I’m Back

 

Hey, sorry I haven’t posted anything on here for quite a while, but I am coming back. Recently WWG reached out to me to fill out a winner’s survey for Worlds that they will be putting on their website here. Unsurprisingly to frequent readers, I went a lot more in-depth in one of my answers than they were expecting. So, instead of just editing it down, I decided to post the full length version here.

Question

What was your favorite play during the tournament, if you can remember?

My most memorable play during the tournament was when I decided to go all-in in game 3 of the Dark Draft finals and everything after. During the first game, I realized that my opponent had drafted a better deck that would probably win most extended games. (I had over-drafted situational, non-drawing cards and given my opponent too much Evil.)

In game 3 we got to a point where I drew my opponent’s gold out early on my turn. My hand was garbage with no draw effects and my opponent had significant resources in play: I knew I would lose in an extended game, so, I threw everything at his face. I dropped Pyromancer to deal 4, Dark Knight from hand swung in for 5, and my Shadow Imp brought the total to 11 damage in one turn, putting him to 4 health. I only had 2 cards left in hand, but if he couldn’t remove my Pyromancer before passing initiative on his turn, I would win. I also knew that I had Lightning Storm in deck and that I was close to drawing through my entire deck to reach it (not including mulliganed and recycled card). At this point, my health was 28, my opponent had 3 champions in play and 5 cards in hand.

On his turn, he plays Angel of Death with loyalty and immediately blows up both our boards. He then begins to chip away at my health with his own Dark Knight (23). With nothing better to do, I play out my Time Bender without loyalty.

I draw into Blue Dragon on my turn. My goal is still to dig for my Lightning Storm, so I play Blue Dragon to draw a card and see what happens. It’s Lightning Strike. Since it isn’t the card I need to win the game on his turn, I have to decide whether to break my opponent’s Dark Knight or target his face for 2 damage. Because I was able to get Time Bender into play, I opt for the 2 damage to his face and then immediately use Time Bender to return Blue Dragon to my hand (all of this happens before my opponent has a window to remove Blue Dragon). This once again puts me into a position where I win unless he stops me, this time he has one turn to gain health or kill me from 23, and I haven’t seen any health gain in his deck.

On his turn, he Final Tasks to bring back my Avenging Angel. I have no way to prevent the attack. Calculating that I would go to 6 health if he attacked with everything and he would go to 8, I decide to draw 2 with my Lightning Strike instead of using it to remove his Angel of Death. I don’t draw Lightning Storm, but I do draw Djinn of the Sands. The attacks go through.

If I don’t win by his next turn, I lose. I don’t draw Lightning Storm at the start of my turn. At this point, I have two possible paths to victory:

• Play Blue Dragon to bring him to 6 and draw a card. If it’s Lightning Storm and he can’t gain health before passing initiative to me on his turn, I win.
• Play Djinn of the Sands and attack for 8 with airborne. If he can’t remove or chump block the Djinn, I win. He does still have his gold, but I have Time Bender in play that can either bounce or banish an airborne, ambush champion if he has one.

For both situations, if I whiff I lose.

I don’t want to put the outcome of the game into my opponent’s hands, so I opt for Blue Dragon. I deal the 2 damage to my opponent without looking at the card I drew first. My opponent is at 6 health. I pass. At the end of my turn, he plays Ice Drake with loyalty to expend my team.

He starts his turn, attacks with Ice Drake for lethal. I play my Lightning Storm. I win.

After the match I look at my next draws: Second Wind is on top followed by my first mulliganed card. This means that if I had been keeping track perfectly, I would have known I was guaranteed to get to Lightning Storm with my last Blue Dragon play. Also, since he had Ice Drake, if I would have gone with Djinn, he could have played Ice Drake to expend my Time Bender and chump-block the Djinn.

This was a great series. Afterwards, I was so overwhelmed with joy that I just sat there for a good 15 minutes. Not only had I won a spot at Worlds and guaranteed $500 minimum, but the win empirically proved that my Epic content that I have spent over 100 hours writing has value.

(Thank you Kyle Coons for the picture. I love it.)

**10/14/16 Correction**

It has been pointed that I said both my opponent and I had Dark Knight which is an impossibility in Dark Draft, which is correct. Looking back at my card list, it looks like my “Dark Knight” was most likely Guilt Demon or possibly Thrasher Demon.

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Going Forward

I’ve been putting in a lot of hours at Fantasy Flight Games trying to get as much out of my internship as possible, and I haven’t been making time to blog. However, at minimum, I want to get my updated ratings up a week before Worlds (not necessarily including the as of yet unreleased Uprising expansion), and I would like to do another Epic puzzle contest starting on Oct. 30th so it can end on Nov. 13. (I have a playmat on its way for a prize.)

To achieve these goals, I will be posting at least once a week until Nov. 14. Ideally, I’ll add at least 5 cards a day starting Wednesday night Oct 12/Thursday morning Oct 13 (excluding Oct 13-Oct 16 when I won’t have access to my computer).

Good luck to everyone who will be competing at Worlds! I hope to at minimum get all of your pictures for the blog in addition to anyone else there who would like to as well.