Realm Champs

Anyone at their realms and reading this, please feel free to post your updates and let us know how things are going!

Good luck to all!

4 Real minis players at winterspring. Qualifying Parties were:

Michael Allen: Savin, Velen, Namrah, Graccus, Irana.
Julie VanDusky-Allen: Jaina, Phadalus, Elanna, Elendril, Vi'gor.
JPT(blackbloc): Velen, Savin, Vig'or, Namrah, Irana.
Marc(Tigersclaw): Velen, Savin, Graccus, Vi'gor, Irana.

We did two qualifiers so all of us could qualify, with the first one being a bit more serious with a defacto round-robin (3 rounds). Tomorrow will probably be more of the same. I think there were 2 TCG players who later qualified so they could get kittens tomorrow.

syphonhail wrote:4 Real minis players at winterspring. Qualifying Parties were:

Michael Allen: Savin, Velen, Namrah, Graccus, Irana.
Julie VanDusky-Allen: Jaina, Phadalus, Elanna, Elendril, Vi'gor.
JPT(blackbloc): Velen, Savin, Vig'or, Namrah, Irana.
Marc(Tigersclaw): Velen, Savin, Graccus, Vi'gor, Irana.

We did two qualifiers so all of us could qualify, with the first one being a bit more serious with a defacto round-robin (3 rounds). Tomorrow will probably be more of the same. I think there were 2 TCG players who later qualified so they could get kittens tomorrow.

Sounds like a lot of close match ups! Hope you guys have fun and we can see more info from other people's realms as well!

It was interesting at Ashenvale.

The TO did a minis qualifier on Friday. It was too bad, because the Portland minis players would've attended, but it wasn't on the schedule for any of the tournament to happen on Friday. Then on Saturday, they would only do two qualifiers even though the schedule said there would be three. We had 6 players for the first, and 4 for the second, but the TO decided we had to follow the letter of the tournament OPs doc, so we did four rounds with 6 players, and 3 rounds with 4 people, so only two people got to qualify from each of those qualifiers.

They wanted to do the finals on Saturday as well, so we couldn't do a third qualifier to qualify any of the other players. There were about 11 or 12 total people who played in minis qualifiers, but only 7 in the top 8.

There was no swiss for the top 8, just randomly assigned with one person getting a bye into the top 4 due to there only being 7.

But let me talk about the more interesting fun things!

I'll try to remember all the finals teams if I can.

Nathan (me) -- Uber Velen Wall: Velen, Savin, Graccus, Irana, Parvink (w/ poly + flamestrike on irana and breakthrough, heroic leap, sunder armor, and disarm on parvink, normal stuff for others).

Aaron #1 -- Velen, Savin, Graccus, Hoodon, Tinker Timbletin (w/ arcane flux, counter spell, 2x bulwark, a bunch of heals, etc.)

Aaron #2 -- Savin, Jezbella, Phadalus, Graccus, Irana

Guy whose name I forgot -- Dralor, Vi'gor, Savin, Graccus, Velen (I think I may be misremembering one or two of those, but I know it had the first three)

Seattle dude, forgot his name, never saw his party

Tolor Jardy -- Jaina, Tinker Timbletin, Jezbella, Savin, Vi'gor (w/ three iceblock, 3 poly, 2 flamestrike, GWE, bulwark, ?, Cat Form, Bear Form, Rejuvenation guessing a little here)


The finals match was between Tolor and I.

We both played with bulwark, but I chose to not bring Sulfuras. Started out with us moving our minis out. Vi'gor rejuved Savin. My irana got an early poly on Vi'gor ticking him to 6 outside the VP. My parvink fruitlessly attacked his savin, and he got an early poly on my parvink. Savin attacked his jaina who was outside the VP on tick 4, he chose to not ice block, and jaina went down to about 3 health.

We beat on each other for a while with him using the savin battery, me just flinging attacks. I got off an avenger's shield and a flamestrike, he got off a couple flamestrikes, all on just two minis. Through auto damage his jaina died, which were the first points. His mages were off the VP, so I scored 6 VPs at end of 5.

He continued attacking, and successfully killed a couple of my minis, but my heals kept alive a few of mine, and auto damage and velen crits were killing his mages faster than lucky crits were healing them with Vi'gor. Parvink came back online and heroic leaped into the middle of savin and his mages, and it made it difficult for the mages to attack without either losing adjacency bonuses or ticking up from interfere, and he was forced to kill Parvink.

