WOW Minis Teldrassil Realms 11/14-11/15/2009

Here's a tournament report from the Teldrassil Realms held near Cincinnati OH on 11/14 - 11/15/2009. The original link can be found here:

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/wow/community/forums/thread/1858652.aspx
So, not having local tournaments and only having a few other friends that play this game, I don't get to play it alot. Every 2 or 3 weeks we'll get together and play a few games but that's about the extent of the playing I get to do. The only tournament I've been to at this point was Nashville Realms back in May. I finished 13th out of 18 for Day 2. Not horrible, but out of Top 8 and not as good of a showing as I'd have liked. So I set out to improve upon my placing this time and I'm happy to say that I did.

Leading up to the event, I looked at several different armies. Amalars looked fun and after playtesting them some, they had alot of raw killing power. Ice Block was pretty good and if you did everything right you could lock your way onto the hill. I wasn't sure I liked either of those. I had just done a trade for 3 Morts so I was pretty high on getting to use them. I practiced them a few times but something was missing. After looking everything over I realized the answer was Death Coil and Pitzog. Death Coil is obvious for moving someone off the hill. Pitzog seemed vital in alot of matches to make Morts up to 10 health and also to occupy the hill so no one else could get up to it. After some playtesting, I liked it, but I wasn't sold on it yet. The problem I saw was with Ice Block. I knew that I could win that matchup with Morts, but I wasn't 100% certain I could win the matchup and didn't have a solid answer to it. Triple Harukas then became the answer I was looking for. I playtested it against Triple Iranas and if Haruka packed Earth Shocks and Purges, you wrecked them. Maybe a bit too specialized ABC list for the field, but my concern was going up against Triple Amalar and being able to get through his armor to bring him down before he killed my Harukas. In short, I had no idea what I was going to play when I left.

We left Southern Kentucky about 9:00 am or so on Saturday. We got to the Holiday Inn at a little after 11:00 and found the convention room where the event was being held. We got a room later on that was right down the hall on the first floor so we were pretty close for everything. We had a total of 12 people for Day 1 with one guy who was in the TCG main event buying into the last qualifier to get in. So we had a total of 13 for Day 2.

We started Day 1 at Noon on Saturday with Sealed. Instead of doing 1 Core and 1 Spoils, we ended up with 2 Spoils because they didn't receive enough Core to run the event with it. We opened our boosters, wrote down what was in them, and then passed them back to the T.O. He then randomely passed the boosters back out. My first boosters had a Kael'thas, Daxin, Elizabetha that I would have loved to have played. The boosters I got had Vigor, Aluna, Marlowe, Hulok, Harnum, and Chancelor Velora. Vigor and Aluna were auto includes. I then decided to go with Marlowe for the Pitzog hill trick. That also would put a Vigor in Bear Form up to 11 health. I would learn that that trick only worked as long as Marlowe didn't die, which he was always the first one to die.

Round 1
I got paired with Bin Chin. Bin and I talked some before the event and he had driven up from Georgia. He was running Sethekk Talon Lord, Elanna Starbreeze, and Ixamos the Redeemed. Not a bad game, but the combination of Aluna and Vigor proved to be a bit too much. Especially when a Bear Formed Vigor takes the hill and you have to kill him to get him off. 1-0

Round 2
I got paired with Jimmy. Jimmy was running Vindicator Kaustron, Elanna Starbreeze, and Raazani Nexus Stalker. I started off Tick 1 by shooting the Stalker and bringing it down to 2 health. Tick 2 it jumped to the VP. I move Vigor to finish it off and he Ice Blocked it. I thought I was screwed as I had no answer to Ice Block. He took an early lead but the Ice Block came off at Tick 10 before he could ready it again. I was able to finish it off with Vigor and then take the hill to take control of the game. 2-0

Round 3
I got paired with my buddy Tony who was running Jaina, Vindicator Kaustron, and Marlowe. Had we played it out, I'm not sure I could have won. He had a better army than I did. He was on a roll after a few good games, had qualified with his 2-0 and conceded to me. 3-0

So after making it in on Sealed, it was time to narrow down what I wanted to play. I was looking at either Morts or Triple Harukas. My buddy Jason didn't qualify during Sealed so he wanted to run Triple Iranas. I didn't have enough Counterspells or I would have probably ended up running that as well. I opted to play Morts. I wanted to get some use out of them and if they bombed then I knew I could switch to something else for Day 2. My ABCs were:

Death Coil

Curse of Agony x 2

Corruption x 2

Summon Pitzog

Summon Jhuroon x 3

I wasn't sold on having 3 Jhuroons but I couldn't figure out what else to replace it with so I left it in there. I can only think of 1 game during the weekend that I should have subbed it in.

