Epic Limited Tournament Battle Report

So this past Saturday saw the first Epic tournament at my local gaming store. Due to a lot of timing conflicts and short notice, we were missing every one of my regular gaming group which consists of like 10 guys, so that left a rather large dent in the crowd. Still, it wasn't a qualifier or anything, and 3 other people managed to show up, so it was still a good time. We had decided to do the Limited format, which was used last year for qualifiers. Each player gets a list of 60 single cards, split into 13-17 cards in each faction. Each player must then draft a 30 card deck using that list, with no other deck building requirements, which means if you had 30 0-cost cards in your list, you could take all 30 (don't do that). You can mulligan your list once and receive another list with 4 fewer cards, but nobody went that route. This is a really fun format for newer players to play as it helps showcase a lot of cards throughout the tournament, and gives all players a chance to discover new combos.

This was my list along with my picks:

Evil (14)
Wither - X
Raxxa's Displeasure
Plague Zombies
Hands from Below
Thrasher Demon
No Escape
Spawning Demon
Dark Assassin
Final Task - X
Drain Essence - X
Raxxa's Enforcer
Inner Demon - X
Drinker of Blood
Apocalypse - X

Good (13)
Rescue Griffin
Feint
Inner Peace
Quell
Revolt
Resurrection
High King
Chamberlain Kark
Urgent Messengers - X
Blind Faith - X
White Dragon
Angel of the Gate
Rally the People

Sage (16)
Hasty Retreat - X
Reusable Knowledge
Warrior Golem
War Machine - X
Blue Dragon - X
Memory Spirit
Ogre Mercenary
Fumble - X
Sea Titan - X
Velden, Frost Titan - X
Erratic Research - X
Temporal Enforcer
Stand Alone
Frost Giant - X
Muse - X
Shadow Imp - X

Wild (17)
Sea Hydra - X
Wolf Companion
Feeding Frenzy
Smash and Burn - X
Rain of Fire - X
Savage Uprising - X
Surprise Attack - X
Bellowing Minotaur
Fires of Rebellion - X
Flame Spike - X
Brachiosaurus - X
Flash Fire - X
Cave Troll - X
Burrowing Wurm
Lurking Giant - X
Great Horned Lizard - X
Hurricane - X

When I am playing Limited, I almost always scan the list to check for a few preferential things. I look to see if the majority of cards are in Wild and Sage, as I believe those are the 2 best factions for Limited. A high number in those means I will most likely be able to build my deck using mainly those cards. I also look for a few key cards that I think are always good in Limited like Sea Titan, Steel Golem, Drain Essence, Surprise Attack, and Muse. I check to see what kind of 0 cost options I have, as well as what drawing options I have like Ancient Chant. I also look for sweepers as those are very important, as well as discard pile banishing. This list actually misses a couple of these marks in really good drawing options, amazing 0 costs, and discard pile banishing, but it has just enough in them as well as some amazing champion selections that I decided to keep it.

I only have 9 0-cost cards which is a little under what I'd normally go for (15), but I liked the 1-cost stuff I had so much I hoped it would be enough. My plan after looking at my list is to full out pressure my opponent with large champions that are not easily taken care of. I should be able to weather all of my opponent's removal effects and then just power through any defense they have.

We played each player 1 time (best of 3 games) to figure out rankings for when we cut to the playoffs using the Dark Draft format. My deck worked exactly as planned. I always tried to mulligan for a couple of large threats and card draw. I just kept pressuring, trying to Ambush in threats so that I could force my opponent to spend their gold first on my turn, so I could punish them with another threat.

One of my favorite plays was in my second game where both of us had gone very aggressive. My opponent had attacked with a giant Burrowing Wurm and I was forced to block with my Lurking Giant since my Sea Hydra was exhausted and I only had 10 life left.. Then on my turn I attacked with my Sea Hydra and my opponent Surprise Attacked in a T-Rex and blocked and killed me. I then used Final Task to grab his Burrowing Wurm and attacked in for the win.

 

Muse was also a huge reason I did so well too. My first game my Muse stayed alive for 3 rounds, giving me a huge hand advantage that greatly attributed to my win. I also was able to use my Sea Titan to bounce my Muse back to my hand so I could use it again on another turn.

Velden was also quite amazing as he routinely removed several demon tokens from the board and then proceeded to do a ton of damage, or force my opponent's hand to spend a lot of resources trying to get rid of him.

In my fourth game the Sea Hydra actually did a lot of work. I was in the lead but only had 3 cards in hand, with no other card draw. I did have Sea Hydra though. So I spent my turns playing Sea Hydra, drawing a card, and then when Sea Hydra eventually died I just recalled it and did it all over again. When my opponent finally Amnesia-ed my discard pile I had caught back up and drained his hand size and was able to end the game after a few rounds.

Blind Faith was yet another all-star. I used Blind Faith to remove Draka's flying, to be able to target and destroy a Steel Golem, to remove Breakthrough on a Burrowing Wurm, and to render a Thought Plucker useless and easily killed my a human token, lol.

I managed to win all of my matches and was the first seed going into the playoffs. In my first Dark Draft I tried to go with Wild and Sage mainly, and it paid off. My opponent had grabbed a few Good stuff in his first couple of packs so he stayed there as much as possible, leaving me some very choice options. My opponent was not the most knowledgeable opponent when it came to Epic, and the strength of Wild/Sage really showed through in our matches. I had a Thought Plucker and a Knight of Shadows and I used both of those to drain my opponent's hand both games. I kept controlling the board while I slowly burned my opponent out.

For the final matchup I had played the opponent who came the closest to beating me in the regular rounds. In the first pack I was passed a Medusa and a Soul Hunter, and they were the best cards in that pack. I then opened a pack with Raxxa, and was passed an Apocalypse and Final Task, which were also the best cards in the pack. Needless to say I kept drafting Evil when I got the chance. I sprinkled in some choice Sage and Wild cards when I got them, but I was very much in Evil. My opponent grabbed a decent amount of Sage and Wild, with some Good fliers. It was a very close matchup.

My token generation definitely was my biggest asset. My favorite play was Final Tasking my Trihorror to deal 9 Breakthrough damage, and then generate 3 demon tokens on my turn when it broke at the end.

I lost the 2nd game, although it was a very close one. I just wasn't able to withstand the 2 turns of Gold Dragon life swing and was eventually worn down. I believe a Tricerotops finished me off. My poor human token...

In the 3rd game I opened with Raxxa, and then on my opponents' turn I Erased his only champion on the board and put out a Spawning Demon. On my turn I began to attack with demon tokens and for several turns my opponent was forced to spend his gold before I did. Still though, it was a close game. He had Drain Essence and a Lesson Learned so he healed a lot of damage in the game. I managed to keep draining his health though and Medusa was able to help draw out my opponent's gold to enable me to attack with a Juggernaut for the win.

 

It was a very fun and friendly tournament. We all laughed and joked around, and nobody was taking it too seriously. People were excited to try out the new cards and try out some new combos. We all agreed that a Pyrosaur is very annoying if one (me) is relying on demon tokens to survive. Steel Golem is the bane of everyone's existence, and Frantic Digging can help you draw an insane amount of cards in a game to come back from a Psionic Assault.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this little writeup. I hope to have many more friendly tournaments like this that will hopefully have a lot more players participating. Anyway have a good day and happy gaming!

PS: Go back the Epic Digital Kickstarter App. It's going to be awesome. It's a great deal. You can even get a free entry to a world qualifying match. This is the last week so give it a try! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1172937197/epic-digital-card-game/posts/1814156