An all Canadian final! Well done lads. Congrats Barney, I am sure you surprised yourself .

Hey Barney congrats man. I'm really glad you came out as the winner. I didn't think thopters would get that far with all the board wipes around but what the hell do I know. Pretty damn funny that you win the BFZ season and not play a single BFZ card. Looking forward to see the game. Hakeem when will you be uploading that?

Wolf, Hakeem might have recorded it on his Twitch feed. U should watch it for sure. Game four was really great.

Yondar, yes, avoiding more riots was our primary concern. Would have been even more of an embarrassment for our country.

Thanks Mackey and Squider. Those taplands were the only real nuisance of not playing BFZ cards.

Well, Barney, now that you're the current champ on XBox One, what do you have to say for yourself? Any thoughts on the tournament? Any thoughts on how the final games went? Do you think you'd have beaten CGB if he'd managed to beat Hakeem? Does it even matter?

What about Peepy? He beat you 2-0 in Swiss play, but you won when it mattered. That said, overall his deck is 3-2 against yours. Do you think those three loses were an aberration, or do you think he takes it under normal circumstances? Obviously, there's always a measure of luck in mtg, but luck notwithstanding, what are your thoughts?

Final questions: what, if anything, would you have changed in your deck, knowing what you know now? And after all that, you just won the BfZ tournament with no BfZ cards in your deck, is that a statement about the overall quality of BfZ, or were thopters just that good?

I was expecting these questions from Batistista but he must have bigger stories to cover.

Honestly speaking I think I owe the win to Beast over anything else. He and I used to play test together in Origins and I had a small fetish for thopters then, nothing more. In our games he convinced me that thopters were the main tier one deck which I hadn't considered before. Hakeem then, prophetically announces the tournament and very kindly invites me as a participant even though I don't YouTube my matches.

Now here's the rub, I grind gold so I didn't have BFZ cards. So I register the only competitive origins deck I have with no BFZ cards in it. I can't tell you how much those guildgates hurt my deck. So I end up playing thopters thanks to beast and the fact that I don't spend money on this game. Funny.

The prize money in Xbox credits couldn't be better because I'm not allowed to buy apps on my Surface tablet because I'm in Canada. But I can get around this if I have Microsoft money. My girl has been bugging me to buy her games so the timing is perfect.

I really enjoyed the tournament. I'm glad there was no sideboards. I was beyond thrilled to play against my friend in the finals. It would have been easier against Covert but I didn’t care. I never playtested against coverts deck even though my best friend kept hounding me to. I extensively tested against Peepys deck after losing to him in Swiss. I think that match is all about twin bolt after a dozen games of me playing his tokens against my own deck. Understanding that really helped. Against coverts deck it's all able the mulligans. I need solid mana and that's it I think.

I never playtested against Hakeem cuz I know thopters really well. I tend to not play a variety of decks and I'm sure beast can attest to this. Thopters are all about having artifacts on the board for network, nalaars and grid. Take them away and you neuter our decks.

Fourth game against Hakeem was amazing.

If I had to change my deck I think it would only be the mana base. I think I would stubborningly leave in the grid and artificer even though they are my weakest cards. Fiery conclusion was huge for me this tournament and I'm a red player at heart so burn is fun.

Well said Barney... looking forward to Game 4, Lol

Gz Barney!

Oh, I definitively want an interview with you. I just need to sort some stuff out on my side before I approach you (if you didn't notice, I haven't been posting/writing much recently).

K, looking forward to it. Avoid those mosquitos.

What about final record?

Yeah, any chance we can watch Hakeem vs Barney and Peepy vs Barney matches?

They should be up on Twitch. Hakeem might have uploaded to YouTube as well.

Interesting that two thopter decks made it to the final and in the Steam tourney not a single person chose thopters. I like thopters but felt that aristocrats was more powerful and can resit wipes and spike higher damage, I guess in a match up like crats vs thopters it really comes down to who puts the pressure on first. With my deck if I got behind I would need to rely on Chandra's Ignition or Rouges Passage to get through the chumps.

Hakeem haven't yet. Only semi finals.

I'm sure I watched a YT vid of Hakeem beating CGB. Doesn't that mean its Barney vs Hakeem in the final?

Yep.

Yeah Big D Barney won 3-2 in the finals

lol, amazing avatar. welcome to NGA


Splinter's avatar is still better tho...

Yup. They've already played.

Here's final one hour long match from Hakeem's channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1idmDVsxWY

Well done Barney! I really want to play you with my thopter deck just to see who is king of the thopters but sadly I'm not on Xbone.