championnat du monde draft

Drafting with Pierre Malherbaud

France’s Pierre Malherbaud is running the Minis draft tables at 3-0. The multiple TCG Darkmoon Faire Champion is a threat no matter which side of the convention hall he’s playing in, and he decided to forego the TCG championship and roll the dice in the first World of Warcraft Minis World Championship.

While he initially drafted a with much more loose strategy, time spent drafting with Michael Pozsgay and the German players led him to focus on characters over action bar cards. “You can’t win with good ABCs and bad characters, but you can win with good characters and no Action Bar cards,” explained Pierre.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Flamestrike, Summon Jhuroon, and Summon Santuria are all ABCs that Pierre takes over characters, which makes sense considering 2 of those 3 cards are practically characters. Having resilient or potent pets allows a player to gain model advantage over the opponent and buy extra ticks.

The “Solid Guys” strategy certainly worked out for him, as he didn’t have a single character that wasn’t rocking 2/2 defenses across his two drafts. Explaining that the format is faster and that dice variance hurts more due to the lower amount of rolls, the extra defense dice help balance that out. Also, Pierre doesn’t have any weaklings on the board for opponents to pick off.

Inquiring if Pierre had any specific draft tips— especially in regards to getting premium cards to come back around a second time— Pierre didn’t think it worked except when trying to draft Legendary characters. “I don’t value Bolvar very high, but if I take Bolvar’s Retribution, he’ll often come back around in the draft. If I take Bolvar, someone will usually defensive draft his ABC. It’s completely irrational and psychological, but it works. I can’t explain,” offered Malherbaud.

At 3-0 and playing games successfully for about a decade, his advice and strategy is worth more than any Legendary figure, and he’s well on his way to cashing a giant check this weekend. Perhaps the only shame is that he can’t win both and dual wield checks on his way back to France.