Actually I wanted to preface this with total honesty, I had tried to enter 2 tournaments in the past! Once was in Shadowverse, it started at like 3am I think and I fell asleep waiting for my 3rd match...so out by default. I also very last minute signed up to a bo1 single elim tournament in GU and got super highrolled by zombie death culminating in like a 10hp pre nerf guild enforcer on turn 6...So I guess these stories were pretty quick and didn't deserve a whole post! :D
Lets move on to the Clash of Mortals II.
My final decks are included below, and here is a link to the video of the top 16 all the way to the finals! It was live casted by LionUnchained and BlackGaston:
It was a heavily restricted tournament run by 
Thankfully I did get in the tournament! I was very hyped but also super nervous! I had to borrow quite a lot of cards to make decks, as I am fairly new to the game (less than 2 months, got 0 flux airdrop ahah) and was completely free to play at the time. This was challenging as the person I was borrowing cards from was on the complete opposite timezone to me and very busy. It was not uncommon to get cards I had never played with at all an hour or 2 before the match. Thankfully I was mostly set after the first couple rounds, so that was super lucky as you will find out in a bit!
I have played quite a bit of card games but always F2P so I never had cards to experiment with deck building. To do well you had to really focus on specific cards to build a deck, so you want to pick one that you know works well. Enter the internet, thankfully showing successful decks to improve my playing, but not really my deckbuilding. I did usually do well in arena game modes but that is completely different from a competitive deck. I stream and 1v1'd and I have to give a huge shoutout to Suspect X who made a quick tournament deck to 1v1 me a load of times as I tried stuff out. I came to the conclusion that War is super strong, Nature gets a lot of stats, which is very important in the format and then light and deception could both be ok maybe but I had like no experience with them at all really. My f2p cards for both were severely lacking. I also asked TBHansson on his stream and he really nicely went through his scouting and deck building process. I stole the deception deck and held it in reserve as I had barely played it at all. He also then lost his round and said "never play deception into nature" so I was a little shaken! But anybody can lose, even with the better deck and a better eye for plays. Part of the beauty of card games is there is always luck involved, I love that you have to make the best of what you have and obviously you have a deck with a plan or options to play as often as possible. Unfortunately that means skill and deckbuilding alone won't win you every game, you can win a large percentage, but not all! Especially in such a restricted format that takes away a lot of options.
I was very nervous about my first match, I didn't have the cards I wanted, I didn't know what to play. I won in a different way to how I expected. Instead of winning in game, I won in current location in relation to a huge typhoon. My opponent could not play during the match times unfortunately which put me through to the next round!
I started trying to watch some of the replays that were posted of the first round to see what people were playing and seemed strong. During this time Kargas had uploaded his and whilst he was changing decks he checked out the War deck he was loading up with. I did have a war ready of course and it was close, but I shameless copied the whole list, minus the sole survivor that I still had not gotten. I was also feeling more comfortable with my nature deck and felt like it had good chances to win, although not as strong as war which I was still at 60% win rate with in ranked against everybody playing with no restrictions. Kargas knows his War!
This brings us to round 2. Honestly I complain because it was a very stressful experience for me but we were on completely opposite schedules and I do not know the full side of his story. So please don't judge him too harshly on my totally biased account here and feel free to skip over it as in the end very little happens! There is a definite possibility he was feeling the exact same things about me.
I had time to practice some more and refined my nature more to my liking. It was a little different to others, nobody else was running untamed regrowth that I saw but it was starting to feel quite effective! I got an early message from my opponent, to ask at what seemed like a great time for me (11pm). Then the next day came and he said actually he couldn't do that time because he was watching the new Spiderman. So his next available time was whilst I was working, apparently we were on completely opposite time zones which is really unfortunate, for the only 3 hours my fiancée and I were that day. I asked if we could start 30 minutes before his time, because he seemed unavailable during any of the good times for me as well. He agreed so I rearranged a little and got myself all ready for it. When I went to check the discord about my match though he said actually he couldn't do that time and could we start 30 minutes later...Obviously I had planned for this time, meaning I could not move work at the last minute. I ask if he is free the next day, that would be the Saturday. As I said in the start weekends are my busiest days but I figured I could cancel the assessment and have it during lunchtime. I asked if he could play at that time and he said he could play for a period of like 8 hours and that time was during it! I was happy about this as the match time ended only a few hours after.
