The weekend following Friday 13 in May was event-filled: a Fireside Gathering, Eurovision and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘live’ celebration of Ol’ Bill’s 400th death anniversary.
The Guild hosted the Fireside Gathering where we played Hearthstone (Blizzard’s online card game) in a restaurant-wide competition.
Entry cost $20 for which we received entry into the competition, a pizza and a drink. I opted for a vegetarian pizza without cheese. (Because cheese is poison. Or it makes me poisonous. Not sure which.) They topped up the veges to compensate for lack of cheese and it was so yummy that I ate the lot, even the crust. Oops.
Instead of sitting in the booths, The Guild set aside the other end of the restaurant where we sat at a long table. A father with a young child sat at another table where they took up more space and didn’t have to worry about people knocking things over. I giggled at the kid’s precociousness: ‘Well, are you going to play this game or what?’
My first game was against DanielFitzi who anonymously sat at another table. I wheeled out my mage deck first up against his priest. He played cards like THOUGHTSTEAL, which copies two cards from my deck and places them in his hand. The problem with THOUGHTSTEAL is it’s unreliable: you’re playing Russian Roulette. I’ve used that card myself and, for example, received a card that buffed a weapon. I could not use or dispose of that card because I didn’t have a weapon. I was not impressed. I’ve gone off cards like that when I play my priest.
Daniel wasn’t as unlucky but it didn’t work as much in his favor as he might have liked. *cough* I won the first game.
The rules are that, once you’ve won with one class, you have to use a different class so, for part two of round one I played my priest deck against Daniel’s priest.
HAMMER TIME.
It was the second time my C’thun reached 38 attack — hammering Daniel’s minions and hero.
I took out round one 2–0.
Thanks to Ben, the Guild Master, I located Daniel — who was sitting behind me — and I shook his hand. He played well.
As everyone finished playing, we all chatted around the table.
In round two I played against SarcasticOne, who happened to be sitting next to me, much to his disappointment.
The reason he was disappointed?
I turned towards him while playing so I moved my glass.
I placed the glass on the join between tables. The tables aren’t quite the same height. The glass flopped onto the table, spewing its contents — nearly a full glass of cider — across the table, into SarcasticOne’s laptop and his lap.
He was a great sport. His only concern was that he’d told his partner he wouldn’t drink and, after my ‘gift’, he’d stink like a brewery and have EXPLANATIONS to make.
To give ‘credit’ where it’s due, I posted a confession on Facebook so he could show his partner.
You’d think, after this, that I’d be really nice and courteous in my playing.
Not so much.
*cough*
I won round two, 2–0.
(I should have made notes at the time so I could write more specifically. I’m going to investigate recordings so I can give a blow-by-blow of future competitions. I’m sure my asinine moves when I lose will entertain.)
At the end of Round Two, Ben announced that three people had a perfect score.
In a deep voice I said, ‘My apologies’.
Someone reminded me that I couldn’t use that emote anymore because Blizzard has replaced characters’ apologies with ‘Wow’, ‘Astounding’, ‘Amazing’ and other similar emotes. So, I guess I should have said, ‘As-tound-ing’.
In the final round I played WubWub, one of the other two players with a perfect score.
WubWub took my perfect score and shat all over it.
I lost 0–2.
WubWub came first!
WubWub left me in third place, determined to play my mage deck some more, the one I started playing the previous night. That’s right, I’d been playing a particular deck for less than 24 hours when I took it into a competition. Not too bright? That deck did better than any of the others I’ve been trialing. I haven’t got a handle on the new expansion yet. Give me a few more weeks… and a url or two to watch legendary players discussing their plays so I can learn from the best.
Nile challenged me to a friendly game. Mid-game Lucille asked me to pose with thumbs down while WubWub posed heroically. Sadly, WubWub was in a hurry so he left before I finished thrashing Nile, redeeming myself. Slightly.
I expect I’ll have many more opportunities hold my thumbs down to others’ winning poses.
Lucille was the photographer. Photos can be found on the Guild’s website and social media.
Lucille took a photo of me in 3rd place but I can’t find the Guild’s instagram account and it doesn’t seem to be on Facebook so I’ll just share Reload’s photo of me in 3rd place at THEIR tournament last month instead.
