Jhaelen, HomerJ, MotoBuzzsawMF and 9 others like this

This November, I headed out to Minnesota to play in Fantasy Flight's World Championships. I brought the latest version of my Cato's Heresy deck-- a fairly standard Marines composition with Tau allies. I made this choice based on three main factors:1. I had more familiarity with this deck than with any other going into the event, having played many games on OCTGN with something very like it.2. I consider Space Marines to have no significantly bad matchups. The worst matchup is probably with Eldar, and that matchup is far from horrible-- I suspect it's at least a 40-60.3. Space Marines were the least common opponent deck I encountered while testing on OCTGN, so I figured most players would be less familiar with them and vulnerable to all the nasty surprises that Space Marines can pull (Indomitable, Fury of Sicarius, Drop Pod Assault, Eager Recruit, etc.).As it turned out, my third point was very inaccurate. Space Marines proved to be the most common deck at Worlds, and by a significant margin! Indeed, a majority of my games ended up being mirror matches. I'm not entirely sure why the OCTGN meta would differ so significantly from what people were interested in person, but it was certainly a surprise for me. This meant that a few of my deck choices were probably nonoptimal-- c'est la vie, however!This game went to my advantage relatively quickly thanks to some good luck. My opponent got 2x Ork Kannon and 2x Catachan Outpost out fairly early in the game, but I was able to beat him on command thanks to consistently drawing into the shields I needed to protect my 1 HP capping units from his Kannons. I do feel that Space Marines tend to have the advantage over Orks, but I had very fortunate draws to boot.This was the first of many SM mirror matches. Like most of my opponents, this player had Tau allies. I don't remember too many details of this game, unfortunately, but I ended up winning.This was a very close and good game. I managed to gain the advantage on my opponent's by sending Sicarius on his own against a first planet guarded only by Dark Eldar units (so my opponent would be unable to play relevant cards with Gift of Isha), allowing me to potentially win with the next battle. However, my opponent had the tricks that he needed to beat me in that fight, with 2x Archon's Terror and 2x Gift of Isha-- to make matters worse, he had a Doom to take out my retreating units. After losing that battle, I was at a distinct disadvantage. My hope was that my opponent had run out of tricks and I would be able to pull out a win on planet seven, but it wasn't to be.This was the fastest and craziest of any of the mirror matches that I played, both in terms of game speed and in terms of aggressiveness from both sides. I ended up coming out on top, but it could have gone either way. Despite this game taking five turns to conclude, we were done 20 minutes or more before the end of the round!I was able to gain a quick advantage in this game. My opponent ended up conceding on turn three, when it became apparent that I was going to win on turn four.With that performance, I made the cut to top sixteen-- anyone with 5-1 or better had made it, while some 4-2s made it based on strength of schedule. My own strength of schedule was not great-- my round one opponent had dropped, and while the Eldar player who beat me in the top three had made the cut, I don't think any of my other opponents did. This put me roughly in the middle of the pack, with the lowest seed of the 5-1s.I was surprised to find that many Dark Eldar players had made it to the top sixteen-- surprised but pleased, since Eldar is my worst matchup and Dark Eldar has a significant advantage against Eldar but an even match at best against Marines. Indeed, most (perhaps all?) of the Eldar players in the top sixteen were taken out by Dark Eldar in the first round, which I considered a somewhat lucky break. On to the top 16!I managed to bloody my opponent's Warlord relatively early in this game, then threatened to kill him in the final battle. Ultimately I was able to accomplish this thanks to a Land Raider, which prevented my opponent from using Sicarius's Chosen to pull away my Vior'la Marksman with Ion Rifle. While I let my opponent take his move back, he didn't have any other answers to the Marksman, and since he had to commit his Warlord there to avoid losing the game at that planet, that was it.This game was against the #1 seed after Swiss, who (like many in the top 16) was playing Dark Eldar. Early on, my opponent gained the advantage in command, but I realized that most of his winnings favored resources rather than cards. Ultimately, I accepted my opponent's dominance in resources and focused on taking cards instead. This strategy ended up paying off-- by the end of the game, my opponent had over 20 resources (we actually stopped counting) but didn't have enough cards to take advantage of it. On turn seven, he did get a Haemonculus Tormentor out, allowing him to potentially take advantage of the resource surplus, but it was too late-- I had a gigantic army massing on the seventh planet, with perhaps twenty units all waiting for the final battle, and my opponent conceded.This game was broadcast on stream by Fantasy Flight Games. The key moment here was when my opponent needed to win a battle at Iridial in order to heal his Warlord, who had sustained significant damage in an early battle. However, he made an error in deploying an important combat unit (IIRC a Baleful Mandrake) to a different planet, allowing me to snipe the first planet and prevent him from healing. With that, I had a strong advantage going into the rest of the game.This was one of the closest and most intense games I've ever played. The game went for all seven turns, and both of us had significant moments of good and bad luck-- most notably, Jeremy sniped my Exterminatus out of a seven-card hand with Barlus's random discard, but later missed completely on a crucial Drop Pod Assault. As we moved into the endgame, I had the advantage, managing to snipe one of the key planets Jeremy needed in order to win prior to turn seven. I then started focusing on the last planet, having realized that Jeremy was probably not playing Exterminatus himself. This strategy paid off when I won a major battle there on turn five, putting me in a strong position for the endgame.However, on turn six Jeremy sent in a Daring Assault Squad, which would be able to devastate my low-HP forces. I didn't have the Sicarius's Chosen that I needed to counter it, putting me in a tough position. My only hope was to send my Warlord to the first planet, stealing the 2 cards there and hopefully drawing into a Drop Pod Assault, which would potentially allow me to negate the Assault Squad. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pull a Drop Pod, and Jeremy's Assault Squad indeed wiped out many of my units on the last planet. I had a slight chance if I could draw some killer combat units to send there for turn 7, but it wasn't to be, and I conceded after seeing my initial draw to avoid drawing out the game.All in all, this was one of the best games of Conquest I've seen or played in. It came down to the last cards and the last turns, and I was happy to be able to give the audience such a great show for the conclusion of the tournament. One note here is that some people have complained about Jeremy playing slowly or "stalling" in this game. My impression was not at all that Jeremy was stalling, and while he was playing somewhat slowly, this struck me as altogether reasonable given that it was an extremely close game-- not to mention one being played for the World Championship!Overall, FFG put on a great event and I was happy both to play in it and to make it as far as I did. Special thanks go to:-The FFG staff for making a great game and putting on a great event.-Jeremy Zwirn for one of the best Conquest games I've ever played.-Tallassarian Tempest Blade. That thing owns.I hope to return to Worlds next year-- with luck, I'll manage to make it to the final table once again! Thanks for reading and good luck out there-- and remember, cards > resources