By Factor

Orian "orian" Gissler repeats as WCQ winner for the second straight month, and his deck this time around is another original creation. Let's see what he has to say, shall we?

FACTOR: It's your second win in a row! That hasn't happened since Ellington's run late last year and early this year. How did you do it? Are you picking yourself to win the Online World Championship in October?

ORIAN: Again, thanks to everybody for their support, and thank you, Steve, for taking time to correct my language mistakes. About this interview, I thought I could have talked about my private life, but it looks like it is still serious. Oh well... Let's see. I don't think that my second win is somehow comparable to Ellington's victories, because there were more players in the events he played in, and he was winning so easily! I won by playing the deck again and again in the two weeks before the WCQ, until I knew what I should do against every other deck. I won by finding motivation, too, because after the initial loss and severe headache, I was pretty sure I would not do it this time.

My friend Louve told me to win the other games and so I did it - it was really simple. She also thinks that I will win the World Championships. That's why I think I'll do it!!!

FACTOR: This deck has become known as the "orian engine". This time you paired the discarding with an Orc corruption shadow. Please explain how this new version works, including bidding strategy and site selection. How many Free Peoples and Shadow wins were there? How many Shadow wins were by corruption?

ORIAN: This deck was not the orian engine, which is based on Mellon discarding, but a very strong discarding deck designed by Reed Mascola, with both the Free Peoples and the Shadow side achieving the same goal. The Free Peoples side was there to discard, discard and discard again - and survive, of course!

The shadow is very synergistic with swarming, corruption and discarding victories possible. I always had to pick one victory condition very early in the game - that was the key. I won twice by corrupting, twice by discarding, and once by swarming. The one game I lost was on a swarming mistake, but it should have been a swarming victory too. Unforgiving depths/Courtyard Parapet was the key of the deck, I think. I won't explain my playing strategies for this deck, but more or less, it is very important to make your opponent believe that you're going to kill him by corruption if you want to discard, discarding if you plan to swarm, and so on. That weakens his defenses very much, as proved by my game against Inger for example (he lost something like 24 cards to keep Watch and Wait in play, and then lost to The Beckoning Shadow)

FACTOR: There were a couple other corruption decks in the top 8 after a long, long absence. Is the pendulum swinging back the other way now that people aren't packing burden removal?

ORIAN: I think that the success of corruption decks is a consequence of Free Peoples sides being smaller and smaller, and more and more dedicated to focusing on the most important points of the deck - Rangers discarding minions, Eowyn wounding as much as possible... many many permanent cards, fewer events - This is too big a weakness.

In my opinion, that's the reason why you don't see those little cards dedicated to fight corruption more efficiently (Scroll of Isildur, Phial of Galadriel, Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom...). This really is only my brief thoughts here, just because you asked me. I haven't seen the top eight decklists yet, and I suppose some of the top 8 players were playing burden removal packs with Watch and Wait, for example. (at least Inger and Bodders were).

FACTOR: You lost a game. Tell me what happened there. Was that the toughest matchup of the tournament?

ORIAN: Well, I was playing against Silver's running elves, which should have been an easy match for me, especially given that his Shadow was pretty much doing nothing to me. I planned on corrupting him first, but given that he played a lot of companions early, I had to change my mind and pull off a swarm around site 6. The first mistake of mine was not to have planned this earlier.

I made a final mistake during the swarm at site 9 - ending up with 8 minions and 3 Abiding Evils in hand (there were something like 4 burdens, I think), instead of the 9 minions and 2 Abiding Evils planned (against 9 companions).

Well, I am not sure if I could have won, but obviously I didn't deserve it anyway. I made many mistakes during this game, especially while playing my Free Peoples side and choosing the sites! I was very happy to leave it to Silver, who finally gave elves their top eight!

FACTOR: How would someone beat this version of your deck?

ORIAN: Any deck that runs burden removal consistently will most certainly win. I'm just happy I didn't play against any of them. During preparations, I had something like a 75% loss rate to Ring-bound Hobbitses, for example ;-)

Given the evolution of the meta, I wouldn't advise anybody to play this deck next month, or perhaps I am bluffing already ^^

Oh, to answer the question, Louve says that if I am playing against you, you cannot win. That will be my last word. Be prepared :-)

FACTOR: Thanks, Orian!

Ring-bearer and One Ring
Frodo, Resolute Hobbit
The One Ring, The Ring of Doom

Free Peoples (35)
1 Aragorn, Strider
1 Gandalf, Leader of Men
1 Gondorian Prowler
1 Madril, Defender of Osgiliath
1 Smeagol, Hurried Guide
2 The Palantir of Orthanc, Recovered Seeing Stone
1 Elendil, The Tall
1 Garrison of Gondor
1 Derufin
4 No Safe Places
4 Duality
4 Drawing His Eye
2 Terrible and Evil
4 Traveled Leader
1 Duty of Two
4 Ithilien Blade
2 Aragorn's Bow, Ranger's Longbow

Shadow (35)
3 Unforgiving Depths
2 The Beckoning Shadow
4 Goblin Hordes
4 Bound to its Fate
2 Dread and Despair
3 Abiding Evil
4 Gorbag, Filthy Rebel
4 Isengard Underling
4 Orc Tormentor
4 Orkish Smith
1 Mountain-troll

Adventure Path (9)
1 Abandoned Mine Shaft
1 Breeding pit of Isengard
1 Cavern Entrance
1 Courtyard Parapet
1 Moria Guardroom
1 Mount Doom
1 Pelennor Flat
1 Watch-tower of Cirith Ungol
1 West Gate of Moria

-Factor