Round 2 discussion

[dragonsdemesne]

We banned: NOVA, DIMENSIONAL SHIELD

Bans against us:

Darkness: Bans fractal, nova
Entropy: Bans shard of patience, graboid
Life: No Bans (+2 ups)
Time: Bans bone wall, earthquake

We can also choose from the following

The added boosts are:
Pioneer: If you win, gain 3 relics.
Buccaneer: If you win, increase Salvage by 5 for yourself and decrease Discard (from deck) by 5 for your opponent.

These are simply additional boosts you may choose to use, like discard and sideboard. They will be added to the vault tool. You may choose to use both, one, or none at all.

[dragonsdemesne]

Decks seen in round 1:

DARKNESS
1) The mono (win)

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5uk 5uk 5ul 5ul 5ul 5ul 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 5up 5us 5us 5us 5v1 5v1 5v1 606 606 7t4 7t4 7t4 7tb 7tb 7um 7um 7um 8pt

Pretty standard monodark thing here, with more steals and nightmares and only 3 drains.

2) Gargoyle Grabbow (loss)

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4st 4st 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5ia 5uk 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 606 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 7n0 7tb 7tb 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 80a 80a 8pm

Again, nothing too surprising here.  Worth noting that Physsion has at least those two marks of darkness, so that earthquakes aren't as good if we get matched against him in the future.  Even though the deck lost, unless they do something stupid or don't want the deck anymore, they can still send it against us.  NOTE: Our NOVA BAN means that we're not seeing this deck.

3) PandeDeckoutDrainStallEntropyThing (win)

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4st 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uo 5uo 5uo 5us 5us 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 7t4 7tb 7tb 7tb 7tc 7tc 7tc 7tc 8pj

This deck is really cool :p  Honestly, it would be pretty hard to beat.  Earthquakes or a lucky mirror shield would do the trick.  Note that physsion was subbing for cactusking, who is the player we are facing, and that there is still that one mark of darkness, but no more, when two would have been strictly better, so cactusking only has one mark of darkness, and we can pretty much just ignore that.

4)MonoDarkNoCCPC (win)

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4st 4st 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5ul 5ul 5ul 5ul 5uo 5uo 5v1 5v1 5v1 606 606 606 606 606 7t4 7t4 7tb 7tb 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 7um 8pt

  Not as good as their other monodark, at least in a vacuum, but they correctly reasoned that drains aren't killing many of gravity's critters, and they have less worth stealing than many other elements.  Also note that Odii doesn't have more than 2 marks of darkness, if we match against him later.

Megron and I discussed monoearth with pulverizer and steel golems here.  This is a sample list:

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58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 595 595 595 59c 59c 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77b 77b 77f 77f 77f 78q 78q 78q 78q 8pl

Alternately, go -2 dragon -1 pillar +3 earthquake

[dragonsdemesne]

ENTROPY (all 4 of entropy's decks lost.  They also all use NOVA, which we BANNED, so it'll be hard to predict them)

1) DBHgrabbow

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vh 4vi 4vi 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 590 590 590 5f6 5f6 5og 6qq 6qq 6u1 6u1 6u5 6u5 74f 74f 74f 7ae 8pj

  Fairly standard I guess.

2) SoSebow

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vh 4vi 4vi 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 590 590 590 5f6 5f6 5og 6qq 6qq 6u1 6u1 6u5 6u5 74f 74f 74f 7ae 8pj

Well, this took some nuts to play... it did win a game against that darkness stall, though.  I hate trusting to luck in pvp matches, but I'd play that deck vs AI all day long.  (actually, I have played similar ones a lot vs AI; really fun)

3) PandeSoVstall

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4vh 4vh 4vi 4vi 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 590 590 590 5f6 5f6 5og 6qq 6qq 6u1 6u1 6u5 6u5 74f 74f 74f 7ae 8pj

This seems kind of bad, and they also got countered pretty bad, I'd say.  Not really sure how they even won a game.