He polymorphed my velen to attempt to stop the call of fire damage, but Graccus had the good fortune to return from the spirit healer the same tick Velen was polymorphed and cleanse the debuff.

In the end, he got some good AOEs, but heals and parvink running interference was enough to let me own the VP location, and that's what won it for me.

The first shot minis at Ashenvale were Frostmane Troll and Stormrager. I got the Stormrager.

CorayThan wrote:
The first shot minis at Ashenvale were Frostmane Troll and Stormrager. I got the Stormrager.

oooh, any pics?

Teldrassil (MI) had 3 qualifiers on Saturday, sending 10 players to day 2, one guy couldn't make it though (got called in to work at the last minute).

Here are the final standings and teams from what I can remember:
1) Derek Richardson - Valen, Nethressa, Ruby, Marlowe, Victoria Jaton
2) Nick Range - Valen, Nethressa, Ruby, Marlowe, Starbreeze
3) Duane Kietzman - Valen, Savin, Tinker, Phadalus, Dizdemona
4) Bryan Berezowsky - Valen, Savin, Tinker, Phadalus, Jezbella
5) Jim Nardecchia (me) - Jaina, Savin, Tinker, Phadalus, Starbreeze
6) Scott Watson - Parvink, Roria, Dralor, Bregina, Starbreeze
7) Brian (last name escapes me) - Parvink, Savin, Irana, Jezbella, and a friend
8) Can't remember his name, played a Vashj team that I can't remember
9) Can't remember his name either, had to drop because he had to head back to Ohio, played a Jaina team, I think Savin was in there.

Derek and Nick came up with that team together, Nick played the same team as Derek in day one but swapped out Victoria for Starbreeze to better suit his playstyle. I know at first glance it looks crazy, but it's a Valen hating Valen team, and they played it really well. I'll post cards if anyone really cares.

The one thing everyone could agree on at the tournament was that this game deserves better, and we all hope it continues on somehow.

Update from Winterspring.

Day 2 was a bit more interesting. There were indeed 6 players; we played 4 rounds of swiss and cut to the top 4 for prizes.

Teams and Swiss Records:
Michael Allen (4-0): Savin, Velen, Graccus, Irana, and Parvink. ABCs: Flash of Light x2, Sulfuras, Bulwark, Cleanse, Avenger's Shield, Polymorph, Flamestrike, Chain Heal, Wrath of Air Totem, Purge, Sunder Armor, Heroic Leap, Disarm, Breakthrough.
Jean-Philippe Thériault (2-2): Savin, Velen, Irana, Vi'gor, and Namrah.
Julie Vandusky-Allen: Bloodscale Wavecaller, Razaani Nexus Stalker, Slitherblade Tidehunter, Blindlight Murloc,and Crashing Wave-spirit. ABCs: Iceblockx4, Counterspellx3, Polymorphx3, Ice Barrier, Hunter's Mark, Viper Sting, Dodge, Call Old bones
Marc Fallahi(2-2): Savin, Velen, Irana, Vi'gor, and Graccus.
Joe (2-2): Jaina, Ryno, Kaustron, Beren, Umbrage.
Tony (0-4): Horde stuff.

Both Joe and Tony were TCG players looking for some easy times in the minis game, so when they qualified during day 1, they used their prize boosters to construct their 5v5 teams. It was quite amazing that Joe pulled a near Jaina zoo from those boosters.

My build is probably very similar to Nathan's as we had discussed and played the team over vassal. Heroic leap was his addition not included in my original build that made parvink pretty amazing in my matchups. If the pool was larger, I probably would have dropped disarm for something else. I am used to having iceblock on Irana for warlocks and other matchups, so that may have been the 15th card.

Top 4 was Me v. Marc, and Julie versus JPT. My matchup against Marc included consistently bad rolls for Marc that allowed me an easy path to victory. Julie had shutout JPT in the early swiss rounds, but it appeared that JPT learned a few things for his second attempt at an iceblock team. Julie ran the hunter as an answer to Vi'gor (hunter's mark stops stealthed attacks) and Irana (Viper sting to prevent a second AE). The game, from what I could tell and was told, ended up still being close, partly due to Jean-Phillippe not having hate for iceblocks on his sideboard.

Finals had me versus JPT. It had some of the early components of a Velen v. Velen match (read: painfully long). An early heroic leap on tick two netted me 4 hits and dislodged Savin's Bulwark for 8 ticks. This, combined with some favorable dice and Namrah not criting for JPT when he needed it, quickly allowed me a sizeable lead that kept growing until I won.

