Hi everyone, it’s stormguard798, and I’m back here today with another deck tech and tournament report, this time from the Team Not-Tavrod Expedition tournament. As you might know, the balance changes came into effect just before it became time to submit decks for this tournament; as a result, I didn’t have a lot of time to see exactly how the balance changes ended up shaking things out. I elected to take a deck that perhaps wasn’t the best deck in the meta, but that I thought would be fun to experiment with given the recent changes to everyone’s favourite memeadin, Gren, Iron Martyr. I still doubt we’ll end up taking the card seriously now, however. Is the deck particularly well-tuned or good? Absolutely not. Is it a blast to play? Absolutely. So what did I end up tossing in the deck with barely any foresight?
Decklist:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/NKGd7eFP35k/notice-me-senpai-or-is-gren-actually-even-good-shrug
I like my sacrifice decks – a lot. Ergo, I’ve decided to take TheBoxer’s list from a previous Tuesday Night Eternal (TNE) event, making it Menacing to accommodate Gren and some other fun cards, and put together a fairly defensive and value-based Grenadins deck. Besides the balance changes, there have also been a handful of cards added to Expedition since that tournament in this deck, so they’re certainly worth talking about.
Inclusions:
- Assembly Line – This card is so good, and I’m so glad they’ve added this card to Expedition to make the Grenadins tribe more viable; it gives you plenty of fodder should you want to go the route of snaccrificing shenanigans, but also lets you go wide for that buff on Gren. Auto-include 4 of.
- Display of Menace – Another extremely powerful 3-drop spell, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with Display of Menace last time it was in Expedition. The ‘Torrential Downpour’ mode is the one I ended up using the least often, but one that I could see come up in Grenadins mirrors. The sacrifice mode replaces Devour in this iteration of deck – although it does cost 1 power more and doesn’t gain any life, it does allow for some modicum of card selection, which is helpful when you’re digging for a haymaker. Finally, considering all the additional relic support that the latest update to Expedition has injected, I’ve ended up using the relic destruction mode on Display quite a few times – giving the relics voidbound isn’t as relevant now that Ancient Excavator hasn’t been around as much, but it’s still nice to have regardless.
- Scraptank – It was stronger when everyone was still running main-deck Edict of Makkar, but this is still a massive honker of a unit that can grow to absolutely ridiculous proportions; plus, it comes with 2 bodies with which to snack on for value. Granted, it doesn’t have any evasion, but this deck does still need a way to effectively close out the game, and this is a unit that does so very well.
- Stonescar Scrapper – I wasn’t around back when the Stonescar Scrapper/The Witching Hour deck was a thing, but the card is still very impressive, stabilising the board well and taking over the game with card advantage once it gets rolling. Not having to exhaust itself for the cards is delightful. Whilst the asymmetrical body is awkward considering the popularity of Smite, it’s too powerful of an engine not to consider running 4 of.
- Downdark Scrounger – Whilst a part of Empire of Glass and therefore a card that had always been around, it’s been a delightful addition to the deck since we’ve added Primal. Works to buyback permanently buffed spells thanks to Gren and is honestly just a nice curve-filler unit at 2 following the curve changes to the deck. One neat interaction with Scrounger is being able to buyback Display of Menace since it does technically deal damage – though, let’s be honest, I mostly use it for the card advantage.
- Razorblades – I played a couple copies of this card because once I decided on including Scrounger and Gren, then this would make sense; as expected, it scales delightfully with damage-amplifying effects, and this will stabilise the board in a hurry. However, I found it to be rather mediocre without one of these effects in play: the amplify cost is just terribly inefficient, and if you’re able to start amplifying the damage, then you’re probably just ahead anyway. It seemed really good in theory, but it ended up being a card that didn’t pan out very well.
- Dark Purveyor – Not going to lie, I almost forgot to include this card, and what a massive shame that would have been (and people probably would have boo’ed me off the internet, seeing as I just very recently gushed about the card). I only found space for 2 copies before submitting my decklist, but after playing it during the tournament, I am kicking myself for not including the full 4 copies. In a deck with 16 damage-dealing spells in the main, the Grenamender ability on this card triggers very frequently, and if allowed to stick on the board for a few turns, stabilises you very quickly. Shocked this card isn’t seeing more play, honestly.
Exclusions:
- Vicious Overgrowth – Given that I was running 4 of Flash Fry, I didn’t think I also needed the Overgrowth in terms of removal. In hindsight, it’s probably nice to have some direct damage removal for sites, which I was fortunate to not see too many of in the tournament. But given how popular various Jx midrange decks have been on the ladder since the Invitational, it could be worthwhile to have a couple copies just to deal with Tower/Speaking Circle.
- Moldermuck – The other card that I probably most regret not including. I was a pinch concerned about having 14 cards at the 3-cost slot already, which is why I didn’t include this. However, there were so many spots that I could have used more bodies, and I think that even though this card isn’t a Grenadin, it’s certainly very capable of spitting out a lot of those.
- Inferno Den – Maybe it was correct to have a couple of copies, but given the speed of the Expedition format, I felt that the 5-cost slot is a little crowded since I do consider Scrapper and Scraptank to be a touch more powerful than the Den. Also, Speaking Circle is everywhere at present, which does make the site more of a liability. Having said that, it is an extremely powerful card to close out the game, which is something this deck occasionally struggles to do.
- Wyatt’s Junkyard – If I’m not playing any copies of Inferno Den, then I’m definitely not playing any copies of Wyatt’s Junkyard: we don’t have any weapons in the deck to get back with Stash, unfortunately, and the 3 health on the site means that it gets cleanly answered by Vicious Overgrowth, which is quite a big deal.
- Devour – Multiple people are probably screaming at me at this point, but I think since I’m already locked on running Display of Menace as my Sacrifice card-draw spell with additional utility, then it doesn’t make sense to also include Devour. I still need to find fodder to play both of them, and I just felt that it’d have resulted in too many such effects stranded in my hand. I still have a copy in the market, but since its whole purpose is to help smooth out your early game draws, it hasn’t been as impressive.
- Align the Tesseract – Ok, so you’re about to hear from someone with a completely and utterly different take than me on Gren + Align The Tesseract (AtT), but in my opinion, I don’t think the 2 fit in the same deck. 😛 Gren only provides 1 body to reduce the cost of the card, and you won’t be able to give the buff to your board since it’ll all be gobbled up. Amplifying the many damage spells you have in hand is a nice after-thought, but if you have a Tesseract Prime, that additional damage is just gravy – those 2 cards are really what you’re looking for. Also, I like my sacrifice value decks, and I do consider an AtT deck to be very different.
- Sparking Vermin – A ping is nice given the many X/1s in the format, but I don’t think it’s worth warping my powerbase to be able to reliably play this on Turn 1. Besides, its true power is in aggressive Grenadins decks or alongside AtT, which this deck most certainly isn’t.
Market:
- Blazing Salvo – So following the TNE where TheBoxer Top’4ed, I’d bumped into various iterations of this deck on ladder where people are playing Vine Grafters over the Salvo, which is rather interesting. There’s no denying that Vine Grafter is a very powerful card, and I have definitely fiddled around with Grafter builds even prior to the Gren buff, but at least for the Menace iteration of this deck, I feel that the mere fact that Salvo is a damage-dealing spell means that it synergises well with what the deck has going on. As a result, I feel that Salvo is the better market access for this build. Also, I don’t think Vine Grafter takes as much advantage of the fact that we’re splashing a 3rd faction – I love me some Haunting Screams, but this isn’t quite the deck for it.
- Edict of Shavka – Slam dunk. Justice is probably the most popular faction in Expedition right now, and on top of that, this is very helpful for dealing with a wide assortment of cards across pretty much every deck. I think it’s a little presumptuous to include this in the main deck, but I’m down to be wrong.
- Nectar of Unlife – If you’ve read my previous articles, you’ll know that I absolutely adore this card, I mean, adore this card for its versatility. Having said that, I felt that with Primal adding a few more late-game staying power options, I didn’t feel it was necessary to run this in my market. Despite its versatility, it still is a very clunky card. I have missed the ability to recur some massive Scraptanks throughout the tournament, however, so perhaps it does come back in.
- Kaleb’s Favour – So I initially cut this because I figured running 25 + 6 would be enough, but some occasions it didn’t quite get there. It is so, so important for this deck to hit 5 power on time, which also means that it’s very important to have a way to find more power out of the market. Ergo.
- Slag – Perhaps a bit overkill considering that we have maindeck relic destruction, but it’s always nice to have more. Plus, I’m using the Kill a Sentinel mode far more often than I thought – as it turns out, people love Moonstone Vanguard as much as I do.
- Cyber Combustion – Ok, so this is probably the biggest reason, at least on paper, to dip into Primal because having access to what is possibly a 1-sided sweeper is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it hasn’t panned out quite as I imagined primarily due to the lack of Fire-based aggro on ladder, at least from what I’ve seen. Tradition Soldiers has a shocking number of 4 health units, from ultimate Shock Troops to David to Record Keeper that this sweeper just falls short – a lot. If we see a meta shift, I could see shoving the card back in, but for now, I think it’s got to step aside.
- Rindra’s Choice – First off, I’m not considering Dazzle as our market counterspell because our deck is simply splashing Primal, and I’ve found that in quite a few games we don’t end up with double Primal. Now, Rindra’s Choice is primarily to negate one of my other favourite things to do, Know Thy Enemy, but it’s also very helpful against cards like Rolant, which really shut down the deck.
- Kaleb’s Choice – Now, of course, the downside of Rindra’s Choice is that it doesn’t hit Equalize, which is a huge knock against our deck considering we want lots of board presence and lots of cards. (Really wishing Backlash was in this format. uWu) However, I had initially found the card to be just too narrow, even for a market card – there are surprisingly few good mono-faction relic targets, and our deck largely ignores Permafrost, which is why I’ve decided to not include it, even though negating Equalize is super crucial. Might be wrong here, though.