Round 1
I got paired with Jimmy again. Jimmy didn't make it in during Sealed so I conceded the game but we played most of it out. He was running Aluna, Wilton, Wilton. It was close when we called the game, 4-4 but I could have gotten at least 1 more Wilton to pull ahead and get the game as they were both close to death. 0-1

Round 2
I got paired with Woody who was running Arugal, Bleakheart, and Sethekk Talon Lord. This was pretty much all Morts. He had some points from the hill, but failed to kill any Morts. Morts won it at the end with a final kill on the Talon Lord I think. 1-1

Round 3
I got paired with my buddy Tony again. Tony was running Amalar, Amalar, Thrall. He decided he'd rather not play Morts so he conceded. 2-1

After that they ran the last qualifier with the 3 people who weren't qualified buying in. We had a players meeting after that and discussed how to do Day 2 with the amount of people we had. Options were to run 1 round of playoff tonight to get the Top 8 and then only the Top 8 come back in the morning, running 2 rounds of swiss and then a cut to the top 8, running 3 rounds of swiss and then a cut to top 4, or running 5 rounds of swiss with final standings being where you placed. After some discussion the decision was made to run 5 rounds of swiss as it gave everyone the best chance.

Jason, Tony, and I playtested alot that night. Jason was set on Triple Iranas and I was pretty sure I wanted to do Morts as I felt good about them after the Constructed Qualifier. Tony was thinking Triple Amalar but he wasn't sure on the third Amalar as he had no answer for Ice Blocks. We playtested Illiana but she wasn't the answer he was looking for. After a few games, he settled on Champion Shadowsun. We watched the UFC PPV and then got some sleep. We got up around 8:00 or so the next morning, got a few playtest games in at the last minute and then went over to the event room about 10:30. Everyone showed up and we got started around 11:00.

Round 1
I got paired with Steve. Steve was running Nathressa, Beren, and Timmo. This wasn't a bad game for Steve, but he wasn't able to kill any of the Morts. I was able to get through his 1 and 2 resist pretty easily and on Tick 15 I was at 16 points with 3 Morts attacking Timmo. It took all 3 attacks to do it, but I managed to kill Timmo for the win. 1-0

Round 2
I got paired with Woody. Woody was running Parvink, Filet, and Ruby. All Gnomes. Like the previous game, I didn't lose a Mort. I had 2 Morts that should have died. The dice were horrible to Woody in this match though, and I had some really hot dice at the end that pulled out the win for me. 2-0

Round 3
I got paired with Audis (Johnny Draco). He was running Crushridge, Boulderfist, and Dagg'um. All Ogres. My dice were horrible at the start of it. It took me 5 attacks from Morts and I think 2 attacks from Jhuroons to kill Dagg'um. That rough start was too much to overcome and despite me trying to rally, it just wasn't in the cards for me to pull it out. 2-1

Round 4
I got paired with Brian Wilson. He was running Haruka, Morova, and Morganis. He managed to kill one Mort, but I got some lucky dice and got some luck on his defensive rolls that let me get some damage in on Morova and Haruka so that Corruptions could kill them. I moved a Mort over to the VP to get the last 2 points I needed for the win. 3-1

So I wasn't sure how it'd work out. Looking at the 3-1s, I had played Johnny Draco and Woody and the only other one was my buddy Jason running Triple Iranas. You had Bin Chin at 4-0 and I knew I'd either get paired up or get paired against Jason. I got paired up against Bin for the Mort mirror match.

Round 5 it was Morts vs Morts. We were running similar action bar cards and I think this is where I made a mistake. After thinking about it today and reflecting on the game, I should have subbed out Pitzog for that 3rd Jhuroon. That probably would have done enough damage early on to have let me pull out the win. Outside of possibly switching that out, it was a great game between us. It went to time so we went to the Overtime ticks after that. I then managed to get a kill to tie us at 4. Bin had beat me to the hill with a full health Mortimer so he had 4 VP points to my 0. The kill tied us and sent it to Double Overtime. I knew I had 1 chance to win it because at the end of the next tick he'd get the last VP he needed to win. I had a shot at a 5 health Mortimer. If I kill it, I win, if I don't, Bin wins. I roll and get 4 successes and the crit for 5 damage. I need him to miss all 3 rolls. He rolls and misses 2 but blocks 1 point of damage to put him at 1 health. That's game. It was by far the closest WOW Minis game I've ever played. As it turns out the winner of this game was the winner of the tournament as well as had I been 4-1 I think my tiebreakers would have put me into 1st.

After all was said and done I came in at 3rd. Bin was 1st and Johnny Draco was 2nd. Brian Wilson rounded out the Top 4. My goal was to hopefully place 3rd or 4th and get the PS3 as I'd been wanting one for awhile. First would have been nice too as we had Thrall as the first shot mini and it looked SWEET! But I got what I mainly wanted and that's the Spectral Tiger and PS3. I'd been thinking about getting out of the game as there's nothing going on locally with it. Heroclix is back and we've been having good showings for it lately so I'm switching back over to that. Before I got out, I wanted to get a Tiger as it would then easily cover what I'd spent on the game. I've done that and can now leave on a good note. I'll probably put my stuff up on Ebay or sell it to a few online stores later on this week.

I want to thank everyone that I played over the weekend for some good games. I want to thank Acme Games for hosting it and also the Holiday Inn for being a great place to hold it. Great times and I'll be seeing some of you guys for the Spring Realms.