How did Three Gods and a Miracle finish, you ask? About as predicted.
Overall, the finish was 1-1 without any byes. There were about 100 players, so quite a few byes were out there. But my first round opponent was in above his head a little bit, so it made no difference in the end. Let's take a look at the specific results.
Round 1 vs. Deefoz (Shaman, Paladin, Mage, Priest)
- He banned Hunter (wow), I banned Shaman
- Game 1: my Miracle Rogue def. his Tempo Mage
- Game 2: my N'Zoth Priest def. his Control Paladin
- Game 3: my Reno/C'Thun Warlock def. his Tempo Mage
There were some significant misplays, especially in the Priest/Paladin game where those little errors add up over the long game. His Mage came out like a champ against Miracle Rogue but it just did not matter, which is testament to the strength of that Miracle deck. The other two games were always way in my control, as evidenced by the following screenshots.
You know what's fun? Getting to play both Ragnaros Lightlord and Uther in Priest. True story.
For style points, I decided to let C'Thun finish the job against Mage in game three, since I was not able to play Yogg or N'Zoth in the other games.
Round 2 vs. KEnODvT (Priest, Shaman, Paladin, Hunter)
- He banned Rogue, I banned Shaman
- Game 1: his Midrange Hunter def. my N'Zoth Priest
- Game 2: his Control Priest def. my Reno/C'Thun Warlock
- Game 3: my Yogg & Load Hunter def. his N'Zoth Paladin
- Game 4: his N'Zoth Paladin def. my N'Zoth Priest
I should've taken some screenshots (opponent had mostly gold decks too), but these matches were so close and so long that I was too focused in the moment to provide those. All four games were competitive, but the last three were truly epic. Worth recapping as I have below:
Game 1 came down to him having Call of the Wild on Turn 8 and 10, which exhausted my resources just before I had turned the game around and put it under control. That's how Hunter vs. Priest goes sometimes.
Game 2 he played an early Justicar Trueheart, which was going to make it difficult for me to play the long game against him. So even though I was still in the mid-20's after drawing a few extra cards with the Hero Power, I went ahead and played Turn 9 Jaraxxus since I had two big taunt minions on board. One of these was a 4/6 Brann Bronzebeard, and I'd never seen Jaraxxus go off twice before (it was very weird).
On the next turn, my taunts were gone and I had to clear a Wild Pyromancer with my attack power, putting me at 12. Although the opponent had quite a few cards in hand, I was set to win with C'Thun the next turn...and despite having 16-17 cards left in his deck, he played Auchenai Soulpriest, double Flash Heal, Hero Power for 14 damage to my face. Cute, an unintentional combo Priest. That was frustrating as all hell, but I forced him to have a very specific set of cards as his only out and he had it.
Game 3 I though about holding Hunter back, but then decided, I'm here for fun and I'd hate to never get a chance to play the deck after it was banned Round 1. YOLO Yogg was in effect! I was able to apply some pressure to the N'Zoth Paladin and played through one fairly good Lock and Load turn as well. Eventually he built up a board that was going to be lethal soon, so I had to go all in on Yogg with about 12-14 spells played. It turned out beautifully, as I ended up with a 10/4 divine shield Yogg and a 4/2 divine shield Savannah Highmane (long story) with him on 14 life. He responded with a N'Zoth which pulled Sylvanas and Uther. I didn't have any burn left in hand, so I played tracking and had to rely on the fates of RNG with Deadly Shot. It cleared Uther (because of course it would) and I stomped to victory. Maybe not well-earned, but the opponent and I were laughing all the same.
Game 4 was your standard N'Zoth Priest vs. N'Zoth Paladin long grind fest. I pulled terribly on my Shades (Humility and Aldor Peacekeeper...ugh) and eventually had to go in on N'Zoth despite knowing he still likely had one board clear left. Golden Monkey followed that to try and win with legendaries over his board presence (double minion hero power nearly all game thanks to another early Justicar), but my pulls were less than ideal. I was not able to draw well with Shades, and my big removal spells did not come at the right times (most were buried deep in the deck). He was able to Forbidden Healing out of range and I lost to fatigue damage and his continual board presence.
And, that's that. The opponent went on to lose the next round, breaking the streak of me losing to a Top 4 finisher in every TACO tournament. Oh well.
So another relatively early exit. But it was a lot of fun, and each of the decks got to win a game thanks to the YOLO Yogg game in the second round working out for me. That's satisfying, and I know but for a bit of bad luck these decks were way more solid than I initially gave them credit for.
They will be fun to continue to play on ladder as well, so I've posted screenshots below for those who want to join the fun.
Finally, let's check in on my predictions. Thanks to Battlefy, lots of statistics were available to us to see how my bigger-scale predictions panned out:
- I will ban Shaman in every round - CORRECT (2 of 2 rounds) (Shaman was the most banned class in the tournament too)
- Warlock will be the class banned most often by my opponents - WRONG (0 of 2 rounds)
- Hunter will be least played, Shaman will be most played - CORRECT (Druid and Hunter were least played, Shaman was most followed by Warlock)
- The tournament winner will have N'Zoth Paladin, Miracle Rogue, and Shaman as three of their decks - WRONG (Brewdon had Warlock, Priest, Shaman, Druid)
- I will go 1-1, and a bad Yogg-Saron turn will be my undoing - MOSTLY CORRECT (My YOLO Yogg actually worked, but I still ended up 1-1)
Not too bad on the predictions front. On to the next one! Enjoy the Whispers meta everyone.
Decklist Screenshots:
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