked should have an idea of what he was playing. That could have been a bluff, but I didn't think Mike the kind of guy to try that and mulliganed appropriatelly.

Much like my deck crapped out on me round three, Mike's crappedout on him here. To be honest, if there's any round for it to happen you want it the last not the first. Not much was on the line here other than a possible top 16 so it wasn't too bad.
Instead of the curve up from one he was hoping for he had nothing for the first three turns. Meanwhile I randomly drew some cards and eventually used a Purloin to see what he was up to - two Sarns, a Ras'fari and a Finishing Shout. Well i binned the shout and held on to the tricks neccessary to deal with his big guys. Eventually they saw play but Hateful Strike, Eviscerate, Gut Shot killed them and then Vestments came down witha fistful of finishing moves. Mike scooped once he saw Illidan.

Game two and after a mulligan I get delivered a hand full of Overkills and illidans. Not good, but in hindsight the only time between muliigans that my deck delivered a truly unplayable hand. There was the three Illidanhand I swiftly mulliganed out of versus Jimmy, but it was replaced by a semi-decent one. Mike goes to town developing an early board and a weapon whilst I take the beatings trying to dig for the finishing moves to enable the Overkill. It finally happens for two to wipe his board, destroy his weapons and clean his hand. I might have had a breather except Orders chain to the draw got him a weapon and a Bloodsoul and it was over as I'd taken too much earlier on.

Game three was similar to game one, though not quite as bad for Mike. It wasn't as explosive as game two though and this time my deck was playing ball. Detect Traps for allies revealed three finishing moves and canned only a Sarn. A later detect traps for abilities canned only one Finishing Move after one was on the table but three allies - you just can't win can you.
Anyway, after the initial turns of trading off I ran out of stops and kill spells and a few of those huge allies made it passed and I was i the earlt twenties again. I wasn't too worried though as Kyria - cannablize put me back to only two taken and a vestments next turn nuetered the on table threats as well as dealing with the ones in hand. everything was countered, Illidan came down and the on table allies were finished off. Mike scooped as Kael'thas was about to steal nearly all his resources.

4-2

And that was that.
I think it's fair to say that I walked away one of the happiest I've been in a tournament. Happier than I was at the last nats where despite top eighting I felt annoyed at myself for punting the games there. Here I might not have top eighted ending up thirteenth, but at least I was playing a deck I really had fun with and didn't feel I'd made many errors at all, and none game deciding.

Of the other Manchester lads the tally was...
Lee - playing an almost identical deck went 5-1 after scooping to Lammy in the final swiss so Lammy auto qualified. Lost to a Boomkin deck in the Semis that he'd handily beaten in the Swiss.

Lammy - playing a similar desecrator rush to the one he top eighted the worlds with went on to eventually win the Realms despite facing multiple bad matchups. Turns out that Hibernate is quite the tech in the meta.

Ben - went 4-2 as well playing Ressa untargetables, ended up ninth place just missing the cut. Which is unfotunate as Ben's due a top eight finish. Maybe next time

Sam - went 4-2 playing Vorna and ended up eleventh. Irritaing that three of the Fanboy group ended up on 4-2 and not a single one made it in. Still with two of our lads in the top eight we felt we're still dominating

Ross - went 3-3 playing Vorna. Despite being one of the best amongst the team and responsible for most of the deck building and testing, Ross still can't shake the monkey from his back.

Alex - went 3-3 playing Fallenstar. Alex originally wanted to be playing the rogue deck as well but buying the cards went sour. The Desecrator deck he wanted to playinstead was proven to have bad matches against Fizzlefreeze one of the most popular in the UK. Fallenstar was a fall back option that really didn't pay off.

Neil and Kev dropped from the main event ot play in the open which neil went on to win.

Whilst the main event was having the top eights a draft was sorted out. I made some horrible play errors versus Kev so conceeded that game but came up with some brilliant plays in the other match (spell ricochet on Blessing of Trials is absolutely hilarious). Ros went on to win it.

Amusingly we realised on the way home that a Manchester player won every tournament on the day. Neil's a bit of the stretch, we're his nearest store and he only makes the tournaments rather than the weekly play sessions, but we figured it counted for bragging rights.

That was the last constructed tournament for a while, and I leave it feeling up beat. It's nice my favourite class has a tier one control deck finally, but more importantly as a Limited specialist the nest realms season and DMFs are right up my street.

I'l of course let you know how we get on as well as more random math related posts I'm sure.

You're about to witness the deck that is three months behind the meta. This deck, if played at the World Champioships could quite possibly have owned every deck there (if they'd let the fact it was playing MotL cards slip.

As it is, it's so far behind the meta that more recent decks chew it up and spit it out for breakfast. But anyway, I give you control Daspien...

Daspien Bladedancer

2x Isannah, High Priestess of the Aldor
2x The Abominable Greench
3x Varimathras
4x Vindicator Zalreth
4x Doshura Risestrider
3x Guardian Steelhorn

4x Hide and Stab
4x Gouge
4x Hardpacked Snowball
3x On The Brink
4x Purloin
4x Vanish
2x Spirit Healer
3x Sprint

4x Forces of Jaedenar
3x Counterattack!
4x Solanian's Belongings
3x It's a Secret to Everyone


Why would it own Worlds? Because up until March the only way to kill your opponent was through directly attacking them with either your hero or their allys. Even the control decks eventually won by pounding face.
Good luck ever trying to get an attack to land on Daspien after turn three. Almost every control card locks out more than one attack, making it very easy to keep damage off your hero. Eventually you will have to enter the fray but with Zalreth backing you up you only do so once a Greench/Isanah lock is on the cards. At which point you develop your board for a one turn kill while the opponent languishes in a zero attack state.
Sprint + Snowball is one of the dirtiest tricks in the game. If you haven't got any allies in play then there's no point throwing it at Daspien, he'll just throw it right back straight away.
What I feel makes this attack control setup better than say Mage or Paladin is that for a start you have more options. Secondly, most of the effects will hit a hero or an ally equally. Mage is hindered by a lack of hero stopping powers, whilst Paladin is forced into Avenger's Shield as the only expensive method.


Why doesn't it do so well in March?
Because decks like Blaize/Firepower and Grenan/Focus fire large direct damage spells right to the dome without worrying about that pesky attack step. You're dead on turn six when you haven't played a card because their was no reason to. Until Rogues get a low cost Blessing of Freedom effect, you're wide open to it. No, Veil of Night is not good enough.
Secondly, hand destruction is big in March. The Shadow priests are comig out the wood work, and in an environment where they're popular it's better to drop as many cards onto the table as fast as you can rather than try and keep your answers in your hand.

So, it's a deck three months behind the meta. If over time we see a return to tournaments exclusively dominated by the on table attacks, then rogue control will have it's moment. Until then though it's an archetype that turned up just at the right moment to made redundant.

Well, Manchester City Champion at least.
In the UK in addition to the latest Regionals and the soon to come Groups, we're having City Championships. Basically, it's a way for UDE UK to be shot of the mountai of Ony/MC packs they have.

Still, I wasn't going to argue as the weekend before Xmas I broke out of my house to actually play some cards in the city at least on paper live in.

