Stranglethorn Valley Realm Championship Final Report – by Rickbow

Stranglethorn Valley Realm Championship Final Report

Chapter 1 – Intro

Hi everyone!

My name is Ricardo Santos, a portuguese WoW TCG player, and this is my report of the Stranglethorn Valley Realm Championship Final (not supported by UDI as most of you know, but still with a few decent prizes to at least make it somewhat worthwhile in terms of physical rewards). I’ve chosen to write it in English because it’s meant to be read by players from Portugal, Spain, USA, and any other country.
For those that don’t know, the Stranglethorn Valley Realm Championship Final is played by Portuguese and Spanish players that got at least 10 points in National Realm Qualifiers throughout the season (players from other countries that get 10 points in Realm Qualifiers can also play in Stranglethorn Valley Realm Champs, but i don’t record any ever doing it before, it’s been only portuguese and spanish players so far). Go to this webpage for more info on Qualifiers, Realm Champs, and other aspects of the organized play: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/wow/en/OP/tournaments/realmqualifier.aspx

(everyone was having loads of fun and enjoying all day long)

In the following Chapters you will be able to see the TOP 8 for the event and their decklists and names, how i did personally in the event, and the last chapter will be about the trip from my hometown in Faro (Portugal) all the way to Jerez de la Frontera (Spain) and everything else non WoW Tcg related or just funny random stuff (like Sweet Daddy D says, the pimp character interpreted by Jeff Dunham the ventriloquist, “That’s funny shit right there!!”, search Jeff Dunham in Youtube if you don’t know it yet, you’ll get the biggest laughs of your lifetime, garanteed! lol).

Chapter 2 – TOP 8 decklists and player names

(Translated to english from the original post in the spanish comunity forum, so bare with me if i do not translate all the text or card names correctly or fully, you can see the original post here in this link: http://www.wowtcgspain.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=40&func=view&catid=9&id=29686&limit=15&limitstart=45#29791

Here you have the pairings for the TOP 8 and the decklists so you can study/analyse them and shoot down their pilots. Sorry if some of the cards aren’t well written, it’s just that some of them were written in tough to decipher letters, so i just paste it from the decklist sheets.

QUARTERFINALS

Jonathan Rodríguez vs Gonzalo Pastor
Adrián Núñez vs David Alcón
Juan Manuel Mateos vs Francisco Daniel Aguilar
Moisés González vs Carmen María Mariscal

SEMIFINALS

Gonzalo Pastor vs David Alcón

Juan Manuel Mateos vs Carmen María Mariscal

FINAL

Gonzalo Pastor vs Juan Manuel Mateos

WINNER
Gonzalo Pastor

DECKLISTS

Gonzalo Pastor
HERO Lionar

3 Offender Gora
3 Broderick
4 Vexmaster Nar’jo
3 Johnny Rotten
3 Furious kalla
3 Cromarius Blackfist
3 Doshura ridestrider
4 Kazamnon Steelskin
2 Raegar….

3 Sudden death
3 Smash
3 Puncture
2 Bloody ritual
2 Finishing shout
3 Shuriken of negation

2 Illidan

3 Orgrimmar
3 Tabards of the Illidari
3 Information Gathering
3 Minions of the shadow council
3 Bolstering our deffenses

Francisco Daniel Aguilar Pazos
HERO Ixamos the Redeemed

4 Mihael
4 Gromble
4 Adam eternum
3 Myriam
4 Weldon barov
4 Ironbane contender?
3 Purge
3 Lightning arc
2 Tremor shock
4 Tótem incendiario
4 Feral spirit
4 blackout truncheon
4 Voice of reason?
3 eye of the storm
3 Profiling the profilers?
3 root of all evil?
3 The last barov
2 Restless dead?

