UK National Champion 2022 report

A very concise look back on the weekend, let's get to it!

The format for Nationals was 3 rounds of CC and 6 rounds of Draft on day 1, then 3 rounds for CC on day 2 before top 8 cut.

When we arrived, we handed in our decklist at the front to the judges and grabbed our promo card storage box. Its a fairly nice box, made with very solid cardboard and have the dragons of Volcor art print. I don't mind it, though I know some of my fellow players would have preferred a promo card.

We went on down to get seated and got ready for round 1!

The level of play was professional. So, I was not allowed devices that could connect to the internet on the table. Pen and paper to record life is preferred. Of course, this also means keeping any disruption to other's game to a minimum, as getting a IP or DQ is totally possible.

Round 1 - CC

My round 1 was against Darren Hazelden, who you might remember from my Armoury game at Dark Sphere. Darren is an excellent player, but we still managed to have a close game on both occasions.

My Oldhim was up against Darren's Dorinthea. I went first and on my turn, I played an E-strike, drew a card, into another E-strike, into an icy Winter's Wail. Darren didn't like that, especially as I also made a Seismic Surge on the way. Wouldn't say it's the best start, but it's not bad either.

Darren's next couple of turns were fairly standard Dorinthea gameplans, I mostly just didn't block to prevent reprise, but that did let Dawnblade build up a couple counters before I decided it was a bit much. I continued to swing back hard with my low-cost attack / Pummel package. I did have things under control for a while there, until Darren switched it up with an unexpected Scar for a Scar.

Not your standard Dorinthea package. Some of these attack action cards did make its way through because I didn't want to lose tempo by blocking them, especially since there's no on-hit and I need to block Dawnblade. However, letting them hit did eventually put me on 1 health, a bad position for Oldhim due to Steelblade Shunt. I became too wary of Steelblade Shunt to swing my hammer, which made my attacks inefficient, even though Darren was also on 1 health. Eventually, Darren did get me. I overblocked an attack after checking Darren's graveyard for red reactions, to which Darren responded with a blue Overpower, just enough to get me. Extremely well played and very clever deck build for the field, well done Darren!

Round 2 - CC

Got the bye, got lucky, but no honour, what can I say.

Round 3 - CC

Round 3 was against Declan Patrick's Dash. Dash is arguably one of Oldhim's most difficult matchups, and there were a few Dash on the weekend. Of course, I tried to be the aggressor before Dash could build up the end-game. However, I applaud Declan for recognising my play-pattern of being a very aggresive Oldhim, and adjusted their strategy accordingly be the aggressor themselves, playing out the boosted attacks instead of pumping up the pistol. Oldhim cannot out-aggro Dash, so the results were obvious and not even close. Very well played Declan.

Round 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 - Draft

Ended the first CC rounds, we went into drafting Uprising. The drafts were timed according to the Tournament and Rules Policy for professional play.

The judges would shout out 3 commands per pick; Pick up the cards, draft a card and pass, and give a warning in seconds left to draft. They also made sure all pods were ready to proceed before continuing to the next pack. This did make the process of drafting much longer, we played well into the evening. However, I admire the judges for being able to keep things very orderly. The timed draft was carried out as smoothly as it could have been, not an easy job.

After drafting, we were given a card pool registration form. We were told to put our card pool into that form and swap with another pod. We would then register the card pool of another pod before swapping back.

My first pod draft's was uh, not great. My pack one pick one was a dragon, which favoured me into Dromai. Into pick 4, I noticed that Fai cards were a bit dry, which I had expected. However, I also noticed that Iyslander was under-picked compared to Dromai. At this point, I decided to switch, partially also because I felt more comfortable drafting Iyslander. Lo and behold, was that a mistake. We ended up with 4 Iyslanders, 2 Fais and 2 Dromais. What seems to have happened was that there was a lack of Fai cards in the first pack. Therefore, many drafters switched from Fai to another hero, mostly Iyslander. It happens. This allowed players who stuck with Fai to have very powerful decks.

I went 1-2 in this pod, my only victory being against another Iyslander.

My second pod draft was equally not great on my part. I once again made the same mistake. I started off on Dromai, but got scared and jumped onto Iyslander once I saw some high quality blue Ice cards. We once again ended up with 4 Iyslander, but with 3 Fai and 1 Dromai. I did manage to go 2-1 in this pod, beating both Iyslander mirrors. My last match was against a strong Fai deck, to which I did not have enough Ice cards to disrupt, due to the diluted card pool. What was interesting to note was that even though there was only 1 Dromai, they did not fare as well as many would have thought due to the lack of dragons in the box. Once again, it happens. I guess on average, even a bad Fai deck might not be so bad.

