Welcome to the semifinals!

It's the final turn before the homestretch. Blades have been sharpened. Cloaks have been donned. And prayers have been spoken. Or in my case, beers have been hastily consumed during the break. Now it's time to battle! Who will lose their heads this round in search of "The Prize?"

Currently we have 3 undefeated players and 6 within striking distance of winning a coveted playmat. This is where we separate the boys (and girl) from the nerds who spend way too much time obsessing over their decks.

Here are the round 3 pairings:

1) Matt's "Lo Pan's Panacea" vs Greg's "Darius"

2) Grant's "Can You Spell Mi-Go? vs Gavin's "Skill"

3) Chad's "Straight Jacket" vs David's "Make Me Go Away"

4) Christian's "Minions of Insanity and Chaos!" vs Nick's "Crazy Cthulhu"

5) Jason's "Femuhlhu" vs Jefferson's "Government Payroll"

6) Mart's "Miskallaneous, Etc…" vs Katherine's "Dreams and Ghouls"

You can find a detailed list of all the decks here:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

MATT (Hastur / Syndicate)

VS

GREG (Agency / Miskatonic University)

Two undefeated decks going head-to-head. Who will keep their perfect score and advance into the final round?

So far Matt's wins have been quick and decisive, and he's the only player in the tournament yet to give up a story. On the other hand, he hasn't played against a deck that can match his tempo. What will happen when his opponent can keep up from turn one?

Greg has only allowed 1 story in 2 rounds of play, so he's on par with Matt in that regard. He also bested Chad's crazy train in the previous match-up which means his deck can fend off Hastur well enough. Greg has more investigation than Matt, a good amount of character removal, and his deck is just as quick. This one should be razor close.

GRANT (Shub-Niggurath / Yog-Sothoth)

VS

GAVIN (Hastur / Syndicate / Shub-Niggurath / Yog-Sothoth)

Though at their core each deck is similar, they play quite differently with the addition of Grant's Mi-Go machine and Gavin's skill reduction/exhaustion. It may all come down to who can deck search and recycle more efficiently, or who has the faster character generation out of the starting blocks.

Up to this point, Gavin has allowed 2 stories - the most of any undefeated player. Does this portend an opening-game weakness, or has Gavin been toying with is adversaries in the early stages only to crush them later on? And while Grant is coming off a much-needed win and a definite morale boost, his first round loss to Christian's 5-faction deck was a blow out, scoring zero story cards. Maybe Grant struggles against jack-of-all-trades decks? No matter how you slice n' dice it, this will prove a tough match for both.

CHAD (Mono-Hastur)

VS

DAVID (Mono-Order of the Silver Twilight)

With identical standings yet polar opposite deck designs, this pairing will be an interesting battle. David lacks protection from Terror and "drive insane" effects, but he has some investigation and can attack Chad's deck from unorthodox angles. Meanwhile, Chad has the flexibility of Hastur's character theft cards and a few powerful pop-into-play characters of his own.

David is coming off a win against Mart, while Chad dropped his previous game. Will that affect the outcome, or will Chad's dominance of the Terror struggle be too much for the Silver Twilight's tricks?

CHRISTIAN (Cthulhu / Hastur / Miskatonic University / Syndicate / Yog-Sothoth)

VS

NICK (Cthulhu / Hastur)

Both players are coming off a hard loss in round 2 and need a decisive win to stay in the hunt. Going down the card lists, these two decks are surprisingly similar. Christian's deck has a little of everything Nick's can do, but isn't anywhere near as concentrated. This match-up will be a question of mission focus and depth vs flexibility and balance.

Nick has won more stories overall, but Christian's victory of Grant was a total shutout - something Nick has yet to manage. Could Christian's loss to Matt be a fluke? Or will Nick's combat-heavy Cthulhu deck kill off any chance Christian has of landing in the top 3?

JASON (Hastur / Miskatonic University / Order of the Silver Twilight)

VS

JEFFERSON (Mono-Agency)

Jason has yet to win, so this match automatically tilts in Jefferson's favor. However, Jefferson has allowed more stories to be scored against him than anyone else in the 1-1 bracket, which means his deck isn't without flaws.

Last round Katherine chiseled out 2 stories against him, but how? Was it all the Terror icons on her Shub characters? If so, Jason might have a chance at finding a crack in the Agency's armor. Otherwise it looks like a shotgun blast to the face.