Carmen María Mariscal Santos
HERO Kuma

4 Broderick langforth
4 bloodsoul
4 Offender gora
4 Johnny rotten
4 Sha’kar
4 Tatulla the reclaimer
2 Retainer’s blade
4 Blackout truncheon
4 Aegis of the vindicator
3 Lightning arc
3 storm shock
2 Feral spirit
4 fork lightning
2 The circle of blood
4 akamas promise
4 orders lady Vashj
2 Not made to die?
2 minions of the shadow council

David Alcón de los Reyes
HERO Kuma

2 Bloodsoul
4 Offender gora
4 Broderick
4 Spectral kitten
4 Nathanos
4 Signet of manifested pain
2 Band of the inevitable
3 Edge of oblivion
3 Crackling purge
4 Squall totem
4 Tótem incendiario
4 Lightning arc
4 Feral spirit
4 Falling to the corruptions
3 Orders of lady vashj
4 Akama’s promise
3 Death to traitor king

Adrián Núñez
HERO Vorna

2 Illidan
4 Taste
4 Fracture
3 Mystic
4 Tidal
4 Blizzard
3 Britilize
3 Roaring Blaze OR Blastwave?
4 Cinamon roll
4 Invocation
2 Flechers?
1 Spellricochet
3 Spell supression
1 Ebonweave robe
2 Magic leaf of abysal***
2 Prophet seal?
3 Silvermoon
4 Glutony
1 They are not designed to die?
4 Zapped giants

Jonathan Rodríguez
HERO ***

3 whirlwind weapon
4 Tanks for everything dalaran
4 Ordenes de lady vashj
4 Promesas de akama
4 Puncture
3 smash?
4 Deathwish
4 Pummel
2 whip?
2 bloody ritual?
4 Heart of undead?
4 Fleshwork throwing glaive
4 ***
4 Whispering blade
4 Vindicator
3 Edge of oblivion
4 Broderi Langforth

Juan Manuel Mateos
HERO Valeron

3 darkmoon faire
3 gluttony
4 Call of Darkness
4 circle of blood brokentoe
3 Renewal of life
2 Blessed life?
3 hammer ***
3 Penance
3 The great help of light?
3 Convert
4 Aura de concentración
4 holy shock
2 Ishamah high priest
2 Illyana burning moon?
2 Exarch omala
2 *** Ironbane
3 Azaloth
3 King varian wrynn
3 *** of the guard
4 Gromble ***

Moisés Gonzalez
HERO Thoros

4 Broderic Langforth
4 bloodsoul
4 Ofender gora
4 kitten
4 Winner of twilight ***?
2 Conquistador yun’zo
3 Johnny rotten
2 Tatulla the reclaimer
4 glous
4 Vindicator brand
4 blackout truncheon
4 Holy shock
4 Retaliatory blow?
4 circle of blood
4 They are not designed to die?
3 Tabards of the illidari
3 Enemies, old and new[/font]

Chapter 3 – How i did personally

(Well, i don’t have a full report on my matches, i do have the damage sheets and i remember some important parts of the matches so that’s all i’m gonna write.)

The deck i took was Kuma (shaman rush) refined for Core format, it was shaped and refined only by me (i have no other player to personally test/train with and share opinions in a 200+ kilometer range which is something that doesn’t let me grow faster as a player… *sigh*). I built it after more than 200 hours of training since February 1st, more or less, (175 hours playtesting alone against myself and 25 hours of a few games vs my girlfriend). I did a huge mistake in my preparation for the tournament by refusing to play/train in MWS with other ppl, although i just did it because when i tried MWS for wow tcg back in 2007 there were some ppl who disconected on purpose and other awkward stuff and i hated that lol, now i regret not having trained in MWS and realize it’s all part of the game and also life in general.
I tested every possible Kuma deck including the types we can see other players using and reporting on Upperdeck news articles and Forum (some pros like Phil Cape, Corey Burkhart, and other pros, and also ideas from unidentified players from the Upperdeck forums who seem to me that know how to play a Kuma deck).

(me love you long time!)

Next is the list that was currently giving me the best results, specially against what imo seemed to be Kuma’s hardest matchups, they were imo Blackice (specially the version with early protectors) Nicholas Merrick, Deathwish Warrior, Death Knight (all these 4 decks, if built with defeating Kuma in mind, would be the 4 hardest matchups). You will see ahead that i underestimated Thoros and Kuma mirror match (this one because since i have a fast version of Kuma, i thought i would have the upperhand on the mirror match as well, boy was i wrong lol).

