Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. Stay safe tonight. I'll be back on Tuesday to start some matchup analysis of the main decks for Regionals.

Regionals Primer-Part 3

Today I want to talk about a deck that I think is the best deck in the format. I know what you're thinking. I've already covered all the Top 8 decks from GenCon so how can I not have covered the best deck. It's really very simple. Despite being the best deck, the deck I'm going to talk about is not widely played for several reasons. I'll address those reasons before I dive into the deck itself. The reasons the best deck in the format is not a popular choice are, cost of building the deck, lack of fun playing the deck, and the amount of time your rounds will take. Over a third of the cards in the deck are rare and/or epic. It's an incredibly expensive deck to put together unless you are the world's greatest pack cracker. The deck, despite winning a lot, is just not very much fun to play. I believe if you're going to be playing 7 or 8 rounds during the day, the deck you play should be good, but you should also enjoy playing it or you'll be so burned out by the end of the day you won't care anymore. Finally, the deck takes a long time to win so most of your matches will go to time, which means no breaks during the day. It also puts you in the precarious position of being virtually unable to win a game 3 that starts after time has expired. In case, you haven't already figured it out, the deck I'm talking about is solo Paladin, or as it has been affectionately termed on the net, Gold Farmer.

First, let's discuss the proper build of Gold Farmer. Obviously there will be no allies. So that just leaves us with equipment, abilities, and quests. For our equipment suite, we're going to want a healthy supply of armor since all the damage our opponent can unleash will be for Graccus. We'll start off with the two most efficient pieces of armor, Golem Skull Helm and Draconian Deflector. The next piece of armor is one of the best that this deck has to offer, Herod's Shoulder. The deck needs four of these to operate at peak efficiency. From there, we've still got a few slots to fill. Girdle of Uther serves two purposes. Early on, it fills another armor slot and prevents two more damage. Then as the game starts to drag on and you have lots of resources, it serves as a second attack per turn. You don't want to play more than two and you can probably get by with just one. In the hand slot, I like 2 Stronghold Gauntlets. They make all your opponent's equipment removal take them out first, plus they give all your attacks a little extra. For the chest armor slot, I like Truesilver Breastplate, but Deathdealer Breastplate and Invulnerable Mail are both options. I prefer Truesilver because it helps in the Shaman and Warrior matchups where they will try to race you with their Annihilators that get through your armor. One last important piece of armor that will give you tons of options later is Lionheart Helm. I know you can't use it and Golem Skull Helm at the same time, but Lionheart Helm will give you so many options against Warriors and Shamans since it allows all your weapons to get through their Draconian Deflectors. I'll talk more about this in a moment.

Next up is our weapon selection. Our main weapon of choice is going to be the Annihilator due to its cheap price and ability to pierce armor. If you expect fewer Warrior and Shaman decks, you can make Krol Blade your main weapon and drop to one Annihilator since the one resource you save striking can make a big difference while the game is still in doubt. After the main weapon, we're going to run a toolbox of great weapons due to the search ability of Herod's Shoulder. In the rush matchup a Flame Wrath is usually the death blow, so we'll run one of those. We have access to Seal of Protection and Seal of Wisdom, so Thrash Blade is a good option since it will trigger them twice per turn, so we'll put one of those in. Sword of Zeal may be the first broken card in this game, so we might as well use one of those two. If you play Sword of Zeal, you may want to play Deathdealer Breastplate as your chest armor since it will essentially allow you to get two free resources per turn. Wraith Scythe is another good card in the Warrior and Shaman matches (and can also come out after your Flame Wrath has cleared the board to undo early damage against rush decks) because it's another way to stop their Annihilators. This and Thrash Blade are the reasons that Lionheart Helm is in for the Shaman and Warrior matchups since they are good answers to the Annihilators plus armor that they have. I also like one Aracnite Reaper for the casters to just beat them down in a couple turns with Girdle of Uther. So we're looking at something like this:

3 Draconian Deflector
3 Golem Skull Helm
4 Herod's Shoulder
2 Girdle of Uther
2 Stronghold Gauntlets
1 Deathdealer Breastplate
2 Lionheart Helm