Going 3-3 overall on the drafts, ending with a 4-5 record on day 1, I felt like things were okay. I am hoping to get top 24 for the cash money. If I win my CC games on day 2, there was still a chance given that I know many people would drop. The day ended late, everyone was tired and many went home considering whether they should drop for the ProQuest on day 2 instead.

Round 7 - CC

Day 2 started a bit later to allow the organisation of the ProQuest that was running alongside the last rounds of Nationals. I chose to stuck with Nationals because I knew there was a shot for some cash monies, whereas I wasn't as confident in topping the ProQuest.

My 7th round was against Marcus Archer and Dromai. This was a matchup I had practised a bit and my Oldhim deck can handle the matchup, even though it could be close. The big focus was to pop /destroy dragons and prevent Dromai from building up a board state. Usually, popping a dragon means there's enough cards left in my hand to still swing pretty hard. I had to be patient and not greedy in my plays. I also took Sledge into this matchup in case I had to deal with bigger dragons like Ouvia. Additionally, Sledge is just a big bonk even with a 2 card hand.

The sad times came when I had an Exposed to the Elements that I sideboarded in to deal with Ghostly Touch.

Exposed was not shuffled together with any Ice cards for 2 turns, and I didn't want to keep it around too long so I had to Crown it away. This had a big impact on me later as when I went to lower health, I was defeated with a Semblance played on the Ghostly Touch.

Admitantly, I should have seen that coming, so the victory was well deserved for Marcus.

Round 8 - CC

My 8th round was against Nick Walsh's Bravo. As stated in my preparation article, this was one of my scarier matchups. I really had to just git gud to win this one. Thankfully, for once, I did! I originally pondered over taking Sledge into the matchup, but ultimately took Winter's Wail instead so I can access Stalagmite. I thought that was a fine choice since most of my attacks will be action cards anyway. Stalagmite proved to be the right pick, as it helped stopped 2 big damage turns; one with Zealous Belting and another with Pummel. Admitantly, luck was on my side a bit as Nick unluckily drew into some full red hands, so I did eek out a victory.

Round 9 - CC

At this point, I already knew that I would not make top 24. But, I wanted to finish Nationals anyway. I played my last round against Sharif Shaaban's Dorinthea. I thought it might be a chance to redeem my first CC game. But, Shariff was no slouch warrior player. Dorinthea here was able to out-aggro my Oldhim. I did not draw into the cards I needed to disrupt Dorinthea's turn. I recall quite a few turns where it was just awkward Ice cards. Additionally, Shariff's play had no openings for me, so they took the game. Well played!

Closing Thoughts

I finished 42nd at Nationals this year, with a 5-7 record. Honestly, I'm fairly happy with the results. I didn't even expect to win that many games, to be honest. It would have been nice to top 24 for that cash money. But, it was an afterthought rather than the goal.

The true goal of the weekend was still achieved as I got to hung out with my London crew and have fun playing FaB. It was a shame about the lack of side events, as I even got some custom drip made for the team Blitz event.

Our team was actually sponsored by my local, Troll Trader Bromley!

However, everyone still had a lot of fun and the drip helped contribute to the atmosphere. The trading and meeting new people from all over the country to play some good games also did a lot to contribute to the FaB weekend atmosphere. Additionally, a raffle was also held for some really hot prizes, hosted by TableTop24 and Dark Sphere's own lovely David Madgin

What I was also really happy about was the diversity in heroes. There were indeed a lot of Oldhim players due to the recent results at other Nationals. But, Runeblade still continued to make a presence. We also saw some people playing the meta with Dash, Iyslander and Dromai. The new champion, George Rodger, actually went above and beyond and played a Fai deck that was able to get through the Oldhims.

Watching the Finals for both Nationals and the ProQuest was also great fun for me and the gang, as we flipped out at amazing plays whilst also being silent the whole time to not disrupt the games. It really solidified the atmosphere of Nationals for me and made it a great weekend.

That's it for my report! If you wanted to watch some of the top games, please check out Armoury Knights for the ProQuest and some of day 1's game, and TableTop24 for both day's game and the UK Nationals finals!

And of course, congratulations to the new UK Champion: George Rodger!