Light and Shadow

Deck: Austinlock
It's always a crazy match when you use every card you have, and this was no exception. The game started off slow. I played a few cards, and was confused as to why this golden priest Adilio wasn't really reacting to my attacks. Eventually, though, he joined the fight.

The first crazy thing happened when he played Confessor Paletress... without playing his hero ability (he was only on Mana level 7). But I could when I Faceless Manipulated her! Mine summoned Sylvanus. He killed my Paletress and summoned Chillmaw. This was perfect for me! With my Dreadsteed's help, I was able to kill Chillmaw, and Sylvanus took his Paletress! By inspiring her, I was able to summon none other than Deathwing!

Unfortunately, he used Lightbomb, which killed basically everyone, and I was back to square one. But the fight was just beginning. Soon, he played Ysera. I was down on health because of my Lifetap ability, but Reno came in to save the day and bring me back to full health. It took several turns to kill Ysera, and in the meantime, for some stupid reason, he used Dream on Reno! That would prove to mess him up later. I still don't know why he did it.

The next crazy thing happened when Adilio played a Summoning Stone. A couple of good spells annoyed me, but I had board control and pressed on. Then, the unthinkable happened: He casted Mind Control on a Floating Watcher! This summoned Deathwing. Fortunately, I just happened to draw my Soul Siphon the next turn, and soon he and the Summoning Stone were gone.

Time was running out, and I was running out of cards. Soon, fatigue started hurting me as he played card after card. It was now or never, so I transformed into Lord Jaraxxus. I had to use my Blood Fury several times to remove minions, but luckily, Reno was able to come in for a second chance at making me "rich"! I bet the smag feels pretty dumb now! I was able to land board control at last, and my Infernals being summoned each turn were able to handle anything he threw at me—but that wasn't going to last forever; fatigue was quickly getting my health down!

My Death Pact healed me for 5 health, and I barely held on as I tried to finish him off. At last, he only had one card. I removed a 6/6 minion of his and hit him with everything I had... and realized I missed lethal! He only had 3 life left, and my infernal could have killed him instead of his minion. Oh wellWHAT?! RENO?! He played Reno, restoring himself up to full health! I could have had it all!

But wait. All he had besides Reno was a Dreadsteed he had stolen from me earlier. And my fatigue wasn't about to kill me yet. I removed Reno and hit him for 17 damage. All I needed was one more chance. What was my fatigue at now, in addition to his Dreadsteed's damage? He made his move and ended his turn. I had 7 life left. Would I live?

...Yes! The fatigue did 6 damage to me. I barely made it out alive. With glee, I unleashed my onslaught onto his face, pummeling his sorry golden butt into the slimy Naxxramus floor.

I shouldn't have won, but boy, did I. I guess that goes to show that being gold doesn't mean everything. Also, why would you be playing your gold character in constructed anyway? You're done! You have the wins for your gold portrait already, and all of the experience you need for gold cards. Whatever.

Austinlock wins again!

Some Highlights

This was the most unfair fight I've ever come up against. I know this is the most brilliant screenshot ever due to the Twisting Nether I had in my hand, but it just duplicated a Molten Giant and sealed my doom again. Echo of Medivh is super unfair if you can play two Molten Giants, copy them, and then play them all in one turn.

This was a glorious victory, and a very lucky one at that. A Golden Warlock faced me, and threw all kinds of golden junk at me—a golden Alextrasza, a golden Mekgineer Thermaplugg, and even a Golden Jaraxxus. I couldn't believe how much this sap had spent on Hearthstone. Somehow I stayed ahead, and even stole his Golden Jaraxxus.

Amazingly, the game finished with both of us facing each other as Jaraxxus. I attacked with Loatheb and my Sky Golem, as well as my own weapon, getting him down to 1. Knowing that he would kill me the next turn, I shrunk his Black Knight, which allowed me to Shadow Madness it and ram it into him for an insanely glorious Golden finish!

Manipulating the Forces of Good and Evil

Deck: Jester

I have a hilarious new Naxx- and GvG-specced crazy deck, and it done killed me a Handlock! My first move was a Mind Vision that revealed a Twilight Drake, so I knew what I was up against. I put down two Annoy-O-Bots, and did a Mind Games that gave me a Molten Giant! He countered with a Mountain Giant, but it took him a long time to bash through two annoy-o-bots! In the meantime, I put down a Lightwell and did a Thoughtsteal, which got me a Golden Mal'ganis! I kept stalling, using my Black Knight to break through a Twilight Drake taunt barricade, and generally sparring with him. I also activated Shadow Form, because he still hadn't killed my Lightwell, which kept healing my units (I don't think he had gotten a hit out of me to this point).

Eventually, he pulled out Alextrasza and got me down to 15, but I didn't really care. I played Mal'Ganis! Unfortunately, he was immediately Soul Siphoned, but that didn't matter, because my second Mind Vision got another Mal'ganis! That meant that he was in the warlock's hand. I kept battling giants while he kept having to deal with my powerful reality-altering spells and minions.

I played another Mal'ganis, and he was forced to kill off all of his minions just to clear it. Then he played his own! Then I Mind Controlled his Mal'ganis! (Which wasn't gold, I might add, so looked lackluster in comparison to the ones I had played). The poor, poor fool drew a couple more cards, then conceded ignominiously. My cardful of tricks had bested him.

Fear the Swarm

Deck: The Meek Shall Inherit

I was sent with an interesting quest: To summon 40 minions that were low-mana cost. I played with my normal minion armies, but this didn't help me get too many, so I decided to assemble an army of just low-mana cost minions. I knew that I would probably not win too many matches, but my quest didn't require me to win, just summon.
I came across a mage and rolled my eyes, knowing that she would just use her powerful AoE attacks to destroy any minions on the board. But I attacked with my onslaught anyway. I began with a knife juggler, hoping that he would do significant damage with all of the other minions I summoned, but he was soon killed. In the spell that the mage used to kill that one minion, however, my minions grew exponentially every round. Each turn I played more, Life Tapping myself to get more in reserve. The time came when the mage used an arcane explosion to kill off an entire board, but I just kept playing. Even her Frost Armor spell wasn't enough just out of the sheer numbers of enemies.
I had only got her down by 8 or 9 hitpoints when I had seven minions on the battlefield, and was wondering how everything was going to play out, when to my astonishment, the mage conceded the victory to me!
Truly, fear is a factor of battle. I look forward to the day when I have a murloc army to try this type of battle out again.