The Kuma deck i took was:

25 ALLIES

4 Bloodsoul

4 Offender Gora

1 Broderick (borrowed, thx marco!)

3 Dark Archon Farrum (didn’t want to spend money buying 3 more brodericks)

4 Waz’luk

4 Vex’master narjo

4 Spectral Kitten

1 Nathanos Blightcaller (borrowed, thx marco! , also didn’t want to spend money buying 1 more)

3 EQUIPMENT

3 Edge of Oblivion

20 ABILITIES

4 Lightning arc

2 Lightning bolt

3 Fork lightning

4 Chain purge

3 Incendiary totem

4 Feral spirits

10 QUESTS

4 Falling to corruption

2 Akama’s Promise

4 Orders from Lady Vashj

2 LOCATIONS

2 Eye of the Storm

I thought that Vex’master narjo would be amazing in the portuguese and spanish metagames, that most decks would be ally based, was expecting Blackice remnants from 2009 too. 3 Fork Lightnings is a must mainly against the lots of Weldon Barovs that alliance and mages and other alliance decks like to use to stall/stop rush (+2 Eye of the Storm and 4 Light Arcs, is enough to deal with Weldons), and help also alot against the Blackices 4 health allies along with the 2 Lightning Bolts. 3 Incendiary Totems are like if you had 3 more resources and 3 seems to work out better for me, cause on all the playtest hours i did with the deck sometimes i had 2 or more Totems laid down as resource, and the Falling to corruption wouldn’t show up, and i also had a lot of direct ability dmg already so. Something i personally didn’t like was using interrupts like WindShear in this deck (now i see that they can save you against some board sweeps or other stuff), or Signets, or cards for a more midrange version of the deck, it’s just not the nature/objective of the deck imo, and i thought it would give me worst results overall.

(why do you both have to be so expensive? i’m not rich you know…)

In all the Rounds i talked alot with my oponents during the match and specially before and after the match, about the current state of the game, what will Blizzard do with the game, exchanging contacts, trading cards, etç, yup that’s me, friendly to the bone !

1st Round VS Mythen of the Fang (druid) – played by Jaume Jurado

First impressions matched last impressions of Jaume, nice guy all around and helpfull, i found out in the end that he is ranked number 1 in Stranglethorn Realm, i would’ve played the same way anyway. The decklist he was using shouldn’t be too far from the one in this article: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/WoW/en/news/article.aspx?aid=7485
I just remember that i went first, dropped lots of my weenies and he couldn’t avoid the rush, even though he used Starshot on 1 of my weenies on turn 2 and used Hibernate on my Kitten on his turn 3, i just kept dropping weenies, it was something like 3 weenies hitting for 6 dmg on turn 3 and then flipped Kuma on turn 4 for 10 dmg and turn 5 or 6 i burned Mythen out with the allies and/or direct dmg abilities.

2nd Round VS Thoros (Horde Paladin) – Moisés Gonzalez

Nice guy all around too, i remember that when i gave him my email he saw the reference to Surf and we talked about it and i encouraged him to find a Surf School at least for 1 or 2 months and really give it a try, waiting to see how that goes hehe.
About the game i don’t remember much except that we traded all the way to the end cause he had lots of weenies like me, he had 4 Broderics 4 bloodsouls 4 goras 4 kittens 3 Johnny rotten 4 glous, after the dust settled, he had 4 health left and i had him on lethal range, he he had 2 cards in hand and 3 resources open, so i went for the kill with a Lightning Bolt (does 4 dmg) aimed at his hero ofc, when suddenly… BANG!!! HOLY SHOCK back at me preventing my 4 dmg and doing 4 dmg to me. Next turn he finished me off. I’d like to confess that i deserved it for not having trained not even once against Thoros decks.

