Metagame Madness 6/28

It's time to take our weekly look at Regionals results from across the country to see how the metagame is shaping up. With no big events and less than two months until U.S. Nationals, the next few weeks will really shape the metagame heading into that event.

Without further ado, this week's results.

First up as usual, the factions:

Alliance-132/+23
Horde-120/+17

These numbers lie just a little bit. Despite the fact that the Alliance looks like the better faction, that is a result of the ridiculous number of Phadalus decks (more on this in a moment). For any basketball fans out there, the faction battle here is similar to the NBA Finals this year. The Horde are the Spurs working as a team with a few stars complemented by several key role players all doing their part for the good of the team. The Alliance is the Cavaliers, only even in the game because of one absolute superstar with a couple other people making slightly measurable contributions.

Now the classes.

Shaman-70/+20
Hunter-45/+5
Warlock-44/+6
Warrior-29/+1
Druid-24/+3
Paladin-18/+2
Priest-9/+1
Rogue-7/+1
Mage-6/+1

It's possible to split the classes up here into three groups, top three, middle three, and bottom three, but I think I'm going to say there are four groups here because Shamans are just too far out in front to be in the same group as anyone else. So for now, I'm going to say that Group 1 is Shamans, Group 2 is Hunter and Warlock, Group 3 is Warrior, Druid, and Paladin, and Group 4 is Priest, Rogue, and Mage. One of the sad (for lack of a better word) situations arising from the popularity of Phadalus is that the deck that seems to be most equipped to deal with Shaman rush is Horde Shaman control. Grennan decks are becoming very popular again, which means the top table at a lot of tournaments are just crawling with Shamans. Gary actually joked the other day that he wanted to make a Shaman in the MMO to see if they are as good on the computer as they are in the cards.

Phadalus-52/+15
Telrander-21/+2
Dizdemona-19/+2
Pagatha-18/+2
Sen'Zir-16/+2
Grennan-16/+5
Azarak-16/+3
Gorebelly-15/+1
Elendril-12/+0
Bulkas-11/+0
Nimaasus-8/+2
Zenith-6/+2
Aleyah-5/+0
Kayleitha-5/+0
Omedus-5/+0

I have decided not to write out the full list of heroes with less than 5 top 8's. I will, however, point out that Varanis and Morova got on the board this week which leaves only these heroes without a top 8:Boris Brightbeard, Nathressa Darkstrider, and Moonshadow. You'll notice they're all Alliance which further shows that the Horde is better overall but can't keep up with Phadalus to win the battle of the factions.

The first thing you should notice is how wide the gap between Phadalus and everyone else has become. The deck was already the most popular in the format before Brad Watson became a Dream Machine Champion with it. Phadalus took home a mind-boggling 15 top 8's this week. I think it is worth raising the question, does something need to be done about Phadalus? While I'm not going to go into that debate today, think about what you like to see from a Constructed format and whether you think Phadalus decks are starting to warp the game.

After the masterful performance of the blue man group this week only two other heroes posted more than two top 8's, Grennan and Azarak. Grennan is quickly climbing back through the ranks as it has some of the best tools to fight off its Alliance Shaman counterpart. Grennan control first rose to popularity as a foil to Elendril rush. Now, player's are calling on the uber-cow again to combat a new Alliance rush deck. We will see over the next few weeks whether Grennan still has it in him to fight off this deck or whether Phadalus will prove too tough to tame.

The other deck that outperformed everyone but the Shamans this week was Azarak. While I still didn't see decklists for these, I'm going to assume that they are the control deck and not the ally curve deck. Azarak like Grennan has a lot of tools to fight rush decks. Lightning Reflexes is amazing and the combination of a Ranged weapon with Wraith Scythe can be overwhelming to a deck full of small allies. It has the added benefit over a somewhat similar deck in Bulkas of being able to just end the game in one big turn with Rapid Fire. This makes it significantly better against the Pagatha control decks that look to recur a Zygore with Spirit Healer until you're out of weapons, but the Rapid Fire will sometimes give Azarak a chance to win before Zygore takes out everything.

