To anyone that actually read this, I hope you would pardon my poor report writing skills and English errors (unless Kuang decides to edit this for me 
). Also this is my first post on this newly made blog that the three of us hope to maintain.
[INCOMPLETE, missing semis/finals + making it look more presentable]
My RC journey begins as soon as I was qualified on 20th March, 5 weeks away from Netherstorm Realm Championship actual date (well, I was the latest of the trio to qualify because of examinations and such).
So at the very beginning, we had been discussing about different deck ideas online, going from Velindra to Triton to Pidge to Emek to Boarguts/LBT to Recklessness to CQC Rogue to Jeremiah and a lot other more different deck ideas. We started with testing “intensively” via MWS (thanks Tinytode!).
We first referred to DMF: Orlando, which Kuang had written an excellent article about it on the previous post, so I will not be getting to much into it.
Then came the huge World Cup 2011 event, we were given a whole new 24 deck lists to work from (from Ben Isgur’s Boarguts to Matt Markoff’s Jumo’zin to the different types of Spark decks). Since the World Cup is during early march and I was only joining the qualifier on 20th March, I decided to bring a random deck(Askalti Darksteel) to “test the waters” of Singaporean players. So from what I observed, there are a lot of player bringing aggro and the blue dk lists(little rip off from the James Kandziolka’s World Cup list).
About 1 month after the World Cup, the iTournament lists from DMF: Chicago provided us with yet another few more different decks that we need to be ready for, which are Matt Spreadbury’s Chaigon and Jim Fleckenstein’s Ivan.
So I think 2 weeks (or 3) before the actual event date, me and Kuang Kai met up a few times to test, he bought decks like Recklessness, Blue CQC and Emek while I showed up with decks like Boarguts, Pidge and Jumo’zin. At first, I was quite convinced on playing Boarguts for Realm Championships and was thinking of ways to make it better, and Kuang on the other hand was seriously considering playing Recklessness. However after testing a lot more, we decided that Boarguts wasn’t good enough and I was considering piloting Pidge because of my past success with it (before Worldbreaker and Icecrown was introduced). So I decided to build it and test it with the little “gauntlet” of decks that we have on hand (and almost all the others on MWS).
Sadly, our testings come to prove that Pidge is not as good as it used to be, or maybe I’m just bad at building the correct version of it. By this time, it is already less than 1 week before RC, and we still have not decided what we wanted to play, this is not what we’re used to. Lucky for us, Netherstorm have it’s Realm Championship on a later date than the other Realms in the World, so we managed to take a look at the other lists that were taking the Championship spot.
After taking a look at almost all the other realms, there were now more decks that we have to be prepared for, like Stuart Wright’s Gyro, different versions of Vorix, Dalronn and different versions of Druid Control (Oakenclaw with Feral Charge).
I’m not sure whose Emek the Equalizer list that Kuang Kai got interested in and built the exact deck and tested it. We tested the Emek on MWS with almost all the different match ups and decided it was too good to not run during the RC.
So the Friday before RC, Good Friday ofcourse, I made a trip to Kuang Kai’s house to do some last minute testing. The night before I randomly decided to build a Zaritha deck to bring over to test. I was at his house at around 11 am, so we tested the Zaritha vs Emek matchup (which we totally didn’t test at all on MWS), and it seems like the match up is about 50-50, which somewhat convinced me that Zaritha is still very playable. (Do note that the last time I played Zaritha is before Collidus rotated out, so there is no other testings against other decks). I did however made some changes to the deck when I’m at his house, like adding another mikael, removing weldons, removing owned! and such.
Already it is late in the afternoon when I still have not decided what to bring, Emek or Zaritha, while Kuang was quite confident in bringing Emek. I was considering Emek with Power Word: Sanctuary and Undercity. This is when we went to meet Barry to get some cards from him (another Emek deck), sadly Barry didn’t want to join us for the RC as he said he needed to rest, or something.
Than we went back to test more on Zaritha vs Emek, and also had some fun winning some people on MWS with a very explosive Sepirion deck. At last, I decided that I was playing Zaritha, so I went home with this one list on my mind. I slept without doing anything else when I reached home.
