Why I Am Not Blogging About 6th Today...

...too busy painting.  Going to try to get my 6th Edition Templars painted up to the (admittedly mediocre) standard of my Grey Knights.  Since I intend for those two armies to share Rhinos/Dreads/Razorbacks I want them to have matching color schemes.  Plus there are those times where I will feel like doing some Vulkan Vanilla lists and the uniform paint scheme will be an asset.

So I have applied the Boltgun Metal basecoat to my entire super secret 6th edition BT list and the next step is black wash, follow by mithral and skull white highlights, and then blue/red energy effects.  I'm guessing the painting will be done by next weekend, and then hopefully basing shortly thereafter.  Who knows, if they are ready you may see them at NOVA.  

If you want to hear my initial thoughts head over to Laeroth's blog where a good discussion of Templar related fun is happening.

Not bad for 5 hours of work

Black Templars and 6th Edition Rumors Part 2

I’ve kept an intentionally low profile on the 6^th Edition speculation, because previously I was awfully pessimistic.  I would rate my current outlook on competitive 6^th Edition as “Very Cautiously Optimistic.”

Without going into a whole ordeal, I have a mere three gripes with everything I have heard.  However, what my gripes lack in plurality they gain individual potential to ruin the game. 

First, I think allies have the potential to totally break the game.  If the rules are handled properly it could be done balanced; but it’s far more likely that allies will either be out of control, or never worth using.  I don’t know yet exactly what the restrictions will be, but I can’t think of many ways that they would be GOOD for tournament play.  While they may not harm it, they certainly can’t help it.  Even if the rules for allies prevent all broken combos, except one, that one is enough to spoil the whole thing. 

Second, I think buying fortifications are super dumb.  Look at the all the drama around the blogosphere surrounding NOVA’s terrain and how it matches up with individuals’ conceptions of how 40k terrain should be.  Terrain is, clearly, a very touchy issue and incredibly difficult to balance.  So any rule that lets a player manipulate or place his own terrain is bound to create all kinds of balance issues.  Again, fortifications might be balanced for 90% of the lists that would take them, but the 10% that are wildly imbalanced are enough to ruin a tournament.

Third, one of the deployments is short table edges.  This is so scary, because it puts certain armies at an immediate disadvantage while greatly benefitting others.  Of the three issues, I feel this is the easiest to mitigate, especially since most tournaments use long edge deployments for each scenario anyway regardless of the alternatives.

In summation, the things I listed have the potential to be OK if handled absolutely perfectly, but if handled wrong could be a disaster.  I highly doubt the risk is worth the reward, but the allies and fortifications rules seem like something that the sales wing of the company forced the design portion of the company to include.  Top down game design from non-designers is usually bad.  And I’ll leave it at that with my fingers crossed.

On a positive note…

Many of the rumors I thought would make Templars awesome are confirmed.  Er, as confirmed as they could be at this juncture.

Re-rolling ur misses, and sometimes ur wounds

Let’s list the things that are stronger in 6^th that Templars have the best of already…

1.  Terminators.  Ours are the same price as everyone else’s, shoot at vehicles better, and fight in close combat better than everyone else’s.  Oh yeah, power weapons are “confirmed” to be AP3 last I heard.  Game on.

2.  Skimmers.  Our Typhoon speeders are cheaper than everyone else.  And now they can get a cover save.  This isn’t a huge upgrade, but if I’m reading correctly they can go flat out, get a cover save, and shoot their weapons at BS1.  Fine by me.  Two frag missiles at BS1 can still do some decent damage to infantry.  This is just a strike upgrade.

3.  Preferred Enemy.  The re-roll of 1’s to wound is great, since 1’s are the only thing Thunderhammers don’t wound on.  Since vehicles have weapon skill now, I also assume this works on vehicles, though I wouldn’t be shocked if they word it to say “non-vehicle” units or something to that effect.

4.  Land Raiders.  4 Hull Points and the new vehicle damage chart means that the only thing killing them quickly is a lot of melta.  This means that a Crusader will likely get to deliver it’s payload, and a godhammer can shoot at range all day.  What long range weapons will someone bring that can reliably pop a Land Raider now?  It is pretty darn hard for a Lascannon to do it since glances don’t mean much to a Land Raider anymore.  I don’t know if that will be enough to get people to bring Godhammers, but it might.