Beyond that, there wasn't much to talk about. Gorebelly and Bulkas were conspicuously absent this week with Gorebelly only getting one and Bulkas not a single top 8. There weren't any real shockers further on down the list. As of right now, it looks like your metagame is going to be a heavy diet of Shamans, mostly Phadalus with Grennan becoming increasingly popular, with several other decks looking to make some noise. Those decks include: Telrander (who has possibly found his happy medium as an explosive if inconsistent Tier 2 deck), Dizdemona aggro, Pagatha control, Sen'Zir mid-range, Azarak control, Gorebelly rush/combo, Bulkas control (although this deck is dying a slow death), and perhaps some Nimaasus rush.

That's it for today. Good luck at Regionals and don't forget to send in your results.

Drafting-Alliance Allies

I know a lot of you out there don't care about draft. But whether you like it or not, it is going to be a major factor in crowning the National champion and most likely the World champion as well later in the year. I want to talk some more about drafting here leading up to Nationals. Before I get started, I want to also recommend reading all of Alex Brown's articles on draft over at StarCityWoW. He is one of the best drafters in the world and has valuable insights into drafting. While I have done a few hundred practice drafts on the Draft Simulator at TCGPlayer and several live drafts, I don't feel like I have enough experience to really consider myself an expert at Draft yet. Having said that, I've done thousands of drafts in other games and a lot of the basic concepts still apply here. I do feel comfortable enough in my abilities to at least give you a place to start.



The Alliance curve (commons only)



One thing that is very important in drafting is knowing which cards are worth taking. One of the things that I do in WoW a little differently than a lot of people is instead of rating every ally against every other ally, I have rankings within each spot on the curve up to six. Alliance decks tend to rely more on playing a solid curve than Horde decks, so this is probably more important on the Alliance side. More important than the actual ranking within each spot on the curve, though, is the categories I put them in. Each ally goes into one of three categories, Wanted, Playable, Junk. On top of knowing where each ally stands within its slot on the curve, knowing which drops are harder to get is huge in making tough decisions between allies. Knowing that getting solid 5-drops is the hardest slot to fill in is important as you go through the draft.



I also rank all the commons in the draft pool, not by individual set. This way I know which slots give me solid options later and which ones need to be a priority in the Heroes packs. So without further ado, here are my common ally rankings with categories for the Alliance commons.



1-drop



Wanted:



Apprentice Teep
Apprentice Merry
Scaramanga

Playable:

Korthas Greybeard
Warden Tonarin
Dorric the Martyr

Junk:

Cerwyn
Miner Moggun

Dorric is borderline junk, but he can sometimes squeek in as a 29-30th card because the Alliance tends to play a couple of high drops which he can heal to allow them to take out an extra ally. The 2/1's for 1 are the 1-drops you want in your deck. The 2 protectors can get into your deck if it's mediocre, but I don't like having to play them.



2-drops

Wanted:

Latro Abiectus
Avanthera
Jeleane Nightbreeze
Milo the Unmerciful
Galahandra

Playable:

Bubula Del Kessel
Freya Lightsworn
Brother Rhone
Crazy Igvand

Junk:

Tracker Gallen
Darnassus Sentinels
Ironforge Guards

The 3/2's here are again the ones you want in your deck. I go back and forth a lot on where I rate Galahandra. Sometimes, she's incredible. Others she's not so great. I rate Avanthera above Jeleane because of the fact that allies are far more prevalent in Limited than abilities and the pseudo-elusive is a lot better late in a game. I have no problems playing Freya or Bubula. The 2 protectors are a little different. I'm not happy about playing either one, but sometimes you have to. One thing about the 2-drop slot for Alliance is that it's really deep, so you can usually pick up solid 2-drops in every draft even with your middle picks in every pack.



3-drop



Wanted:

Parvink
Warden Ravella
Mya
Durdin Hammerhand
Kor Cindervein

Playable:


Tim
Sha'lin
Grint
Vestia
Kena

Junk:

Courtney Noel



Three-drop is another deep slot for the Alliance in both Heroes and Dark Portal. I rank Warden Ravella ahead of the 3-ATK allies because with Protector she affects the board as soon as she hits play. It doesn't matter that much because you will rarely have the decision between Ravella and Mya or Durdin.