Unsusrprisingly not many other people found the time to peel themselves away from the mince pies. Wondering what I was going to play, I tossed ideas back and forth. Of course this meant I hadn't anything built by half an hour to go till time to leave. At such times I rely on decks I can pull the cards from my binders blind folded for - Rotun it was.

Ah Rotun, I never should have strayed from you. What's changed since the Nats and the introduction of MotL for the bearded combat-wombat? Not a lot.  MotL didn't deliver many great cards for the existing deck - Adrenaline Rush may be a Combat Talent, but it doesn't lend itself to the Surprise Attack/Early Weapon strategy. Most of the other rogue cards in the set are geared for mid to late game shenanignas. Whispering Blade of Slaying replaces Warp Splinter's Thorn, none of the other weapons are really worth looking at. Demontongue Spaulders are the new shoulder armour of choice and worth upping to two of as not only do they empower Steelsmith but they actually have a useful effect in pumping your weapons. Of course you'd rather see a Surprise Attacks/Eye of Rend and gain your +1 for only 1 resource, but it's still a more useful effect to the game plan than 'Stop Fury facing me for seven'.

The more interesting card to me is Sprint.
At four cost, it's above the curve for the deck (and can't be hit with Junk) and previously the only card for consideration at that slot was Blade Flury. As I built the deck I put two in main and two inside simply as counters to Paladin and their ridiculous number of HoJs. As demonstrated at Worlds and my Nats crash and burn to Stuart, Nathandan really is the bane of Rotun. Or was.
Sprint I figured dodged the HoJ issue nicely, once on table you got a free ready every turn to counter the one denied by the HoJ. My Sprint is permanent, you need to use cards to keep me HoJed - a nice reversal from the usual Paladin plays.

In hindsight, if I'd being fully awake that morning, I'd have moved Purloin from the side into the main. It's one of those cases of evaluating not only the new cards in the meta, but how those new cards and the changed meta effect the utility of older cards. As it is, I think there's a lot more 'key cards' in the meta now that Purloin hits - and needs to hit.

Well, this is what I ended up playing....

Rotun

4 Steelsmith
3 Chipper

4 Surprise Attacks
3 Sinister Strike
2 Sprint
2 Blade Flury


4 Eskhandar's Right Claw
4 Timeslicer
4 Whispering Blade of Slaying
2 Scarlet Kris
4 Striker's Mark
3 Eye of Rend
3 Major Healing Potion
2 Devilsaur Leggings
2 Demontongue Spaulders
1 Moonstrider Boots
1 Predatory Gloves
1 Onyxia Hide Backpack
1 Eskhandar's Collar

3 Corki's Ransom
3 One Draenei's Junk
3 Finkle and Einhorn at Your Service!
2 Missing Diplomat

Side
2 Sprint
1 Chipper
2 Eskhandar's Collar
3 Purloin
2 Vanish

Round one and it's Tazo
Fairly straight forward first game, my deck draws fairly well, equipment piles on and whilst I take pain direct to the dome I kill the mage before I've taken too much. It's the first time I note 'other effective ways to abuse sprint' - in this case running headlong into Kulvo (Yes, I am fully aware I was playing against Ta'zo. My opponent did not play Kulvo - merely that the situation arose in my mind whilst playing this game 'hey, there's a Sprint trick here). It's fine, I don't mind taking four damage, I ready up and then charge your hero as you have no further protectors and deal eight. Yes, killing Kulvo would have meant the next turn I would deal damage and not have to take the four - but this way round I put the damage on your hero. Even if you play a second protector the odds are I can kill Kulvo with one weapon, ready and kill the second protector with the other. If not, at least you're closer to Sinister Strike range (if I hadn't had to row all three).

See, that's a Sprint 'trick' I hadn't really considered much before actually playing. Then it became clear if you're willing to take the extra pain it's another rogue tool to steal a turn from a deck.

Second game was closer than it looked at the time. Firepower's are denied from him via lucky early Purloins, but some burn spells still make it through. I finish it up with 'Play Perdition's ping for one, discard Perdition's to uniqueness, attack, swing Eskhanar's, play Eskhandar's, swing Eskhandar's'. Natty use of resources to take him out exactly. I thought I was just showboating a little as I had complete board dominance.
Turns out his three card hand was Arcane Missiles + Fire Blast x2 for nine points of damage his turn and game.

We'd finished early and played the third, but he'd a poor hand to compare to my nuts draw.
Talking about his deck, he'd whittled it down to the point he'd no virtually no Horde allies in the deck. We both said 'well, not much reason to stay Horde - but does the Alliance have anything to offer' 'Luppo'. Don't be suprised if Blaize firepower decks pop up the capability to deal out a lot of direct damage to the hero can be quite lethal, what it was lacking in this case was that little bit of damage from board resence to keep things ticking over. Luppo is the best way in the game to supply this.

Round Two was vs Halvar.
Must admit I wasn't expecting much, I mean what, are you trying to play an inferior version of Gorebelly Twig? Lowering the cost by one, hahahaha.

No, actually. I'm going to play the same daggers as you, ready, and abuse Heroic Strike for some really ridiculous damage on single turns. Essentially it really was a Rotun deck with Surprise Attacks substituted for Heroic Strikes. Rather than a grind down over three turns or so - it went for a single turn of crushing.

First game I win the die roll, come of the blocks fast and proceed to Chipper/Recur away every threat he manages to get out. Second game, much more in his favour as I get OTKed on about turn four. Really nothing I could do. My Side had been both Eskhandar's which were there for mirror/blue equip decks, the Chipper and the Vanises. For the third game I also put the Purloins in figuring I might get lucky and strip a Heroic Strike/Mortal Strike from his hand.

Game three is pretty touch and go. I'm on the ropes as we enter the mid game. Heroic Strike and I'm out the game, save for a Vanish after swing costs are paid. Chipper hits and takes out Striker's Mark. That allows for me to swing in and put damage on with out taking damage back, and at the same time gives me just enough breathing room to avoid fatal damage on his turn if he draws no Heroic Strike/Unen/Another pump/Mortal Strike (yeah, pretty iffy). No point blowing one of his daggers as he has a Timeslicer in hand from a Junk and I suspect an Intercept (not enough to kill me, but enough to force an early Chipper activation anyway) - so I figured better to put the damage on now and maybe draw a Sinister Strike than make him waste an Intercept.

So, what was his draw? Third Timeslicer. About half the cards in his deck would have been good enough to kill me. Even a second Intercept. He ends up with one that's really no use at all.

Well, that's the way it goes sometimes. Lucky break for me, bad beats for him. We already knew that in order to win the tourney you'd have to X-0, so it's not as if you can say 'well, better luck and you might turn it around' like you can at bigger events.

Third round was Kana Hoot and Shoot.
It's a bit of a mixed bag versus Kana with Rotun. It very much depends on what particular choices they've gone with. Lightning Reflexes can be an absolute pain and Master of the Hunt + Shelly is aften a better play than Hootie. Likewise if they're main decking Chipper then a quality opponent can really make you work hard - as it was I was playing Ross one of the better UK players so it wasn't going to be too easy.
On the other hand, there are some cards in the Hoot and Shoot that really are dead weight versus Rotun. Blastershot Launcher really isn't that hot when every ally (Steelsmith) is too big for it to kill and the enemy hero really doesn't mind taking three to the face each turn.
Equally, thanks to the first Sprint trick Kulvo's really not that good. Hoot and Shoot doesn't play a pleothera of protectors so it's rare it'll have more than one on the board. Sprint allowed me to choose where my attack landed.

