The Spoils

Swedish Spring Championship Report

Prologue

For the past year, I haven’t been playing much of the Spoils. I’ve become a father for the second time, and such things tend to limit the amount of time you can put into hobbies, even if they are the greatest hobbies in the world! Last year’s National Championships was a complete and utter failure for me. I was happy I could attend at all with the new kid and all, but I couldn’t really prepare and the format was new and everything. I think I won one game, but I’m not sure.

Well, this time I could prepare and I did. With the Current format relatively new, I was looking to build a new deck from scratch. I try to see myself as creative, but I typically suck at finding out new deck concepts. I am, however, pretty good at improving existing deck concepts. Nevertheless, I started out with a Banker/Warlord burn deck, but after playing Poisoned online over OCTGN, and having real trouble defeating his Gearsmith/Warlord Blade deck – I switched to the Blade abuse style myself, trying (as always) to improve upon the build. Gearsmith/Warlord it was.

I brought the deck to one of our Monday tournaments and won it. At the same time, Lekkit brought another version of the Blade deck to that same tournament – a deck mixing Gearsmith with Rogue. I defeated him then, but he admitted there were a number of changes he needed to make.

My testing and tinkering continued online and I went to another Monday tournament where I faced off vs. Adam in the final game. Adam decided to play a Blade deck too, but his build ran only 2 starting Elitism and no resources in the deck. He won that game. His deck had superior card value because of the lack of resources in the deck and he also ran Basic Nodes for the extra speed in the mirror, something I had completely neglected. I was only running Node in a Box at the time, but I swiftly rebuilt when I got home to add the Basic Nodes. It helped Adam that he got Toolbox Elf first of course and that fact was really a concern for me. I knew that if more players started running Blade decks, I would have to change my strategy or trust to luck that I got a better start than my opponent.

I had previously thought about going Gearsmith/Rogue, for Yoink!, Slingerang and the high-speed characters, but at the time I only owned 1 Slingerang, and I didn’t want to give up 4 Blow Ups for a single piece of item removal.

However, when I got home I logged in to the chat and spoke at length with Lekkit. During our conversation I grew more and more convinced (as he was), that Gearsmith/Rogue was superior.

It wasn’t just the fact that Rogue had a better removal option in Slingerang (Warlord may stay true to its flavor, but it doesn’t feature any straight out removal cards with Noble Sacrifice gone, so you have to rely on Rocket Lawnchair to kill anything bigger than weenies), Rogue was also better prepared for the mirror game with cards like Yoink!, not to mention the fact that high-speed characters are very good if you are Bladerunning, as you can EQUIP it on the fly for each speed group, cutting through weenie blockers like they weren’t even there.

I bought a few Holy Heist Boxes and got 1 Slingerang, and then traded for a third. I finally had enough to try the deck out and I did, though mostly online. There is always a certain amount of prestige in inventing a deck in the group I play. I wasn’t completely happy following in Lekkit’s footsteps regarding the trade combination, but I felt the Warlord deck simply wasn’t on par with it and I was worrying about the mirror now that there were at least three Blade decks in our meta. Yoink could really shift that balance and playing without it seemed like a bad choice. I didn’t know Lekkit’s exact build either, since fate would have it that we weren’t paired against each other during any remaining Monday tournaments, so I was hoping I would retain some sort of flavor in my version and wouldn’t be seen as a complete copycat.

The deck was shaping up, and just before the Spring Championships tournament I traded for a fourth Slingerang and could complete my deck.

The Deck

Starting:

1x The Tournament Faction

2x Elitism

Deck:

4x Everlasting Blade of Light

4x 700160x 31f

4x Stuttershy

1x Rocket Lawnchair

4x Clockman Junk Picker

4x Micromajig Master

4x Hilarious Refrigerator Alarm

4x Luteoderm Prototype

4x Node in a Box

3x Industrious Usage

10x Deception

4x Super Slingerang XL200

3x Yoink!

