What to Expect in the LoN CQ
Posted: 4-23-2008
The next Legends of Norrath Championship Qualifier is coming up this weekend. It can be an intimidating thought if you don't know what to expect, but it's a great way to test out your card gaming skills against the best the game has to offer for some meaningful cash prizes.
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Don't make any plans for the day
The tournament will start at 1 pm eastern time. The tournament will be at least 7 rounds and will possibly run 8 rounds. Each match is the best two out of three with a 1 hour time limit per round. While the rounds will rarely run all the way to the time limit, they will often come very close so you can expect to put in between 7 and 8 hours if you plan on playing all 7 or 8 rounds.
Do make plans for between rounds
Unless you play at a deliberate pace or are playing a very slow deck, you will very often have quite a bit of time between rounds. At live TCG events, this is a perfect time for chatting with your buddies about how the tournament is going. Many people will hang out in the tourney lobby between rounds for chatting, but it's a good idea to get up and walk around a little bit.
Do Expect a Higher Level of Competition
While the prizes in this event aren't anything to quit your day job for, they are also not insignificant. When you also consider that the winner gets one of 32 spots in the $100,000 final at GenCon in a couple months, there is definitely more incentive to win these tournaments than any others. People will be doing whatever it takes to win. They will be playing their best deck and playing it as well as they can.
The Decks to Expect
Depravity based Shadow Priest decks are very powerful right now. Based on filling their ability row with Shadow abilities to max out the damage from the signature card, these decks can deal a lot of damage seemingly out of nowhere. They range from rush decks with Depravity as an extra source of damage to borderline combo decks that almost look for one turn kills. Other cards you will see in almost every iteration of this deck are Heresy and Cannibalize.
Infinite raid decks are also very popular. There are several ways to initiate infinite raids in one turn right now. These decks will try to build up a group of units that allows them to initiate as many raids from one quest as it takes to win in one turn. Cards that can produce runes at the beginning of every combat like Guard of Piety and Turtle Skin can help shut these decks down. The Ogre avatar that pings opposing units when it loses combat and Arachnid Fur Necklace can help shut down some of these decks as well.
Fighter and Scout unit rush/AvA hybrids are also likely to be popular. These decks start as unit rush and then add Avatar vs. Avatar mid-game to finish off opponents. They can be difficult to defend against because you have to be able to stop attacks from units and the opposing avatar.
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