Gen Con Champion Report
Gen Con Champion Report
Hey spoilers!
This is my GenCon report covering both Constructed and Limited formats.
I will begin with an introduction to my deck and walk you through why I played it and my choices in the list.
A while ago I wrote articles about the factions from Holy Heist and I was not excited for The Primitive Tribes of Thabbash. Well, it turned out the card is pretty good after all. It started when I began to look for a deck for our nationals and I heard that a local player had tried to make a deck that could loop Limited Liability with The Primitive Tribes of Thabbash and Foreman Pete. I threw together a deck, which used banker as its base for Free Trade Agreement and Mau Party to draw and ramp up resources and then start to loop LL to keep you from losing. It would eventually finish off the opponent with Bask Biles.
I finished second in our nationals with it after losing the finals versus a Gearsmith/rogue agro deck (Blade of Light). In the top 4 I beat a similar deck which also featured Thabbashite Organist and All-Nighter so he could get infinite resources and draw his whole deck, and then loop infinite Bask Biles. I didn’t think the infinite loop was required in this version so I was kind of set to play this at Gencon.
Then the results from US nationals popped up in the chat, and it turned out the loop was played there too. I knew by that time that I needed to either update my deck or play a different deck.
I tried to think about what ways to improve the combo and an idea popped up in my head: maybe LL wasn’t needed, maybe I should just try to rush for the infinite loop. This was possible to do with only Gearsmith which would make the deck more consistent.
I added up everything I wanted in the deck at spoilstoolbox.com and I had about 80 cards. I dropped it down to 76 and took it to our local gaming shop the week before I left and won every game with it. The deck worked incredibly well versus everything. What was especially good with the deck was that it could win by aggro with Blade or with the combo. It also ramps very fast and can get a bunch of weenies out to defend against agro. So basically it is a combo-aggro-ramp deck.
I worked on the list some more and ended up playing this at Gencon:
1 Obsession (Starting face-down because of the faction)
9 Elitism
I am playing 8 elitism in the deck because you only need one more in your starting hand to get the deck rolling. Contriving Engineers also acts as your 9-12th elitism.
4 Stuttershy
Stuttershy is an amazing early play as it will get you two blockers and a resources or just make your opponent hold their attackers back. It is even better if you manage to stick a prototype to it.
4 Basic Node
4 Node in a Box
The nodes are also amazing early. Basic node has been used since it was released but with Holy Heist he also got his friends from the box joining him. Similar to Stuttershy they acts as blockers and can ramp your resources.
4 Thabbashite Organist
One of the three combo pieces. Most of the time you hold this until you can combo, but playing this turn one can also open up some crazy turn twos.
4 700160x 31f
A Gearsmith staple. Toolbox will either become a 2/2 that will search for any card when it dies, or he can search for a blade in matchups where aggro is a good option.
4 Micromajig Master
This card is incredible in here. You’ll get 3/3/3 worth of stats when you play him and you can search for combo pieces with him if you get more micromajigs in play.
4 Contriving Engineer
4 Clockman Junk Picker
These are the ramp characters I am using. Both can be played turn one if you have 1337 in your hand. Contriving engineer is used for more outs to elitism early and Clockman Junk Picker searches for Lawnchair and lets you play something else for one (usually a Stuttershy).
1 Merbegon, the Insatiable Taxidermist
2 Testudine Autoframe
These guys are the win-con I chose to use. Merbegon can get infinite STR by looping node in a box and Testudine can get your infinite majigs aggro, so they can attack the same turn you play them.
4 Hilarious Refrigerator Alarm
This card is probably one of my least favorite card in the game because it terminates everything that hasn’t resolved yet. This means that if you play a card and your opponent responds with a card, you can’t HRA it without losing the card you played. However I think this card is crucial versus the control decks, I terminated Forgets and Violating Anomaly with this card a bunch of times.
4 1337!
Used to get the turn one Contriving/Clockman. Other than that, you can just cycle it to get further into your deck or play cards cheaper.
4 All-Nighter
The second combo piece. This is the card that let you restore all your resources over and over.
1 Industrious Usage
1 Precise Sabotage
I know I wanted some kind of item removal into the deck for all Blades that are being played. At first I had 2 usage but decided to split them up in case of any Incriminating Photographs. They turned out to be crucial versus the Blade decks.