4-drops



Wanted:

Moira Darkheart
Vindicator Enkallus
Tristan Rapidstrike


Playable:


Margaret Fowl
Barnathrum

Junk:

Valanos
Reverand Tobias
Maxum Ironbrew
Ryn Dreamstrider



4-drop is a little light on the good allies. You've got 2 outstanding option in HoA but nothing after than and one outstanding option in TtDP with 2 solid ones after that. This is one of the slots that when you're playing Alliance has to be a priority. It's one of the most important turns in the game and one of the lightest quality slots for Alliance. If you are playing Alliance Moira and Tristan should be very near the top of your list to pick. Vindicator is very good and how highly you rate Barnathrum and Margaret depends on how your HoA packs went. If you didn't get any 4-drops they go way up. If you got a couple, they're not as important. You could still pick them, but they would be a much lower priority.



5-drops

Wanted:

Lynda Steele
Nerra Lifeboon

Playable:

Liba Wobblebonk

Junk:

Lilnas the Calm
Hannah the Unstoppable

When you see playable 5-drops, you have to take them. You get some help from the uncommons here, but if you pass a 5-drop in Alliance it better be for something spectacular or else it's going to come back and bite you.

6-drops

Playable:

Ka'vai the Wanderer
Bretander of the Claw
Anika Berlyn
Raul "Fingers" Mauldren

Playable:

Stylean Silversteel

Junk:

Lafiel

6-drop is pretty solid for Alliance and you only want 1 or 2 anyway. You will have several opportunities to pick up a 6-drop or 2 so you should usually try to pick them up in packs with nothing else in them that you want. There are also several incredible uncommon 6-drops in Acolyte Demia and Braxiss the Sleeper and the uber-bomb Lorekeeper Darian at the rare.

Overall, Alliance decks tend to care more about their curve these days whereas Horde decks seem to be focused more on the quanitity of allies they are able to flood the field with. Remembering how your curve looks throughout a draft is an important part of making a cohesive deck. While Lynda Steele and Bretander of the Claw are both great cards, you have to know when to take a card that might not be quite as powerful as another, but fits into your deck better.

Metagame Madness 6/22

I know I said I would come back and tell everyone what I thought about the Worlds information that was made public this week, and I'm still planning on doing that. But it's already Friday and I haven't covered the metagame yet this week, so I'm going to do that today.



First up are the faction numbers:



Alliance- 109/+18
Horde- 103/+21



Another close week and Horde is closing the overall gap. I think that the versatility of the Horde is starting to have a greater effect on deck choices. I know I've said this before, but all the Alliance decks are beatdown where the Horde decks are anything from beatdown to mid-range to combo to control.



Shaman- 50/+9
Hunter- 40/+9
Warlock- 38/+7
Warrior- 28/+6
Druid- 21/+2
Paladin- 16/+5
Priest- 8/+1
Rogue- 6/+1
Mage- 5/+0

The separation of classes has become very apparent. Shaman and Hunter lead the way again followed closely by Warlocks, Warriors, and Paladins. The "new" has really worn off the Telrander deck as it has started to sputter a little bit. Paladins as a class continue to pick up some steam, but this week they weren't led by Draenei beatdown players who didn't want to play Shaman. This week it was the Red Paladin, Aleyah Dawnborn leading the Paladin brigade. Druids, Priests, Rogues, and Mages all had a pretty crummy week. Another interesting note regarding the Shamans being on top again is that Grennan was actually the best performing Shaman of the week, Darkmoon Faire Chicago excluded of course.

Here's the breakdown by hero:

Phadalus- 37/+4
Telrander- 19/+2
Dizdemona- 17/+5
Pagatha- 16/+2
Sen'Zir- 14/+4
Gorebelly- 14/+2
Azarak- 13/+2
Elendril- 12/+3
Bulkas-11/+2
Grennan- 11/+5
Nimaasus- 8/+1
Aleyah- 5/+3
Kayleitha- 4/+0
Omedus- 4/+0
Zenith- 4/+0
Morganis- 2/+0
Thangal- 2/+0
Ja'nah- 2/+0
Kalinna- 2/+0
Haruka- 2/+0
Victoria- 2/+0
Ta'Zo- 1/+0
Ruby- 1/+0
Grumpherys- 1/+0
Radak- 1/+0
Savin- 1/+0
Timmo- 1/+0
Graccus- 1/+0
Litori- 1/+0
Daspien- 1/+1
Warrax- 1/+1

