EarthP0w3R here again, back with a tournament report of the Tamriel Summer Games open tournanent that took place this past weekend where I landed a top four finish!

I want to begin this report by giving a huge shout out to the tournament organizers, players, and everyone else who participated in making this happen. As a competitive player, I am always looking for ways to prove what I’m made of and compete. Getting the chance to do so this early in TES Legends was refreshing to say the least. I decided to bring along a Warrior deck I had been working on for a couple of days and an Archer build that was a little rough around the edges. Matches were best two out of three where both players brought two decks and had to get a win with each in order to advance. Semifinals and finals were best of five. All the rules for the tournament in detail can be found on the discord page for the tournament.

Pre-Game Thoughts and Lists

 

My whole game plan going into this tournament was that I wanted to bring two Midrange decks that curved out really well and put a lot of pressure on the opponents throughout the mid game. I had been having success with Warrior (Strength/Endurance) on the ladder so I figured I’d bring it and try to pull one over on my opponents before they even knew what hit ‘em. The Endurance class offers a lot of creatures with large stats like Young Mammoth and Stonetooth Scrapper that are hard to deal with early on without using multiple resources. With that in mind, the class offers a lot of heavy hitting support cards like Shadowfen Priest and Haunting Spirit to help give your other guys the reach they need while providing bulky bodies themselves.

The Archer list was one that I had used to grind to legend on the ladder about a week prior to the tournament. I had been playing with numbers quite a bit in the list in an attempt to turn the deck into a multiple-trick pony so to speak. I had Dune Smugglers to take advantage of Cutpurse and Murkwater Savages, a 1-2 split on Arrow in the Knee and Rapid Shot for varying situations and, along with Sharpshooter Scout,  to help activate Finish Off and Leaflurker. The rest of the deck was just budgeting the numbers and making sure it could do what I needed when I needed it to.

Rounds

My first round opponent apparently dropped out, which was a real shame, but meant that I was onto round 2. No sweat! So far so good.

My Round 2 opponent was Humansheeps. He was packing a Ramp Scout and Token Spellsword deck. Warrior took down the Scout game one by curving out the way I’d hoped. Game two got a little rocky and my Archer had a rough time dealing with multiple big threats after a slow start, but was able to pull it together game three in taking out the Token Spellsword through timely Sharpshooters and a Blood Dragon.

Round 3 found myself paired against Mont who had brought his own variation of Archer and a Sorcerer deck. Warrior again took an early lead over Mont’s Sorcerer deck. He queued it into Archer and, after a tough back and forth, pulled off a win. It was then Archer vs Archer time and after curving out very nicely with Nimble Ally and Leaflurker, a timely Belligerent Giant sealed the deal and we were onto round 4!

In Round 4 (the quarterfinals) I faced Faid who had brought an Archer and Spellsword deck. This match went about as good as can be expected. Game one I queued my Warrior into his Spellsword where early Mammoths and Blood Dragons were just a bit too big for him, taking favorable trades throughout the match until a Belligerent Giant game down to seal the game. Game two saw Archer vs Archer in another solid mirror match. I took control of the board early using the Elixir of Magicka to drop threats earlier than expected and curved out with a Tazkad to take the game.

We made it to the semifinals (Round 5) to face off against Kemahr in a best of five. Kemahr had brought very refined Archer and Ramp Scout lists. In game one the Ramp deck hit all of its drops right on cue and although it was beautiful to watch, being on the receiving end of the beating with Warrior was painful to say the least. I queued Warrior into his Archer next and the beating was just as bad. Archer hit its drops perfectly while I wasn’t able to get anything on the board until after turn three. By then it was just too late.

After taking two losses with my Warrior deck against his Ramp and Archer list, I was out for blood! I opted to play against his Scout Ramp again with my Warrior. Things went differently this time as I was able to take an early lead, hitting my curve with Wind Keep Spellswords through to Blood Dragon. With some timely weapons I was able to secure my first win in this best of 5. Everything went south in game 4 though, as I chose to queue my Archer into Ramp hoping to take advantage of the slower build. I hate to blame losses on bad hands, but when you draw the entire top end of your deck and don’t have a play until turn four, well, it is what it is. By the time I had anything up and running, Kemahr had taken control of the board with heavy Guards and the likes of Nahagliiv and Blood Magic Lord. Needless to say, we took the loss and called it a day.

Post Tournament Thoughts and Changes to the Lists

Overall I was very pleased with my performance in this tournament. I played against some great opponents and had some awesome games. The tournament organizers and admins (Oneah and JstarrG) did an amazing job in getting everyone involved and making the whole process super comfortable and enjoyable. I have made some changes to my lists since the tournament if you’re looking to try these decks out for yourself. Check them out below and let me know what success you’ve had with the builds or any changes you would make.

As always, stayed tuned to BTL for all the latest TES: Legends content and articles – maybe even our own tournament series on the horizon. See you all on the ladder!