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Sepjazzwarrior, Ring Wraith, ProfAlstad, MJB, Alex Olijar, and I pretty much hung around until like 4am discussing broken combos and combing through the REG (well, that was more me), trying to find awesome stuff. I also helped Matt build his multi deck. Aaron, Idolators, Murmuring... after he schooled me with it later I regretted it. But oh well. I eventually went to sleep and woke up a handful of hours later. Everyone except like one person was already gone when I woke up, obviously due to my snoring. I took a 2 minute shower and ate some Granola, Raisins, and Apple Juice for breakfast then ran upstairs and got ready for the tournament.


About my deck:
About a week before the tournament I started playing RTS for the first time in many many months, and this was my first real exposure to the disciples metagame, as my only other t2 games I had played since TXP were against my local group and a multi player game against Gabe. During this stint of RTS I went like 2-4 or something to that effect, but I didn't expect too much beings half my opponent's were the top T2 players (Gabe, Justin, and Nathan highlighting it. My only victory against those 3 was a 7-6 win against Justin). During this time I had made several changes to my deck to hopefully counter a handful of powerful strategies. I was running some TGT/Silver offense with Phar defense with some SWS and Balaam (+charms) action.


T2 2P
Round One: Belle Reuter
Belle is an awesome player from my play group, but she hasn't played much if any t2. She borrowed one of CountFount's decks (so obviously she was disadvantaged from the start ), a TGT offense and a Crimson defense. The one thing that got my excited about this pairing was it broke the streak: as the last two years I played against a player that, in all seriousness, was way better than me (Tim Maly, Kirk Dennison). Now, I won both those games mentioned, but still. Don't kill my excitement.

I got off to a good start. I drew 3 He is Risens fairly fast and there wasn't much she could do to stop my MMoJ band. My defense held out fairly well by drawing a handful of Gold Shields and her MMoJ got set aside by my Pretension. I had charms most of the game as backup, which I didn't need.
Result: 7-0


Game 2: Th3 Unf0rgiv34bl3 or something like that. Use lots of numbers.
Martin always seems to get crazy draws against me, and this game was no different. Luckily my draw was fairly decent. The first couple of turns we used coward blocks: doms, Uzzah, etc etc. Eventually I broke through to get a soul but he took one right back quickly. I attacked with Angel of Warning to search for my Nazareth, as after seeing his deck I knew that would be a key to my victory. And, without a doubt, it was. At one point it was 2-2 or something, and I had no ECs or GEs, which was pretty painful. However, fortunately, I didn't have any souls out. He attacked with Hur to hope to generate a soul for next turn, but he forgot I had Nazareth out. I drew 7 cards which got me back on track. After that, my defense finally set up and I just spammed He is Risen.
Result: 7-3

Game 3: Cousin It
This game just gave me an awesome draw and it was over quick. He drew no defense and a bunch of souls (compared to my 0 souls) in his opening hand, but he did draw an Unknown Nation. However, I also drew Nazareth and that shut that down. He just couldn't get anything going against me. There was one cool battle, however. I attack, he blocks and make the battle FBTN. I drop He is Risen for the numbers, he plays an enhancement. I proceed to drop 2 more He is Risens and a Consider the Lillies (I think?) to get the mutual destruction. It was awesome.
Result: 7-0

Game 4: Gabe
Everyone knows that Gabe is one of the best players in the game. It was also my job to make sure he didn't win the tournament three years straight (see how well I did?). Before the game Wild Bill gave me a pep talk on how to beat Gabe. A month earlier, JSB predicted I would win the tournament. I was also hoping to break the streak: the last two years, Gabe handed me my first lost at this tournament (and in the first year I was there, he handed me my only loss). So, with everyone depending on me, I went into the game.

My draw against him started out fairly normal. I drew a fair amount of both offense and defense, but not a lot of the drawing or searching stuff that I wanted. When my searching stuff finally came, it was too late, beings we both had Nazareth laying on the table. Early in the game he made an attack, and I blocked with SWS (to get around his Wall of Protection) and exchanged for one of my characters and proceeded to band in his entire defense. He then played Grapes and won the soul.

Round Two: Pat Wester, someone I don't remember the name of, Craig Fountain
This game was pretty epic too. Things started off pretty normally, and I got a cool draw with some PP. Craig was hurting for the first couple turns beings his male OT heroes didn't have access to anything, but eventually I drew stuff for him. Except I wanted to block so I could draw. And I didn't want him to kill me so I played Gold Shields. So he didn't get a lot done. Eventually Pat and Craig decided they didn't like my defense so they decided to convert it. Yeah, they converted most of my Proud Pharisees and my pharisees to heroes. One of them was in the brigade of my choice. As Craig said, "It seemed like a good idea at the time". Too bad for him I proceeded to draw 6 and play He is Risen before battle to set aside his 5 evil characters.

I don't really remember the outcome, I think I tied for first. Although I felt really dominant the entire game due to the fact they let me draw as much as I wanted.


Round Three: Matt Brinkman, Craig Fountain
You know this game was way too epic just by looking at who was playing. Everyone decided to spectate this one instead of the top table, beings we're actually fun . I got a really bad start, and Craig gave MJB a handful of free souls. Eventually I rescue my first one and it is fell away by MJB.

My offense couldn't really deal with anything they threw at me and it was pretty weak the entire game. My defense wasn't the greatest either, but I decided I needed to convert some PP beings they were either CTB'ing me (I discarded my Kingdoms early) or attacking with a BTN hero, so I didn't get to draw anyway. Matt then decided to place IoJ on my Proud Pharisees which made me sadface. I started to make a small come back, but my defense was pretty much shot by then. I also played SOG stupidly which cost me, but oh well. There was one cool battle, though: I attack with some angel banded to Susana for the women's soul. Craig blocks and kills my Angel the plays Balaam's. I play He is Risen to band in TSA (HoH was up). He then kills my Susana. I sadface.

Result: Something-Something-Lower than something (Craig and I tied).

This gave me 4th place with some weird point number.

Dear Mr. Rice,

You are a very very bad boy. Calling out us old people. Taking advantage of our inability to understand how much more dangerous a converted White Proud Pharisee is banded to a teal and gold PP can be with your saucy young winches sitting in the territory gathering lillies (I wished I had thought of it). My Emperors are still set aside believing they will get out of set aside.  It would have been much better had you recognized the importance of acting like you didn't want them converted.

Your a good man. Had a blast jacking with you in that final type 2 Multi game. And how many PP did we convert? HMMMMMM. 0, nothing, notta, zilch.

How did I give Gabe a better match than you and then end up near the bottom of the tournament in 2P? I know why, Gabe had No White Proud Pharisees.