Just returned from what I think has been the biggest Regional WH: I tournament in the world so far at 22 players. Sheffield England, a really nice top class venue at Patriot Games (who seem like an awesomely together set of people, they even ordered us out free pizza!).
I'm sure more people are going to post about this with exact deck breakdowns, but I just wanted to get my thoughts down on paper (so to speak) before the details started to fade away.
4 of us piled in a car from Newcastle and braved the A1/M1 in a 2 hour road trip southwards (made a little more complex by the road trip) fortunately our car contained a host of Left Liberal/Labour voters and me a Conservative Voter, and so we had lots to argue about on both the way down and up. Indeed, forget discussing card tactics or actual serious preparation for a tournament; none of that, indeed, since we'd all basically thrown together decks the night before (with one player quite literally building on the card journey down) I wasn't expecting high placements in the forthcoming tournament to be honest. Given my rather precariously issue with free time as I finish the write up stages of my thesis though, I was going to take every chance at a day off that I could, and, to be honest, I was happy to lose with a smile on my face.
That said, I do like winning..... a lot.
The four of us took
Andrew: Dark Elf Control/Skaven Rats (finished 3rd)
Neil: Orc Rush Beatdown
Ben: Orc Rush Beatdown
Myself, Dave, Dark Elf Control (15th)
My deck, a more pure dark elf control deck, was probably a bad tactical choice on my part. I had the deck's guts open on my table last night with my skaven cards in my hand and I was almost going to go Dark Elf/Skaven like Andrew did, but relented at the last second and wanted to try something different. A quite sizeable tactical error on my part given the tournament was won by a Dark Elf Skaven deck and my friend Andrew, playing practically the deck I almost built, came 3rd.
Oh well, if wishes where horses and all that.
Top Three of the tournament finished:
1st Dark Elf Skaven
2nd Empire
3rd Dark Elf Skaven
Spot the unexpected? :-) Yes a rogue, and well managed Empire deck made it ti the top three through 6 rounds of swiss, and huge kudos to the guys running it for doing so in a tournament UTTERLY DOMINATED by Destruction, and hugely containing rats! We had an infestation! I spotted 4-5 order decks total in the tournament the empire, a couple of dwarf decks, and at least one High Elf deck, but about the other 75% were destruction.
We had straight swiss of 6 rounds, run by the ace people at Patriot Games, who were using a DCI MTG program on a computer to organize the results and pairings for us. Very much ran like clockwork at the tournament.
My tournament recollections, and my apologies for my poor memories for names in advance, after many hours driving today my memory is fuzzy ;-)
Round 1
Dark Elf Control vs Orc Uber-Rush. Sat down, a really nice guy opposite called Alex, cut shook hands..... and then I lost the first game really quickly. Now. Given I was playing a Dark Elf deck built to, I'd hoped, deal with rush decks, funny enough I couldn't withstand an area of my capital burning in turn 2 and losing completely in turn 3.Needless to say, I was kinda shocked. I hadn't even had a bad draw, he'd just flattened me in three turns.
But, I had my LONG CCG experience to draw upon. I know that god draws occur, and I knew I was just unlucky. He couldn't possibly beat me again in three turns, no-ones orc deck is that good.
Now.. Either fate looked upon these thoughts and laughed hilariously, or something, but in the second game it happened again, I blinked, and the game was over. 3 turns, dead. This time with a slightly different combination of units, but dead nonetheless. I looked at my deck a few seconds, and almost dazed with whiplash at the speed of the two losses (both games took around 4 minutes I think) shook the very nice smiling mans hand and wandered off for a coffee to wake me up.
0-2 Games
0-1 Record
Round 2
So, I had a lot of time to think on my next game. Orc Rush I knew was bad. Uber-rush... Had he just gotten god starts on me twice? or did the deck genuinely and consistently do that? may never know. So, still pondering this I faced off against a really ace fellow called Lee. Genuine nice guy, but I was a little concerned when I saw another Orc based board.. I feared another steamrollering. Fortunately Lee was trying something a little different and was running a "Big mobz" styled deck using a build/draw engine to plonk out some of the bigger Orc units. Both games I was able to take control of the board, though I must admit I top-decked very fortunately in the second game and seemed to draw every card I needed just at the right moment.
2-2 Games
1-1 Record
Umm, yeah, swiss gambit.... I meant it all along.....