4 Surprising Dudes
This card doesn’t look that good on first glance but it does a lot in this deck. By itself it will get you two micromajigs and a resource but with Micromajig Master this card is just absurd. Might be the best Gearsmith card from Holy Heist.
3 Luteoderm Prototype
This card is used so Toolbox can fetch it turn one. Used to find combo pieces mainly, or just any cards that fits the board at that moment. I think I would drop this down to 2 if I were to play the deck again.
4 Remains of Foreman Pete, the Clock Man
The last and most important combo piece. This card lets you reuse your tactics if you flip them down with the faction. It can also save itself from being destroyed by flipping down itself or just flip down to ramp resources.
3 Rocket Lawnchair
A removal that can be searched with Clockman Junk Picker. You need to have some kind of removal in the deck so you can beat cards like The Billionaire.
2 Everlasting Blade of Light
The best Warlord card from Holy Heist is a card that is only used in Gearsmith decks. This can be fetched turn one with Toolbox Elf and kill as early as turn 4.
We had 4 rounds and a cut to top 4. First game I played Ken Pilcher who was using a version of the infinite combo as well. However I got a turn one Toolbox Elf with Blade and he stumbled to get any threshold and reduced his influence to 0 by turn 5.
My loss in the swiss came in the last round vs Nick Dorman. He was using an Arcanist/Banker control deck. I didn’t get an elitism in my starting hand but had 3 Contriving Engineer and a 1337 so I figured I was fine. He went first and on my first turn I tried to play Contriving with the help of 1337, but he used Anatidaephobia to terminate it, used additional tribute on the second and then another Anatidaephobia on the 3rd. This made me unable to play any other cards in my hand and his Erotic’s and Violating Anomaly reduced my influence to 0 quickly.
Top 4 was versus Gavin, who was using a mono Gearsmith Aggro deck. I think this is a good matchup for me because of all small characters I can block with. The match got a lot closer than I would have wanted it to be. I believe I was at 4 life when I managed to combo out and win. I felt like I had control during the whole game but two surprising cards in Tri-Pole getting back a Blade and Exploding Sock Puppet made it quite close.
The finals was me vs Nick, who I played round 4. I knew this was going to be a grindy game so I made sure to build resources, which are crucial versus control. I did not stumble on threshold like I did in our swiss game and he did not get as many characters either which made me have quite a lot of time to set up for the combo. The game ended with me using Pete, him responding with Subsection, me flipping down Pete and playing another to combo out with no more response from his side.
The Combo
You will need Thabbashite Organist and Foreman Pete in play and an All-Nighter in your hand. You will also need to have 9 resources in play. Pay 3 to draw, pay 4 to play All-Nighter then 3 to flip it face-down (6 open). Pay 2 to pick it up and play the card from your hand face-down (5 open). Play All-Nighter (reduced to 2) and flip it face-down (7 open). Pay 3 to draw, 2 to pick up All-Nighter and play the card from your hand face-down if you want. Rinse and repeat until you have your deck in your hand/face-down. From here you can either play Surprising Dudes over and over then give them Aggro with Testudine or play Merbegon and play Surprising Dudes/Node in a Box over and over to give Merbegon infinite Str.
Is this deck broken?
In the format we played at Gencon (without Seed) I think this deck was way too good. It was almost impossible for the aggro decks to kill it before it comboed and the control decks needed to stop the ramping to keep the control going. This deck is using a bunch of cards that might be too good to be allowed to use.
All-Nighter lets the deck go infinite by restoring your resources over and over. This card is only used in “unfair” decks. I think this card is a fine card for the game if it would be harder to achieve an infinite loop (like the old Writ-Bile). The deck can go off on 9 resources which is way too fast. Foreman Pete can be used in any deck, it can ramp basically for free and it can pick up any of your resources if you face-downed anything important early. In a vacuum this card is also fine but with other cards like The Primitive Tribes of Thabbash and Cock Block this card might be too strong. This card is also a major problem when creating new cards that flip down after being played The Primitive Tribes of Thabbash just got banned. Stuttershy and Node in a Box is cheap, stop aggro because you get more characters out of one and they ramp. Hope you enjoyed this much delayed (my bad) constructed article from Gencon. Stay tuned for the limited part.