Combine those together and we got Sprint trick number two coming up in these games. When their hero is swinging in with Long range, there's no point holding back your waepons - even the Striker's. If you have Devilsaur leggings out however, the following is rather sly. Declare an attack on their hero. When they protect with their Kulvo or whatever, use the Striker's. Kulvo will die thanks to Devilsaur, and you take nothing thanks to Long Range. Ready, then attack again free to use you melee weapons to maximum effect.

Yeah - Kulvo's really not that hot versus Rotun with Sprint.

So how did the games go?
Fairly decisively mine. Simple cases of board control. One game killing every ally he managed to put on table with my hero whilst Steelsmith's battered his face, and the next buy abusing Chipper+Finkle to kill almost all the Masters of the Hunt/weapons he played. My board wasn't so hot, but when I've got a weapon and you don't I'm going to win by attrition.

And that was that. I x-0'd the small tournament and took my loots.
One of my MC packs was the most retarded I've ever opened (I've opened a lot...). Perds, Striker's, Claw and Sulfuras in one pack. That's just about every playable from the set.


Anyway, I'm back playing Rotun for the moment. At first I thought the Worlds then MotL would kill Rotun. There's an awful lot of stuff in MotL to put the breaks on solo equip based decks. I'm not so sure though, thinking about the meta for this tourney (even if I didn't meet the Bringer bearing Warlocks) made me realise there's still legs on him and I found a new respect for the many uses of Sprint (and I didn't even have to use the psuedo-vanish power of it either).

Let he who hath reckoning...

So I joked that it was about time I did some math again. This is a quick and dirty analysis of Naming the Beast and how it rates compared to the existing quests that search the top three.

Zapped Giants/Kibler's Exotic Pets allow you to search the top three for two resources, Scourge Cauldrons/Big Game Hunter allow you to search the top four for two resources - whilst the Beast is the top four for three...

..> ..>

No. of type in deck	In 3 cards	In 4 cards	2 cost for 3	2 cost for 4	3 cost for 4	Cards in deck
1	0.05	0.07	0.025	0.033	0.022	60
2	0.10	0.13	0.049	0.065	0.043
3	0.14	0.19	0.073	0.095	0.063
4	0.19	0.24	0.095	0.123	0.082
5	0.23	0.30	0.117	0.150	0.100
6	0.28	0.35	0.138	0.180	0.117
7	0.32	0.40	0.158	0.200	0.133
8	0.35	0.44	0.177	0.222	0.148
9	0.39	0.49	0.196	0.244	0.163
10	0.43	0.53	0.214	0.264	0.176
11	0.46	0.57	0.231	0.283	0.189
12	0.49	0.60	0.247	0.300	0.200
13	0.53	0.63	0.263	0.317	0.211
14	0.56	0.278	0.333	0.222
15	0.59	0.69	0.293	0.347	0.231
16	0.61	0.72	0.306	0.361	0.241
17	0.64	0.75	0.320	0.373	0.249
18	0.66	0.77	0.332	0.385	0.257
19	0.69	0.79	0.344	0.396	0.264
20	0.71	0.81	0.356	0.406	0.271
21	0.73	0.83	0.366	0.416	0.277
22	0.75	0.85	0.377	0.424	0.282
23	0.77	0.86	0.386	0.432	0.288
24	0.79	0.88	0.396	0.440	0.293
25	0.81	0.89	0.404	0.446	0.298
26	0.83	0.90	0.413	0.452	0.302
27	0.84	0.92	0.420	0.458	0.305
28	0.86	0.93	0.428	0.463	0.309
29	0.87	0.94	0.434	0.468	0.312
30	0.88	0.94	0.441	0.472	0.315
31	0.89	0.95	0.447	0.476	0.317
32	0.90	0.96	0.452	0.479	0.319
33	0.91	0.96	0.457	0.482	0.321
34	0.92	0.97	0.462	0.485	0.323
35	0.93	0.97	0.466	0.487	0.325
36	0.94	0.98	0.470	0.489	0.326
37	0.95	0.98	0.474	0.491	0.327
38	0.95	0.98	0.477	0.493	0.328
39	0.96	0.99	0.481	0.494	0.329
40	0.97	0.99	0.483	0.495	0.330
41	0.97	0.99	0.486	0.496	0.330
42	0.98	0.99	0.488	0.497	0.331
43	0.98	0.995	0.490	0.498	0.332
44	0.98	0.996	0.492	0.498	0.332
45	0.99	0.997	0.493	0.499	0.332
46	0.99	0.9979	0.495	0.499	0.333
47	0.99	0.9985	0.496	0.499	0.333
48	0.99	0.999	0.497	0.499	0.333
49	0.995	0.999	0.498	0.4996	0.3331
50	0.996	0.9995	0.498	0.4997	0.3332
51	0.998	0.9997	0.499	0.4999	0.3332
52	0.998	0.9999	0.499	0.4999	0.3333
53	0.999	0.9999	0.499	0.49996	0.3333
54	0.999	0.99996	0.4997	0.49999	0.33332
55	0.9997	0.99999	0.4999	0.499999	0.33333
56	0.9999	0.999998	0.4999	0.499999	0.333333
57	0.99997	1	0.49999	0.5	0.333333
58	1	1	0.5	0.5	0.333333
59	1	1	0.5	0.5	0.333333
60	1	1	0.5	0.5	0.333333

Firstly, I want to dismiss a commonly held misconception.
You're searching 3 cards deep. You have 60 cards in your deck. 60/3 = 20, so if you're running 20 cards of the type you're searchinig for - that's the tipping point when it becomes more likely than not you'll 'hit' the quest.

Wrong.
We're dealing with conditional probability here again. There's nothing magical about the 20 card number. It actually gives you a 0.71 chance of hitting. The point it tips to likely is at just 13 cards.
Beats me how people can play these quests and consistently 'hit' more than their intuitiion tells them.

Okay, that bug bear of mine aside - lets look at what the numbers are telling us.

1) Searching 4 rather than 3 cards deep when dealing with ANY card of the appropriate card type provides a 0.1 better odds of drawing a card.
Think of it this way, every 1 in 10 times you search 3 and fail, the next card is a hit.

2) Searching 4 rather than 3 cards deep for a SPECIFIC card of the appropriate type produces lower absolute odds but much higher relative odds. For instance, if you're looking for that one ability card which you're running two of it's a comparison between 0.1 and 0.13. You're only going to hit it an extra 3 in a hundred times, but that's ~33% better odds than without.

3) From a card/resource basis, it follows similar trends. If all you care about is hitting ANY ability then obviously 2 for 4 search wins out all the time, whilst 2 for 3 beats always beats 3 for 4 but at lower cards numbers (when talking about a specific card rather than drawing just any of that type) the 3 for 4 relatively speaking gains ground.