Results for the week show that there's a lot of variety and a lot of balance to the top decks. Finally someone other than Phadalus takes the top spot for the week, although the blue Shaman maintains a stranglehold on the overall totals. In a Heroes of Azeroth flashback moment, Grennan and Dizdemona return to the top, although most of the Dizdemona decks these days are the rush variant. Grennan has once again become a strong choice as answer to the Alliance beatdown decks. It has one of the best anti-rush cards in the game with Chain Lightning. The untargetables have made this card so much better than it was before, which was still really good. EvilDave over on the WoWrealms boards made the comment that the best way to beat Shaman rush was to play Shaman control. It will be interesting in the next month and a half to see if something legitimately steps up to challenge Shamans or if we'll see a repeat of Chicago in Indy.

Worlds Info Announced

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pass this info along to anyone who hasn't seen it yet. I will update later today with my thoughts on this info, but I wanted to get it out to everyone now.

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/wow/en/organizedplay/tournament/worlds/

Some highlights.

Date: Nov. 30-Dec. 2
Location: San Diego

Players may qualify through Constructed and Sealed ratings, Honor Rankings, and Nationals.

Prizes:

1st-$100,000
2nd-$25,000
3rd-4th-$10,000
5th-8th-$4,000
9th-16th-$2,000
17th-100th-$1,000

Darkmoon Faire:Chicago Recap Part 2

Yesterday, I looked at some of the non metagame related information coming out of Chicago this past weekend. Today, I'll move on to the decks and what to expect in the coming weeks.

Before we get to the top 8, let's take a look at the overall field.

I'm going to list the numbers from the Darkmoon Faire first and then the numbers that we've got from last week's Metagame Madness to see how they stack up.

Phadalus-30 (18%)
Telrander-16 (10%)
Pagatha-16 (10%)
Nimaasus-13 (8%)
Bulkas-12 (7%)
Gorebelly-9 (5%)
Dizdemona-8 (5%)
Omedus-7 (4%)
Azarak-6 (4%)
Sen'Zir-5 (3%)
Elendril-5 (3%)

From Metagame Madness last week out of 173 known top 8 decks:

Phadalus-33 (19%)
Telrander-17 (10%)
Pagatha-14 (8%)
Gorebelly-12 (7%)
Dizdemona-12 (7%)
Azarak-11 (6%)
Sen'Zir-10 (6%)
Bulkas-9 (5%)
Elendril-9 (5%)
Nimaasus-7 (4%)
Omedus-4 (2%)

And for Posterity's Sake

Chicago favored the Alliance 54%-46% and Metagame Madness showed an Alliance advantage of 53%-47%.

One final note to show how closely this event correlated with past results. If you'll notice, these are only the "popular decks." The other heroes make up 23% of the DF field combined while they make up 21% of our top 8 decks from our weekly stats.

I'm not showing you all these stats to brag. In fact, there's nothing for me to really brag about anyway since these are simple numbers and I had nothing to do with reaching them other than actually tallying them up. But I am trying to show you that with just a little bit of work, you should have a very good idea of what to expect when you head to a tournament.

The only hero that was more than slightly off from our numbers was Nimaasus, which isn't too much of a surprise anyway since he's been gaining a lot of steam in recent weeks. So the field was pretty much what we expected it to be. Let's take a look at the decks that successfully navigated this field and made it to the top 8.

When you look at the top 8 decks there isn't a whole lot there to get excited about. We've got 2 Phadalus rush decks, a standard Telrander deck, Chris McMurry's Pagatha deck which was a lot more exciting in Austin, the new standard Gorebelly deck and then a couple of unexpected decks in Grennan rush and Omedus discard/aggro. I really only want to talk about three of these.

The first is the Gorebelly deck. For anyone who missed the coverage of DF: Frankfurt this is the new Gorebelly. Instead of a control deck with a combo finisher, it has become a rush deck with a combo finish. To be honest, the new version is scarier to me, but seems far more inconsistent. I will admit upfront that I haven't playtested with this version of Gorebelly much, but it seem like in terms of potential, this deck is off the charts. The thought of a good rush deck backed up with the Mortal Strike/Heroic Strike combo is nutty.

