deuce22 - 3, dragonsdemesne - 2
GAME 1: WIN (EARTH) grabbaquake WIN vs monowater octopus/SoP/bolt/shield
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4sm 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 593 593 593 593 593 595 595 595 59c 59c 778 778 778 77c 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 8psI hate trying to predict for game 1... it's just a pure guess. The only thing I could think of is that in round 1, deuce went with a lot of monos, many of which used all pillars and a different mark for something, so I was hoping earthquake would be a good choice. After Jen-I killed me in a mirror match due to his BBs being faster than my nymphs, I decided to include both, and it made a big difference. Deuce thought I would run this deck, he told me later, but he was not ready for the basilisk bloods, because I didn't use them in round 1. It was a fairly decisive win.
GAME 2: LOSS (GRAVITY/DEATH) breakfast of chUmpions (slightly modded predicting EQ) LOSS vs monotime pharaoh/eternity, had bad draw but also bad matchup anyway
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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52r 52r 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55o 55o 55s 55s 576 576 576 576 576 576 71b 71b 744 74b 74b 74b 74b 74b 74b 75m 8pkI was predicting a fairly heavy creature deck for deuce, ideally something like monolife or monodeath. Deuce went with monotime using pharoah and eternity and a gravity mark. Not a good matchup to begin with, but it was even worse because I got no bone walls all game, and no otyughs until he got eternity first. To give you an idea how bad my draw was, deuce thought I was playing deathstalker momentum until my last turn... It was a horrible RNG loss, but even if I'd had a good hand, his deck would've crushed mine. As I told him after, if I'm going to get a hand like that, at least it was against a deck I can't beat anyway. (I think my opening hand had both titans, both dragons, 2 pends, and 2 poisons) I made a big mistake with this deck; it was garbage. It turned out later that deuce had catapults in this deck that he never drew, leading me to misdesign my deck in game 5, because I thought he had gravity left.
GAME 3: WIN (TIME) ready pharaohs (predicting a stall) WIN vs death/life aflatoxin/carapace/boneyard
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4ss 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5ro 5ro 5s4 5s4 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7q0 7q0 7q3 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7ri 8psSince deuce had used what I felt were his two best counters to pharaohs (water for squid and time for eternity) I thought that this would be a great deck to being out. His deck was about as successful as my death/gravity one in game 2. I won with 99hp if memory serves. This is one of my favourite decks, and I've used a close variant quite a bit in BL this season.
GAME 4: LOSS(WATER/LIFE) octopi/bolt stall (predicting graboid rush or the immortal) LOSS vs earth/light the immortal, bottomdecked nymphs
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5c1 5c1 5c5 5c5 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5i9 5io 5io 5j2 5j2 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 8pnIt took me a long time to come up with a deck that I felt had a decent chance against both graboid rush and the immortal, the two decks deuce had remaining that I felt were his best options. I had lots of CC with squid/bolts to hopefully handle creatures, and shard of patience + nymph queens would ideally beat 'the immortal', and I used druid staff in case he used morning star. Unfortunately, both my nymph queens were in the bottom 10 cards, and the first one got hit with basilisk blood, and I wasn't ever able to get enough damage ready. I broke my SoP on about the 2nd last turn, but the only way I could've won was if he wasn't using miracles for some reason... and of course he was. Had I tried to rush earlier, I would have lost anyway unless he didn't have his miracles early. Even one would have doomed me if he'd had it anywhere in like the first 25 draws or so.
GAME 5: (LIGHT/DARK) vamp sader (predicting chargers/healing stuff, momentum dragon) LOSS vs monodark
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4sq 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5up 5up 5up 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7td 7td 7td 7td 8ptI made a big mistake here. I built the deck thinking that deuce would be using upped chargers and vamp daggers and things like that in order to rush me. Instead he brought a monodark stall. Had I been thinking properly, what I should have done was bring a gigantic light/dark deckout stall, rather than vamp sader, but even then, I might not have made it big enough. I forget the size of deuce's deck, but it was -big-.
There were some bugs encountered when deuce played liquid shadow on vampiric creatures; it didn't poison or kill them on my side (I didn't even see him cast the spells) while on his side my creatures stayed poisoned but never took damage. The bug was in my favour and I lost anyway, so it didn't matter in the end.