The next morning, I woke up about 4 hours before the event started, I agreed to meet Kuang about 2? hours before it started and it will just take me 45 minutes to reach our meeting point. While taking a shower, I suddenly remember how I’ve been losing so much matches against Emek while we were testing, and it is because of the ability to draw early. Which made me thought of The Boon of Remulos, so I ended up with this list before I left my house,
Hero : Zaritha
Master Hero:
2x Highlord Tirion Fordring
Allies:
4x Mikael the Blunt
3x Adam Eternum
3x Crusade Engineer Spitzpatrick
2x Pappy Ironbane
2x King Varian Wrynn
1x Marundal the Kindred
Abilities:
3x Chain Purge
3x Wind Shear
4x Squall Totem
3x Wavestorm Totem
3x Tuskarr Kite
3x Ancestral Awakening
Equipments:
4x Voice of Reason
3x Leggings of the Tireless Sentry
3x Calamity’s Grasp
Quests:
4x A Question of Gluttony
4x The Boon of Remulos
2x The Overseer’s Shadows
2x The Torch of Retribution
Locations:
3x Eye of the Storm
There is a total of 61 cards, I added 1 more because I can’t think of what card to cut to make The Boon of Remulos a 4x.
I’m quite sure that most of the cards there are very self explainable, Leggings for scimitar/tokens/combolicious with wavestorm and mikael, Grasps for Elekk, Marundal for Tokens.
Metagame breakdown:
2011 Netherstorm Realm Championship
Core Constructed (Drums-Worldbreaker)
68 Players
Faction Breakdown
37 Alliance
28 Horde
01 Argent Crusade (Eadic the Pure)
02 Scourge (Kjaran the Callous, Syrein the Bonecarver)
Class Breakdown
09 Death Knight (13%)
06 Druid
06 Hunter
03 Mage
03 Paladin
09 Priest (13%)
10 Rogue (15%)
10 Shaman (15%)
05 Warlock
06 Warrior
01 Scourge
Popular cards breakdown:
042 in 14 decks – Adam Eternum
040 in 11 decks – Avatar of the Wild
072 in 18 decks – Broderick Langforth (26%)
019 in 06 decks – Caine, the Earthmother
048 in 12 decks – Dethvir the Malignant
109 in 31 decks – Eye of the Storm (46%)
027 in 08 decks – Magni the Mountain Kiong
126 in 36 decks – Tuskarr Kite (53%)
Compiled by frankieho (http://forums.wowtcg.com/showthread.php?t=8113&p=76306&viewfull=1#post76306).
So the actual report begins now..
Round 1: Lim Kun Qi with Triton
Ahh.. The TO of one of the BG that I frequently visit, I hate to see a friendly face on my first round, but sadly, I know that this match is quite favorable to me. I didn’t really write much about this matchup, but as soon as I realized that he was playing the Undercity version instead of the Korkron version, I decided to keep my important allies on hand with awakening if Marundal is needed. I followed his Scimitar with a Tireless Sentry. That went quite down hill for him cause I think he used entomb on my Voice of Reason on one of the earlier turns. He didn’t manage to resolve kite(or maybe it got purged), which means that he is lacking on the card draw portion. I eventually turned into Tirion and hard cast Varian, which he conceded to 2 turns later. MVC: Leggings of the Tireless Sentry
Damage Totals :
Him(started) : 29, 25(spitz), 27(uc), concede
Me: 28, 26(brod), 24(brod), 23(hero), 19(corpse), 24(flip), 20(scimitar), 18(vuzdin), 29(tirion), 27(scimitar).
1-0
Round 2: Timothy Tang with Sinthya
Never really played with this guy before, but I saw him around before, quite a new player I think. Can’t remember the exact details of this game, but I know I was extremely pissed off during this round cause of the double or triple CQC casted. However for one of the CQC, he casted it when I had a pappy in play, which I followed with a Marundal which allowed me to go for beatdown. His deck also featured the Deth/ImbaRing combo which kinda delayed me for a few turns. Didn’t need to turn into Tirion(or rather, didn’t went pass 8 resources this round) to win this game. MVC: Pappy Ironbane/Marundal?
