Let's Talk About Limited

We still haven't heard anything about the next round of Regionals, but with most expecting them to be before Through the Dark Portal comes out, I wouldn't be surprised to see them be Sealed Deck since we've already played one round of Regionals with the same card pool that will be available to us I don't foresee us playing Constructed again. I could be very wrong. There's a first time for everything after all. With that in mind, let's start taking a look at World of Warcraft Limited Play and how to build a sealed deck.

It's all about the allies silly.

With a limited card pool to choose from, and only 30 cards in a deck, allies are generally going to be your main win conditions. I think right around half of your deck needs to be allies, but a up to 20 allies doesn't seem bad either. I think 13 is probably a bare minimum, and it that case you better have at least one weapon and some really good abilities. You're going to want a decent mana curve here with the bulk of your allies being in the 2-4 drop range, generally only playing one drops if they have relevent out of combat abilities like Mezzik. I think the only one-drops worth including for their combat abilities are Apprentice Teep (Elusive is good in Limited) and Bloodclaw. You would like to have 2-3 allies in the 5+ cost range as these are generally your heavy hitters. However, only play your best 2 or 3 big allies as any more will just sit around while you die waiting to get to 5 resources.

Okay, I've got my allies, what now?

The next thing to look at is going to be if you got any equipment, especially a good weapon. Good equipment will win games in Sealed Deck play. There are just so few ways to get rid of weapons and they are re-usable sources of damage. The biggest advantage here is the ability to trade your health for your opponent's allies. This is a point that needs to be made. A lot of players view their health as a horde of treasure that they don't want to let one piece of get away, when in reality your health is another resource that when managed properly can win you games you wouldn't otherwise have won. Sealed deck, even more than Constructed, generally boils down to card advantage. Which player makes the most favorable trades. Using a Krol Blade and some health points to eliminate three or four of your opponent's allies is one of the best trades you will be able to make in this game.

What about abilities and quests?

First let's talk about abilities. You're going to want to separate your abilities by class. One recommendation I will make is if one of your factions of allies is significantly weaker than the other, remove any abilities that could only be played by a hero from that faction. For example, if your Alliance is weak, just remove all your Paladin abilities and don't thnk twice about it. It would be very rare to find a set of abilities that is worth playing at the sacrifice of a better ally selection. After you've separated your abilities by class, start looking at how many playable cards each class offers. If you have good equipment, go to the classes that can use that weapon first and see what kind of depth those classes offer you. The best weapons are almost exclusively better than the best abilities, so playing a slightly weaker group of abilities is worth it to get a Krol Blade in your deck. If none of the classes on your equipment give you good options, you will probably have to go somewhere else. You're going to be faced with a tough decision now. Do I play weaker abilities so I can get the weapon, or do I drop the weapon in favor of better abilities. This is really going to be determined by how big the gap is between the power of the abilities. If you have extremely powerful Mage abilities and are pretty weak in say Hunter for your weapon, you should go with the Mage as the added power of the abilities will make up for the lack of a weapon. I feel like this is the best place to talk about one of the biggest mistakes most players make in building their sealed decks. They let the power of their best cards weigh too heavily on their decisions in card selection. The best way to think about this is if you were to rate your cards based on power from 1 to 30. Most players are focused too much on 1-10 when in fact the best decks are the ones that have the best cards from 15-30. Most players will allow the power of their best cards to cloud their judgement regarding the overall power of their deck. They will make bad decisions based on the assumption that they HAVE to play their best individual cards. I'm not saying to not play your best cards. In fact, you should look for any way at all to get your best cards into your deck. But sometimes you have to realize that to play your best cards you will sometimes have to play a weaker deck than you could have built. Let's look at a quick example. Lady Jaina Proudmoore is one of the biggest bombs you can hope to open in a Sealed Pack environment. Many players would see Jaina and immediately make up their mind that they are playing Alliance. But if the rest of your Alliance is weak while your Horde allies are better but less spectacular, you should actually play Horde here as a deck that is solid top to bottom is better than a top heavy deck. Now in this same scenario if your decision is close regarding Horde or Alliance, obviously Jaina would push you into Alliance. I realize this was a tough lesson to learn, but it was necessary. Now we can move on.

What should I look for in abilities?

The first thing you'll be looking for are removal abilities. Anything that can trade at least 1-for-1 for an ally. Trading an ability for an ally straight up is not technically card advantage. But you can usually look at it as a 1.5 for 1. Trading a non-permanent for a permanent is in your favor despite not actually gaining any cards in the process. The fact that you remove a re-usable source of damage with a card that has a one-shot effect is virtual card advantage. Removing their allies with abilities also opens the door for your allies to live on and keep attacking. After removal you will probably want to look for card drawing. Most classes have something that will allow them to draw cards. After that you will be looking for anything that might generate card advantage. Call the Spirit is a good card as it essentially is an extra ally. Hopefully at this point you havc between 22 and 25 playable cards and are ready to move on to quests.

Card advantage is king in limited, so good quests are at a premium. I think 6-8 is the right number here. If you have that many playable quests you should be in good shape. Kibler's is always good. Anything that explicitly draws cards is good. For Zapped Giants to be more likely to hit than miss you need at least 10 abilities.

Well, there's a place to start your Sealed Deck building. The best way to get better is obviously to practice and play. One thing that will really help is to get other people's opinions and ask why they would have made the choices they did. On decisions where you would have made different choices explain why you did what you did and discuss that decision on the merits of both choices. The more input you get the more informed you will be the next time you build a Sealed Deck. This is one of the areas where having a good group of players whose opinion you value will go a long way in improving your own game.

(Dis)Organized Play

Today I want to discuss a topic that is changing from minor annoyance to major pain. Where is the information on Organized Play from Upper Deck. This doesn't apply only to World of Warcraft, but WoW players are certainly in the dark as well. First, let's look at what we do know. There is going to be a Darkmoon Faire which was supposedly go to be a monthly event. There will be Regionals. Nationals will be at GenCon Indy, and World will be at GenCon SoCal. Worlds will have a $100,000 first place prize and will pay all the way down to 100th place which will receive $1000. That's all we know. And on the VS System side, we haven't heard anything about $50k's, nothing useful about City Championships, and nothing regarding the last 2 Pro Circuits. If they follow the last schedule we heard, will the last 2 PC's conflict with World of Warcraft Nationals and Worlds.

What We Need to Know

It's only fair that UDE give the players some info regarding Organized Play for their games. If you look at Wizards of the Coast, who is UDE's only real peer in this area, they have already released the Pro Tour schedule for the entire year, including dates, cities, formats, and venues. The Grand Prix schedule seems to be up through the early summer with some of the later Grand Prixs already listed as well. What we need from Upper Deck is at least a schedule for the spring and early summer. When are the next Regionals? When is the Darkmoon Faire? The next pressing matter is the conflict of WoW and VS. at the GenCons. I've heard that they are working on scheduling to make sure anyone who wants to play both can. However, we haven't heard anything regarding this matter. Not even a "We're addressing the situation." No hint either way. We just need to know whether we can play both or we can't. Then we need to know how to qualify for Nationals and Worlds. We know the basic ways of winning Regionals and/or Nationals. But what about ratings? I've heard three different stories here. The first was the VS. System method. Anyone with a Constructed or Limited rating over 2700. I've heard anyone with a comosite rating over 2700. I've also heard something more like Magic where they take the top 50 or 100 ratings regardless of what those ratings are. Any of those methods would be fine, we just need to know which one it is. We need to know when the next Regionals will be. When will the Darkmoon Faire get rolling? When are the $50K's going to be for VS? There are so many questions and almost no answers. So if anyone from UDE is reading this, please let us know what's going on.

Hunter Rush, Annihilator or Krol Blade?

One of the big debates recently around the Internet has been which weapon is better in Hunter rush, Annihilator or Krol Blade. Today I'm going to look at each one and tell you which one I think is better and why.

Each weapon strikes for 3, but each weapon has one inherent advantage over the other. The Krol Blade costs one less to strike with leaving you one extra resource per turn over the Annihilator. In a deck that uses its resources each turn as effectively as the Hunter rush deck does, that one extra resource can mean a lot. The Annihilator's advantage is that its damage cannot be prevented. This means it goes through armor like Draconian Deflector and Golem Skull Helm. As a lesser point, it also can't be prevented by Soul Link against any Horde Warlocks that may run it. So the debate is, Is one resource per turn worth making my weapon damage unpreventable?