Gen Con Champion Report Pt. 2 by Hampus Eriksson | Dec 3, 2015 | Decklists, News, Tournament Report |
Gen Con Champion Report Pt. 2 Hey spoilers!
I am back with the second part about my experience at Gencon. This part will cover the limited tournaments.
Gencon featured two big limited events. The first event of Gencon was the Sealed Championships featuring the new set, Seed Saga. This let us play with the set for the first time ever and we could obtain the card before release.
We ended up being something like 14 players to sign up for the event. Everyone sat down, registered pools, swap them and then we started to build. (Fun note: the pool I shipped to Ken Pilcher had 3 Goloam and 3 Maxwell Cockswagger)
My pool was not that deep in any Trade so I looked at were my bombs were. I had opened up three in warlord in Goutflame Talonclaw and a pair of Athalamund and two Desolate in Arcanist. It was a no brainer to play these and I also ended up splashing 5 rogue cards which all had one threshold.
I ended up playing this:
1 Goutflame Talonclaw
2 Athalamund Mangod, the Iron Fist
1 Perforate
1 Improvised Blowtorch
1 Colossal Flattener
1 Idol Smasher
1 Frenzied Shriever
1 Fervent Beastslayer
1 Vigilant Raider
1 Acidic Phlegm
1 Watchtower
1 Well Laid Plans
1 Sprint
1 Agile Highwayman
2 Roulette Wheel of DOOM!
1 Wanton Wizard
1 Minion of Thabbash
1 Fiendish Fez
1 Mezmerizing Enchantress
2 Desolate
1 Brainbath
1 Confounding Conjurer
1 Intellectual Reliquary
1 Perturbatious Warlock
1 Evanesce
1 Lingamite Torture Monk
1 Shrouded Demon
2 Neurosis
1 Deception (Starting)
Rage and Obsession to fill up to 45 (don’t have the exact numbers).
I chose to run the Tournament Faction as we were not allowed to play Unlikely Heroes (because that is not in Seed), which might have been the choice for this deck otherwise.
I felt okay with the deck going into the tournament. There was some cards that I would prefer to not have to play (Sprint & Lingamite Torture Monk to name two) but I knew the good cards could make up for that. I knew Athalamund was strong, and Goutflame Talonclaw looked insane. I also had a bunch of removal which is always nice to have in limited.
I ended up going 3-1 in swiss. I felt that Athalamund and Goutflame won the game every time I drew them and that made the games quite one-sided. Athalamund coming into play turn two just crushed people. The only loss in swiss was to Moxless, playing his own copy of Goutflame.
We cut to top 4 with me and Moxless on different sides on the brackets. I do not know about his game but I believe Goutflame won me this game as well.
He ended up beating me in the finals because he played his Goutflame before I even had threshold for mine.
Looking back at this event I did not like the format. 2 rares in each pack in a set as powerful as Seed is very swingy. I believe me and Moxless was the only players playing Goutflame and that proved to work just fine for us. X6 Seed will never be a format used in something like worlds which I am happy about.
After the sealed we got a group together and drafted Seed, which was much more enjoyable as everyone got quite powerful decks because of the power-level of Seed. I ended up losing the first game vs Daniel Sotelo in a race between my Covert characters and his regular ones.
Saturday featured the biggest tournament of the convention, the World Championships. The format this year was sealed in swiss followed by a top 8 draft. Everything was played with 2nd/Shade/Holy Heist.
Unfortunately I did not keep my deck intact, but I will do my best of remember. I got passed a pool from Dan Sotelo and he said “I didn’t want someone like you to have that pool” which sounded good to me.
Similar to my Seed Saga pool this wasn’t that deep in any color either so I ended up needing to play 3 colors. I started with 2 obsession with greed and deception in the deck. The best and most important card in my deck was for sure Siluriformes Flaxenscale. He is incredible in limited because he will draw you cards, gain life and he is very hard to kill because of his “Auriferous Augmentaion” ability. I remember playing a Yoink in my deck because I knew Everlasting Blade of Light is hard to beat and Yoink just is such a huge blowout. Notable is also that I had both Unexpected Transformation and Zigalburgonglgr, the Stolen God in my pool but I chose not to run them as their threshold requirements was too harsh for my deck.
