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Spellbook Design and Construction / Re: Weighted Training Clothes - Gencon 2015 Championship Spellbook
« on: August 07, 2015, 01:09:58 AM »
On to the report! Sorry that took so long, I do tend to be a bit wordy. But I honestly feel like the concepts of why a card is picked and how it is used will actually benefit someone reading this even more than just reading what happened to me at the tournament. If this doesn't seem perfect, I'm doing this from memory instead of taking notes so I'm sure some of it is pretty shaky. If my opponents are on here, please correct me and give me your real/forum names!
I'm going to steal Alexander's board naming system by calling the rows A, B, and C, and the columns 1, 2, 3, and 4. For the purposes of this tournament, I always start in C4 (the corner near me), while the enemy’s gate is down A1. I will also use T as shorthand for “turn”. Thus T4 means turn 4. However, while reading this, I also want you to picture the board as a cone. I feel this adds a LARGE understanding to the game, the reason being James and I always call the B2 and B3 the top of the hill. The reason it helps to think of it this way, is that these are the high up vantage points that gain you control of the battlefield and force your opponent to work upwards to conquer. Picture an army charging a fort on top of a hill.
The Rounds:
Round 1: Weighted Training Clothes vs. DaveW's Straywood Beastmaster
So round one I sit down across from my opponent with James next to me, and Tim(2nd place) playing James. I find out that my opponent is a friend of Tim's and they play together frequently. I think to myself “Oh good, a skilled opponent round one and a Straywood Beastmaster at that.” While I think my book pretty much can't lose to Straywood, I just hate playing against it, no particular reason. I just hate the match-up. I'm expecting a similar deck to Alexander's last year and mentally prep myself for birds galore. I do the attack opening with Mana Crystal in B4 and C4 while moving to C3. He lays a Mana Flower on A1 and Enchanter's Ring while moving to A2. T2 and not 100% sure what's going on I cast Mana Crystal in C3 and Harmonize on myself since birds are great at destroying Mana Crystals while moving to B3(the top of my hill) getting ready to open up on him next turn. His action, out comes Steelclaw Grizzly with an enchantment. Oh joy. T3 after flipping Harmonize I Jinx him in quick cast followed by casting Wizard's Tower(making him choose between attacking me and tower) in B3 followed by Acid Ball on the Steelclaw(-2 armor, 1 damage), getting ready to kill it next turn. He moves to B2, an enchantment gets Jinx'd and another enchantment that I don't remember gets played while his Steelclaw double moves to my Wizard's Tower. T4 Steelclaw dies to triple Hurl Rock after getting an attack off on me which doesn't do much through Voltaric. He then casts a Cervere, the Forest Shadow with an enchantment. I figure if he's playing a lot of big creatures, I'm better off at this point just focusing him down so I don't have to go through that annoying dodge on Cervere. The rest of the game consists of him flipping Lion Savagery on Cervere and him attacking me through Voltaric Shield and some armor. Luckily at one point my opponent forgot to back out and charge so that saved me some dice coming in. Unfortunately for him with the combination of Jinx and tons of damage from attack spells there wasn't much he was able to do and my mage and Wizard's Tower finished him in the next three or four turns while he dealt about ten damage to me.
Record: 4/4 points.
Round 2: Weighted Training Clothes vs. TrentMagus' Forcemaster
Once again I used the attack opening of 4x Mana Crystal(B3, B4, C3, C4) and Wizard's Tower while my opponent used Enchanter's Wardstone and Invisible Stalker. My Wizard's Tower was positioned at the top of my hill(B3). This was the game where I made misplays all over the place, I prepped a lot of cards that weren't very useful and wasted a lot of quick casts. Jinx also didn't have as much of an impact on this game as it normally does due to Forcemaster melee attacks. I spent a constant battle through the game of never wanting to use my quick cast so that I could kill his Invisible Stalker with Arcane Zap, which I hit once and did 4 damage. Because of this he spent a lot of time wasting his Invisible Stalker action or attacking Mana Crystals. I was pretty lucky in terms of my opponents die rolls for damage because he never managed to finish off a mana crystal despite two attacks but his rolls on my Wizard were pretty average. However, that deflect die was a god in this game. Overall he dodged a Fireball, Hurl Boulder, and I think three Hurl Rocks. It was a rough life. The real star in this match though was Huginn, like I said I didn't want to open Gate in swiss rounds but I knew that Huginn destroys Forcemaster if he isn't answered and I needed the extra actions to deal with him. Through my Wizard and Huginn I dispelled a force hold, two force fields, Mind Control, dissolved Galvitar, and hit a few things with Seeking Dispel. The only answer he had to Huginn was Mind Control and Sleep, which I got off with dispel and arcane zap respectively. He managed to finally kill him with a force bash against the wall. I generally try to keep Huginn at the top of the hills but didn't want him to take another sleep into an Invisible Stalker or Forcemaster attack. The biggest slop in this match though was I had him at eight damage from death and he put Regrowth on himself. I had 1 dispel left but for some stupid reason decided that I would ignore Regrowth, dispel force hold, and just try to kill him. Never again. This was when he started deflecting my Hurl Rocks and life got painful. I got to a point where I started using Flameblast just because that ability was wrecking me so hard. Because I opted not to answer the regrowth, he gained like 10 more life through the course of the match which eventually led to us going to time. Despite him getting me away from my tower and Force Crushing me in C2 for three turns I was able to survive and win by having more life than him.
