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A True Legend

The Winners of the Warhammer: Invasion Stuff of Legends Contest

In June, as we approached the halfway point of The Bloodquest Cycle for Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game, we called for your participation in the Stuff of Legends deck-building contest.

Well, you delivered! After all was said and done, the LCG department selected the top deck lists for each of the game’s six races, as well as two honorable mentions*, one Order and one Destruction. Congratulations to each of the eight finalists!

Jamie Biedermann – Dark Elf
 Cyrille Boutin – Empire
 Caleb Edwards – Orc
 Oliver Franke – Dwarf*
 Georg Freitag – Dwarf
 Maik Hennebach – Chaos
 Lukasz Kaluzny – Dark Elf*
 Jan Zieniewicz – High Elf

Each of the eight finalists won a copy of the upcoming Battle Pack, Vessel of the Winds.

Legends are Forged on the Battlefield

It wasn’t enough, however, to pick the top eight finalists. The Old World is a place too full of ancient animosity, bitter rivalries, and constant war to end with an even distribution of prizes. Therefore, one race had to rise to dominance, and there was only one place for it to do so – on the battlefield!

Using the strategies each of the finalists offered, FFG staff played a cutthroat, single-elimination tournament, and at the end, Jan Zieniewicz’s High Elf deck, “Eltharion Wins,” proved to be aptly titled.

Capital:
 High Elves

Legend:
 3x Eltharion the Grim (One copy starts on the board.)

Units:
 3x Dreamer of Dragons
 3x Elven Scout
 3x Lion Standard
 3x Lothern Sea Master
 3x Valorous Mage

Quests:
 1x Heroic Task (Starts on the board.)
 3x Planning for War

Supports:
 3x Citadel of Dusk
 1x Dawnstar Sword
 2x Eataine Warroom
 3x Gathering the Winds
 3x Helm of Fortune
 3x Judgement of Loec

Tactics:
 3x Arcane Power
 3x Asuryan’s Cleansing
 3x Convocation of Eagles
 2x Drain Magic
 3x Master Rune of Valaya

Jan offered a short summary of the deck’s principle strategies:

This deck is created to use the advantage of Eltharion the Grim (Rising Dawn, 1) on the board from the first turn. Because of that, standard “set up” cards like Warpstone Excavation, Contested Village, and Envoy from Averlorn are less important than cards working with the legend.

The main combo is Convocation of Eagles (City of Winter, 84), Arcane Power (The Accursed Dead, 57), and Gathering the Winds (Rising Dawn, 10), which uses two Arcane Powers or an Arcane Power and two Gathering the Winds to gain an infinite number of resource tokens, which means unlimited direct damage.

Unlimited Master Rune of Valaya (Core Set, 25) with Gathering the Winds and Arcane Power, plus Judgement of Loec, can protect your legend and the capital.

Throughout the tournament, Jan’s deck was piloted by Senior LCG Designer Nate French, who took some time away from heading the development of several projects to put the other LCG team members back in their place. After using the Master Rune of Valaya repeatedly to survive a ferocious Orc rush in the first round, Nate steered Jan’s deck past a Chaos deck that would have built up massive power around Kairos Fateweaver and multiple developments if Nate hadn’t managed to draw into the High Elves’ infinite combos by turn two of each game.

Then it was on to the final match against Georg Freitag’s Dwarf deck, played by Lukas Litzsinger, lead developer of The Bloodquest Cycle. Both players knew the High Elves couldn’t stand up to the Dwarfs in a head-to-head melee, so it would come down to whether or not the High Elves would hit their infinite loops before the Dwarfs could get five toughness onto the table.

The match went into the third game before it was decided. Nate offered recap of the game’s decisive moments:

The game teetered right on the edge. I had put one Convocation of Eagles under Heroic Task to get the pieces of the combo into my hand early, and then I drew both of my other Convocations of Eagles early. But Arcane Power and Gathering the Winds would not show up. I didn't even have a Master Rune of Valaya! I almost felt I should concede after the first couple turns; I was barely hanging on with Standard Bearers and keeping defenders in each zone, but Lukas was building up a serious amount of Toughness and battlefield power. Eventually he broke through and killed Eltharion, and that seemed like it was all she wrote. However, I had another Eltharion in my hand, a Kingdom developed enough to gain the power to play him, and I finally found a Master Rune. I was able to stabilize, and finally hit the jackpot – all three Gathering the Winds and an Arcane Power showed up in quick succession. I set up a card draw loop that eventually found another Arcane Power. Now the only issue was that Lukas had five toughness in his battlefield, but I drew down to a Judgement of Loec, took out a unit that provided two toughness, and played the infinite indirect damage combo.

All in all, the deck was brilliantly designed and a lot of fun to play. Congrats to Jan for the submission, and thanks for providing such a cool deck!

Congratulations to Jan Zieniewicz, winner of the Stuff of Legends deck-building contest for Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game! In addition to Vessel of the Winds, Jan wins the contents of the third quarter 2012 Warhammer: Invasion Game Night Kit, including a poster, playmat, and six custom Capital cards. Well done, Jan! You are a true legend.

Our thanks to all those who participated in this contest and experimented with its format and the new cards from The Bloodquest Cycle. We hope you found it as enjoyable and rewarding as we did.

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Source: A True Legend (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3438)