Of course, no 2 cost quest of this type can gain an efficiency better than 0.5 card/resource and no 3 cost better than 0.333.

Something like Darrowshire has an efficiency of 1. But only 0.07 chance of drawing a particular card from 60 that you play 4 of - compared to 0.24 for searching four...

Of course no-one ever plays quests when they have sixty cards in their decks (well, unless you play 70+ card decks I suppose).

What are the numbers for say, 40 cards remaining?

..> ..>

No. of type in deck	In 3 cards	In 4 cards	2 cost for 3	2 cost for 4	3 cost for 4	Darrow Odds	Cards in deck
1	0.08	0.1	0.038	0.05	0.033	0.025	40
2	0.15	0.19	0.073	0.096	0.064	0.05
3	0.21	0.28	0.107	0.139	0.092	0.075
4	0.28	0.36	0.139	0.178	0.118	0.1
5	0.34	0.43	0.169	0.214	0.142
6	0.39	0.49	0.197	0.246	0.164
7	0.45	0.55	0.223	0.276	0.184
8	0.50	0.61	0.249	0.303	0.202
9	0.55	0.66	0.272	0.328	0.219
10	0.59	0.70	0.295	0.350	0.233
11	0.63	0.74	0.315	0.370	0.247
12	0.67	0.78	0.334	0.388	0.259
13	0.70	0.81	0.352	0.404	0.269
14	0.74	0.84	0.378	0.418	0.279
15	0.77	0.86	0.384	0.430	0.287
16	0.80	0.88	0.397	0.441	0.295
17	0.82	0.90	0.410	0.452	0.301
18	0.84	0.92	0.422	0.460	0.307
19	0.87	0.93	0.432	0.467	0.312
20	0.88	0.95	0.442	0.473	0.316

Well, as the number of cards in your deck decreases, the absolute difference between searching 3 and 4 remains the same but shows up better its odd tendancy to curve around a mid point of 10/11 cards, whilst the relative difference is lesser across the board.
Similarly, compared to Darrowshire the search cards are better in terms of looking for a specific card when there are less cards in the deck.

Lets bring it all together...

When running a deck that does not care what card type it draws - simple Pay X/Draw X  cards are better than search cards.

When running a deck that wishes to draw a specific type card but does not care which particular one - Kibler's/Zapped is better than Name the Beast.

When running a deck that wants a particular card, that is either a Ally or Item, Name the Beast is better than the others. The further you get through your deck though, the less the benefit becomes.

Of course where Name the Beast really excels is in multiple card combo decks. If you have a combo that needs both an Ability and an Ally - Name of the Beast is clearly better than any other search quest as it's the only one that will aloow you to dig for either.

At the end of the day, Name of the Beast is good for combo decks but not very efficient elsewhere. If you're not looking for a particualr card, you're better off running straight draw quests. Zapped etc. are now really marginalised to decks that specifically want a narrow card type with a bit of selection as to what. Not a lot of decks I can think of, Big Game Hunter for Rogue/Warrior solo maybe Zapped for Mage Solo.

By tomorrow I of course meant next week.

Well, after scrubbing out of the Worlds I had enough time to quickly enter a Nano draft that Friday.
I wasn't walking blind into MotL draft, but hardly the same level of experience as I did for HoA/DP/FoO. Still, we sit down and off we go.

Strange comparisons between UK and US drafts. Talk all you like in a US draft, even obliquely tell people what you're drafting - but don't for one minute have your hands even close to below the table...

You know, excuse me for pointing out but even with my limited legerdemain I could skew a draft all in plain sight. Or perhaps switch decks between actually drafting and deck registering. Well, just good luck that the vast majority of people playing this game are above that.

So what did I draft?
Ended up with a Deathrattle deck. No Leggings, but did pull Runesong. Two Bloodeye's was my late beats, and the middle was a smattering of protectors plus some Aldor Inspire:Ally backup.

Round one, I face Ed. My memory elludes me and my notes for the match aren't hot. All it seems to suggest is I had the board control for both games and saw the opponent down with me in the teens of damage done.

Round two, Shane. Well, a name I recognise so I figured a tough fight. Shane was packing the new Alliance mage and seemed to have picked up a ridiculous number of the rather scarce direct damage abilities in this set. Everything was going down to Magma Spikes. Both games are backwards/forwards affairs, in which I narrowly keep possession to take them with my damage taken in the twenties. Useful flip there, Deathrattle.

Round three, a different Ed. Now Ed had been taking the longest in the draft pod so I assumed inexperienced. Well maybe, maybe not. Either way he punked my ass. Waldo the Decoy.
That was it, he hit Waldo both games and it completely wrecked my attempts to push anything through. First game was flawless on his part, second I pulled ten damage on him before taking beats to the face.

Oh well.
Second place and no nano for me. Nevermind, I learned a new trick in Waldo. Hadn't really registered when I read him, but in a non-weapon deck he's a hyper efficient Gallahandra - a card I rate highly in HoA formats. Sure, he's hardly got enough health to avoid most direct damage - but in a pure MotL format theres just not enough of that floating around that every deck can have an answer, especially if you hate draft them. I'll be keeping an eye on him from now on.

On to Saturday
Gadgetzan day. Two hundred competitors, eight rounds. Cut to top eight.
Oooookay. I didn't even need to break out the pen and paper to realise there was going to be an awful lot of unlucky sods missing out on the top eight just because of tie breakers. I personally think it's kind of sucky when that happens, but it was happening in the Worlds, no reason they should expand the Gadgetzan to a top sixteen just because of the bad breaks here.

So it was sealed, random luck don't fail me now. Well, both Devilsaur and Runesong were in the packs I opened, so somebody somewhere was going to get lucky. Actually, their deck was going ot be pretty good. They had decent allies all the way up to a Weeble, Shem and Gabble. Not bad for someone.

Ironically I got handed back a better deck. Devilsaur and Runesong of my own, along with a Syluri to try and counter opposing items. More importantly I was given a ton of protectors, Thulthuns and healing allies. Aldor provided a Darynus.
So I ended up in Warlock with a solid curve, and ridiculous healing potential if I could keep my board. Late drops weren't exactly bombs, but hopefully I'd have a huge board by then.

Round one - Dan, playing Urrth
Both games ended with me having healed back to 0 damage taken. Pretty decisive board control sweeps him away.

1-0

Round two - Luca, playing Deathrattle
Well, he's got the better flip. Me winning the die roll into Jav - Thulthun - Alhas - Piana/Llanowar didn't help. Second game it became battle of the protectors, till I was out of tricks and got wiped. Third game goes close where I take a lot of pain trying to stabilize then pull it round for massive beats.

2-0

Round three, Scott Hunstad playing the new alliance priest
Another face for a name. First game I get absolutely steam rolled - Anguish hurts. Second game I pull the reverse. Third game is touch and go, life totals are yoyoing on both sides when time is called with Scott with the advantage. Nope, nothing I can do is going to bring the totals round in my favour.

2-1

And then some games happened.
I've the notes, but frankly it's uninspiring. Nothing notable happened, if I won it was generally with 0 damage taken and if I lost it was an avalanche where I just couldn't stabilise. In the then end I ended up 6-2, but with pretty rough tie breakers. Scoop some packs and that's it. There was something like seventeen or eighteen of us on X-2, of which five made top eight. That's harsh.

