Metafiction - n.

• fiction in which the author self-consciously parodies or departs from novelistic conventions

• a serial article publication by J.C.Fejer that takes slices, dices and splices the WoW TCG's ever fluctuating meta-game and passes comedic thought on what has transpired over the prior week.

Aloha!

It's been a long time. Too long some might argue, or perhaps not long enough for others. Alas, the Internet, I am back with more ideas, more off-beat metagames analysis and a few crazy ideas and plays that might just bring you a premier level event crown. Or a McPlayset™ of EAs you are unlikely to ever deck, who quite knows.

So, first order of business. This weekend as the majority of readers will be aware there are eight super awesome tournaments transpiring that will define the metagames for two to three weeks, four at a push. I am of course being somewhat whimsical, as we already know that only three of these of tournaments are going to have their Top 8s closely analyzed, and that even then the great European and Australian dynasties will net, twist and shake whatever erupts from them the following week in our own series of Realm Championships, chewing them up and spitting them back out again in a plethora of Paladin decks.

I am still jesting, needless to say. But the fact remains that when you have a continent's top players spread out across eight tournaments, a thorough ‘Top 8' breakdown is going to be nigh impossible. The CheatyFace camp might storm to victory at their tournament with Voidfire Wands all ablaze, yet Team East Coast could trash Pennsylvania with Mortal Strikes envisioned weeks before the tournament, Los Angeles could see a wave of Elendril decks plucking out fur hairs from Telrander's back, and that's before you even begin to think whether the Canadian players will bring 16 quests between them to New York*. How all this information will be collated and filter through to everyone else is anybody's guess (mine is that the Kingpin will write an article or two on it), but in all likelihood it is unlikely that the US realms will have any impact on their EU counterparts and that the true impact of the tournaments will be felt in Lyons . A day is a long time in politics, and a week a long time at college, but in the TCG world unless a truly inspirational deck ala Pagorek storms to the top it is unlikely that a deck (or decks) will storm to the top when the Premier level tournament is split over eight TOs and sites, with some unlikely to upload a Top 8 in a timely fashion (I could be wrong here, but this is purely from my own experience). At any rate, a player taking one of those decks is unlikely to have the time to practise with that deck sufficiently in order to ensure total familiarity.

So, what are the solid facts about the Realm Championship? There are two, in my eyes. People will be playing Runetusk. I'm not going to discuss this in depth because everybody else has, but if you don't know how to play against or with it, I hope you like side events (I recommend the drafts). I don't think that it will weather the storm of hate coming its way and that it'll do a Bulkas and tank out of the top spots, but people will be playing it and sometimes the hands play themselves.

The other thing to bear in mind is the most important statistic to come out of Stuttgart . If you saw my pie chart**, you'll know that 66% of the field was Horde. 66% of those Horde decks may or may not have been using Doshura Risestrider, Tatulla the Reclaimer, Vexmaster Nar'jo, Ras'fari Bloodfrenzy and Gamon. Ok, so not every deck can find a use for Gamon****, but the multi-purpose applications of the others mean that any Horde deck is liable to run them. Take the Kil'zin of the Bloodscalp deck piloted by Henriette Kauntz to a 5-0 constructed top floor berth. Clearly based upon Sleigh from that other card game, it has a playset of Vexmaster Nar'jo in its side deck. The ploy? Side them in against other aggro decks to ensure field advantage. Jeremie Tiano took it a step further, his Desecrator Stormclaw deck had Nar'jo main deck with Ras'fari and Doshura in the side-deck. The effectiveness of such tactica aside, the answer to the duality is Greatsword of Horrid Dreams*** and having your own direct removal where applicable. A lot of players, those that like to hang out at 3/3, will run these cards as their exclusive removal. You nuke their removal, you win the game and still have time to knit them a hat. It's not the only answer, but you have to assume that players will have answers to these types of removal and if you don't have access to cards like Puncture or The Natural Order, you might have to run off beat cards such as Shattering Blow in order to get around the nullification.

I'm going to close this week with my pick for the three archetypes likely to make a strong showing across North America. This is based off of 0 playtesting, as I've been entangled with a ton of college assignments (and this is why my Into the Jetstream series disappeared). The first is the afore mentioned Runetusk and is self explanatory. The second is Jonas Skali's Lionar the Blood Cursed, anyone who has done some serious testing will know that this deck would have gone 7-1 or 8-0 given a pure constructed event and in Jonas' very capable hands. It is a beast and can be tweaked to make Bloodtusk slightly more favorable. The third is Daspien, Erik van der Laan and others expected it to dominate the top tables in Stuttgart , perhaps it will this weekend.

Finally, I bring you my new series of comments that are the fictional facts. They are entirely ironic*****, and should only be seen to poke fun at the community.

Fictional Fact - Europeans are better than Americans, and Americans are better than Europeans

* Of course I have no idea what any of these guys are running, although I have it on good knowledge that Charles McArthur won't have a druid deckbox with Dwarf Warrior tokens.

**Ok so I blatantly borrowed that from Tommi, the editor for warcraft-tcg.de. But I still had to translate it!!!

***I heard he's particularly useful in Bluffwatcher decks.

****Yes, even a Form of the Serpent clad Druid can use it!

*****What isn't that I write?