3rd Round VS Lionar Orgrimmar (Horde Warrior) – Gonzalo Pastor

Nice guy all around again, i’m starting to grow this theory that every “underground” hobby/sport has more nice and cool ppl than other more main stream hobbies/sports, cause since you have less ppl in the comunities you support are more fond of each other, where in other stuff that have bigger comunities the jerks come out 3 to 5 out of 10 (lol what a bullshit rush made statistic hahahaha sorry Surf, sorry Football, sorry all other mainstream stuff ).
Onto the card game now, this was THE worst initial and aftermulligan hands i have ever had in all my tcg games lifetime, baby jesus chryst with 2 years old would stand up with a double sommersault backflip and land pointing at me and yelling *WORST HAND EVER* and laughing like baaaaaahahahahahaha “That’s some funny shit right there!!!”, no rly it was that bad lol, i you check my decklist you can see i have 29 allies and out of those, 16 cost 1 weenies, 4 cost 2 narjos, 4 cost 3 kittens, and out of all of those, in a 60 card deck, after the initial 7 card hand, and then after doing mulligan for 7 more cards, i only get 1 ally… LOLOL jasus i know i don’t go to the church or am a big church or religion follower but pls, next time don’t smite me so hard lol.
All i remember is that i dumped the lightning arcs and bolts that i had cause i had next to no allies coming up on the draws, and by turn 4 or 5 he had 4 resources ready to use and passed me the turn, i went to drop a Feral Spirit and he brilliantly interrupted it with his Shuriken of Negation. He also used Sudden death on my turn 3 Kitten, and used Smash to break my turn 4 Edge of Oblivion weapon and hit me for 4 in the process. What can i say? If i had gotten a minimally decent starting hand or mulligan hand with at least 2 or 3 weenies on the board by turn 2/3 it would be the easiest oponent for me all day, but things don’t always go as planned or hoped for, so… props to him on doing all the right moves after the initial 7 cards were given to us both, he actually was imo the smartest player i faced, with lots of credit on how he anticipated all my moves, grats mate if you read this!

4th Round VS Kuma midrange (Horde Shaman) – Fran

Another nice guy (notice the trend here?), especially on all the explanations he gave me before during and after the match, learned quite some stuff with him, i specially liked the Akama’s Promise trick when he had 0 cards in hand, he activated 1 Akama’s Promise for free AND in response to that power going into the chain he activated another Akama’s Promise for free, i don’t know if he found out by himself or learned from someone else, but it’s a brilliant detail let me tell you.
Game wise, i just have to say that his Kuma version was better prepared for the mirror match than mine, he had 3 or 4 Nathanos and 4 Squall Totems and 3 Death to the Traitor King quests and other stuff that just gives you the upperhand in the mirror match, he also made me realize how good Squall Totem is and not just in the mirror match, it was just my bad on picking Eye of the Storm over the Squall Totems, i guess. He won out of being a better and more experienced player and Kuma player overall, grats mate, it was really enlightning to play against you, learned usefull and cool stuff.

5th Round VS Deathwish Benjamin (Alliance Warrior) – don’t remember the name srry

I remember that he didn’t seemed to be on the best of moods when we sat down to play, and i don’t blame him, we were both in the losing side of the boat and that’s always hard to digest no matter how you put it or paint it. I don’t know if it was the mood or his normal personality, but i noticed small details of agressiveness that i hadn’t seen in any other of my oponents or any other player in the room to be honest, like smacking the table once or twice, hitting the cards harder than normal, etç, i just took it as if he was upset with how the games went for him or as if something else was troubling him, deep down he seemed to be a nice guy too and the more the game got close to the end and we departing ways, the more i confirmed that he’s deep down a nice fella imo, he was just upset with something.
About the game, i just remember that i played lots of weenies again and decided to flip Kuma on turn 4 to put him from 25 health down to 13 since i had a Lightning Bolt and a Lightning Arc in my hand which i used on his hero, the allies also did some dmg before dying somehow, and i finished it with the also brilliant combo that i learned from reading Phil Cape’s articles of activating the quest Falling to Corruption to destroy the 2 resources that i had rowed down which were actually 2 Incendiary Totem and they have “Death Rattle (When this ability enters your graveyard from anywhere): Your hero deals 3 fire damage to target hero or ally.” .