This question is only answerable in relation to how unpreventable damage affects your matchups. Let's take a look at the most common matchups the Hunter rush player will come across.

Shaman control-This matchup may be the one where Annihilator is most important. You will eventually reach a point where they have wiped out your board and you're just not going to get anything else through so you're basically relying on weapon damage + Aimed Shot. One Draconian Deflector shuts down your offense here except for your Aimed Shots. I was going to play a Shaman control deck at Regionals, and we tested this matchup with Krol Blade and with Annihilator, and it is much closer with Annihilator. Hunter players switching to Annihilators was one of our biggest concerns in the few days before Regionals.

Shaman beatdown-This matchup is a much closer decision which weapon is better. Most of these decks still run Draconian Deflector, so you still run into the same armor. The bigger problem here is the ability of Deflector to put you on the defensive as it will be impossible for your hero to deal any damage since they can protect their allies and then prevent your damage. Annihilator at least makes all your attacks count. They can still protect their allies but now at the expense of 3 health per turn. In this matchup though, where both decks are looking to end the game quickly, the one extra resource you would have per turn with Krol Blade would allow you to play more allies which may help you win the race. I haven't tested this matchup at all with different weapons so I'm not sure which is better, but I think this matchup favors the Annihilator.

Dizdemona control-This is one of the matchups that's pretty easy as far as this debate goes. With no damage prevention Krol Blade is the clear choice in this matchup. Of course, you're not very likely to keep either one around very long, but if you can keep one if play for more than one turn Krol Blade will end up being cheaper.

Dizdemona rush-This matchup along with the mirror are the only reasons to consider still running Krol Blade. Again, they have no damage prevention but this time it's going to come down to who can deal 28 or 29 faster. The one resource you save per turn will make the biggest difference in this matchup. On turn 6 you can play a Fury and still strike which can be game changing.

Mirror-As far as weapon choice this matchup is the same as Dizdemona rush.

Warrior-This is another one that favors Annihilator. This matchup is already pretty good for you, but giving yourself the ability to pierce their armor the few times they do manage to stabilize the board makes this matchup incredibly favorable. If you play Krol Blade, you will lose some games here that you would have won otherwise. When the Warrior does stabilize here, he will only have a few turns to win if you have Annihilator instead of being able to sit and basically win at his own leisure against a Krol Blade. I expect Warriors to become more popular in the coming weeks to combat the control decks that have moved to the top.

Paladin-Annihilator is very good in this matchup as well. This matchup generally comes down to how much damage you can deal before they Skullflame Shield and/or Flame Wrath. A lot of the Paladin decks don't run any heal effects so if you can get them close to death with allies the Annihilator will finish them off. Even if they do run heal effects, at least with Annihilator you will always be getting some damage through. This is another matchup where Annihilator is significantly better than Krol Blade.

Mage control-This deck has no armor and no other ways to prevent damage so your damage is unpreventable anyway. Again, though, you are unlikely to keep a weapon in play for more than a couple of turns so it may be a moot point.

So we have a couple matchups where Annihilator is clearly better (Shaman control, Warrior, Paladin), a couple where Krol Blade is clearly better (non-Shaman control decks, Hunter rush, and Alliance rush) and one where it's close, but the Annihilator probably gets the nod (Shaman beatdown). So the choice really comes down to your local metagame. If you expect a lot of rush and Alliance control decks, run Krol Blade. If you expect a lot of Shamans and Warriors, go with the Annihilator. If you're unsure what to expect, I would lean towards the Annihilator as it is not significantly worse than Krol Blade in the matchups where Krol Blade is better, but is significantly better than Krol Blade against Shamans and Warriors.

Waste Not, Want Not. A Lesson in Efficiency

As most of you should be able to see, the majority of my posts here, especially recently, have been about decks and the metagame. With Regionals behind us (and not knowing when the next one will be), I would like to move more to the strategy side of the game today. I want to cover something today, that most people do without thinking about it, but don't know why. Understanding this concept can help you take your game to the next level. That concept is maximizing your resources.

Now, maybe I should clarify this and say maximizing your cards since resources are their own thing in this game and when I say resources, I mean not only those cards you placed in your resource row, but also those in your hand and in play.

Let's start with resource efficiency. Resource efficiency is a simple theory. Every time you start a turn with resources that aren't exhausted, your resource efficiency goes down. You want to use all of your resources every turn. One way to picture resource efficiency is to give each player one point every time they exhaust a resource. Ideally, you will score one point on turn one, two on turn 2 and so on. If one player uses all his resources every turn and the other does not, the first player's resource score will obviously get higher. The bigger the discrepency in resource scores, the more likely this is to determine the winner. This is one of the reasons I like It's a Secret to Everybody and A Donation of Wool as quests in control decks that don't have any other turn 1 plays. This is an important concept in deckbuilding. Not using your resource on turn one isn't a huge setback. But if your deck isn't designed to get maximum efficiency out of your resources from turn 2 through at least turn 8 (unless you plan on winning before then) you are going to be at a severe disadvantage in World of Warcraft. So how do you go about designing a deck with resource efficiency in mind. Let's look at a great example in the Elendril Hunter deck. This deck will have the best resource efficiency score in the game. It will play an ally on turn 1, another on turn 2, and then either one or two more on three. It will use all of its resources initially to play allies. It has a solid early curve with usually 12 1-drops, 10-12 two drops, and then fewer allies as the cost goes up, topping with the super-efficient Fury at 5. When the allies start to run low, the deck can still use all of its resources to complete quests which will let it then play more allies, continuing to use all of its resources every turn. But what if you don't want to play beatdown. Control decks tend to have a more difficult time maximizing resource efficiency. Since they may find times when they have cards that won't always be useful at all times a control player can somtimes find himself with nothing to do during a turn. This is why control deck need some proactive solutions. No, I don't mean that control decks are teen pop stars who need their acne cleared up. I mean they need cards that can be played even when there opponent doesn't do anything that needs immediate attention. In World of Warcraft, having quests is a great proactive ability. Any time you don't need to address an opponent's threats, you can just use your resources to complete a quest. Another great source of resource efficiency is re-usable effects. Horde control players know the power of Hierophant Caydiem. But one of the beatiful things about her ability is the resource efficiency it enables. You will never end an opponent's turn with more than 2 resources ready. One other way for control deck to maximize their resource efficiency is to use more cheap abilities and allies. This allows you to double dip and use all your resources to accomplish more than one thing. This is a good strategy for control decks that have access to a lot of card drawing like the Mage and Warlock as they can use up their card by playing more than one per turn and then use their great card draw to keep their hand size up. For control decks that don't rely as much on card drawing they rely on more efficient cards.

After, resource efficiency is damage efficiency. Damage efficiency is how well you maximize the amount of damage you are able to deal. Using Lightning Bolt to kill Apprentice Teep is bad damage efficiency since you waste 3 damage. Using Chain Lightning to kill Fury, Latro, and Teep is great damage efficiency (as well as great card advantage, which I'm going to discuss next week). Sometimes, you simply have to waste some damage because you have no other options. But the more damage you waste, the more likely you are to end up losing the game. Let's look at an obvious example that probably comes up quite a bit. You have Apprentice Teep and Latro Abiectus. Your opponent has a ready Parvink. Most people know the right play here, but I'm just illustrating the point. The correct play (using just these cards for this simple example) is to attack Parvink with Teep. This way, you don't waste any of Teep's damage as she is killing a 2 health ally with 2 attack, but you also force your opponent to waste one damage as Parvink deals 2 to Teep when only one is needed. Let's look at it from the other way and see what would happen if you didn't make the right play here. If you were to not attack Parvink with Teep, leaving her to protect against Latro. In this scenario, you waste a resource while your opponent gets maximum efficiency out of Parvink. Your 3 atk is one extra, while Parvink does exactly enough to kill Latro. One thing to consider when examining damage efficiency is allies vs. abilities. Abilities have a finite amount of damage, while allies, theoretically can deal infinite damage. So when you're looking at killing an opposing ally, either through trading with one of your own allies or using an ability, remember Frost Shock can only ever deal 2 damage. Taz'dingo can attack for 2 per turn. So allies can be a well of damage you can keep going back to over and over. What about when you can kill an ally but not lose your in the attack. This is a special circumstance where you're techinically wasting damage, but not really. Since your ally is still around, you can still get more damage out of him. So while this is wasted damage in the sense that the extra damage you did will have no effect on the game, the fact that you still have your damage source alleviates that loss. It's still not a good idea to waste much damage, say running Tewa Wildmane into Taz'Dingo unless you have no other choice. But if you're talking about 1 or 2 excess damage, the card advantage you get from keeping your ally will make up for the lost damage.