But to me it seems like too often the deck would not be able to have the combo in the times when the allies fall short. If your rush doesn't get there, they do almost nothing as far as buying you time to comb out. On the flip side it seems like there will be a lot of games where the combo just sits in your hand and you don't need it, but if it were something better it would actually affect the game. I think the thing that confuses me most about these decks though is why they're Gorebelly and not Victoria Jaton. The Alliance has far better allies for rushing at this point and Victoria still has Mortal Strike. The main reasons for leaving the combo deck as Gorebelly in my mind have always been Steelhorn and Counterattack and these decks play neither. I think Victoria fits the rush/combo style a lot better and Gorebelly would prefer a control/combo strategy.

The Grennan deck is mid-range deck that can play a little bit of control vs. aggro decks but can still end things quickly when it needs to. I've always been a fan of Shaman decks and I think Chain Lightning is easily one of the top 5 cards in the game and only got better with the release of Untargetables. I've been leaning towards the Horde lately because they seem more versatile in the sense that a lot of their cards are good on both offense and defense. Scout Omerrta for instance can take off as a 2/1 for 1 when you want to get aggressive, but also serves as a good offensive protector when you want to slow the game down against a deck like Phadalus. From a personal standpoint, I really like this Grennan deck, and I think it's got a lot of potential if people start picking it up.

The other noteworthy deck in the top 8 was Omedus. When I first looked at this deck, I kinda thought it must have been Eric's playskills that took him that far, because the deck is a little out there. But the more I look at it the more I like it, especially Power Word:Shield. At first glance, the card doesn't seem very good. But when you look a little closer, you can use it as a 1-cost Vanquish. Since it doesn't prevent damage to and by, you can attach it to any ally, swing it in and not get it killed in the process. It seems really good to me. There are some other things I'm not too high on like the 1 Brainwash and a few of the allies like Nyn'jah. But he did take it to Top 8 so he must have done something right.

Based on the fact that there really wasn't anything new this weekend, I would expect to see more of the same moving forward until Nationals. I'm a little sad that Fires of Outland won't be legal so we'll be stuck in an established metagame, but such is life. I'm going to be out of town tomorrow, but I will be back Thursday with an all new Metagame Madness.

Darkmoon Faire: Chicago Recap Part 1

The final major event before U.S. Nationals is out of the way and we are now in the home stretch with the biggest event yet fast approaching. But before we begin preparing in earnest and looking ahead to GenCon, we have to look back at this past weekend's results.

Individual performances.

The first thing I want to do is take a moment to look at some of the top individual performances we've seen in the game so far. First of all, congratulations to Brad Watson on winning the main event. But there are a few other individuals who deserve some praise as well. Everyone has heard about Chris McMurry and his second consecutive top 8 appearance but for some reason the other player, Matt Spreadbury, who also finished top 8 at both Austin and Chicago isn't getting the same amount of love. Both of these players showed an incredible amount of skill (and probably a little bit of luck) in making their second straight top 8.

Dan Clark pulled a Charles MacArthur and won both the Gadzetzan Challenge Friday and the iPod draft on Sunday. That's two DF's in the U.S. and the Friday winner has also won Sunday in both.

Speaking of Charles MacArthur's Limited sweep in Austin, the top-ranked Limited player in the world was back in the top 8 this time around. Unfortunately for Charles, Tim Batow was able to get his revenge for losing in the finals of the Austin Gadzetzan and took Charles out in the quarterfinals here. Still, Charles is a force of nature in limited and will be a player to watch on Day 2 of Nationals.

And finally, Tim Batow was coming off of a stellar weekend in Austin with the Dream Machine Championship and the second place in the Gadzetzan. While he was no doubt disappointed in his finish in Chicago's Dream Machine event, he found his way back to the finals of the Gadzetzan again only to lose to the person who would sweep the weekend again. His second Gadzetzan finals plus his Dream Machine win show that Tim may very well be the most well-rounded player in the game right now.

