Jack is back with a report from his first ever Core Format event, the Zapped Giants Open. As Jack eases back into the competitive scene after a disastrous Season 4 he did not attend, he takes us through his deck choice and his constructed match-ups before a brief run-down of his draft.

Having finally found a few hours where I’m not in central London serving up ice-creams and programs to ravenous theatre goers, I have now finished this article. It isn’t anything terribly exciting or new, but rather my report from The Zapped Giants Open (formerly known as the Season 5 Realm Championships).

Perhaps the biggest challenge this event presented was the constructed format. I’ll be upfront and admit that I am all for different Constructed Format, but the lack of both a sideboard and the best of three match format took a lot to get used to. In the brief testing I had managed to do prior to starting my new job I was thankful to find that card advantage was proving a greater decider in most match-ups than the dice roll, and I had decided very early on that I was going to play one of two decks: mage or Tuskarr Kite.

If you’re read my article on the Kite you’ll know that I was ‘on the bandwagon’ so to speak long before Stuart Wright turned heads with his Plague Demonsoul deck in Houston. When paired up with a sixty card deck it can provide sickening card advantage, and is absolutely insane when paired with a Mount or when taking advantage of a fresh ally’s inability to attack. When Upper Deck announced that they were no longer sponsoring the UK event I made up my mind immediately to just play a deck with the Kite as it was my favourite card from Scourgewar, but just as I had finished messing about with Druid and Warlock variants Christian Pfeiffer hooked me up with a Core version of the Everlasting Cold deck from the World Championships. Adapted from Jonas Skali’s Season 4 original, it was a beautiful Nicholas Merrick zeitgeist and only a few cards out of my own Classic format version of the deck. After playing a few games I was hooked, and whilst very fond of the synergy El Pollo Grande had with Galvanize I put Merrick together and packed it into my bag.

Hero: Nicholas Merrick

Abilities: 30

4 x Blizzard
4 x Brittilize
4 x Everlasting Cold
4 x Mana Ruby
4 x The Taste of Arcana
4 x Spell Suppression
3 x Flickers from the Past
3 x The More, The Scarier

Allies : 16
4 x Adam Eternum
4 x Elder Achillia
4 x Mikael the Blunt
4 x Myriam Starcaller

Master Heroes: 1
1x Kel’thuzad

Locations: 4
4x Eye of the Storm

Quests: 11
3 x Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm
4 x A Question of Gluttony
3 x Zapped Giants

Total: 61

This list is slightly different to what Christian played at the German event: after talking with Ben Davies and playing a few games with Amy the night before the tournament I swapped out the 3 copies of Blast Wave for The More, The Scarier. I wasn’t happy that Blast Wave would never kill a Kitten or a Bloodsoul outright or even dent a Dreadsteed, and TMTS could eat them up as well as Feral Spirit tokens before the game was even remotely dangerous. I also played a lone copy of Kel’thuzad as he could completely blow any match that got stuck in a mire out of the water, although in hindsight old Skeletor was just one card too many and was not needed alongside Flickers of the Past at all.

That card however is an absolute beast in this deck, and the biggest gain outside of a rejuvenated quest base. Mages are rather fortunate in having a sizable number of Ongoing Abilities that are sent to the graveyard over the course of a game (or indeed answered by an opponent’s removal). Flickers brings them all back, and if you like to play Blizzard or Mana Ruby an awful lot then this is the card for you. Sometimes you’ll fish back an errant Spell Suppression or Everlasting Cold to, but more often than not a resolved Flickers is game over for an opponent as long as at least one of the cards you put back into play draws you an obscene number of cards. Flickers is at its most ridiculous in the Vor’na decks (where Mystic Denial and Conjured Cinnamon Roll are added to the fray), but in a format where card advantage is essential this card gives it to you in spades.


I really wanted to play Car Pony’s mount combo, but I couldn’t get the harness in time.

I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to play Mana Ruby over Invocation or Mana Sapphire, but given this archetypes propensity to empty its hand at an alarming rate sided with the Ruby. I definitely prefer Invocation (even if just because you play it on turn two and leave it hanging as an inevitable threat), but I couldn’t justify its inability to refill your hand as completely over a two turn period, and ultimately this was the same for Mana Sapphire. In pure mage control they both win out, but here they just didn’t tick. Having a hand of eight cards at the start of your turn is a really nice feeling though, and in a deck where you need several pieces of your puzzle to fall into place so that you can go off in style it had the edge.