The next time you're playing a game of World of Warcraft, or when you're designing your next killer deck, keep these conservation ideas in mind. If you can maximize your efficiency, your game will show it.

More on the Post Regionals Metagame

Here's what the deck breakdown that we will be using today looks like. It's about 2/3 of the Regionals so this should give us a pretty good idea of the metagame we will be looking out.

Horde Shaman-36
Alliance Warlock-24
Alliance Hunter-21
Horde Hunter-12
Horde Warlock-8
Horde Mage-5
Alliance Paladin-4
Horde Warrior-3
Horde Priest-3
Alliance Mage-2
Horde Druid-1

One thing to remember when looking over this information is that we don't have decklists for very many of these decks. So despite the fact that there are 36 Shamans, there could be a lot of variance in the lists. I think the Shamans most likely all have the same rough idea. Play control against the Hunters and aggro against everyone else. I would bet the most variance occurs with the Alliance Warlocks with some looking to beatdown and some looking to last long enough for the big boys to come out and play. It looks like we have pretty well established the tier 1 decks.

Playtesting showed, to me at least, that the Shaman was probably the best deck for Regionals. This is why I was planning on playing it along with my brother-in-law, Gary. It has a great matchup vs. Hunters, especially on the play, and good matchups vs. the Warlock and Mage control decks. The things that worried us the most were the Warrior matchup, which was really just a race to see if they could combo us out before we finished them and Hunter players putting Annihilators in place of their Krol Blades. We found that this one swap actually gave them a pretty good chance when they went first. It looks like one of our fears was close and the other was nothing to worry about. Reports have been saying that a lot of Hunter players were switching to Annihilator, but it doesn't seem like the Warriors fared very well, so we probably would have missed our matchup fear.

I am betting that most of the Warlock decks that did well were probably in the control camp. This is another deck that has a very good matchup vs. the hunter, but I think the advantage goes to the Shaman in the other tier 1 matchup. I don't think it's a huge advantage but I still think in the long run the Shaman will win this matchup more than it loses it.

Obviously, everyone knows about the Hunters. They've slipped a little from where they were at GenCon and that's probably a result of all the hate they had to face at Regionals. The fact that a total of 33 Hunters still punched their ticket to Nationals shows a lot about the resiliency of the deck. I think as more people realize the power of Annihilator in their worst matchup (Shaman), Hunters will stay right there in the top tier.

Now we're looking at a very strange situation with three Tier One decks. Most times, when there are three T1 decks, you will have a paper-rock-scissors environment where Deck A beats Deck B which beats Deck C which beats Deck A. But in this situation, the Shaman actually has a really good matchup vs. the Hunter and a pretty good matchup vs. the Warlock. The Warlock fits the mold with a good matchup vs. the Hunters but a tougher one vs. the Shaman and the Hunter has a bad matchup vs. both of the other top decks. This information would lead us to believe that the Hunters are in trouble. While, I think the popularity of the Hunter deck will continue to decrease slightly, it's still a powerful deck that is capable of really punishing any kind of bad draw. The slightest slip against a Hunter can seal your fate. The raw power of the deck will continue to make it a popular choice for the forseeable future. It will simply be up to the players of the deck to do what they can to help their bad matchups.

Now, let's take a look at the tier 2 decks and see if any of them have a chance of stepping up into the top tier.

First up is the Horde Mage. All of the Horde Mage decks I've seen are aggro decks. While this deck does have a lot of power with the same basic ally suite as the Horde Hunters, it gets better spells, but loses three health points and more importantly the pets and weapons of the Hunter. As far as its matchups vs. the big 3, it's going to face the same bad matchups against the Shaman and Warlock that the Hunter already faces, but the Hunter matchup comes down to the Mage's abilities vs. Fury, Annihilator and Aimed Shot. I think the deck will continue to see play, I think the Hunter will continue to be the most popular choice for players who just want to smash face.

Next is the Alliance Paladin. Anyone who read my posts leading up to Regionals, knows I thought this was the best deck in the format. I still think that it's a very good choice as the proper build has good matchups vs. both the Shaman and Hunter decks. The biggest problem the deck will have in the new metagame is the prevalence of Medoc Spiritwarden and Moira Darkheart. Finding a reliable answer to this problem will prove to be the defining issue of whether this deck can move up into the top tier of decks. One possible answer which would cause the deck to lose consistency and valuable card slots is to play Spread the Word and Blessing of Might. This will allow to continue to attack with unpreventable damage. The ideal situation would be to clear away their protectors so you can get to Medoc.

The lack of success of the Horde Warrior deck was a little shocking to me. I wasn't expecting it to take home as many slots as say Shaman or Hunter, but I thought it would at least be a little closer than this. This deck has a good matchup vs. Shaman and a decent one vs. Warlocks but is weaker vs. the Hunters. This deck probably poses the biggest threat to the Shaman deck but ironically the Hunter deck that the Shaman beats so mercilessly may keep the Warriors down enough to let the Shaman stay at number one. The problem I have seen with the Warrior deck is that it's possible to build the deck to beat Hunters but doing so generally weakens it in its other good matchups. I think this deck will rise in popularity. I'm not going to say it will move up into the top tier yet, but I think it has a shot.

The Horde Priest took as many slots as the Warrior in the tournaments we know about. I didn't cover the Priest in the lead up to Regionals. I didn't think it would make the splash that some others on the Internet thought it would. It took a couple of spots. The current problem I see is that to be successful, the Horde Priest needs to be aggressive. The ideal situation is to put out some attackers and then strip your opponent of their hand, leaving them with limited options to deal with your attackers. The problem is the deck isn't as fast as the Hunter decks and a lot of decks are surprisingly resilient to the discard. I think this deck will continue to show up in small numbers and remain a solid tier 2 deck.

The biggest surprise of the weekend in my opinion was the total flop pulled by the highly touted Alliance Mage control decks. This deck had a lot of people praising its power and some going so far as to call it the deck to beat. So what happened? Many people are citing the lack of cards and high price of the Mage singles as a reason no one piloted the deck. With no pilots, obviously no one made top 4 with it. Since we don't have deck breakdowns of the entire field, it's impossible to know how many Mages actually showed up, but I don't think the price of the deck was as much of a factor as other people think. The Alliance Hunter deck runs 2-4 Leeroy Jenkins and a full set of Fury and Aimed Shot. The total price tag on an Alliance Hunter deck is probably right up there with the Alliance Mage, but that didn't stop people from playing Elendril in full force. But a better indicator that the price tag wasn't as much of a factor is the presence of more Paladin decks in top 4's than Mages. One of the final builds of the Paladin deck we had before we finally decided on Shaman before Regionals was pushing $300 for the singles. I'm sure not all the Paladin players were running that expensive of a version, but the Paladin singles aren't cheap either, but more Paladins made top 4 than Alliance Mages. I think the real culprit was people realizing that it simply wasn't the best ally-based Alliance control deck. That title went to the Warlock. Once people who were really preparing realized that the Warlock was better in the important matchups, I think that pushed people away from the Mage deck. It will be interesting to see if the Alliance Mage deck starts showing up in greater numbers as more cards become available, but my prediction is that Dizdemona will continue to be the premier Alliance control deck.

The only other deck to make a top 4 was a Horde Druid deck. I have seen this decklist, and it runs the Shaman ally suite with Innervates, Starfires, and Entangling Roots. I wouldn't expect it to make a big splash in the new metagame as I think it's basically inferior to the Shaman deck.

One of the surprising things about these results is the total lack of anything that wasn't expected. The only deck that's even remotely unexpected is the one Druid deck. Other than that everything was known about before Regionals. I wasn't expecting to see anything great and new that would take the world by storm, but maybe a few people who decided to play Rogue for the fun of it or because their MMO character is an Alliance Priest and them make top 8, but no such luck this time around.

Post-Regionals Metagame Part 2

Well, after a little bit more searching, I have found a lot of the missing top 4 numbers. After finding a lot more info, we have a better idea of how the metagame is forming. Here are the new numbers.