Ok, so as you might imagine due to your capability to interpret the title of this article in some way, shape or fashion, I’m not the only person composing this article. Joining me today is the multi-talented Essarefess (whom I going to refer to as SRFS throughout cause it requires less typing), probably best known in the community for being the assistant TO for the Tuesday Night Eternal (TNE) tournament series, but who is also a phenomenal Eternal player in their own right. Take it away!
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Decklist:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/mk_bjxGVIj0/i-could-only-afford-one-tessaract
Hi all! For this tournament, I was looking for a fun and enjoyable deck that was a little different than what I was used to in the format. Pracklackin’s list from the Winter TNE#11 with all the damage-spell synergies as well as a tendency to go wide seemed like a great shell to try out Gren with their newfound courage. Since that tournament new cards were added into the format, but due to timing restrictions, I didn’t go through all of them. In hindsight, a card like Assembly Line would be a great fit for the deck, and definitely something that I would update for future ladder play.
I was also a bit shiftstone-poor, so because I only had 1 Align the Tesseract (AtT), I used a Transpose market instead with a market Broker to cheat 4 AtTs into my deck. This is a band-aid solution I would not recommend. The earliest you would be able to play an AtT is turn 5, so you lose the possibility of explosive Turn 3 or 4 AtTs, I would not recommend anybody try this tactic. This slower approach did not pan out for me: although there were a couple of times I had some sweet AtT turns, most of my (few) wins were gathered through beating down with my army of tiny Grenadins. If you have the Shiftstone, get all 4. I filled out the rest of the Transpose market with a handful of other synergistic options: Burn Out for some reach, Dark Purveyor for a strong permanent buff alongside spell-damage synergies, and Replication Cell to take-over the late-game, especially with the Transposes to protect it.
While we only go over one of my games here, I have a few takewaways from playing it in the tournament. Unlike Storm, I was quite impressed Razorblades’ synergy alongside Downdark Scrounger and Gren, particularly since Razorblades how its Amplify is also buffed to multiply its damage and tokens. I was unimpressed by Grubbot: it required you to be ahead on board to really profit from its ability, otherwise it’s just a 2/2 for 3, which is a terrible rate. There was even a point in my match against Cananada that I had to kill my own Grubbot to stop myself from dying to their Dichro’s Ruin.
These decks are both very different takes on what a Grenadin deck could look like moving forward – while Stonescar Scrapper is certainly less explosive than AtT, it’s also more consistently powerful and requires a lower set-up cost. One other route to consider with Gren would be an aggressive go-wide ‘tokens’ style of deck, similar to the Menace decks that were played in Peasant tournaments previously, and use cards like Gren or Beacon of War to pump our units and try to finish games quickly. While a 3-faction power base can be a little precarious, having Common Cause in the format certainly helps and having access to a factionless lord for a go-wide tribe may help alleviate its issues too. Although Soldiers is the tribe that has gotten a lot of the spotlight thus far, with support coming in the recent Draft Pack update and the latest mini-set Stormbreak, there are plenty of interesting directions one could explore with Grenadins.
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Thank you so much Essarefess for your insight! Now, for a tournament with such a small field, I was pleasantly surprised to encounter 6 completely different archetypes. So below, we do a recap of the gameplay across all 6 matches, and now there is another brain to discuss all the interesting decision points! Two brains are always better than 1…right?
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this in my previous tournament reports, but here are all the tournament decks so that you can refer to them and see how I made my questionable decisions. Also, fair warning in case you didn’t catch it previously: everyone is playing grindy midrange decks, so the matches are a slog to get through and read. I wanted to include the entirety of all the matches since I do think it’s important to have as much context as possible for the gameplay decisions, but let me know what you think. 🙂
https://eternalwarcry.com/tournaments/d/yxCvKEn6c3o/tnt-throwdown-expedition
(Essarefess commentary will be in italics, because I talk more. >.<)
Gameplay!
Match 1: (VS Brionac)
They’re on what seems like a very Standard Kal Mono Primal list (and by that, there’s a lot of not-4-ofs that I don’t entirely understand. XD Love you Kal.) Having said that, I think this boils down to how many Helios they’re able to find – whilst they do have quite a few big units, I do have Combust as a fairly unconditional answer – particularly since it gets under Dazzle – to anything plus the Edict in the market, so as long as they don’t completely overwhelm me in terms of card advantage in the process. Outside of the Prism Golems and perhaps the Torgovs in the late game, I do believe the rest of their threats are fairly manageable.
Game 1:
I mulligan my 1st 7 which contains a Seat of Chaos, a Stonescar Painting, a Scraptank, a Salvo, an Assembly Line, a Razorblades and a Display of Menace; if I could find 1 more power, this hand might be salvageable, but given that I have a free mulligan, this hand has the potential of blowing up spectacularly in my face if I don’t find that power, which is why I ship it. My 2nd 7 contains a Seat of Chaos, a Seat of Cunning, a Painting, a Fire Sigil, a Downdark Scrounger, a Gleaming Grenadin (GG), and a Gren. Better with the early-game drops, which is why I keep this hand, but definitely could use some interaction or a threat. I drop the T1 Grenadin, poke in for 1 and pass; they play a Primal Symbol and pass. I draw power and opt not to play my Scrounger post-combat: if they stumble, it’d be nice to get in for some extra damage, but more likely than not, I expect to either see a Jarrall to block it or a Huntress to clock it, so I’d rather wait to get some value off of it.
They play a Sigil and pass, which leaves me feeling rather silly; on my turn, I draw a Scrapper and poke in before dropping Gren. On their turn, they play a Prism Golem, which is super problematic, especially when I have no interaction in hand; I draw and play a power before passing. At least I have some chump blockers? On their turn, they play a Jennev Merchant and go hunting, most likely for either Rain of Frogs or Vengeful Flight, before attacking in for 5 – I opt not to block at this juncture, but could have probably shoved the GG in front of it – it does fortunately still leave me with 2 bodies for Scrapper. Consider blocking with the Gleaming Grenadin instead – it’ll still leave you with 2 bodies to sacrifice with Scrapper down the line. If you think they grabbed Vengeful Flight, then you won’t be able to block the Prism Golem anyway, so you might as well save the damage while you can. If they grabbed Rain of Frogs, you’d still block since you won’t have a Scrapper to sacrifice them to. Despite thinking about the possibility of Rain, I choose to still not play the Scrapper next turn, instead of wanting to wait until the next turn so that I can play and activate it in the same turn – whilst I understand past me’s caution, considering they only have the 4 Huntresses and the 1 Polymorph to interact with it, I think it would have been a worthwhile calculated risk. In that position, it didn’t make sense for them to grab Fluctuate Reality, so that was not in consideration. Of course, it didn’t end up mattering because they plopped a Vengeful Flight on the Prism Golem, but it’s an interesting decision point nonetheless.
On my turn I play the Scrapper and snack on my 2 Grenadins, drawing an Assembly Line, Seek Power and Display. Not exactly what I’m looking for against these massive factionless threats. On their turn, they Polymorph my Scrapper – huh, they did have it – and then attack with everything; I elect to double-block the Jennev Merchant to take it down. No Dazzles to ruin combat against my piddly creatures! On my turn, I draw and scoop it up to the massive fliers.
Game 2:
I’m on the draw, and my 1st 7 has 2 Flash Fries, a Display of Menace, a Seek Power, a Stonescar Painting, a Seat of Chaos, and a Seat of Cunning. It’s a pretty solid hand, except for 1 crucial thing: units. There’s none of them. So after some pondering on how greedy I wanted to get, I decide to redraw into a Stonescar Painting, a Primal Sigil, a Fire Sigil, a Flash Fry, a Scrapper, a Razorblades and a GG. Just need to find another Shadow influence and we are all set. They start with a Clan Standard and pass; I plop down a Painting and my GG before poking in for 1. They play a Sigil and ship it right on back; I play my Primal Sigil and get in for 1 again before passing, holding up Flash Fry. They play a Prism Golem – joy – before passing it back; I play Gren and pass, with the full intention of blocking. They play a Jennev Merchant, probably for the same terrifying line as last time – more joy – and attack with the Golem, whom I chump with Gren, which is positively delighted by the Razorblades in my hand. On my turn, I open by Salvo’ing the Prism Golem and pitching the Flash Fry for an Edict of Shavka. Here, I think it makes more sense to send the Gleaming Grenadin to the market rather than the Flash Fry – you know that they’re playing Evolving Olzial, and that’s something your hand isn’t very capable of answering right now without a Flash Fry. You have plenty of units to sacrifice to the Scrapper when it starts going. Besides, it’s already got a buff, so if you find a Scrounger or another Gren, it’s definitely capable of doing some serious damage. Yep, in my head, I was super excited for buffed Razorblades, but I somehow missed the fact that they gave me more dudes in the process as well, so I’d have plenty of fodder for Scrapper as you mentioned. Big punt. 😛 I then use my Razorblades to finish off the Golem before passing.
On their turn, they play a Huntress, imbue the Merchant and use it to Killer my Gleaming Grenadin. Interesting line there from Brionac: I don’t think I’d have expended my Killer attack here given that you know that the deck packs along the lines of Scraptank. Maybe they’re sandbagging an Edict of Linrei to remove those other threats, but the 2/1 GG isn’t particularly relevant. I agree. Of course, I’m not entirely sure of the composition of Brionac’s hand, but spending such a powerful interactive piece on a GG certainly feels underpowered.
On my turn, I draw a Scrounger and proceed to be generally confused by my own sequencing. What I end up doing is attacking for 2, holding a Razorbot back, and playing the Scrounger to buyback Razorblades before passing. You probably should have played out the Gleaming Grenadin pre-combat and gotten in since you don’t have anything to do at fast speed. I absolutely should have. On their turn, they drop a power followed by an Evolving Olzial. I don’t want to say I told you so. 😛 You don’t have to. On my turn, I start by playing the Vara’s Favor to knock off the Regen on Olzial before chump attacking with Scrounger, which they block with Huntress. I then play the super-buffed Razorblades to kill the Olzial. I’m not entirely sure about the Scrounger chump attack here – I understand wanting to get the Olzial off the board, but you’re also down cards and board presence in the process. It might have been better to save the Razorblades for next turn when you have access to the full 6 power and can amplify for even more Razorbots and damage. I understand wanting to save the Edict of Shavka for something like a Jarrall or Torgov, though. Indeed. Granted, this would have all been made a lot easier if I just kept the Flash Fry, but I think it was worthwhile to trade my Scrounger for what is an additional Razorbot and getting the Olzial off the board. I have no fliers in the deck, which means it’ll be quite tricky for me to contest that Olzial, and getting to filter cards is exactly what leads to Helios and massive Torgovs, which is why I thought it important to get off the board immediately. Plus, their shields are down this turn, which means I don’t have to worry about the likes of Swift Refusal or Dazzle ruining my plans. I then play a post-combat GG before passing.