For once, I managed to get out of the hall at a reasonable time so had some food and an early night. Of course, I couldn't sleep at all again so was pretty drained for Sunday. But thankfully all I had planned for that day was trade in some crafting mats and then the Dev sealed event. And cheering Stefan on from the sidelines.
I've decided Stefan is my jinx, both DMF London and Worlds I've ended up next to Stefan in the player briefing. DMF London was when I started scrubbing out. Clearly it's him to blame.

Anyway, Dev challenge.
Managed to pull a pretty retarded deck. 2 Gabble, 1 Stonedeep, 1 Darynus, 2 Weeble, 1 Shem. Pretty nuts late game bombs. No five drops of note though, no Devilsaur, no Runesong. No weapons. Decent quest selection. My MVP from the day before - Piana/Alhas combo. Nothing in Warlock, Mage hade Arcane Explosion, Nether Fracture and 2 Touch of the Arcane. Seemed strong.

Basically, if I could get to the late game I reasoned the game should be mine. I had card draw in spades to get me to big guy after big guy. I could happily trade mine away knowing I was going to see another soon.

Round One - Julia playing Deathrattle
UDE employee, so my chance for a Bounty. Not the chocolate bar kind. Seemed to make the mistake of attacking my hero rather than the board presence I was developing and missed using Deathrattle's flip to kill Piana before she undid all her hard work. I pointed this out after the games, maybe she'd go on to do better.
Either way, they were fairly relaxed and I hope fun.
I was about the third person to cry out Bounty!. For my victory I got an uncut sheet of HoA heroes, a Warlock figure and another copy of the book and comic that came with the Worlds entry. Not bad, just for playing a sealed tournament same as usual...

1-0

Round Two. I'll admit I'm typing this on memory having lost the Dev notes.
Not a UDE employee, again playing Deathrattle.
First game looked like he'd backed me into a corner, when I arcane Explosioned into six cards, cleared half his board and proceeded to Weeble - Stonedeep - Gabble into decking him. At which pointed he remarked, that's a pretty good selection of high drops...
Game two - he saw all those plus every other one. Just couldn't capitalise on his early pressure and I ground him down.

2-0

Round three - Ken Ho playing Deathrattle.
So, another UDE employee this one from R&D. Probably going to be a bit of a challenge and oh look he's playing Deathrattle - again. I was anticipating Devil-stiched/Runesong shennaigans and I had zero counters to items. On the other hand during the game I was sitting surrounded by UDE R&D staff all joshing away - and their perspective was that the pants aren't that bad. Well, in any of the previous sets or as a rare I would agree. The lack of widespread item destruction in MotL means that as an uncommon I can't help find them unbalancing. Their is a single unconditional method of getting rid of items in MotL and that's Puncture. Syluri does not count - she has to live the turn. Acid Hands doesn't count - he has to die which is not always something you can finesse. Bringer of Death doesn't count - for starters it's rare and secondly it's a board clearer not a targetted item kill. Wreck/Nether Fracture don't count - interrupts are not as useful in combating troublesome items as destruction abilities. Antonio de Rosa suggested sabotage - come on, have you seen the sabotage abilities? Half the bodies will die long before they get to make a strike, half the remainder will get a protector in the face, finally exhausting Devilstitched/Runesong does nothing to stop their effect. Please, not a answer. Puncture really is your only answer, and that's only available to one class.

Ahem. A little bit of a rant, but everyone in the Gadgetzan on the top table seemed to have a Pants/Runesong.
Ken however decided to beat me round the head with Warlock Training (the reason why the Pant/Blade brigade take Warlock not Mage/Priest). Turns out having tons of late game drops doesn't really help you if every turn they're bouncing your largest guy to hand. Just couldn't find my direct damage spells in either game to take his Training enabled dude out. Oh well, taking two bounties would be greedy.

As it were we finished fairly early. UDE guys were in fine ribbing form, figuring I'd just sit and take it. For the most part correct, however I had an ulterior motive and I've swum in these circles before. Sure enough, eventually the opportunity came and I cast my line - Antonio bit and from then I had their attention.

I got passed to Danny Mandel, who gave me his card. Shame I lost when I mislaid my wallet in Manchester Airport.

Anyway, the topic was that favourite rant of mine on randomly deciding who gets to go first in a match rather than the Chess system. I wrote it up and sent Danny a PM last week as well as using the 'send to user's email' function. Whether he'll get it or not is another matter, the boards are notoriously flaky on this. No responses yet, and frankly I wouldn't get your hopes up. It's a bit of a bug bear of mine but many people aren't that bothered by it and it's extra coding effort to get it rigged into Mantis.

Maybe we'll see a change of system, maybe not. Either way, after another week I'll put the mail up here so people can see what I was suggesting.

2-1
Now, three rounds - two UDE employees. Chances of that are pretty slim. So I was a tad surprised to see Paul Ross as my round four opponent. Still, nice to actually meet the guy I'd seen around since Vs days.

Honestly, I can't remember much of the game. No idea what Paul was playing aside from Deathrattle (yeah, that's right 4 Deathrattles) and the annoying eight drop Aldor. The games were fairly relaxed and fun, by this time I wasn't really caring what the result was going to be. I was on the wind down from the weekend, and was fun to play with UDE rather than random guy from somewheresville. First game, Paul hands out the beating. Second game I manage to pull out of nowhere. Some truly inspired play on my part manages to take down Ishanna purely through ally play having no kill spells in hand. Third game, we're running low on time and it's him on the off with the better flip.  He curves, I get mediocre. Not good enough. Still much was fun was had (too bad , UDE 2 for 1ed me). Turns out he's a cheater anyway, not having registered a deck.

Just means if a rematch ever happens I'll have the moral high ground (plus an Ishanna up my sleeve).

Hung around to see the Worlds play out. Not really much interest though once Stefan had been knocked out and the Mazar went down. It was pretty clear at that point Guillame was going to win. Having been the Rotun player at the UK Nats in Rotun vs. Aleyah semi - I know how it ends. I couldn't even pull one game of Stuart.
Was fun meeting a ton of old acquantances and making new ones. Bottom line, whilst 100K would be nice it's the people I come for. That's both the guys behind it all UDE who deserve thanks for running a good show and making a great game, and the guys playing the game for so far being a cracking bunch of people it's a pleasure to play with.

At which point the UK plus Dutch players rolled into a restaurant. Ate, were merry (or as merry as you can be when only half the table is over twenty one) and talked much trash about card games. Was Stefan's gamble worth it?....

I arrived back home after only minimal tribulation to lose my wallet. December actually has been pretty horrific for me, but Worlds was one of the highlights of my year - I guess karma swings both ways!

Well just over a week ago I was in rainy San Diego playing cards. Normally I would have written this up earlier, but on my return I found a family member had gone into hospital, my girlfriend gave me a cold and I lost my wallet.

All in all, last week was pretty rubbish.

On the other hand Worlds was a blast. I like big tournaments, I like playing, hanging out the whole lot (well I could do without the draining air travel).