When I get a moment to check my phone during Saturday morning I saw a message from my opponent (4 hours before our scheduled time) saying he was now available and would be for 4 hours. This was not exactly what I was hoping to see, I had been super free the previous days when he had no time and I told him when I was good to do it that day. I get to the gaming laptop as quickly as possible, still only 3 hours after he spoke and let him know, ok I'm ready! I didn't feel super ready but it's my first real tournament try and I hadn't even played a match yet! I really did not want to get disqualified...Anyway, he replied that he was already gone and driving. I told him exactly how long I had, 4 hours from that time. I start to watch Lions stream as I wait. Like 5 minutes before I had to start, only 2 hours before the end of the tournament, he sends a message on the group chat that he is now back and available to play until the end of the time. I was quite frustrated. On my next break between classes I look at the discord again. I had tried to explain what happened to Lion, it was all on the public channel but I did not state my case as strongly as I could have and he obviously was far too busy with all the organizing to go back and do detective work. I see a message from him tagging me. He spun a wheel. I had won. My relief was palpable. I really was not happy that it came down to a wheel, but I was through so I wouldn't do myself any favours questioning it.
Before the next round I checked some replays again, I still felt good about my nature deck but saw Kargas changed his war deck to add another Sole Survivor (was still waiting on just 1) and also took out the Munosians, which I also had done. They arent as effective in a format with no skeleton heavys and pyramid wardens, and often were a bad play as they would heal the enemy. I had replaced them with the healing 2/3 but I think I saw him add the larcenous imps, so when I was chasing up those Sole Survivors (now 2) I added the imps and I am glad I did. I used that deck for the rest of the tournament.
Round 3 was against Fayt. I had seen some of his replays and knew he was a very strong player, I wouldn't have changed anything he did. A message was sent out to the group that they ideally wanted players to do their match at a scheduled time so they could live stream as much as possible. It started at 1am for me, which is a little late for a tournament but I do tend to stay up fairly late so not unmanageable. Unfortunately not enough people responded in time and he moved the stream back 4 hours but thankfully as we had already scheduled the match we could go ahead and post the replays! Fayt was on board to play, he was super nice the whole time we talked and so we got into the game.
I was really praying to go first. In this format going first seemed to have an even bigger advantage than usual. The first game was Nature vs Nature and I did go first, it was pretty scary, I REALLY wanted to win and not just default my way thru straight into a loss...ahaha :D It was a tense match but I thankfully pulled ahead and won the first game. The 2nd game I went War, as did Fayt. This time though I went second and going second in the War mirror is really rough. He got a perfect curve and every answer, for the first half of the game it felt like we played mirrored cards but he always got them out 1 turn earlier, then he started drawing his big cards and I did not, he didn't give me any chance to turn it around. The 3rd match was the decider then, I went with War again and just prayed to go first, I'm not exactly religious but I was sending those vibes out there as hard as I could! Thankfully I got my wish and Fayt played nature again. I got a good curve which he didn't quite manage to recover from in time and I had finally won my first round that actually included playing!!
Suddenly I was in the top 16. I had practiced 1v1s against Suspect X with his makeshift tournament deck and against a number of people with normal ranked decks. It was a little harder to practice against them as plays that would usually be great in the tournament format were terrible when they used their canopy barrage or blade of styx. I saw that my first opponent was Swallie. I didn't know them personally but I have seen them do better than me in weekend ranked and knew the name. The bad news was that once again we had to play during the live stream, which was starting at 1am, this would be the whole finals so would be a long one but definitely wouldn't be delayed. I honestly wasn't expecting to get so lucky again and win this game so figured 1am isn't so bad, few quick matches and I would be done.