The ally base should not look too perplexing. Elder Achillia and Mikael the Blunt make welcome returns, although the Elder is not as dominant in a three block format. Her 3 health does however allow her to trade with a lot of one drops at relative ease if need be, and her synergy with Mikael and Myriam is not horrible to say the least. Speaking of the Cerulean Mistress, she is a really nice fit in this deck. If you drop her behind a four counter Eye of the Storm or Blizzard she will give your opponent a sizable migraine, and only felt weak against Death Wish (which I was not expecting to be overly dominant in the UK). The band of allies was rounded off with the ubiquitous Adam Eternum, who is more often than not a lone ticking clock for the opponent.

The only card I regret playing is my sixty-first trump card, Kel’thuzad. Whilst testing other decks in the format he had proven spectacular in a lot of match-ups as a card many players simply couldn’t answer once he resolved, and I had literally thrown him into the deck instead of a fourth The More, The Scarier five minutes before registration closed because sixty-one is my lucky-but-statistically-wrong number of cards in any deck I play. He was however more useful than half the Arsenal players who took part in the match against Wigan on Sunday, as I could actually use him as a resource.

With the usual flourish of Drums Block mage staples thrown in for good measure, the bell rang and I sat down for my first match.

Song of the Tournament – Stuck on Repeat (Little Boots)

Round One vs Vor’na the Wretched

Whilst I can’t remember my opponent’s name, I do remember him as being George from Swansea’s Dad. I was slightly worried about this match-up as I wasn’t running “Bladehands” Spigotgulp, which meant that Spell Suppression was my only out to Silvermoon, and despite knowing that quite a few people including Stuart Wright had opted for her I was hoping to dodge her all together until round four or five and if I lost just take it on the chin.

As it turned out, landing an early Everlasting Cold was very important, but the key play was my second turn Brittalize. Faced with an Everlasting Cold and Mana Ruby, he dropped Seer’s Signet on six. I had floated one resource to feign Taste but it was a bluff, but with the Brittalize in play I halted his attack on the Ruby and it effectively won me the game. Drawing eight brand new cards the following turn and adding a Myriam and a Blizzard to my table saw Vor’na rolled over despite a Cinnamon Roll healing some of the early damage.

1-0

Round Two vs Lionar Orgrimmar

I’ve never been a huge fan of Orgrimmar decks, and whilst I had messed around with a Bogmara version for a while I didn’t feel that the deck had any real resilience in a format dominated by Lord Benjamin and his Death Wish. When my opponent dropped Kagra of the Crossroads on turn one I was fairly sure that he was a new player here for the experience, and I definitely couldn’t fault him for what was a thoroughly well spirited and enjoyable game. I managed to drop two Everlasting Colds in consecutive turns, and whilst he knew exactly what to do against them and attacked with his hero his use of Cromarius Blackfist on the first was a strong signal that he had no idea about Blizzard. My third turn Adam into a turn four Achillia and Blizzard went unanswered and Merrick powered through.

2-0

Round Three vs Ben Davies with Benjamin Death Wish

For all intents and purposes, Ben is the one player in the UK I just cannot beat. We’ve played each other in round three or four of the last few major events, and whilst my deck has died on my each time Ben is a stellar player and even if they drew properly this would never have been a cake walk. A standard Death Wish deck is a relatively good match-up here, you just make sure you answer their Greaves and maybe Spell Suppress the Death Wish and if you Flicker it all back victory is pretty inevitable. The problem here was that Ben’s build was utterly brilliant in that in that it had both Adam and Myriam instead of some of the armor.


His hand was almost this disgusting, but not quite.

I won the dice role, but that turned out to be fatal as Ben played and completed A Question of Gluttony on each of his first four turns. A Bloody Ritual on five didn’t help my cause as I was swamped by insane card advantage, and a Lightwarden’s Band in combination with Death Wish and Myriam was just too strong.

2-1

Round Four vs Vor’na the Wretched (HMonster)

I’ve played against Aaron a few times before, at Sneak Peaks and on MWS, and I know that he doesn’t make many mistakes. My heart sank a bit when he played a second Silvermoon on turn two to counter my Spell Suppression, but I top decked my second Suppression and the game was on. A Counterspell stopped my first Blizzard but the second resolved, and as he failed to draw any answers I just sat back and watched the damage rack up.