On their turn, they play a power before passing, which is highly suspicious. I start by playing my Scrapper and snacking on a Razorbot and GG before passing. You probably could have gotten in there with all your Razorbots – it’s not as if they have anything at fast speed to blow you out. Right. Oops. >.< On their turn, they play a Primal Etchings and grab a Vengeful Flight targeting their Huntress, spawning a 2nd Huntress before passing. They didn’t end up imbuing anything with the Huntress, which might have been how Flight works mechanically, or perhaps they had just missed it. Unsure. On my turn, I start by playing a Scraptank and snacking on the 2 Grenadins it makes with Scrapper before attacking with all my piddly 1/1s, which they don’t block; definitely should have also attacked with the Scrapper there since it can’t block the fliers anyways. They trade off a Razorbot for their Huntress, which I’m more than fine with. They start by Troving, spending an Edict of Linrei on my Scraptank, and then playing a Huntress to kill my Scrapper.
Fortunately, I have another Scrapper in hand, and we’re right back on track, attacking in for 4 before snacking on the Totemite and the Rustling. I then opt to spend my Combust with a Razorbot to take out the flying Huntress in case they have another Huntress in hand. I can’t remove the Merchant at this juncture anyways, but even if it gets copied, that’s not the worst thing. They play a Helio – joy – and Destiny their Vengeful Flight – even more joy – copying their Merchant and probably go hunting for their Fluctuate Reality in the market. Nope, it’s a Permafrost, which I can sort of see, but I’m just happy I can still use the Scrapper ability even if it’s stunned. They then get in for 4 before passing. I start by snacking on my 2 Razorbots with Scrapper and finding no units, which is problematic – my hand at present consists of an Edict of Shavka, 2 Flash Fries, 2 Display of Menaces, and a Seat of Fury. I then pass here, which is probably a punt. If they had Dazzle for my Display on the Scrapper, that would have been very bad news, so it probably makes more sense to go for the Display on my turn.
On their turn, they play a Helio for even more cards and attack in for 8 before passing. After pondering whether I should instead see if I can topdeck an Assembly Line, I elect to just let the opportunity go. On my turn, having drawn a depleted Seat of Fury, I decide to just go for the Display on the Scrapper, and fortunately, they didn’t have the Dazzle, allowing me to snag a Purveyor and a GG. I did pause for a little bit to check that I didn’t get the math wrong and that it was actually lethal, but I have exactly enough power to play the GG, put the massive Purveyor buff for lethal on it before Flash Frying their only blocker and smacking them for lethal. My opponent thought they had stabilised, but never underestimate the power of Charge in closing out a game, no matter how minute. That was not a line that I had thought of since I hadn’t been paying close attention to the unit count in my void, but that’s certainly something to pay attention to more in the future.
Game 3:
I mulligan my opening hand of a Stonescar Painting, a Fire Sigil, a Gren, a Scrapper, 2 Combusts, and a Salvo; since I’m on the play, only being able to cast a single card in my hand is far too risky. 2nd 7 contains 2 Seats of Fury, a Seat of Chaos, a Seat of Cunning, a GG, a Scrounger and a Display. Is this hand extremely slow if I don’t find a Sigil or way to tutor Sigils? Yes. Do I think on average it’ll be better if I go down to 6? Nope. So I keep it. I play a depleted Seat of Chaos and pass; they play a Primal Sigil and a Primal Etchings – perhaps they have a similar precarious power situation as I? I play a depleted Seat of Fury alongside my GG before poking in for 1 and passing. On their turn, they play a Jarrall and pass, which is rather pesky, but fine. I draw a Seek Power for turn, tutor for a Fire Sigil for turn, and decide not to run out my Scrounger as a 2/2 for 2 because frankly, it’s probably going to die in short order. They play a Huntress, imbuing Jarrall and killing my GG, which tells me that they are definitely strapped for power since I’d imagine they’d rather save that for something juicier.
On my turn, after drawing a Combust and a pinch of pondering, I decide to just play a Seat of Fury and pass; again, it’s nice to save on the 3 damage from blocking, but it would be disastrous if they had a Dazzle for my Display of Menace. On their turn, they open with a Vicious Overgrowth on it – that also works – and I Display in response, taking a Flash Fry and Vara’s Favor, choosing to put to the bottom a Combust and Seat of Chaos. I then take 3 from the Overgrowth and 3 from the Huntress before they play another Etchings without accessing their market and pass. I guess they really want their Olzial or Helio to be deployed on curve? When it gets back to me, I Flash Fry the Jarrall, Favour the Huntress, and play a depleted Painting before passing. They then drop an Olzial as expected – would have loved to save the Flash Fry for that, but I think finishing off the Jarrall there makes sense. Besides, there was always a chance they had Helio instead.
When it comes back to me, I opt to aggressively 2 for 1 myself by playing the Scrounger and Combust to remove the Olzial – not the most efficient play, but given that they are strapped for power on a possible Helio, I don’t want to allow them to dig for power. Exactly: you also had the option of playing the Purveyor alongside the Scrounger, but you’ll just end up Combusting the Olzial with the Scrounger next turn anyway. It’s unfortunate that you’re unable to advance your board at this juncture, but Olzial is such a snowball threat that is crucial to deal with it ASAP. They however do still have a power into a Helio next turn though, so there’s that. On my turn, I draw a Flash Fry and pass; I do have the option of playing Purveyor and going for the Flash Fry right here and now, but I opt not to for 2 reasons: A. Helio isn’t really a threat; I’d much rather use the Flash Fry on a 2nd Evolving Olzial, and given I’m still at 20+ life, I’m not in a terrible rush. B. I’d rather be able to take advantage from both sides of Purveyor given that they are ahead right now. Obviously, I’m not going to hold on out for a bunch of turns, but it seems fine to wait for now. They poke in for 2 and pass, clearly holding up Dazzle, Wisdom, or some combination of both. I draw a Blazing Salvo, and here, I’m willing to give up some Purveyor value from buffing a unit as I Purveyor on an empty board before Salvo’ing, depositing the Shadow Sigil I had grabbed earlier for an Edict of Shavka – I do think there’s also an argument for taking the Devour here, but I took the more conservative line for fear of a Jarrall. Might have needed to take a little risk since I am behind, however. Another line you could consider is just waiting on the Salvo, see what they do, and adjust it accordingly – since the Helio attacking isn’t terribly concerning, and although getting a Grenamender is nice, it isn’t doing much right now. You miss out on a potential extra Grenamender, but in exchange, you have more information with regards to your market selection, which is probably worthwhile.
They have a Vicious Overgrowth for my Purveyor – boo – and they follow-up with another Helio. Now things are looking really bad for me. On my turn, I elect to play the Scraptank and Flash Fry the Helio so that the Grenamender can get in. I don’t think I can pressure them nearly fast enough, however. They use Vicious Overgrowth to kill my Scraptank – oh no! – before playing a Prism Golem and Jennev Merchant; here comes the Vengeful Flight. I draw and play a Painting before passing; as expected, they have a Vengeful Flight and get in with the flying Golem and Merchant. I elect to triple-block the Merchant since they don’t have any available tricks, leaving my Grenamender alive. Since I’m at 13 now, that probably means they have another Vicious Overgrowth in hand. They play a Wisdom of the Elders and Destiny over the Vengeful Flight, but fortunately for us, have no legal targets. I draw a Seek Power, and grab and play a Fire Sigil –futile at this point, but at least make them have it. They don’t have the direct damage spell but do play a Torgov instead, and there’s nothing that saves me at this point.
Match 2: (VS Essarefess)
Now time to get revenge on Prack’s deck for beating me in that 1 TNE. 😛 For real though, I feel much better against an AtT deck that I did last time: I have ways to deal with the Tesseract Prime both main deck and in the market this time, and have a lot more way to remove their incidental units without feeling too awful about it – plus, with the Transpose market, I’ll be able to see the AtT coming for sure. Pity Cyber Combustion doesn’t quite work against them, but it’s a small issue.
Game 1:
I mulligan an opening hand with no Shadow sources – since Shadow is the only faction I need double influence of, that was certainly a no-go, even on the draw. I keep my 2nd 7 of a Fire Sigil, a Primal Sigil, a Seat of Cunning, a Scrounger, an Assembly Line, a Flash Fry, and a Seek Power. An all-round solid hand. They play a Fire Sigil into Seek Power, whereas I go for my Seat into the same, grabbing a Shadow Sigil – whilst I typically am a fan of leaving as many Shadow Sigils in the deck as possible so that my Favors are generally more useful, I don’t have my 2nd Shadow influence in hand at present, ergo. They play a Seat of Cunning and pass; I play a Fire Sigil and pass as well. On their turn, they play a Grubbot, which I’m very happy to Flash Fry before dropping an Assembly Line. They play a GG before passing, and on my turn, I attack with all 3 of my Grenadins and they’re happy to take the trade: post-combat, I use my Scrounger to buy-back a Flash Fry before passing – I wouldn’t be particularly thrilled if I had to spend removal on a Rustling, but we’ll see. At the end of my turn, they Transpose, assuredly hunting for Broker.
