Zorks Tournament Report (Part 1) by Chris Reilkoff

Chris "Jedion" Reilkoff joins us again with part 1 of his extremely detailed tournament report for the World Championships. Having had the 'pleasure' of facing down Zorak'tul a few times on Magic Workstation recently, I have started to gain quite an appreciation for this deck strategy, and I'm sure you all will find Chris's explanations of each round to be as interesting as I did!

When I arrived with TEC on Friday morning for the constructed portion of Worlds, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a good weekend for me. The previous night I was unable to get more than a couple hours of sleep, having the same two lines from “Juicy” by Notorious B.I.G. repeating over and over in my head. Given that I had only 5 minutes of sleep the night before (thanks to a ridiculous 18 hour marathon trip across the continent) my brain and body had almost given up on trying to operate. I tried to push past being tired by having a healthy breakfast in the morning, and I ensured I had enough water to stay hydrated for the entire day.

The player meeting was announced, and I became further frustrated by the announcements by the Organized Play team. Both Worlds and The World Cup were to take place in Europe, Realm Champs were reduced to once per year, and there were no North West or Canadian events at all. For a person from the West Coast of Canada, the upcoming year’s schedule meant a lot of expensive traveling.

I tried my best to avoid going on tilt before the tournament started, as the first round pairings were posted.

Round 1: Zaritha – Highlord Tirion Fordring – Mike Tremarche

As my opponent pulled out the Zaritha hero, I became immediately worried about which deck he could be piloting. Was it a totems based deck using the flip to fend off aggro? Was it a Band of Renewed life deck looking to combo out on me? How about a Highlord Fordring deck that was simply using that hero combined with Ancestral Awakening? My mulligan decision became: look for a hand with Purloin and Band of Vile Aggression. Purloin would give me the ability to determine which deck it was, thus affecting my resourcing decisions, and would pull often the best card from all three decks. Band of Vile Aggression would give me both a win condition vs. totems (as they often look to combo out via Spark) and an ability to stave off Fordring.

Lost Die Roll (hopefully this was a Fording matchup so the die roll doesn’t matter)

Game 1: I got the Purloin I mulligan for, and saw a hand of Squall Totem, Wavestorm Totem, Mikael the blunt, Weldon Barov, King Varian Wrynn, Crusade Engineer Spitzpatrick, and Eitrigg. Taking the squall totem, I came to the conclusion that it was indeed a Tirion Fordring deck due to the amount of high cost unique allies in his hand and his inclusion of the Wavestorm/Squall Totem to fend of Kel’Thuzad. I used my generic strategy against the deck, only taking 2 damage from a Mikael the blunt (which I immediately Deadliness'd away). Knowing he had the King in hand, I kept him at 8 resources until I hit turn 12 where I feigned a play mistake by neglecting to destroy his resource. I was setting up for a turn 13 Kel’Thuzad with Vuz’din play and wanted to limit his possibilities of having 2 Kings in hand. If I got my opponent to play 1, I could take the one in play and remove the second from his hand with my KT. He indeed played the King from his hand, only to have it stolen by Kel’Thuzad on 13 (he did only have 1 King in hand). I laid down the Vuz’din immediately after, gaining the concession from Mike.

Game 2: This game was significantly closer, as my opponent refined his strategy to play beat-down. His Engineer and Mikael were able to do 17 damage to me, but a late Carnage allowed me to clear his board and eventually play Kel’Thuzad.

Record: 1-0, 2-0 in games

Round 2: Spell Weaver Jihan – Slow Control – Daniel Betancourt

Going into this match-up, I knew exactly what to do; force my opponent to The Taste of Arcana cards less important than Vuz’din, and resource lock him with Band of Vile Aggression.

Lost Die Roll (Bah! Now he could get to 5 resources before I am able to band-lock him!)

Game 1: I mulliganed into a fairly aggressive hand with Broderick Langforth, Blackout Truncheon and Vuz’din. While the hand was missing Band of Vile aggression, I could at least put a quick clock on the Mage since my Vuz’din turned off his Blizzards and Brittilizes. I get the Mage to 14 damage via two Brodericks and a Blackout Truncheon before Daniel makes an absolute blow-out play. Since I knew not to attack with Vuz’din, I figured Daniel was in top deck mode to find a Roaring Blaze. Daniel found an alternative play, using Hard-Packed Snowball to exhaust my Vuz’din, and then playing two Mikael the Blunts to clear my board. Since he stacked the board with two Blizzards, a Conjured Cinnamon Roll, and a Mana Sapphire before making the play, the game was left in a state I could not recover from.

Game 2: My hand was much slower this game, but I did have one of the important cards from my sideboard: Detect Traps. The Detect Traps on turn 4 landed, giving me a 5 for 1 and leaving him with only Netherbreath Spellblade in hand. I was in a dominant position in the game, until I made a terrible misplay. With Lord Jorach and Zalan Ragewind in play (each with 2 damage on them) I decided to destroy the Spell Suppression on my Tuskarr Kite instead of the Blizzard. He flipped on my turn to make Blizzard deal 2 to everything, killing my board. He refueled with a Mana Sapphire and was able to use two Mikael the Blunts to win the game, stopping all of my plays with Mystic Denial and Nether Fracture. Had I killed the Blizzard instead, the match would have likely gone to game 3.

