2020 Online World Champs

2020 has been a year of wildfires, social unrest, pandemic, and the inaugural Warlord CCG Online World Championship. The following is a recap of that historical event... the Warlord one.

• A New Tradition

After a few months of testing the community's response to playing Warlord online via Untap.in and Discord, it was clear that the online space was a great way to play the game. COVID-19 may have cancelled GenCon, the convention where the community has historically gathered, but it didn't stifle everyone's desire to battle in the Accordlands. If anything, people are sitting at home just itching for ways to interact with their hobbies from a safe distance and online Warlord was scratching that itch for many. But don't think this was a one-and-done event just to cover the absence of GenCon this particular year.

We recognize that each year around late July and early August there are a lot of sore community members that just can't make the journey to Indianapolis for GenCon to join their Warlord brethren. It's an expensive trip even for those inside the US and a true burden for those who live elsewhere. So with this in mind, we would like to host an event of this caliber every year, in or around the month of August, likely a week or more after GenCon's conclusion. For those among us that cannot make the trip, we see you and we're here for you as well.

• Event Details

Ancients was the format of choice since it is broad, competitive, and allows most people to do something powerful that they enjoy. That part was easy. But drumming up meaningful prize support is always a bit tough. We shook down a few people and secured the following (donor in parentheses):

When the dust settled on signups we had a whopping 37 participants which set our current online record. This was to be expected with the amped up prize support and clout associated with the event. I mean, isn't it every player's dream to be the 2020 Online World Champion?!

We drew two door prizes randomly after each round. One was a set of randomly drawn foils a la Box of Greed and the other was a copied sketch used in the creative process for various Warlord card illustrations. The rest of the prizes would have to be earned over six grueling rounds of Swiss and a Top 8 cut against a fairly diverse field:

The Ancients metagame tends to be varied and this event was no exception. On the class side, fighters with their high stats and amazing items showed up in large numbers just followed by wizards with their unrivaled action pool. In terms of factions, the numbers were even more spread out with only Elves slightly ahead of the rest. If you follow any other competitive card games you would know that, all things considered, this is a sign of good health for a format. May it always be so.

• Top 8 and Live Coverage (?!)

2020 brought another first for Warlord Saga of the Storm. Unless I'm mistaken, there has never been live video "coverage" of a Warlord match available on the internet in the entire history of the game. And, unsurprisingly, this first time streaming didn't go off without a hitch. But we did try and plan to improve! Before that, though, we had our Top 8 matches. You can find the Top 8 decklists for this event here.

At the top table we had our only undefeated player from the Swiss rounds Elvernthehero (Saunginel) lose a long game one against Wod (Stonefist Gargoyle). There was a rules infraction during this game in which Elvern forgot to draw one less card for multiple turns in a row with Rr'gent in play. When this was discovered, despite the game state being open to either side winning, he scooped on the spot without prompt resulting in an early lead that Wod converted into a 2-0 victory.

The battle between 4th and 5th seed saw Slugman (Kothkah) pray in vain to the NoThRoG gods for protection. But the ever-crafty Westley (Averisk) found a naked 3hp Kothkah two games in a row for a clean 2-0 win.

Innocentwrath (Raziel) and Sissilol (The Nemesis) had a grueling long two games of Elves playing shoot-a-mole whenever a character came back from the discard. Like the other matches, this one was decided 2-0 and in favor of Raziel.

Iceman (Taoth) took a surprising win against Woodrow (Iam Unsullied) game one without even using the nefarious Wyvern's Flames combo. The win involved Yeg-Iggryl's Altar killing Brakil twice via Severed of Flesh and hitting both shots on Iam. Then a natural and necessary '20' on a death throes from Taoth finished the Free Kingdoms Paladin. In game two Taoth had the combo and didn't stumble leading Iceman to yet another 2-0 win.

Onto the semifinals, Iceman (Taoth) and Innocentwrath (Raziel) got their game in as soon as their opponent was available. In these games, Raziel drew just the right options to consistently disrupt the combo from Taoth, and combined that with a little bit of luck to roll the Nothrog in two games just as he did in the Swiss rounds. And with that Innocentwrath moved on to await the winner of Wod (Stonefist Gargoyle) and Westley (Averisk Glyn) in the finals of the event!