Non metagame-related notes

I think the single thing that impressed me most about this tournament was the attendence. With Regionals attendence numbers starting to slide (more on this in a moment) combined with the relatively low attendence of Darkmoon Faire Austin, I wasn't sure what to expect from the numbers in Chicago. While all reports say WoW is still selling very well, the tournament numbers have been in decline since the early Regionals, and to me at least, Chicago would be a nice signal as to the overall health of not only the game, but Organized Play as well.

Well, the numbers didn't disappoint at all. 120 players showed up for the Gadzetzan Challenge on Friday which was shocking to me for several reasons. For one, it started on Friday morning meaning that people coming in from out of town would generally have had to come in on Thursday night. Friday morning events that are not the main event of the weekend, historically have lower turnouts than the same tournament would have had on Saturday morning. It was also sealed deck. For some reason, limited formats in this game seem to be less popular than any other game I've played, so I wasn't expecting a big turnout for the Limited events.

The Dream Machine Championship brought in almost 170 players, which was almost twice what we saw in Austin. While there are things that point to a bigger turnout such as Chicago being a significantly larger city than Austin and the trip for out-of-towners being a lot cheaper, the dwindling Regionals numbers said that maybe there wouldn't be many more in Chicago than Austin. Luckily, that idea was wrong. Hopefully we can continue to see the same healthy growth in future Darkmoon Faires.

The last event of note was the iPod draft. While I haven't seen how many people entered, I did read that they were only allowing 64 players to register and that there was a bit of a scramble to secure your slot. Whether this was true I have no idea, but if it is that's pretty amazing to me. At Austin, there were a ton of people there who didn't play in the Dream Machine tournament, so it's conceivable there were as many as 350 people at the Faire. Anyone who was there, I would love to hear an estimate on how many people actually attended the Faire.

Before I move on, I do want to talk about Regionals attendence and why I think the numbers are slipping. To me it's pretty simple. There are too many invitations to a once a year event. With 4 invites at every Regionals and so many Regionals taking place it's not that difficult to get qualified. Once you qualify there is no real reason to go to a Regionals unless it's just in your hometown or you REALLY want that Ony Hide Backpack. The closest Regionals to me are about 2 hours away in Dallas and/or Oklahoma City. If I weren't already qualified I would travel as much as 4 hours to play in a Regionals (maybe even more).

I know there are a lot of people who don't like it when I compare WoW to other card games, but for the sake of this argument I simply must. When you look at Magic and VS. they have several "seasons" per year. With each major event, there is a qualifier season attached to it. Each season lasts 2 or 3 months. When a new season starts everyone starts playing again. If they had some other sort of invitations going out now (to the UDE Invitational for example), I think you would see the numbers start going back up as players would have a reason to travel to the events. Or they could even do something like playing out the top 8 with the winner getting an invite to Worlds and the other top 3 getting their Nationals invites. I think this would also drive up attendence at Regionals as players who are already qualified would again have a reason to travel to the events that are further away than 15 minutes.

That's going to do it for today. Tomorrow, I'll talk about the actual decks from the tournament and what they mean to us. Metagame Madness will be back on Wednesday.

Back from Vegas

Well, I'm back from Vegas and now a married man. While you may say congratulations, etc., I know you really come here to read about Warcraft, so I'll spare you all the details and just get back to business.

There were only 2 Regionals this weekend, and I've got results from neither. I did manage to pick up some slightly older results, but not enough to warrant a full metagame breakdown for the week. I guess organizers didn't want to compete against Magic Regionals this weekend. We'll be back on track with the weekend coming up though. We've got Darkmoon Faire-Chicago and a full plate of Regionals once more. So with that out of the way, I won't be doing Metagame Madness this week. Instead, I want to talk about the two Fires of Outland cards that will be prizes at U.S. Nationals.

I'm sure you've seen both of the cards. I'm going to talk about the Alliance one first, because it's the one that seems to be getting all the attention. A lot of people are making a big fuss about this card, and I'm just not sure why. Let's just look at the facts.

Her 4/5 body for 6 is small compared to other Alliance 6-drop. Anika Berlyn, Braxiss the Sleeper, Raul "Fingers" Mauldren, and Bretander of the Claw go 5/6. 6/4, 6/4. and 5/5 respectively, so you're not getting very much use out of her in the combat sense.

