Kith - 1st place 4/23 Western Regionals (24 players) - Phoenix, AZ

Swiss:

Game 1 - modified loss vs. Ragnar to time, 3 planets to 2 (Ouch!)

Game 2 - win vs Worr via assassination

Game 3 - win vs Zarathur on planets

Game 4 - win vs Morn on planets

Top 8:

Game 1 - win vs Baharroth on planets

Game 2 - win vs Kith on planets

Game 3 - win vs Zarathur (the one from swiss) on planets

Congratulations. Impressed with any deck that goes against conventional wisdom and does well.

Interesting that you don't run Incubus Warriors.

Omission of Archon's Terror and Incubus is definitely a gutsy call.  Glad it worked well for you.

Omission of Archon's Terror and Incubus is definitely a gutsy call.  Glad it worked well for you.

Yeah I was just thinking that upon looking at the setup

Grats on the win and interesting deck!

Sure a lack of Terror gives you 3 more cards against Worr, but it opens you up against so many other decks. Wild. Of course, you still have the threat of it even if you don't have it in your deck (since it's an assumed include), so you kind of get that benefit anyway.

Grats on 1st.

Omission of Archon's Terror and Incubus is definitely a gutsy call.  Glad it worked well for you.

Incubus Warrior is one of my favorite cards, but I found that I rarely had an opportunity to play him to strong effect - I typically spread out further with a Sslyth Merc or he sat in hand while I dropped Khymeramasters or Reavers for combat. I still got a fair bit of use out of him, and on turns where I could Raid he could be dominant but I found I had to spend cards shielding him from ping damage more often even when I was able to get him down on curve effectively, so I swapped him for 3x Kabalite Harriers for awhile, since the Harriers will either kill a pirate or force some sort of discard - this means they aren't as susceptible to the Incubus Warrior is to being Promoted against for a command win, since even if they do you gained a card from the exchange, and the 2 HP means they could eat a stray Ork Kannon or Dakka or another Harrier from an opponent without dying. Then the Kinsman came out, as a 1 for 1 hammer that's usually a 2/2 he was the best of both worlds and his 1 cost makes the deck's curve much much smoother - it's now easier to hit exactly 7R (or 8 with Raid) from your opening hand, which usually leads to a command steamroll, and if you're ever low on R he's easier to fit onto the board (for example, you can Zythlex + Kinsman if you ended last turn with 0 R)
 
Terror is a dead draw vs one of the more dominant decks in the game (Worr) which alone should warrant it's exclusion, it puts you behind in the mirror, where you usually spend 2R1C to send another 2R card home to deal with next turn, and isn't very useful in other matchups when you're even or behind on C/R, because you can't take a 2R loan out against being able to handle that guy next turn as easily - basically there's a few situations where you *really* want it, and a bunch of situations where you can win without it, so you could maybe swap out 1x Gut and Pillage and a Superiority but you'll be harming your consistency in order to handle units you can usually play around with careful deployments and an abundance of cards in hand for shields. It also gets worse as more usable uniques are printed. Given this reasoning I started testing 0x Terror about 2 months ago, and even in games where I was getting pushed around early by big elites I was able to win handily, usually via Klaivex or just winning command and having a large number of useful units at a given planet.

I'm not taking out my AT's. You're insane.

I've had Archon's Terror out for a while on octgn, for the exact same reasons you've stated. However I'd never have had the strength of conviction to carry that decision to a tournament.

Well done for taking the plunge, and I think you are absolutely right.

The thing that did surprise me here is 3x Foretell. I know its a solid card, and one that gets better the higher the level you play at (as top players tend to use battle abilities far more effectively), but I'd have gone for another Superiority, another Palace and another 2-shield (such as a Suffering). Or, indeed, I'd have considered 3x Subdual in place. Any comments on how Foretell worked for you?

I've had Archon's Terror out for a while on octgn, for the exact same reasons you've stated. However I'd never have had the strength of conviction to carry that decision to a tournament.

 

Well done for taking the plunge, and I think you are absolutely right.

 

The thing that did surprise me here is 3x Foretell. I know its a solid card, and one that gets better the higher the level you play at (as top players tend to use battle abilities far more effectively), but I'd have gone for another Superiority, another Palace and another 2-shield (such as a Suffering). Or, indeed, I'd have considered 3x Subdual in place. Any comments on how Foretell worked for you?

Foretell is one of my favorite cards, and easily an MVP in the deck. I was able to use it to great effect in several matches that day, and in matches where it denied a non-critical battle ability, it still got me 1 card closer to another Klaivex. I think the Khymera she generates gives Kith the most flexibility to exhaust to use the card out of the warlords that currently have access to it, and it can enable you to play extra safe for a turn when you need to, allowing you to avoid P1's with strong battle abilities that you can't necessarily challenge safely that turn. It also gave me quite a bit more flexibility to chase red planets if I had a GnP in hand. One of my favorite cards to see in-hand and it's been a 2-3x in the deck since it's release; Without it in the deck at this point I'd probably feel weird. I usually run a third Palace too, especially given the deck's aim for maximum consistency, but I've found that most of my really bad games aren't when I have no palace, but when I've drawn my second or third and I really needed anything else instead.

Interestingly enough, I didn't have as many opportunities to use Superiority this tournament - I usually go back and forth between swapping it for Suffering or Searing Brand (SB never really paid off) to get more shots at being aggressive with the extra 2shields, so in the next version of this deck, I'm going to test running 2x Shuriken Catapult in it's place - most of the army units in the deck are Warriors (including Zythlex and the sig squad) and I typically had enough spare cash to use one whenever I would have had it - in fact, in most games I was playing my hand as I drew it, and would have welcomed an aggressive resource sink, especially one that can threaten Warlords.