Horde Shaman- 32
Alliance Warlock-23
Alliance Hunter-21
Horde Hunter-10
Horde Warlock-8
Horde Mage-5
Horde Warrior-3
Alliance Paladin-3
Horde Priest-3
Alliance Mage-2

I think the most shocking thing is the total flop of the mages. 7 total out of 110 known lists with at least 2 of those being aggro. The Mage control deck was one that many were touting as a contender to the throne before the weekend, so what happened? With the new number, Grennan and Dizdemona have moved into the top 2 spots but Elendril is still right there. There is an even clearer line now between the top 3 and everyone else. I'll keep tallying the numbers and we can start to look at where we are right now, and more importantly, where we go from here.

The Regionals I still don't have are:

Birmingham, AL
Denver, CO
Cromwell, CT
Claymont, DE
Marietta, GA
Honolulu, HI
Boise, ID
Niles, IL
Olathe, KS
Lafayette, LA
Rockville, MD
Boston,MA
Burnsville, MN
Durham, NC
Cincinnati, OH
Gresham, OR
Columbia, SC
Nashville, TN
Plano, TX
Richmond, VA

If you know any of these top 4's please pass that info along.

Post-Regionals Metagame.

I was planning on writing my triumphant Regionals report today and saving metagame discussion for later in the week. There's a slight problem with that though. To write my triumphant Regionals report, I would first have to be triumphant at Regionals. That, of course, would require my attending Regionals, which was sadly not possible due to a terrible ice storm that slammed Texas and much of the middle part of the country over the weekend. We tried to brave the elements leaving over 4 hours early to make what would normally be a 2 hour drive to Plano, TX. Unfortunately, about 3/4 of the way to our destination we ran into a closed bridge with a closed detour, and with no viable route that would get us to the tournament site before round 3, we were reluctantly forced to turn back. The news got better on the way home as the highway we had taken that morning was now closed thanks to a truck driver going off road and blocking the entire highway, so we were stuck for about 2 hours while they cleared up the mess. The short version, we didn't make it to the tournament site.

I've done some digging and have top 4's for 10.5 Regionals (I only have the top 2 for San Diego). That leaves 36 Regionals out. I'll post a list of the ones I do have. If you know the top 4 decks from any of the Regionals listed, please leave them here, or email them to me blyonsmagic@yahoo.com. Here are the ones I have.

San Diego (only the top 2)
Ft. Lauderdale
Orlando
Indianapolis
Garden City
Henderson, NV
Berlin, NJ
Brooklyn
Rochester
Butler, PA
Toronto

So far the breakdown of decks that qualified through these tournaments looks like this.

Alliance Hunter 13
Horde Shaman 9
Alliance Warlock 8
Horde Hunter 5
Horde Mage 4
Horde Warlock 2
Alliance Mage 1

So according to the early returns, the Hunters are still on top, and more specifically the Alliance Hunters. Out of the 42 slots we know, Hunters took 18. That's a little less than half. One of the things that I think helped was the addition of Annihilators to a lot of the Hunter decks which is one of the things I feared as I was planning on playing Shaman. In that matchup, Annihilator in place of Krol Blade made the matchup a lot closer than it was otherwise. The fact that Hunters are still on top isn't terribly surprising. They posted better numbers than I thought they would but not significantly so. The real question going into Regionals was what deck(s) will show it firmly belongs in the top tier with the Hunters. From the limited information we do have, it looks like Shaman and Alliance Warlocks will move into the second and third slots in the metagame after the Hunters. Right now, after those three decks it looks like it's a long way down to find the rest of the decks people expected to do well. There were 4 Horde mages but at least 2 of those were aggro decks not the control Mages that a lot of people thought would have a good showing. Also surprising is the complete absence of Gorebelly from these top 4's. I'll keep a running total as more results come in and we'll take a look at the true metagame from Regionals and what is means to us moving forward.

Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Paladin

Well, we're just about at the end of the line here. Regionals is now just 2 days away, and our preparations are coming to a close. There's just one matter of business left, Paladin matchups. One thing to note, before I discuss the individual matchups is that the Paladin may have the most room for variation within the same general decklist, so a lot of the matchup will be affected by which cards you choose to include in the deck.

Hunter-This matchup can be a little rough when they go first. The key is obviously to stay alive for as long as possible. This can be a tricky matchup and my advice if you're playing a Paladin is to just test this one until you feel comfortable with it. There are a lot of decisions here. On turn three, do I Divine Shield or equip an armor. If I go armor, do I play Golem Skull Helm to soak up extra damage or Herod's Shoulder to get a weapon. Which weapon should I get, Flame Wrath or Wraith Scythe. There are so many close decisions in this matchup that it's easy to make the wrong one a few times. Since I simply don't have the time or space to go into great details on this matchup, I will summarize. In most instances (meaning there are exceptions, but they are few), your decisions for the first 5 turns should be the ones that will minimize the amount of damage you take in that time. Turn 6 is the perfect time to equip a Flame Wrath and use your last 2 resources for a Blessing of Protection. The Flame Wrath should wipe out their board in a couple of turns. After their board is cleared away you need to start healing yourself. Wraith Scythe and Seal of Light are both recurring sources of healing. Once you heal a few damage off yourself, you should be in the clear and it will just be a matter of finishing them off.

Shaman-This deck really plays into your strengths. It will try to be aggressive, but won't be aggressive enough. It will basically be forced to play one ally per turn while letting you set up your armor. It's important to get a Wraith Scythe and/or Seal of Light in this matchup due to the presence of Annihilator in their deck. If you don't have one of the recursive sources of healing, they will be able to kill you with their Annihilator. The beginning of this match goes pretty well for you. They won't do much to disrupt your plan of simply equipping armor and then swinging. By the time, they start playing potentially scary allies, you should be pretty well equipped to deal with them. This is one of your better matchups.

Warlock-This is another pretty good matchup. They will rarely if ever put enough pressure on you to force you out of your gameplan. The biggest threat posed by a Warlock is Medoc Spiritwarden + Moira Darkheart. Most Warlock decks won't run a very big protector suite, so you can usually get through to Medoc to kill him. Even if you can't do it right away, you can buy yourself a few turns using some tricks. Stronghold Gauntlets requires Moira to kill it before your weapon so having it in play will buy you one turn to swing. Sunken Treasure can get it back to buy you another turn. Hammer of Justice on Medoc will buy you a turn and a card. You can fight this combo for a little while, but you have to get to Medoc. If he stays in play, eventually he will cost you the game. The next big threat from the Warlock is Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire. Serving up free 1/1 protectors will make your life difficult. You can work through it with Girdle of Uther and/or Thrash Blade. If you really don't like this card you can always run Shattering Blow main. Infernal is a mild nuisance, but your armor should minimize the amount of damage he can deal. Jaina Proudmoore is just an overcosted 7/4 to you, and Flame Wrath makes Magni just a 6/8 protector. Lorekeeper Darian can pose a problem, but you should be able to kill him before he can kill you. Against a Horde Warlock, you do need to keep an eye on your health as they tend to be a little more aggressive than their Alliance counterparts and Radak's flip ability can usually do 6 with an Infernal.

Mage-This matchup is similar to the Warlock but they lose Infernal. Mages pose the same set of problems with the Medoc-Moira combo and ACG, but they can use Counterspell to protect Medoc from your Vanquishes. The matchup plays very similarly for the Paladin except that the Mage control decks have even less chance to go aggro than the Warlocks.

Warrior-This is a tough matchup. There are 2 keys to this matchup. The first is healing yourself, the second is drawing as many Divine Shields as possible. Healing yourself is important because it removes the chance for them to race you with weapon buffs and forces them to their backup plan of combo-ing you out. Your first order of business is equipping an Annihilator. This negates all of their armor. Then you'll want a Seal of Light so that you're winning the damage race. If your opponent doesn't have Lionheart Helm in play, you can start playing your armor as long as you leave yourself enough to strike with your weapon. Your armor is worthless against his Annihilator but can stop his Mortal Strikes as long as he doesn't play Lionheart Helm. After you get your Annihilator-Seal online, I usually start looking for the game ending equipment package...Lionheart Helm, Annihilator, Girdle of Uther, in that order. Once you can get ahead in the race, it's time to end it as fast as possible. With those three pieces of equipment you can swing for 10 a turn which should end it quickly. This matchup is very close and many times comes down to who has more Shield Bashes or Divine Shields at the end of the game. If your opponent doesn't play Lionheart Helm that swings the matchup more heavily in your favor since you can prevent his Mortal Strikes with BoP or your armor.