What are my initial thoughts?  Tough to say.  All the things, except the Typhoons, that I mentioned are not cheap.  You could write a list with terminators and land raiders that is really bad.  Too many shiny toys.  But in a tournament like NOVA, we’ve seen kp/vp denial lists do rather well. 

On the other hand, I could also envision a list with three troops sitting in dedicated transport Land Raiders just holding objectives all day with Terminators providing shooting and counter charge duties.  It would probably not be the ideal way to do a BT list in 6^th, but we have seen that 2 or 3 nearly indestructible troop choices can be as good as 6 cheap ones.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

Games Workshop Webstore and the Tournament Scene

Games Workshop doesn’t allow 3^rd party companies to sell their products on the web, and the end result of this is we have a national Grand Tournament scene that is patchwork at best.  How are these concepts related?  I’ll explain.

Running a Grand Tournament now is a labor of love.  I’m fairly sure Mike Brandt isn’t quitting his day job anytime soon, and he isn’t paying for Christmas with the tremendous NOVA profits.  And while the prize support is admirably large, and the Invitational does have a cash prize, we are still far from a “Pro Tour” or anything resembling it.  Kudos to the sponsors of the current Grand Tournaments, I’m sure their return on investment is not lighting the world on fire.

Let’s compare it to Magic.  Magic does have a professional tournament series, but it also has several semi-professional cash tournament series.  How does Magic support tournaments that give away $25,000 a weekend in cash prizes?  They allow 3^rd parties to sell their products on the web, and they don’t sell theirs on the web.  The major 3^rd party Magic sellers (starcitygames.com and tcgplayer.com) are able to generate tremendous market share by supporting their respective tournament series.  While I’m sure they turn a tidy profit on their tournaments, I’m also sure that those profits pale in comparison to the profits they make from their webstores, which is fueled by the publicity of their tournaments.

If GW changed their policy, we could have a major US web-retailer, like thewarstore, sponsor a tournament series.  It would make economic sense for them to organize the entire U.S. GT circuit, even if the tournaments themselves are a breakeven or slight loss.  If there was a 128-256 open tournament every other weekend with significant cash prizes, and live webstreaming coverage, attendance would be exceptional.  And you can imagine the sales they would make if, while watching someone destroy their opponent on the streaming coverage with Thunderwolf Cavalry, they were able to quickly add one to their checkout cart.

Why would GW go for this?  Because in the long run, they would sell more product.  Tournaments generate interest in the game.  Tournament coverage sells more specific products as the streaming coverage shows the top players in the game winning with the best lists.  Eventually a critical mass is reached where the tournament series becomes big enough that the 3^rd party web sales dwarf Games-Workshop’s current proprietary websales.

Why would we, as players, want these changes?  Foremost, it will increase the level of competition.  Having a tournament series were the top 32 players can reasonably expect to at least break even on their travel expenses every weekend means that there will be much less of a barrier to entry.  As of today, Grand Tournaments attract locals, and die hards.  About 3 Grand Tournaments per year attract a national audience.  And of those, only the absolute die hards attend all 3.  Being able to have a positive EV for the good players will encourage the best players nationally to show up to the events, which will increase the level of competition.  All the current “best players” claim they want more competitive games; this would ensure it. 

What about the normal, average players?  They buy the dream.  Maybe they play in a local GT and determine they can be competitive with the top players nationally, they will start traveling to an event or two.  Maybe they are a top dog at their LGS but never considered ‘making the jump.’  Under this system, they have a huge incentive to up their game and make the jump to a national tournament circuit. 

Lastly, the game system benefits.  Right now we have 455748574 tournament organizers each playing a slightly modified version of the game based around their individual FAQ’s and errata.  If there was a unified, national tournament circuit fostering an inevitable level of professionalism, you can imagine it would not take long for the rules to be unified to a level where people are “playing the same game” in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.  This is a huge benefit to casual players that don’t even intend to play in tournaments, since unified tournament rules are essential to fostering a fair game that everyone understands even in their beer and pretzels games.

Do I expect any of this to happen?  Probably not anytime soon.  Games-Workshop’s unspoken policy is to discourage any sort of competitive gameplay, and to continue to exert draconian control over their websales.  These two are not likely to change without a change of the CEO and board of directors; either of which will most likely only occur if the company is purchased by a major player like Hasbro.  And even then, there is no telling that Hasbro would run the game the same way as they do Magic. 