4x Backdoor Brigand

2x Basic Node

4x Thabbashite Assailant

3x Tri-Pole Magnet

2x Delicious Strawberry Flavored Death

4x Thabbashite Dartist

1x Chum, the Ugliest Sarume

Now, let me talk you through this list for a bit. Most Gearsmith cards I use are practically staples in the Blade deck, so I won’t cover them. You might wonder why I ran only 1 Rocket Lawnchair. The reason for this was simple play testing experience. I found that I very rarely used more than one in any given game before winning, and Slingerang was almost always the topmost fetching choice for Junk Picker.

The two Basic Nodes served mostly as a means to find Node in a Box faster, as the probability for getting a node in the starting hand went from 37% to 50% compared to playing only the play set of Node in a Box. I didn’t want to fit more nodes into the deck because of the risk of drawing more than one in the starting hand. I knew because of the mirror games that my deck would have to be as slim and effective as possible.

I didn’t run any Pwny Bombs in this version. I did run four of them in previous builds, but they were gradually phased out to fit Chum, Strawberries and Tri-Pole Magnets. They are strong – yes, and combo really well with Stuttershy, but I wanted the other options in the deck since I saw lots of control in the tournaments leading up to Spring Championships.

Now, you may gasp at the number of Blades in the deck. A full play set!? In retrospect, I agree. I shouldn’t have run that many. However, more than one player had at least played a deck previously containing Cheats and Chum, and I didn’t want to get starved out of it. I did change it to three copies in my Nationals deck, and if I would play the deck today, I think I would even go down to two, given the amount of Tri-Pole Magnets in the deck and the discard outlet that Slingerang is. Remember that I didn’t have that many Slingerangs when I started building the deck. Fewer Blades would have given me the space to put two Pwny Bombs back in or go for Opportunistic Pirates or maybe even two more Chums. I did play two Chums in the Nationals version of the deck – and they helped.

Speaking of Chum, does he even deserve a spot in the deck? Why would I play this new weenie character over Opportunistic Pirate and other cards? Well, this was because of the control decks in our meta and also because of the mirror match. Let me explain:

Apart from Blade decks, we also had Arcanist control decks and the Writ/Pete/Thabbashite faction deck that Hampus ran. For these decks I felt I needed some kind of discard pile disruption. Deploying Chum while they try to pick a card to remove it AND get to search their deck for another card I don’t want to see soon AND while doing this get to spot what is left in their deck, seemed like a very nice one-card package. The single copy was used for Spring Championships mostly as a test, but I was really, really happy I did include it, as you will soon find out. That’s the reason I included two for Nationals as well. The small cost of the character also meant I could deploy it in more situations than an Opportunistic Pirate, and could deploy it a lot earlier as well, since I only needed one card in an opponent’s discard pile.

For the mirror match, I figured a Chum could get out early, remove something with a cost of three or higher, and then remove a Toolbox Elf from my opponent’s deck, while at the same time scouting the number of Blades and other possible threats left. I did use this in my game vs. Lekkit in the semi-finals of Nationals, and the TACTICAL aspect of the card saved me at least once in that game, even though I ultimately lost to his aggro. But this is mostly a Spring Championships article and I’ll let Lekkit cover in more detail how Nationals went down.

The Thabbashite Dartist was a bit of a gamble. It’s very, very good if you can get it out in the mirror and the opponent can’t kill it fast enough. However, it’s expensive compared to a lot of other cards in the deck, so deploying it without it doing anything is typically not very good. But it has nice synergy with Stuttershy, Junk Picker and Node in a Box, so I still think it was good to include it.

Finally, the number of Deception could have been lower. I was experimenting with 8 Rage in my Gearsmith/Warlord deck and it worked out just fine – but I wanted the opportunity to deploy Thabbashite Dartist and Backdoor Brigand as early as possible in the mirror, so I sacrificed two slots to get to 10.

Check back tomorrow to see how the event went!