Well, this is it. Our last stop. I hope you've enjoyed reading this, and I hope you're more prepared for Regionals now than you were before. One last thing to remember this weekend. It's still a game so have fun. Good luck to everyone who goes to Regionals this weekend. I'll be back next week with a report from my own Regionals. See you on the other side.

Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Warrior

Regionals is only a few days away, and we're almost done with our Regionals Primer. Today, I'm moving on to a deck that I think is a good deck, but its success may be dependent on the field around it. The Warrior combo deck.

Hunter-This matchup is a tough one. It's not unwinnable, but it's not easy either. The earlier you can bring a weapon online the better as it will allow you to start removing opposing allies. You have some decent removal abilities in Cleave and Mocking Blow. Mortal Strikes should be used as ally removal in this matchup. If you can survive the initial onslaught with a decent amount of health left you should be okay. Before I move on in this matchup, I want to quickly address something that has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. If savvy Hunter players start putting Annihilators in the place of their Krol Blades, this matchup will go from bad to worse as you won't really be able to stabilize. You'll be forced to race them, but it will be like running a 100 yard dash with 40 lb. weights on each ankle. Moving past this, Shield Bash is a card that can be tough to use properly in this matchup. This is one of the few matchups, if not the only one, where both the 1-point of damage and the ability to interrupt an ability can both be important to winning. Against a Horde Hunter, you can usually go ahead and remove an ally, but against an Alliance Hunter, you have to be able to protect yourself from Aimed Shot. This is a matchup that will be difficult for you, but this deck is really good against the decks that beat Hunter.

Shaman-Outside of the Hunter, this will probably be your toughest matchup. They can put enough pressure on you so that you can't just sit around and wait for the combo to show up. A steady supply of allies, backed up by damage from Annihilator will put you on a steady but not too fast clock. You will probably be forced to play defense in this matchup, choosing which allies to remove by letting them attack into you. The Shaman has no answers to your combo except preventing 4 with Deflector. The goal here is really just to survive until you can get the combo. If you manage to destroy all their allies and have an Annihilator you can probably go ahead and start attacking their hero, but they will usually have a decided advantage in the race since they've been focusing everything on your hero. You need your combo to catch up. Your Mortal Strikes should only be used as ally removal in desperate situations. If you use up your Mortal Strikes on allies, you will be hard pressed to catch up on damage later. If you plan on attacking mutiple times using Rak, be aware of Frost Shock. Don't let it stop you from getting extra attacks in.

Warlock-This matchup depends heavily on whether your opponent is Alliance or Horde. Against a Horde player, this matchup is a good one for you. You can just sit back and play defense until you can combo them out. They don't have enough firepower to get through your armor. Eventually you can just combo them out. Some games you won't even need the combo. One note about this matchup, if they get an Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire into play, stop attacking unless you have a Thrash Blade. It will just be a waste of your time. Pick off allies with your abilities and by striking the most dangerous ones when they attack you. If they try to wait and build up a big force before they attack, use your Mocking Blows and Cleaves to keep their party small, and use any extra resources you have to aggressively find your combo. This is a matchup where I like Onyxia Hide Backpack as it will help you get your combo faster. Against an Alliance Warlock, you have to become the aggressor. They are looking to wait you out and play Lorekeeper Darian and deck you. If they play Medoc Spiritwarden and Moira Darkheart, Medoc becomes a must-kill ally or he will allow Moira to destroy your entire board. The good news here is that most Warlock decks aren't running the M & M combo right now. Also, it is harder for a Warlock to protect Darian so you should be able to take him out before he deals any real damage to you. You don't want to get to Magni Bronzebeard, but even he can be Vanquished.

Mage-This matchup is very similar to the Warlock with one difference. Now, you have to play around Counterspell. They will be better equipped to fight you to keep Darian in play. You have more ways to kill him than they do Counterspells so you should be able to keep him off the board fairly regularly, but only a couple of turns in play could be enough to get them the win. Against a Horde mage, you're going to revert to the defensive philosophy. Stay alive long enough to combo win. They can put a little more pressure on you than the Warlock with extra direct damage, but this is still a fairly good matchup. Just remember Counterspell when you go for the combo.

Paladin-The builds of the respective decks determine who is favored in this matchup. If the Warrior plays Lionheart Helm, it will make it closer. The build of the Paladin deck is more important. How many Divine Shields/Blessings of Protection the Paladin runs go a long way in determining whether the Warrior can win. The Paladin has access to a lot of healing, and depending on the build may be able to heal more each turn than the Warrior can deal, even with Annihilator + Deathdealer Breastplate. Because of the Paladin's healing and the similar health stats, the Warrior will usually have to resort to combo'ing the Paladin out. Without Lionheart Helm, armor can soak up at least one Mortal Strike if not 2, Blessing of Protection will stop one Mortal Strike (assuming you play the next in response to BoP) Divine Shield will stop one with or without Lionheart Helm, which leaves you basically trying to attack for the whole enchilada. I think the way to play this matchup is to do what you can through the early game and wait until the last possible moment to go for the combo and then hope it works out.

This deck has a few pretty good matchups and a couple of tough ones. I think this deck will be great in a metagame full of decks that beat Hunters. This deck beats decks that beat Hunters. If you think there will be a larger than normal Hunter population in your area, I would try to do some things to shore up that matchup without making it weaker against its good matchups.

Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Mage

Because the mage control deck plays well from both the Horde and Alliance sides, I will cover each matchup with some tips for both factions.

Hunter-The Hunter is one of this deck's best matchups. From the Alliance side, you will basically be looking to make 1-for-1 trades in the early game, until you can start bringing Frost Novas online. If you can survive the initial onslaught, it will be very difficult for them to finish you. The only real threats they have in the late game are Aimed Shot and Fury/Leeroy and attacking with a weapon. Jaina Proudmoore or Magni Bronzebeard shut off the allies and Counterspell will be the answer to Aimed Shot. Although it will usually be a weak card in this matchup Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire can step in and protect from their weapon attacks indefinitely should the game come down to their Krol Blades being their only viable damage source. In this matchup you will want to get one of your big allies out as quickly as possible because you don't want to let them hang around too long to squeeze out a victory they shouldn't have. From the Horde side, I think this matchup is even better. Depending on your build and whether or not you run Steelhorn, this matchup starts generating 2-for-1 trades earlier and still outdraws them later. Gaining access to the better ally suite of Steelhorn, Taz'dingo, Ophelia Barrows, Kulan Earthguard, and Zy'lah Manslayer makes the Horde deck less reliant on its abilities but it has more card advantage built into it. It can also win the game a little sooner but doesn't have the Proudmoore Bronzebeard endgame to really make the hunter cry. Overall, this is a pretty good matchup, the biggest weakness being your lower health, but you should win this match more than you lose it.

Shaman-This matchup can be pretty tough. You may actually be taking the worst of it trying to remove their allies with your abilities since a lot of them will require more than just a Fire Blast or Frost Bolt. You should still be able to outdraw the Shaman though so that will make up for some of the unfavorable trades you are forced to make. The Alliance will probably have a tougher go of it in this matchup as it runs fewer allies. With most mage decks only running Parvinks + the end game allies and maybe Medoc, it's not terribly difficult for the Shaman to simply kill all your allies and then remove them from the game before you can A-Me them back to your hand. Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire is vital to this match since without it you will just get annihilated by their umm..... Annihilator. The Shaman will do a better job of keeping a steady stream of pressure on instead of just throwing everything it has at you in one blow and hoping it's good enough. Be prepared for a long hard fought match here. On the Horde side, this matchup isn't as bad, since you have more allies to run out there to fight with. You will have close to the same set of allies as the Shaman, but better abilities and more card draw. They will try to counter that with better weapons and armor and a higher health total. If you can keep a Grimoire in play here, this matchup is pretty close to even with a slight edge to the Mage. No Grimoire is bad news as you will be put heavily on the defensive. You will have to make some very tough decisions regarding using your Protectors optimally. If you use them to protect from the Hero attacks, your board will deteriorate until you can't fight them off anymore. If you try to trade allies, you will be left taking three every turn and with only 25 health, it doesn't take long for that to finish you off. The moral of this story is to get a Grimoire in play and protect it.

