It wasn't really a tournament, as some new players were learning, and it was more casual than a tournament.
I played and won 3 games:
Game 1: Altar of Carnage Anvil Throne Warlord (me) vs Barracks based Anvil Throne Warlord
My opponent focused on enchanting and building up a Bloodcraig Minotaur, but he didn't pressure me early, I had better economy, and as soon as I killed his Minotaur, I was able to quickly focus down his mage. He had a few secondary threats in the form of a Slinger and an Anvil Throne Crossbowman, but I was never very concerned about his ranged firepower. I built up 4 Armor and a 5+ defense, at which point my mage wasn't particularly concerned. I lost a few Orc Butchers and my Gurmash over the course of the game due to a combination of his ranged firepower, his Minotaur, and much better dice rolls than I was getting, but I had enough economy that losing a few Orcs wasn't crippling.
Overall I felt that my opponent had a reasonable gameplan, but the execution was spotty. His opening was just slower and less efficient than it could have been, and he could have invested less into the Minotaur and gotten another big creature up. He could have gotten his 3 Outposts down within the first 2 rounds, in which case he would have been in a stronger position. He put Cheetah Speed, Rhino Hide, Bear Strength, and Nullify on the Minotaur, but if he had only put Bear Strength on it, he could have afforded another Bloodcraig Minotaur, and the other enchantments didn't have a big impact on the game. Regrowth or Vampirism would have been better options for keeping it alive than Rhino Hide and Nullify. Direct healing spells like Minor Heal would have also been better support. In addition, he spent a bunch of actions and mana on equipment that saw very little use, and he could have spent at least some of those resources on Armoring up his mage, which would have been more useful.
On my end I did a double Spawnpoint opening, filled up every equipment slot except my cloak and head slots, and used Meditation Amulet for ~4 rounds to get everything going. I really liked having Reflex Boots with the Rune of Shielding and an Elemental Wand with the Rune of Power. I played a few pieces of equipment that I didn't make much use of, but since I had so much economy, and I was using my Battle Forge to do it, it didn't cost me as much. Plus my underutilized equipment cost less than my opponent's underutilized equipment. I never got out Altar of Carnage because I always had something else I wanted to do more.
My opening went something like this:
Turn 1 (19): Battle Forge -> Construction Yard (4)
Turn 2 (13) [1] [1]: Deploy Meditation Amulet -> Meditate -> Barracks (2)
Turn 3 (11) [2] [1] [1]: Deploy General's Signet Ring -> Deploy Orc Butcher -> Meditate -> Garrison Post (4)
I wasn't real impressed with Gurmash this game.
Game 2: Altar of Carnage Anvil Throne Warlord (me) vs Mana Denial Wizard
My opponent opened with an Altar of Peace and a Sunfire Amulet. I did a similar opening to last game, but held off on casting a creature for another round and played a Bloodcraig Minotaur as my first creature instead of an Orc Butcher. I also opted for Harshforge Plate early, as a means of making it less cost effective to mess with me, which was a good choice. My opponent played Suppression Cloak, killed my Battle Forge with a Force Hammer and another attack, and Dissolved my Meditation Amulet.
I played a couple of Orc Butchers and moved my Minotaur to his starting corner, where his Altar of Peace was. He cast Acid Ball on my Barracks, but did no damage and only 1 Corrode, so he still didn't feel like he could kill it. In addition, he put Essence Drain on my Minotaur. I Conquered his Altar of Peace, and turned it into an Altar of Carnage. I never got much use out of Altar of Carnage this game, but it was practically free to cast it due to Construction Yard, so it was probably still worthwhile. I also Dispelled his Essence Drain. The Wizard put Pacify on all 3 of my creatures and played Mordok's Obelisk, so I played Harshforge Monolith next to it, moved all of my creatures into it's area of influence, and focused down Mordok's Obelisk.
Over this whole time I did very little damage to the Wizard due to the taxes on attacking him combined with Voltaric Shield spam, but I was in a pretty good position. Aside from Suppression Cloak, my opponent was pretty much out of global mana denial (he had Suppression Orb in his book still, but I didn't really need to move my creatures around anyway), he was being taxed himself to keep the Pacifies around, and his damage potential against me was quite low. I had 4 Armor and a 5+ Defense, so I wasn't real worried about him spamming attacks on me. He was out of Dissolves and Acid Balls, so he couldn't really make me less tanky. I had a bit of damage on, but I was healing that with Regrowth outside of the area of effect of Harshforge Monolith. I started summoning ranged creatures using only the mana from my Barracks, including Grimson Deadeye Sniper. At around this point, my opponent conceded because he didn't see how he could win. I was guarding my ranged creatures with my Pacified creatures, I was in the process of stripping his Armor with an Elemental Wand with the Rune of Power with Acid Ball attached, and I still had a massive mana base from Barracks. We both thought that the game would have ultimately gone in my favor, it would have just taken forever because it would have taken me a long time to get the mana I needed to make enough attacks, particularly through Voltaric Shield every round.
My opponent got unlucky on a few rolls (notably Acid Ball on my mage inflicted 0 Corrodes, so both Acid Balls did extremely poorly), but the real problem he faced was his inability to lock down my mana income. His mana was under tighter constraints for much of the game than mine was. I couldn't really attack him much of the time, but I could do other things.
Pentagram based Adramelech Warlock (me) vs Battle Forge based Priestess
This time my opponent was playing one of my builds, so he wasn't familiar with the spellbook. He only had the mana denial Wizard in terms of custom spellbooks at the time, so he played one of my spellbooks. This was only my second game playing the Adramelech Warlock, and I was trying to get a feel for swarming with her. I opened with a Harmonized Pentagram, and I played quite a few Firebrand Imps and Wildfire Imps. My opponent opened with a Mana Crystal and a Battle Forge, played a Knight of Westlock, and went after my mage. I removed Elemental Cloak and Dragonscale Hauberk, but I kept having trouble attacking effectively. My curses kept getting removed. This put me ahead on mana, as I had both Ring of Curses and an Enchanter's Wardstone, but I didn't feel like I had enough actions to replace them.
It ended up being a very close damage race, but once I had Marked for Death and Rust on my opponent, I was able to do a lot of damage very rapidly. My opponent eventually played Samandriel, Angel of Light, but that was towards the end of the game. I eventually focused down the Priestess, but the whole thing felt very precarious, and I always felt like I didn't have enough action economy to do everything that I was trying to do. If my opponent had focused on killing my Imps, I would have had a hard time keeping enough threats on the board to threaten the Priestess.
I need to do some more thinking about how to open with the Adramelech Warlock.
When I arrived, Maverick was playing the default Forcemaster spellbook against a Druid. The Forcemaster won.
While I was playing, there was an apprentice game played between 2 new players, Priestess vs Warlock I think. I don't know who won.
After that there was a 2v2 game, which was I think Priestess and Beastmaster vs Warlock and Wizard, with the Priestess/Beastmaster team winning. I think they were using the apprentice spellbooks.