I finished the swiss 1st seed with a record of 4-0-1. I don’t remember a lot from the swiss except for beating Dan Sotelo with a turn 4 Siluriformes and turn 5 Ominous Oozling. Round 4 I drew with Brian Hodge and then ended up trying to push Nick Dorman out of top cut, but he managed to make it in as 8th seed despite losing to me the last round.
The top 8 was announced and we sat down to draft. John Wescott went over how a timed draft worked and when he was done we started off with 2nd edition.
My first pick was a Bipolar Sarcophyle in a quite weak pack one. She is a good character with only one threshold which is a good start so I can keep my options open.
Next few packs I picked up Irresistible Bribe and Brummagem Jewelry which are both great in limited. Except for a Hyperphagic Sarcophyle the first set was not that good for me. I ended up with these from 2nd edition (Not in pick order, unplayable cards in bold):
Irresistible Bribe, Brummagem Jewelry, Prudent Thug, Bipolar Sarvophyle, Pillaging Pirate, Catastropic Betrayal, Hyperphagic Sarcophyle, Card Counter, Voidal Perversion, The Deranger, Emphatic Ecto-Manipulator, Air Travel, Quotidian Virtuoso.
Between packs I am looking at my picks like this with all the playable cards (which all were here):
Trade 1 Threshold 2 Threshold 3+ Threshold Banker 3 Rogue 3 2 Arcanist 2 3
Shade:
Elementary Elemental, Neuralyzer Agent, Quotidian Transposition, Numba 1 Stunna!, Drive By Boobing, Sickened Sarcophyle, Gassy Gastornis, 2 Negotiation Ceremonies, Swindle, Mr Fetch, Timid Mau, Mau Strategist.
Trade 1 Threshold 2 Threshold 3+ Threshold Banker 7 Rogue 5 4 Arcanist 2 4 1
Flashy Bangs, Low-hanging Clothesline, Thabbashite Dartist, Additional Tribute, Seance Sensor, Vexing Nullifier, Thabbashite Communicant, Offering of False Friendship, Puerile Ecto-manipulator, Predatory Lamp, Abecedarian Investor, iDumb De-Itemizer, Crematory Cache
Trade 1 Threshold 2 Threshold 3+ Threshold Banker 2 7 Rogue 7 4 Arcanist 5 6 1
When drafting, I usually aim for playing 2 trades, maybe with a splash (1 threshold that I start with in play). I was worried during the whole draft that I messed up everything because I was in 2 threshold in 3 trades. However, during deckbuilding, I realized that I could just play Unlikely Heroes and then split out the resources in the deck because I only needed 2 of each in play to play all my cards.
I ended up cutting the Quotidian Transposition and something else then played the rest of the playable cards and 15 resources (5 of each). I had some cards that were very situational (iDumb De-Itemizer and Voidal Perversion for example) but it turned out that they were good.
Top 8 Nick Dorman:
This game was quite a fast one, we both stayed at around 6-7 resources and deployed cards. He had a lead and when he deployed Heavy Fists of Robotic Pounding on his Scout I thought he had me beaten. However, I had Low-hanging Clothesline, but to use this he needed to use up all his resources so he couldn’t move the fist. If I picked his scout he could otherwise just move the fist, and I would just fall more behind. He ended up using all his resources which gave me a window to play the removal and that gave me the chance to come back in the game. After a very tough game I ended up winning.
Top 4 Daniel Sotelo:
If I remember correctly this game was quite even the first turns with Daniel having 2 Lugubrian Poacher in play, but I took care of them with Offering of False Friendship and then Daniel struggled to get enough cards to match my board and I ended up winning.
Finals:
My opponent was a player that had played way back when TG managed this game. The finals was best of 3.
This match was the slowest in the top cut. We built resources and didn’t deploy that many cards. In both games he played Theological Theft to mill us both out of cards. In games that goes so long that neither player has cards in their decks the smallest mistake might make you lose the game and I think him not playing the game for that long made him make a couple of mistakes that won me the match.
The last play of the match was an Air Travel on one of my characters which he could not handle. And just like that, I became the World Champion.
It was great meeting all of the spoils players. Special shoutout to John Westcott for organizing the tournaments and having the energy to put up with all of our jokes (product anyone?) and Gavin and Cassarah for letting me sleep on their extra bed when the tournament ended late the day before worlds.
Hope to see everyone back next year when I try to defend my title!
I will be back soon with an article about my current deck (lots of Cock Blocking promised).