Bladerunning — Swedish Spring Championship Tournament Report Pt 2 by Johan Bisenius | Aug 18, 2015 | Constructed, News, Organized Play, Tournament Report |

Bladerunning — Swedish Spring Championship Tournament Report Pt 2 The Spring Championship Tournament Ok, before I cover my games, let me tell you that our Spring Championships was a bit rushed compared to the tournaments we usually host. Due to weekend activities and due to Swedish midsummer holiday happening right before Nationals, we didn’t have the time to plan for Spring Championships on a weekend. We had to host it on a Monday and that meant that we were very rushed on time because the store was closing at 22.00 and we start our Monday tournaments at 18.00. This meant we were only going to manage running the four Swiss rounds of 60 minutes each, and in turn this meant you would have to win every game to ensure victory in the tournament.

Match 1 – Isac (Arcanist/Warlord Control)

My first game was vs. Isac, a player that has a history of defeating me in national championships before. He was the only player that defeated my Writ-Bile deck back in 2009, when the deck type was fairly new in Sweden. He also put me out in the semi finals of Nationals in 2011 by deploying triple Yurt and a Quotidian Ejector within a couple of turns – a wall I could never push through with my mono Warlord deck. Suffice to say, I didn’t want history to repeat itself.

My memory and notes from this game are very sparse. Isac deployed a Boar early and after I got the Blade out, he deployed a Violating Anomaly which bounced my Blade when I killed it. This meant the game dragged on, but I drew into a lot of aggro options and could win without too much trouble.

1-0-0

Match 2 – Hampus (Arcanist/Banker/Warlord Writ-Bile)

This game was a real nail-biter and easily the best game in the tournament. In the early game, I feared Anatidaephobia, so I held my starting hand Toolbox back until I could deploy it safely, which set me back at least a couple of important early turns. In retrospect this was a big mistake, but I thought it was still the smartest choice, despite not knowing what deck he played. I was guessing it was Arcanist/Banker, as I didn’t see the Warlord resources until later.

To keep up my resources, I instead deployed a couple of Junk Pickers, fetching Slingerang and Lawnchair and with Prototypes attached; they fought off the Erotic Assassins Hampus used as an early defense. Hampus had Akashic Notes though, and every time I got an accelerated resource, he got one too. Before long he deployed Free Trade Agreement, and I realized this was not the deck I was expecting. It put a timer on me, and I tried to play the remaining turns as aggressively as I could.

When my Toolbox finally hit and I attempted to let the aggro engine run amok, Hampus used Subsection 5, Paragraph 12 to prevent me from moving my Blade. It’s possible he even deployed it twice during subsequent turns. Thus he could stay alive long enough to get the amount of resources needed to deploy Downsizing – a card I had not expected and that tilted the game for me completely. Suddenly I had nothing on the field, while it started to dawn on me that Hampus probably had Writ-Bile as a win con. He is known for going combo if he can. I thought the game was over and was cursing myself for not deploying the Toolbox turn 1, as Hampus was now down to 14 influence and a more aggressive start would probably have lowered that amount considerably. That’s the downside of over thinking the situations at hand, when you really should just take a few chances every once in a while. Hampus also had a Pete out, and I realized he could basically cycle his whole deck, including any face-down resources.

I did what I could during my turn in terms of re-establishing my field. This meant deploying one Toolbox Elf (fetching Blade) and two more weenies (I don’t remember which). Hampus deployed an Erotic Assassin or two and I think two Mau Strategiests during his turn, so I couldn’t just push through and win the next turn with what I had on the field. I was suspecting the next turn was all I would have before Hampus was untouchable due to his looping capabilities and MASSIVE resource lead. During his turn, he used many of his resources, though and with not too many left, he deployed Remember, picking Blow Up in his discard pile, undoubtedly trying to aim for the Blade I had managed to play last turn. I paid to draw in response, and top-decked my only copy of Chum! I deployed Chum, removing the Blow Up and got to look at his deck. I noted he had all four copies of Limited Liability there, so if he didn’t draw into one or search for one somehow, I WOULD get my chance during my coming turn. Because of Remember and possibly other tricks, I didn’t really want to put anything in his discard pile, so I chose to put the only remaining Writ I could find there. On his end of turn, I also flipped my face-down Strawberries, and suddenly Hampus’ field was open for the kill! He still had 2 open resources though, and lots of cards in hand.