4) PulvySNBow

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4vh 4vh 4vh 4vh 50u 50u 50u 50u 590 590 590 590 590 590 5c1 5og 61q 61q 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6ve 6ve 6ve 77f 77f 7ae 8pm

I don't know whether this deck is actually that much stronger than life's frog/poison/bonewall rush or not, but a 3-0 sweep by life over that bow seems like some pretty serious RNG fail on entropy's part.

edit: Megron and I were discussing this matchup and he thinks that we should try to use the SoI deck while it is still available.  This is what I came up with:

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58o 58o 58o 595 595 595 59m 59m 59m 59m 5fu 5fu 5fu 5fu 5fu 5fu 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 77f 77f 77f 786 786 78q 78q 78q 8pl

Or, alternately, something like this (golem more likely on turn 1-2 where it's needed, and pulvy is more lategame where it's more likely to be used anyway)

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58o 58o 58o 58v 58v 58v 595 595 595 59m 5fu 5fu 5fu 5fu 5fu 5fu 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 786 786 786 786 786 78q 78q 78q 8pl

Do NOT upgrade any shards besides SoI; they have less value.  The upgrades should be between pends, SoI, and pulvy ONLY.  (pend upgrade > pillar upgrade in this deck.  A simulator will bear me out, but consider what happens when your hand is 1 unupped pendulum and 1 unupped SoI, and work out when you get a shard golem in the absence of more pillar/pend draws)   Pulvy is very much the late game emergency card here; if the golem works quickly, pulvy will only be used a very few times, and if the golem is slow (either because it wasn't drawn, rewound, or dims/wings/dials/whatever show) then there will probably be lots of gravity quanta around.  The deck should maybe have 1-2 more earth quanta in it, but that would mean cutting either a shard or a BB/pulvy, which is tough as well.

[dragonsdemesne]

LIFE

1) FrogPoison/Bonewall rush (win)

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52t 52t 52t 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 718 718 71b 71b 71b 71b 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 8pk

Pretty basic deck, simple but decent.

2) frogtal/dims (win)

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5bs 5bs 5bs 5c5 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 624 624 63a 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 80i 80i 80i 8pu

  Again, we've all seen it before, but it's a good one.  NOTE: DIMS are BANNED by us, but this deck is playable without dims, just weaker.

3) discofrogbow (loss)

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4sn 4sn 4ve 4ve 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 5de 5de 6u5 6u5 6u5 7ac 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ae 7ag 7ag 7bu 7bu 7dm 7dm 7dm 8pj

I'm not surprised this lost; it seems pretty bad.  NOTE: NOVA is BANNED by us, but this deck is better without nova/explosions, anyway.

4)SosaQuadstall (loss)

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52g 52g 52g 52g 53e 53e 53e 53e 53e 542 542 542 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5li 5li 5li 5li 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 5m6 7aj 7aj 7aj 7bu 7q9 7q9 7q9 7q9 8pq

This looks really cool, but it probably suffered hard from awkward quanta, and making a trio with sosa AND miracle... that's going to be really hard to make work.  I love the concept, but I don't know how well it would actually play out.  It lost against a pretty basic rush here, which is pretty much what it's designed to beat, so it's probably not much to fear (hopefully!)

[dragonsdemesne]

TIME

1) SoVstall (win)

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5rg 5rk 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5us 5vi 5vi 5vi 5vi 5vi 5vi 7q5 7q5 7ri 7ri 7t8 7t8 7tb 7tb 8pt

Even without a light pillar/pend or anything, this swept gravity's fractal deck, which seems a little surprising, but maybe it's just that good, or that lucky.

2) Dragonmare (loss)

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5rk 5rk 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5rm 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q4 7q4 7q4 7ri 7ri 7ri 8pt

Time got countered so hard here it's not even funny.  (well, actually it is, since we're not team time :p)

3) SoR-Nymphs (win)

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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5ig 5ig 5ig 5ig 5ig 5rk 5rk 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 8pp

I love that deck, but it sure seems like it should have another nymph's tears in it.  Not our problem, though.

4) Graboid/EQ/RT/Ghost duo (loss)

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593 593 593 593 593 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 7qe 7qe 7qe 7qe 7ri 7ri 8pm

Pwned by bonebolt/spidertal.  Earthquake was time's only chance here, and it wasn't enough.

edit: Megron and I were talking and thought that SoP wardens would be good here.  Apparently it was 4-1 vs time last war, and it seems like it should pwn everything except their sov dial stall thing that they showed in round 1.  I'm hoping that the threat of pulverizer will keep that deck away, because pulvy is basically an instawin against it, and so time might be careful not to bring a pc-reliant deck.  I was on team time in war 4, and we had serious issues with losing to team earth, particularly when they used pulverizers.  (we finally won when we fielded a 4 golden nymph deck instead of relying on hourglasses... pretty funny story behind that, actually, but for another time :p)