The first shots were a choice between Skeletal Priest and Mojo Mender Ja'nah. I grabbed the skeletal priest and now have 2/3rds of a monster team made of first shots. Hopefully this picture is public:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=11385710&id=571225264

Great stuff thanks guys!

The Skeletal Priest is awesome looking!

Sorry you got called into Work Jim, that kinda blows.

Sounds like it was good times all around though, I can't wait for what Blizzard has in store for us...

Steelwing wrote:Great stuff thanks guys!

The Skeletal Priest is awesome looking!

Sorry you got called into Work Jim, that kinda blows.

Sounds like it was good times all around though, I can't wait for what Blizzard has in store for us...

You're the second guy to think that was an "I" instead of a "1", so I've changed how it reads

Forgot to mention our first shots were Zomm and Omedius, first Omedius I've ever seen with a straight staff, of course I didn't take a picture of them

I don't know which one Derek took.

Top 8 that I can remember at Tanaris were:

Matt Whaite - Jaina tick up shennanigans.
Corle Huffman - Jaina
Ariel Levi - Jaina
Norvic Santos - Velen
Me (Evan Hashimoto) - Varimithras
Two guys named Tim and someone I forgot. - Random monsters, vashj, and ???

Sorry if I forgot you or misspelled your name.


In hind sight, jaina was the best choice.

Hey guys,
Feralas top 4 were
Chris(me)-Velen, Phadalus, Graccus, Vi'gor, Savin
Jared-Jaina, Jezbella, Savin, Hodoon, Phadalus
Ben-Velen, Parvink, Tinker, Savin, Graccus
John-Hulok, Magistrix Enaria, Magistrix Kiala, Lotherin, (sorry John can't remember your 5th piece)

Our first shots were Graccus and Nathressa and we had 13 people total playing, though one player dropped after the 2nd round of Swiss on Sunday.

Ohmsford wrote:Hey guys,
Feralas top 4 were
Chris(me)-Velen, Phadalus, Graccus, Vi'gor, Savin
Jared-Jaina, Jezbella, Savin, Hodoon, Phadalus
Ben-Velen, Parvink, Tinker, Savin, Graccus
John-Hulok, Magistrix Enaria, Magistrix Kiala, Lotherin, (sorry John can't remember your 5th piece)

Our first shots were Graccus and Nathressa and we had 13 people total playing, though one player dropped after the 2nd round of Swiss on Sunday.

5th piece was Wilton Thorne

I'll be doing a more extensive write up of my team selection and experiences in Feralas later on. Was a great tourney and had a lot of fun. Hopefully we will be able to have more in the future and Congrats on the win Chris!

Thanks for that, had fun playing with all of you guys. I'll write up the final a little bit later today or tomorrow as well, was an interesting rematch and a lot of fun. Glad you guys made it home safe.

Parvink is definitly the fig you want in the Velen mirror. If I could replay the event I would play Velen, Savin, Parvink, Namrah, Irana. IMO in the mirror you really want the cheapest version, as the match mostly ends up being a bunch of trades (I kill you, you kill me). In order, the mirror revolves around:

a) whoever kills Velen
b) whoever scores more center VPs
c) whoever has the cheapest team

If both players are able to tie up a) and b), c) ends up mattering a lot (as in my Swiss game against Marc). Parvink is a big headache though and if you expect the mirror to be your entire field, she's better than Vi'gor (I think Vi'gor is much better in a random field though... it's more versatile, giving you Taunt as well with Bear Form but Stealth with Cat Form if needed against clothies, and access to Tranquility). The fact I commented at length on the team on this blog meant syphonhail and Julie knew what we were going to play but we had to edge our bets. For instance, I didn't have any hate for the Ice Block team because it takes so much sideboard space and forces you using Graccus (so you can afford the slot for Cleanse) and I needed to have cards for other potential matchups.

In any case if you're very careful the Ice Block match is winnable, as I did beat Julie in the semi-finals. You can't really stop Vi'gor from being Hunter's Mark'd but you can probably protect Irana from Viper Sting if you expect it. The whole match revolves around the Murloc, as it allows LOS to your Flamestrike casters. You also need to always have 3 or 4 characters around the VP area.

In the Swiss though I had played around Flamestrike all game (seriously, 3 mages... it was a big concern) which meant I was not positioning properly for the Ice block / Counterspell suite, as proper screening would put me into spots where I'd give all these triple Flamestrike opportunities. Did not expect the Hunter cards at all. After my Swiss match I had to go and tell Marc about the cards because I think neither of us remembered that HM removes the possibility of Stealth.