Warlock-This is a matchup of two very similar decks. The adavantage probably goes to the Mage here with their ability to deal more direct damage. On the Alliance side, I think the gameplan should probably be to hide behind a Grimoire and try to deck them with Lorekeeper Darian. You are one of the few decks that can actually outdraw the Warlock. Some would say that can be a two-edged sword in a match that may come down to decking. But that's not the case here. If it comes down to one person's library being depleted it will be the person who could not answer the opposing Darian. Drawing a couple extra cards will not hurt when Darian is knocking out 10 cards per turn. It will actually give you a few extra cards to find the answer to the opposing Darian. You should play this matchup very defensively. If they are Horde it makes it even easier to just play defense. The biggest threat to you is going to be Infernal. Save a Polymorph for him whenever possible. If you can stop Infernal, you can usually stop their offensive long enough for Darian to do his thing. From the Horde side, this matchup is a little tougher. With no access to a reliable means of decking your opponent, one of you is going to have to assume the role of beatdown here. If your opponent is an Alliance Warlock you have to realize the danger of Darian. Your deck is not designed to punch through great defenses. You will have to kill Darian or he will kill you before you have a chance to deal the killing blow. Here, you have to start playing like a beatdown deck to have a chance. If your opponent is also Horde, you might revert to a slightly more defensive strategy as they have no Darian, but a little more offense than you thanks to Infernal. This matchup will be about squeezing in damage when you can and generating board advantage through favorable trades. Grimoires in both decks make actually winning this match difficult and Radak's flip ability plus Cull the Weak actually give them access to some decent direct damage. Netherwind Crown can help here as it negates their Grimoire and allows you to get an extra attack in per turn. I think the Alliance Mage has a slight edge in the Warlock matchup and a Horde mage has a tough matchup here.

Warrior-This is probably your worst matchup, especially against a good Warrior player. On the Alliance side, you have some options. If you play Medoc + Moira, that can be a brutal combo against the equipment heavy Warrior. Just remember, game 2 they have access to Ophelia so they can remove Moira after one use so don't think this combo alone will win you the match. If you don't run M & M, your next option is to bring Lorekeeper Darian online with protection as soon as possible to get a clock going. Your lack of protectors outside of Parvink is a cause for concern as it will allow the Warrior to attack unchecked. Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire is great in this matchup as it will force the Warrior to get a Thrash Blade or resort to combo'ing you out. If you can get Darian online, your next step is hording Counterspells for the combo turn. They have Shield Bashes to stop your Counters so you may need 2 or 3 to make sure you don't die from the Mortal Strikes. Darian has a nice side effect in addition to being the fastest clock you can put on the Warrior of possibly milling his combo pieces. Every Strike or Shield Bash Darian hits greatly increases your chances of winning. On the Horde side, this is once again going to be a tough matchup. You don't have the luxury of the Darian clock so you'll have to do this the old fashioned way. From my experience on both sides of this matchup, the Mage's best chance is to get a Grimoire in play, and use it to protect allies until you have five or six in play. The Grimoire will keep the Warrior player from picking off your allies one by one. A smart Warrior player at this point will sit back and let you attack into him so that he can get your allies that way. If you don't attack he will then have the decision of attacking fruitlessly into your Skeletons or waiting for the combo while he waits for you to do something. At this point if he's going to keep attacking you, you should attack him back as there is little risk of him killing your allies. If he correctly resides himself to waiting for the combo, you should try to build up as good of a board presence as possible. When you have 5 or 6 allies, unleash everything you've got. This way he can only kill one ally per turn and won't be able to soak up all of the excess damage with his armor. Once his armor is tapped throw some direct damage at him to make sure it hits. If you can replace the allies as they die, you'll be in pretty good shape. I keep going back and forth on what's the most important spell to counter here, and while common sense says it's the Mortal Strikes that are most likely to kill you, countering Cleave is actually a better option as it gives you a better chance to win. I'm still undecided on which is right, and I'm quite sure that the decision may be based on many variables. Just something to consider while you play this matchup so you don't always get in the rut of saving those counter for Mortal Strikes when it might not even matter that you have them.

Paladin-This matchup is dependent on the builds of the respective decks. The Paladin does have access to a lot of armor and a toolbox of weapons. On the Alliance side, your strategy will be much the same as it was against the Warrior but both options are much stronger here. M & M is much stronger because there is no Horde Paladin yet and the Alliance has no access to graveyard removal so as long as Medoc stays in play he can infinitely recur Moira. The Paladin does have a few more tricks to play around this than the Warrior but unless they remove Medoc they will eventually lose to Moira. The Darian option is also better in this matchup as the Paladin cannot simply combo you out, so he will have to kill you through combat. Grimoires stop all damage from the Paladin until they remove it or equip a Thrash Blade or Girdle of Uther. Darian is a monster against them. Three turns may be all he needs to insure you pick up the win. In this matchup you are going to be heavily on the defensive. You have at least one great option for winning, possibly two. Make the Paladin become the aggressor and do what your deck was designed to do. On the Horde side, this matchup is actually pretty rough. No Darian and no M & M means you once again have to actually kill them. Your plan should be about the same as it was vs. the Warrior. The problem here is the Paladin has more armor and more healing so whatever you can sneak through is unlikely to stay on him long. The Paladin is also more likely to be able to ready himself than the Warrior which will make your wait and see approach tougher as they can get 2 and sometime 3 attacks per turn which will make your Grimoire less effective. This is a match that is simply going to be difficult to win.

Overall, I think the Horde is better than the Alliance vs. rush decks and a little better vs. Shaman decks, but the Alliance is significantly better vs. Warlocks, Warriors, Paladins, and in the mirror.

Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Warlock

Regionals is quickly approaching and I still have 4 more decks to cover matchups for. I am going to get them all done this week, so you can expect daily updates here. Let's get started today talking about the Warlock.

Hunter-The Hunter is probably this deck's best matchup. The Warlock pets are good against the rush player starting with Grimdron. Grimdron is really there more for the threat of using him than actually killing a lot of allies. A savvy rush player will fully commit to the board forcing you to use Grimdron every turn and essentially netting himself a one resource advantage since one of yours will always be tied up with Grimdron. Don't fall into this trap. If you have better plays in your hand, make them. Sarmoth is the next in the line of Warlock allies that are trouble for the Hunter. He will usually take 2 attacks to kill and should take out one ally with him. His job is to be a speed bump to get you through to the later turns. The last pet is Infernal he is really a monster in this matchup. Once he enters play, their allies will almost all be reduced to resource row fodder. Once he enters play, unless you're on the brink of death your win should only be a few turns away. The Warlock's abilities don't do a lot in this matchup with the exception of Steal Essence. It serves as a virtual 2-for-1, eliminating an ally and healing 2 from your hero. Rain of Fire generally comes in out of the board for this matchup as it can clear the board in front of an Infernal. If you play Warlock, this is probably the matchup you want to see most during the day.

Shaman-This matchup is pretty tough. You can outdraw them, but their cards all have card advantage built into them. The matchup usually comes down to Annihilator and Draconian Deflector being too much for the Warlock to fend off. If the Warlock runs Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire (and you really should be if you plan on playing Warlock) it can serve as an answer for the Annihilator. Most Shaman decks don't run Shattering Blow so the Grimoire is basically indestructible. The Shaman still has the advantage with allies like Kulan and Zy'lah but the Grimoire makes the match much closer. If you also play Nemesis Skullcap, it will help even more in this matchup. The Shaman will generally take a very aggressive stance in this matchup so the key is making the game go as long as possible. You will simply have to have a reliable answer for strong weapons as they will also be a problem against the Warrior and Paladin if you don't.

Mage-They have better abilities, you have Infernal. This is one of the few decks that can keep pace with the Warlock drawing cards. This matchup slightly favors the Mage because more of their damage can go to the dome than the Warlock. If either deck runs Lorekeeper Darian, that deck will have the advantage. I have seen a lot of Mage decks run Darian, but not many Warlocks. Neither deck plays very aggressively. A lot of times this matchup comes down to who sacrificed more in their good matchups to help out in this one.

Warrior-This is probably your worst matchup. Unless you are running a lot of discard you will simply have no chance to kill them before they set up one huge turn. Grimoire helps here as it will make them kill you with Heroic + Mortal Strikes, but there isn't much you can do to get through all their armor before they just kill you.