Round 3
And next, oh well, against my good friend Neil and his literal "made in car on way down deck". Another Orc rush beatdown, but at least I knew what was coming. First game went my way with a Brutal offering and a Cloud of Flies managing to keep his weenies off the board and I ground out the win. Second game involved 2 early Troll Vomit's from Neil as he'd got the measure of my deck a little more and wiped away my control units very early, dropping spider riders and pump wagons down afterthe vomits for the win. Third game.... the decider... I was all excited... The build up....... was a damp squib to be honest. I was hoping for a really cool decider... But no, he got a god draw, and I, in 14 cards, of initial draw and mulligan, didn't see anything resembling a good start, so a very quick steamroller.
It's a poor craftsman that blames the tools..... Bloody cards.....
3-4 Games
1-2 Record
Round 4
Round 4 I found myself against my favorite deck, Dwarfs. Now, from the start of this game I was a little concerned as my deck is built around anti-rush and doesn't have the fastest kill mechanism (which is why I should have gone rats....) Furthermore, and importantly, Dwarfs healing abilities really hurt my gradual grind kill strategy.
You could say this was a rather serious flaw, but, to be honest, I seriously didn't expect to be facing a Repeater Bolter /Dwarf deck at all, especially not one that took almost eight turns to get its engine to the point to kill me and had heavy healing in it. Oh well.
First game I honestly struggled to make an impact against three healing forges and some damage negation, hadn't anything to stop it in the deck, and I was kind out of options when he finally delivered the 50 resource repeater bolter killing blow (28 resources + 3 innovations).
Second game went a bit like the first. His layers of toughness and simply rock hard dwarf units made it hard to make an impression. I really was at this point cursing my choice not to go Skaven (who would have sped the deck up to much faster levels) and not taking Snitch would would have made mincemeat of his units. Curses! on bad choices. Anyway, a solid win for him again a game in which I just couldn't get though the defenses.
Any rush deck would have (especially the first one I'd played that day) have steamrollered the deck, but it was just the wrong sort of defense for me, and my deck was geared for a completely different meta.
3-6 (OMGZ!) Games
1-3 Record (OMGZ! I suck!)
Round 5
A Chaos Skaven deck. Exactly what I'd teched for, exactly what I'd been expecting. Packed with deadly rats. Snitch and Greyseer. I'd built my deck to specifically defeat this type of deck and every shade of it.
How'd I do?
Dominated. Though you could say at this point I was so far down this swiss you'd hope I could pick up a win, this was the first game I was playing against what I'd expected, and I was genuinely pleased to do OK. 2 straight wins, and dominated both games completely.
5-6 Games
2-3 Record
Round 6
Not much to play for, so entered relaxed mode a bit and very glad I did. Met a card player called Sunny who was a REALLY cheerful and nice guy . Pleasure to play against. He was playing another Chaos Rat deck, but this one seemed a bit faster than the last.
First game was really tight but I managed to keep the board clear of rats long enough with my control to tear down a few areas.
Second game was very back and forth and very tight with us both on the cusp of victory. I managed one of my more spectacular plays of the day, playing a Hate, Innovation, Brutal Offering and Call the Blood combo on his turn on my own Corsairs of Ghrond which wiped the board of his Snitch and a Clan Moulders Elite... But he eventually ground out the, almost 25 minute, game and got a well deserved win.
Third game we went to time, which was very unfortunate, but the first two games had been pretty epic, and we were both having a good time, so we shook hands like gents and agreed it was a draw. Great guy, hope I see him again at card tournaments.
6-7-1 Games
2-3-1 Record
In all, a great tournament, 22 players, and some great people from all over. Manchester, Birmingham, Derbyshire, us from Newcastle and of course, the Sheffield players. Patriot Games were ace, and I hope they get to run more regional's in the future as it would be we deserved.
On my own deck. I made some poor choices. Should have gone with my initial feelings and gone Dark Elf Skaven Control rather than pure DE, but oh well, live and learn. Dark Elf Ratty control is very, very powerful as seen by the 1st and the 3rd decks being extremely similar in builds. And Rats in general where in attendance in great numbers, though through the joys of the great swiss lottery, I only met two all day. Weirdly, given the decks there, I feel that I probably meta-ed correctly, but went the wrong way in the swiss due to the initial drubbing at the hands of an Orc deck so fast I literally couldn't believe that I'd be rolled that fast.
The deck I wish I'd seen though was the Empire, and I look forward to anyone who played the Empire player or saw the deck telling me what he was playing. 2nd was a great result given the state of Order and the field he was against.