3 Annihilator
1 Flame Wrath
1 Thrash Blade
1 Wraith Scythe
1 Sword of Zeal
1 Arcanite Reaper

Next, we're on to the abilities. The first ability we're putting in is one of the best in the game, Holy Shield. Early this serves as a removal spell since you don't have much to do on turn two anyway. Later, it's great against Fury and Tewa Wildmane who I see popping up in more and more decklists on the internet for late game shenanigans. The ability to prevent damage and deal it back is one of a kind in this game on a single card, and we're definitely glad to have it. Since we don't have anything to do on turn 2 we need some more abilities to keep us going. Hammer of Justice is a great card in the rush matchup as it counters two attacks from one ally and replaces itself in your hand. With 4 of each we should be able to almost always play one of them before we start setting up our equipment. Next, we'll look at the Paladins Seals and Auras. The two Seals are both very good. Seal of Wisdom let's us draw a card every time we deal combat damage with a weapon. In combination with Thrash Blade or Girdle of Uther, Seal of Wisdom tends to overwhelm other control decks with 2 and 3 extra cards per turn. Seal of Protection helps undo any damage a rush deck did early to make sure they don't fire any huge Aimed Shots your way, but it's more important in the Warrior and Shaman matchup. Since they both have access to Annihilator your armor doesn't do much in those matchups. The Shaman specifically may commit to just racing you since you will probably need to kill off his allies as he plays them and he can keep hitting you with his Annihilator. Seal of Protection essentially takes the Annihilator down to 1 ATK and in combination with Wraith Scythe shuts it off completely. The 2 Auras are both fine cards, but neither really seems to help a matchup where we need some help. Retribution is good against rush decks but too expensive to really change a game there. There is one huge vulnerability in this deck. Medoc Spiritwarden + Moira Darkheart. So we need a way to kill Medoc. Vanquish is pretty much our only option here, so it has to go in. It also kills nasty Lorekeeper Dorians before they get a chance to deck us. We're going to round out our abilities with 3 Shattering Blow. With some decks the only way they have to deal damage to you is Annihilator. Removing it is basically winning. Before I move on, there are 2 abilities that I see in most Paladin decks that didn't make it into this one. They are Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection. Divine Shield didn't make it because it costs 3 resources and that's the time you want to start bringing your armor and weapons online. By the time you have three open resources again they shouldn't be able to deal damage to you anyway. Blessing of Protection didn't make it because it would be used on turn 2 to get you further along into the game but Holy Shield is better since it removes an ally Hammer of Justice draws a card. Divine Shield can go in the sideboard for the Warrior match to stop Mortal Strikes, but you should be able to stop quite a bit of the damage unless it's something like triple Heroic Strike, triple Mortal Strike. If you do side them in for the Warrior matchup remember that Mortal Strike is an instant, but Heroic Strike isn't. If you wait until the first Mortal Strike to play Divine Shield, Shield will stop that one, but they can play more in response. You need to be aware what it will take to kill you. If it only takes one Heroic Strike, play Divine Shield in response to Heroic Strike so that they will either have to Mortal Strike you before Heroic Strike resolves or waste the Heroic Strike. If it takes 2 Heroic Strikes to kill you wait until the second one and play Shield in response to the second Heroic Strike. Whew, let's move on.

To finish up this deck we're going to need some quests. We've got 16 slots left which I think is a good number for a control deck to run. We're obviously going to start off with 4 Big Game Hunter. From there, I like 1 Blueleaf Tubers just in case. We could run In Dreams, but I'm not sure we would ever have 8 resources for it. Plus by that time Seal of Wisdom should be drawing us plenty of cards anyway. Zapped Giants will miss a lot since less than a third of the deck is abilities. Right now, we have absolutely no plays for turn one so we should look to the cheap quests. A Donation of Wool and It's a Secret to Everybody will fit in nicely to make sure we are using all of our resources every turn early in the game. So that finished off our quests.

