Here is a link to my decklist:
http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=27&efcid=5&efidt=113266
Also, here is a link to a scan of my card:
i150.photobucket.com/albums/s87/shadowdragon136/PotMPromos.jpg
I unfortunately don’t have my notes with me, so I’m doing this from memory. I apologize if I mess anything up. My report will focus mainly on the matches.
We leave Thursday after work so we could get to FFG before close of business Friday (as I wanted to pick up my character card as soon as possible because I was planning on playing it at the PotM tournament.) We get there Friday and I pick up my character, and since we were there already, we get a nickel tour of the facilities before heading to the event center to do some pre-tournament testing. James and I don’t get to play all that often, so I played my Jon Herr deck against his James Hata deck. I learn quite a few things about the deck (not enough foundations, too heavy reliance on discard, etc.) and take James’ suggestions to improve the deck. We then go to dinner and then bed to get ready for the next day.
We register for the event and turn in our patches. At this point, I don’t think my deck is good enough to win the whole thing because I don’t have that great of defense and my vitality is rather squishy. I anticipate a sizeable amount of aggro, but go forward with the deck because I wanted to showcase my character and felt like I had a good chance of at least making top 8.
Round 1: Jon Herr vs. Victor
Win 1-0
This is an ok matchup for me. He’s running MegaSpike loop backed with Darkness Blade, so I know that all I have to do is control Reanimated and keep low blocks in hand and I’ll be alright. Revenant’s Calling proves to be a key part of my strategy because I can commit Reanimated when he uses it. I also get plenty of Seal of Cessation and Evil Doer Destroyers out to rain on his parade. Unfortunately, I’m unable to muster enough attacks together to really threaten his vitality, so the game ends in his deckout. That’s definitely not what this deck is supposed to do, but at least I know I have some recourse against the huge vitality decks (and this outcome would foreshadow my finals match against Jeremy). By the time we sideboard and shuffle, there is only 5 minutes left in the round and our second game ends in a stalemate leaving me the winner of the match.
Round 2: Jon Herr vs. Nakoruru
Win 2-0
I think this Ruru was a Good Ruru but it could also have been Life, I can’t recall exactly. He’s running many reversals and the best foundations Life/Good can muster. Fortunately, Ruru is as squishy as I am and I was able to get a couple of Bitter Rivals on the table and could push through a lot of damage by changing zones and discarding his key-worded attacks. Even with half blocking, Reverse Flayer, Midnight Launcher, and Knight Breaker prove to be too much damage for him to deal with. I win the match with some time to spare.
Round 3: Jon Herr vs Dhalsim
Win 3-0
This deck was utilizing an infinite/semi-infinite combo to stuff a player’s momentum full with his entire deck, thus resulting in a deckout. I won’t spell out the combo exactly in deference to Antigoth (the deckbuilder), but suffice it to say it takes 3-4 pieces on the table in order to go off, some of them foundations and some of them assets. He used Dhalsim’s ability to drop the pieces down right away on his kill turn to speed up the kill by a turn. I had fortunately seen my teammate Paul play him the round before and knew what I needed to do to control the deck and not let the deck go off.
He wins the die roll and goes first. I draw a hand with 2 Anti K in it. He goes for a 3 drop and flips a 4. I play my first Anti-K checking a 5, I then peek at the top of my deck, move the 3 check to the bottom of my deck, then flip a 5 on the second Anti K thus ending his turn. From there I was able to build enough of a control defense to prevent the combo from going off. I draw a fistful of attacks one turn and start smashing him knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to finish him, but I wanted to weaken him a bit and get the attacks into my momentum. He takes the Flayer and Launcher to the face (leaving him at 5 or 6) in order to have a better chance at blocking the Knight Breaker. I announce the combo enhance to Knight Breaker (he has a Seal of Cessation out) and he passes on responding and on enhancing, I pass on enhances and then he realizes he could have canceled the Knight Breaker enhance because the attack is now lethal even if it’s half blocked. Unfortunately the window for him to respond had passed and we moved on to game 2. Game 2 I sided in Tag Along and was able to cancel Dhalsim’s ability enough to slow down his assemblage of his combo pieces. I eventually put together enough control to prevent the combo and enough aggro to take down his vitality.
Round 4: Jon Herr vs Chun Li
Tie 3-0-1
I was very scared of this deck because I was dreading any sort of aggro deck. As it turns out, this Chun Li deck had some different choices in it. It ran relatively few attacks instead relying on Mentally Unstable to get the attacks back. Because he didn’t run Feline Spike, Ichi no Tachi proved to be immensely useful to discard his multiples. The first game I have to do many random things in order to prevent Chun Li’s ability from going off, including rejecting my own attack in order to manifest destiny Chun Li down… Yeah, kinda random. First game he attacks with Hoyoku-sen and I block with Ichi no Tachi to discard the multiples. I also used Bitter Rivals to discard a keyword, but he had a unique card in hand and discarded that instead of the Ira Spinta that he then attacked me with. Since it dealt damage, he could bring back the Hoyoku-sen and proceeded to play it again and kill me. Second game, I got to a great start and was able to kill him just as time ran out in the round.
Round 5: Jon Herr vs. Hanzo
Win 4-0-1
Because we had built this deck a long time ago, I was very aware of the best ways to combat it. Revenant’s Calling again proves to be very useful as well as my Seals, Evil Doers and Chester’s. I’m able to take game 1 before he gets the combo out. Game 2 I side in Soul Wave and Tag Along. He gets off to a good start and eventually is able to set up for a kill turn. I don’t have anti-discard in my hand, but I’m able to use Visions of Destiny to look at the top cards and rig it so my other ability gets Soul Wave into my hand. He then tries to discard the rest of my hand and I discard Soul Wave to commit everything on his board. When it gets to my turn, I kill him with a string of attacks. He may have taken a game off me, I don’t remember exactly.
