Nova Open Recap: Tier

Tiers not as tasty as these. 

Going into the Open I had circled the Tier tournament as one I expected to do well in.  I've had a lot of success with Absylonia's tier list, which includes everything that I want (beasts and fury management) and gives some nice benefits (cheaper, faster beasts).  Aby is a pretty straight-forward caster, one of a small group (which might only include pVlad) that I feel comfortable playing competitively with no warmups or practice games.  My list was as such:

Absylonia, Terror of Everblight  +5 points
* Angelius  8 points
* Scythean  8 points
* 3x Shredder  2 points each
* Typhon  11 points

Shepherd  1 point
3x The Forsaken  2 points each

All the lessers get AD, all the heavies get to Advance Move, I get an extra Forsaken, what's not to like?  Oh, and all the heavies will have Reach.  The only real weakness is a lack of magic weapons/attacks, but that's common to many tier lists.  I would have liked another heavy, but the points just don't mesh at 35.  Enough rambling, on to the meat.



Round one saw my first repeat opponent of the weekend: Aramis.  This time he was playing pMagnus, though there was enough Cygnar in it to make me look twice.  This game turned around a pair of Renegades.  Aramis ran them together, close enough that I was able to catch them both with Blight Field.  Since they couldn't be allocated Focus I more or less dismissed them, but they were close enough to Aby to do some work.  The first one walked a bit further than seemed kosher, moving through a forest and all, but after Hardcore I was in "just have a good time" mode so I didn't think anything of it.  Then it popped off its rocket, missed (vs DEF 17, shocker), but due to proximity couldn't scatter the full distance and ended up landing on, and knocking down, Aby.  If I'd been more vigilant on the rough terrain move it would have scattered far enough to miss her completely, but that ship had sailed.  Aby survived the turn somehow but didn't seal the deal in the next turn.  Magnus had no such issues, thanks in large part to his knockdown pimp hand, and Aby didn't survive a second turn on her back.

For once Google didn't return porn on my image search.

Now it gets fuzzy.  I have a list of my opponents each round, so I know I have names right, but details beyond that are not so clear.  It looks like my round 2 opponent was Jeff, who until this past week played at Game Parlor but has since moved house and relocated to Games & Stuff.  If that's right he ran some flavor of Menoth, I think pSevy.  I'm fairly sure I won the match.

Round three was against Sean, while round four was Buddy.  One of these players was from South Carolina, a nice guy who played pDenny.  His play group had been in flux for a while, which meant he hadn't played a whole lot recently and certainly not against a variety of opponents and lists.  That game was the closest I came to slipping into new player mode all weekend.  Any time I get to kill pDenny is a good time, but without having to fight through her feat turn it's less satisfying than usual.

The other player I have no recollection of at all.  I think I finished up 2-2.  This total lack of recall is shameful, but in my defense I'd never played in a five round event before (which I did that morning in Hardcore), had never played in two events in one day before, and the tier tournament ended at around 1:45 am, about two hours later than scheduled.  It had been a long day of disappointing results and by the end of it I was on autopilot.  The good news is that I recall the next event on the agenda (Steam Roller) somewhat better.