It seemed my lack of sleep was starting to affect my quality of play.

Record: 1-1, 2-2 in games

Round 3: Koth, Caller of the Hunt – Hunter Orcs – Adam Scigalski

When my opponent laid down his hero, the only possible deck I could think of was a Hunter Orcs deck. My strategy here was straightforward; mulligan for Deadliness, and run my opponent out of cards. My Boots of Utter Darkness would not be as valuable in this Orcs match-up, as my opponent was likely running Buzz.

Lost Die Roll (This would just make it easier to get both Kazamon Steelskin and Orgrimmar with my Deadliness on turn 4)

Game 1: Adam started with a quick hand of Broderick and Zugna, Windseer Apprentice, getting me to 21 with his flip by turn 4. I played my deadliness on my turn 4, getting his Zugna and Orders from Lady Vashj, leaving him with 3 resources and a Broderick in play. On his turn 5, he played his Kazamon, but was unable to give him ferocity since he is down a resource. After playing Jorach on my turn 5, I was able to exhaust his Kazamon with my hero, and flip on his newly played ally. A Carnage next turn yielded a 3 for 1, while Jorach attacked for 5, allowing my hero to exhaust any ferocious Orc he played. I hit Kel’Thuzad a few turns later and it was over.

Game 2: I took a mulligan into a sub-par hand, but drew into my Boots/Mount combo to stabilize at 6 damage against his start of Offender Gora and Bloodsoul. When he used Dr. Boom to find a Buzz, I responded with a Junkboxes Needed to pluck the ally from the hand. I played out two Enveloping Shadows and a Lord Jorach, and my opponent conceded to the near lockdown.

Record: 2-1, 4-2 in games

Round 4: Triton the Sacrilegious – Undead Death Knight – Herman Chan

Since I did not test the Death Knight match-up much, I did not know how this would go. I knew Death Knights had a hard time removing equipment and abilities, so I figured that Boots of Utter Darkness and a Mount would create problems. My plan was to make my hero elusive with this combo, while using my Purloins and Junkboxes to remove his Corpse Explosion and any possible Munkins.

Lost Die Roll (was that 4 in a row now?)

Game 1: For what seemed like the 10^th time of the tournament, I took a mulligan into a sub-optimal hand. I was able to play out a Broderick to slow down his start of Broderick and Bloodsoul, and when I got my Boots on 3 to go with my turn 4 Lord Jorach I begin to stabilize. He was able to Munkin my boots the next turn, putting me to 10 damage. My Carnage cleared his board, and his Corpse Explosion cleared mine. He was able to find two Dethvirs, but my second Lord Jorach was able to kill one. Herman got me to 20 damage, but I survive until turn 10 to get my Kel’Thuzad. He allowed me to look at his deck, despite knowing I could steal up to 3 Dethvirs (Tip: If you can not recover from your opponent playing Kel’Thuzad, simply concede when he is played so your opponent does not gain information about your deck). I saw a Girdle of Rezuvious with Betrayer of Humanity combo in his deck, and took note of it for next game. My Kel’Thuzad and multiple Undead Champions allowed me to kill Herman in a couple of turns.

Game 2: Herman got an amazing start to this game, with one of those Kuma style double Broderick double Bloodsoul hands. While my single Broderick helped clear his Brodericks, I was quickly at 14 damage by turn 5. On turn 6, with Lord Jorach being my only card in play, my opponent attacked in the correct order, forcing me to choose to either flip on a Vanessa Fairgraves to save 3 damage, or save the power in case his last card in hand was a Girdle of Razuvious. I chose to save the 3 damage, and he did indeed have the girdle. I should have been playing my cards to prevent the worst case scenario, but instead my fatigue cost me another game.

Game 3: In this game, I started with my perfect hand of Mount, Boots, and Tuskarr Kite and my opponent was unable to create any sort of offense while I drew two cards per turn. His only offense of the game came from a turn 6 Army of the Dead on my mount into a turn 7 Betrayer of Humanity (sacrificing a useless Bloodsoul he had in play earlier). The ghoul and axe were only able to attack once each, since my Zalan Ragewind next stopped both of them. With my endless card draw from the Kite, I was able to set up a board with multiple allies and Enveloping Shadows. I did not need Kel’Thuzad to win this game, as my allies eventually dealt enough damage through his Undercity to give me the match.

Record: 3-1, 6-3 in games

Stay tuned next Thursday for the 2nd part to Chris's experiences during Friday competition at Gen-Con! -Mike

Chris “Jedion” Reilkoff is currently the top rated Canadian player in the game, and one of the primary deck builders for Team East Coast. His past successes include a top 8 at DMF Seattle, two Realm Championship top 8s, 37^th at NACC 2009, 10^th at NACC 2010, and 34^th at Worlds 2009.