They play the Broker as expected followed up by a Feln Painting; on my turn, I attack in with both; as they move to block the Scrounger, I fire-off my powered-up Flash Fry to kill it, and the Grenadin and Rustling trade. Now that I know they have AtT in their deck, I want to do 2 things: try and hold up my Rindra’s Choice where possible, and keep their board as clear as I possibly can, which is why I went for the more conservative line instead of playing out the Scraptank I drew that turn. On their turn they play a Sigil and amplify a Razorblades for 2, spitting out some blockers, which could be annoying for Scraptank, but probably still fine. On my turn, I play the Scraptank and decide to spend the Salvo now, grabbing the Rindra’s Choice – they’re probably very close to being out of gas, so I don’t want them to get back into this by having enough units for the AtT next turn. I think in this position, you don’t have to care about clearing my board since the following turn you could always remove the Tesseract Prime with Rindra’s Choice anyway, and you know that’s not something that I can interact with well. On the other hand, if I have Flash Fry or Vicious Overgrowth, then you could try to use the Salvo to save your Scraptank, which would be more important. You have a bunch of ways to kill those deadly tokens eventually anyway. Huh. Definitely did not think of that line of using Salvo on my own unit. That does make a lot of sense.
They play a Sparking Vermin, which is rather annoying; on my turn, I opt to attack with both Grenadins – they block 1 with Sparking Vermin and Snipe down the other. Although the Razorbot is stonewalling the Scraptank pretty well at present, I know I have plenty of ways down the line to deal with it, so I feel like I can afford to be patient. Plus, I think I’m favoured if this game drags long. They play a Scraptank, which I immediately Flash Fry, and on my turn, I draw and play a 2nd Flash Fry to deal with the Razorbot before getting in – I’ve got to clear their board somehow. They don’t block and I pass. On their turn, they attack me with both Grenadins before attempting to cast AtT, which I negate with Rindra’s Choice. I draw and play a Gren before clocking in for 7 with Scraptank; on their turn, they draw and scoop it up. Not really much to say there – their deck is hurt pretty badly by open decklists, and the lines are fairly straightforward as long as you are playing around AtT appropriately.
Game 2:
I keep an opening hand with 2 Seats of Chaos, a Stonescar Painting, a Seat of Fury, 2 GGs, and a Dark Purveyor. No interaction of any kind, but otherwise a very solid hand, and being on the draw, hopefully we can draw into some fun stuff. SRFS opens with a Feln Painting and Seek Power, whereas I play my SS painting into a GG. Hiya! On their turn, they play an undepleted Seat and pass, whilst I go for my 2nd GG and get in for a whopping 2 damage. More depleted power isn’t fantastic though. On their turn, they play a Grubbot and pass, whilst I draw a Vara’s Favor and play it at their face before playing another Seat and passing. Didn’t want to get too greedy there with Purveyor. I do think I should have probably attacked with 1 GG, however; I doubt they’d expend 2 removal spells on a single GG just to get a Trove.
SRFS plays a Seat and pass, which is rough; on my turn, I draw Razorblades and get in with a GG; they do block, which is fine by me as I use the Razorblades to finish it off. And now there are units in the void for Purveyor. 😛 They play Sparking Vermin, which is terribly annoying for my board; on my turn, I play a pre-combat Scraptank – if all my X/1s are going to die, hopefully it’ll at least buff my Tank in the process. However, they have a Flash Fry to kill it before it gets large. Although I happened to have the answer for it, I still think playing the Tank here was the correct play. Since I’m so far behind as-is, Tank is the best way you have of closing out this game while you’re still ahead. It does make sense for you to force me to have it here, even if it didn’t pan out very well. I absolutely agree. They elect to trade with a Razorbot and shoot down a Rustling, still leaving me with a very healthy 3 1/1s. On their turn, they play a Feln Painting and pass. Yikes.
I draw and play a Seek Power, finding a Fire Sigil before dropping the Purveyor and passing over the buff to the GG and clocking in for 7. They have an end-of-turn Realign for presumably Razorblades, which they fire off on my GG and a Grenadin. Boo. Fortunately, I have a Display of Menace in hand, so come my turn, I clear the board and get in for another 7 whilst popping out a Grenamender. They have a Vicious Overgrowth for the Purveyor, which does keep them alive for now, at least, but they’re still at a very precarious 2, not helped by the fact I drop a Scraptank on the board following combat. They end of turn Realign, draw, and scoop it up.
Match 3: (VS EarthsOverseer)
I have no idea how this match-up is going to pan out, to be honest. On the one hand, I think our removal lines up decently against their threats and them expending removal 1-for-1 on our units is great. On the other hand, we don’t have a good way of interacting with AAC as a win condition, so hopefully we can poke them to death before then. However, if they do manage to discard our key haymakers, we may be very far from killing them in a hurry.
Game 1:
I mulligan my opening hand with a Seat of Chaos, a Fire Sigil, an Assembly Line, a Razorblades, a Blazing Salvo, a Flash Fry and a Scrounger – I think if this had been my 2nd 7, I would probably keep here since it does have some early plays I can make, especially on the draw, but since this is my 1st 7, I think I can do better. My 2nd 7 makes me wish that I had kept the 1st one instead: 2 Seats of Chaos, a Seat of Cunning, 2 Seek Powers, a Combust, and a Blazing Salvo. I don’t think you should have kept that hand – the Seek Powers are nice but your curve tops out at 5 anyway, and you can’t play the Combust without any units. Yes, you’d have rather kept the 1st 7, but this isn’t a functional hand. Looking back on it, I agree – don’t know why I kept such a dubious hand either. But I did, so on with it!
They open with a Clan Standard, and I start with a depleted Seat of Chaos. They play a Primal Sigil and pass; I Seek Power into a Fire Sigil, play my Seat of Cunning, and spend my Seek Power for yet another Fire Sigil. On their turn, they just pass, and I use a Vara’s Favor before passing. Oh dear, that is rough. They draw and pass again, and I play a Seat of Cunning followed by a GG; as they draw and pass for the 3rd turn in a row, I use the Display of Menace at the end of turn – they don’t have Dazzle in their list, so that’s not a point of consideration – I take a Scraptank and a Scrapper over a Salvo and Display to try and get some pressure on the board. On my turn, I play the Scrapper – if they have the Overgrowth, good for them, but if it sticks for even 1 turn, they are in so much trouble. They have the Overgrowth, but not more power. When it comes back to me, I draw a Scrounger and attack for 3 before playing the Scrounger to get back the Display. I think in this position I should have just gone for the Scrapper: they have no good way of answering the card at all, plus it still pressures them decently. As they miss their power drop for the 5th turn, I use Display at the end of Turn to find another one and a Scrounger.
Back on my turn, I attack in for 3 before playing a Vara’s Favor, playing my 2nd Scrounger, and using the Display on the 1st one immediately. I don’t think you needed to Display now: they don’t have negation spells in their deck to worry about, and there’s a decent chance you just burn them out with Scrounger-buffed spells at this point. Just play the Scrapper and start pressuring. True. Definitely not a route that one would usually take with this deck, but they are so far behind at this point that it’s a possibility, particularly since they have no negation spells. I draw a Gren and a GG over a Combust and a Seat – not going to lie, was hoping for something with a little more oomph. After 6 turns, EarthsOverseer finally finds their Shadow source and plays their Exploit and take Scrapper, followed up by a Suffocate on Scrounger. …I’m so going to lose this game despite EO’s draw, aren’t I?
I play a GG and a Gren before poking in for 1 and passing; they play a Shadow Sigil and pass, which is so suspicious. I guess they either have Wisdom or Research? At the end of their turn, I go for a Display of Menace on Gren, drawing another Gren, and taking both Assembly Lines over a Razorblades and a Salvo. At this point, my hand is so stocked with removal that I just need to get bodies out there and kill them. After attacking for 2 with GG, I play out an Assembly Line and Gren. I think you missed an opportunity by not playing the 2nd Assembly Line. Play Gren next turn, then you have the option to Combust it if they play a unit, or shooting it with Salvo if they don’t; either way, you buff a wide board and can probably get in for lethal. They don’t have enough power on their next turn to be concerned with a Jennev Merchant into a Storm Spiral. …damn. That would have been fantastic. People, this entire game has just been a disaster on my end. XD They do go for the end of turn Forbidden Research as expected, pitching a Seat of Cunning and a Shadow Sigil.
On their turn, they play a Seat and spend a Vara’s Favour on the GG before passing, so they probably have Wisdom. I get in for 5 on my turn before playing out the Assembly Line and passing; they play a Wisdom at the end of their turn. They play Speaking Circle and hit Equivocate, Refresh or Fall Short: they opt for Refresh, and I Salvo my Gren in response, prompting a concession from them. I think I very nearly lost that game, somehow. No matter how far ahead you are, always play well. 😛 Hopefully I can redeem myself in this next game?
Game 2:
I keep an opening hand on the play with 2 Stonescar Painting, a Fire Sigil, 2 Assembly Lines, a GG and a Display of Menace – could use a Primal influence, but fantastic otherwise. I open with a Turn 1 GG, and they just have a Clan Standard; on Turn 2, I draw a Gren and just poke in for another 1. Not the most helpful thing here. On their turn, they play a Feln Painting and Exploit, taking my Display of Menace – that makes sense since it’s the most unique effect, but they couldn’t have known I couldn’t play it anyway. :} I draw and play a Fire Sigil before playing out an Assembly Line and getting in for 1; on their turn, they go for another Exploit and take my remaining Assembly Line this time – even my opponent doesn’t think Gren is very good. 😛 I draw a Scrapper I can’t cast at present, so I just get in for 4 before passing. On their turn, they play a Wisdom before a Shadow Symbol and passing; I draw a Seek Power, use it to pick up a Primal Sigil, and then play out my Gren before getting in for 4 again. Fear my tiny army!
