Howdy friends! This article is a tournament report from the 2025 Tacoma Open Grand Clash, as well as a follow-up to the Emberwatch x Blazing Assault/Wrack & Ruin deck guide I posted recently. If that deck/pairing interested you, here’s how it performed live in competition. Long story short, it did pretty well going 6-1 (13-2), earned second place and qualified for a Worlds ticket, and had I been a little smarter might even have gone 7-0.

Click here to check out other Deck Builds/Love Letters on Spent Glory

As an overview of the field, we had 14 registered players for two games of matches, using the Warhammer Open version of Swiss pairings throughout. No top cut or brackets, just win-path matchups without repeat opponents. There were three Jaws of Itzl, three Emberwatch, two Morgok’s Krushas, and one apiece for Mollog’s Mob, Zikkit’s Tunnelpack, Grymwatch, Grandfather’s Gardeners, Knives of the Crone, and Thundrik’s Profiteers. Two of the competitors had invites to Worlds already, and another qualified for Worlds last year. I went down to T-Town with three of my teammates, in hopes that we’d have a good time, recruit a few passers-by, and maybe even win a few matches ourselves.

For those who haven’t seen it or want a refresher, here’s the deck I used for this event

Round 1: Clint Levitski’s Zikkit’s Tunnelpack with ES/PP

Unfortunately for Clint, I have a lot of experience into Zikkit’s Tunnelpack, including once while playing with my tournament deck. Both games I was able to slay Rittak in the first round, and otherwise focused on removing his fighters from tokens or blocking them off to slow down his scoring potential. He had some bad dice luck and couldn’t overcome the sheer accuracy of my starting hands both games, and things went downhill for him pretty quickly.

Fortunately, immediately after we finished our game, we learned that Clint was picked for the painting showcase which was well deserved and cool to see, and a nice pick-me-up after he “had to sit down across from somebody with a team jersey for (his) first tournament game ever”. We had already packed up our stuff so I don’t have more than this in-game photo, but the green on those rats was really smooth. Clint went on to have better success in his subsequent matches too, and I hope I’ll see him again next year!

Clint actually runs a YouTube channel called Millennial Sage Of Plastic and has a video recap of his experience which you can view here if you’re interested in his take!

Result: Emberwatch win 2-0, +25 (17-3, 16-5)

Round 2: Johnathan Perkins’ Emberwatch with BA/PP

A mirror match! Close enough, anyway. Obviously, you want to win as many matches as you can, but I was extra keen on this one because I was angling for the ‘Best Emberwatch’ award at the end, and winning a head-to-head would make that more likely. It ends up they didn’t give out best in faction awards this year, but we didn’t know that at the time!

Johnathan deployed pretty aggressively both games, putting his Ardorn into the mix early which allowed me to take him down before he became too much of a threat. I also got pretty fortunate in both games to keep Farasa out of my territory and prevent her from inspiring too early, so her two shields couldn’t deter me too much either. My dice were better than average, and I put him in the awkward position of having to either run away to focus on objectives, or try to swing for the fences and overcome my aggro advantage. He opted for outnumbered combat, but at that point we were fighting on my terms. I will say though, he definitively earned the title of Best Yurik, since that boy just wouldn’t die.

Result: Emberwatch (mine, the teal ones) win 2-0, +17 (17-10, 19-9)

Round 3: Andrew Mittelstaedt’s Molog’s Mob with RF/RR

Dag nabbit, this guy again. After dominating me at LVO, my teammate gets to fight me once more at the top table. In our practice matches I was 4-2 with these pairings, but what you might not know is we have longstanding pair of superstitions; Andrew believes winning in practice means you’ll lose in competition, and I believe that no matter my practice record against him and my sizeable glory differential at home, he always, always wins when it counts.

Today, it counted. He won the first game, raiding at will and scoring for hitting attacks, and my dice couldn’t take out his minions fast enough to avoid the flanked and surrounded nightmare. In the second game I did better at killing his minions, and managed to slay Mollog with the final activation to win by 1 glory. On to the third game, where I lost at the very end because I made a pretty stupid mistake. I had just shot Mollog and put him 2 damage away from slain, and had the option to drive him back toward the corner and/or duelist with Ardorn. I opted not to do either so he couldn’t attack me, without factoring in the math that he couldn’t actually kill my leader with the remaining activations. That left him free to run away outside of my melee charge range, score another objective, and prevent me scooping up 4 bounty for taking out the troll. Ah well, some things just aren’t meant to be.

