Phillip Martin
11/5/2009

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In last week's episode (found here), I walked you through the origin of the Pidge Filthfinder deck I took into battle during the World of Warcraft World Championship in Austin, Texas. While the creation of the deck was irregular and unorganized, the Warlock managed to carry me to a very nice record throughout day one. Having just flown to Las Vegas to specially prepare for this tournament, I felt a sense of duty come over me as the event finally arrived. I knew I had as much preparation for the tournament as anyone and I fully expected to put that training to good use.

Friday October 9 – Day One of Worlds

Tim Corzine and I booked a room at the Sheraton, about 5 blocks from the Austin Convention Center where the tournament was being held. We ended up sharing our room with both Michael Acharyaand Jim Fleckenstein. Considering we had four people, we started to roll out of bed at 7am. After snagging both a bagel and coffee from the hotel Starbucks, we flagged down a taxi to avoid the rain outside. Five dollars in cab fare later, we arrived at the convention center and jumped right into the action!

Rd 1 Niles Rowland, Velindra Rush

How unlucky! Niles and I prepared together the week prior in Las Vegas and had hoped to be playing each other much later in the day. After muttering under my breath for a minute about the doomed pairings, I gritted my teeth and shuffled up.

Game one begins with each of us mulliganing into mediocre starts. The first play of the match is my turn two Magnus Longbarrel which he responds to with Taste of Arcana. Next turn, I get out Adam Eternum with Eye of the Storm and am able to quickly chop away at his health. There was a notable turn were Niles played 3 Everlasting Colds and a Spell Suppression, leaving himself somewhat empty handed. I happened to have a Talisman of the Alliance in my hand for several turns and he allowed me to get the 4:1 trade. I don't think he could have done anything too much differently but that turn certainly didn't help his cause. Game two we both mulligan once again; this time he has a nice tempo the whole match and I never find room to Slow him down. In the third game I come out with a quick start. On turn five I have several allies in play including Woodsie Leafsong to Nile's empty board and I opt to use my hero's flip. His hand reveals Mana Ruby, Whiteout Staff and Blizzard. Considering he only has 4 resources in play, I take the Blizzard, removing the combo with Whiteout Staff. He takes his turn, places a resource, and then passes. When my turn comes back to me, I play Victimize, effectively ending the game.

1-0

Rd 2 William Thigpen, Orgrimmar Rouge

Game one I decide to keep a hand that included 3 Eye of the Storm, Adam Eternum, Magnus Longbarrel and 2 Rise and Be Recognized. My logic here was I would be facing a turn four Detect Traps. A hand like this would allow me to keep quest in my hand and minimize the damage dealt to my grip. This turned out to be an iffy decision when Will played a turn one Stab in the Dark and removed my Adam. I manage to find some allies off the top over the next couple of turns while Will played 3 Skumm Bag'gos from his hand, turning down each of my Eye of the Storms. On turn four, I use my hero flip to snag a Kazamon Steelskin, and then play Weldon the following turn. I win quickly from there.

Game two there isn't much action except for his double Deadliness, destroying a pair of resources and a Mikeal the Blunt. Later in the game, I combo my hero flip with a Victimize and force him to go into top deck mode with nothing in play. I eventually get a swarm of beaters out and it's too much to recover from.

2-0

Rd 3 Jim Fleckenstein, Pidge Mirror

Jim: Win the die roll, save the cheerleader.
Me: Yer funny.

(Rolls dice)

Me: Winner winner chicken dinner!

Like Niles, Jim and I had worked together previous to the tournament using our online team forum. He elected to play a slightly tweaked version of the Warlock deck. The main difference being he included Tempest of Chaos but removed Gromble the Apt.

The first play of the game is on turn two when I find my Gromble the Apt that sets me up for a turn three hero flip. Jim and I had discussed the night before how the Warlock mirror was centralized on having control of Dimzer the Prestidigiator. His hand didn't reveal the big fella but instead Dominate, 2 Victimze, Adam Eternum, Eye of the Storm and Tempest of Chaos. I remove the Adam Eternum and begin to inundate the board with allies. I win on a turn where I play Dominate and double Mikeal the Blunt to burn him out for 9.

Game two is a close one with Jim pulling it out in the end. He's able to get his Tempest of Choas on line early and without finding anyway to break it, he eventually burns me to death before I can finish him off. The last game is similar to the first; I again play a turn two Gromble the Apt and am a turn ahead the whole time.

3-0


Rd 4 Seth Minor, Velindra Rush

I had to travel all the way to Austin, Texas to have a shot at playing fellow Oregonian, Seth Minor. Last time we played each other was during the Indianapolis Darkmoon Faire, with Seth beating me in the last round of swiss prior to top 8. Once I saw his undead hero, I knew it was my match to lose.