Damage Totals:
Him: 27, 25 (mik), 23(mik), 25(uc), 27(uc), 25(pappy), 23(pappy),25(uc), 22(spitz), 24(uc), 21(spitz), 23(uc), 21(mik), 19(pappy), 17(pappy), 10(pappy), 12(uc), 10(mik), 8(mik), 1(pappy), 3(uc), dead
Me(started): 28, 26(brod)
2-0
Round 3: Fabian See with Gyro
Yet another familiar face, he is also the TO of another battleground which I haven’t got to visit, played with him a few times before, and I think his quite a friendly player. I knew that this match up might be tough, which made me decide to keep a hand with double question, boon, double eots, mikael and wavestorm. I went t1 question, and he poached my wavestorm, I went t2 boon which he followed by poaching my mikael next. End of his turn I completed my boon. Either the card from Boon or start of turn draw, I managed to draw an Adam Eternum, I proceed to lay Eots and playing the Adam. I’m not sure what he done on turn 3, but on the next turn, I managed to top deck an Ancestral Awakening which I used to look for a Spitzpatrick(turning point of the game). After that it all went down hill for him, I was refilling my hand very quickly as the Spitz stayed in game for around 3-4 turns, soon I got kite out and started kiting and him gaining some board position. At his turn 10, he played Kelthuzad only to find out that I have 2 Varians on my hand with Tirion Fordring, he took the Varian(-4/4 for my side) and marundal from grave, adam from play and spitz from my deck. I followed that with a Tirion and passing it back to him with Squall on my hand and 1 resource open, sacrificed the Squall Totem when he tried to attack, and he passed it back to me, which allowed me to hardcast Varian(-4/4 on his side) with a full eots. I’m not sure what sequence of cards that I played that allowed me to destroy his(my) Marundal and taking the game from there. MVC: The Boon of Remulos top deck
Damage Totals:
Him: 27, 24(spitz), 19(adam), 16(adam[marundal in play to kill dimzer]), 11(adam), 6(adam), 12(kt), 9(adam), dead.
Me(started): 28, 37(Tirion)
3-0
Round 4: Rangsiman Sriphueak(Aek) with Zaritha
A mirror match, I AM NOT PREPARED! Okay, I know this Aek guy from the last Realm Championships and I know that he is one of the top Thailand player, he ofcourse knew me as the guy who piloted the Pidge deck. I’m not exactly sure if his the mirror or if he is the mirror. When he played Aurius on turn 4, I was even more confused. I have no real idea on this round, I turned into Tirion on turn 10, he did the same thing. Well, he did have the recuring Aurius to constantly be dealing damage to me, and more card types on the field to allow his Varian to kill mine while staying alive, also the fact that he plays Blackout Truncheon also weakened my game plan even further. Being unable to draw my Torch this game is also another reason why I lost. MVC: well, I didn’t win this.
Damage Totals:
Him: 28, 26(marundal), 19(pappy), 21(voice), 30(tirion), 32(voice), 34(voice)
Me: 28, 25(aurius), 22(aurius), 31(tirion), 25(2x aurius), 22(aurius), 19(aurius), 25(voice), 20(varian), 26(voice), 23(aurius), conceded or died, either one.
3-1
Round 5: Ee, Jye Chang with Katianna
This time, I’m finally playing against someone that I don’t exactly know. Before playing with him, I knew that Kuang Kai lost to him as he went t4 plague, oppress, t5 plague, dead. So I was preparing to mul for the hand that could handle double plague. My starting hand consists of quest, chain purge, wind shear and Grasp, so I decided to keep it. On t4, he did as expected played the Devouring Plague, which I answered with Chain purge, passing my turn 4 back to him with 4 resource open. On t5, he did played and attacked with shadowfiend, and followed by the 2nd Devouring Plague, which I answered it at the end of my turn with a Grasp discarding Ancestral Awakening. On the following turn, I played a Adam, followed by Voice on t7, and going onto the beat down with Adam. I did manage to go t9 Varian, t10 Tirion, which he proceeded to die to. MVC: Chain Purge + Calamity’s Grasp
Damage Totals:
Him(started): 26, 21(adam), 16(adam), 11(adam), 16(fury),21(fury),16(adam), dead
Me: 28, 25(sf), 22(sf), 27(flip), 25(berta), 22(sf), 19(adam), 21(voice), 18(adam), 22(voice), 31(tirion)
4-1
Round 6: Andrew Oh with Zaritha
Final Core round of the day, I knew I was locked for the top 24 draft, but I knew that I needed to win this because I’m a scrubby drafter. I knew from walking around during the rounds that Andrew is playing the Tirion kind of Zaritha, not spark. We both started the game with t1 done t2 done, I played a t3 Tireless into t4 Mikael and he went t3 Adam. The game went back and forth, with him getting a huge advantage the turn he played Ring of Invincibility as I didn’t knew that he had it. I was desperately digging for answers, while he kept pinging me with Entari, I turned into Tirion without a varian/awakening to compliment it, lucky for me, he didn’t draw his Tirion too, so after digging long and hard with kite and quest, I finally managed to draw a Pappy and a Varian which allowed me to play it for a full -6/-6 to his board. I than proceeded to win the game from there. MVC: Luck? Kite I guess.
