TWD and report Personal Involvement: Hamilton

Personal Involvement: Hamilton, ON
February 22, 2020
10 players
TWD
Sauce or GTFO
Built and played by Jay Kristoff

Calvin Clever
Fergus Alexander
Lillian
Malcolm
6x Matasuntha
Robert Price
T.J.

Abombwe
Ecoterrorists
Fame
Giant's Blood
Perfectionist
Villein
Wider View

Ancient Influence
2x Bum's Rush
2x Deep Song
Go Anarch
2x Harass
2x Nose of the Hound
Shadow of the Beast
2x Thing
Rewilding

Bowl of Convergence
Eye of Hazimel
Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
IR Goggles
Kevlar Vest

2x Dog Pack
Homunculus

Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Enkil Cog
3x Forced March
5x Freak Drive
3x Instantaneous Transformation

2x Eyes of Argus
Telepathic Misdirection

4x Blur
2x Flesh of Marble
Form of Mist
2x Pursuit
3x Taste of Vitae
Skin of Night

Dragonbound

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Final round recap written by Darby Keeney:

Jay (3rd seed, Matasuntha multiaction) --> Karl (2nd seed, Palla Grande Undue Influence) --> Marshall (5th seed, Valkyrie bleed) --> Darby (1st seed, Blood Deprivation/Tempt) --> Tim (4th seed, Prince politics with Rabbat kicker).
The mind games start even before the first transfer. Jay's 3rd seed placement was conventional, but Karl wants nothing to do with Temptation. That part of his plan works, Darby won't sit near Jay and instead plans to exploit the Valkyrie's almost-slave status.
The early game proceeds as expected with Karl dropping a couple of early bleed bombs. Subsequent rushes from Matasuntha and a Valkyrie pretty much doom him.
The key interactions defining the game's development:
- Tim passes Jay's Ancient Influence, netting Jay 3 more beads than anyone else and giving him a large safety margin.
- Matasuntha's early 1-pt bleed gets bounced with My Enemy's Enemy but Tim throws it back at Karl, requiring a second MEE. The pool loss is insignificant, but using the 2nd bounce gets Matasuntha an Enkil Cog one turn earlier.
On the other side of the table, Darby sprinkles Disease counters and Temptations liberally. Marshall starts to (pre) bleed with the Valks, facing bleed reduction and S:CE lockdown. With three players now leaning left, Jay simply moves faster at a minion-less Karl and gets the first oust.
Things tilt in the 4-player as Jay makes it clear that Marshall will face no predation, immediately Rewilding Darby's Heidleburg Castle. The action is blocked but the shape of the endgame is clearly defined. Darby isn't happy about having a pair of predators, especially since Mataunta has both the Eye of Hazimel and Enkil Cog.
Marshall shows down for a turn and Matasuntha gets flat-out burned with Society of Leopold. Jay has tons of pool and the Ecoterrorists, so Matasuntha V2 gets beads as Marshall and Darby do bleedy things, leading to Tim getting ousted.
Marshall correctly Rewilds the Heidleburg (instead of Jay's Ecoterrorists) and Darby loses an Impundulu with 4 life in a Trapped combat. Neither is completely happy with that outcome, but Darby's resources are getting thin. Despite a hectic last turn, Darby can't quite defend his sole pool counter, but Marshall taps out getting it.
Matasunta immediately rushes Brunhilde and some chump eats her, setting Marshall on Jay's earlier path of "it's time for V2." He has planned ahead and only loses one turn - but that's enough to cause the game to time out.
Jay mentions that Marshall wins the game with 5 more minutes since Matasuntha V1 lost some important tools. Without that time available, Jay gleefully accepts the dubious honor of winning a tournament with exactly zero games wins for the day.

In my defense, it was the Form of Corruptions stealing two of my minions in round one that was much scarier than the Temptations. I was thwarted from earning even a single VP that round.

I knew that Jay could be problematic for me, but what hurt most was the lack of predation by his predator. There was no cause for Jay to back-rush and so I got to eat all of the early rushes. I had accounted for some rushing, but not getting all of them. Keeping the Enkil Cog off the table for another turn would have helped too.

Correction: it was 5x Blur.