Origins Saturday 6/18/16 After

Knocked out in the top 4, again, but the games were great. I also think I played and drafted well, so I’m not too frustrated with the loss. This also means that I get to play in the constructed tournament tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that. I need as much practice in the format as possible.

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Below is the decklist I mulliganed into. I’ll post my chosen cards after Origins and explain why I picked what. I do not have the decklist I started with unfortunately. This list was excellent for me though. I went 3-0-2 (3 wins, 2 draws, no IDs) so I didn’t lose a match with it. If I wouldn’t have rushed I might have won my first draw, but I learned a valuable lesson about playing your final turn carefully since the time limit no longer matters.

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Auggie pictured below. A lot of passing priority while holding gold in this game, but it was fascinating. Dark Knight was surprisingly strong in this scenario, sort of like a 0-cost Juggernaut. Juggernaut is incredible.

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John Tatian strikes a well-earned victory pose after qualifying for Worlds, pictured below.

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While I am looking forward to another day of Epic, it unfortunately means I won’t have much chance to cover the rest of Origins. Good luck to everyone who is competing tomorrow.

Origins Saturday 6/18/16

Today is the last Origins Epic Limited format qualifier (more will be at Gen Con and elsewhere). This is my better format, and I only dropped matches to the eventual winner, who is no longer eligible to play in qualifier events. So, we’ll see what happens today (I did have multiple close 2-1 matches yesterday though). Good luck to everyone competing today.

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(As a heads up, I did go to Marquette, but I was not in ROTC.)

Origins 6/17/16 After

Another excellent day at Origins. I only placed 10th in the constructed Epic tournament (3-2-0), but seeing what everyone brought was fascinating. I brought an untargetable Sage Tempo deck designed to counter/outpace blitzing, airborne Wild fliers + burn; I’ll be posting, analyzing, and updating it after Origins.

Other decks that were played were discard/burn, life gain/burn, at least one Human Token Swarm type deck, Dinosaurs, and control decks. Derek Arnold’s 4-color control deck was outstanding, and it further evolved my understanding of the game. I am going to analyze it in much greater detail after Origins, but it appears to be a difficult deck to play well, the games go long, and it ended with multiple draws in the swiss rounds. All of the top 8 decklists can be found at the Facebook page or on WWG’s Deck Foundry.

My note keeping failed me again, last name Randolph pictured below. I will hopefully update tomorrow.

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Hayden Brass pictured below.

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Ryan Aker pictured below.

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Jared Wood pictured below.

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Brad Minnigh pictured below

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Kyle Coons pictured below.

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Top 8 from left to right Gabe Costa-Gioni, Cory Henderson, Nathaniel Mansfield, Chris Weidinger, Hayden Brass, Auggie, Kyle Coons, and Derek Arnold. *Names Updated*

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Derek Arnold winner of the Epic constructed tournament and Worlds Qualifier pictured below. He brought an excellent deck and played it excellently.

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Tomorrow is the final Origins limited Epic tournament. Good luck to everyone participating.

Special shout-out to Cory Henderson for taking multiple pictures for me today and yesterday.

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Origins 6/16/16 Photos

First day of Origins was pretty great. Met multiple people who read this blog, introduced some new people to it, and played a lot of Epic. A lot of great people at the event, and I took pictures with a few.

For the tournament, I made it to top 8 with the below list of cards. I am not posting what I chose yet because I want to let people see what they would have picked in the same situation. (Mulligan to 56 is an acceptable answer too.) My record was 3-1-1 (the draw was an ID, Intentional Draw to assure top 8 and give us some time to get some food).

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John Tatian (Pictured Below)

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Tim Stanoch (Pictured Below)

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Max Jacob (Pictured below) The rivalry begins.

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Corey Henderson (Pictured Below)

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Rich Shay (Pictured Below)

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The 2 finalists for the 6/16/16 tournament. Will update tomorrow with the winner. (I was knocked out in the top 4.)

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Tomorrow is the first constructed qualifier. It will be very interesting to see what decks are run. I didn’t get a hold of the other limited pools and decks (and I forgot to record the dark draft decks), but I’ll see what I can do about getting the constructed decks on here. At the very least, I can give a run down of the decks I come up against.

For everyone at the Epic event today, thanks for the games. I look forward to playing against at least some of you in the next few days.

Origins 6/16/16

Planning on heading out around 3am tomorrow, so I won’t have time to post this in the morning. Planning on wearing my Lindsey Stirling shirt and will look pretty much like this tomorrow.

I would be happy to meet any readers or potential readers so feel free to come on up. I might not be able to talk much if we are nearing the end of an Epic round I’m still finishing, but aside from that, happy to talk at length about Epic, other board game topics, or largely whatever.

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There is a good chance that you will more likely see me from behind at a table, so I included that photo too.

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Vicarious Origins

I would be thrilled if I could get pictures of a bunch of people (with their permission) and put them up on the blog after each day. Feel free to give me a line or two to associate with each picture.

With regard to the tournaments, I will post my decklist and try to get a picture and decklist from each opponent as well (after the match, with their permission).

For everyone that is going to compete in the tournaments, good luck, and I look forward to potentially playing against you. (Also I forgot Avenging Angel Control, so I have 5 decks I might play in constructed.)