So here's the final decklist:

3 Draconian Deflector
3 Golem Skull Helm
4 Herod's Shoulder
2 Girdle of Uther
2 Stronghold Gauntlets
1 Deathdealer Breastplate
2 Lionheart Helm

3 Annihilator
1 Flame Wrath
1 Thrash Blade
1 Wraith Scythe
1 Sword of Zeal
1 Aracnite Reaper

4 Holy Shield
4 Hammer of Justice
3 Seal of Wisdom
2 Seal of Protection
3 Vanquish
3 Shattering Blow

4 Big Game Hunter
3 Sunken Treasure
1 Blueleaf Tubers
4 A Donation of Wool
4 It's a Secret to Everyone

For the sideboard we should probably run some Burn Aways. Another thing I like to do is bring in Lady Jaina Proudmoore and King Magni Bronzebeard out of the sideboard. After game one your opponent will likely board out all of their ally removal meaning they will have no answers to the Alliance's big nasties. Then if it goes to three they have the tough decision of bringing their ally removal back in or leaving it out. If you think they bring it back in, take the allies back out. Then they are left with dead ally removal. This sideboard also gets to basically cheat. If you win game one, bring in Hearthstone and just set up your board for game three. If you can win game two, by all means do it, but if you can't just concede and start game three with a free weapon and some armor.

That's it. What I think is the best deck in the format. I still don't think many people will play it, especially at Regionals. It's very expensive to build, and a lot of people won't want to put a lot of money into a deck that they won't play for fun at the kitchen table. The deck is no fun to play, so unless you want to spend a miserable 8-10 hours at your Regionals look elsewhere. And, if you want a lunch break, this deck is definitely not for you. But, if you have the cards (or the money) and going to Nationals is really important, take a hard look at this deck because it is very good.

Regionals Primer-Part 2

There are four decks I want to cover today, those being the non-rush decks that made top 8 at either Regionals or the Darkmoon Faire at GenCon. But first, I would like to say that I've done some more playtesting with the rush decks as opposed to against them. I said in Part 1 that if I were going to play rush, I would play Alliance Mage, but after playing with the decks I think that Krol Blade in particular is too good to not have, so I think the Alliance Hunter is probably the rush deck I would play.

Moving along, we're going to talk about a deck that took one of the 16 top 8 slots at GenCon but that slot was the top one in the Darkmoon Faire, Oliver Schmid's Horde/Shaman deck. This deck is very good against rush decks. It has several cards that are just nightmares for rush players. The first is Searing Totem. It will almost always kill one ally and if you can manage to sneak it in on turn 2 when you're on the play, they will be forced to remove it before they can play any more allies. Next up are the protection cards Draconian Deflector and Ghost Wolf. Each one gives you the option to essentially negate one attack. The Deflector also gives your hero protector so he can save any of your allies that look like they may get taken down in combat. The allies in this deck are also very good vs. the rush decks. Taz'Dingo may be the best ally in the current metagame. Ophelia Barrows is a pain, Kulan Earthguard serves double duty attackign and defending and Zy'lah Manslayer is usually the nail in the coffin for any kind of swarm deck. But the beauty of this deck is its midgame. It has a great matchup vs. the rush decks obviously but it can also play well into the midgame with cards like Thunderhead Hippogryph and Kulan Earthguard being able to get some decent damage through the midgame until the Annihilators and Manslayers can finish off the opponent. One card that has been surprisingly very good in control on control matchups is Searing Totem. A lot of games tend to reach quasi-stalemates. Once the stall sets in, Searing Totem can sit behind your wall of protectors and force your opponent to get aggressive since it can effectively be 2 points of damage per turn. One last thing to note about this deck is its relative cheapness to build. It is mostly uncommons with no epics so the total price tag for a builder is much smaller than some of the other top decks. The only weakness I see is against decks designed to go well into the late game and bring out the Alliance heavy hitters. Vanquish helps, but other than that there aren't any ways to stop Bronzebeard and Proudmoore. I expect to see a lot of Shaman decks at Regioanls.

