Reborn Chicago Recap
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And just like that, Reborn Chicago has come and gone! We had nine players turn out from as far as Minnesota and as near as a few miles from Chicagoland’s wonderful Dice Dojo to compete in WoW TCG’s Contemporary format. Thanks to everyone who turned out to play! It. Was. A. Good. Time. For those that couldn’t make it, sorry about the absence of the stream!
The Swiss Rounds
We started off after a quick re-pair (we decided to let Zach play after all) with a field of Murlocs and Medivhs. While there weren’t a ton of us in the room, we had a very energetic and positive group! After everyone acquired their round one win or loss, everyone shuffled back up and kept on playing. Why not, right? Some rounds people would get in three or four games before moving onto the next. Why is that noteworthy? Because Contemporary is a best-of-one format which means everyone just enjoyed their games so much that they wanted more!
After five rounds of warcraft, we had the following standings:
Zach Ciochon (Medivh Burn)
TJ Ciochon (Harmonize Combo)
Michael Hewitt (Medivh Burn)
Nathan Cole (Mogdar Control)
Josh Wilson (Horde Mage Midrange)
Amanada Supak (Murlocs)
Woodrow Hood (Horde Priest Midrange)
Ben Lang (Murlocs)
Matt Kalafut (Medivh Burn)
Mage, Medivh, Mogdar, Murlocs, Midrange. Lot of M’s and a whopping three Medivh’s. Also it appears Nathan Cole plans on playing Mogdar at every event. What is he going to do when that guy rotates? Interestingly two people decided to bring out the fish friends as well though they didn’t fair amazingly in a room full of Boundless Hellfire. The rando Midrange decks didn’t make the cut either.
Top Four
The top cut ended up being double Medivh, Harmonize Combo, and Mogdar control. You can find the decklists here. I have to say, the Mogdar deck was a great meta call in a room full of Medivh’s and it turns out that Nathan was able to find a Medivh to face three separate times. While Medivh does have Miniature Voodoo Mask, cards like The Last Relic of Argus and Hammer of Atonement can make the matchup incredibly hard for the burn player.
In the semi’s Nathan (Mogdar) out-healed Zach’s (Medivh) burn and Michael (Medivh) disrupted TJ’s (Arisella) Harmonize combo. This left Mogdar facing another Medivh in the finals. We asked on Facebook which is better: Healing or Dealing? The answer seems to be pretty clear as Nathan took down his final Medivh in three hard fought games in the finals after losing the game two. Congratulations to Nathan Cole on taking down Reborn Chicago!
Ben’s Cube
One of the participants that showed up, Ben Lang, decided to bring a portion of his 1,600 card Cube. Cubes are a part of many surviving WoW TCG play groups and it’s always fun to see the difference across multiple Cubes. For me the initial difference was hard to miss. Ben had put a lot of time and effort into making his Cube’s presentation… beautiful!
Another thing about Cube’s are that they can be very personal and some groups come up with custom tokens, heroes, house rules, and other small touches as a way to cater to their playgroup. After all, there’s no official WoW TCG resource for building or drafting a Cube though Kirk Buckendorf’s article is very helpful in that regard. In the case of Ben’s Cube, he waives certain deck building restrictions.
For instance, you could include clashing Talents, so if you were a Mage you could have Frost Talent, Fire Hero Required, and Arcane Talent cards all in the same deck. He also waived other text-box restrictions like Scourge Hero Required and Blacksmithing Hero Required or the conflicting reputations like Aldor Reputation and Loyal Hero Required. This definitely changed things.
The second thing Ben did differently than most was give each player four packs to draft. This left us with a lot more playables than normal and some people elected to build their decks with more than 30 cards. The disadvantage there is the same as in constructed, that you see the cards you most want to see less often. But in a Cube draft going bigger has a legitimate upside as slow games can sometimes end up being about who attempts to draw a card and fails to find first. Lastly, Ben opted to include a second copy of specific cards he wanted people to see more often. Interesting take!
Everyone from the event stayed for the Cube draft and it was a blast! We will be hosting some official Cube events soon as we move into convention season and it was fun to see someone else’s version of the format. Before Origins Game Fair we will publicize our Cube’s card list and the accompanying rules so keep an eye out if you plan to participate. Space is limited for each Cube event as our list is designed for no more than 16 players so sign-up early if you want a slot.
Here’s a picture of most of us (Zach’s missing) playing out our Cube rounds. I think we played just as many Cube games if not more than the actual event itself! This group got along excellently and was tons of fun, evidenced by the fact that we stayed at the shop several hours after our event had ended. One thing was a personal disappointment for me, though. I went through Chicago without stopping by Giordano’s East (or similar) again. We just didn’t have the time to spare for it. Ben did spring for Jet’s though which was delicious and a very classy move on Ben’s part. So thanks again, Ben!
Convention and Fall/Winter Season
After Chicago the Reborn Circuit schedule consists of Origins Game Fair in Columbus in June and GenCon in Indianapolis in August - both with multiple events. July is a break for the Reborn team as we rest up from all the travel and expenses involved in running these events. We have not yet completely mapped out the second half of this year’s circuit, but there will be more events. There is some talk with an up-and-coming game shop in France about starting a European wing of WoW TCG Reborn or at the very least hosting a couple of events in France. Some of the former French pros are involved in this. There is also some talk about a Reborn SEA event in the Philippines. They have a Facebook Group for anyone in SEA who wants to contact them. And lastly New York and Vegas has been so far dormant but rumbling about scheduling with us.
Not this year, but likely in 2020 we are thinking about having a multi-day, multi-format, WoW TCG Reborn Nationals. To do this we would follow Ray Tautic/Warcraft Gaming Center’s “2013 Unofficial World’s” where the organizers rented out a hotel ballroom. Let us know on our socials @wowtcgreborn where you think would be a good location for this? We are currently eye-balling the Midwest for obvious reasons. We’re also talking with another “dead” card game community about combining the space and running our events together.
Anyway, Reborn Chicago was a blast! It was great to meet new people, all passionate about the game and excited for the opportunity to get connected with the scattered WoW TCG community! Sorry again about the Twitch coverage falling through - our stream guy had a sizable drive and encountered car trouble the day before. Until next time, see you at Origins Game Fair and GenCon 2019!