On their turn, they use a Vara’s Favor to take out 1 Grenadin before using a Vicious Overgrowth on another. Yikes. On mine, I get in for 3, and after double-checking their list just to be sure of their removal options, I deploy my Scrapper and pass. They play a Speaking Circle and hit Reap, Dark Return and Read the Stars. Oof. I felt that; the Circle giveth and the Circle taketh away. They play the Reap and pass. I take down the Site on my turn, before snacking on the GG and Gren post-combat, finding me a Dark Purveyor, Vara’s Favor and Seek Power. I spend the Seek Power for a Primal Sigil and pass. I decide not to plop down the Purveyor before I can at least get 1 Grenamender of it with the Favor I have in hand in case they do slam the Overgrowth against it, but I can see wanting to be power-efficient instead. On their turn, they have a Razorblades to off both my Grenadins and make 2 Deadly blockers, but when it comes back to me, I topdeck a Scraptank and slam that down, snacking on both Grenadins immediately to put the big boi out of Overgrowth Range, drawing a GG and poking in for 1.
They play a Rindra on their turn, forcing me to pitch a Shadow Sigil, but I’m still in great shape. I play the Vara’s Favor on a Razorbot, playing a GG, snack on both of them drawing a Razorblades and a Display before expending the Razorblades to take out their other Razorbot before attacking in for 11 with Scraptank, which they take. I think that my sequencing that turn was very, very messy. Given that I had decided I was playing the GG and sacrificing it, I should have definitely done that first to see if I needed to play the Vara’s Favor. In this situation, I could have finished off both Razorbots with Display, put the Dark Purveyor buff on the Scraptank, and forced them into chumping with their rindra. But instead, they get a chance to claw back into this. The only reason I could think of for going for Purveyor first is if you plan to sacrifice the Grenamender, but when you’re the aggressor trying to close the door on them, that seems like value you’re probably fine with giving up.
They just play a Sigil and pass, which is rather suspicious; I start by playing a Gren and sacrificing it and a Rustling to my Scrapper, yielding another Purveyor, a Shadow Sigil and a Salvo. I put the Purveyor buff on a Razorbot before Salvoing the Rindra – they respond with a Forbidden Research to save it, pitching 2 power. I swing out with my board, and that’s enough to kill them. Death by a thousand Grenadins. Got a little sloppy at the end, but was helped by them not drawing any threats.
Match 4: (VS Supermaus)
My child! My sweet, precious child! For real though, this build is very similar to my deck from the Invitational with 3 Speaking Circle in place of Reality Warden, which does lower your unit count for KTE but is still a very powerful effect if you can land it in the right spots. If I can somehow stick a Scraptank I might have a chance of taking over the game, but given that I’m a much slower iteration of Grenadins, more likely than not I’m just going to get completely destroyed – KTE will wipe out most of my fodder, and the removal does not line up well at all against any of their threat, forcing me to 2-for-1 myself at most occasions. What can I say? I liked my build of Kerendon. 😛
Game 1:
I ponder over my opening 7 on the play which is a Seat of Chaos, a Fire Sigil, 2 Assembly Lines, a Razorblades, a Gren, and a Seek Power. Against most decks, I think I’d be okay keeping this hand – granted, I do have a lot of 3-cost cards, but I can build out a decent board. However, we’re talking about KTE here: if they have a KTE I am completely screwed because this hand is going to get destroyed. Granted, I could just run it out, cross and pray they don’t have one and try to slowly poke them to death, but that doesn’t seem great. After some pondering, I decide to mulligan. Not sure that was the correct choice. Yeah, I think given how poor the match-up is, your best option might simply be to try and get lucky, hopefully going wide enough with Gren that you can sneak in before they stabilise. The question boils down to whether you think you can draw into a better hand. Let’s see: my 2nd 7 contains a Shadow Sigil, a Stonescar Painting, a Razorblades, a Combust, 2 Scrappers, and a Display. Well, now I regret not keeping the 1st 7 very much. My 6 contains a Seat of Cunning, a Fire Sigil, a Primal Sigil, a Blazing Salvo, Gren, and a Seek Power.
I open by playing the Seat of Cunning and a Seek Power for a Shadow Sigil; they presumably pledge a Moonstone Vanguard on T1 before passing. I play a Fire Sigil and ship it back; they play a Painting and ship it back. I play my Gren and pass; they play a Justice Sigil into an Enter and pass. At least just kill me quickly? Please? 😛 I poke in with Gren for 1, Vara’s Favor their face, play a depleted Painting and pass; they start with a 2nd Enter on their turn, which is terrifying, and follow up with a Siraf. I briefly pondered going for a Blazing Salvo end of turn for Edict, but I think I’m fine just waiting to see what I draw since I won’t be able to do everything at fast speed anyways. Absolutely. Since both Alchemist and Winchest Merchant are now viable targets for Salvo, you don’t want to waste the Salvo unnecessarily. Wait, in case you draw the Combust to deal with it. You also have a Gren on board already, so if you can save the Salvo, it may be buffed a few times to take down a much more respectable target down the line. On my turn, I draw and play a GG before spending a Combust with the Gren here to take out the Siraf before they start activating it next turn. There are just so many threats I need to answer out of them. >.< I attack in for 2 and play my follow-up Gren before passing. They play a Moonstone Vanguard, and on my turn, instead of opting to go for Scrapper and sacrificing both my Grenadins, I elect to go for the Blazing Salvo into Slag to kill the Vanguard before they start accruing value – an awkward Gren buff in this instance by slapping my face for more damage, but what can you do. Here, I decided not to attack first: because of the open decklists, they know at best I can horribly 2 for 1 myself, and frankly I don’t want them gaining the 5 life. They are stuck on Shadow influence at this juncture, but if they do and kill the Scrapper the next turn, then I’m in a really bad spot since Vanguard snowballs really quickly. Also, with the pause from them at Salvo, I can determine that they have an Alchemist in hand. I attack with both units since I’d be fine trading either of them for Alchemist: they elect not to trade and take 3.
On their turn, they open with a Diana into a Painting and a Siraf. Oh dear. I draw and immediately spend a Display on the Gren to try and dig into an answer – I opt for a Scraptank and Scrounger over another Display and a Primal Sigil, and draw a Purveyor off the Gren – I go for Scrounger since I can use it to buyback Salvo, and I know I have an answer in the market instead of trying to dig here. I agree with your line here: while it’s nice to draw the power to hit power drops, it will be at least another 2 turns before you’ll want to play and activate the Scrapper in the same turn anyway, at which point you’re likely to have drawn another power. Drawing the power is safer, but the versatility of Scrounger is hard to pass up. I decide not to play the Scrounger here since I can’t Salvo + Choice this turn regardless, and I’d rather wait and see if I can topdeck a Combust, which would be great; there is an argument for trying to be more power-efficient and just dumping out my hand since I’m not winning by being defensive, but I feel like I need to eke out all the equity I’ve got here.
They play a Speaking Circle and flip a Reap, a Parry and a Twilight Hunt, which isn’t fantastic, but pretty solid against me here: they go for the Reap here to get Shadow influence, which is just delightful. So, on this turn, I’m in a rather tricky predicament: I can’t deal with both the Siraf and the Speaking Circle since I’d need to snack on the GG pre-combat, so instead, I opt to go Seek Power into a Dark Purveyor to buff my GG and get in. Unfortunately, they happened to have the Smite, which frankly I should have seen coming a mile away. Now I have gotten rid of neither threat, which is terrible. Rather than leave the choice to them, I should have just gone for Scrounger -> Salvo -> Choice and hopefully the Speaking Circle magically disappears somehow. I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps I can string together some GGs? If they didn’t have power open for a large assortment of answers which could ruin your day, the line you took would be more defensible, but there are so many ways that could have gone wrong – and it did. Does it feel terrible to spend 3 cards getting rid of a Siraf, and them potentially playing another one on their turn? Absolutely. But following our discussion, I think that Siraf is the more pressing threat. It is both is a threat in itself and protects the other threats you have on board. You probably should just go for the costly line and cross your fingers hoping they don’t have another one. On their turn, they play the Twilight Hunt on the Siraf and activate her, spitting out a Katra, the Devoted, which is fairly middling in terms of threat level, before attacking me with Diana.
As it comes back to me, I have Scrapper, Scraptank, 2 Scroungers and a Seek Power in hand: I decide to go for an all-out attack at the Circle to start with, which is questionable at best. I think once again, I should have gone for the Scrounger first, clear out the Katra, and guarantee that I take down the Speaking Circle, but then I don’t have it for the Siraf. I don’t think there’s any chance I’m winning this game at this point. XD I play the Scrounger post-combat and grab Vara’s Favor to finish off the Katra, which is just compounding the questionable plays. I play Seek Power for a Fire Sigil and pass it right back. They spend the Parry to kill my Scrounger, activate the Siraf for a Sandblast Mage before attacking with Diana and passing it back – I draw and just scoop. Once the Queen of Glass comes out, doubt there’s much else I can do. The play in this game on my part was very…loose, to say the least. Doubt it’d have made a massive amount of difference in the end, but there was always the slim chance Supermaus hit an extraordinarily thick vein of power. >.<
Game 2:
I’m on the draw, and I keep a hand with a Painting, a Seat of Fury, a Primal Sigil, a Shadow Sigil, a Scrounger, a Combust, and a Seek Power. Definitely a rather power-heavy hand to keep on the draw, but granted, I’m feeling a little gun-shy after last game. 😛 They presumably Pledge on Turn 1, and I draw and play a GG like a boss, because who needs good gameplay when you have improbable luck? >.< They play an AP Cylix and pass; I play a Seek Power for a Fire Sigil, poke in, and pass as well. On their turn, they play a Justice Sigil and ship it back; here, I just play my power and attack with GG before passing. I’ve nothing to get back regardless, and playing a 2/2 for 2 seems…awful, to be blunt, particularly since it’ll die in a jiffy. Plus, there’s always the chance of KTE ruining my day. They play a Seat of Progress and pass; I draw and play a Gren, poke in and do the same. At least they aren’t ramping completely out of control this game?
