Tournament Report – Mage Wars Arena GenCon 2019
6 players in attendance
Ben Siren
Gary (starscream) Johktari Beastmaster
Justin (Farkas) Druid
Virgil (VictorE) Siren
Tim (zot) Bloodwave Warlord
Kyle (Sharkbait) Necromancer
Round 1
Necromancer vs Warlord
Johktari vs Siren 1
Druid vs Siren 2
zot and Sharkbait clash turn 3 with a Geared Up warlord and ballista staring down Mort, an Eternal Skeletal Minion and a necro with a wand and some armor. Lots of smackdown ensues with Skeletal Knights and a Zombie Brute joining Team Darkfenne and an Iron Golem joining team Bloodwave. High dice fly and ultimately the Warlord falls to the blades of the skeletal horde before the Necromancer eats too many boulders.
Virgil’s Siren weathers some initial animal attacks punctuated by Hunting Bow shots. Regenerate keeps the bleed off until the power of the waves fells the Johktari Beastmaster as she is tumbled to pieces by the second Tsunami.
Farkas and Ben hang back and summon great monstrosities who eye each other warily waiting for the slightest advantage. Eventually, Farkas’ Druid gets snatched by the Kraken and the Bears and Kralathor charge in to save her. Big K is incapacitated in several ways by the Siren’s lullaby. Farkas’ Druid manages to put Ben’s Siren into the Thornlasher dis-assembly line and bring the Kraken near death. A Meredia’s Blessing allows Big K to give chase to the Siren when Time is called in the round.
After conferring with the players, noting the board state and the contents of both spellbooks…the judges award Farkas with the 2-0.
Round 2
Necromancer vs Siren 1
Warlord vs Siren 2
Johktari vs Druid
Sharkbait stays in the hot seat as he faces off against Virgil’s Quad-Tsunami. The skeletal horde looms ever nearer and just as the Tsunami is ready to send them to the other side of the arena, the fickle waves ebb and refuse to push, subjecting the Siren to another round of high strength attacks. She kisses sweet oblivion shortly thereafter.
Zot’s Warlord is built for speed and high damage and Ben just didn’t see it coming. The Warlord goes on a rampage in his wrath at losing to the Necromancer and decimates the Siren in short order.
Johktari vs Druid
Kralathor grows fat on bodyguards while the Druid stacks armor. Inevitability is the Druid’s strongest magic and without the ability to bleed plants and fight against so much overwhelming life force the Johktari becomes a victim to the Druid, but not before dealing the fatal blow to Kralathor in a bid for a moral victory.
Round 3
Necromancer vs Druid
Warlord vs Siren 1
Johktari vs Siren 2
Ritual vs Ritual. Kallek is supreme! Mort vs Kralathor vs skeletal knight vs bear vs zombie brute vs lasher disassembly. All the stops pulled out. Sharkbait’s Necromancer had a large degree of board position having decimated much of Farkas army, but had sacrificed a lot of health to get it. Lashers met Walls of Bone as they tried to rip the last life from the master of the undead. Sharkbait prepared himself to drain back to healthy, but to his surprise, Farkas had a Final Quickcast Force Push that put him in range for the Hail Mary Force Hammer. Druid wins!
The Warlord steps confidently into the arena sneering at the next Siren he will crush. The Siren prepares herself to bring the power of the seas to bear on this contemptuous foe. The Siren’s psychic tricks have no effect on the Warlord or his Golem. A flying side kick to the ribs ends the Siren’s song as her life ebbs back into the seas.
Gary’s Johktari surges forward planting a lair in the face Ben’s Siren. She will not be defeated by another mistress of the waves. Tentacles and Claws, Beaks and Teeth rip and tear, but ultimately the Siren falls to the might of the Johktari hunting pack.
Round 4
Necromancer vs Johktari
Druid vs Warlord
Siren 1 vs Siren 2
The Johktari Beastmaster changes her opening to try and get some extra speed against the ritual wielding Necromancer. Skeletons and wolves maneuver to out guard and damage one another. Reconstructing Skeletons overpower the animal force and send the Johktari packing to nurse her tainted wounds.
The Druid warily eyes the Warlord and proceeds with her build up plan. In a surprise maneuver, the Warlord Ballistas and Gears Up to become a significant threat very early. Her tree demolished, the Druid begins to exact revenge on the Warlord, but it is too late--the juggernaut cannot be stopped and Farkas’ Druid eats boulder for lunch before her dirt nap.
The mages from Shoalsdeep nod respect toward one another and proceed with their contest. After a judge notices two Naiya’s on the table, the offending Siren concedes the match.
After four grueling rounds all combatants are hungry and exhausted. Lunch break is called while the judges deliberate how to proceed with the finals.
Scores:
Kyle (Sharkbait) 9 points
Tim (zot) 9 points
Justin (Farkas) 8 points
Virgil (VictorE) 6 points
Gary (Starscream) 3 points
Ben 0 points
Justin Farkas is awarded the 3rd place trophy for his excellent Druid play.
The judges decided that, while it would be utterly fair to award Sharkbait’s Necromancer the 1st place trophy, as he did best zot’s Warlord during the rounds of swiss and subsequently face the top scored player each round...that wouldn’t be as epic a story as:
BEST TWO OF THREE for the Grand Finals!
