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T2 MP Friday Night

Round 1 vs Jonathan H. (Soundman2), David C. (Nameless) and Josh O.

Judges, Judges and more Judges in this game. My NT White Ladies were definitely the odd one out as Gideon and Moses ruled the first couple of rounds. Everyone stayed pretty close though and the game came right down to the wire. At one point I thought I had won after defeating Josh in a battle (going for 7) but Josh played Mayhem (despite me having RBD active) and David drew SoG off the redraw to stop me. This left Josh without a hand though and Jonathan walked in for a freebie. David went after Josh, but I decided to keep David from getting his 6th by letting Josh use Uzzah from The Darkness. Josh drew his 3 cards and got a freebie from me as I wanted to save blocks for Jonathan and David who were both at 5. Thing it was unlikely Josh had drawn a good block, I activated Altar of Ahaz in case Jonathan had drawn SoG. One of the three cards Josh had drawn however was Uzzah and my Ladies got blocked. Then Jonathan went after Josh again and amazingly the other two cards Josh had drawn were an Assyrian Archer and a DoU so even though he had no hand again, his LS were gone. David got his 6th against Jonathan and then Josh got his 5th against me as I had not drawn any defense after the Mayhem. Unfortunately this got rid of my Altar of Ahaz, but during Josh's discard phase Jonathan played his SoG to get to 6 (not wanting to risk someone playing Vain or me having a second AoA). This did let me walk in for number 7 though against David as no one had any blocks left.

Final score: 7-6-6-5

Round 2 vs Jonathan A. (OrangeAlstad), Josiah B. (jbeers285) and Pat W. (Westy Sr.)

This game also saw little defense in the opening rounds and the little defense that did show up was quickly overcome. I made a mistake by not activating The New Covenant (instead of RBD) when Josiah had Writ active and I rescued with solo Salome. I wasn't sure if he would use it to stop me or surrender the only LS he had, but unfortunately he did use it. I wasn't too worried as I planned to use The New Covenant on my next turn, but then I realized it was very possible either Pat or Jonathan would rescue Salome before I could get her back, which is exactly what happened as Pat used Grapes to get past Josiah's only EC. This left me without a Hero for a turn so I was a turn behind everyone else. Jonathan got to 4, then promptly dropped Birth Foretold, searched out SoG and played them to get to 6. Josiah also got to 5 without using SoG/NJ as did Pat while I sat stuck on 3 though I had half a 3-Liner rescued--I decided to gamble with the Liner because most of the rest of the LS on the table were NT and Female Only, which I could always access and I wanted to further limit the available LS for Jonathan and Josiah (with Pat being the one with the Liner). At one point, Jonathan got a Wrath off to stall everyone a bit and again I went a turn without a Hero I could use (had Lois in hand but nothing to use with her). However, Jonathan's Wrath had taken out his Captain and he did not draw into a Guidance to grab a TSA. This left him unable to get a LS on his turn as I was the only one with LSs and had Uzzah (sitting in territory) to block. Then on his turn Josiah drew into NJ with about 2/3 of his deck left (and holding SoG). Ironically both Jonathan and Pat had Vain in their hands, but Jonathan was trying to save it for whoever got to 6 first between Josiah and Pat, and Pat was unaware that Vain worked when Lampstand was active so he did not play his either.

Final score: 7-6-5-3

Round 3 vs Scott B. (broward) and Kai M.

Scott went first and immediately put down Seraph, Isaiah's Call and Wheel to get Isaiah and Michael, and then flipped on Covenant with Death. I started to wonder if the game was already over, but after getting out to a fast start, Scott faced a bit of LS drought and Kai's Writ eventually took care of Isaiah. Meanwhile I started to get my offense rolling and used my Susanna to burn through my deck 4 or 5 cards at a time. This got me to GoYS (though I had to underdeck AotL) and then along with help from a few Divinations I got to SoG and went from 3 to 7 in two turns.

Final score: 7-5-4

Friday night: T2 multi

First Game: Justin Alstad, Josh O'Neill, Jonathan Hanson
This was a pretty average game of multi where no one ever blocked the entire game.  Every one was about even with Justin a head.  I Just about knew what was in everyone's decks, since one was one of my decks, and I had played Justin at the last tournament.  Then it got interesting.  Justin was going for his 5th.  He was about to get it and played Sog NJ so he had 6.  Mayhem was played, even though RBD was active.  I drew Sog, and before I could play it Jonathan was looking through his deck, thinking that the game was over.  It wasn't we went around 2 times with blocking Justin.  He broke through and the game was over.  And the only reason he win was that Jonathan played his Sog prematurely, not as a block against Justin, which would have let Jonathan win.  My biggest regret was that Justin blocked me when I was not going out against him 4 times, with FA, CM, Charms, and the Darkness.