They play a Cylix and drop a Rolant, which I get rid of by Combusting with the Gren the following turn, and pick up a Scrapper. You could consider sacrificing the GG to have 2 bodies in case you draw Scrapper, but that’s too much of a corner case. Although you did draw one, you couldn’t have known that, and I agree that it’s better to dig with Gren. I cash in the Seek Power for a Fire Sigil and crack in for 2; they don’t block, and following that, I play a Scrounger with the hopes of sacrificing it next turn. Unfortunately, they have a KTE – darnit! – and pop out a Vanguard before getting in for 1. I start with a Scraptank and follow up with a Combust, giving up a Grenadin to take out the Vanguard and poke in for 1 with the Rustling. On their turn, they play a Winchest Merchant from From Anguish to take out the Scraptank – good call – before passing. On the bright side, nothing is actively killing me yet, so I might have a shot? I play Scrapper and cash in both my Grenadins for a Display and another Scrapper; at the end of turn, they have a SAA for the Scrapper. Yay for the back-up one.
On their turn, they attack in for 3 before playing a Justice Sigil and passing. Oh my. I start by Vara’s Favoring the Rolant Reaper and just passing – it may have been a little greedy, but I’d like to hold up the Display of Menace for my Scrapper in case they go for removal there, and drawing depleted power, I couldn’t quite play the Scrapper and hold up Display this turn, which is why I decided to just pass. On their turn, they get in for 2 with the Merchant and play a KTE for 8, picking up another Merchant and Diana, and presumably going marketing for a Svetya. (Side gush: this is why I love KTE decks so much. Even when you’re out of gas, you’re really, really not.)
On my turn, I draw and play a Razorblades for 2 before playing my Shadow Sigil, holding up Display. I think there’s a case for playing the power before and amplifying an additional time for 3 Razorbots total if you think they’ve gone for Svetya since you’re not going to be able to play any units you draw with the Display next turn regardless. You can always Display the next turn to dig for removal anyway. Yes, the Razorbots aren’t doing great at blocking all the fliers, but they are fodder to give you more options down the road. Fair point: since I’m assuming that’s what they’ve gotten, I should be doing my best to play around that. They do indeed have the Svetya here, and get in for 4; I miss Displaying at the end of turn. Oops. I draw a Combust, and whilst I could Display to knock off Aegis before Combusting, that seems incredibly inefficient since I’m completely out of gas here, which is why I elect to pass. I also considered saving the Combust for Diana since they’re almost up to that critical 12th power. I understand your perspective of wanting to be as resource-efficient as possible, but you can rarely get away with just spending a bunch of turns doing nothing – you should have Display’ed immediately to try and draw proactive things to do during that turn. They go for an Enter, which makes me immediately regret my choice, and they follow up with a Maeve. Oh boy. At the end of their turn, I remember to Display this time, picking up a Gleaming Grenadin and a Combust over 2 power cards.
I draw a Salvo for the turn play the Gleaming Grenadin and use Combust to take out the Maeve. I then play the Scrapper and spend my Grenadin to draw, hitting another Salvo and Flash Fry. My logic was that I could now block the Svetya and therefore didn’t need to Salvo the Merchant into Edict the Svetya this turn. Plus, I really didn’t want to give up the Combust at this juncture to grab Edict, and hopefully with the Scrapper activations, I can find some more ‘marketable’ cards since I do think I need both the Scrapper and Combust down the road to find a winning line. However, they could easily have any assortment of removal, and I’m already going to have a lot of trouble dealing with these massive units down the line. I think at this point, considering they’ve already given, what, a +3/+3 buff to everything, giving some extra stats on top of that isn’t going to make a massive difference since they’re already fairly impossible for you to deal with. Svetya giving more buffs is annoying, but you need to look for a way to win rather than a way to not lose, which is why I agree with playing the Scrapper here over the other options. They play an AP Cylix into a Trove, which is disastrous, and attack with both fliers – I Salvo the Merchant and grab Edict from my market, putting away Flash Fry. They then play a 7/8 Siraf, which has me deeply sighing. Why are there so many threats? uWu On my turn, I immediately spend the Edict on Svetya, Salvo the Diana, putting away Combust to grab Rindra’s Choice, kill the Siraf with it, and finish off the Diana before they get a chance to use her ultimate. I cap that off by attacking in for 4 and passing. That was horribly card-inefficient, but maybe I can draw some fodder and start making a comeback.
On their turn, they play a Speaking Circle, forming an agenda with Display of Tradition, Phase Out and Pack Conjuring, spending the Pack Conjuring and Invoking an Umbren Coaxer, which they play. Darn Throne Spells in Expedition games. 😛 I draw a Flash Fry, which does deal with the Coaxer, but they still have an unhindered Circle on board. They Display to silence my void and draw a card before passing; I draw a Seek Power and grab a Fire Sigil, because why not. They play a Siraf and don’t even activate it before passing – nice power move. I draw a Salvo and scoop it up, because I don’t think there’s a situation where I can beat the Queen of Glass with fumes in hand. Turns out Speaking Circle is still a ridiculous card to play at parity.
Match 5: (VS marvin_the_imp)
Whilst they have added an extra faction, I do think the matchup is similar as against Brionac’s deck: how many Helios can they find, and can they pull away with card advantage? Otherwise, I don’t think their interaction lines up particularly well with ours, and although they have some big threats which could become problematic for us, their sweeper does nothing against us, which is delightful, and therefore hopefully we’ll be able to grind them out with value.
Game 1:
I keep an opening hand on the draw with 2 Seats of Chaos, a Fire Sigil, a Seek Power, a Downdark Scrounger, a Display and a Gren. Got some fodder, got my influence, it all seems good in the hood. They play a Symbol and pass; I play a Seat and use the Seek Power to find a Primal Sigil. They play a Fire Symbol, and I opt to go for the Scrounger, merely as a 2/2 for 2. They don’t have an answer for it right now, so if they want to spend their next turn doing that, I think I’m fine with that. Gren is decent fodder, but I’m not sure if I want to do nothing much for 4 turns. Considering the many ways they can remove the Scrounger, I’d rather just go with the Vara’s Favor you drew here. If you didn’t have the Gren to sacrifice, leading with the Scrounger is OK, but you’d rather not use it as sacrifice fodder. I don’t think either of you care about the potential extra 2-4 damage here. Buffing the Vara’s Favor is nice but negligible at this juncture. They play a Primal Sigil and trade a Huntress for the Scrounger, which isn’t great, but manageable. On my turn, I play a Gren and pass; they however have a Kenna to eat it immediately. Boo. I draw a Scrapper and pass, before immediately realising that with the buffs, I could have chained my Flash Fry and Vara’s Favor together to take out the Kenna. Reading the card tells you what it does, surprisingly. They do have an Olzial though, which I take out with the Flash Fry, so I guess it’s not too bad that I didn’t jump the gun.
I draw a regular Flash Fry, and this time chain the spells together to take out the Kenna before playing a Shadow Sigil and passing. They have another Evolving Olzial, but I topdeck another Flash Fry to kill it. Man, I would be simmering right now if I were marvin. I am such a lucksack. XD At least I can’t advance my board whilst removing all these threats. They play a Kenna and pass. I draw a Razorblades and elect to amplify it once at their face, spitting out a pair of Razorbots. Look, I’m learning. If they Kenna them, use removal on them, I’m happy either way. They attack for 4 with Kenna, and play a post-combat Helio to refill their hand. I attack with both Razorbots for 2: they block 1 with the Helio, which I sacrifice in response, and I take 1 Combust and 1 Seek Power over a Shadow Sigil and a 2nd Combust. Post-combat, I Seek Power for a Fire Sigil, play my seat and sacrifice the other Razorbot to the Kenna. Not the best Display, granted, but hopefully, I can unearth more fodder shortly. I elected to keep additional power over my 3rd Combust because I’d rather be able to chain more units into my Scrapper and so forth – Combust is a great card, but sacrificing Scrapper to it is decidedly undesirable, which means there are significant diminishing returns with each copy. As you’ll see in a moment, I did end up finding more fodder, but with the information I had at the time, I do believe my play made sense.
On their turn, they play a depleted Seat followed by a Kenna and Jarrall, which is…delightful. I draw and amplify a Razorblades to kill the Helio, and spend a Combust to clock the Jarrall – given that they are currently at 7P, I think down the line, the Jarrall will be dealing net more damage against me. They whack in for 4 with Kenna, and play a Jennev Merchant followed by a Torgov and passing. Probably a Vengeful Flight here on the Torgov, but I draw a Salvo, so there’s not much I can do about that; I elect to play a Scrapper and pass. It is indeed the Vengeful Flight on Torgov and they get in for 8; they draw and discard a Favor with Torgov. Post-combat, they play a Huntress to kill my Scrapper, and I scoop it up.
Game 2:
I’m on the play, and I mulligan a very awkward first 7 with 2 Fire Sigils, 2 Scrappers, a Gren, a GG, and a Scraptank; my 2nd 7 consists of 2 Paintings, a Seat of Chaos, a Seat of Cunning, a Seek Power, a Combust and a Display. A risky keep a la the previous match, but I do opt to take it instead of going down to 6. I think it’s a mistake to keep this hand: it literally does nothing if you don’t draw a unit, and considering how much removal marvin is packing, it has the potential of still not doing anything even if that was the case. I play a Painting into Seek Power, grabbing a Fire Sigil before passing; they play a Cylix, and I draw a Gren. A unit! Hooray! I however just play the Painting and pass. They go for a Seek Power and play out another Cylix before passing. I play a Seat of Cunning into Gren, and we’re off to the races. They plop down a Jennev Merchant, and I think they’d take Vengeful Flight here, but I’m not confident on that. If they have a way to gain Face Aegis, Replication Cell doesn’t seem like a terrible choice either. I play my Seat and pass, which is a punt since this deck has Dazzles, which will blow me out badly. They attack with the Merchant, I block and sacrifice Gren to Display: I pick up a Purveyor from the Gren, and select a GG and a Scrounger over a 2nd Display and 2nd Scrounger. I decided to go with a Scrounger here so that I had some versatility in what cards I can get back, but I still need some fodder in the form of the GG.