3-1

Round Five vs Imp Lord Pinprik(Jonny Roberts)
Ok, I’ll be honest, I saw this pairing and cheered rather loudly (much to m chagrin). Jonny had just played my girlfriend Amy in the last round, and as she couldn’t draw Fork Lightning, Chain Purge or any other burn for the life of her had lost to a perfect Pinprik draw. For me though this was an almost perfect match-up due to the insane amount of burn in the Merrick deck.


He makes Death Wish decks cry.

Of course I was slightly upset by a turn one Noxel Shroudhaggle. He was joined by a number of other fire allies and the beats rolled in, but I flipped and the first one died in a ball of flame. I quickly dropped an Everlasting Cold, but multiple Incinerates and Fireballs were taking their toll. I found Elder Achillia and made good use of Brittalize to knock the Imp Lord down just before his attachments ticked for fatal.

4-1

The 4-1 meant one of two things: I would either be on the top table or the second, but given that only one of my opponents was on an equal or better standing I had a feeling I would be ninth and on table two. As it turned out, Mantis balanced the pods so that Pod 1 only had seven players, resulting in both myself and Mark McKiernan being in Pod 2 on 4-1. Whilst this was unfair on players in pods below us, it meant that we could theoretically both make the Top 8 if one of us went 2-1, the other 3-0 and then one of the 5-0s (Stuart or Joseph) bombed out entirely and went 5-3 (losing the first two draft rounds 0-2 and then not getting the bye in the eighth round).

This was probably the weakest pool of Scourgewar cards I’ve ever seen, and I was very worried that everybody else had opened bombs and I would be left scrambling for good cards. I floated Warrior and Mage in pack one, drafting solid quests and a pair of six drop spiders alongside Makta the Rumbler and a Smoldering Blast/Polymorph Penguin combo. Mage is under-drafted in this set but has two common removal spells and a third uncommon one, and as I picked up Smoldering Blasts two and three I knew what I would be playing. Nobody was drafting Priest and I ended up with a few Dark Penance and Tendrils but without a Devouring Plague or Gathering of Wits I didn’t want to chance it, relying instead on the Mage cards being able to knock out nearly every early play an opponent would make before I dropped my big guys. Unfortunately I only had the spiders and Makta, and it turned out that players were alternating factions in an H-A-H-A-H-A split that was very frustrating to read. I ended up going Horde, but had managed to lay my hands on one of each Conqueror for ultimate annoyance.


These are a few of my favourite friends.

This is not the time or place to talk about the draft games, but I went 2-1 and entered the Top 8 in eighth place. Marko beat me in the first match as I couldn’t answer his Shout (I was really happy to have taken away Makta), but both my other opponents got steam rollered by my removal. Needless to say I played Lammy’s weapon based Kuma in the quarter finals and got rolled due to a combination of bad draws and completely throwing away game one, but it meant that I had landed my second ever Top 8 and in a way made up for completely failing at the Season 4 event (where I didn’t play my own build of the deck and those that did both Top 8’d whilst I went 0-3, fun times).

Having had a good few weeks to think about Core, and with the news that Wrathgate has a definite release date and that the first ever European Continental Championships will be this format on the 12th-13th of June in Paris, I have to say that I am looking forward to it. A quick scan of the US events and the few others that took place in Europe has given us four solid decks, and I think that right now Vor’na is the strongest of the lot but that Death Wish variants can cause a lot of pain due to their consistency in this format. Hopefully Wrathgate will create a few new ones, the power of Tuskarr Kite has already been demonstrated and with a Flying Mount or two plus a few other racial ones to see print in the next set alongside the Argent Crusade faction and all their Holy goodness a new plethora of decks will take the Continental events by storm.

I’m hoping to get back into writing regularly again now that I know the impact of my job’s timetable, so you should be seeing a new article from me every week. I eased myself back in with a report this week, but next week I’ll be taking a look at how you can take advantage of a format like Core, and then as Wrathgate’s contents make themselves known focus a lot more on that set. The other exciting event on the horizon is the brand new Zapped Giants podcast. Tyma and I have been working on Episode One for the past week, and it will hopefully be going up by the end of next week at the latest.

Until then enjoy the plane free skies, I’m going to open a rescue centre for stranded gnomes in the meantime.

Good read Jack, as always.

Very nice.

I always try and write a report for anything vaguely interesting (there's one knocking around in the tournaments section on here) but it's always interesting to see other people's opinion on how their day went.

I love the way you wrote 'George from Swansea's dad.' My dad's called paul by the way