Result: Emberwatch lose 1-2, -10 (14-22, 15-14, 12-15)

Round 4: Robert Bergman’s Grymwatch with BA/Edge

Absolutely not the pairing I expected to see with these guys, but Grymwatch are never to be counted out. Robert still had a frighteningly efficient glory machine even without PP or CC, and had the ability to be anywhere he wanted to be and score for standing around while also threatening me at every step. I opted to blitz the Duke rather than try to be cagey and counterplay, and barely got away with it. Ardorn was slain both games, (but after he got the Duke!) so I could stop resurrections and slow down the inspiration, but despite that I had a devil of a time staying alive and scoring at the same time, while he scored virtually regardless of what he did. The first game I scraped out a win with an incredibly fortunate 3rd round branching fate to draw into another surge to draw into a scorable end phase – had that not happened I would be looking at a loss. Our second game actually went to tiebreaker, but Alone I Stand let me sidle onto a Treasure token to seal it… just as planned?

Edge is good, y’all. Give it a try.

Result: Emberwatch win 2-0 +5 (20-15, 17-17 on tiebreakers)

Round 5: Brain Green’s Jaws of Itzl with BA/CC

Brian is a longtime buddy of mine, and we have been playing Underworlds since 2017 together. This is actually the first we have played one another in a Grand Clash! Baja Brian is well known in the Puget Sound for being an all aggro all the time kinda guy, and as such he’s bullrushing me with Jaws. Both of us went into this match 3-1, and we knew the winner had a decent shot at the podium – so while it stinks to fight a teammate, at least one of us would help the other one out if we lost.

I was able to avoid letting him inspire, focusing on ranged attacks until I was equipped with cleave, flanking fighters, or plus dice to make sure not to get bitten back with melee. Brian both games had atrocious dice (a common problem for him, unfortunately) and I played keep away pretty effectively. Raptors of Sigmar handled Kro-Jax both games, and while he got his own kills, it was too late and he had to sacrifice positioning to do so allowing me to score my end phases. I am pretty lucky to have faced Brian here and talk through things with a teammate, because I was about to take on two more Jaws players in this final day and being able to discuss what worked and what I could change gave me a good edge heading into those matchups.

Result: Emberwatch win 2-0 +12 (15-10, 17-10)

Round 6: Yury Romanov’s Jaws of Itzl with CC/WnR

I have played Cata + Wrack myself more than any other pairing, so I know largely what it can do. I’ve never seen it played with Jaws though, and the prospect of facing a Worlds-qualified player (who made the top cut last year at the Championships) was daunting, especially knowing he could ping to inspire pretty easily. I also knew that if I was going to score Alone in the Dark or Stay Close, he was too, so I would have to both counterplay Cataclysm stuff like Set Explosives, Shocking Assault, etc AND outpace him in kill bounty.

Fortunately, I lost the roll off both games, so I got three tokens for board placement and could make 2 in his territory and 2 in neutral to make life more difficult. I could then play keep away to force him into multiple focus actions. I got lucky against the pings, somehow survived a Kro-Jax multi attack round, and came away, disbelieving, with a 2-0 win. I was able to end adjacent to my own fighters until I was holding Alone in the Dark, and stand in edge hexes until I was holding Stay Close, which conveniently blocked his scores of both during both games. Yurik’s 4 range, driving back his fighters to prevent charges, kept me alive for longer and was a huge difference maker.

I think key to my win was Yury mis-deploying So-Kar closer than Ro-Tak, so once I drove him back with that long range shot, he couldn’t charge with a spear to clap back, and I learned my lesson about Counter-Charge against Brian earlier that day and was able to slow him down just enough to weather the storm.

Result: Emberwatch win 2-0 +11 (20-14, 18-13)

Round 7: Damian Scoczyk’s Jaws of Itzl with BA/RF

The final round came, with Damian – a prior Tacoma Open winner, multi-time Tacoma Open podium finisher, multi-time World Championships competitor (once landing in the top 8) facing off against me with some pretty high stakes. Last year we played each other in the first round, and this year we met in the final round – both times with me taking some shooty Stormcast against his full invasive aggro. Damian had just scraped out a win against Brian (who once again, lost a winnable match because he missed 4+ attacks with 5+ dice). I was 5-1, and Damian was 4-2 but had better tiebreakers. That meant, effectively, the winner of our match would be taking second place in the Grand Clash. Andrew was pretty much out of reach at this point (though the Grymwatch did give him a very hard time in this final round) – but since he already had a ticket to worlds from LVO, we both knew that our own ticket to worlds was on the line. Win or go home. No pressure, right?

