Orchard City Games had the opportunity to host a ProQuest this season, and we made the most of it! 32 Competitors showed up with cards in hand ready to attack the meta and hoping to take home a coveted Pro Tour Invite (PTI) at the end of the day.
TLDR: Video at the bottom showing winner, gold foil & winning deck.
Let’s have a look at the metagame breakdown for the ProQuest
After five grueling 50 minute rounds of swiss, we had a cut to the top 8 players of the tournament – pictured below:
From left to right: Lucas N, Adam P, Ernie M, Tsubasa U, Jessie D, Donovan N, Bro S, Lucas M
The Top 8 consisted of three Fai, two Dromai, one Oldhim, one Viserai and one Lexi.
Quarterfinals
The first match to finish during quarterfinals, to no-one’s surprise – was the Fai mirror. Lucas M, a local from Kelowna ended up on the back foot early after Tsubasa chose to go second in the match. This allowed Tsubasa to be the first to attack without his opponent drawing up post-blocks and he didn’t budge an inch after gaining advantage. Tsubasa proceeds to the semifinals.
Ernie (Fai) faced off against Jessie (Lexi) hoping to take an aggressive lead early and maintain tempo throughout the game. Jessie took a value based approach, grinding down and shifting tempo card by card as he went. Eventually totals were on par, and chipping away at Ernie’s life total while also disrupting play started to take it’s toll. With Lexi maintaining pressure and stripping cards from hand, buffing attacks to push key damage points through with on-hit effects – Fai eventually succumbed to an icy fate. Jessie proceeds to the semifinals.
Lucas N (Dromai) and Bro S (Oldhim) were paired in the quarterfinals and provided a nail biting match for those watching the game. Oldhim’s large value attacks with relevant on hits tried to slow down the game and tilted play in his favor very early on, commanding a large lead without taking any damage at first. Lucas had other plans in the mix, though, and played a very patient game while blocking as efficiently as possible and setting up for the long game. In the later turns, Dromai was able to land dragons by enticing blocks from Oldhim’s side of the board and snowballed the board state into an insurmountable obstacle for Bro. Shortly after Lucas amassed 6 Aether Ashwings, the game came to an abrupt end with Bro unable to keep up the pace. Lucas N proceeds to the semifinals.
Donovan N (Dromai) and Adam P (Viserai) were pitted against each other for the quarterfinal. There were several comments heard throughout the room about the difficulty Viserai might have against a deck like Dromai. It seemed warranted, seeing that Dromai naturally creates excess Arcane Barrier (AB) as part of it’s core game plan in most cases. Adam quickly had spectators in disbelief as the damage quickly ticked down Donovan’s life total. Donovan played a patient game, taking each phase and play carefully into consideration before making moves to change tempo. Initially the game appeared heavily in Adam’s favor, but as the game went on he was focusing attacks on the dragons that were stopping his arcane damage from getting through. This allowed Donovan to use his AB to stop any damage pointed at him by pitching cards into his deck for later, while his opponent filled the graveyard. The strategy slowly turned the tide, and Donovan was able to eventually direct lethal damage at his opponent whose hero had fatigued down throughout the game. He won with life totals at 1-0. Donovan proceeds to the semifinals.
Semifinals
Tsubasa was the last Fai player standing, as he faced off against Lucas N in the semifinals. Another seemingly foregone conclusion turned awry in this game, as Lucas was able to outvalue his opponent with the small dragons – and Tsubasa was forced to attack them using valuable attacks that were needed to attack Lucas’ life total. The game ended with Lucas victorious, leaving Tsubasa and many spectators in utter disbelief as Lucas played hand after hand continuously disrupting the Fai deck’s functionality while presenting damage to win the game. Lucas N advances to the Finals.
Donovan, the other Dromai player sat opposite of Jessie, who had successfully piloted Lexi thus far – a deck Donovan had played at a previous ProQuest himself (albeit a different list). After some subtle back and forth play, Jessie simply outvalued the Dromai deck with relevant on-hits, valuable instants like Rain Razors and timely attacks that disrupted the game plan for Donovan. The large amounts of damage leaking through, along with relevant disruption in such a relentless manner was too much – and Jessie continued on to the Finals. Donovan later coined Jessie’s deck a “dromai killer”.
Finals
The final match of the day – Jessie Vs Lucas. Lexi Vs Dromai. From the outside, this match felt like a nail biter all the way. Wondering if this was the turn that Rain Razors came out to play or if it was Cenipai‘s turn to shine. Tempting fate with a mix of dragons and attacks on one side, and Endless Arrow(s) on the other. One deadly sequence saw Jessie cycling two Endless Arrows through Voltaire repeatedly. While the value here is truly endless, even that did not seem to do enough – without relevant on-hit effects, simple blocks were made to walk life totals down to a danger zone for Jessie as tempo shifted. Dromai had gone to 1 life point in order to maintain the tempo gained in the later turns of the match, but also threatened lethal at the same time. Finally, a loud cheer erupted from spectators as Jessie dealt the lethal point of damage to Lucas, ending Dromai’s run in the tournament.
We reached out to Jessie for comment, to gain his perspective on the match and it’s conclusion:
“This game started ROUGH. Two Rain Razors + 3 of a Kind turns were mediocre, my opponent dealt a ton of early damage due to my lack of huge threats, and he really knows how to punish these turns with Dromai. Life totals were 11-35 in his favor when I finally found one. I had no idea if a comeback was possible but I knew I had to give it a shot.
Some good hands with fused Chilling Iceveins forced blocks, allowing me to chip away with Endless Arrow as well as a couple timely reactions to push it over the top and get it back when he did have an answer for it. They then started to threaten a huge turn after mine didn’t force blocks, as I had little control attached to it, beginning by Invoking Yendurai. By some lucky miracle I drew 1 of my 2 Battering Bolts to pop his dragon with Phantasm and cut his turn short.
Life totals going into the final turn were extremely tight. Endless was gone as it got blocked out last turn but let me keep tempo. My hand is Art of War, Chilling Icevein Red, Heat Seeker, and a Blue pitch card. Tunic with a counter ready as my only equipment. I pitched and loaded Heat Seeker giving it go again with Voltaire and fired it. My opponent knew the matchup well and spent a few seconds going through my graveyard and considered what I might have in hand. Lucas blocked 5 and said “If you’ve got it, you’ve got it”. Fortunately for me, I did have “it” (Art of War). I play it with my last pitch and realize I don’t have enough pitch to play my Chilling Icevein later this turn, so I declare the modes for AoW to be +1 to my attacks and Banish the Icevein (the last card in my hand) to draw two. If I draw a dud here I very likely lose the next turn. I drew a red Ice Quake and a red Lightning Surge, and my Heat Seeker hits for 1, leaving me one final push from victory. I use my Tunic resource to pay for Ice Quake, and play the Lightning Surge for 8. His hand couldn’t block enough and I was able to take the win after what felt like a near impossible comeback. Still can’t believe it happened. It was an incredible game against an equally incredible opponent, and I’m looking forward to what ProTour has in store.“
Our full Top 8 roster, with rank & hero listing:
The Gold Foil
The Top 8 Decklists
Decklists are being produced using our catalog, and will appear here momentarily.