Aganman teamed up with Fen to bring Lyra its first World Championship Qualifier win at the Americas Board Game Arena event Sept. 7-8. Bijitaq came close with Sigismar, but landed second. The qualifier was the second of three online chances to join the winners at the Finals in Paris, France, with the Eastern Asia BGA World Championship Qualifier coming Sept. 13-14.

The 681-player, ran in partnership with AWOL, event ran four groups, aiming for 10 rounds of Swiss best-of-one, followed with a Top 32 cut going to single-elimination best-of-three the following day. While the event met some challenges with the BGA servers causing the fourth group to split from the others, tournament organizers stepped in to remake the group, counting nine rounds for all players for the sake of fairness. It was streamed with English coverage from the AWOL team, French coverage by the Altered Aces and Spanish coverage by Altered Latam.

Among the Top 32, Sigismar and Basira were the most represented with seven decks each. Treyst, who held pace with other heroes in the August competitive snapshot, had five decklists. Fen and Kojo each brought four, Atsadi had two and Teija, Nevenka and Akesha each had one. Of the cards included, 61% came from Beyond the Gates, 19% from Trial by Frost and 20% from Whispers from the Maze.

Winning deck

Aganman’s Fen deck feels classically focused, building on what many Fens do well: Keep up heavy pressure with cards that benefit from being played from reserve while maintaining card advantage by bouncing. Among the rares are the following:

• Three Ouroboros Inkcasters and two Sleight of Hand, essential to pull cards from reserve back into hand. Two Aloe Veras provide stats while adding even more options to the reserve stack.
• Three Magical Trainings offer an after-you while adding more card advantage. Two Sap Duende can pull another card while shifting boosts, and one Haven Seiringar can also buy Fen a card outright.
• If the cards in reserve aren’t what Fen needs or are exhausted, one Amahle can recycle them.
• One Requiem adds a strong removal threat wherever it shows up, in hand or in reserve.

The commons support some of the standard Fen kit, with three Hathor, Anansi and Magpeng Hoarders each. A one-off Will-o’-the-Wisp can slow an opponent’s play, as can the single A Cappella Training and Cloth Cocoon.

The uniques include:

• Studious Disciple (2/2, 0/1/1) that copies Anansi’s ability played from anywhere
• Flamel (3/3, 4/2/4) that returns a spell to hand at Dusk.
• Tanuki (3/3, 2/3/0) that copies Anansi and sabotages when it goes to reserve.

Prizing and next online Qualifier

Aganman will join other finalists (such as Rinku from the Dallas, Texas, Qualifier) with travel and accommodations paid to the World Championship Finals Oct. 17-19. They received a Top 8 playmat and the respective Faction Champion card. The Top 8 all received a Top 8 playmat and organized play boosters. The highest-placing player for each faction received their Faction Champion card.

The next BGA Qualifier will be focused on Eastern Asia, running Sept. 13-14. Registration is already open and available to players worldwide regardless of their nationality.

Read more

• Skybound Odyssey Card Reveal: Welcome to a Druid who was a long time coming
• Competitive play snapshot: Treyst maintains pressure in August
• Multiple World Championship Qualifiers coming quickly