Nonetheless, the path has already been laid out by Magic’s independent tournament series, and all it would take to duplicate it would be a single corporate memo from the CEO.  So hope is alive.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

Black Templars, 6th Edition, and Close Combat

I've tried to stay away from everything coming out of the rumor mill in regards to 6th Edition, but I think some of the recent stuff is solid enough that it's worth speculating on.  Two things I've read recently seemed to scream out "Black Templars" to me, and that's a good thing.  Good Black Templar news has been pretty slim lately after the codex rumors were proven to be fake.

Fingers crossed, but we're coming back!

First, AP is a thing in close combat so we hear, and we also hear that power weapons are AP3.  Terminators rejoice!  This is a huge, huge deal.  In most armies, the dedicated close combat units are armed with power weapons.  These units are no longer scary to terminators.  Thus, the tier system for close combat is much different.

Close Combat Tiers 5th Edition:

1.  Storm Shield Terminators

2.  Rending infantry units with lot's of attacks

3.  Power weapon armed elite infantry of various sorts

4.  Non-dedicated units that can still beat normal troops (shooty terminators)

Now it's safe to assuming that Rending is going to be AP3 which would give it parity with power weapons.  I could be totally wrong, and it could be AP2, but it would seem odd to me for Rending attacks to be superior to power weapons.  Time will tell.

Close combat tiers 6th Edition

1.  Storm Shield Terminators

2.  Power fist armed 2+ infantry (shooty terminators, mega-nobz)

3.  Lightning Claw Terminators (these are usable again because while they still lose to SS terminators, they beat power weapon and rending infantry now, where they used to lose to.)

4.  Shooty terminators

5.  Renders

6.  Power weapon armed infantry (these guys dropped way down the ladder.  Sure they can take out basic troops with ease, but so can everything above them on the list.  And they lose horribly to everything above them on the list.  In a world full of Paladins (who become insanely powerful in close combat now to everything except SS terminators) these things are practically unusable.)

These changes put BT in a pretty good position, if true.  While Preferred Enemy is likely catching a nerf, our SS terminators are likely superior to anybody else's except Vulkan.  Our Lightning Claws terminators are also superior to most others' with the ability to get Furious Charge; so if they turn out to be a usable unit, they could see play.  The problem is it would be hard to think of a situation where you'd want the LC guys when you have the choice, maybe against horde armies, but that's about it.

Also, since our shooty terminators are the best in the business.  Yes, hi we get 2 Cyclone Launchers, Tank Hunters (which will do something good in 6th we can assume) and we no longer have to fear getting assaulted by power weapon armed infantry.  This puts BT in a very good place.  Our shooty terminators literally only fear TH/SS terminators, which is something they already feared.  Since fearing TH/SS terminators is nothing new, and BT players still usually took 2+ squads of the shooty terminators I don't see why you would take fewer now.  In fact, an argument could be made to bring a 3rd squad over the usual heavy support choice of Predators/Vindicators that people bring.  Really, the only thing that could slow it down is if Tank Hunters is useless.  If it remains the same, it will be a no brainer to load up on these guys.  If it comes lame, we will have to re-evaluate.  But even without Tank Hunters, 2 units of these are still one of the best things a BT list could be doing.

Moving along.

The next 'rumor' is a bit more speculative.  Stelek has been stating that Land Raiders will be competitive in 6th Edition.  What will the change be?  He hasn't said specifics, but the reason why they are unplayable now is that they die to cheap crap melta units.  So we can assume that anything which makes them good again means that either melta gets some kind of a nerf, or AV14 gets some kind of a buff.  No real need to speculate.  But let's assume that Land Raiders are competitive again.  While I take that with a grain of salt, Stelek has been known to be not talking about of his ass about upcoming releases.  

So who has the best Land Raiders?  That'd be Black Templars.  Our Land Raiders don't die to Lances, and if AV14 is somehow melta-resistant, that means our Land Raiders don't die to very much at all.  This is good for BT, obviously.  Remember the new close combat tier list I made up there?  Our dedicated CC units are better than almost everybody else's.  And now our delivery mechanism is better than everybody else's.  This could be very good.  Since our Heavy Support section has, since our Typhoon Land Speeders got buffed, been the weak link in our FoC we have the points to spend on a Land Raider.  The hard part will be deciding between CC terminators in a Land Raider or 3 units of Shooty Terminators.  