Second Game: Jordan Alstad, Bill Voigt, Josh O'Neill
This was a terrible game.  I went first and had no heroes.  It comes around to me and I draw three, still no heroes, I play divination and put everything beneath my deck.  Still no heroes.  It comes around again and I draw three, and get a hero.  I make the weirdest  rescue ever.  Then Jordan Beheads him.  On my next turn I draw and Divination, and get no heroes.  After that everyone gave me pity souls the rest of the game.  My highlight was building a tower of 3 6 sided dice, 4 12 sided dice, and one 20 sided dice. Jordan won I think.

Third game: Jayden Alstad, Matt Sinclair, Josiah Beers
Not sure how I got the the top table, but I did.  This was around midnight and everyone was about asleep.  There was defense this game, and I do not think the Matt was ever attacked, since no one wanted to be stoned.  I do not remember much, but Josiah won.

I did not stay up to play Type MN, but went to bed.  Which I think worked for the best.

I got 7 hours of sleep, and so felt better than normal.

Saturday: T2 2P
I started playing a deck where the point was to choose Damsel or Sabbath Breaker as the blocker with RBD active.

First Round: Gabe
I did not have much hope going into this game, and I was right.  I had no defense, and only had offense when there were no souls to go for.  The only bright spot in a very cloudy sky, was that I got Sog NJ.

Second Round: Kye Murphy
I got a better draw this game, but still had a slow start.  I do not remember much but I made a few mistakes, and lost a close game.

After the first two losses I decided to switch to a different deck, which was a Judge Priest Assyrian.

Third round: Matt Sinclair
He started out by telling me all the great achievements of his deck, so I had some fear.  The first thing that I remember was searching for Oak with Zadok Anoints Solomon.  He whips down VP and says that he is going to underdeck Oak with out even looking at my hand, which had SoG in it.  It should have been a close game but I did not draw souls for the latter half of the game, and won.

Forth Round: Matt Brinkman
I was happy about the last round win and came in with about the same thing as I ended with in the last game, not drawing soul.  Eventually after a few turns he played Mayhem.  His Philly defense was not able to do much against my judges, and the only heroes he could get was 3 Captains after the Mayhem, which one of, I set aside and lamed him for 2 turns.  And I won again.

Fifth Round: Caleb Brinkman
I was happy about coming to 50%, but had had a streak of losing to Brinkmans in the T2 only.  Early in the game I discarded his Sog, and promptly forgot about it.  This game the tables turned on me and he was the one not drawing souls for at least 6 turns.  He got to 5 quickly and I saw an L coming.  Then he set aside his own band, that I banded to, with Nebby's Pride.  I was able to get some souls, and when I remembered that he did not have his Sog I could stop sweating.  I won with drawing one card with Damsel and getting Sog.

Sixth Round: Craig Fountain
I had some small hopes that I could still place, but had a record on losing to Craig also.  It appears that we all congregated at the bottom at the T2 only.  He was playing the famous Priests and Persians. There was defense at the beginning of the game, and I thought that he would chump block me for the entire game.  After 2 plots and 2 Uzzahs I was hurting a a little.  Sone he went out and played Ezra's Journey and banded in all of his offense and one of my heroes, I did not even have to think, but played grapes.  Things went down hill from there the rest of the game for him, with only being able to block twice with Persian Presidents, and having no heroes.

I was not able to place but got 5th.

With my first deck losing the first two, and my other deck wining the last 4 I learned something about my decks that I plan to fix.

Thank you Bill for having this great tournament every year!

Player: Doug Weber
Deck: Isaiah and other prophets/Assyrians/Babylonians
Two player - third place

These were my first T2 games and I made the deck Friday night. Forgive me if I don't properly remember or spell the names of the people I played, since I met some of them for the first time this weekend.

Round 1: Bye
I showed up late and didn't play this round. I got three cheap points. I had no idea I would place so I didn't think this would be a big deal. Who knows if it made the difference.

Round 2: Win 6-5
I played Jayden Alstad who also was running Isaiah and Assyrians which made me a little worried (also my first T2 game!). His Isaiah set up first, but I had my one King Hezekiah, so I was able to keep up. Neither of us would put any ECs down for fear of PoJ. I got rid of his Isaiah (Invoking Terror I think) and had a lot of Isaiah angels down and started drawing. It ended up being the difference since I had gotten SoG and he hadn't when we timed out.