Post-combat, they play a Kenna and pass. On my turn, I draw another Gren – how delightful – play it, play a GG, and sacrifice the Gren to Combust before attacking in for 2. Yikes, that’s a painful Blazing Salvo. 😛 On their turn, they play a Broker and a Fire Symbol before passing – probably dropping in a bunch of Burn Them Alls? I must imagine the other options drop off quickly in multiples. On my turn, I draw a Scrapper, play the Purveyor, passing the buff to the GG before using the Salvo on the Broker and snagging an Edict of Shavka before getting in for 4. With an Assembly Line and a Scrapper in hand now, I feel that I should easily be able to keep the card advantage train rolling. They play a Huntress, imbuing the Merchant to be rid of the Purveyor before following up with a Kenna to kill the Gleaming Grenadin. Well then. I elect to spend the Edict of Shavka now and play a follow-up Assembly Line instead of going for the Scrapper and sacrificing my 2 Grenadins. I mostly don’t want my Scrapper to be eaten by a Huntress, but in reality, since they’ve already spent the Killer attack on Kenna, my Scrapper dying was unlikely, and I shouldn’t have been so scared. XD In this position, since you’re able to get the activation of the Scrapper, it’d be more worthwhile, especially considering they’ve already played a Huntress. You’re not worried about Kenna’s ultimate yet and you should be able to offset some of the flying damage through Scrapper activations. You always have the option of dealing with the Kenna down the line should it become an issue. Ultimately, it’s not posing a threat to you right now.
On their turn, they play an Olzial and pass; I ponder for a moment and play a Scraptank before attacking with just the Rustling. I think you should have attacked with everything here. If they block 1 unit, it puts your Scraptank out of Explosion/Flash Fry/Overgrowth range; if they block 2, it’s out of Burn Them All Range. And if they don’t block, you get in for some free damage – a lot more if they don’t block the single attacker. Yes, you are letting your opponent make the choice, but it’s more of a lose/lose situation for them this way. You’re absolutely right – just attacking with 1 thing doesn’t end up accomplishing much. They play a Wisdom and attack in with the Olzial, drawing and discarding a Jennev Merchant and a Seat – must have something at least pretty decent if you’re pitching Merchant when you could go unearth an Edict for the Scraptank. As it turns out, they had gotten the Edict earlier, and turn my big tank into a Totemite.
I was so tempted to get greedy here, but instead, I take the safer line of Combusting the Olzial with my Totemite, and playing the Scrounger to snack on my Grenamender and buy back my Display. Again, I should have used my Display now, but I’m a bozo. You should have also swung out and just sacrificed the blocked unit. ^^Also that. They play a Huntress, and go for a Killer attack on the Scrounger: I use Display on it in response and take a Scraptank and Flash Fry over a Seek Power and a Seat. That’s not too greedy…right? They play a power and follow up with Olzial. On my turn, I decide to just knock off the Olzial immediately with Flash Fry instead of developing my board, and skip past my combat step. Butterfingers. I am at a healthy enough life total that I’m not terribly worried about Olzial damage at this juncture, but given that they’re pretty much out of gas, I do not want them digging for a Helio. They play a Jennev Merchant, and at this point, I have no idea what’s in their market anymore. They attack with Huntress, I block with a Grenadin, and at the end of their turn, I Salvo the Huntress, putting away Scraptank for a Slag in case they did take Replication Cell. I think the Salvo was a little speculative. The Salvo itself is defensible because it kills the Huntress, but I don’t think you put away the Scraptank – you’re firmly in the driver’s seat right now, and Scraptank is the best way you have of pressuring them. Given that you might end up going on a drawing spree with Scrapper, I think I’d just pass on killing the Huntress here, and just not Salvo yet. Yeah…I proceed to regret that greatly. :sweatsmile:
I play Scrapper, snacking on 2 Grenadins, drawing a Seek Power and a Shadow Sigil; I use the Seek to grab a Primal Sigil and pass. They play a Vengeful Flight on the Jennev Merchant for more market access, and they pass afterwards. I snack on my remaining Grenadins, finding a Scrapper and a GG. Definitely should have played out my 2nd Scrapper here and attacked with my 1st, holding up the Slag. I think you should have played the 2nd Scrapper pre-sacrifice. While the 2 extra life are relatively inconsequential for now, I don’t think there were many cards you could draw that you would rather play this turn anyway. They attack in for 4 and pass; I draw and attempt to play an Assembly Line; there is a pause, yet it resolves. Presumably they drew a Flash Fry then since the Line is certainly worth countering. I snack on 2 Grenadins – I think here I play the 2nd Scrapper out before snacking because the chance of drawing something better to play post-combat is so miniscule. I draw a GG and a Favor, and attack with Scrapper for 4, which they don’t block. I follow-up with my Scrapper post-combat and pass.
They attack for 4 in the air before playing a Replication Cell, sacrificing a flying Merchant before playing another copy. I Slag it immediately on my turn, play both GGs, sacrifice one of them and a Grenadin to a Scrapper, and picking up a Seat and an Assembly Line. I play the Seat and the Assembly Line before sacrificing 2 more Grenadins, picking up a Combust and Assembly Line, at which point marvin elects to concede. I think marvin might have conceded a bit too early here: you were drawing a lot of cards, but your units weren’t applying too much pressure yet. They probably have Burn Them All on top of their deck, so that plus some blocks could knock out those Scrappers. Then some good draws off Helio could really make a difference. That is true, but that Slag was certainly quite the blowout. I think that they do have a couple of outs, but would rather move onto the next game rather than continue this already long, dragged out affair on a small percentage chance; I do think both make sense, though.
Game 3:
I once again keep a very sketchy hand on the play with 2 Displays, a Primal Sigil, a Shadow Sigil, a Stonescar Painting, a Seek Power, and a Scraptank. I should be able to drop Scraptank on Turn 5, but I wonder if not doing anything until then is perhaps a bit too slow, even on the play. I play the Painting and play Seek for a Fire Sigil; they play a Symbol and pass. I play a Seat and ship it right on back; they play a Fire Sigil and do the same. I draw a Scrapper, which is so not helpful given my current glacial hand, and just play power before passing. They play a Seat of Fury and a Merchant – could be anything here, honestly – just depends on the rest of their hand. I draw and play a Seat before passing; I’m regretting my keep right about now. They attack for 2 before playing Broker, presumably for Burn Them All, and pass; I play Power and the Scrapper first because it’s less likely to get killed. If this Scrapper sticks, then I can put the Scraptank out of kill range next turn. It doesn’t make a difference as they have a Huntress, imbuing the Broker to kill my Scrapper and attacking in for 2.
I play a Scraptank on my turn and pass, holding up Salvo; they Wisdom at the end of my turn. They go for an Explosion on my Scraptank, and I decide to just let it go instead of shooting one of my own Grenadins with Salvo. I am putting them on having more removal, and then I’d be down both fodder and the card. What about the flip side? It’s not as if they have a way on board to kill it, so you’re at least getting them to spend another card. If they don’t have it, you’re suddenly in a great spot because they don’t have good damage-based removal against it. I prefer spending the Salvo here. They attack with everything, and I throw a Grenadin under the bus. On my turn, I draw a Seat and attack with the Grenadin before spending the Display, which does get hit by Dazzle – unfortunate, but don’t think I had another option there. I opt to just pass instead of having my Scrounger get hit by a Fry and die for no value. They attack for 8 and play a Helio before passing; I think I need both Display and Scrounger at this juncture, so I opt to just go to my turn to see what I draw first.
I draw a depleted Seat, so I go for the Salvo on the Helio, taking Edict of Shavka, playing my Scrounger and sacrificing it immediately. I would not have gone for the slow speed Display here – yes, it would be awful to have it Dazzled, but the difference between taking 2 extra damage and taking 6 extra damage when you’re so far behind is huge, particularly since there’s not much you could draw that you could be a blocker this turn. I think the block is more important here, and you should have waited on the Display, even if it does get negated. Yeah – sometimes you have to respect the fact that you’re probably dead on board, and can’t afford to play around certain things – you just hope they don’t have them. My Display grabs a Purveyor and Assembly Line over a Favor and a Sigil, and I pass. They play an Eilyn’s Favor, attack for 8, and blast me with a Burn Them All post-combat. Made a mistake keeping such a slow hand, and got absolutely hosed for it. 😛
Match 6: (VS Cananada)
Alrighty, last match, will I be able to break even in my match record? Probably not! I have faced this terrifying creation on the Misplay Ladder before, and it’s a deck that really punishes decks that like to draw a bunch of cards – like me! I do have maindeck relic removal unlike some other decks, and their deck doesn’t really answer a Scraptank particularly well, so hopefully we have an aggressive enough start to just close the door on them.
Game 1:
I keep an opening hand on the play with a Stonescar Painting, a Fire Sigil, a Salvo, a Flash Fry, a Vara’s Favor, a Display of Menace, and an Assembly Line. Not very aggressive, but pretty much an ideal hand sans Primal influence, so I’ve got to keep this. They start with a depleted Cylix, and I play my Painting. They play a Feln Painting, and slam a Turn 2 Dichro’s Ruin against me. Wow. Rude. I play a Vara’s Favor to grab a Shadow Sigil, but the lifegain is immediately negated. They play a 2nd Feln Painting and pass; I play my Sigil and play an Assembly Line. They play a Lethrai Courier and follow up with a 2nd Dichro’s Ruin; I’m staring at the Scrapper in my hand and am just internally weeping. I play a Fire Sigil and Flash Fry the Courierbefore attacking in for 3 and passing; they start by Exploiting my Scrapper away – granted, it still is a pretty decent body even if I don’t plan on activating it much – followed by a Trove and a depleted Seat of Wisdom.
I play a Shadow Sigil, attack in for 3 and pass. They play a Courier, a Lock and an Exploit, and they take Display, which makes sense – I don’t have the influence for it now, but that kill relic mode is looking awfully juicy for when I get to it. I draw and play a Scraptank before attacking in for 3, which they take before I pass. If this Scraptank can stick, it can do some major work in pressuring them. They crack the Amber Lock and play a Permafrost on the Scraptank – oops for not running Kaleb’s Choice. I play a Scrapper and crack in with all 5 Grenadins, which they take. Post-combat, I sacrifice my Grenadin and my frosted Scraptank, taking 2 to grab a Combust and a depleted Seat, the power of which I play. They play a Coveted Gemstone, spend a Trove, and leave a suspicious 2 power up instead of cracking the Gemstone. My Scrapper is about to be hit with SAA, so the question is do I want to go drawing pre-combat: I decide it’s not worthwhile at this point, and go for the attack, where it does get eaten as expected, and they take 4.