My Swiss against Michael was a lot closer than the finals. I did a couple of mistakes early and at that point I needed to do desperate moves to have a shot at coming back, and as they failed that meant I ended up even more behind.

All of my swiss games were pretty close. I think a long day + dice made a huge difference in the top four. 4 Rounds of Swiss and breaking to the top 4 for 6 players makes for a long and redundant tournament.

Also, I need to give some credit to Ming for Parvink, as we did chat about it a week or so prior to the tournament and he urged her inclusion before my first build of the team.

Yeah, we actually came up with the teams independently. I like Graccus because for some MUs Sulfuras is even more full of auto-win, and with irana, parvink (breakthrough and heroic leap), graccus shield, and purge on velen, you have more than enough to deal with ice blocks. And I actually played w/ cleanse and avenger's shield on graccus in my final game, and did indeed cleanse poly off of my velen!

Also, I found parvink ridiculously useful against the savin battery DPS mages, because of the way taunt, interference, and heroic leap hurt their positioning so much.

I'm gonna go out on a limb, and say I had the most imaginative team of all this realm season. Everyone was going DPS, so I decided control would be all that much more fun. (At least for me MUWAHAHAHHAHA!)

Here is my breakdown and the cards the used:
*= Sideboard

Savin (Crusader Aura, Hammer of Justice) *Bulwark of Azzinoth -Never Used it
Jaina (Water Elemental and Polymoprh)
Tinker (Arcane Flux, Frost Nova) *Sheep & Flamestrike - Never Used them
Roria (Heroic Leap, Breakthrough) *Thunderclap - Used 2 Games
Nathressa (Sap, Gouge) - *Evasion -Used for a game or two

I had at least 3 games where thanks to heroic leap/breakthrough I was able to surround tinker with 4 opponents figures. Nothing screams "MUWAHAHAHHAA" more than that little bastard singly handedly locking down the enemy forces. 6 dice and arcane flux meant it went off a lot.

I had originally planned on going with Jezebella instead of Nathressa, but I think the addition of the rogue was the single best thought I had. Might not come as a suprise, but I decided on adding her at about 3 am Friday night after a good night of vodka and pot. >=) Her addition allowed me to play the game however I pleased, by forcing my opponent to deal with her immediately. And watching your opponent throw 2-3 attacks into her was great.... her sap would screw savin immensely, then the other characters would waste time on killing her while my Savin and crew would crusader on over and lock everyone in place. Nothing like tick 10 coming around and your opponent only getting to ready 4 cards because thats all he could use. >=)

Hope to see some of yall at upcoming DMF's if everything keeps on trucking.


HUZZAH

Haha, that team's great. You must've had to be careful not to kill too many of their minis so you didn't accidentally let yours die from Velen.

Lets just say i powered through it. lol Pretty sure I gave norvic like 3 kills, including jaina, because I forgot about velen. Lost the elemental a few times when I really didn't want to lol. I was lucky to win that one. 2 for 7 Nathressa saves the day!

Silverpine decided it wanted to be different so we had two draft pods of 5 with a total 4 rounds Swiss.

Can't remember the parties too well, but our top two was Andrew Burns vs Nik Topham in a VERY close match....(Nik had Ji'Lan, a Wavecaller, and Graccus; meanwhile Andrew was fielding a party that included the Ogre Ninja, the Hellcaller, and I THINK Zazu) In the end Burnsy came out on top for the UK and Ireland.

Well...technically we didn't have a realm championship...but being as the people from the new UK distributor had booked the venue, bought the prizes, and advertised it we thought we might as well go ahead with the Zapped Giants open.

Congrats on still holding a tournament and getting a decent turnout over in Silverpine. I think we are still missing 2 realm reports from the US.

wetlands did have a "realm championship". sadly, there where only 3 players for minis, so we had to skip it and join in with the tcg-part. which I ould have t8'ed if it wern't for those blasted belgian waffles... curses! instead I became 9th with a margin of 1 tie-breaker point .

I would have loved to play some minis though. Not that I had tested my party much, but it would have crushed velen walls all day. the list:

Daggum ty'gor (expose, kick, cold blood)
crushridge ogre (stoneclaw, earth shock, chain lightning)
bouderfist warrior (cleave, sunder, something)
goblin shredder (fog, buzzsaw, scroll of might)
ethereal crypt raider (ring of eternal life, sunder, thunderclap)


F

So, we still need the following to be reported:

Durotar (I have an idea of what went down, but would prefer to see a post here as to keep some type of record)
Azshara
Mulgore