Fortunately for me, I had just had 4 good training games against Jaws, and have plenty of anti-BARF experience and tech built into my deck. Also fortunately for me, I won the roll off both times (which was the opposite ‘fortunate thing’ from my last match), but knowing Damian wouldn’t be caring about token placement I was able to ‘longboard’ him with a 9 hex neutral territory both times. His starting hexes were further from mine, and I could push him back with ranged attacks if needed. Both games I was met with an early Commanding Stride out of Kro-Jax to get charged at, but otherwise was able to avoid combat for the first round. In game 1, Damian had to focus to get his movement cards to take the fight to me, and in game 2 he elected to make snake attacks to drive me into range of his lizards, which despite plus dice and cleave, miraculously failed. I also blocked a mystery card he never revealed (which I believe was Arena Mortis) with some sneaky teleports into the correct territories and Alone I Stand-ing where necessary.

I didn’t inspire any fighters either game as I was playing so defensively, but a win is a win. I think I got quite lucky with dice, card draw, and board orientation, because any of those things going differently could have spelled my doom. Damian was gracious enough to say I ‘put on a masterful performance’, but he’s being too polite. I hid like a coward and benefitted from a favorable matchup with more than a little bit of good fortune.

Result: Emberwatch win 2-0 +14 (15-12, 18-7)

Event Summary

What Was Cool

• The event featured no Zarbag’s Gitz. Nobody wants to play against that. Thank you to everybody for being chill and taking something more fun and individual.
• The event didn’t have anybody running Pillage/Cata. Ditto to the above.
• For the first time since I have been playing multi-day events, everybody returned for day 2. There were no drops, an even number of players the whole event, and everybody got to play ‘who they were supposed to’ and nobody ever had to take a bye. That’s awesome.
• Jon Barmore remains GOATed as a TO, and we’re so fortunate to have him on the Open circuit. He handled everything impartially, was incredibly prepared, communicated frequently and clearly about the schedule, and was all smiles.

What Could (Should?) Change

• Games Workshop Events use the weirdest tiebreakers. Tournament points (i.e. match wins) are appropriate as a primary placement tool if you’re not doing an elimination bracket. However, opponent win percentage is almost completely out of your control, and yet it was the first tiebreaker. This actually rewards people who win their matches 2-1, and punishes people who win their matches 2-0, which feels backward. Head to head record and and glory differential weren’t even considered. Game losses should be higher than anything else, and yet it was like the fourth tiebreaker. At the end of the event there was a legitimate chance for me to end up in first place over Andrew despite him beating me in our match, which shouldn’t be possible. Damian actually went from first to third last year due to this same flawed system.
  • I have proposed a ranking for Tournament Tiebreakers that I really wish somebody at GW corporate would think about. Our game is different than AoS and 40K and needs different tiebreakers, PLEASE
• We rolled off for each game instead of alternating board priority, because the tournament packet didn’t outline what was to be done and the rulebook doesn’t have a best of three stipulation. I honestly think this won me the match against Yury because I could force two tokens in both neutral and his territory both games, and Damian since I got to longboard him twice. I’d love to see the ‘both players get a turn’ system from first ed come back, especially if the ‘winner’ of a roll off doesn’t get to pick which role they fulfill during setup.

Thoughts On My Deck

• I only scored On the Edge maybe twice, and was very rarely happy to see it. I would probably change it out for Go All Out, or maybe even gain a glory point in potential by taking Living On The Edge instead, which is something I occasionally would have scored (especially if I was using my teleport to bail out to safety).
• I found I had surprisingly little use for Confusion this event and was sad to see it in my hand most rounds. Maybe that’s because I faced very little Pillage/Hold and didn’t need it for token theft, but I often found myself playing it just to score Ploymaster or Low on Options rather than for the card’s real effect. I might consider switching it for Ominous Rumbling if I were to play the deck again, understanding that’s a big risk to take.

Wrap

I’m beyond grateful for the chance to meet some new faces, play some old friends, and snag a fancy trophy. Andrew already had a ticket from LVO, and sitting atop the podium with him again was not only cool from a teammate’s perspective, but also meant his ticket from this event passed down to me. Against anybody’s expectations, I’m qualified for the World Championships in Atlanta this November?! Playing Blazing/Wrack, of all pairings, which the world had otherwise claimed was ‘not worth your time’.

Maybe bringing things that are fun and uniquely ours rather than meta-proven and ‘good’ by consensus really is the way to go. Andrew and I just did it twice in a row, had a blast, and came out on top. You can too, I’m sure of it. Cam took Thundrik’s with Wrack/Pillage (?!?) and took 5th, and Brian bagged 7th with his Jaws BACC. Consistent practice with a chill team paid off, even with weird, lesser, or ‘bad’ pairings – be friendly, build a local scene, play what’s fun for you, and watch as the glory rolls in.

Enjoy yourselves out there, and until next time, Spend that Glory!

Fish