I used this combo in my Realm Qualifier in Portugal to finish 2 of my oponents and they were both jaw-dropped lol, one of them actually cracked hard laughing and almost rolled on the floor laughing too, it’s Andre from Sines and he’s a blast to hang around with, always having fun and laughing about everything, what’s up Andre?? All the ppl from Sines what’s up?? Sup sup?

The Scourgeward Draft

Since the tournament was 5 rounds of Core and 3 of Scourgewar Draft, and i always wanted to do a Scourgewar Draft irl, i was rly ansious to do it, and it was actually the part i liked the most, i just regret now that i didn’t went rare drafting sooner lolol!
Nothing to write about except that i found out the hard way that Warrior is rly weak in Scourgewar Draft, and i even had 2 Deathwish, 1 Debilitating Shout, 1 Edge of Oblivion and another weapon, 3 Ruination, had lots of good horde allies like Haranzo and Craigshot and good neutral spiders, it just didn’t cut it. Lost to Death Knight and Mage and won to Shaman with feral spirit.

Chapter 4 – Random stuff, Thanks, and Departure

Random funny or interesting stuff throughout the day:

- Only slept 1 and a half hours before the tournament, dunno why couldn’t sleep more. I remember for example going into nationals of brasilian jiujitsu way way more well slept and less ansious, i even slept like a baby for some minutes after fight nr1 in 2007 nationals lol. And skimboard nationals same thing, always slept well in all the competitions i went to. I guess i was just ansious to prove myself in the wow tcg world
- Got awesome roads in the highways all the way to Sevilla without paying any highway taxes, after passing Sevilla on the way out to Jerez de La Frontera i payed 6 euros of highway tax and i got into the worst road out of any highway i’ve ever seen lol, gladly the road got much much better as i closed up on Jerez de la Frontera.
- Gotta remember next time i go to Spain that turkey is called “pavo”, cause i asked for “peru” in the spanish restaurant i went to have lunch and the waitress couldn’t for the sake of god even imagine what i wanted kekekeke, i ended eating meatballs and fries in a super tasty tomato stew, yummm!
- There was this guy on a motorbike almost glued to the back of my car when we were crossing some bridge near Sevilla i think, he almost slammed his bike into the car of how close he was, then he passed us and must have seen me and my girlfriend looking at the google maps prints i did of the area and must have seen the portuguese license plate and was by the side of my car and making signals for me to open the window to hear him, he wanted to know if we knew the way to Huelva and then Portugal! What an helpfull fella rly, we just said we knew the way rly well and off he went blazing through that bridge road passing inbetween all the cars at high speed.
- In Sevilla, the Ikea and malls close at 9 pm portuguese hour, 10 pm spanish hour, i was surprised since in Portugal everything closes at 11, and if it’s between March and October malls close at 24:00.

Special thanks and departure:

Special thanks to dayarel who was sitting in front of me at the Draft and offered me the Tiny he got in one of the boosters since i said at some part that i play the WoW online game and he thought i’d like to have it!
Special thanks to bernadó who offered me lots of cards which i rly didn’t need, even 2 wind shears and other shaman cards, and a loot card that has 50 charges of stuff that leaves a trail on the ground has you pass by on the WoW online game (i’m not rly onto those trail things )! btw bernadó wins the “nicest guy” award vote from me hehe
Special thanks to op_iberia the organizer for the Stranglethorn Valley Realm events who also offered me something so that i didn’t go home empty handed hehehe!
Thanks to everyone present for making it a rly fun day playing this game we all love to play.
And the biggest special thanks goes withouth any doubt to my ever supporting and loving girlfriend… who stands by my side in this and other hobbies i have, i don’t really need to say it again but Monica… i rly love you like i have never loved any woman or girl before, you are the part that brings balance to my life… and i wouldn’t be anywhere near complete without you by my side.

And thanks everyone for reading this report! Hope you enjoyed it, feel free to hit me up for anything WoW TCG related or any other thing i can actually help with, see you in some forum or social page or out there irl, until the next Report then, and have a nice day.

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