So, let's get to this description:
The day started nonchalantly enough. Some last minute scrambling led to AW and Pats packs being added, upping the total to 9 packs (Blue, Green, Women, Pats, Kings, AW, Priests, TeP, Discs). My initial randomization put my at seat 43, but mistakes were made and a new randomization was needed. I got seat 43. One might say the seat was divinely appointed for me (and I may have yelled that across the room to John Earley as he tried to judge).
To the pack opening:
My original packs mostly were terrible. I grabbed a couple useful characters (Shamgar, Christian Soldier, Samson, Shimei), but nothing special. I decided to try to work into a mostly Red offense after prophets, where I got Malachi to give me 4 characters in Red. Unfortunately, this would be bad, as I would later find out the player diagonal from me also went pure red, and had much better success with it, leading me to believe that the packs just had bad Red pulls. Either way, Womens packs probably won me the tournament. I got three sites (Lion's Den, Media, New Jerusalem) and Falling Away. Not a bad pull. Pats packs were good for me on defense, as I was able to pull a Korah and Korah's Rebellion for some juicy name on name (haha jokes) and Gideon's Call for my awesome judge just in case I ever found another gold character. I believe I also got Battle Cry from Pats. Kings got me right to another gold character with Tola, as well as solo heroes King Saul and Ira and power enhancements Provisions and Shimei's Malicious Curse.
By this point, I was quickly realizing my offense was atrocious. I devoted the rest of my pulls to offense first. Unfortunately, Angel Wars had exactly 0 angels in my pack, so I just grabbed sites first, and then defense. It worked out super well in Priests though, as I opened right into a Zeal for the Lord. I grabbed the only two teal characters I saw to help me out. TeP was then awesome. My opening pack had a choice of Gomer, Philistine Garrison, or Leviathan. I settled on Gomer due to my brown theme in previous packs, albeit with much consideration of Garrison. To my chagrin, the next pack passed to me had Philistine Chariot and Horses. In a pull I maybe should not have made, I pulled PHC out of the pack to prevent it from meeting with Garrison. I pulled 2x Peter out of TeP to complete my cool finds. Disciples was much less interesting, but I did get passed an Unholy Writ, which was pretty exciting.
During deckbuilding, I decided to use more defense than usual, seeing as my offense was terrible. After my offense, my first adds were my nifty sites (along with access), Falling Away, and Unholy Writ. I had about 15 spots for my defense, which left me with 7 after the adds. That seemed a little low, so I trimmed the offense up a bit to fit more defense in (specifically Emperor Claudius, Paul's Girdle, and Ignorance).
Deck Strategy:
My strategy with this deck was simple: The offense stinks, so I need to control who is getting souls as best I can. I did this through sites (which are 5 different colors, allowing me to control who can get which soul fairly easily), as well as Unholy Writ and Falling Away. Writ allowed me to keep certain players souls on the table (i.e. the players I identify to have no blocking capabilities) while Falling Away allows me to check early leaders. I would have to rely on others "knowing how to play multiplayer" (i.e. give first soul free, don't block a player who's behind if you only have one block, etc) as well as game manipulation.
The strategy worked. Peter (which copy? who knows?) was the MVP of the deck. I estimate he won over 12 unopposed souls (due to smart attacking or just smart play by my opponents not to block), as well as a soul almost every game with Battle Cry.
Thanks for a great tournament guys! I would post commentary on games, but I'm kind of lazy still. I had a great second game, which resulted in two rounds of 4-4-4-4, but I wouldn't be able to do the sweat I had justice in trying to sum up the games!