The next deck to talk about is the Warlock deck. The one that took top 8 was an Alliance based Warlock deck. This deck actually passed on 2 of the Warlock's top cards against rush decks, Grimdron and Rain of Fire. Rain of Fire is probably not quite good enough given the rest of the deck's power vs. the rush, but I think that Grimdron should go in if you plan on playing the deck at Regionals because there will be a lot of allies that simply die to Grimdron. The warlock also has access to one of the best card drawing spells in the game in Life Tap. The Warlock deck may have the most balance from the mid to late game as Infernal is a huge threat that can end the game quickly. But if they can survive the Infernal they get to deal with the Alliance's brutal endgame. Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker, Lady Jaina Proudmoore and King Magni Bronzebeard. I personally prefer to play the Horde warlock so I can play Taz'Dingo. The ally selection I use is very similar to the Shaman plus my pets. I think both the decks are very good vs. the rush but I think the Warlock might have a slight edge vs. the Shaman with Infernal, better card drawing, and Soul Link.

The next deck that made top 8 and should be popular at Regionals (for any who can afford to build it) is the Mage control deck. The idea behind this deck is similar to the Alliance Warlock. Survive the early game and then let the Alliance's big baddies mop things up. This deck will tend to make more one for one trades early in the game seeking to gain card advantage through card drawing. Frost Nova is an all star vs. the rush decks. Unlike the Shaman and Warlock decks, however, this one is not going to go easy on your wallet. With several Epic characters and the very expensive rares, Counterspell and Frost Nova, the price tag on this deck can get over $400 easily. Overall, the above three decks are going to overall be very similar in overall agendas (despite being different in how they accomplish those agendas). They are all very good vs. rush decks and are going to be pretty even vs. each other. The Mage deck will have one advantage though having a better matchup vs. the Warrior conbo decks which I am about to talk about. I will go into deck specific matchups later in the week, but having access to Blink and Counterspell is very nice when your opponent goes for the Heroic Strike/Mortal Strike tomfoolery that brings us to the last deck of this post, the Gorebelly combo deck.

I call it a combo deck because it so frequently just sits there until building up several Heroic Strikes/Mortal Strikes/Rak Skyfurys and then unleashes 30+ damage in one turn. This deck plays the most like a combo deck of any deck currently in World of Warcraft. One thing that's a little scary to me though is Sword of Zeal with the Deathdealer's Breastplates this deck runs. It could get a little scary. The Gorebelly deck has a worse matchup vs. the rush decks than any of the other decks above. The matchup still isn't bad, just closer than the others. Where the Gorebelly deck really shines is against the control decks. With its ability to explode with large amounts of unhealable, unpreventable damage makes it a beast vs. the decks that want the game to last a long time. Since these decks apply little pressure, the Gorebelly player can sit back and build up the perfect hand to do as much damage as possible. With a few armors, he can sit almost untouchable until the very late game against these control decks. While the control decks are saving up for Magni Bronzebeard, the Warrior deck is playing for something like triple Heroic Strike, triple Mortal Strike. If you think that rush players may be scared away by all the hate and that control players will come out in full force, this is a good metagame choice. If you think there will be a lot of rush, you should probably look for something else, because this matchup is too close vs. rush to expect to beat a flood of them all day.

Well, that wraps up part 2 of my regionals primer. In part 3, I will talk about a few decks that may not have shown up in top 8's yet, but may still be popular choices for players at Regionals. Then I'll move on to matchup analyses for the decks.

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to take this time to wish everyone a merry Christmas. You can expect part 2 of my regionals primer on Tuesday.

Regionals Primer-Part 1

The first wave of Regional championships is coming up January 13th. That's just about three weeks away. I'm here to try to help you get prepared for your chance to qualify for Nationals. Today in Part 1 of my Regionals primer I'm going to devote this whole post to talking about the deck to beat in the current metagame, the weenie rush. I'm going to talk about the different variants of the deck, ways to possibly improve it for those of you playing it, and finally ways to beat it.