So, I arrived Thursday night. I would have liked to have actually attended Thursday but at the time my choice was book now on the basis of the posted World Championship dates or wait till everything was finalised and get stung for ~$200 more on the flight. If I'd been one place higher at the Nats, it'd be UDE paying the tab and I'd have waited. As it was, I erred on the side of caution and not annoying my employers too much - and missed out on fun day of card playing and extra nights sleep to aclimatise.

As it was, I touched down then hooked up with the UK players at the hostel for a bite to eat. Met Ted for the first time in person, strangely shorter than I had envisaged but aside from that seemed a nice bloke. Food was all right, emerged the UK contingent were all penniless students and half not old enough to partake of alcohol. Ha.
My plan was to take a bit of the juice to help knock me straight out to sleep.
That didn't happen, jetlag/heat/humidity/unfamiliar food - whatever it was neither I nor the guy I was sharing a room with got a wink of sleep that night. Flying directly in the face of my own good advice, I wasn't going to be well rested for the tournament.

At six in the morning, I admitted defeat and took a shower before preparing all my stuff for the day. Checked my deck three times, had the decklist on rough paper. Tested a bit then strolled down to the convention centre in the pouring rain.

Wasn't too bad, hall looked spacious enough. Sat down and registered, plenty of time to go. Signed the 'please don't tax me' forms, then started to go through the deck to put it unto the neat decklists. At which point disaster struck as I realised whilst the deck itself was intact I'd left the Hero behind in the Hostel. Noob mistake.
Oh well I figure, it's Kana Nassis. Shouldn't be too hard to find. Wrong, not a peep in the hall of anyone with a spare Kana. The traders hadn't bothered bringing heropes. So I walk to the judge I registered with and sheepishly explained my predicament. You're running a 96 man draft tomorrow with FoO in it, surely you've got a Kana I can borrow for the day.

Well apparently this required a five way ref discussion. I'm conscious of the clock ticking down. After a few minutes I'm getting edgy and start to listen into the conversation. '.... he's a European....' at which point I promptly stop listening. What on earth relevance does that have? Now even before the Hans Hoh days there were some in Europe who believe in a sinister dark UDE conspiracy to favour Americans over Europeans and use any excuse to let the Yank win. Something to do with seperate companies and national pride and all that. Personally I still think it's a load of nonsense. That'd be biting your nose off to spite your face.

Anyway, no resolution had occured and the ref's turned to look at me.
"Look, if it makes it any easier I can go back to my Hostel and get it"
"Yeah, that'd make things much easier"

So of I scoot with twenty minutes left, to a hostel ten minutes away. Yeah, that's cutting it fine. Turns out as I leave the centre 'pouring rain' has become 'torrential monsoon'. I run to the hotel, grab Kana and a spare pair of socks then run back. I'm completely drenched by the time I get back. And I've three minutes to write my deck down. So that gets down in a real hurry.

We're sat down for player briefing when...
"Is there anyone in the hall who has a Rotun Daggerhand for trade? There's a guy here missing his hero" comes over the PA.
What the deuce? Would have been damn handy if you'd done that for me and I wouldn't have been sitting there drying myself on a spare T Shirt. Doesn't improve my mood I can say.

So I'm hardly going into this tourney in the best of moods and I'm going in physically uncomfortable. Still, I'm not the kind of person who gets wound up by these things much - stiff upper lip and all that.

That deck I registered?

Kana Nassis

4 Steelsmith Joseph Carrol
3 Chipper Ironbane
1 Krenig Soulguard
4 Hootie
3 Korthas Greybeard
2 Norrund Grovewalker

4 Wraith Scythe
4 Eskhander's Claw
3 Timeslicer
3 Eye of Rend
3 Striker's Mark
3 Major Healing Potion
1 Eskhander's Collar
1 Onyxia Hide Bag
1 Deathdealer Breastplate
1 Band of the Ranger General

4 Lightning Reflexes
2 Spirit Healer

3 Missing Diplomat
4 One Draenei's Junk
2 Chasing A-Me
2 Sunken Treasure
2 Corki's Ransom
1 Alas Andorhal

Sideboard
4 Hardpacked Snowballs
1 Chipper
4 Trophy Kill
1 Alas Andorhal

It's basically a hybrid deck. Sitting between Rotun/Jaton and Hoot and Shoot. It has a much better match up versus Omedeus/Paladin and Rotun than running Rotun itself. But it loses a chunk of consistency to make up for versatility. That's not to see it's inconsistent - far from it. What it does mean is that it doesn't ramp very well - it's got an explosive turns 1-5 with any of three different routes to large board presence but after that it doesn't really consistently apply pressure as well as other decks.

So here's the matches...

Round 1
Mikkel playing Bulkas.
It was a fairly standard Bulkas Cruelty deck. Didn't see a lot of changes in the switch to FoO legal. First game sees him almost dead before the Wraith Scythe starts dealing more damage than I can inflict from my board. Oh well. In come the Snowballs and Chipper. Games two and three are pretty decisive. Game two I lock him down with Snowballs until I can attack in other two turns to kill. Game three Spirit Healer/Chipper lands.

1-0

Round 2
Keith St Jean playing Tazo
Keith's a bit late for the ruond, if my luck was in I could have hoped for a win from that to get me out the hole I was in. Not only was I facing a decent player, but I'd picked up a mandatory game loss for this round. See, those three minutes whilst completely drenched when I registered my decklist meant I'd neglected to put my abilities down and hadn't had time to double check. Noob mistake, that cost me.
We head into the game, I was expecting a Ozzati style burn deck - what I faced was a more control orientated Tazo. Protectors came down to be taken out by my swinging Kana. Steelsmith did get vaped my DB to be replaced by a second. The beats come down and I get him to 24 damage taken. Then he sets up 2 protectors + greench + 2 Spirit Healer opposite me. I look at my board. Yup, that Greench is going to lock me out and I'll never get that one damage on his hero. Annoying. I actually felt it was a favourable matchup for me, expecially after a 4 Trophy Kill/Andorhal sideboard. Shame on that game loss.

1-1

Round Three
Dave Bodimer playing Ona
Dave was playing his 'Premonition' Ona deck with some tweaks for the meta. Nice to put a face to the name. Now I'd tested a fair bit versus this deck and it was a 50/50 shoot. You'd never know from the game notes. Both games Dave just had slightly better plays than me every turn. Both games my life is whittled away one or two at a time whilst I inflict very little back. Oh well, my deck could have pulled better, but ultimately it was probably a better player than I playing the deck it was meant to be played.

1-2

Round four
Jake playing Telrander
At this point I'm not feeling too bad despite being 1-2. Sure, it's not a good start but they were 'good' losses in that both could be expected to do fairly well. Sitting down opposite a Telrander made me happy. Telrander I'd tested a fair bit as well, it's not a good matchup for the cat. Lightning Reflexes really blunts the offense. And low and behold I take Jake down in straight games for minimal effort.

