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http://meowsquish.webs.com/junk/osiris22scarab.bmp)
Craziest game I have ever played. Osiris' rush of pharaohs pretty much ignored two firestorms and an early quint/oty. I just couldn't eat the pharaohs fast enough. An early gambit cost me my fallen druid, but he got a couple mutants out that saved my life, for a little bit. I miracled at 14 life and thank goodness for Permafrost Shield. I didn't draw a second quint until around 10 cards left in my deck. I was bouncing his biggest scarabs every turn with eternity, but my oty could only eat every other turn because of his turtle shell. Most of the game I was looking at what you see in the screenshot. A field full of scarabs. When I got down to 5 cards, I put antimatter on his biggest scarab left, making it -5, and started bouncing the skeletons produced by my oty after eating pharaohs. Once the pharaohs were gone our life was about even, I had gotten a second quint/oty, and because of the turtule shell they were available on alternating turns. I played the skelletons I had bounced earlier and fed them to my otys, keeping the board clear so that his scarabs couldn't eat anything. His scarabs were doing about 10 to 15 damage to me through the perm shield, but I was healing 4 from the bonds and 5 from his -5 scarab. I was only dealing 14 damage every 2 turns, so on average, he was hitting me for about 6 per turn, and I was hitting him for 7, but I had less life and it looked like it was game over for me, but after I dropped the quint/Elite queen, the Osirus went precognition happy and drew a boatload of cards. I looked up at his cardstack and saw, 3 cards left.
I would like to think that I would have won even if he hadn't drawn out, but I'm not sure. I would have been at the mercy of the Permafrost Shield, and just one round where it didn't freeze enough scarabs would have tipped the scales in his favor.
This game kept me on the edge of my seat, but it revealed a weakness in osiris. Permafrost shield pwns him. If you keep food away from the scarabs, they only deal 1 damage through the shield and (if the math I've read on other threads is correct) it averages out to about 0.5 damage per scarab, so call it 10 or so damage even when he has a full board. I do believe that my strategy against him will always be permafrost shield + 2 quint/oty + bounce my skellies so he can't eat. If I had used that strategy from the start of the game, instead of allowing him to eat my skelletons, then I would have beat him no problem.
Peace,
Jallen