During my turn, I attacked with the Blade-carrying Toolbox Elf and Hampus took damage. Then I tried to move the Blade, and Hampus responded with another Subsection! This wasn’t completely unexpected, and I wasn’t completely unprepared for it either. I had another Toolbox in hand! I deployed it, and thanks to the FTA that had remained in play for several turns, I had enough resources to move the Blade to my remaining three characters – a combined strength value of 12, to the 10 influence Hampus had left.

However, he had a Pete in play, and when I attacked with a weenie, he flipped Pete face-down and used the resources he got to restore the Erotic Assassin.

If he got to block my weenie, would only inflict 8 damage and I would surely had lost that game. However, if you recall, I deployed double Junk Pickers early, and I never got to use the Lawnchair I put down. Now I did. The Erotic was no more and I could freely swing for game in this epic showdown match!

2-0-0

Match 3 – Andreas (Arcanist/Banker Control)

This game was long. Andreas went for 100% control and had two Violating Anomalies out. These beasts messed up my hand and my Blades and refused to die (and stay that way) due to timely played Quotidian Transpositions and Postmortem Debentures. I made two big mistakes in this game.

One: I didn’t play HRA when he redeployed a Violating after using Transposition.

Two: I got greedy and drew at the end of his turn when I had a winning field, only to get hit by Mass Subjugation that I now couldn’t terminate and I lost almost the entire field, including at least 3 Node in a Box that I couldn’t pay to flip down. I felt like a complete idiot and was certain I had just thrown the game. However, before long I managed to get new characters out, and when Andreas tried to play his fifth (?) Violating Anomaly, I finally remembered that HRA and got it good. After that I managed to wear him down.

3-0-0

Match 4 – Adam (Mono Gearsmith Blade)

I was very worried about this matchup. Somehow I had managed to stay out of the mirror matches until now, but now I had to face Adam, who was the latest Blade player that beat me.

Before we could start, however, it was calculated that I had the best tiebreakers, with a score of 9. Many of the games in this tournament had gone to time and Adam had two draws and one win, meaning that even if he beat me, I would still have the highest score and would win the tournament.

I took my share of rares and the play mat, and we decided to play the game anyway – if nothing else just to get some more testing in before Nationals.

We didn’t have much time left before the store closed, since there were so many control decks and in every round there was at least one game that went to time. The two turns per player after time was called would easily go on for 10 minutes as the players tried their best to win or stay alive, and thus the four hours we had before closing was nearly at an end.

From what I remember from this game, I played sloppily. It was partly because I had already won and started to relax, and partly because the store was closing.

Adam got his Nodes faster than me and got overall better resource acceleration, while I was forced to deploy an HRA in response to an early Toolbox. Soon he had both the field AND the resources, and just before the store closed and we had to scoop up our cards, he announced he would use his Micromajig Master to fetch a Zigalburgonglgr, the Stolen God (we call him “Ziggy”) and in addition to this he had a Lawnchair set. I think we both had Blade out, but I had definitely the smaller field.

However, I also had a Strawberries set and an HRA that could meet his Ziggy, but I’m not sure it would have been enough, despite me flipping the Strawberries on his turn. I believe he had an HRA as well, so I’d say the odds were favoring him as a winner.

Due to the circumstances though, and because it didn’t matter who won, we decided to mark the game as a draw, as there was no other fair way of determining who would have actually won.

3-1-0

Final Word

I’m back! This was the first “majorish” tournament I had won since Winter Limited Championships or whenever it was that I last saw some glorious fame and got an exclusive play mat. It felt really, really good, especially since losing the finals of Nationals 2013 to RI OTK, the day before RI got banned.

Before Nationals I made a couple of changes to the deck and the Nationals experience itself was pretty good. I got to the semi-finals undefeated (1 draw vs. Lekkit) and the semi-final game vs. Lekkit was very interesting and extremely challenging. The fact that he won the die roll was a determining factor in that game, rather than the differences of our decks. Lady luck had apparently not much attention over for me after she gave me that Chum in the game vs. Hampus, but I’m all cool with that. =)