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Round 3: vs. Matt Sinclair and Brad Coverdale

Since there were only 7 people in the category, I was put at the three player table for the last round. The only people with tournament points were Shawn (with 4, a 2nd and a 1st), Myself (with 3.5, a tie for 2nd and a first), Dayne (with 3.5, a tie for 2nd and a first), and Jerome Beers (with 3 for his win in the previous round). So in order to win I needed a win, and for Shawn and Dayne to not get a full win (if Dayne won his game we would have tied). My game ended up being crazy. Matt got his offense rolling quickly, and got off to an early lead. Eventually things evened up, and the game remained pretty even most of the round. I was able to pull off a Wrath that didn't affect me at all, as my Heroes were getting discarded and captured left and right. It did help to balance things up quite a bit, as it slowed down Matt's offense. I had gotten my SoG/NJ early, which is nice, but it also left Simeon vulnerable. By the end of the game I was getting a bit mentally exhausted, so I don't remember exactly how it went down, but I do remember that I was able to come out on top the turn before Matt likely would have won. I believe the score was 7-6-5, but I don't remember exactly. Jerome helped me out at the other table by winning that game, and giving me 1st for the category.

Record: 2-1, with a tie for second, 1st Place.

Friday Afternoon/Evening: T2-2P

My deck was a deck I had been experimenting with a bit previous to the tournament, with mixed results. I made a few modifications, and decided to try it out. Basically it was a new version of an old classic, with an offense consisting primarily of low ability Purple Heroes (Widow, Mephibosheth, Esther, Bartimaues, etc.), a few prophets (Zeke, Sam and Micah), and 4x Provisions and 4x AoCP. The defense was a Hybrid Babylonian/Magician defense. I used 3x Iron Pan to negate anything that would protect against AoCP. Enhancements were the usual suspects for a Magician D (DoU, Divination, Forgotten History, Invoking Terror, etc.).

Round 1: vs. Alex Olijar

Alex was using one of Justin's decks that I brought to the tournament for him to borrow. Despite bringing it to him, I didn't actually know what it was (I never looked). I soon found out it was a MP deck Justin had used on occasion, and I thought I had a good chance, as I figured his Pharisee defense wouldn't hold up vs. Iron Pan, and his royalty/Isaiah offense would struggle vs. my Magicians, with Pan negating Throne of David. As it turned out, my offense worked beautifully, when it had souls to rescue. Unfortunately, the souls seemed to stay in the bottom half of Alex's deck, and on my last rescue attempt I rescued the fourth and final LS Alex drew until his last turn (and Alex had buried one). Alex wisely trashed his Temple to get rid of my first pan, and was able to rattle off a few rescues until I got another one. On my last turn, I had DoU, but no ECs, so I was forced to turn down Pan and Laver a few EEs to try to get an EC. I got Damsel, so I was hoping to have a block, but with Pan not active, Alex's Throne was in good working order. He attacked, I blocked, and he played Unified Kingdom to band in all of his Heroes. As a primarily T1 player, he didn't know Abigail's second ability very well, but he did band her in (for the drawing) after a few moments of hesitation (which I was hopeful meant he didn't want to band her in for some reason). I told him good game after I explained why my DoU (which he assumed I had) wouldn't work. T1 players are so adorable...Anyway, he did happen to draw three LSs on that turn so I was able to use my SoG/NJ, but still lost 7-5.

Round 2: vs. Charlie Johnson

There are few things worse for my defense to face than an offense with good initiative, which is why I was very nervous when Charlie drew a first turn Joseph. He got out to an early 2-0 lead before I could block with my Astrologers, as I wanted to limit his access to LSs (thus wanting to avoid JBP). When I did get initative, I was able to get a few blocks. My offense was weak, but his defense was weaker. Once I got rid of a Dreaming Pharaoh with AotL, he didn't draw any EC's for awhile, and I was able to walk in. I drew a couple of Provisions to get some easy rescues later on, and my Charms and Invoking Terrors were keeping the Joseph problem at bay. He finally drew some blockers after I got my fifth, but it was only a matter of time before I drew my big two. The craziest thing was that I never used nor drew an AoCP that whole game. Final score, 7-3.

Round 3: vs. Steve Braun

Steve was playing his Red Raiders (I think that was the name--it was some cool alliteration for an all-red offense and Babylonian defense). I had again chosen my secondary deck. Steve got a few early rescues, but my early Falling Away kept him from getting to 3. My offense was doing well against his defense, and because my deck is rather eclectic, he didn't see the TGT coming until I had one of the ladies, when I put it in play and attacked. He only had one Crimson guy, so I got the freebie. On my next attack, He is Risen took out 2 of the blockers he had put down, and my Holy Grail took out another, so I again was able to get the TGT freebie. I never drew SoG/NJ, but I was able to get to 5, all the while my Herods were giving his banding chains problems. Final score: 5-2.

