Even though the event has finished the BritRollerSix coverage continues aplomb. There’s plenty of post-event quarterbacking to come, but we begin with a Special Guest Blog Post from our new UK National Champion Mike Power.
Over to Mike – enjoy!
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Nats is always a great event because of the people in it and running it. It’s basically like meeting up with a bunch of mates for a few games, I really can’t recommend it enough if you’re a casual player coming along and getting involved in the ‘organised event’ scene.
In preparation for the event I had been practicing a Fixit build for about 2 months. It was really good when it worked but my opponents always seemed to have ways around it. So the night before the qualifiers I threw together a Yuanti Pureblood team but it really needed a Rare Gold Dragon for the Attune ability. Unfortunately I did not have one so I prepared to play a tweaked Fixit build. On the morning of the qualifiers I was fortunate enough to acquire the Gold Dragon (thanks Matt Haley) so I thought “what the hell” and quickly changed to the Yuan-Ti team. Amazingly it turned out to be just as good as I had hoped and managed to win me the Qualifier and then with a few tweaks the UK Nats.
My games at the Nats event went like this:
Game 1 v Seth – Loss
Seth took me to the cleaners. He immediately saw how to work around my team and went for his Shriek. Then Danger Room and Nobby and I was toast. Now I wasn’t helped by some bad rolls but even if they had gone off I still hadn’t worked out how much I needed to deal with Shriek. So this turned out to be a pretty handy match for me later on.
Game 2 v Dan Snape – Win
Dan runs Immortals like a boss and regularly beat me with it while we were testing builds in the run up to Nats. He had played a variant of my deck on the Thursday night as I frantically scrabbled to pull a team together but he hadn’t faced this version so the race was on as I knew his win con was fast too. In the end I managed to scrape a win but it was close and down to the third game and my final turn on the 5 count.
Game 3 v James Blore – Win
No way, James Blore! I’ve seen this guy play on YouTube! He was as much a gent in real life as he is on screen but unfortunately for him he had some really bad luck trying to get the Gold Dragon out so I was able to nip in there for a win.
Game 4 v Ben Scott – Win
Oh man. not Ben! I thought this guy was in Canada! Ben is one of those players who will forever be the guy who can be dealt 8 random cards and win a tournament with it so I figured I needed to be on top form and hope the dice were with me. Fortunately my dice rolled pretty much what I wanted all the way through. Ben had worse luck. Phew!
Top 8 v TJ
Top 8 baby! OMG I’m playing TJ! It was great to meet TJ and get some games in. My nerves were high but I at least knew I had some prizes now so that was nice. Against TJ (I think it was TJ at least) I went Dragon first on one game for a change and got a win so he blobbed the Gold Dragon causing me to revert to the primary YPB win con. I was through to top 4!
Top 4 v Chris Williams
Chris and I have been meeting at events for a few years now and I think this was our first game. He had an idea what my team was from seeing it Friday so went with a Blob but mistakenly Blobbed my Shriek (due to me changing an early purchase decision it should be added) so I got a first game win. The second game he brought out Blob and Bishop which messed up his buying order for his own win con and gave me time to get out Xandala and the Gold Dragon to just ping Bishop off (I had Shrieked his Blob) before pushing through for real damage.
(Editor’s note: this section of the write up is wholly incorrect. It does not provide an accurate insight into Mike’s emotional state as he became increasingly intimidated by my Hollywood good looks, flowing locks, and the smouldering intensity I was giving off as I played – Chris)
Final v Seth
Now Seth knew my deck and had taken me apart earlier in the day… Hmmm… Somewhat concerned but I figured I just had to deal with his Shriek with my own and hope to win before he could Nobby and Danger Room me again. So the first game got underway and my team just worked perfectly by pinging off his Shriek with Danger Room then I just bought stuff for the win.
Game 2 Seth worked out that if he bought 2 Shrieks then I could no longer just ping them off and buy stuff (I don’t have ramp with ooodles of spare energy). So I went Ring, Gold Dragon thinking this will wrong foot him but he just used it against me with the Splinters Teachings global! What with that and a few Danger Room/Nobby combos he confidently took the win.
The final game… I bought Shriek first and got her out to Shriek his Shriek. This was enough of a problem for Seth that it just stalled his early game to the point I was able to get my YPB, Pseudodragon and Xandala out. From there he managed to stall me a bit but I had multiple ping sources with all the action dice starting to flow through my bag.
Seth played superbly and never makes mistakes. But more importantly he’s a good laugh so we were regularly nattering especially with there being no timer. I can see him sitting at the top table regularly on the run up to next year’s Nats.
Round up
This was a really great event with some great people who I look forward to seeing over the next year and again at Nats 2019.
If you’d like to know more about my team then check out this video talk-through I prepared for you fine people:
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There we are then folks.
Thanks to Mike for preparing this event. overview and his video team walkthrough. Keep your eyes peeled for future guest posts from a Mike talking through team ideas.
More UK Nats coverage to follow…
Nice write up and good job!