You can find the VOD of the semi-finals match between Wod (Stonefist) and Westley (Averisk) at twitch.tv/nirvanatool with commentary by Woodrow and NirvanaTool. There was a slight issue with the video due to internet speeds, but the audio came through fine and it's easy to keep track of the action.

To briefly recap the match, Averisk won a tight game one against Stonefist after failing a crucial scribe check. The second game saw Averisk fail to hit a 22AC with a scribed Conjure Storm and have his army punched to death a couple of turns later. And then in the deciding game, a miraculous Meet at the Inn from a nearly depleted Elf army led to a chain of draws that gave Averisk the keys to victory and he took the match 2-1 to proceed to the finals against Innocentwrath.

The VOD for the finals can be found at twitch.tv/slugman360. Initially there was quite a bit of video delay due to internet speed and having three webcams going but we turned them off shortly after the 9 minute mark and video was fine after that.

Game one was a great start for Raziel as a third Isadra joined the second rank and a Tzin's Attention sniped one of Averisk's starting Nelwys. Averisk, light on cards in hand and in danger of falling forward, spun the wheel with Blood Price looking for his one out in Conjure Storm. And somewhere in the top 9 cards fate dictated that he find exactly the Conjure Storm. Innocentwrath missed the line of blanking one of the Nelwys. So on Averisk's next action, his army beaten and bruised with no other path to victory available, he pulled the trigger on two +6 ranged strikes for a total of three wounds against Raziel's medium 14AC. Averisk needed to hit not just one, but both of these strikes or he wouldn't survive the following turn. He proceeded to roll a '12' and a '19' to snatch game one away from Raziel's dominating position!

Game two started with a pitch from Raziel hitting a crucial Blood Price out of Averisk's hand and killing an Adinia with one of the Isadra shots. But Averisk once again had his best scribe target in Conjure Storm. However, this time around, Raziel hit him with a timely Exhaustion which delayed the kill shot from the scribed Spend Order. On Raziel's action Nelwys failed a will save from Tzin's Attention and Averisk's Nelwys count went down to one. Turn two initiative looked to be very crucial. If Averisk won he could Conjure Storm targeting Raziel for two +6's for three wounds total - the exact same scenario as game one - and if Raziel won he could pitch a card, react with Isadra, and shoot the lone Nelwys in Averisk's second rank falling the Rogue/Wizard forward. Raziel only rolled a '5' for initiative but Averisk did even worse with a '4'. Raziel pitched a Devourer and took his likely game-winning shot on Nelwys but rolled a '7', just 2 off of a hit. The second Isadra took down a Jackals of Mourn with an even roll. Averisk equipped Unseen Arrow. Raziel remembered to blank the Nelwys this time around. And on the next action Averisk went for it with Conjure Storm and Unseen Arrow. He killed his own front rank character with a +10 from Conjure Storm, then rolled an '13'+6 to put one wound on Raziel, and with an Unseen Arrow buffed Averisk react rolled an '11' to secure the win and become the first ever Warlord Saga of the Storm Online World Champion!

• Outro

On the home page of this site you will see a little section called the "Hall of Legends". Henceforth, we will immortalize our GenCon Champion and Online World Champion each year in that space. Something to keep in mind as you compete in future events, you too could become legend!

We felt that this event ran pretty smoothly. A lot of swag was handed out, a lot of participants were involved, and a lot of fun was had. We will try to improve the ability to provide live coverage of matches both on the technical and talent side of the streams. We expect growing in this area to be a slow process as nobody has prior experience, but we are committed to improving!

Lastly, the Guardians of the Storm would like to congratulate Westley on winning the 2020 Warlord Online Ancients World Championship! Congratulations also to Innocentwrath on battling all the way to the finals and the rest of the Top 8 competitors as well! And thanks, as always, to everyone who participated in this historic event! 2020 has had its ups and its downs (mostly downs), but the increase in Warlord online activity has been a joy to behold and participate in. Here's to many more!