(This was written at exactly the same time that Mozu was creating his post. He just got his up first.)
Greetings from sunny Tucson, fellow gamers! This past Sunday Tucson WoW held a fun Warsong Gulch tournament. The win condition changes so that you have to capture the opposing flag while holding onto your own. Three captures and you win. If your hero dies in the conflict, you only lose all captures instead of losing the game (see above post for full details). If you got decked, you still lose though. This actually happened several times during the tournament.
For this event, we had 10 people in attendance. Me (Lionar the Blood Cursed…decklist below), Mozu (horde feral druid), Josh (alliance shaman), Colbert (Velindra Sheepulchre…baaaaaa), East (Horde Destro-Lock), Morgan (Alliance All-in Hunter), Labe (Horde Rogue), Rene (Alliance BM Hunter), Fez (Horde Rogue), Robert (Horde Death Knight).
My strategy was simple. Play ferocity critters to steal their flag and then kill anything with the audacity to take mine! My biggest concern was untargetable and elusive allies, as they could steal the flag and I’d never get it back (at least in game 1). Games 2 and 3 I can side in Collateral Damage to hopefully handle that problem before they win.
The decklist: Lionar the Blood Cursed 60 cards
Allies: 24
“flag runners”
Sorga the Swift x4
Plainsrunner Marun x4
Jee‘Zee x3
Vexmaster Nar’jo x3
“Beaters”
Johnny Rotten x3
Brok Bloodcaller x3
Kazamon Steelskin x4 (mvp)
Abilities: 22
“Kill Shots”
Sudden Death x4
Cowering Shout x4
Intercept x4
Puncture x4
Owned! x4
“reload”
Bloody Ritual x2
Locations/quests: 14
Eye of the Storm x4
Minions of the Shadow Council x4
Outland Sucks! x4
Enemies, Old and New x2
Sideboard: 10
Burn Away x3
Collateral Damage x3
Arcing Smash x4 (never used)
Round 1 Shellfire vs Colbert
Colbert is running a pretty standard mage deck with some rush allies thrown in for flag stealing. Our games went very quickly as he had no answers for Kazamon Steelskin once it entered play (which was immediately after he played Blizzard in both games). 2-0.
Round 2 Shellfire vs Labe
Labe is running a horde rogue with tons of removal (carnage, on the brink, slay the feeble, etc). Two very short games ensued, back and forth heavy slaying, but I eventually came out on top in both games. 4-0. We even had time to play a third game for fun afterwards, I won that one too. :)
Round 3 Shellfire vs East
East wins the dice roll and makes me go first! Instantly I know he’s playing Wub’s Cursed Hexblade, so I can expect to see lots of my critters on his side of the table or removed from the game. Game 1 this is exactly what happened. He managed to remove and steal a ton of my critters, but I still pulled it out to score the requisite 3 pts. Game 2 was truly epic. Rulrin was my bane in this game, as he was untargetable and elusive. I hadn’t sided in the Collateral Damage because he didn’t play Rulrin in the first game. Eventually, Rulrin died to the pet 1 rule and a well played Hesriana. Otherwise this would have been much shorter. We went back and forth over and over he’d take my flag and I’d kill his guy or steal his flag back. This went on for a really long time but he finally scored the last point he needed with 2 cards left in his deck. He had 3 Backlash on the board from early in the game to draw massive amounts of cards. Game 3 went much faster, my guys came out fast and furious and the removal as well. The game was over by turn 6. 8-1.
Round 4 Shellfire vs Mozu
It seems we end up paired in every tournament, why should this one be any different? I’m slightly worried about this matchup as his feral druid can take out my guys pretty handily just by running claws first into them. He’d take out Kazamon with Chew Toy or Hero flip in most cases. His issue however, was not having enough critters to take the flag and hold onto it. Every time he managed to swipe the flag, I’d blast the runner and get it back. Owned! played a big role in this matchup because it nailed 4 guys each time I cast it. Intercept was great too cause it kept his big bear/kitty from splattering my flag runners. Game one was fairly quick with me scoring on turns 2 and 3 respectively. Scored the last point somewhere around turn 10 thanks to a timely intercept. Game 2 however went very long, I think he had like 5 cards left in his deck when I scored the last point. 6-0. Cut to top 4.
Top 4
East vs Rene.
Shellfire vs Mozu rematch.
Semi-finals…
I actually decked him in the first game due to the massive amount of card draw in his deck. Game 2 was faster as he had to mulligan into a slow starter. Two points were scored very quickly and the third around turn 7. 10-1.
East defeated Rene after some epic battling.
Finals…
Shellfire vs East.
This time the match went very quickly by comparison to our earlier skirmish. He won the roll again and made me go first. I still won fairly quickly thanks to him not being able to find any Wubs or Hesrianas. Game two was hilarious as I used the Jedi Mind Trick to get him to go first, thereby halving the effectiveness of his Wubs. (it helped that it was 1100 by this point and both of us were extremely tired). Another harsh mulligan for East caused his downfall. I scored two very fast points and the third around turn 6 or so. 12-1.
So, there it is. I won the event with only 1 game lost all day. Lionar is my go to guy, he always kicks major tail. It was a lot of fun and I’m pretty sure everyone had a good time. Thanks to all that attended.
Shellfire
"Kowabunga!"