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).