Paladin-This is another bad matchup but not as bad as the Warrior. If you play Medoc Spiritwarden then he can win the game with Moira Darkheart if given enough time. Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire is much better here since they don't have the Strikes to just kill you whenever they want. Thrash Blade and/or Girdle of Uther will eventually get them around the Grimoire, so you'll need to take out their equipment. Don't think that Medoc + Moira is an auto-win as good Paladin players will be able to play around it for a little while. If you can set up the combo protecting Medoc becomes your number one priority. If you're not playing Medoc this matchup will be very hard to win, as they will probably just pick off one ally per turn and you will have a hard time ever dealing any damage through their armor.

The Warlock deck is very good vs. the Hunter but somewhat lacking against the other decks. If you want to sacrifice a little vs. the Hunter you can shore up some of the other matchups. One of the most important cards in the non-Hunter matchups is Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire, but for some reason a lot of Warlocks aren't running them. Don't make that mistake. If you play a Warlock, play the Grimoire. It's good.

I'll be back tomorrow to discuss the Mage matchups.

Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Shaman

Today, I'm continuing my matchup analysis for the main decktypes at Regionals with the Shaman. This deck was good enough to take the top spot at the Darkmoon Faire Championship at GenCon SoCal, so it's a pretty solid deck. Let's see how it matches up vs. the field.

Hunter-This is your best matchup. When you go first this matchup is very much in your favor but on the draw it usually will be a pretty tight game. The key to this matchup is generating as many 2-for-1's early as possible. When you're on the play I usually mulligan for a Searing Totem in this matchup unless the hand I'm shipping is just incredibly powerful sans Totem. Playing first, the Totem just puts them in a deep hole. It will kill their one drop on turn 2 and they can't play a 2 drop because the Totem will kill it before it can attack. They will have to shoot it. If you can draw an Aimed Shot out for your Totem that's a very good thing. If they have the Arcane or Aimed Shot for your Totem on 2 you've still gotten the game to turn 3 with no damage on you. Going second the Totem isn't as important to mulligan for because while still powerful it's not crippling. The key to winning this matchup is understanding your role. In the early game you are strictly playing as a control deck. Your goal is to generate as many favorable trades as possible while stabilizing the board. This is very important to understand. Your only objective for at least the first four turns is stabilizing and putting yourself in a better board position than your opponent. Somewhere between turn 4 and turn 7 you will reach a point that I call The Shift. This is where you shift from control to beatdown. You move from stabilizing the board to actively seeking to end the game. It is important that you not shift roles too soon or you may open yourself up to a last ditch attempt by the hunter to end the game with Fury's and Aimed Shots. As an example, if you have Ghost Wolf in play, you don't want to start attacking with Annihilator until you know a Fury or Leeroy can't get through your other defenses. Overall, once you understand this matchup, you will be in a good position to win it most of the time.

Warlock control-This is where the versatility of the Shaman deck starts to shine. In this matchup you are generally going to play the aggressor from the start. The biggest advantage you have here is your heavy equipment. Your Deflectors are hard for them to penetrate and they don't have much in the way of dealing with your Annihilators. Don't put extra Annihilators in your resource row because if they are able to remove one, replacing it is very important in this matchup. If it's an Alliance Warlock deck make sure to save your Vanquishes for the top end allies and then use Ophelia Barrows to keep them from using Chasing A-Me to get them back. If they play Medoc Spiritwarden, Ophelia Barrows is a godsend in turning him into a waste of 5 resources. This is another good matchup for you as long as you can keep your equipment around. Even if you don't see any DoT's in game one, I would suggest bringing in Confessor Mildred from the board. I have heard seen a lot of Warlock decks bringing in Curse of Agony and/or Corruption from the board as a way to get damage through the armor of Shamans, Warriors, and Paladins. The important thing to remember here, is that your role has shifted to the beatdown.

Mage control-This matchup is very similar to the Warlock. One different aspect here is their Frost abilities. Your Draconian Deflector will essentially let you attack when they don't want you to. If you can make them use more than one Frost ability per turn to keep your hero from attacking, they will run out of cards. This deck has a better chance of getting a little more damage through your armor with its wide array of direct damage. Confessor Mildred out of the sideboard can make sure they don't keep any DoT's around to annoy you and can get rid of Polymorph in a pinch. Again, you're going to want to save your Vanquishes for the big guys and use Ophelia to keep them from coming back. Much like the Warlock, I think this is a pretty good matchup for the Shaman because of the Shaman's equipment.

Warrior-Now we find one of the Shaman's weaker matchups. In this matchup it is most important to come out hard and fast. The Warrior deck seeks to simply stay alive long enough to finish you with one big turn. You don't have much in the way of stopping that turn so you simply have to kill them before they get there. Mulligan any hand that doesn't have an Annihilator. The Warrior has more armor than any deck except the Paladin so you won't be able to reliably get damage through with your allies. You are going to want to try to play as many allies as possible so that they have to worry about killing them or getting overrun by them. Ophelia may not seem important in this matchup but having her in play is very significant. Having ready protectors eliminates one attack from their kill turn effectively eliminating one Rak Skyfury from the combo for every ready protector you have. For this reason, Kulan may be your best ally in this matchup since he can attack and protect each turn. Zygore Bladebreaker also serves double duty, eliminating a weapon and then being able to attack. Cleave is really bad for you in this matchup since it will usually eliminate 2 attackers with one card. If you can run out enough allies to force the Warrior player to use up Mortal Strikes killing them instead of throwing them at you, you have a very good chance in this matchup. If you allow him to sit behind his armor and build up the perfect hand you have no chance. Hur Shieldsmasher out of the board is really good here, since he can kill off early armor and then also attack allowing you to get some extra early beats in. This is one of your tougher matchups, and if you could avoid it all day you would have no reason to complain.

Paladin-This matchup is along the same lines as the Warrior with a few exceptions. The first is that this deck replaces the finishing combo with healing attempting to basically undo all the damage you deal early in the game. Since the Warrior needs several abilities and allies for the combo that the Paladin doesn't use, this deck replaces those with a more complete suite of equipment. This deck will generally run more armor, which means it soaks up even more of your damage and a toolbox of weapons. None of its weapons are as bad for you as say Flame Wrath is for Hunters, but the ones they are most likely to use are Annihilator, Thrash Blade, and Wraith Scythe. Until they find a Lionheart Helm, Annihilator is the only way they have to pierce your Deflector. They usually won't be attacking you early though since they will be concentrating more on removing your allies. The Thrash Blade will combo with one of the Seals to either heal 4 per turn or draw them 2 cards. It can also allow them to kill 2 of your allies per turn to stabilize the board faster. The Wraith Scythe can fill in when they need to heal and don't have a Seal of Light. Healing for them is important in this matchup because if they aren't healing, you can finish them off with your Annihilator since it will can't be prevented. The way this matchup has played out for me in testing is the Shaman can't apply enough pressure to force the Paladin out of its game plan of equipping armor from head to toe, picking off one ally per turn with its weapon and healing any damage that does make it through. Hur Shielsmasher out of the board makes it a little closer, but for the most part this seems like your worst matchup. Your only real shot is keeping an Annihilator in play and hoping they can't heal more than you can deal. If you have room in your sideboard you may consider Windfury and/or Rockbiter Weapons for the Paladin and Warrior matchups. Rockbiter let's you swing for 5 unpreventable, Windfury 6, and both let you swing for 10 per turn. Since most of your other matchups are already pretty good, using your sideboard slots to shore up these weaker ones may be a good idea.

The Shaman deck has a lot of versatility and is able to play both aggressively or as a control deck depending on the situation. I think it's a good choice for Regionals because it has good matchups vs. the decks that expect to be most popular. I hope this gives you more insight into the Shaman's matchups for Regionals.

Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Hunter

Today I'm going to start talking about the matchups of the main decks that project to make up the bulk of the metagame. I'm going to start with what figures to be the most popular deck at Regionals....hunter rush.