Round 6: Jon Herr vs. Seong Mina
Draw 4-0-2
At this point Jeremy and I are both in the Top 8 and aren’t battling diversity, so we draw and take a much needed break. I luckily didn’t run into all that much aggro during swiss rounds so I was able to make Top 8.
Top 8 (In no particular order):
Seong Mina (Order)
Rock Howard (Order)
Hilde (Fire)
Zi Mei (Evil)
Jon Herr (Evil)
Chun Li (Air)
Mignon (Air)
Tira (Air)
I get paired with the Rock Howard player.
Top 8: Jon Herr vs. Rock Howard
Win 5-0-2
This was the type of match I was looking forward to. Evil is very good at combating Order’s shenanigans so I felt very confident going into this match. I had never seen/played against promo Rock Howard, so it took me a bit to get used to how the game was going. Eventually I was able to put enough damage together to take him down.
Because it was getting late and the cleaning crew was coming in, we decide to postpone the rest of the matches to the next day. Prior to heading out, we get told our matchups so we have the whole night to strategize. Luckily for me, my teammates explain to me that Revenant’s Calling has a second ability that prevents damage from throws!?!? I then use this information to my advantage in my next two matches, preventing Ira Spinta from dealing damage (and thus Mentally Unstable from recurring attacks) and preventing Mina from recurring ridiculous amounts of cards from her momentum.
Top 4: Jon Herr vs. Chun Li
Win 6-0-2
I was most worried about this match because we had tied in swiss and I was unsure whether I’d be able to deal with the onslaught. He takes the first game, getting his board set up way too fast for me to compete. Second game I set up way too fast for him to compete and am able to draw Chester’s Backing (my only manifestable card that isn’t an attack that can commit Chun Li) at good times to prevent her ability. Third game was a bit of a battle. This time I use Revenant’s to prevent the recursion of attacks through Mentally Unstable and hold on to Ichi no Tachi, thus making it much harder for him to kill me. I eventually put enough damage together to kill him.
Finals: Jon Herr vs. Seong Mina
Win 7-0-2
Jeremy and I agree to split the rest of the assets regardless of who wins. We are told that the final match will be video taped, so we wait around for more than a half hour until eventually, James tells us to just go ahead and start. First game I’m able to get some good control down to prevent the Ira Spinta from destroying my board. However, the game starts to go long because I just can’t get enough of my attacks together at the right times to put a significant dent into his health. I also know that if I spend too many resources trying to chip at him, I won’t be able to defend well enough. Eventually, I sit on my ass for too long trying to figure out what to do and he goes all out with some Kazuryu Reppas. I am able to block some, but I end up with one foundation ready and a Reppa coming at me for lethal. I have an Ichi no Tachi in hand to block, but flip an inopportune 3 check to fail and die. At this point they have set up the video camera so the remaining 2 matches are taped and will probably be uploaded at some point. I side in my Tag Alongs and hope for a better break.
Game 2 Jeremy mulligans his hand and I keep mine. I unfortunately have a fairly weak opening hand of 3 Tag Alongs, 2 foundations, 1 attack and 1 asset. I do my best to build and hope I get some better Spinta defense my next turn. I do and am able to keep my board while Tag Along-ing Mina for the next few turns. At some point I reach critical mass and don’t believe I have to worry about Spinta wrecking my board, so I start using Rev’s Calling to take no damage from throws, thus limiting Mina’s ability to recur cards from momentum. I start trying to stockpile attacks on the bottom of my deck so I can take down her big ass, but I get disrupted trying to time my draw and end up not getting what I needed in hand. At some point I notice his deck is getting real low, so I start to switch to a deckout strategy utilizing my only “mill” cards: BRT’s. He runs out of deck quite a bit before I do and I realize his deck is most likely only 60 cards whereas mine is 64. I take note of this for the next game, knowing it would probably be easier to play strong defense and letting him run out of cards than it would for me to try to take down all that vitality.
Game 3 he goes first and gets a really good first turn of BRT, Charismatic and another foundation with Spinta in his hand. I know I need to get 2 answers to Spinta out right away and it has to be through BRT. I have only 2 (my own BRT and a Red Lotus.) I play my Red Lotus first, he BRT’s and I reveal a Tag Along and flip a 5 check thus allowing me to pass the critical Red Lotus. I then drop my BRT and then I stay one to two control pieces ahead of him for the rest of the game, preventing his Spinta from destroying my board. At one point he nearly taps out his impressive staging area trying to damage me, so I decide to try to put together some damage to hurt him. I draw only an Ichi no Tachi, so I play that and hope for some good attacks in the top 4 of my deck. I check with Visions and there aren’t any attacks up there. With my attack chain aborted, I go straight back to defense and eventually he runs out of cards after an unlucky break of blind adding 2 of his Ira Spintas into his momentum and not being able to get them out due to Rev’s Calling.
After a long and grueling battle I win the tournament and all this after doubting my chances of even making Top 8! I luckily ran into a lot of control, which is a battle I know how to fight quite well. Prizes included the rest of the Path of the Master assets, a Sony PSP, a PotM life counter, prints of characters from fighting games, a pack consisting of one each of the upcoming promos, a full set of one copy each of set 9 (the out of print set of Darkstalkers), a playmate, an uncut sheet, etc.
Kickass prizes indeed.
I had a great time this tournament and love FFG’s new event center and generous prize support. I was really excited to be able to do so well with my own character. Shameless Plug: I will be trading both my character and my extra Path of the Master promos. Just look for either my trading thread or Matt’s. We will put up our have/want list sometime soon.