MART (Mono-Miskatonic University)

VS

KATHERINE (Mono-Shub-Niggurath)

Another mono-faction mash-up. It's interesting to note that the mono-faction decks are all trailing the pack.

This is a classic contest of investigation and cheap characters vs terror, combat and resource acceleration, everything Miskatonic and Shub stand for. So far Mart has not been having much luck with his army of professors and lawyers, whereas Katherine has made her opponent's work hard for their wins. Unless Mart can pull off a surprise ending to secure his third story, the edge goes to Katherine.

Yipe said:

No offense to Matt (is this you Yipe?), since Hasture/Syndicate is probably my favorite combo, but I've got to stick and go all in with Greg. It probably comes down to who gets their control cards early enough to upset the tempo of the opponent.

AGoT DC Meta said:

Yes, I'm talking about myself in the third person. It's a little weird, I know.

No offense taken. Greg is my neighbor and a good friend, and we've battled each other countless times across many different games. He's a great competitor and an excellent deck builder. Any game against him is a true test of skill.

I agree with your assessment of this match-up. With rush decks like these, whoever can disrupt their opponent's rhythm early will most likely win.

MATT
GAVIN
CHAD
NICK
JASON
KATHERINE

Let's see if I can beat the my surprisingly accurate predictions from the second round (five out of six correct, yay!) - or if I was just lucky and my guesses for the first round (only two out of six correct) were more indicative of my prophetic abilities

1. MATT

2. GAVIN

3. CHAD

4. NICK

5. JEFFERSON

6. KATHERINE

(Well, taken together my predictions were only marginally better than tossing a coin, so we'll see )

Greg here, on vacation but following Yipe's post. First of all Yipe's (Matt) is nominated for organizer of the year as well as best tournament reporting! Can I get a second or as they say here a witness!

The match would be one of the toughest as Matt and I practiced with other players but not with our final decks. We kept those in secret although the rumor was that Matt tweaked his deck the morning of the tournament. The other rumor was that my wife's deck beat mine most of the week. Both rumors are true!

We all had a great time!

I wasn't having that much luck predicting accurately, so I'm starting to go more with cheering for the decks or factions I like better

Lazerous said:

Darn. Was hoping you took it all the way to validate my shot-in-the-dark prediction.

And yes, I am a witness.

matt for cthulhu organizer pf the year and forum poster/reviver extraordinaire!

dboeren said:

I wasn't having that much luck predicting accurately, so I'm starting to go more with cheering for the decks or factions I like better

That's my same approach to building a deck, so it makes sense to me! Still, you guys are doing pretty well with your predictions. I'm impressed.

piszcadz said:

Thanks for the kind words, fellas. It's much appreciated.

As Greg wrote, I was having a difficult time choosing between my 2 Highlander decks and was still undecided that morning.

What Greg doesn't know is that he had inspired me a month earlier to really take a hard look at deck speed and use that as my primary weapon. When "Lo Pan's Panacea" did so well during our previous "Mythos n' Microbrews" day in September - mainly due to its fast pace - I settled on it, and I believe that was the right choice.

Regarding Greg's other rumor - that his wife kept beating him in Cthulhu - there's another funny part to that story. She told me she was putting Greg through her "Burgess Meredith" training camp to prep him for the big day. Throughout our match I kept imaging her saying things like "get in there, Rock!"

I'll post the results from round 3 tonight. If you've got the time and the inclination, then get in your vote!

For many, round 3 was a game-changer.

We had quick kills, long battles, a first time winner, and a huge "don't call it a comeback" victory. With so many shutouts this time around, it's still anyone's game who will take home the top 3 slots.

Now let's see who cut their way through the competition, shall we?

ROUND 3 RESULTS

1) Matt's "Lo Pan's Panacea" vs Greg's "Darius"

MATT wins 3-0!

2) Grant's "Can You Spell Mi-Go?" vs Gavin's "Skill"

GAVIN wins 3-0!

3) Chad's "Straight Jacket" vs David's "Make Me Go Away"

DAVID wins 3-2!

4) Christian's "Minions of Insanity and Chaos!" vs Nick's "Crazy Cthulhu"

CHRISTIAN wins 3-0!

5) Jason's "Femuhlhu" vs Jefferson's "Government Payroll"

JEFFERSON wins 3-0!

6) Mart's "Miskallaneous, Etc…" vs Katherine's "Dreams and Ghouls"

KATHERINE wins 3-1!

Round 3 had the most shutout victories of any round so far.