The answer, I suspect, will come down to what they do with Tank Hunters and Preferred Enemy.  I haven't heard anything about those abilities, so it's hard to speculate further.  One thing I will say, if AV14 is hard to kill, and Kill Points stick around, that could be something to consider.  BT can do a kill point denial list with 5 Land Raiders very easily.  If the switch is made back to VP, there will be a lot to figure out.

For the first time in a long time, I'm excited to be a BT player.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

Culling the Weak: Fixing The Bad Dark Elf Units Part One

This series might come off badly.  The Dark Elves are undeniably one of the most competitive books in Fantasy and transitioned very well to 8^th Edition.  So complaining about the bad units might seem to some folks like a 40k player complaining about the crappy Grey Knights units. 

Fair enough.

That said, some of the Dark Elves bad units have exceptionally cool models or flavor.  It is hard to describe how badly players want Executioners to be playable models.  They are so cool that people jump through insane hoops just to turn them into a mediocre unit on the tabletop while gimping the rest of their army in the first place.  People are willing to ignore reality in order to maintain a false hope.  Don’t believe me?  How do you think organized religion rakes in so much cash? 

Note I am not a game designer, so I can’t argue that the proposed changes are perfectly balanced, but I’ll do my best.  If something seems amiss, let me know in the comments.

First up, Executioners.

How can you not want to play models this cool?

Why they are bad

They are the worst imaginable version of High Elf Swordmasters.  For 12 points a piece, they are strength 6 with killing blow and hatred.  Sounds great!  But they are toughness 3 with 5+ armor and Always Strike Last.  Sounds fucking awful!  The Swordmasters get uber strikers first, which by eliminates the strikes last, and also gives them Hatred.  Killing Blow, unfortunately, is irrelevant when you are Strength 6.  Nothing that can be killed with Killing Blow is going survive your hits anyway, so it’s a useless ability.  Don’t yell at me, I know that mathhammer-wise, it combos well with Hatred to result in a lot of extra kills.  Irrelevant.

The main reason why they are bad boils down to simply this: they are squishy elves who strike last.  Very lame.  The only way to make up for the fact that they die before they get to strike is to buy more of them.  That is what my friends in finance call “throwing good money after bad.”  When you have a bad hand, you don’t double down on it, especially when your opponent knows you have a bad hand and will call your bluff.  Just dumb.

Design Philosophy

So how do you fix them without making them ridiculous like Swordmasters?  Good question.  Allowing them to take 35 point banners so they can take the ASF banner is the most frequent suggestion.  But that’s dumb, because you shouldn’t have to buy a specific magic banner in order to make your unit do the basic task that it was designed to do.  That would be pretty poor game design, and I’ll immediately dismiss it. 

Another limit to set is that they can’t be better than Swordmasters.  If our goal is to fix them, I’m not going to ‘fix’ them in a way that makes them better or equal to some other broken unit. 

The last limit is that I can’t make them better than Blackguard.  Blackguard are the best infantry unit in the army book on the table top and from a fluff perspective, they ought to be.  So if I make a unit that immediately outclasses them, why would anyone bring Blackguard outside of some theme list? 

Fixing Them

Har Ganeth Executioners 17 points per model

Unit Size

5-20

Equipment

Heavy Armor

Draich (counts as a great weapon)

Special Rules

Eternal Hatred

Khainite

Cold-blooded Killers

Cold-blooded Killers:    Executioners don’t slowly torture their victims like most Dark Elves; they are trained to kill exerting the minimum necessary effort, ideally with a single blow.  A unit of Executioners must decide at the beginning of each round of combat between the following two options: Always Strike Last but gain Killing Blow, or to strike at their normal initiative.

Rationale

I limited their unit size to prevent people from making hordes.  Being able to attack with a third rank is a little too good when you are I5 and Str6.  I wanted to limit the amount of potential casualties they could inflict in a single round of combat to a maximum of 20, assuming they rolled perfectly.