It started just as I feared. War vs War and I went 2nd. I actually almost managed to pull it back into the midgame but he drew into better options than me and did not let up at all. As we went into the 2nd game I changed decks to nature, as a very quick scan through his replays showed he would likely play deception and TBHansson had warned me against that! As the game loaded though I saw the nightmare continued as I would be going 2nd again. Not only that he pulled out the Hollow on turn 1. It was looking bad. The Hollow was just something I couldn't remove, it stayed like the whole game and he just kept pumping out cards to mess with my confused creatures. Finally he had to trade a lot in to kill some buffed creatures and I got the watchtower of Agrodor down. When he couldn't remove it I knew I had a chance as I had a falling star for next round (which still didn't win the 50/50 to hit the Hollow) to protect it. This was the value we needed and it pulled the game back with finally a win for me. The Hollow never did die that game. The 3rd game I went back to War just hoping to go first, as that deck really thrives going first. I didn't...second for the 3rd game in a row. He didn't pull out the hollow but he did get a lot of stats out going first in a good start. I had to clear his board as it just kept growing and I could barely get any of the damage I wanted to his face. Still I finally got a guild enforcer out on a fairly low damage board and was able to push just enough damage face to pull it off. I saw after on the stream he had just gained an Auric Mage that would have healed him up out of my lethal range that turn if I had not top decked a vicious rend at the last moment!!
Suddenly my journey was not yet over, those thoughts of sleep after a super long Sunday (I had to stop doing my weekend ranked and have a 2 hour break before the tournament started because I was just losing games to lack of focus). Not only that, my next opponent was FakeMews. He is not a man to be underestimated, the Supreme Leader of Team TOXIC and a seriously great player. I had only recently just left TOXIC as well to join Team FEANOR so a lot was on the line emotionally for me at least! Not only that but I had no idea what he was playing, I hadn't looked past Swallie and now the whole thing was happening now! Also...I had logged into Lions stream between matches and the raffle was going on, I didn't want to miss it so delayed joining for 2 minutes until he convinced me they would understand I was playing a match in the Rouund of 8 ahah.
I decided to go first with War, beacuse I wanted to go first with War! He started with deception. Instead I went second again, for the 4th game in a row and on top of that did not have a great hand. I had to place down a Nokkvi Warrior just to make him god power for turn 2 to not play anything more than the boar I couldn't deal with. My late hand worked out at the end though as when I dropped 2 guild enforcers one after the other on his fairly low damage wide board he was unable to deal with it in time before I got the damage in to his face. In game 2 he went Deception again and I was pretty happy, I had taken Nature which seemed to be a pretty good counter to it! Of course, I went second once again...I did manage to pull the board back for a bit and got him down to 6 health before I could just not deal with the Hollow value and he even pulled a Pangolin on me to turn it around! That meant I had just lost my best matchup and had to play another. He went War, which was the strongest in my opinion. Finally though I got to go second and he did not get lucky with confused. The untamed regrowth actually came in very clutch as it confused his thunder caller which stopped him trading into my cyclops! That 50/50 went a long way to securing the game for me and I drew into what I needed to keep the board cleared and finish him off before he could get a big sole survivor play. I am very glad I tried to play around it though as it turned out he was holding that for a long time and it could have turned the game completely.
And so I was actually moving on up to the Round of 4!! I couldn't believe it I did not think I would make it, but the had also taken hours because games were streamed individually and on a schedule. Of course there were also a few extra delays with things like just too many people in the raffles, of which I was one! :D I knew very little about my opponent other than that they didn't stream or record games. This didn't make it easier but really I needed 2 wins anyway and I felt both my decks could win with the right amount of luck. He had gone through Doubtless and a lot of other good players I did know though so I wasn't expecting much here but I was still high off my win against FakeMews! One thing I did keep forgetting to do though was record my match results on the website.
So after a lot of waiting and watching other matches mine came around. I decided to stick with the plan and go 1st with War because we wanted to go first with War! This time it actually worked out and I did! Devoted was playing nature. Of course my starting hand had a guild enforcer and sole survivor in it, not exactly an ideal aggro start and once again I played a Nokkvi to force his god power and use of tricks. I had to play a thunder caller just to try and convince him to trade in his stag which was not the value I wanted and then at turn 5 I had done 1 damage to him! Thankfully I got a raid reveler out for turn 6 and won with a huge sole survivor play. For the 2nd game I went first again! It was the total opposite of the last game, he played War and I played Nature. Thankfully it was a stress free game, I got a great high tempo start into a swift victory.