Damage totals:
Him: 28, 26(mik),24(mik),22(mik),20(mik), 17(spitz), 14(adam), 19(flip), voice(21), varian(16), pappy(14), varian(7), pappy(5), dead due to -6 from varian
Me(started): 28, 25(adam), 23(entari), 21(entari), 18(adam), 14(entari), 11(entari), 17(voice), 26(tirion), 23(adam), 14(varian), 10(entari), 7(entari), 19(voice), 25(voice)
5-1
Finally the constructed part of the day is over, when the standings is out, I’m placed 3rd?, the 2nd highest 5-1. However Kuang was placed 38th placing by going 3-3, losing to Katianna, Zaritha and a mirror Emek.
Now I just have to go 2-1 for my draft for a lock in, RIGHT? No.. I sucked.
I’m not gonna go in depth on how I drafted, I had a really great first 6-7 pick, but it all went down hill after that. Here is how my deck ended up
Hero: Caleb Pavish
Allies(according to cost):
Shanis Bladefall
Ruby Stalker
Fenton Guardmont
Varandas Silverleaf (first pick)
Terina Calin
Ruby Enforcer
2 Alador Stonebrew
Zuur
Aresha Thorncaller
Arisa Sarum
Gerana Sparkfist
Emerald Acidspewer
Pixia Darkmist
Jinie Swizzleshade
Nightstalker Austen
Abilities:
Bully
2 Gouge
2 Aggressive Exploitation
3 Excessive Force
Quests:
2 The Key to Freedom
A Matter of Time
Locked Away
Corrosion Prevention
Cleansing Witch Hill
Total: 30
Yes, as you can see, the deck is missing on the 1,2,3 curve. Notable sideboard cards are 2 Dazes, Abomination Knuckles, Ruby Skyrazor, Landro Lil Xt
I’m not going to write a detailed report of the draft games as it was pretty messy.
Round 7: King Chan with Alliance Druid
Game 1: He started first and pushed damage quite quickly, he revealed 1 Lockjaw, 3 entangling roots and 1 flourish, I managed to take control of the game, and win the game from there
Damage:
Him: 27,26-21(flip),23(jaw), 22(flip), 24(lock), 22(enforcer), 21(flip), 19(enforcer), 21(flourish), 15(Austen), 11(e.acid), 10(flip), 6(Aresha), 5(flip), 1(fenton), 0(flip)
Me: 27, 25(e.sol),23(e.sol), 19(ulric), 15(ulric), 7(2x ulric), 6(flip), 5(flip)
Game 2: He didn’t have a 1 drop, but my 1 drop managed to trade with both his t2 and t3 play due to Excessive Force, I can’t really remember much about this
Him: 27, 26(r.stalk), 23(varandas), 19(r.stalk), 17(enforcer), 16(flip), 12(e.acid), 14(reju), 10(e.acid), 9(flip), 5(Pixia), concede
Me: 27, 25(e.capt), 24(flip)
6-1
Round 8: Colin Tang with Alliance Warrior
Colin had a really insane deck and he TRASHED me both games without even trying.
Damage Totals: (I won the die roll)
Game 1:
Him: 30, 29 (Genara), 28(flip), 27(flip), 26(e.acid), 25-22(flip)
Me: 27,26(ucha),25(ucha), 22(bella), 15(ramaladni), 14(stance), 9- 0 was really unclear, I kinda gave up already
Game 2:
Him: 30, 29(flip), 28(flip), 25(alador), 24(flip),23(flip),22(Gerana),18(Pixia),17(flip), 16(Gerana[he bounced it to the top of deck]), 15(flip),14(flip)
Me: 27, 25(garet), 22(r.prot), 17(marcus), 12(marcus), 11(stance), dead.
6-2
Round 9: Orange Chua with Alliance Shaman
Another round where I got CRUSHED damn badly. (he won the die roll)
Damage Totals:
Game 1:
Him: 28, 26(r.enfo), 24(r.enfo), 23-21(flip)
Me: 28,27(r.stalk), 24(kirjen), 23(gerana), 22(token), 21(knuckle), 16(ruby.blaze), 6(bunch of guys), dead.
Game 2:
Him: 28, 27-23(flip), 22(Gerana), 21(flip)
Me: 27, 26(fenton), 25(Jarrod), 24(fenton), 19(r.blaze), 18(jarrod), 13(r.blaze), 8(wazix), 7(Jarrod), dead.
6-3
Wow.. Once I lost that match, I was like WTF?! I was praying to.. well.. “10 other religions” like what Barry said.
The LONG wait for the top 8 contenders is very very scary. I knew I had a very high tiebreakers, but shit always could happens. When the top 8 was announced, and when I learnt that I was 8th placed, being the only 6-3 that made it, I was EXTREMELY happy, like I almost jumped or something..