But it's her power that everyone is in love with, but how good is it? Well, she is a six drop that can't have an immediate effect on the board on turn 6. Since she doesn't have protector, ferocity, or any usable power, on turn 6 she's just an under-statted body. If you wait until turn 8 or 9, you would probably have been better served by Magni.

The bigger problem with her power is that with just the cards that are available now, there's not that much out there that I REALLY want to use the turn it comes into play. Sure, getting to use Medoc or Seraph right away is nice, but I wouldn't be able to use them until turn 7 if I played Breanna. And that's assuming she survived turn 6. I would rather run some protectors out early and then just drop Medoc on 5 and start using him on 6.

Breanna does one thing that has always been looked for in great cards. She breaks one of the fundamental rules of the game. It explicitly says in the rulebook, allies can't use powers that require an exhaust effect the turn they come into play. But one of the other things that is generally required on great cards is a low cost in addition to breaking one of the fundamental rules of the game.

For an exammple, let's look at Time Walk from Magic. At 1U it allowed you to take an extra turn. The card is incredibly powerful and ended up banned in every format but Classic (which I still call Type 1). Several years later, they printed a card with the exact same effect but made the cost 3UU instead of 1U. To most, this change seems relatively minor, but in CCG's cost is everything. Time Walk is still one of the most powerful spells in the game. Time Warp is basically trash.

But the final overarcing reason why Breanna just isn't that good is tempo. World of Warcraft is all about tempo. Aggro decks look to push the tempo while control decks look for ways to slow it down. In this world of tempo, there is little worse than spending all your resources on turn 6 and have to wait a turn for that investment to pay off.

What's worse is that because of the way the game is designed, when you play an ally like Breanna you are essentially relinquishing control to your opponent. Let me explain that. When you play Breanna, since she doesn't have protector or ferocity or any other relevent ability at the time you play her, you've essentially allowed your opponent to control her fate.

If Breanna is enough of a threat, she will be removed. Your best case scenario is that your opponent is forced to trade 2 cards for her and you at least come out one card ahead. But you could have just played a card like Chain Lightning and chosen for yourself which allies to remove. If your opponent decides that Breanna doesn't pose enough of a threat to warrant actively removing her, you're stuck with an overcosted ally. You can still probably kill 2 allies with her, but you will lose a lot of tempo because they will get extra attacks in before she gets to attack.

The few times that Breanna does pose a significant threat but can't be removed by your opponent, the fact that you had Breanna is of little consequence. Most times she just as easily could have been Bretander of the Claw and had the same impact.

This could all become moot if there is an incredibly powerful alliance exhaust power in FoO, but right now, there are no powers that are so good that they have to be used right away. And most of the ones that you might want to use right away, you would still have online before Breanna comes into play.

As for Tempest, after all I said about how important it is to have an immediate effect on the game, you might think I really like this card. While I don't necessarily love it, I'm probably in the small minority of players who thinks it's the better of the two. It would obviously go into a mid-late game Horde deck and you could use it to attack with a Tewa or Moko twice or to ready a protector before combat, although most players may see the trap when you leave seven resources open and still have cards to play. He also has pseudo-ferocity since he can be played at the end of your opponent's turn and then be able to attack on yours without being vulnerable to opposing attacks. I'm still not sure that I want to play him at a cost of 7 though. I think if I wanted a Horde 7-drop I would just play Zy'lah and her plus Tempest seems like too many high drops for one deck. I could be wrong though.

Metagame Madness-6/6

We've got a lot of results to digest this week so let's get right into it.

Alliance-91/+28
Horde-82/+32

The two factions were relatively even this week, with the Horde holding a slight advantage. In addition to Phadalus's steady numbers, the Alliance got a big contribution from Dizdemona. The Horde continues to get its numbers through verstatility and while nobody can challenge Phadalus again this week, there were several Horde heroes who put up solid numbers.

