by Corey Burkhart

After narrowly escaping his first knockout match against Tim Rivera, Brad Watson is ready to take his aggressive allies to battle once more. His opponent Michael Barnes is no stranger to this matchup. He himself has brought a slightly slower Grand Crusader build to Los Angeles. The major difference between these players’ decks are that Michael is playing the full set of Etched Dragonbone Girdles, which will allow him to draw cards off his assorted Dragonkin allies, and draw extra cards in the late game, while Brad is all in on killing the opponent’s hero.

The two players shuffled up, Brad rolling box cars to win the chance to play first in the matchup. Both players decided their openers weren’t powerful enough to go to war with, and took mulligans. Brad led the game off with no one drop, but he did have Cairne, Earthmother’s Chosen to Stash and start the festivities. Michael had Cairne too, but also had Rosalyne von Erantor, dealing three damage to his hero.

Brad decided he wanted to trade tokens, then Stashed Sava’gin the Reckless to hit Michael’s Rosalyne von Erantor.

“Better lucky then good!” from Brad earned a chuckle from the crowd, as Brad quickly followed that up with Korlix Grimvik, and a pass of the turn back to Michael. Michael decided to row Seeds of Their Demise and use it to Delve immediately, leaving both on top. Dagax the Butcher earned him five damage, and down came his singleton Shalug’doom, the Axe of Unmaking to make more use of Dagax. Brad responded by playing Grand Crusader to pump up Korlix and attack for four. Michael struck back at the Protector for a point of damage, then drew his own copy of the ability.

Michael resourced a Twilight Citadel, used it, then recruited a Bronze Warden to heal his hero. Brad drew and completed Seeds of Their Demise to plan out the coming turns. Delve left an ally on top which granted an Enraged Faceless Sapper free reign to deal six to Michael after Korlix dealt with the Bronze Warden. Brad ended his turn with Trade Prince Gallywix, and Michael was in a rough spot. He had just one Twilight Dragonkin ally token in play, and a Shalug’doom with one counter, but he did have Grand Crusader to allow the token to trade for Korlix. He passed the turn back to Brad, but was still facing down 9 points of damage when Brad’s party attacked.

Brad then played Dagax the Butcher to bring Michael up to 26 damage, and with the help of a Bronze Drakonid to ready the ferocious Butcher, Brad took down the first game.

Brad Watson 1 Michael Barnes 0

After some friendly banter, Michael announced he would be playing first this game. He drew his opening seven and, after a slight hesitation, sent it back. Brad, on the other hand, said, “Ya’ know, my momma always said, ‘Don’t mulligan the nuts.’” We might be in for a short one! Michael would have to hope that his second seven would be good enough. They did include a Cairne to Stash and an Alethia Brightsong to Delve. After much deliberation Michael decided to keep his Sava’gin the Reckless on top, but put Twilight Citadel on the bottom of his deck. Brad’s opener was much less explosive, just a Seeds of Their Demise and Telor Sunsurge.

“Time to get reckless,” Michael announced as he stashed his Sava’gin, but his die roll missed Telor, leading to an understated fist pump from Brad. Michael decided he wanted to attack with his allies and be aggressive, putting 2 damage on Telor, and 1 on Brad’s hero. Michael lost Alethia, but made it 6 on Brad’s hero as he played Dagax the Butcher.

“Brad the Sniper,” as he was nicknamed by Michael, hit a Tauren Warrior with a Stashed Sava’gin the Reckless, killing the token, but Brad announced it was unfortunate, playing an Abysswalker Rakax with no target. More Ferocity beats came from Michael, as he used Bottled Light to resurrect Dagax and take Brad up to 11 damage.

Brad chose not to use Seeds of Their Demise before his draw step, instead playing a second copy from his hand as his resource for the turn, then following it up with Grand Crusader. He attacked with both his allies, dealing 8 to Michael’s hero. With the second activation of Bottled Light, Michael sent Dagax in for a third time. He applied an even larger threat to the table in the form of Edwin VanCleef, threatening to Stealth past Telor Sunsurge to squeak in those last points of damage.

Brad rowed his second Sava’gin of the game, randomly destroying one of Edwin’s thuggish underlings, and began to count damage. Despite having Grand Crusader in play, he was still losing the race, and a second Bottled Light could give Michael the game in short order. He chose to attack with Abysswalker Rakax for five to Michael, taking the score to 18 on Brad and 14 on Michael, before he counted again. Brad decided his best bet was playing his own Edwin VanCleef, and leaving Telor Sunsurge back to protect against any possible Faceless Sapper attacks.

Michael drew for the turn, put his head in his hands and began to think. He only needed to deal 12 more damage, and he was guaranteed 5 from Edwin, and 3 from his flip. The problem was, he was dead if he just attacked and flipped against Brad’s swollen board of Grand Crusader-pumped allies. Michael found his play in trading Edwin VanCleefs, dropping Vanessa VanCleef into play and sniping out the exhausted Abysswalker Rakax. Michael then played his last two cards: Seeds of Their Demise... and Edwin VanCleef! He now had three Thugs to protect Edwin and Vanessa against Brad’s three possible attackers, and had 9 points of Stealth attackers to get past Protectors to combine with his flip and destroy Brad’s hero.  

The time to act was now. Before he drew, Brad decided to complete Seeds of Their Demise. He kept one card on top, and drew it. He placed a fifth resource, one more than the deck usually will resource, and played a Bottled Light to bring back the Abysswalker, removing a Thug token from the equation. Brad then used his two Thug tokens to kill Michael’s two remaining tokens, and traded Telor Sunsurge for Edwin VanCleef. He then used the Bottle to bring back the destroyed Telor Sunsurge, and played Korlix Grimvik.

Michael had one last shot; he completed his Seeds of Their Demise to take a look at the top two cards of his deck. Shaking his head, he looked at Edwin and Vanessa VanCleef. He could take Vanessa, but then would lack the firepower to kill Brad. Michael chose to put both the cards on the bottom, drew for his turn, and extended his hand as he drew another copy of the quest.

Brad Watson defeats Phillip Martin, 2 - 0!