Yah so well, there was procedures which includes me filling up some(a lot) of forms and a little “briefing” for the next day. I received all the other top 8 decklists too( all posted on http://forums.wowtcg.com/showthread.php?t=8108).
Quarter finals on the next day will be against King Chan’s Kinivus Spark deck, me and Kuang went to have a much better Supper(Macdonald) as the food from Marina Bay Sands was retardedly priced. He made an impromptu deck of the Kinivus list and we tested it 3-4 times before we went home, with Zaritha winning all those matches. Having played a whole day, I was very tired, so I fell asleep as soon as I washed up when I reach home.
The next morning, I once again woke up very early to prepare for my top 8 games. I wrote down notes on all the lists that I might have to go against. For King’s decklist, I wrote, “23 ability, 17 resource, 12 allies, 12 eq, 29 irrelevant, 2 purges, ws:spark, recall(torch), tokens=marundal”, so I guess we can say I was very ready for this match up.
Quarter-finals: King Chan with Kinivus
Game 1: I won the die roll and started first. I went t1 quest done, t2 quest down, and he went, t1 quest done, t2 elekk done. I passed on t3 too and on t3 he played kite, at the end of his turn, I chain purged the kite while he responded by kiting the Elekk. On my following turn, I played a Mikael to deal 2 to the Elekk, while on turn 4, he played Feral Spirits which I just followed it up with a Squall Totem. On my turn, I played yet another Mikael and cleared off his board. The game went all the way to me that game, with me taking 0 damage. MVC: Mikaels
Notes on my scoresheet: 12/17/12 -> 12/13/12, 3 elekks died/went down due to quest, 2 shear used/went down to quest.
Damage Totals:
Him: 28, 24(2xmik), 23(spitz), 22(spitz), 24(voice[he forgotten to heal the previous turn]), 17(varian), 21(voice), 11(varian +spitz), 17(voice), 8(varian), dead
Me: 28
Game 2:
This time he started first, he completed concerted efforts at the end of my 1st turn, revealing Spark, Signet and Concerted Efforts, he took the Spark. On his t2 he played a Signet and proceed spawning lots of tokens, some point of time he played yet another Signet to spawn more tokens. He managed to destroy my Marundal when I got it out quite early, and when he reached around 7-8 signet tokens and 2 Feral Spirits, I decided that it was time for Wavestorm Totem and Leggings of the Tireless Sentry to make their appearance of the day. When all tokens ready, they were immediately annihilated, and also he had only 2 or 3 cards on his hand after drawing for the turn. Soon I bought him down to 4 hp and played King Varian to finish him off(ohh well, taking a King to finish off another King)
Damage Totals:
Him: 28, 26(signet), 24(signet), 22(marundal), 18(marundal), 16(mik), 20(voice), 16(2x sig), 20(voice), 14(mik + 2signet), 12(mik), 18(voice), 14(mik +2 signet), 9(adam), 7(spitz), 15(voice), 5(unknown number of attacks), dead
Me: 28, 26(token), 25(purge)
Semi-Finals:
TBC asap as my laptop exploded, for now, damage totals.
Damage Totals: (He started, r=ramaladni, v=voice of reason)
Game 1:
Him: 29, conceded
Me: 28, 23r, 25v, 24(blackout), 19r, 21v, 16r, 21(flip), 23v, 18r, 22v, 17r, 21v, 16r, 20v, 15r, 19v, 14r, 12(mikael), 18v, 27(tirion), 20r, 26v, 21r, 27v.
Game 2:
Him: 29, 22(varian), 15(varian), 13(pappy), 4(varian), -hp due to varian
Me: 28
Finals:
Damage Totals: (I won the die roll)
Game 1:
Him: 30, 28(adam), 22(girdle/shadowmourne), 25(kt), 21(ritual)
Me: 28, 27(hail), 24(kt), 21(kt), 28(tirion), 23(shuriken), 17(dw), 14(kt), 9(fleshwerk), conceded
Notes in game: revealed hailstorm, polished breastplate, betrayers, recon, kt, brokentoe, shuriken
Game 2:
Him: 30, 27(spitz), 24(dw)
Me: 28, 25(annihilator), 22(annihilator), 21(hail), 26(flip), 23(annihilator), 17(dw+annihilator), 14(dw[ready via greaves]), 8(dw+annihilator), 5(dw), 1(heroic throw[discarded fleshwerk]), -3(heroic throw[hard cast])
Notes in game: revealed demolish, ritual, gpb, polosh breastplate
Well, as you can see I’ve yet to continue editing.
Partly cause I’m “too busy” with school stuff, and well, I’m just too damn lazy.
So I guess I’ll leave it as it is