Constructed Epic: Human Token Swarm

Epic Box

Foreword

I reference Human Token Swarm decks all of the time. This is my current version.

First Posted Deck List

HumanTokenSwarm

Evil (6)

Slow (2)
2x Drinker of Blood

Fast (2)
2x Zealous Necromancer

0-Cost (2)
2x Wither

Good (42)

Slow (6)
3x Rabble Rouser
3x The People’s Champion

Fast (23)
3x Forced Exile
3x Inheritance of the Meek
3x Insurgency
2x Quell
2x Royal Escort
3x Secret Legion
2x Standard Bearer
3x Urgent Messengers
2x Vital Mission

0-Cost (13)
3x Blind Faith
3x Courageous Soul
3x Paros, Rebel Leader
1x Priestess of Angeline
3x Revolt

Sage (9)

Slow (0)

Fast (6)
3x Lesson Learned
3x Wave of Transformation

0-Cost (3)
3x Arcane Research

Wild (3)

Slow (0)

Fast (2)
1x Battle Cry
1x Surprise Attack

0-Cost (1)
1x Flash Fire

First Shot Explanation

Human Token Swarm decks are nasty. They can do 30+ damage in one turn with nothing starting in play and just 3 cards (Secret Legion and any 2 of Courageous Soul, Paros Rebel Leader, or Revolt). Going second, I have won on my first turn of the game with this deck (Standard Bearer on his turn. Paros on my turn, and then I slow rolled out Secret Legion and Revolt trying to draw out removal without over-committing.) If you aren’t prepared for this deck, it can crush you.

One of the most devastating parts of the deck is Drinker of Blood. If you have a lot of tokens out and then Drinker on your turn followed by Flash Fire or Wither, you can just win. Or, as one member of the Epic Card Game Fan Page on Facebook laid out: Rabble Rouser on your turn. If your opponent doesn’t remove it, Secret Legion at the end of their turn and expend Rabble Rouser. On your next turn, expend Rabble Rouser, play Drinker, and then Flash Fire/Wither for 60 damage and 60 health.

The problem with this deck is that it can be countered (or at least disrupted) by a lot of cards: Surprise Attack/Final Task-> Angel of Death/Frost Giant/Time Walker, Plague, Wither, Zombie Apocalypse, Ceasefire, Secret Legion, Blind Faith (strips blitz, would not strip buffs from cards like Revolt), Insurgency, Quell, Ice Drake, Stand Alone, Wave of Transformation (not great but still saves you for a turn), Fireball, Flash Fire, Hurricane, Lightning Storm, Wolf’s Call, Draka’s Fire, and other cards disrupt it to significantly smaller extents.

Every deck needs to run at least a few of these cards to deal with this and similar decks. If you don’t, you run the risk of just losing instantly. If you don’t think anyone will run this deck, you are welcome to take that gamble. Thankfully, a lot of these cards are just super strong anyway.

I argue that Insurgency is the most important card in this deck (aside from Drinker of Blood) because it prevents the most answers (Flash Fire, etc.).

I don’t think I have seen anyone else include Zealous Necromancer, and I am still not sold on it. I have liked it the situations I have played it though. Conversely, I do not include Deadly Raid or multiple Battle Cries because I don’t think they prevent enough answers. I feel that Dark Leader is a bit weak too. The Risen could be quite interesting in combination with Zealous Necromancer.

Royal Escort is a new addition to the deck. It literally only answers Wither, but it is a nice ambush setup before the attack. It can also protect your Rabble Rouser. Unfortunately, it would prevent you from targeting your own human tokens with Wither for the Drinker Combo.

I’ve been holding off posting this deck because I originally thought Human Token Swarm decks would be the deck to beat. While I’m still considering playing it at Origins, I think enough decks will be running counters to it that it probably wouldn’t go all the way.

6/10/16 Fine Tuning

Removed: -2 Forced Exile, -2 Vital Mission, and -1 Priestess of Angeline

HTSRemove

Added: +1 Standard Bearer, +3 Erase, and +1 Spike Trap

HTSAdd

I am in the process of fine tuning all of the decks I expect to either play or play against at Origins. After doing some more testing with this deck, I decided to focus this deck more around winning directly with a combo. To this end, I removed the Vital Missions and most of the Forced Exiles because they provide a small enough edge for an opponent to survive. Erases were added instead because I don’t want the game to go long, and the draw 2 is a huge deal; if the first assault doesn’t win you the game, you need to reload for a second one.

Priestess of Angeline doesn’t offer enough to warrant a card spot, especially since this deck ideally wants to win in the first 3 turns. I also might not have 2 cards to recycle.

Standard Bearer has been very nice. I underestimated the static +2 offense buff and the fact that you can set it up on your opponent’s turn.

Spike Trap is another way to trigger Drinker: play Drinker, attack with all of my human tokens, immediately play Spike Trap to break them all. I would prefer another Flash Fire, but I don’t currently have the Wild 1-cost cards to support it.

I might, however, add some Flame Strikes etc. for finishing off an opponent. In that case, I would bring at least 1 more Flash Fire.