"Vapor Trail" Vapor broke the mold and carefully "teched" against the current tournament field -- rife with Mage rush decks -- to win a 547-player event this past Saturday. As the first major win for the Fighter avatar and questing deck, Vapor describes the thought processes involved with his strategy:
"After the previous test tournaments, and all of the talk during the week was about 'Power Elves' and swarm decks, I decided to give my quest deck one more chance. I replaced cards like Disable and added defensive cards under the assumption that there wouldn't be many quest decks at the tournament. None of my opponents were 'questers' so it worked out, and removing Disable meant the deck was back to its normal speed. For defense, I took the advice from the boards and added Holy Aura (which meant the difference in several games). Going with heavy defense and the Ogre avatar is a good counter to the swarm decks which many were playing. It also worked pretty well against the Sunstrike/Igneous Savant decks. That said, many of the games were close and there were some great decks running. I was down to 1 health left in 3 different games. Questing is all about taking the small damage and stopping the large damage bursts."
"Shield Slam makes the deck work. You can start a quest with Reclaim or Displace out on a quest with an enemy unit and play Shield Slam during the quest phase and apply that instead. This gets around 'Disable-happy' players somewhat. If you have a shield in play, you can also use it as you would an Outwit. The fact that it is the highest-level Hidden ability is why I use it in my deck, though. It might cost more than Forge Ahead, but it has more uses."
"The ideal starting hand is Reclaim, Forge Ahead or Bob and Weave, and Shield Slam. From that you can win in 5 turns every single time if your opponent doesn't complete a quest. The deck's design is based upon completing a quest when it is attempted. If it will take more than one attempt, it's usually better to hold abilities in your hand until you can one-shot the quest (especially early). Or use them to set up Shield Slam or used with defense care of Soul Shield."
"To get around Protectors, use Outwit or Shiny Brass Shield. The shield takes 2 power to use, but a permanent Outwit is worth it."
"Mutilate is like a 'boosted' Kick that can be used in defense. Most of the time they can be saved in your hand until you have two or three quests completed and you can take out all the Protectors in one shot (except Vigilant Dwarf which takes 2), as well as units like Fippy Darkpaw."
"For healing, I was only using Greaves of the Pious. I felt a lot safer when I had a Warlord's Breastplate and Drain of Blood in the deck. However, with the short nature of games, its hard to rely on those cards when you are the only player generating power. Throughout the 10 games of the tournament, only 2 of my opponents completed a quest. The rest sat on one level token at each quest for the power boost to due to the Wood Elf avatar. Countering this was easy, as I one-shot quests whenever possible, robbing them of that power. When you quest you are going to take a lot of damage. All you need to do is fend them off long enough to complete quests. Take the small damage when you can and save your defense cards for times you will take more than 1 damage."
"Overall this deck, or previous incarnations, is sitting at a 56-5 record for me. (It has lost to two quest decks and 3 avatar-killer decks.) The hardest matchup I have seen is the avatar vs. avatar decks. When I saw Lint was playing one in the final match, I was pretty nervous."
"Comments on the tournament: I was Disabled about 16 times throughout the 10 games of the tournament. In one game, someone used Disable on my two abilities that were out in the same turn. While it did make the game go longer, the fact that none of those were Priest quest decks that could play Disable every turn meant it was only an annoyance. The longest game I had was completed on round 17. (I was hit with Disable three times in the first three turns.) I had four games that could have gone either way, and went down to either someone forgetting to do something or not drawing a Sunstrike or Shock of Fire, or playing a Disable. If I had less than 10 health or if I redrew my hand I would have lost 5 games. Seven to nine health doesn't really cut it for questing."
"I had a lot of fun, and was glad a quest deck could place well. I think a lot of it had to do with the decks that were played today. A Fighter quest deck with the Ogre text is a pretty good counter to a swarm deck using the Wood Elf power avatar."
Draw Deck (50):
2x Bob and Weave 1C13
1x Sap Strength 1U25
4x Shield Slam 1R27
2x Foolhardy 1R244
4x Forge Ahead 1U245
4x Reclaim 1C249
3x Mutilate 1C53
2x Soul Shield 1U55
3x Wind Walk 1C56
3x Outwit 1C267
1x Greaves of the Pious 1U36
1x Shiny Brass Shield 1U43
2x Flowing Black Silk Sash 1R258
1x Journeyman's Boots 1R259
1x Steel Dagger 1C262
2x Hoard Hound 1U320
4x Gnoll Soothsayer 1R316
1x Switch 1P2
2x Displace 1R243
2x Sidestep 1C271
3x Holy Aura 1C50
2x Dwarven Sentry 1C296
Quests (4):
1U7 Slayer of Gnolls
1U230 Find the Frozen Crystal
1U232 Recovering Ivan's Remains
1U234 Seek the Adventurer's Stone
Avatar (1):
Avatar Name: asdfcv
Attack: 2
Defense: 1
Health: 10
Race:Ogre
Game Text: Each time this avatar loses a combat against a unit, deal 1 damage to an opposing combatant.