In the opening round we had three 3-0 games, but that dropped down to only one 3-0 win in the second. This round we had four, with Matt continuing his perfect game. Will it last? Either way, somebody is going 4-0 to take home the prize!

Here are the standings after 3 rounds of play.

STANDINGS
Matt (3-0 / +9 Stories / -0 Stories)
Gavin (3-0 / +9 Stories / -2 Stories)

Jefferson (2-1 / +7 Stories / -5 Stories)
David (2-1 / +7 Stories / -6 Stories)
Christian (2-1 / +6 Stories / -3 Stories)
Greg (2-1 / +6 Stories / -4 Stories)

Chad (1-2 / +6 Stories / -7 Stories)
Katherine (1-2 / +6 Stories / -7 Stories)
Nick (1-2 / +4 Stories / -7 Stories)
Grant (1-2 / +3 Stories / -7 Stories)

Mart (0-3 / +2 Stories / -9 Stories)
Jason (0-3 / +1 Story / -9 Stories)

Depending on what happens in the final round, and most importantly, by how many stories people lose, there are 6 players in the hunt for glory (and a playmat).

A few special mentions about round 3:

Fight of the Night honors - or at least runner-up - goes to Chad and David.

This was a brutal back-and-forth that started with Chad going up 2 stories to none in the first 10 minutes. David told me he almost gave up, but he grit his teeth, dug in mentally, and pulled every Silver Twilight trick in the book to come back for a 3-2 victory in just under the wire. A truly amazing game.

Also congrats to Katherine for coming back from a 0-2 deficit to win her first match. Once a deck starts losing it can be hard to turn things around. And as she scored so many stories in her previous losses, she could jump from the bottom to the middle of the pack with another solid win. Nice going.

I'll post some details about my game against Greg a little later on.

Yeah so my match with grant. on the first draw i pulled a bunch of character control and milling. my first turn i got out a terrors in the dark and no characters. He pulled ageless migo and i took control of him. i also had infernal obsession in my hand for the next migo he played. he put out a bunch of cards, and was milling himself due to terrors. he also was using book of iod which lets you draw 2 then discard 1. together we were burning through his deck. i took my time and committed my characters with investigation while his were exhausted for a 3 - 0 win.

Like my previous matches, my game against Greg was over fairly fast and I won 3-0. Here's what happened:

After Greg and I rolled the same number a few times in a row to see who would go first, I got the upper-hand and opted to go second.

Greg opened with Femme Fatale and Beneath the Burning Sun. It was a high-powered start and I knew right away this would be battle.

In response, I slapped Bound and Gagged on Femme Fatale and brought out Fixer for 1 cost, went to a story unopposed and then readied. Not to be outdone, Greg brought out Undercover Security and Steve Clarney and committed Clarney to a story (holding Undercover Security in reserve for the block).

Things were looking bad for me at this point, and I knew the next turn would decide whether or not I lost the game. Fortunately, I had some good cards in my hand. I dropped Diseased Sewer Rats on the table to take out the Undercover Security, and then I played Stygian Eye on Steve Clarney. I committed both the Fixer and Clarney to different stories and it was now 1-0.

Greg was reeling a bit from the power shift of last turn, but wasn't finished yet. He gave Clarney a Shotgun Blast to the chest, brought out an Agency Medic and then played Hired Muscle. I can't remember if he committed the Muscle or not, but I think he held him back as I had arcane and a character to spare (to his Hired Muscle's 4 combat icons).

The next turn went my way as well. I played Demon Lover, exhausted it to reduce Hired Muscle's skill by 2 and then hit him with Tear Gas to destroy him. Lastly, I played Inside Man and I was up 2-0.

On the final turn, I brought out Deranged Diva (though I couldn't use her ability or Greg would get rid of the Bound and Gagged on his Femme Fatale), Lady Lu Chu and secured my third story card for a win.

NOTE: I can't say that this AAR is 100% accurate, but it's close. Hopefully if I made any glaring errors Greg will come along to correct them.

Yipe's that was about it except I would add you deck probably would take mine 9 out of 10 easy. The final round was going to be a battle royal so stay tuned everyone!

Lazerous said:

I disagree with that statement. I was simply able to break-up your rhythm from the start so you only had 1 character or so a turn. And stealing Steve Clarney (after you put a Shotgun on him, which I forgot) was a tough blow to overcome. You also struggled to get out any Miskatonic cards.

Both decks were fast. It could easily have gone the other way.