The good news: The good news is that even your worst matchups aren't usually terrible. With this deck, who goes first is really important, and I would say that when you win the die roll even your worst matchups are probably only about 40/60. Some of your matchups (the shaman in particular) are much harder when you're on the draw. The raw power of this deck will allow it to win some games it had no business winning and this is the deck least likely to lose to unexpected decks. I was going to say rogue decks but that is misleading since rogue can actually be a decktype in this game. The deck is probably the easiest to play and easiest to learn quickly. It's not as easy to play as beatdown decks in other games because you choose the order of attacks and whether to attack allies or the hero, but it's not as complicated as some of the control decks. The hardest decisions you will face are how to handle protectors on your opponent's side. Some of your bad matchups are only bad matchups in the hands of players who really know how to play the deck. It's very easy to mess up against the rush deck, and when it happens the rush deck is capable of capitalizing on the smallest of play mistakes.

The bad news: There is going to be a lot of hate out there for this deck. Everyone has seen its success at GenCon and everyone knows it will be the most popular deck at Regionals. The best players in most areas will be playing decks that have good matchups vs. rush decks. You will play a lot of mirror matches where the die roll may be the most important factor. You are going to have to win between 6-8 matches to take the Nationals slot and that will require winning a lot of mirrors and bad but close matchups.

Now on to matchup specific analysis.

Shaman: This is probably your worst matchup. If they go first it's really bad. If you go first it's closer. This decks packs a lot of cards you don't want to see. Turn 2 Searing Totem when they go first is one of the worst. They have a lot of cards with built in card advantage vs. you. Searing Totem, Taz'Dingo, Ophelia Barrows, Kulan Earthguard, Chain Lightning. All these cards are generally 2-for-1's for the Shaman player. Draconian Deflector and Ghost Wolf will add to your pain. If you're going to play this deck, you're simply going to have to accept that the shaman deck is a bad, bad matchup. Your best chance of winning is simply to run out as many allies as fast as you can. If you have the option of playing a 2-drop or 2 1-drops play the 2 characters. It will make you more vulnerable to their card advantage, but you can't wait around trying to make yourself less vulnerable to Taz and Searing Totem early or the Chain Lightning, Kulans, and Manslayers will make winning virtually impossible later. When you run out of allies get your Krol Blade online and then start completing quests looking for more allies. Your only hope is to run out more guys than they can kill all at once and drop them within range of Aimed Shot. Try to set up your attacks so that Fury can land a big one. Try not to put extra Krol Blades in your resource row because they have Zygore Bladebreaker. Having a Krol Blade is important in the endgame to use up their Deflector to open the door for your Aimed Shots. One practice that I have adopted when going second is mulliganing any hand that doesn't have a Aimed Shot or Arcane Shot since a turn 2 Searing Totem that you can't shoot will pretty much end the game before it even starts. This is probably your worst matchup, but against weaker players and when you go first you will have a decent chance.

Alliance Warlock-This matchup is a little better than the shaman. They lose the powerful equipment the shaman has but get to replace it with troublesome pets. The first is Grimdron. He's not as bad for you as a Searing Totem since he can only get used once for every 2 times the Totem activates. He also doesn't deal damage on his first turn in play and requires a resource to activate. He is elusive, however, so unless you can shoot him, he can quickly turn into a real nuisance. If you can't shoot him, don't be afraid to just unleash your hand. A common mistake among Warlock players is leaning too heavily on Grimdron and stunting their own board development in the process. They will use him every turn and will be virtually one resource behind you as long as Grimdron remains in play. So don't be afraid to make them use Grimdron if he is in play as it may actually be a blessing in disguise. The next pet on the list is Sarmoth and he's a really annoying one. He will usually soak up two allies, taking one down with him a lot of the time. There's not a lot you can do here. If you are lucky enough to have gone first and have 2 2 health allies at least he doesn't kill anyone. If they went first, you'll simply have to let him eat your one drop and kill him with a 2. The last pet is Infernal. When he comes out, you better be close to winning. He will keep your board pretty clear by himself and he can end the game in a hurry. The late game is where this matchup becomes more favorable for you than the shaman. Your Krol Blades will almost always find their mark with no Deflectors to stop them. The lack of Deflector allows you to keep hammering on them with your weapon and makes them more vulnerable to your Aimed Shots as the game winds down. This is another matchup where you want to deal as much damage as possible early and then squeeze through whatever you can and hope to finish them with an Aimed Shot.

Alliance Mage Control- This is another control deck that is a seemingly bad matchup. I think this matchup is better for the hunter than the shaman but not as good as the warlock. Here, you only need to deal 25 damage instead of 28 or 29. No heavy equipment again makes this deck more vulnerable to your Krol Blades. Krol Blade may be the most important card in the non-shaman control matchups. This deck trades in the warlock's pets for devastating abilities like Frost Nova. The mage will usually seek to make one for one trades early with cards like Fire Blast and Polymorph. Then in the mid-game they will start unleashing the Frost Nova's which are really bad. One thing that most people do, but some out there may not know is always do your attacking before you play more allies. This is especially true in this matchup. If you can force out a Frost Nova and then play Fury afterwards you can take out 20% of their health right there. One piece of advice here. Most people save their Aimed Shots for the last possible moment saving them up to make them as painful as possible. The presence of Counterspell in the mage's arsenal means you should look for any opening to get an Aimed Shot in. Any time you can get in at least 4, I think you should throw an Aimed Shot at them. They can't use their Counterspells on your allies or weapons so getting those Shots in while you can is really important. If you can get your opponent within range of one Aimed Shot they will then have to leave 2 open at all times or risk losing the game to tap out and play their big late game allies. Once again, I would try not to put my excess Krol Blades in the row since they are so good in this matchup.

Horde Warrior- This one is a pretty decent matchup for you. Once again going first is a huge help. This deck is really a lot better and beating the decks that beat rush. The Warrior does have a small arsenal of cards for dealing with this matchup but overall, it's a decent matchup for the hunter. This one's all about coming out hard and fast. The only card you that can generate any card advantage for them early is Guardian Steelhorn if you let him kill a one drop and then get a 2 drop as well. Other than that, Cleave is the only thing that can give them better than a 1-for-1. They will be forced to use their Mortal Strikes to take out your allies. The biggest problem for you here is their heavy armor and high health. Dealing 30 can be tough, but with their armor you may have to deal more like 45 or 50. The good news is they will have a tough time keeping up as you will probably be able to play allies faster than they can remove them. As long as you keep a steady stream of allies running at them, they won't ever get a chance to start trying to win. Overall, I think the more Warrior decks there are in the field the better it is for rush decks. This is a pretty good matchup for you and warriors have good matchups vs. your bad ones, so as the day goes along they should be knocking out the decks you don't want to play against.

Paladin- This matchup is a little harder to dissect than some of the others. For one thing, their isn't an established build of this deck to reference. There's also so much in the deck that can be changed that this matchup is heavily dependent on the exact build of the Paladin deck and the player playing the Paladin deck. This matchup isn't necessarily a tough one for the deck, but it is a tough one for the player to play optimally. Paladins and Warriors are similar in that they both have high health, heavy armor, and plan on winning without allies. The Paladin presents a tougher challenge for rush decks because of the ways it is different than the Warrior. First it tends to run a more complete armor suite. Whereas the Warrior basically runs Golem Skull Helm and Draconian Deflector (Deathdealer Breastplate is in there for its offensive prowess and will rarely see play until late in the game in the hunter matchup) Paladins will generally run Herod's Shoulder, Stronghold Gauntlets, and Girdle of Uther as well. Some will also run Truesilver Breastplate. So more of your damage gets soaked up. Paladins tend to run the Herod's Shoulder toolbox which presents a major problem....Flame Wrath. When this card comes online the next two turns are crucial. You have to bring them right to the brink. Otherwise, Flame Wrath is going to mop up. The third difference is the Paladin's ability to heal. Once the Warrior stabilizes the board he is still in danger of your Fury's, Leeroy's and Aimed Shots, but once the Paladin stabilizes, he will then start undoing all the damage you've done. If the Paladin runs Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection this matchup is really tough as you may not deal any damage before they are able to strike with their Flame Wrath. I don't think this matchup is as bad for you as the shaman, but you would rather be playing against a Warrior.

Overall, I think the shaman is a bad matchup but closer than people think. The Paladin will tend to be a bad matchup. The Warlock and Mage control decks are close, and I think the Warrior deck is your best matchup among established archetypes. The more Warriors in the field the better the chances for rush decks since it's a good matchup plus the warriors can knock out some of your bad matchups. The hunter rush is best equipped to handle anything not within these types since it plays the same way pretty much every game. If you choose to play this deck, be prepared for a lot of hate and know your deck very well.