2-2

Round Five
Maarko playing Rotun
Again I sat down expecting a reasonable match up. Rotun had been tested a fair bit and I knew it was good for me. With Rotun the most represented in the field of the Worlds I figured it was about time I started seeing some more favourable matchups. Maarko leads off the first game putting some pressure on me as I use Kana to take out his on table threats, taking me into the mid teens in damage before Wraith Scythe hits and I start swinging back. His life track is 0 - 8 - 19 - Dead. Second game goes close, Wraith Scythe doesn't stick for me and we slug away at each other till he pips me with 2 health left himself. Third game sees multiple Lightning Reflexes and Chippers from me. I didn't need the Wraith Sycthe to whittle him down.

3-2

Round Six
Olivier playing Indalmar
Well, things are looking up, I've turned the corner and I see Indalmar. One the one hand, I've not tested against Indalmar. On the other that's because there's been no decent showings with him at a major tourney. Could go either way, but I'm confident. Ha. Perfect time for my deck to crap out. First game wasn't so bad, it was a touch and go battle of the Wraith Scythes. Just couldn't get Chipper/Spirit Healer going before he's attacking for way more than me with big Devastates. Hey ho. In go the Snowballs and fourth chipper. Muligan from a bad hand to a worse one. And promptly fail to see Wraith Scythe, or set up Chipper/Spirit Healer. Hmm.

3-3

Round seven
Mick playing Bulkas
Well, sat down expecting another Cruelty and still to be hanging on to the dream of day two by my teeth. First game I don't see a lot from Mick, I curve up and take him down without loss. In go the Snowballs and Chipper just in case.
Second game I'm not the fastest of the gates but there's not a lot his side either. Ring of the Unliving lands. There's a Chipper in hand, but I figure - that's an odd choice of gear. Can't play and use chipper in the same turn so I'll wait him out. Of course alarm bells should have been ringing - I'm one of those guys who knows all the infinite combos and silly tricks in a game. Passes to him and he plays Beserker Rage. At which point it snaps into place and I know exactly what he's going to play next. Sure enough Barak the Shamed hits the table and nominated a ridiculously large figure. Kana gets pummeled for large number/5 when Bulkas attacks. So game three I know what he's about, Valthak's hanging out so I kill him. I've got it in my mind that I need to take him out before he can get his pieces together, whilst holding counters. Well, eventually I can't handle Valthak and he's set to go for the combo on his turn. I've got Snowball in hand Kana's flip ready. Turns out he had Shield Bash for the Snowball and Rak for the flip.

3-4

At that point, I'm not going to day two.
I figure time to cut my loses and move on to the side events. The only other UK guys still playing are Stu Wright on 6-1 and Jay Rathod on 3-4 as well. The Uk as a whole pretty much sucked.
Could I have done better? Well I certainly think Round 2 was a wash from the Game Loss I really didn't need to have picked up. Round 6 I can thank a craptastic hand for, but in fairness that's almost ceratin to happen at least once in a tournament with this may games. I could blame being uncomforatbly wet and in a miserable mood (as much as I ever am in one) for the event - but that's not much of an excuse. I can't actaully think of any play errors that cost me a game.
Was it the wrong deck? No, I don't think so. It'd been play tested to death and back, and was good for the meta that was present. I could have done with facing more 'known contender' decks rather than some of the oddball ones, I'd certainly have appreciated some more Rotun matchups.

Maybe in hindsight I should have just bit the bullet and played Nathadan. I'm not a noob with the deck and it too was a good call for the meta. But I wanted to try something new and less slow paced.

Well, I learned my lesson here. Play decks that don't leave you blind to surprises. That probably means I'll shift to control decks for the next few big tournaments.

Still, it was fun and if I can put my mediocre performance down to a stupid error in deck registering and quirks of the pairings then it's not too bad.

Tomorrow I'll put up how I did elsewhere...

Ben Drago has spoken on what the Worlds format will be...

9 to 11 rounds of Swiss then cut to top 96 irrespective of attendance, followed by tw three round draft pods.

Bit odd given top 100 get cash prizes, but hey ho.

That's a fairly gruelling first day. Most likely ten rounds - best of three, last time they tried that for Vs it went on till nine in the evening.
So, running the numbers on that, x-2 to get through from 500. x-3 if you're lucky.

Yeesh, that's going to be a grind. I bet by round eight it's a battle of concentration rather than deck or skill. Seriously.

If you've never played in a big tourney of this kind - bear in mind you will be playing for around twelve hours, at least 20 games and will have no set break to eat.
You will be tired by the end, you will be hungry. Your nerves will be shot - especially if you're dancing on the edge of day twoing.

My advice is get a good night's sleep the night before, and have plenty of drink on you.

This probably the last post before I head off to the Worlds - so good luck to all attending.

On Monday I had a hair cut. It happens every now and then, though probably not as much as many people.

But what I was actually refering to was the process of Swiss tournaments and cuts to day 2s then cuts to top 8. It came up again on the official boards in the post Lille discussions.

The math behind swiss tournaments isn't terribly hard, it's just tiresome. So I automated it. The discussion this time around was whether for 200 people 6 or 7 constructed then 3 draft, then top eight was proscriptive - did going to the extra  constructed round make any difference?

Well, here's the numbers. When looking at predicting Swiss results, there's an upper and lower bound. The upper is when every person paired down in a round wins, and the lower when every such person loses.

So here you go, for the 208 people at Lille...
6 rounds
6-0 3 or 4 people
5-1 18 to 22 people
4-2 46 to 51 people
3-3 64 people

7 rounds
7-0 1 or 2 people
6-1 8 to 14 people
5-2 28 to 40 people
4-3 54 to 61 people

Now, Lille did a 64 to next day cut. That's the top 38 to 43 4-2 or the top 8 to 27 of the 4-3.

Blinded by the math yet?

What does all that actually mean?
Well, if you were going to make the cut after six rounds and win, you'll make the cut after seven. Pretty obvious.
But how many will change places from making to not making and vice versa?

12
(You work that out from all the matchups the 4-2 could have and their overlap into the non-cut and vice versa compared to the 4-3 from seven rounds)

So, adding that extra round potentially shifted 12 people round. Probably much less than that, though try telling that to the person who lost their round seven and would have cut but then didn't.

Moving on - you then have three rounds of draft. The issue here is the top eight cut. If you'd had nine rounds in total...

9-0 0 to 1
8-1 0 to 8
7-2 2 to irrelevant
6-3 14 to irrelevant

For ten rounds
10-0 0 to 1
9-1 0 to 8
8-2 0 to irrelevant
7-3 2 to irrelevant
6-4 14 to irrelevant


So what's that saying?
Well, it's saying that prior to the tournament it doesn't matter a jot whether there's 6 or 7 constructed then 3 draft for determining the relative numbers/odds of making the top 8. 'Worst performance' scenario sees two people top the chart, then six of fourteen below them make the cut as well. One and seven for 'Best performance'. And it doesn't change with how many rounds you run in total - you're past the 'magic number' of rounds, at this point every time one person goes up, another comes down and it's all swings and roundabouts but not changing relative numbers.

So, the move from six rounds to seven at DMF Lille achieved just one thing - at most twelve people who would've made the day 2 cut didn't and vice versa. It didn't effect relative t8 cut odds at all.



Now, moving on to Worlds. Say 500 people turn up. Here's how that pans out...