I upgraded their points cost, since they did receive a power boost in order to keep Blackguard competitive.  The changes overall fully distinguish the roles for each unit.  Executioners are designed to put out a small number of accurate high strength attacks.  They are best at cutting down enemy heavy infantry.  Blackguard are designed to output tons of medium strength accurate attacks to mow down medium and light infantry.  Now their roles are more distinguished.
Additionally, I kept them much less powerful than Swordmasters.  You might argue that they are now overpowered.  Compare them with Chaos Warriors armed with Halberds and Mark of Khorne.  They are probably a little worse overall than Khorne Warriors for about the same amount of points, which is fair since Chaos Warriors are supposed to be around the power level of other armies’ elite infantry.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

Army Comparison: Daemons of Chaos vs. Warriors of Chaos

Battlereporter

This Fantasy Battles Army Comparison pits the forces of the Chaos Gods against each other in a battle royale.  Each of these armies fared rather well in 7^th Edition, where Daemons were widely considered one of the top tier armies.  In 8^th the Daemons have fallen from the top of the pedestal but are still considered quite strong.  The Warriors have had a rougher transition to 8^th Edition, as the units that were considered powerful or weak respectively are almost completely reversed.  This change took a while for players to understand, but it appears that Warriors of Chaos are also quite competitive.

Warriors of Chaos’ Advantages

The Warriors chief strength in this edition are their infantry.  The heavily armored warriors are as hard as any infantry in the game, while the Marauders may not be tough to kill, but on a point for point basis, few units in the game can match them for offensive potential.  Add into the mix the possibility of a Chosen unit that can easily be configured to become a near unstoppable deathstar, and you have some of the strongest infantry contingents available.  Unless you count throwing axes, the WoC don’t have any shooting to speak of.  They will primarily close out games in bloody close combat.

Unfortunately, there is no much to support this infantry with.  The Chaos Knights, in 7^th Edition on of the most powerful units on the battlefield, are relegated to nearly unplayable thanks to Steadfast.  Being unable to break ranked infantry and costing a ton of points means that their practical applications are far and few between.  Chaos chariots are fine items, but rather expensive, nothing to be especially excited about.  Chosen are fine choices, but they basically do what the Core infantry already does, but slight better and for slightly more points.  The most compelling reason to take Chosen is crafting a deathstar, but that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

In the Rares, the Warriors have two lines.  The Hellcannon packs a huge punch and packs serious firepower.  Hellcannons do enough damage that they are usually priority number one for the opposing army.  Alternatively, you can bring Warshrines, which are essential for the Chosen, but not terribly bad with normal Warriors.  Warshrines are definitely an “all in” infantry approach, and could lead to blowout games one way or the other.

Magic was such a huge part of Warriors in 7^th Edition.  A Tzeentch sorcerer lord could generate more power dice than almost anybody, and Gateway was the most powerful spell in the edition.  Now, Gateway is merely average among powerful spells in each Lore, and the Sorcerer Lord doesn’t generate enough extra dice to dominate the magic phase.  A further knock, Sorcerer Lords are the fightiest wizard in the game, and you pay points for that.  What that means is, you are forced to waste points on a trait you aren’t going to take a great advantage of.  Lastly, if you want to take a rulebook Lore, you have to play unmarked, which means that you lose access to several of Tzeentch based buffs that give the Lord a chance during the magic phase.  That said, Gateway might not be quite as powerful as Purple Sun, or Dwellers, but it is still quite a threat.

It kinda sounds like I listed the disadvantages of Warriors, and to an extent that is true.  While their cavalry got the shaft, and their wizards are no longer the kings of the battlefield, their infantry are so much stronger than most opposition that it makes up for these disadvantages.

Daemonic Advantages

Foremost, the Daemons have a very strong magic phase that the Warriors have to be jealous of.  Pink Horrors are a rock solid core unit that also doubles as a wizard.  Tzeentch magic, thanks to Master of Sorcery, means that the Daemons don’t have to even bring a Level 4 to dominate the phase.  Master of Sorcery grants Loremaster to the Herald of Tzeentch, so with two Heralds you can construct an array of spell choices that give you “must-dispel” threats against nearly any opponent.  This also gives access to Lore of Life which…

…makes Bloodletters absolutely insane.  A large unit of Bloodletters lead by a Herald for Hatred and buffed with Life spells, or with opponents debuffed from Shadow means they can beat nearly anyone in close combat.  The Bloodletters high strength and high weapon skill plus Hatred mean that they should be able to beat down on Warriors in close combat.  Only units of truly cheap hordes can really stand up to them in close combat.

