Alright, I had missed the previous week's Battleground because I went to see my favorite band, A Wilhelm Scream, in concert with my gf and friend. It turns out only 3 people showed up, and therefore there wasn't enough for a tournament. This week, we had myself, Aaron, Kevin, and my gf who I paid for simply so we could have enough to run the event even though she knew nothing about how to play the game. We threw together a team of Wilton Thorne, Azarak, and Morganis for her.

I had decided I would mix it up this week. Not TOO much, but enough. Instead of using Haruka, Haruka, Morganis, I decided to try and stray away from the double Haruka formula, and I went with another team that has been gaining popularity.

Haruka
- Chain Lightning
- Grounding Totem
- Stoneclaw Totem
- Strength of Earth Totem
Thangal
-Starfire
-Bear Form
-Cat Form
Daxin Firesworn
-Fear
-Shadowburn

I felt confident that in almost every game I would use those two ABCs with Daxin. I opted not to go with any pets, which may have been a mistake. In singular copies, I really feel that the Succubus isn't all that useful. Especially not when most teams are packing a large amount of AoE or answers to totems which happen to overlap in terms of killing weak pets. The Voidwalker never really did it for me either, but I guess it could be tried out.

Thangal seems pretty standard there. Haruka gets some of the same cards I'd been using with her. The turn out was as follows:

Me- Haruka, Thangal, Daxin
Jeanette- Azarak, Wilton, Morganis
Kevin- Murloc Mage, Murloc Mage, Naga Mage ( No clue on the names off the top of my head )
Aaron- E3, Enraged Fire Spirit, Storm Rager, Bog Elemental

Round 1 vs Kevin, Sea Creatures

Seeing 3 mages, I knew that stoneclaw totem would NOT be making the inclusion on my team. I went with Chain Lightning and Grounding Totem, wanting a bit of extra range and power for Haruka, plus the ability to punish poor placement if need be. I went Starfire and Cat Form on the Druid, and took the 2 standard ones on Daxin.

His mages packed Flamestrike each, and the Murlocs had Blink, while the Naga had Frost Nova. The initial exchange saw me take a lead, but not without him getting quite a bit of damage on Haruka and Thangal due to poor defensive rolls against very strong Flamestrikes. Daxin was fantastic here, taking little damage, and when he did, he would heal it up rather quickly. I did my best to keep my figures alive while closing the gap past Blink.

Due to his defensive measures, I was able to gain center control, and deny him of any victory points on tick 5. I gained 2, and pressed my advantage. He got kills on Haruka and Thangal, and I had killed all of his figures once at this point. He respawned a Murloc, and got it into the center of the board, which awards 2 victory points. On tick 9, I Fear it off of this hub, and send it back to my spawn point, where Haruka and Thangal spawn around it, and kill it, taking me up to 18. My Daxin does, taking him up to 12, and I kill one of his Murlocs again to take me to 22, one away from my build total. Its tick 4, and his team is either dead or ticked past tick 5, and all I need to do is score one VP, which my 6 health Thangal is in position to do already. He also has 5 health left on his Naga, and I have the ability to get to it with all 3 of my figures. He Flame Strikes Thangal...6 hits and a crit. I roll 3 defensive dice...even with the re-roll, I can't hit a second one, and die. At the end of the tick, I win on VP from the hub I was sitting on. Had he not hit all and the crit and had me go 1/4 on defensive dice, I'd have had the game. Haruka had wiffed horribly all game as well, going 4/12 on her primary attack, both used against the hard to tie down Naga mage. Of the 5 Flamestrikes used against me, 4 had hit for 6 or 7 damage. I was a bit demoralized here, as the dice had gone pretty poorly against me most of the game.

0-1 ( 16 to 22 )

Round 2 vs Jeanette

Ok, we didn't play it out, and instead went to get a burrito from Moe's close to the mall. Erm, I mean, I won a close one. A very tasty close one...

1-1

Round 3 vs Aaron ( E3 )

Aaron leads off with a Flamestrike against Haruka and Thangal, and rolls below average, but my defensive dice wiffed hard as well, so I took a bit of damage on the two figures. I responded with Daxin and Thangal using magic attacks to take out the Fire Spirit, while his Bog Elemental came around the other side to meet Haruka, who had no intention of wasting her attack on Boggy when Storm Rager was left vulnerable after it Chain Lightning's Thangal and Daxin who had moved adjacent to maximize the Druid's passive re-roll buff. Haruka charges into the Storm Rager...and goes 1/6. Her next attack? 0/6. Haruka managed to roll 5/24 on attacks in the two games I played. With Thangal. Meh. Boggy has to manuever around a Grounding Totem laid early,a nd eventually scores a big hit on Haruka, but doesn't do enough to put her away. Boggy gets hit by a Fear and sent away while I kill the Storm Rager, taking a 9 to 1 lead. The EFS comes back in, and goes after Thangal. I manage to keep up the double team, and use Fear to keep his melee guys in bad positions. This card is really good against the Fire Spirit. Midgame my defensive dice finally pick up and I manage to shrug off a couple of attacks which took it from being in my favor by a margin to me being able to confidently control the field. At one point, I got it so that I had all 3 of my figures in play and all of his were off the board. Daxin was near death, at 2, and I was at 21 VP, so I simply pulled him back, tucked him behind Thangal and Haruka, and let him kill Thangal, as he was very damaged as well, and moved Haruka and Daxin next to the VP hub to win on tick 15.

2-1

We roll off for the Door Prize, as Kevin went 3-0 and won the birdman. 1-2 is me, 3-4 is Aaron, 5-6 is Jeanette. Its a 3, so Aaron wins the door prize. I was simply happy to finally get ahold of some Blessing of Kings, as I got mine and Jeanettes.

In closing, I really like how Daxin played for me this tournament in particular. With Thangal, and the re-rolls, as well as proper terrain management, his crit healing ability makes him very difficult to kill. He also brings some solid magic attacks and good resist. He really improves the matchup against E3 as well.

Thangal was nice as well. His re-rolling ability is extremely powerful. I do feel that when using this team, that Daxin would outperform the second Haruka simply because it gives the team better range and more board control. Thangal and one Haruka worked well enough on their own.

I want to drop Strength of Earth Totem from my ABCs here. While it worked great with double Haruka, with Thangal and Daxin wielding magic attacks, it is significantly less useful. Especially when we have Thangal's reroll in here as well. I might cut it to tweak my Warlock options. A Mana Potion is interesting as well for Daxin, and it can also be used on Thangal, to either get a 3 tick Starfire, or a 1 tick primary attack, which are both good options.

Despite my 2-1 performance, I really feel like the team was quite strong, and that it was an improvement over the team I had been using before. Morganis was too much of a chore to keep alive and his deaths would add up with a high honor team. Daxin is much more difficult to kill, and played beautifully all day.

I wanted to try out the Azarak, Azarak Morganis team, or triple Warlock, but I didn't have all of my character cards with me tonight. We'll make it a bit of a game...anyone who wants to, place a vote for what team I try out next week. Feel free to make your case too, I'm curious. Or don't, and secretly call me an idiot behind my back. This is also acceptable.

1.) Daxin Haruka Thangal
2.) Hellcaller x3
3.) Azarak, Azarak, Morganis
4.) Kiala, Kiala, Kiala/Daxin