This year I was again playing The Politician with a few minor updates. My main concerns going into this event were two-fold. One, I still felt that a Project Apocalypse deck and a 7 Masters deck with it's event protection (Li Mao) and ubiquitous healing would be difficult. I had really thought that a good control Ascended deck would be the way to go, but I didn't have time to put one together. The main tools I was looking at for Ascended were Lodge Machinations for Project Apocalypse and discard and Shadowy Mentor to deal with the 7 Masters.
The field was only six players. The event was supposed to be a full round robin with each player playing each other twice with each person getting to go first once. No time limits were set because dueling is supposed to be fast enough to not require them. This did not quite work out, but the final standings were not affected.
The first deck I played against was Project Apocalypse run by David Kempe. Shit! I lost both games. I don't think it was so much because my deck can't beat it as my strategy to beat it. I was focusing on taking down the PA site. If I had tried to go into a fast attack mode and play sites quickly, I could have won through conventional victory conditions before PA would have timed out. I was saving my resources to try to take down PA and lost site of how to win the game. Next year.
Second match was against John Merrill and his deck that tied for first at Origins. It was a Hand deck with Sword Saints and Spear of Destiny that did not stand up. He had at least one bad draw also.
Third match was against Julian Leighton. He was playing a slightly updated SWAHT deck, which he had won the Gen Con dueling event with a few years ago. First game, he won as he was able to field threats faster than I could remove them. The second game his first two sites in play were Whirlpools of Blood. I was able to take advantage of their low bodies and win the second game.
Fourth match was against Jeremy Dale, who was playing a Big Red Button deck. I beat him in our first game. Unfortunately, he had to leave for a miniatures painting contest, and we did not get to play the second game. When he played Greg Zimmerman in the previous round, he got off a janky combo that was amusing. Jeremy had no cards in play. He played a Desire Manipulator on Greg's Battlechimp. He then played a Newest Model on the Manipulator. This netted him 2 power per turn along with 1 counter on his We Have the Technology each turn while his Supercomputer was filling his hand. Finally, he had enough power and cards to bust out with a Big Red Button and destroy everything Greg had in play.
Due to time constraints, I did not get to play Greg. The final standings were Julian in first and me in second. I had the distinction of being the only player to beat Julian even one game. So I had that going for me.
Deck: The Politician v 1.1
Foundation (15)
Test Subjects x5
Combat Engineer x5
Arcanomoth x5
Characters (11)
Napalm Belcher x5
Rocket Team x3
Dr. Curtis Boatman vPAP
Gnarled Annihilator
Commander Corliss
Denial (22)
Imprison x4
Nanovirus
Nerve Gas x3
Artillery Strike x2
Aerial Bombardment x2
Wave Disruptor
War of Attrition x2
Overzealous Assassins
Orbital Laser Strike x3
Smart Missile x3
Support (10)
MegaTank
Rise of the NeoBuro x2
Evil Brain in the Jar
Reinvigoration Process x2
Dangerous Experiment x4
FSS (15)
Creche of the New Flesh x2
Mirrored Lake
Dragon Graveyard x3
Mah-Jongg Parlor
Monkey House
Moon Base x3
Temple of Celestial Mercy
Temple of the Angry Spirits
Waterfall Sanctuary
Ancient Stone Arch
Strategy is to build resources to get the Napalm Belchers out and blow away opponents cards. Always keep one power on hand to get rid of any big threat that comes out. Never attack unrevealed sites. Once your ahead in power and fighting, just deny anything that hits the board and maintain your advantage.
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