Daemons don’t have terrific cavalry, as Juggernauts are insanely expensive and Fleshhounds suffer from the same nerf as Chaos Knights.  However, Flamers of Tzeentch are golden.  They are expensive, but they have absolutely withering firepower.  That and a 4++ ward save means they can outshoot even the shootiest enemy units.  Plus being Skirmishers, they are hard to pin down in close combat.  They are probably the best flank protectors available.  They chew up and spit out units like fast cavalry or war eagles. 

The characters are extreme.  The Tzeentch Heralds are super powerful casters who can dominate the magic phase from the Hero choice slot.  Khorne Heralds are among the fighiest characters at the Hero level.  Not too many Lord level fighy character can hand a Herald of Khorne, so on a point for point basis they are nearly unbeatable.

Results

This match clearly advantages the Daemons.  Their choppy infantry is cheaper than the Warriors and has high enough strength to make the armor advantage rather inconsequential.  Additionally, the Daemon magic phase has more potential to dominate the game than does the Warriors’.  The Warrior’s main trump card is the ability of the Hellcannons to inflict enough casualties to the Bloodletters to make the inevitable infantry combat winnable.  The Daemons lack of long range threats outside of Magic means that the Hellcannon should be able to do their thing, and could have a strong influence on the outcome. 

Additionally, the Warriors can bring more close combat potential to the field than the Daemons.  Multiple large warrior units, alongside multiple large Marauder units put the Daemons who will have at most two units of Bloodletters in a quandry: without significant magic support, the ‘Letters will lose through attrition eventually. 

The bottom line is these armies facing each other will come down to how effective the Daemons magic is vs. the Hellcannon’s ability to wither the Bloodletters.  Whichever side asserts their dominance in these respective areas should be able to parlay that into a win.  That said, my conclusion is that Daemons have a far easier time enacting their gameplan than the Warriors will with theirs.

Comments, questions, thoughts?

My Magical Comeback: Dark Clouds, Silver Linings, and Conclusions

This weekend I played in the SCG Legacy Open in Orlando.  In short, I didn’t do well.  0-2 drop.  That is pretty much the definition of scrubbing out if I’m not going to mince words.

Dark Clouds

In round one, I played Eric Gustafson, who was piloting RUG Delver.  I absolutely crushed him in game one.  Not the nut draw, but a turn 3 Geist followed by Unstable Mutation gets there against a deck whose only removal is burn spells.  In Game Two, I kept a one land hand, because it two accelerators, Geist, and a pump aura.  Essentially, I would have two draw steps to find a land, and if I didn’t get one on the second turn I had a Ponder in hand to get me there, albeit a turn late.  Unfortunately, I drew blanks, and Ponder failed to find the land I needed.  Once he realized I was light, he threw fire at my accelerators.  That, combined with a fast start for him (Delver, Delver, Gofy) left me dead before I could drop any creature of value.  Game three was very close.  We raced each other, and he killed me on 2 life.  Had I top decked any one of sixteen possible outs on my last turn I would have landed enough damage to win. 

It was a close game, and in retrospect I only made one critical mistake.  He only had two lands out (and this was turn 5 or 6) and I Wastedland-ed he Volcanic Island to cut him off Blue mana.  I then cast my Geist, which would have been game over had it resolved.  Unfortunately, he had the Daze.  Had I not used the Wasteland, the Wasteland could have blanked his Daze and I would have won with relative ease the next turn.  Why did I make this mistake?  First, I am still very rusty when it comes to technical plays at a high level.  Also, it is “common knowledge” that people sideboard out their Dazes when they are on the draw.  Except, apparently, when they don’t.  I assumed that he sided them out on the draw like any one would expect him to, and stopped playing around them.  Unfortunately, he either next leveled me, or I next leveled myself because he kept them in. 

