After starting out 3-0 I was at the top table for the rest of the tournament against the eventual top 3 placers.
Round 4 National Champion Nathan Voigt 6-6 timeout tie
This was by far the best game I have played all year. Wow. It was pretty legit. Di Pharisees against TGT Pharisees. This game was close and came right down to the wire. The lack of defense early in game allow us to get a couple early souls before the Pharisees abuse could set up on either side. The game went back and forth with multiple blocks with gold shields, lots of balaam's disobedience, and a ton of drawing on both sides. In Nathans last turn he plays sog nj followed by mayhem shuffling my sog nj into the deck giving him a 6-4 lead and went in for a rescue attempt. Well my sog/nj were shuffled into a deck 8 cards total after the shuffle and I recovered them for the block and 6-6 timeout tie. One mistake may have cost Nathan a straight up win over a tie. Instead of attacking with Thadd Nathan attack with James/John while I had Holy of Holies active giving me inish to night raid Thadd into his land off bondage cutting off Thadd for the rest of the game. Amazing game needless to say. Always a pleasure to play Nathan, great guy and great player.
Round 5 3rd Place Kurt Hake 6-7
Great player and very polite and great guy. Very solid deck selection that techs against the meta. Well lets just say neither defense could stop the opposing offense for a majority of the game. O.T. defenses aren't great against TGT, and Pharisees aren't great against silver. I walked in for 3 or 4 freebies off of Salome +TGT before Kurts defense could get set up. An early night raid on Michael off of a night raid help a bit early, and an early pretentions helped but TSA walked all over me after Holy of Holies was Destructioned. I walked in for 3 or 4 freebies off of Salome +TGT before Kurts defense could get set up. Kurt made a great decision using SoG defensively to block my number 5 when I had sog/ nj in my hand. And momentum shifted back to Kurt. Kurt had a couple of great blocks and eventually Kurt had tied to game 6-6, and it was his turn. TSA walked in for the win in a great game.
Round 6 2nd Place Jordan Alstad 4-7
I always gives me nightmares playing Jordan. Both defense set up fairly quickly and the offenses were stalled for awhile. Early fight by the numbers souls shut down my wanderer/hopper/deck discard tech against heretics to generate souls, and night raid didn't get the job done. Jordan runs the defense better than anyone else, and I had a tough time even making a crack in the defense. I had a first round mayhem, and an early sog-nj. I decked fairly quickly with Proud Pharisee abuse, and my defense held off until I ran out of balaams disobedience, and I wasn't able to night raid thadd like the earlier games. Jordan played smart and got the final 3 with Thadd over my depleted defense. After making numerous rescue attempts with the Garden band I finally cleared Jordan's territory of wolves in sheep clothings. With only a few turns left in the game, and being down big I had to make a huge move to have even a remote chance of winning the game while Jordan lacked wolves in sheeps clothing. I drew Holy Grail. With Lampstand active I converted Proud Pharisee to white and set aside 6 evil characters with a prebattle 'He is Risen'. Jordan blocked successfully with CM and I had no deck left to instead the d/c with Herod's Temple. Jordan own the game on one of the following 2 turns not sure which. Jordan's a great guy and its always great to play such a great player.
I ended up at 3-1-2 and 7th place. It was a great tournament and I am ok with the record considering the quality of the players I played against, and the improvement in results from each tournament through the year. Look forward to seeing all the new possibilities for new type 2 decks with foof and roa extentions. Should be another great year.