Shaman-41/+12
Warlock-31/+13
Hunter-31/+11
Warrior-22/+8
Druid-19/+1
Paladin-11/+3
Priest-8/+6
Rogue-5/+4
Mage-5/+2

Things look a lot like the good old days once again with Shaman on top, Warlock and Hunter duking it out over second, Warrior right in the middle, not quite with the top three but distinctly ahead of the bottom 5 and everyone else getting what they can. For the first time in a very long time Shaman was not the best performing class. The Warlocks got very good weeks from Dizdemona and Pagatha, but it was Zenith chipping in off the bench that put them over the top for the week. Hunters once again got solid contributions from all three major players to stay near the top. Warriors relied on Gorebelly this week with the usually reliable Bulkas only netting one top 8. The big story of the week (aside from Warlock finally getting over the Shamans, even if only for the week) was the lack of Druids anywhere. Telrander Cat Form decks were the second most popular decks and had been challenging Phadalus for supremacy. It will be interesting to see if this week was an aberration or the beginning of a trend. The Warlock class is just a few weeks removed from getting blanked, so a bounceback is possible. But my guess is that the novelty is gone and people have started looking to more consistent beatdown options. Another amazing story this week in the class breakdown (there seem to be a lot of great stories this week) is that every class pulled at least 2 top 8's. Priests actually managed 6 spots and Rogues 4. I think it's a sign that every class is at least playable and originality in decks is really starting to come through the further away we get from the Darkmoon Faires.

Now on to the individual heroes.

Phadalus-33/+8
Telrander-17/+1
Pagatha-14/+5
Gorebelly-12/+6
Dizdemona-12/+6
Azarak-11/+5
Sen'Zir-10/+3
Bulkas-9/+1
Elendril-9/+3
Nimaasus-7/+3
Grennan-6/+2
Zenith-4/+2
Kayleitha-4/+3
Omedus-4/+2
Aleyah-2/+0
Morganis-2/+1
Jan'ah-2/+2
Kalinna-2/+2
Haruka-2/+2
Graccus-1/+0
Ta'Zo-1/+0
Ruby-1/+0
Grumpherys-1/+0
Radak-1/+0
Savin-1/+0
Timmo-1/+1
Victoria Jaton-1/+1
Litori-1/+1

First a warm welcome to some new heroes this week, Mojo Mender Jan'ah (who technically had a top 8 last week due to a drop, but for this column I gave the top 8 to the deck that dropped), Anchorite Kalinna, Timmo Shadestep, Haruka Skycaller, Victoria Jaton, and Litori Frostburn. For those of you keeping score at home that is 29 of 36 heroes represented. These 7 are still scoreless, Boris Brightbeard, Daspien Bladedancer, Moonshadow, Morova of the Sands, Nathressa Darkstrider, Varanis Bitterstar, and Warrax. Now, on to the relevent information.

This week's top performers were: Phadalus (8), Gorebelly (6), Dizdemona (6), Pagatha (5), and Azarak (5). Phadalus isn't shocking as he's been the top dog every week since he became legal. Gorebelly and Dizdemona climb up the ranks this week. Most of the Gorebelly decks are the aggro/combo decks from Frankfurt with a beatdown start and then the Mortal Strikes to end the game. Dizdemona rush gains in popularity with access to some very good cards against opposing Alliance rush decks in Rain of Fire and Infernal. Operation Recombobulation is actually also very good in rush matchups. Pagatha control is starting to regain a foothold in an environment almost devoid of control decks, and Azarak moves up as well. I'll mention again the almost complete absence of Telrander decks this week. I know a lot of Shaman decks have started packing Purges in their sideboard, and I personally think they are good main right now. Purge can be crippling in the Shaman/Druid matchup. Even if you have the two resources up to "save" your Cat Form, you miss one attack and against a deck that aims to kill you in 5 or 6 turns, sometimes that's all it takes. The fact that Purge only costs 1 means the Shaman player doesn't have to use up a turn playing it and can still play out plenty of allies to attack you with. One final note here is that we're now a little over a month removed from Austin and a few weeks from Frankfurt. The decks that won each event only posted 1 top 8 each this week. I may talk about why I think this has happened both from the actual decks themselves to just the phenomenon in general of top finishing decks not surviving a qualifier type environment, but that will be next week. For now, I'm done with this week. I'll be leaving in the morning for Vegas, so I won't be updating until I get back next Tuesday. Until then, good luck at Regionals.