In Round 2, I played Dakota Mitchell who was piloting Maverick.  Game One I mulliganed away a hand that was keepable, but I didn’t think it would be able to win the game against a good draw from a reasonable opponent.  My second hand was also keepable, but worse.  I probably should have gone to five, but I kept and got stomped rather quickly without casting a spell.  Since all he saw from me was 3 lands, he had no idea how to sideboard against me.  In Game Two, I came out of the gates with a turn 2 Geist.  Turn 3 Spectral Flight, attack for 9.  He cast a Knight of the Reliquary, and on my turn I cast an Unstable Mutation on my Geist and attacked for lethal.  In Game three my draw was slower, but still good.  I got in with a Geist in the air for 10 thanks to two Exalted triggers, and could have won next turn but he Green Sun-ed for a sideboard card that actually had good game against me: the Protection from Blue fairy.   The fairy meant my Geist wouldn’t be landing any more hits, but I could still get in with the Angel, and then Psionic Blast for the win.  Unfortunately for me, he also top decked a Maze of Ith to stop the Angel.  From that point on I had no outs except a Troll Ascetic with Spectral Flight.  Before I could draw that unlikely combination, he was able to get 3 8/8 Knights of the Reliquary on the board and kill me.

All in all, it was a close match, and I don’t think I made any technical play mistakes.  My big mistake was in mulliganing or not mulliganing in the first game.  There is a good chance that I would have lost had I kept the first 7 or mulled to 5, so either way I probably would have lost anyway.  But clearly I had no idea which play was more optimal, except to say that of my three choices, an initial marginal 7, a worse 6 or an unknown 5, I picked the worst of the three options, and I paid for it.

So yeah, that was a quicker than anticipated end to my tournament. 

Silver Linings

So what did I salvage from this abortion?  First, Eric ended up in 25^th place, and Dakota ended up in 12^th, both well into the money.  So I didn’t lose to scrubs, I lost to a guy who had a very solid finish, and another who almost made top 8.  And I didn’t roll over to either of them, and especially with Eric in the first match had I not played into getting blown out by his Daze I would have won.  So while my record was as bad as possible, I played competitively with two clearly good opponents.  This might sound like I’m reaching in order to make myself feel better, and maybe it is.  But losing two people who finished highly is still better than losing to two terrible players.

I also learned a lot about my deck.  First it is way high variance.  It is more than capable of beating any deck in a total blow out if I get the right draw.  And that draw isn’t exactly tough to get, since so many of the cards are redundant.  The problem is, like any tempo based deck, when you don’t get the fast start the deck cannot play catch up.  I should probably mulligan more aggressively in order to make sure I get hands that could potentially win, especially when I’m on the draw.  On the play a turn 3 threat is OK, but on the draw it isn’t.  So on the draw I have to just muck any hand that can’t stick a turn 2 three drop.  I’m not sure I would play this deck again, though.  It’s not my playstyle.  I’m an agro-control player, and all my best tournament finishes in my career were with mid-range agro-control decks.  Stoneforge Mystic Bant is still too slow for my liking, but I think a NO-Bant deck is definitely feasible right now.

The most important thing I learned was where I stand on the competitive ladder.  My opponents were both strong, and I didn’t feel overmatched by either.  I hope they wouldn’t take offense to this, but based on raw talent I would say that I’m better than they are.  But from a technical standpoint, and practice makes perfect, they were better than I am by a significant margin. 

That said, I have no doubt that if I played a few hours everyday against good players, in 6 months I would be good enough to finish in the money in a tournament like that every time.  When I was in high school and playing a professional level, I was playing in online tournaments every day after school for several hours a day.  And then I would play in a paper tournament every weekend.  30 hours a week is a lot of practice time and it really is probably approaching what you’d need to be these days to be consistently competitive in big events assuming you are an intelligent person as a base.

Unfortunately, I can’t and won’t commit that time to Magic anymore.  I bike around 14 hours a week, and that eats up most of my leisure time.  So even if I stopped cycling, I wouldn’t get to play Magic enough to be truly competitive again. 

Conclusions

What I take away from it all is where my limits are and how to move forward.  I will definitely play in any Orlando/Tampa Legacy events as they come around, and since I’m extremely time crunched my only way to competitive is to play one deck and get good at that deck.  I don’t have the hours to be good at a variety of Legacy decks, good at Draft, and also good at a variety of Standard decks; but I do have the time to be good at one Legacy deck if I play it exclusively and learn it inside out.  Since there isn’t a big local Legacy scene, I’ll have to sharpen my technical play in Limited, which is definitely possible.  So that’s it.  I probably won’t write about Magic unless something comes up again, but I’m not going to give it up, and hopefully next big event I can throw down.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?