Round 4: vs. Robert Braun

This game turned out to be rather non-descript, as neither of us had good defense early on. I was able to get stabilized first however, and He is Risen and AoCP was able to clear the way for my victory in not much time. I honestly don't remember a ton of what happened exactly, except that I know Robert was drawing like crazy with his defense. It didn't help his offense enough to punch through, and I won 5-3.

Round 5: vs. Gretel Coverdale

For my last round, I decided to go back to Heroless, as I could only place up to third, and that was if I got a huge differential, and I wanted to give my trusty old deck another chance. Well, my defense was stifling. Aside from an early LS that I was able to use Falling Away on, Gretel couldn't get through. I use High Priest's Plot to take out her SoG. With about 5-6 minutes left and the score at 0-0, I knew I had to work quickly, so I was Lavering like crazy to get my Saul/Paul. That was when I realized that, after thinking back to when I built the deck, I forgot to include him. Adding insult to injury, Gretel used the deck discard LS to knock off my AoCP. I knew at that point that I wouldn't get the full win. She had a fully-functional Babylonian defense, and all I had was Edict and Trumpet Blast, and a bunch of Herods/Sadducees I could convert. She discarded my first Hero with Holy Grail (and I couldn't use HT because the only matching brigade card I had in hand was Edict, which I needed to try to win at least one battle). My second converted Hero faced 2 bouts of Bel's Banquet (the first was with Nergal and Horses, the second with Belshazzar). What Gretel didn't realize was that her active Iron Pan negated Banquet the second time, so I did get one rescued LS as time ran out, and another with SoG to win 2-0.

Record: 4-1 (1 TO Win, 5th? place)

Record: 4-1 (1 TO Win, 5th? place)

Confirmed that your 11 points put you in 5th.  Had you had a full win and at least a 4 differential in the last game, you would have had the points to place and may have caused a messy situation due to different tie-breakers

In a 3-round 8 person tournament, it's essentially single elimination to get first, and ironically I needed to catch up in soul differential since I didn't get the chance to face the reigning T2-2P National Champion Josiah Beers (who was trying a very experimental deck: needless to say, as he will tell you, the experiment failed). I had only played Dayne once before at Nats last year, and his defense was incredibly annoying then, as it was now. I did jump out to a significant lead, and I thought I had the win 7-3 when my Provisioned Hero forced him to block with one of my Magicians. What I didn't acoount for was a card that I rarely see in T2 because of the prevalence of Nazareth: Kir. I didn't use Nazareth because Pan stops it so it would be wasted space, but it goes in nearly every other T2 deck I build so I was caught off guard. He pulls off that block, and my defense is wearing thin. He uses SoG/NJ to get to 5, then goes in for his sixth, and I have no blockers. The game is now tied, and I have used up all of my AoCs (and have probably wiped out at least 12 ECs with them). Sure enough, he has one more blocker and is able to pull off a block, and I still hadn't drawn any blockers, so he comes in for the 7-6 win.

This game was fun after I got over only drawing 1 character in the first 4 turns (ending up going down 4-0), because I figured I lost and eventually just gave in to that outcome.  Kir went into that deck because it had no other real way to deal with CTB, which knocked me out of placing at last year's Regionals.  The fact that this lesson learned actually saved me a game at this year's Regionals was amusing.  Especially when it was a surprise attack

Also of note: You killed every single EC in my deck.  So that was something And you just needed that one more turn to beat me with my lack of block capability.

And as far as annoying defense...I don't know WHAT you are talking about 

As a primarily T1 player, he didn't know Abigail's second ability very well, but he did band her in (for the drawing) after a few moments of hesitation (which I was hopeful meant he didn't want to band her in for some reason). I told him good game after I explained why my DoU (which he assumed I had) wouldn't work. T1 players are so adorable...

+ 1 for this comment.  Abigail is the final key to making the "multiple Purple kings in battle with Isaiah" combo work, since she stops virtually all chumpblocking.

Was your type 2 2p deck the same deck you played me with at the May District tournament? Congrats on your Teams and Type 2 Multi wins.

I haven't had much success with my version of your T2 2p deck, Jordan. I abandoned it at least a month and a half ago after it went 1-5 or 2-4 - I don't recall which.

Kirk