In the only 2 major tournaments we have seen so far there were 4 Elendril rush decks (one of which won the Regionals at GenCon) 2 Sen'Zir Beastwalker decks, 2 Ta'Zo decks, and 1 Litori Frostburn deck in Top 8's. That's 9 out of 16 spots in the Top 8 of those 2 tournaments.
Basically you have 2 decisions to make when you build your deck. The first choice is Alliance or Horde. The second choice is Mage or Hunter. You could make these decisions in the reverse order choosing class first and faction second. I'm going to talk about what each unique choice here gives you in your deck.

Your first decision is Alliance or Horde. The real question here is Elusive or Ferocity. Alliance also has access to Leeroy Jenkins. The Elusive vs. Ferocity debate has been an ongoing one. I will be casting my ballot for Elusive here. When you're playing a rush deck your goal is simple. Deal as much damage as fast as possible. The easiest way to do this is to keep your allies alive. There are three basic ways to kill allies. 1) Remove them directly with abilities 2) Attack them 3) Kill them when they attack. Since your allies will usually be heading straight for the hero the last point is usually done with protectors. With the Elusive allies you remove one of the three ways to kill your allies meaning your allies will generally live longer. Living longer means getting to attack more. Elusive gives the rush player the ability to decide which allies get to trade for other allies. When your opponent plays an ally that you really need to kill, such as Freya Lightsworn you have the option to attack and kill her, but the opponent is not given the same courtesy. If you decide one of his allies is of little significance, that ally isn't going to do much to disrupt your gameplan since it won't be able to remove your Elusive allies. I think the Horde does have the advantage in the faction only Quest department as Torek's Assault is superior to the Defias Brotherhood. In rush decks Brotherhood borders on a win more card. If you have 4 allies in play, your opponent doesn't seem to be doing much to stop you. You should already be well on your way to a win here, so completing Brotherhood will rarely result in you winning a game you would otherwise have lost. If you are losing the game, you won't ever meet the requirement of the 4 allies to complete the Brotherhood anyway. Torek's Assault on the other hand will get played in many games where the outcome is still in doubt. It only costs one resource for one card. The only prerequisite is that one of your allies has damaged your opponent's hero. If you're not dealing any damage with your allies well...one card certainly won't be turning that around any time soon. One other thing to consider when choosing which side you will play is the Alliance heroes flip abilities are worthless and nearly worthless for these decks. Ta'Zo has a very relevent flip ability and SB can get a Fury back in the mid-to-late game. The final thing to consider when choosing your faction is Leeroy Jenkins. I think Leeroy deserves a special note here. I will say that I personally am not a huge fan of Leeroy. I think he is just too situational. I can't imagine a time I will want to play him on turn 4 and essentially lock myself out of attacking the next turn. So he is basically a burn spell. You only want to play him if he is actually going to kill your opponent right then. Even if your opponent is within 6 points of death, playing Leeroy is still a big risk unless they are tapped out. Any instant speed removal spell or healing ability will essentially result in a Time Walk for your opponent (should a say a Chromie here?) since Leeroy will lock down your allies next turn. I personally would not be playing Leeroy in anything that has allies that aren't named Leeroy Jenkins.

The other choice you have to make is Hunter or Mage. As an aside, I think that Warrior is a possible choice as a hero here, but for the purposes of this post I'm just talking about the rush decks that have been in the top 8 of GenCon events. First let's look at what the Hunter offers. The main thing you gain from playing a Hunter is access to the brutal pets Bloodclaw and Fury. The Mage has no pets at all so getting the only 3/1 for 1 in the game and also a 5/3 for 5 with Fury are bargains for a deck looking to serve up the beatdown. The Hunter also gives you access to Krol Blade. With a weapon you will have a recurring source of non-ally damage. The Mage doesn't have any weapons that are meant to be attacked with. The Hunter also has 3 more health which can be the difference in the game against a Mage rush deck. So where does the Mage catch up? In its casting ability of course. Playing a Mage gives you access to cheap removal that you won't find in a Hunter deck. Fire Blast is the most cost effective burn spell in the game. You get Polymorph for problem protectors (Sarmoth anyone?), you can go up to Frost Shock and Fireball if you want. You also have Counterspell for Frost Nova and Rain of Fire which are two of this decks least favorite cards. You can even have Frost Novas in the board for the mirror. If you can find room you also get Mana Agate to keep yourself from running out of steam. The Hunter abilities aren't anything to write home about. Elendril lets you play Aimed Shot which is less efficient than Fireball and will rarely do more damage with these decks. Arcane Shot is OK. I think Ravenous Bite is underrated, but abilities aren't why you play a Hunter. To sum this all up, the Hunter is more savagely efficient where the Mage gives itself more options. Having said all of this, if I were playing rush, I would choose Alliance/Mage. Alliance for the superior allies and Mage for the extra versatility despite being possibly a turn to a turn and a half slower on average.

