If you want to use an assassin, you've got to play like an assassin.

Here's my tournament report for Friday of Gencon, and my road to 5-0. A lot of my games came down to precise moves and quick strikes. It felt very on-theme for Jericho. I had A LOT of fun, and I'm pretty sure that my opponents did, too.

The decklist can be found here:

https://ashes.live/decks/build/2012/

Match 1 was vs a Brennen player with nature and ceremonial. I was a little nervous about playing another aggressive deck with a 5 life disadvantage. I believe that my FF was Winds, Stallions, Spirits, Hand Tricks for build magic, and either Anchornaut or Archer. Brennen was forced to direct some damage to the board, to keep my units from completely overwhelming her more fragile. Re-Tool Magic and some ping was able to keep Brennan's board low. In the end, she was 2 damage short of finishing me off, before a got the killing swing in on the second turn (my first) of Round 3.

Match 2 was vs Jason Pete. He used a modified version of his Astrea deck that he used to win the Ashes International League. My FF was Winds, Stallions, Spirits, Hand Trick for build magic, and Hidden Power. He started Lion, Lioness, Admonisher, Psychic Vampire, and Hypno. His Vampire was tough to deal with. I got some Round 1 damage through because Astrea had to Guard for Lion with Jericho prepped to finish it off if it takes 2 wounds. I prepped an Illusion to deny his Hypno, so Jason used his Charm to buff up his units, letting Vampire survive to Round 2. Later in the game, Jason marked my Shadow Guard after a Kneel and my only means of survival was to Ceremonial recur my Anchornaut from discard and place it as a blocker to buy me some turns. The Anchornaut eventually killed my own units to trigger Chants and to bring out some Widows. It was a close, game and, after two big blunders that cancelled each other out, the game came down to whether or not Jason drew a second heal. The game ended in the first turn off Round 3.

Match 3 was vs another Astrea and a very similar build, piloted by Skylar. The biggest moment came when Skylar played Imperial Ninja to start the game, and my I killed it with Anchornaut/Re-Tool Magic before he got Devotion on it. It went down hill for Astrea from there, and the match ended with another big swing on my first turn off Round 3.

Match 4 was a hilarious match vs Brian Broughman. He played a Jericho with a similar core as mine. Even our FF was the same (I think). I started Winds, Stallions, Spirits, Hand Tricks for build magic, and Hidden Power. The main differences between our decks was that he had more Sympathy dice to include River Skald to remove big units, where my deck just swings wide. Ultimately, Skald was ineffective vs my swarm, which gave me an edge, and the match didn't last very far into Round 2.

Match 5 was not as exciting as I had hoped. I played vs the legendary Matt Bauers and his Harold deck, which uses Bear, Butterfly Monks, and Shadow Spirits with Nature/Illusion/Ceremonial. My FF was Winds, Stallions, Spirits, Hand Tricks (or Anchornaut?), and Hidden Power. Round 1I tried to deny him Nature dice with my Illusion. I got pretty lucky and drew 2 Fire Archers. He lead off with Battle Mage and then Mark > attacked my Stallions. Stallion counter and 2 Archers took out the Mage R1, and Matt's Battlefield never Stabilized. Him not focusing his Monks or Spirits made the game a lot easier for meme. He played defense all match, and couldn't attack. He was trying to outlast my deck, and it almost worked, as I took 3 draw damage before the game ended with a big attack in Round 4, followed by a finishing attack at the start of Round 5 with the units that survived his Nature dice slaughter.

I want to add that I ran out of my draw pile in 4 out of 5 games, which made every game ending very intense and fun!

I'm really excited to have gotten so far, and with my favorite deck! I love the game and players and had a lot of fun. I may add/edit this report as I'm sure that some important details have been left out. I hope you enjoyed the report!