I agree with what's already been said. As deuce kindly pointed out, our range in their view is 2 Nymphs speed version, 2 Nymphs control version, or some clunky dim and/or Psion splash. I think the best reason to take an aether duo would've been the element of surprise, which obviously isn't there and wouldn't have been a great reason in the first place. Given all of this, they have to put us on 2 Nymphs. They could try to middle-of-the-road and prepare mainly for 2 Nymphs but also be okay against an aether duo. That's not really deuce's style; he prefers to mindgate and prepare against one deck when he thinks he can. He’s more likely to pick a specific 2 Nymphs build we’ll use and maximize winrate against it. But it’s possible he could try to middle and it’s possible he might accidentally middle (by taking deflags in a grabbow against our dims, for example).
General Thoughts- They'll expect to see 2 Nymphs as it's our strongest deck, they've seen close to 100% of our vault, and we haven’t seen a great counter to 2 Nymphs yet. They specifically went 1-1 last round to force us into using 2 Nymphs this round.
Do they have a great counter?
- Since they're expecting 2 Nymphs with maybe an outside chance of Psions, they won't go with dims.
- They will guess we used the 2 Nymph control version last round in case we encountered their grabbow, and that means they’re less likely to send it if they have a good alternative.
- There's a possibility they could throw oddball decks at us (RoL/Hope for example), hoping to get lucky, knowing we likely can't use the cards we'd salvage, and saving their stronk decks for later. I don't see any advantage to that, though, and I think they'll try to just end the War.
Deck Options1)
Mono - Critter only or control version. Here's a Mono control version build. It’s okay against PUboidbow. If we draw a Fog we win and if we don’t we lose. It's tough to make a mono speed version because it'd involve using Nymphs but not their abilities, which is… not ideal. Every Nymphy mono is better using a fire mark.
2)
Dim splash or Psion splash. Dim splash slows the deck down and loses a hitter or two, but still loses to psiontal, PC in fractix/grabbow, dim deckout… pretty much everything. Psions are weak against lobo and lightning. I don’t think we’re likely to face dims, but even if we are, 2 Nymphs seems like a better option.
3)
PUgon - Speed version, control version, or dim version. PUs are too expensive, so the only decent deck that can be made will look something like
this. It’s fast (6-7ttw a lot of the time). It’s obviously dead against dims but it’s a slight favorite over the PUboidbow and smokes some of their other decks. We could also try it with Wyrms, which aren’t hit as hard by enemy PUs but then we hate lobos and lightning. I prefer drags.
4)
Fractal Wyrms - Speed version, control version, or dim version. I went 2-1 with
this but can tell it’s pretty much garbage. Three wyrms and three fractals will make for some ugly draws. I’m not happy with how fast it is. I didn’t make a version with four dims cuz it’ll be messy to quanta balance and the end product will be way worse than the six dim, zero fractal splash I discuss above in 2).
5)
2 Nymphs – Speed or control version. We used the control version last round and the speed version the round before. As I’ve said, this is what they expect to see but they don’t have any perfect counters (I believe), and it’s a solid all-around deck. The deflags are less useful if we see no dims as I expect, but they’re still not worthless.
ConclusionsAs I see it, the only viable decks we have are Mono control (dom), PUgons (rush), 2 Nymphs Speed (break, rushy), and 2 Nymphs Control (break, dommy). A lot of what I’ve said above boils down to what’s been said more succinctly in chat: they believe a break is coming; they’re likely to bring their rush (PUboidbow), we should bring a dom. Imma start testing stuff now.