What should you do if you are going to play this deck at Regionals? The first thing is expect a lot of hate. There are going to be Grimdrons, Searing Totems, Sarmoths, Protectors, Frost Novas, Flame Wraths, and every other card you have nightmares about all over the place. I would suggest deciding which build is right for you and just playing it over and over and over until you know how to play the deck expertly. You will win some games on the power of the deck alone but if you want to survive all the hate you simply have to play the deck at a near perfect level or you simply won't have a chance. If you're not playing rush, you better be able to beat it. If you can't, don't expect to have a very good record at the end of the day. If you can't beat any other deck, beat this one.

Having said that, how do you beat the swarm of weenies? The 2 decks that seem to have the best matchups vs. this deck are Oliver Schmid's Darkmoon Faire winning Shaman deck, and the Warlock deck. I will talk about these decks in detail in my next post. Mage control decks are also good due to the presence of Frost Nova. Taz'dingo is a great card against rush decks because he will generally kill an ally when he comes into play and then trade with one in combat as well. The Shaman deck and Warlock deck both have an overwhelming array of cards that are really bad for rush decks. Searing Totem, Taz'dingo and big-bodied protectors allowed Oliver Schmid to go 10-1 vs. Hunter rush at the DF. Add in the Annihilator allowing him to kill allies that attack his hero and the Draconian Deflector essentially denying one attack per turn and Ghost Wolf cancelling another you should see why this deck is so good against the rush. The Warlock deck has its own fair share of problem cards for the rush player. A turn 1 Grimdron is very bad news as it will set a Hunter player back at least 2 turns and a Mage deck one turn assuming either has the answer in Arcane Shot or Fire Blast. If they can't remove Grimdron, he basically wins the game by himself. If they do clear Grimdron out, then there's the next pet on the ladder, Sarmoth. While Sarmoth might not be as bad for the rush as Grimdron, he is still a problem. He will usually require two attacks to kill and will regularly take one ally with him when he dies. He doesn't outright dominate the board like Grimdron would but he functions as a virtual Time Walk getting you into the mid-game. Turn 4 can see another nightmare card out of the Warlock player, Rain of Fire. While this card wasn't played in the Warlock deck that Top 8'd the Faire it's, a better call now with a more defined metagame. It will only be in play one turn, or two at the most, but that will be enough to decimate your opponent's board. After the Rain ends, we see the final nightmare for the rush player, Infernal. Everything that Rain of Fire did, Infernal does in a 6/6 body. If the Warlock player is still at a respectable health total when Infernal comes out, the game is over. The only possible answer to Infernal is a Mage with Polymorph. The Warlock ability Steal Essence is also a real nuisance since it kills an ally an nullifies one attack with its heal ability.

Overall, the rush decks are a very powerful, very fast, and not too expensive to build (unless you want 4 Leeroys). I think they will make up around 25%-35% of most metagames with anything up to 50% not shocking. They will take their share of Nationals invites through numbers alone, but there will be a lot of hate for them. Only the very well prepared will be able to navigate the sea of hate. Today, I talked about the deck to beat (not necessarily the best, just the one that will get played the most). Next time, I will talk about the decks that I think will show up in big numbers, just not as big as the rush decks.