R6
6-0 7 to 8
5-1 44 to 48
4-2 115 to 120
3-3 158

R7
7-0 3 to 4
6-1 24 to 28
5-2 79 to 84
4-3 138 to 140

*****

R9
9-0 0 to 1
8-1 5 to 9
7-2 31 to 36

R10
10-0 0 to 1
9-1 0 to 9
8-2 5 to 36
7-3 31 to irrelevant

Okay, so there's actually 12/13 rounds in the worlds, but I don't need to go that high (the array size in my Visual Basic program only goes to 1024 and I can't be bothered to change it). You can already see where it's going. 10 rounds is not significantly different from 9 in terms of your potential maxima and minima - you just get a better spread as before.

What is different is the day two cut crunch going from 6 to 7. It's a bit more than at most twelve shifting. Worlds will be on the 'positive record' system (you need to get equal to or more wins than losses to day two) and the difference between 6 and 7 is up to 80 people not making the day 2 cut if you go to the seventh round, and up to 50 shuffling round.

That's a pretty big difference, over one sixth the field cut just by going that extra round.

Message here is:
If you're better at constructed than draft, hope UDE stretch to seven rounds day one.
If you're better at draft, hope they stick to the six rounds constructed day one.


If anyone wants to write their own code/Excel macro to work out swiss piarings numbers, just shout. It's a simple six line thing, not that hard once you know what you're doing.

Turns out Ted did read this. *Waves at Ted*

Reminded me I hadn't posted in a while. Nothing major has happened really. DMF Lille/MotL pre-release is this weekend. Lille will be the last big show before Worlds, be interesting to see what comes out of it and spring board from there into San Diego. Last round of testing everyone!

As to pre-releases, they're one of my favourite times in card games. Learning to play with new cards is always fun, and I personally find it much better to do so ina setting that forces you to read pretty much every card rather than simply skimming through a list to find the upgrades to your existing decks.

Normally I'd make both the Manchester and Leicester pre-release, but sadly I'm occupied Sunday evening as taxi service so can't make Leicester. Sorry Jack, you wont be able to get vengeance for the drubbing I'm about to give you in Manchester.

It's also not a bad idea to get in some practice with MotL, most of the side events I will inevitably end up playing at San Diego involve MotL. My American tournament performance has never been tip-top. BEst to date was a Vs PC where I went from about 120th first day to 43rd solely on draft performance (and 2 Tinks/3Mojo-world was insane). Other than that, you'd be hard pressed to even find my name. So yeah, practising MotL will be good.

It looks a fun set for my prefered class Shaman, with some interesting stuff for my next love - Rogue. Though the first official preview for both has been less than spectacular. Reincarnation is a more risky version of Greater Heal, there might be something in the set that makes pumping your health viable (possible) or turning your hero into Sarmoth (unlikely for Shaman) otherwise it's fairly neutral and unlikely to see much play.
Unfair Advantage on the other hand is pretty dog awful as of current card pool. Now, I daresay there may be cards still to be revealed that speed up the whole combo card deck -> hand -> discard process that makes spending an entire turn to pitch the opponents hand viable (or I could just seven them to the face with a card that isn't completely useless on its own and takes half the resources. Hmmm). Maybe rogue gets a Pact of Shadow style card that plays of them discarding cards, I doubt they'd get damage but it's entirely possible they might get an ongoing that draws you a card everytime they discard. That'd make it it playable.

Of course the write up would have you believe that it's the next best thing to sliced bread. They always do. Fortunately this time round, most of the cards previewed are pretty strong and even those that are not might be playable in certain deck styles.

This is leading up to the Zapped Giants caper. I didn't even get a chance to read Tyma's piece before UDE asked for it to be pulled. I gather it was poking fun at the usual manner of reviewing, and the humour didn't go down well. Fair enough, UDE give these cards out to drum up interest in the next set to get people to buy it, not decide to give it a miss and Tyma's humour might not travel well to people not used to him.

Still, I have to say it's becoming clear card players are perfectly capable of assesing pre-views themselves and can spot 'gleaning' by feature writers a mile off. I don't think Tyma's card is actually that bad. Niche perhaps, and takes a bit of effort to get working but it has potential. But aside from Tyma's lesson not to bite the hand that feeds you, I'd hope UDE walks away from this learning the following lesson...

Don't preview cards that are less than outstanding for general play in current decks.

Perhaps give the reviewers a choice of cards, and let them pick. Either way, it's no good showing us cards that rely on other cards in the set to work. Nor is it much use showing us that card that makes Timmy's 60 Bluffwatcher deck more powerful. What players will be most interested in, and ergo most likely to buy MotL/whatever, is cards that add something clear to current powerful decks.

Really shouldn't be that hard. Every class has had a t8 deck in the last round...
Druid - Telrander Cat
Hunter - Kana Hoot and Shoot
Mage - Ozzati Burn
Paladin - Nathadan Stall
Priest - Omedeus Rush
Rogue - Daspien Solo
Shaman - Phadalus Blue Man
Warlock - Mazar Control
Warrior - Gorebelly/Jaton Solo

That's even a good split across faction, ability vs item and so forth. Good job R&D. Now if only marketing could catch up.


In other news. Yes I'm testing for Worlds.
No, I wont be playing Wintervolt. Whilst a very strong deck, every man and his dog aught to be packing hate at least side board for it. And if you're playing the right classes it's very easy to hate against. So, I suspect whilst you might breeze aside the unprepared (which lets be honest will be a substantial part of the field) you'll come a croper versus those who did. You'll probably still day two, but not in the best of positions to T8. If you do T8 - you can bet many of the other decks will smash you out of contention because they have teched against you.

Similarly I feel a pure solo deck like Daspien/Gorebelly is in for a world of hurt. Snowball absolutely kills them in testing. Yes, yes. I realise it's not a game ender, but the extra two turns minimum it takes to shift back into gear is often just enough the enemy needs to steal the game of you, from rogues in particular.

Currently I'm bouncing between a hybrid Hunter deck and an Ozzati burn deck. I'd ditched the Hunter Deck because it wasn't so strong versus Wondervolt as the mage. But recently I'm coming back to it as I've had some bad games with Ozzati. Ozzati's not best placed versus Paladin either.

Ah, the ever changing meta merry go round.

I've been told I should mention we finally actually got round to three manning MC.
The firey dudes went down to Gorebelly-Veranis-What's her face the BElf Priest.

7 Arcane Torrent, 4 Fizzle (8 Solanians), 4 Shield Bash and 2 Silent Fang (2 Sunken Treasure).
8 Moriks, 2 Arcane Revelation.

In short, after the initial scuffle cards were being drawn like crazy and the poor MC player was left having every card they played interupted. Their heroes routinely ran into irrelevant protectors. Only time we had more than 30 damage on the board was Shazzrah, but even then it was far from worrying.

Of course, the true challenge would be to do it without FoO cards. If we'd have been thinking straight we'd have done that from the start. Fizzle -> Counterspell, Chen -> Zylah, Frost Funnel -> Frost Bolt/Nova/Deep Freeze. That'd be it pretty much.

Took our time about it, now we're just waiting for Mags. Though if they don't change things much he'll be a sucker for Snowball.