My First Spoils Open Beta

I played in my first Spoils Open Beta tournament this weekend at my local card shop. I thought my pool of cards was a little below average but workable. I did get Ashes of Zenobia, which I thought was powerful, but I didnt' realize at first just how good it was. It combo'd well with my Nasty Butler and also allowed me to continually bounce my blocker to hold off a 7/7 Thief Doyen until I could get a better answer. Ominous Oozling was pretty much the kill card in all my
games. I ended up not losing a game.

From a strategy perspective, I'm still getting used to the gameplay. One thing I noticed was that at the beginning of most of my turns, I found myself almost always choosing to develop a resource, while most of the other players were choosing to draw. I think I only used the beginning of turn to draw three cards all day. I'm interested in what other people tend to do with their beginning of turn. Do you mostly draw, do you play resources, do you start out playing resources and then switch to drawing after you've developed a certain amount of resources. I realize this is pretty situational, but I was surprised at how often I chose the resource option even very late in a game.

Overall the game is a lot of fun to play and also requires a high amount of skill. There was one unfortunate soul who couldn't read many of his gearsmith cards. Perhaps he's just not quite enough of a nerd to play this game. Everyone's overall impression was positive, and I think the game won a few players over this weekend. I think there is one more Open Beta here before the set releases in November.