I win the die roll once again and lead with an Outland Sucks into Magnus Longbarrel. This draws a sarcastic comment from Seth as he reminds me how I like to play with bad cards. On my third turn, I attack with Magnus Longbarrel into his empty board for three and pass. He plays Johnny Rotten targeting my exhausted ally. I respond turning down his Eye of the Storm. On my next turn, I use my hero flip to remove his sole copy of Heartburn; this sets me up perfectly for a turn five Weldon Barov. He doesn't have an immediate answer and I win after a couple of attacks. In the next game, I find early copies of Talisman of the Alliance to break his multiple Everlasting Colds. I then use a Cuffs of Devastation to take down his Sivandra and protect against his Everlasting Cold which finally stuck. As before, I use my hero flip to clear the way for Weldon Barov. He isn't able to top deck any answers in time and I quickly run over his hero.

4-0


Rd 5 Kevin Walsh, Kileana the Inferno Control

Kevin had his deck featured; check it out (direct link). As he suggest in the interview, his deck came from our play group. While he technically gave me the credit, this Warlock deck was more of a collaborative effort between Tim Rivera and Sean Pottenger in Las Vegas.

Fortunately for me, I knew every card in his deck as we shuffled up and I'm certain it was a key factor in winning the match. The first game ends up taking nearly 30 minutes with me bringing his hero to one health remaining. He is able to stabilize with the perfect combination of cards and Heal down his hero significantly. I'm in top deck mode and elect to concede before burning off any more time from the clock. I could have kept going and hit runner, runner top decks to win, but I liked my chances after sideboard.

Between games, I sideboard in my Battle Mage's Baton which I knew would be game winning in this match up. As game two progresses, I end up drawing upwards of four cards a turn with multiple Dimzer the Prestidigitators and Victimizes. I eventually locate my Battle Mage's Baton which draws an immediate concession from Kevin. We end up starting game 3 with less then 10 minutes on the play clock. Unfortunately, our match goes to time. I end up winning by virtue of having more damage on his hero then my own. Going to time always favors the more aggressive deck and I was happy to be on the winning side of this one.

5-0

Rd 6 Tim Rivera, Pidge Mirror

My match with Tim received written coverage (direct link). As with Niles and Jim, I tested extensively with Tim prior to the tournament. This time around I wasn't too upset to play a teammate. Considering it was round six and we were both undefeated, it was bound to happen. As with Jim, Tim's deck was a couple cards off from my own. He chose to run Battle Mage's Baton main over Woodsie Leafsong. Considering there is coverage, I won't go into the play by play here. The only thing I want to emphasize is whoever went first won easily. I'm certain if Tim had won the die roll, I wouldn't have won the match.

6-0

Rd 7 Dusty Hostutler, Emek Searing Light

Dusty and I had our match video taped over the livestream website (direct link). Our games seemed to be a seesaw affair. If you're able to find our match on the website, watch closely to our game three. I have Dusty empty handed without much of a board. He's able to top deck Splinter Mind in two consecutive turns to steal my Weldon Barov. Our match eventually goes to time and I barely win after he misses on a couple draws with Searing Light in play.

7-0

Rd 8 Michael Jacob, Chloe Mithrilbolt Solo Warrior

I played Michael in the feature match area (not on livestream) yet for the life of me, I can't find written coverage of our match anywhere. Jacob's deck was a solo based warrior deck built around vomiting a pile of equipment into play then winning slowly with weapon damage. I'm not sure who the favorite should be in this matchup but I managed to pull it out over three games. The first game I had in the neighborhood of 20 allies in play and ended up decking myself trying to find multiple Talismans of the Alliance to get his Defiances off the table. In games two and three, I come out guns a Blaze and win quickly before he can take his deck out of first gear.

8-0

So there you have it! After eight rounds of swiss, I found myself with the only undefeated record and top seed moving into day two.

Friday 9:00pm- the close of Worlds day 1

After all the matches winded down, the Las Vegas contingent convinced me to join them at a Mongolian style restaurant within walking distance from the convention center. The food was average but the highlight was listening to a narrative from eventual DMF Austin champion, Rob Swarowski. I can't go into specifics considering his story was X-rated. Let me just say it involved a one night stand with a women who had some…character.

After finishing our meal, I was keen on getting back to the hotel to grab as much rest as possible. Apparently Jim Fleck and Tim Corzine didn't get the memo as they wanted to talk through some limited strategies for the next day. We ended up doing a pseudo three man draft and discussed which cards from each pack we took early and our reasoning for each.

Looking back on it, I'm glad we stayed up to discuss drafting in preparation for day two. I went to bed mentally going over limited synergies I hoped to see. While I had a masterful performance with my Pidge Fithfinder deck, I would have to start all over in the morning with six rounds of draft. Tune in next week as I go over each of my draft pods and discuss the strategies I used to push my way into to the top 8.