Record: 7/8 points.
I'm going to steal Alexander's board naming system by calling the rows A, B, and C, and the columns 1, 2, 3, and 4. For the purposes of this tournament, I always start in C4 (the corner near me), while the enemy’s gate is down A1. I will also use T as shorthand for “turn”. Thus T4 means turn 4. However, while reading this, I also want you to picture the board as a cone. I feel this adds a LARGE understanding to the game, the reason being James and I always call the B2 and B3 the top of the hill. The reason it helps to think of it this way, is that these are the high up vantage points that gain you control of the battlefield and force your opponent to work upwards to conquer. Picture an army charging a fort on top of a hill.
The Rounds:
Round 1: Weighted Training Clothes vs. DaveW's Straywood Beastmaster
So round one I sit down across from my opponent with James next to me, and Tim(2nd place) playing James. I find out that my opponent is a friend of Tim's and they play together frequently. I think to myself “Oh good, a skilled opponent round one and a Straywood Beastmaster at that.” While I think my book pretty much can't lose to Straywood, I just hate playing against it, no particular reason. I just hate the match-up. I'm expecting a similar deck to Alexander's last year and mentally prep myself for birds galore. I do the attack opening with Mana Crystal in B4 and C4 while moving to C3. He lays a Mana Flower on A1 and Enchanter's Ring while moving to A2. T2 and not 100% sure what's going on I cast Mana Crystal in C3 and Harmonize on myself since birds are great at destroying Mana Crystals while moving to B3(the top of my hill) getting ready to open up on him next turn. His action, out comes Steelclaw Grizzly with an enchantment. Oh joy. T3 after flipping Harmonize I Jinx him in quick cast followed by casting Wizard's Tower(making him choose between attacking me and tower) in B3 followed by Acid Ball on the Steelclaw(-2 armor, 1 damage), getting ready to kill it next turn. He moves to B2, an enchantment gets Jinx'd and another enchantment that I don't remember gets played while his Steelclaw double moves to my Wizard's Tower. T4 Steelclaw dies to triple Hurl Rock after getting an attack off on me which doesn't do much through Voltaric. He then casts a Cervere, the Forest Shadow with an enchantment. I figure if he's playing a lot of big creatures, I'm better off at this point just focusing him down so I don't have to go through that annoying dodge on Cervere. The rest of the game consists of him flipping Lion Savagery on Cervere and him attacking me through Voltaric Shield and some armor. Luckily at one point my opponent forgot to back out and charge so that saved me some dice coming in. Unfortunately for him with the combination of Jinx and tons of damage from attack spells there wasn't much he was able to do and my mage and Wizard's Tower finished him in the next three or four turns while he dealt about ten damage to me.
Record: 4/4 points.
Round 2: Weighted Training Clothes vs. TrentMagus' Forcemaster
Once again I used the attack opening of 4x Mana Crystal(B3, B4, C3, C4) and Wizard's Tower while my opponent used Enchanter's Wardstone and Invisible Stalker. My Wizard's Tower was positioned at the top of my hill(B3). This was the game where I made misplays all over the place, I prepped a lot of cards that weren't very useful and wasted a lot of quick casts. Jinx also didn't have as much of an impact on this game as it normally does due to Forcemaster melee attacks. I spent a constant battle through the game of never wanting to use my quick cast so that I could kill his Invisible Stalker with Arcane Zap, which I hit once and did 4 damage. Because of this he spent a lot of time wasting his Invisible Stalker action or attacking Mana Crystals. I was pretty lucky in terms of my opponents die rolls for damage because he never managed to finish off a mana crystal despite two attacks but his rolls on my Wizard were pretty average. However, that deflect die was a god in this game. Overall he dodged a Fireball, Hurl Boulder, and I think three Hurl Rocks. It was a rough life. The real star in this match though was Huginn, like I said I didn't want to open Gate in swiss rounds but I knew that Huginn destroys Forcemaster if he isn't answered and I needed the extra actions to deal with him. Through my Wizard and Huginn I dispelled a force hold, two force fields, Mind Control, dissolved Galvitar, and hit a few things with Seeking Dispel. The only answer he had to Huginn was Mind Control and Sleep, which I got off with dispel and arcane zap respectively. He managed to finally kill him with a force bash against the wall. I generally try to keep Huginn at the top of the hills but didn't want him to take another sleep into an Invisible Stalker or Forcemaster attack. The biggest slop in this match though was I had him at eight damage from death and he put Regrowth on himself. I had 1 dispel left but for some stupid reason decided that I would ignore Regrowth, dispel force hold, and just try to kill him. Never again. This was when he started deflecting my Hurl Rocks and life got painful. I got to a point where I started using Flameblast just because that ability was wrecking me so hard. Because I opted not to answer the regrowth, he gained like 10 more life through the course of the match which eventually led to us going to time. Despite him getting me away from my tower and Force Crushing me in C2 for three turns I was able to survive and win by having more life than him.
Record: 7/8 points.