Round 3: Win 7-2
This game was against Sam (sorry, don't know last name) from Iowa. A real nice guy. He was playing Judges/Canaanites and got a few early souls with Edicts. He couldn't draw any defense, though. I had a great draw and soon Isaiah was drawing away. SoG and NJ got me the win.

Round 4: Win 7-2
I played Gabe Isabel (I believe that's the name) who had helped me the previous evening tweak my deck. He ran Disciples and Pharisees, but Iron Pan and CoD stopped most of his strategy. He was very patient with me forgetting to choose the soul I went for, even when I was winning (thanks for that, Gabe). Lampstand and the Nazareths didn't last long against my Forest Fire and Siege Armies and I drew SoG and NJ near the bottom of my deck for a 7-2 win.

Round 5: Loss 7-2
I was up against Justin Alstad and things did not go well from the start. I though I could let him go first, since I only had a female only soul down, but he had a Generous Widow and Edict. I got a called Isaiah going, but his Dissuading Speeches killed Isaiah. Fortunately, I took care of his RbDs right away before I was rescuing with GW. He played Scattered on Isaiah and SwLC and that was pretty much the game. I thought I could get something going with Obadiah, but he was willing to sacrifice a Siege Army to kill Obadiah. At this point I wasn't drawing and his Urim and Thummim let him see what I had and the game was soon over, one of my souls coming on SoG.

Round 6: Win 7-4
I was in fourth place, a few points behind Martin Miller and Jordan Alstad who were tied for second. But they were playing each other, so a win would place me. My opponent was Nathan Voigt. I had already beaten a disciples deck, so I felt fairly confident. But during one battle I mistakenly played Razor to try to kill his hero instead of playing DoU (I thought it was a bad idea even before playing it). This let him play Reach and AoCP. I couldn't draw an EC for several turns and I soon found myself down 4-3. I had CoD up and he flipped Lampstand down and Captured Ark up, but this let me play Falling Away and use Burial for the block. I kept flipping up CoD, but his Kidron Valley took care of them. However, Isaiah got up and running and soon SoG and NJ won me the game and took third place. Because of this win, he generously gave me one of his CBP souls. (Not really though. I picked it up by accident. Don't worry, I'll give it back).

T2 is a lot of fun! Thanks to Gabe for his advice Friday night and to Mr. Voigt for trading me the cards I needed. Congrats to Justin Alstad and Martin Miller for 1st and 2nd.

So I will start off by saying I am terrible and remembering game by game replays so I am not even going to try. Instead I will highlight some moments from my tournament and weekend.

In multi I was shocked that I was able to pull off the win. Justin is right that I had about 60-70 cards left in deck when I drew NJ to go with my SoG for the win in that game. In fact I believe about the same thing happened in my 3rd round game.  The first game was the most fun for me. I was at a table with Craig (countfount), Wild Bill (everytribe) and Martin Miller (forget his handle).  Craig got off to a blazing start to jump out to 6 while I believe martin and bill both had 3 and I was at 1.  I proceeded to be given free lost souls for a couple rounds while Craig repeatedly got dom blocked. I believe i personally dom blocked him 3 times (including my SoG without NJ).  Somehow I got to 6 and protected Gideon got me past bill for the win.

2 player was also a ton of fun.  This was the second time I competed in t2 since nats 2012 and was excited to try my hand at it with a little more experience under my belt.  My main goal was to place top 10.  I believe I tied for 9th.  I felt a top 10 finish would be excellent for a field of such high caliber players.  I believe someone counted that we had 7 national champions playing in the tournament.  Highlight of the 2 player for me was getting hammered by Justin even after he had to use his burial on one my souls(thanks abby :-)).

I also wanted to take some space here to thank everyone who made it possible for me to attend this year.  This includes Bill, Tim, Justin, Jonathan and all the Alstad clan.  Some other high light moments from the weekend included a really great conversation with Pat Wester about the Christian Journey, sharing testimonies with Justin late at his house, playing some t1 games with Tim before the t2, spending time with the Alstad Family and losing to them in Multi at their parents home, discussing theology with Justin, Jayden, Tim and Britta and watching the first 5 minutes of the Oscars until Justin saved us with a game of T2 Multi.

Had a great time and it was a great tournament!

Sorry I could not make it gents. Currently deployed and February was a busy month prior to leaving. Good news is that I will be back beginning of June and should be able to make the upper level tournaments and nationals. Congratulations Justin, looks like the same deck from nationals from the reports I read. That's a mean deck, hope to play it again in August.