On my turn, they play an Exploit, taking 1 of my 2 Combusts, before playing a Moonstone Vanguard. I draw an uncastable Scrounger, and spend the Combust pre-combat to take out the Vanguard before attacking in for 3: they still don’t block and take it before I pass. On their turn, they play a Plasma Primordial, and I just scoop here. I don’t have the Primal influence to take care of the Plasma Primordial with Rindra’s Choice, and they can mow through my board with shocking ease. I do think that keep was still fine, however. Yep: while you still have some outs, you’d need to 4-for-1 yourself going for Salvo into Flash Fry into Edict just to kill their Primordial, and you have nothing left compared to their stocked hand. Probably wouldn’t have scooped if we were at an Open, but it’s understandable here.
Game 2:
I keep a hand of Seat of Cunning, Primal Sigil, Dark Purveyor, Vara’s Favor, Scrapper, Scrounger, and a Seek Power on the draw. A little strange, but with the power tutoring, I should be golden on my influence. They take a mull to 6, so I might have a chance here. (Famous last words…) They play a Cylix, and I play my Seat and Seek for a Fire Sigil. They play a Feln Painting into a Lethrai Courier, which could be quite potent since I have no way of dealing with it at present. I play my Fire Sigil, Vara’s Favor their face, and pass; they play an Amber Lock, play an undepleted Seat of Cunning and ship it right back. I draw a depleted Painting, and decide to go Sigil into Gren here. Might have been correct to go Scrounger, however. I think that makes sense: even if they do remove it with SAA or Permafrost, you’d much rather them spend it on the Scrounger than say a Scrapper or Scraptank. If they don’t kill it, they probably wouldn’t block with the Courier, so you’re just chipping in for additional damage. On their turn, they play a Time Sigil and crack the Amber Lock; I attack with Gren on mine, which they take, before I sacrifice it to my Scrounger. After some pondering, I decide to play a Painting here and wait to get more value with the Favor and Scrounger down the line.
They play an Elvish Swindler and grab a Dichro’s Ruin, which is just delightful. I decide to Display the Ruin immediately before attacking in with Scrounger, which they block with Swindler. Post-combat, I play a Vara’s Favor to finish off the Swindler. That was a strange line. You’re not terribly concerned about the Ruin yet, and the Swindler isn’t doing much either. I don’t think it’s worthwhile to trade your Scrounger when you could just go for the Scrapper instead and leave your options open for next turn. Yeah…I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking either. On their turn, they play a Plasma Primordial. **sigh** At least I have Primal influence this time? I spend a Salvo on the Courier, discarding all copies of Salvo, before putting away a Shadow Sigil for Rindra’s Choice, which I clock the Primordial with. I then use a Razorblades to finish off the Courier – they have however already gotten plenty of value off it.
They play an undepleted Seat of Wisdom before passing; I get in for 1 with the Razorbot before sacrificing it to Scrounger to get back Display; I then play a depleted Painting and the Purveyor to buff the Scrounger as opposed to holding up the Display – they really don’t have much to do at fast speed, which signals to me that they’re probably close to being out of gas. As such, I’d rather go for the more aggressive line here. At the end of my turn, they SAA the Purveyor, which they had been aggressively telegraphing with their open power. If you think that they have an SAA here, then you should have definitely held up the Display and just attacked with the Scrounger as a 2/2; if they spend their SAA on Scrounger, you Display it and are fine with that. If they don’t, next turn, you’ve got the 7 power to both play Purveyor and hold up Display, letting you eat your dying unit for value. Wanting to reduce that high life total is understandable, but the line was liable to being blown out.
On their turn, they play an active Cylix, picking up a Trove and slamming down a 2nd Plasma Primordial before cashing in their Trove. On my turn, I topdeck a Combust, and immediately sacrifice my Scrounger to take out the Primordial. Kind of unfortunate since I did just buff it, but the Primordial is way too dangerous to let live. I decide to play out the Scrapper to just try and pressure them: hopefully they don’t have yet another SAA? They play a Time Sigil, and have a Pinnacle of the Reach and a Permafrost for the Scrapper. On my turn, I spend 1 Display to sacrifice the Scrapper, keeping a Flash Fry and a Seek Power over 2 Seats; as tempting as it is to use the Display here on the Pinnacle, I feel like I need the cards just as badly as they do at this point since my hand does complete bupkis. So I just pass; besides, if they find a Ruin or perhaps a Coveted Gemstone into a Staff of Stories, I imagine there are much higher priority targets. Their topdecks are probably more high-impact than yours, but you still can’t win with what you’ve got in hand, so that’s just an unfortunate evil you have to deal with. At least it’s a symmetrical effect and since you’re the one with the ability to pull the trigger, I think you’re fine holding off on clocking the Pinnacle here.
They do have an Elvish Swindler to grab a Dichro’s Ruin, so I am happy to kill that at the end of their turn. On my turn, I draw a Scrapper and Gren, playing the Gren and power before passing. Given your previous line, I don’t think anything changes here: yes, it’s unfortunate if the Scrapper gets hit by SAA or Permafrost, but it’s still a decent body that you could use to pressure them right now, particularly since it goes over the Swindler. Yeah…not sure why I didn’t, frankly. They draw 2, attack in for 3, which I take and regret doing so as they play a Vanguard and a Moldermuck, which is a lot of pressure coming my way. On my turn, I draw 2 Seats and still don’t play the Scrapper…for some reason. (In Storm’s futile defense, it’s 2am at the time of play. :P) They start by Exploiting the Scrapper from my hand, and attacking for 11; I block the Vanguard with Gren, and they follow up with a Plasma Primordial, which is…horrifying. They cash in a Trove and at the end of their turn, I use the buffed Flash Fry to kill the Vanguard.
I start my turn with a Scraptank, and sacrificing one of my Grenadins with Scrounger to buyback Razorblades; I then play out my GG and pass. On their turn, they play a Courier followed by an Amber Lock…and a 2nd Lock. They then crack a Lock and trade their Globule with my Scrounger before passing. I draw a Painting and a Display; I play the Painting, which I probably should have waited on, and sacrifice my Grenadin to Display – I take a Seek Power and a GG over 2 Seats. I play the Seek Power for a Fire Sigil, and play the GG before passing. At this rate, there’s a non-zero chance that I lose to my deck being empty, honestly
They play a Gemstone followed by an active Cylix, crack a Lock, and play a Vanguard before passing. Please just kill me. Please. uWu I draw a Seat and a Scraptank, and play Razorblades for 12 to take out the Courier and Plasma Globule. Ha! Look at me stalling out this game further! They play an undepleted Seat, crack the Gemstone, grabbing Replication Cell. They sacrifice their Primordial to it before replenishing it right back and use an Exploit to take the Scraptank out of my hand and cashing in a Trove. I draw and decide to scoop because I honestly have zero clue how I’m supposed to break past their board. Also, I’m exhausted from playing this game. (rofl) Punted extremely hard in many places, but somehow don’t think it made too much of a difference. That was a tight grip from Cananada there.
Final thoughts:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/0mbBzGRqzM4/surely-senpai-must-notice-me-now
Above is the list with the changes I’d make following the tournament now that I’ve had a little more chance to play the deck. I’ve replaced the variable Razorblades that I felt was only good with Scrounger/Gren out with the more consistent Vicious Overgrowth as an alternative way to deal with sites. I also haven’t been impressed by Gren even with the buff – it just doesn’t quite feel like the right shell to take advantage of all of its entomb abilities, which is why I’m back on 2 Moldermuck and 2 more Purveyor – it may be correct to go for a 3/3 split instead, but we’ll see. These changes also have the upside of smoothing out our curve a pinch. In the 2 drop slot, I’ve replaced Scrounger in the 2 drop slot with Grenahen – it’s the better early play despite it being multifaction, and whilst I can’t be as selective in cherry-picking the card I’d like to recur from my void, I believe that not having to sacrifice another unit is a worthwhile trade.
In the market, I’ve dropped Slag; since we have main-deck relic removal, it did feel a little redundant. I originally replaced it with Kaleb’s Favor, but I definitely want to give the new Grenadin Uprising card a shot – it might end up being too slow, but we’ll see. I’ve also taken out the Cyber Combustion I’ve pulled a grand total of zero times since building and playing the deck, and gone for the late-game powerhouse of a card in Nectar of Unlife, as I’ve mentioned above. Finally, I have also taken out the Devour, which I also have never taken, for a Kaleb’s Choice to break a Permafrost on a giant Scraptank or perhaps negate a potent Equalize. Of course, with the new set Stormbreak dropping and giving the Expedition metagame a delightful shake-up, all of these changes are speculative, and I can’t wait to see how to adapt this archetype for the new metagame.
Whilst there were a lot fewer people participating in the TNT tournament this time around, it was still spectacularly well-run, and I’m glad that I got to play out my matches with everyone this time round. I’m so far out of the running for the series championship, but SRFS is still holding onto their top spot thanks to their Week 1 and 2 wins – the rest of the field are going to need them to flop super hard in this last week to stand a fighting chance.
Speaking of SRFS, thank you so much to them for agreeing to collaborate with me on this tournament report: they have put in so much work into this on top of all the other things they usually do in the Eternal community, and it’s been wonderful having your insight and expertise in terms of deckbuilding and lines of play. 100% would work with you again. 😛
Alright, now it’s back to you readers: do you enjoy reading this massively long tournament report, or is it too much for even you guys to devour? Did you like the back-and-forth commentary style that I had with the guest, or was it perhaps too confusing to track? Which member of the Eternal community would you like me to aggressively pester to collaborate with me next? Let me know on Twitter @stormguard798, DM me as I’m lurking in the FE, TEJ or The Misplay Discords, or let me know in the comments section of the Reddit post. Until next time. 😉
Careful Considerations - Ramblings of an Aspiring Azorius Lawmage 