That actually put me in the finals!! I was so not prepared. Honestly I had not been prepared for anything past Swallie and then I was reminded of the rules...Finals were a best of 5, I needed to win with 3 decks. I had only played 2 the entire tournament so far. The other problem was that my match was starting at 5am, not exactly the best time to be figuring things out. To complicate matters as I tuned into Lions stream I saw JKAN playing light, which I hadn't seen from anybody else despite it seeming like a strong choice for the format. I figured I would just do my best at this point and see what we could do, I had my deception deck made and just no clue how to use it only knowing I had seen a lot of deception lose so far!
For the 1st game I once again went first as War because we wanted to go first as War. It worked! I went first into his Light deck! It was exactly what I wanted...except he drew into frontlines with armour and heals and I drew into overproof brew and another round. I could not recover from the lost momentum in the start and quickly lost the first game. This was scary because my War going first was kinda meant to be my win and if we failed here what would happen next. Game 2 I went Nature into his War and this time he went first. The rolls did not work out, even when in my favour and I just could not recover from his great start. This also was swiftly a loss. Obviously I was not super thrilled about the situation but his 2 strongest decks in my opinion were at least out of it now, time to see his 3rd choice.
For game 3 I stuck with nature. It was the deck I made myself and had won most of the games, it also covered deception if that was what he chose. JKAN picked frenzied zombie death. It is a scary deck, the deck is not the most consistent but the highroll potential is huge. Thankfully I did get to go first though and got a good start. This time he was the one unable to recover and even when he got the necrosceptre out his zombies ended up mostly stuck behind a guild enforcer. So we weren't out quite yet!
I went with War because honestly it was nearing 6am and I just wanted a win. However then I went 2nd and it didn't really seem like such a great plan. Luckily he didn't get his necrosceptre and a big archangel bruiser play let me clear out a lot of zombies and recover the board. In the end I was able to overwhelm him with stats and pull out another win, leaving it at 2-2.
On to the final match, I didn't have any option at this point as Deception was the only other thing I had made. I had played a couple games with it so felt like I could maybe make it work, I understood the general goal of the deck. As I queue into the game I see he is playing Nature, well that sucks...we established nature was a hard match up for Deception. Then I get to see I am going 2nd...the nightmare was real, we made it all the way to the finals and end up in the worst possible position. Still, FakeMews had pulled back a game going 2nd Deception into Nature so maybe there was still a chance!! I got a pretty good mulligan, although my following draws were definitely less than ideal. I started to pull the game back though and take the board, it wasn't looking great but it was looking better and better as the game went on! Then we hit 6 mana...and I see him drop the watchtower of agrodor on my wide but small damage board. The exact thing I did to win against deception earlier in the tournament! I had no way to kill it. I had control of the board but not enough damage to finish him off through the constant value frontlines and slowly bled out. JKAN played great and even though I lost there were some great games in there and I had a lot of fun through the stress that round!
So this is not a fairytale story of a new guy to total victory! Nevertheless I really enjoyed the experience and did way better than I expected! In hindsight I should have thought to go Deception for the 2nd and or 4th games, based off the little I had just watched of him in the previous match. It might have made a difference, or I might have lost earlier and not got to be in an epic finals!
I didn’t get a lot of sleep after that and had not very long left to finish weekend ranked so my score there did suffer, but I don’t regret what I chose to put my focus on that weekend! And so I went off to the TOXIC tournament with high hopes that perhaps my opponent, somebody I’ve never heard of with an ok but not exceptional profile, would be an easy game and I could perhaps perform again!! And then I didn’t get what I needed and immediately went out 1-2 with some painfully close games…ahahahaha, He called on discord right after though and was so very happy about it that I couldn’t be salty.
You could say my first two real tournament attempts have been mixed experiences :D
I want to give a big shoutout to Team FEANOR, who have helped me get to a place in this game where entering tournaments is even possible. Also LionUnchained, BlackGaston, FakeMews and all those other people organising great community tournaments, even with things like no spectator mode. It’s even more fun to play than to watch! And so many in my twitch chat helping me prepare and settle my nerves about it all :D Really appreciate it.
Here are the final decks that I ended up using, remember the format was very restrictive with only Welcome and Divine order:
I believe I did change the munosions for Imps!
And with that, if you made it here wow thanks for reading! I know it was long but I wanted to show as much of how it felt from my perspective as possible. Have fun!