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It was decided (and agreed upon by the players) to have a best 2 of 3 for the final match on the next day. Sharkbait’s Necromancer would begin the set with 1 of the 2 wins needed for victory given his performance the previous day. zot’s Warlord would have a shot at snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, but it would be an uphill battle the entire way.
FINALS Commentary by zot and Sharkbait:
Match 1, zot - I was expecting at least 3 ritual books at the event. I built what I felt was a decent counter book since I did not want to play a ritual book of my own and chance going to time. I felt confident against all matchups except a libro-ritual book which was my worst matchup and, of course, Sharkey just happened to be playing that. Our first match of the finals was a must win for me to have a shot at winning the event and it was a close one. High Aggression on both sides: Sharkey bringing out Mort early for ritual cheese and also opting for the demonhide armor to damage me back for my expected melee attacks. He was cursing me and spawning skeletons, while I was trying to focus down his mage. Eventually the match devolved into hack and slash where I was able to successfully focus down his mage while attempting to mitigate the skeleton attacks and curses. The match was super close. We both had kill shots on each other at the end. I survived a boulder shot, and got lucky with a return boulder retort and rolled a little above average and got him. Had he survived, he would likely have killed me during his first action phase--an exciting and close match.
Match 1, Sharkbait - I had a pretty good idea of what Tim was trying to do, so I tried to use that to my advantage (armor early). I got a couple creatures out early and moved forward to mess with the placement of the ballista I was pretty sure he’d cast. The longer the game went, the larger the advantage I had, so I put things like agony, curse of weakness, etc on the warlord to make him spend time dispelling it. I took a few good hits early, but those tailed off as I got guards and curses out. I was in a position to win the game on what ended up being the final turn of the game. Both of us threw boulders on our quick cast (I think?) and mine put him within 3 damage from death where I had 9 life remaining before rolling Tim’s dice. Tim ended up doing 9 damage with that boulder though and we were on for a 2nd match.
Match 2, Sharkbait - Match 1 pretty close to confirmed my ideas on how to play the match from a strategic standpoint, I just needed to make a small tactical change early on that would give me a huge advantage. Instead of casting armor as early as I did in the first game, I cast cloak of shadows. This allowed me to effectively dance around the battle casting creatures to get in the warlord’s way and do damage from outside of his threat range. He had a few tricks up his sleeve including cheetah speed and mongoose agility. I countered those by cursing him and walling him away from me in such a way that he couldn’t get to me without going through the wall (action/mana investment) or going through the creatures (damage). I even used reassemble on one of the walls to delay an extra turn. The curses played on him were primarily agony and curse of weakness. Curse of weakness ended up being SUPER useful against a melee puncher due to the double hit of the enemy rolling less dice AND triggering my ability to use plaguemaster. Combined with the idol of pestilence and my ability to play a new creature every turn to heighten my action advantage, I was in a good position to counter most things that came out of the warlord. He eventually cast purge magic on himself to get rid of the CoW and Agony, but lost cheetah speed and mongoose in the process. This allowed my swarm of creatures to continuously lock him out of position, while my cloak of shadows kept me protected. Zot made a play against the idol of pestilence while my army dealt with his Iron golem and eventually the mage himself. Ultimately, I cast 2 mage wands and 1 elemental wand that all got dissolved while being used once or twice on average. However, and more importantly, those wands kept zot from being able to dissolve my cloak. The choice to deal with the wand or the cloak isn’t easy, and I feel that I was in a position to abuse either choice. Ultimately, I think I would agree that the wands were the higher threat, but that isn’t always a clear choice. The swarm of skeletons and one zombie brute eventually took the warlord down. Mort was MVCreature of the tournament. That dude did some serious work keeping the army/walls alive.
Match 2, zot - The final match. sigh. My book was not designed to survive multiple matches vs the same player...especially a Libro-Ritual book. As a result it was much easier to predict and blunt the offense. Sharkey, being a strong player, took full advantage of that. This match was not close at all by comparison. He played Cloak of Shadows which in the end helped him win the positional tactics. He played masterfully in that match; his tactics staying away from me allowed him to extend the game. Ritual books are geared to win the long game. He was able to spam skeletons and take intermittent attacks. I was not able to maintain pressure and that allowed him to eke out increasing advantage over time. I had opportunities to dissolve the cloak, but felt Mage Wand had to go and, again, could not get both at once. I cannot stress enough how well he played the position game. By managing to stay away, he managed to build up to the point where I just could not turn the corner and get control of the game.
Well done Sharkey on a well deserved win!
zot’s final thoughts: Curse of Weakness is crazy good for necro. Cloak of Shadows is underrated. Mage Wands need to be changed because they exist they affect book building so strongly. I am not sure Ritual is good for the game in its current form. instead of choosing lots of small creatures or a few large ones, now you can have lots of large creatures.
Thanks to Arcane Wonders for such an awesome game. Would have been good had they actually promoted this tournament--we likely would have had a lot more players. Thanks puddnhead and coshade for judging. thanks to all the competitors. was awesome seeing some new faces too.