G1 - Win
Graboid-RT-EQ vs. Gravity/Pulvy
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590 590 590 590 590 590 591 591 593 593 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 6rk 778 778 778 778 778 77j 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 78q 8psIt's prime time, baby. Got a few grabs out early. Blacks had an early Pulvy out. I EQed him early slowing him down. He slows me down destroying towers. Blacks really slows me down by bb-ing 3 of my shriekers. I have RT but can't use them on shriekers due to low earth quanta. I've used my EQs, and Blacksmith begins accruing quanta again. While I have some RT in hand, I'm concerned if he locks me out long enough to bring out Auburns. Fortunately, I get a few more creatures out to finish the job.
G2 - Win
Immo-RT-EQ vs. Dark Domin
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58o 590 590 590 590 590 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 778 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77j 77j 7dq 7dq 7dq 7dq 7q1 8psLost toss. Got an early Immo connect. I do mild control with RT and EQ. Get Blacksmith's health to 35. Then out comes Dusk. And boy does dusk do its job. In one turn, I had 36 damage potential and do 1 damage. In the next, I had 46 damage potential and do 12 damage. Barely won.
G3 - Loss
Dark Domin vs. Gravity/Pulvy
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593 593 595 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 77j 77j 77j 78q 78q 7t8 7t8 7t9 7tb 7tb 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 8ptLost Toss. Blacksmith gets an early Pulvy out. I didn't draw any of 6 devourers in top deck. That was basically the game. Had a couple come out, I had a chance to lock gravity quanta and gain control.
G4 - Win
Immo Mild Denial vs. Poison Golems
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58o 58o 590 590 590 595 595 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5um 5um 5um 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77j 77j 7dq 7dq 7dq 7t8 7tb 7tb 8ptLost toss. This game, I get 1/3 devourers our early + Dusk and Vagger. I draw 2x BB to slow him down even more. Disconnected right before winning turn. Was clear I had enough damage to win.
G5 - Win
Immo SoFo vs. Aether Stall
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590 590 590 590 590 595 595 5aa 5aa 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5f9 5fa 752 752 752 752 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 77e 7dq 7dq 7dq 7tb 8plHad trouble connecting. Then I connected but Blacksmith didn't. I did see his mark when I connected before replay and he was aware of this. We decided to replay and keep decks as planned. Admittedly, I played an odd immo deck w/ 4x Shard focus. After playing rushes, two of which were immo decks, I had a feeling Blacks would play an immo deck himself. In preparation, I had all variants of Immo decks prepared. The SoFo one was not planned and decided to be weaker than the rest. However, fearing I'd be out rushed, I wanted potential healing from black holes, while also destroying shields/weapons/pillars. Honestly, I don't think this is a good deck to play. It's too slow against the theoretical match-up up immo vs. faster/stronger immo. But, it worked against an Aether stall that didn't get set up quick enough. In the future, I need to think of more ways to defend against an immo or nova rush.
G6 - Win
Time Rush - RT vs. Immo
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58o 590 590 590 590 590 590 591 591 5aa 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 778 778 778 778 778 778 77a 77a 77a 77a 78q 78q 78q 78q 8psUnexpectedly, I'm up 4-1. How do I try to close this out? Blacks had seen EQ/RT/Immo, etc. I decided to go for a fast creature rush with RT, dropping EQ. This was a planned deck and not decided spur of the moment. Turned out to be a time rush vs immo rush. Unfortunately, Blacksmith didn't get any immolation and my creatures pounded away. If he got 1-2x immo, it would probably be his game. My un-upped grabs were probably too slow to keep pace. My RT might have kept me in the game assuming he didn't draw a fog, etc. Before I knew what happened, I won trials of earth.
Spoiler for Match Prep + Summary:
To prepare for trials, I studied prior masters, phase 2 and final battles, and of course, decks. The study helped a lot with deciding bans. But, the insights ended there. I did not get a good feel for earth decks from past trials because past finals seem mostly determined by chosen ban advantages. For the 12th trials, Blacksmith and I ended up picking nearly the same bans. The next phase was deckbuilding, or rather, editing prior designed decks to fit ban rules.
I spent a lot of time deckbuilding, testing, scrapping decks, building new ones, scrapping more, etc. However, knowing full well that my creative spirit tends to run free, I had to be very disciplined. Somehow, I still ended up with 19 decks in my earth finals archive, which is too many. How was I going to choose which decks to play and in which order? I needed a game plan and I didn't have anything. I'll be honest - I was very close to choosing decks and order based on (a) music I liked that thematically fit certain decks and (b) the order of this music I envisioned playing in a trials finals. I'm not kidding. I would lay at bed at night and listen to music thinking "this goes with that deck, and this is my opener theme". For example, I had an aether stall deck with quint/wisdom shriekers. I wanted to play this because of a song by fantastic plastic machine called "Reaching for the Stars". It sounded like a cute story - an earth creature aspiring for the heavens. Another deck - a ghostmare variant - was close to being played simply so I could attach the song "Phantom Punch" by Sondre Lerche. I'm happy I did not play these for the main reason of thematic enjoyment (although in testing they had merits).
As I woke up the morning of trials, I still didn't have a game plan. I knew of 2-3 decks that I was going to play no matter what. I was still deckbuilding and testing up until the match time. I was still thinking about music and the order of music from game to game that would make for an awesome finals soundtrack. I picked my first deck and all creative inhibitions subsided. I was in battle. No time for music or cuteness. Fight. Live or Die. Pick the tunes later.
One strategy that I thought about pre-match ended up being used almost subconsciously. You'll notice that game 2 and 4 are essentially an immolation adaptation of the previous decks. The decks were all built in advance, but the strategy to play this way was not consciously determined. I'm not sure if there's an advantage or not, but the same marks, similar elements, but different deck styles might be off-putting/confusing to an opponent?? Game 5 was the first match I really picked due to "thinking" about the match. I had a hunch about what my opponent would play, and responded to that. I was wrong about the hunch, but it worked out. For game 6.. OK..I'll admit...I wanted the finals soundtrack to play "Rush" from Cowboy Bebop.
When the match was over, I didn't feel happy, elated, excited, etc. Still, when writing this match summary, I don't feel those "up feeling" kind of things. Maybe instead of getting "up" I'm like an old tree, digging its roots deeper into the earth.
Master Blacksmith is right. I still have a lot to learn about
. Also, noone in my life has ever called me dangerous..so thanks..I think!