10 men - 3, dragonsdemesne - 2
GAME 1: LOSS monowater vs monotime (lost primarily due to eternity countering my entire deck)
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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5io 5io 5j2 5j2 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 8prI had no idea what to pick for game 1, as usual, and I wasn't sure what ten might try. Eternity destroyed this deck completely. I had no chance once ten got that out, and he got it really early.
GAME 2: LOSS monoearth vs monodark (lost due to dusk; predicted monodark but he had upped pillar/pend split dooming me)
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4sm 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 593 593 593 593 593 595 595 595 59c 59c 778 778 778 77c 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 77g 8psI predicted monodark correctly, having noticed he used it a lot in round 1, and I was pretty happy when I saw his mark. I was not happy when his first turn was unupped pillar, unupped pend, upped pillar, upped pend. (might've been just 3 of those, not sure now, but it was bad :p) As a result, my earthquakes did not slow him down much at all. When I got down near drain life OTK range, I evolved everything, which was 3 graboids and a previously burrowed shrieker by then I think, and dusk blocked everything but one creature, after which ten drained everything and I was doomed. I think ten won with 11hp if memory serves.
GAME 3: WIN (dark/gravity stall) vs water/light stall
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560 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uo 5uo 5up 5up 5up 5uq 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5uu 5uu 5uu 5v1 5v2 5v2 5v2 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7t4 7tb 7tb 7td 7td 7td 7td 7td 7td 7um 8ptI don't have any notes recorded for this game, but if memory serves, I was predicting a stall like 'the immortal'. All my notes say is that it was stall vs stall and my deck was bigger. I believe ten was using a water/light stall this game. LS and drains killed all his squids and nymph. I knew ten had at least 3 water nymphs, but it turned out he only used one in this deck; he was counting on a deckout win, but my deck was larger. Once I had enough CC drawn to handle 3 nymphs, I knew I'd won. He gave me a bit of a scare by playing all his icebolts on one turn, leaving me very low; when he stared playing them, I was scared crapless he had a dragon or something to make it an OTK, but he just conceded at that point :p
GAME 4: WIN (time/life vs life+?) (I assumed he had one dead gravity card in there, but I don't know which element it was, other than that it was not death, due to his game 5 choice)
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4ss 5bv 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rj 5rj 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5s4 5s4 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7q0 7q0 7q0 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7ri 7ri 7ri 8psMost of ten's good decks remaining looked like creature decks, and I liked the odds of time against any of them. I went with reverse times, which I didn't use in this deck in all my other matches, because I thought he might use graboids. He got a pretty quick start, and I was worried, but I was holding my own. Then something happened on ten's end and his browser quit or something, and he got kicked out of the game. I played and beat his AI. I wasn't sure what to do in this case, so I asked majofa. The only fair options I could think of were 'replay with same decks', 'replay with new decks', or 'I get a win'. I sent majofa a screenshot, and he ruled the game my win. Ten was a good sport about it, and when I told him I'd had a reverse time and used it + eternity to bury his dragon two cards deep, he agreed with majofa's ruling.
GAME 5: LOSS death/light vs monodeath plague/boneyard
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4sq 52m 52m 52m 52m 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5la 5la 5lh 5li 5li 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lj 5lk 5lk 5lk 5lk 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 71d 71d 71d 71d 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 7jp 8pkI agonized over my deck chice here for a long time. I didn't even know what elements ten had due to him using dead cards to make an extra mono in game 4. I figured he had probably used up gravity, so that left death and earth. That meant he had a death rush, a graboid rush (with a dead card if needed), and he had earthquakes. I finally hit upon the idea of using lucihope with RoLs. That would give me good earthquake protection, and it would be pretty much an autowin against a monodeath rush. I was scared that ten might have kept gravity, though, because something like elite chargers would've wrecked me.
The game begins, and I see the death mark, and I'm like, 'lol I win; ten's been countered'. Then I see my lousy quanta draw, and I'm not so confident anymore. Then he played a graveyard, and I'm going wtf... then he plays bone wall and plague. PLAGUE? FFFuuu... I tried to not overextend into future plagues, but he had a lot of plagues, so even playing carefully was not enough. If I'd had more quanta to start and been able to get my dragons out early, maybe I'd have had a chance, but it was not to be. I asked ten after where he came up with that deck, because it seemed like it would lose to any deck I could field except the one I actually used :p He gave the internet equivalent of a shrug and said 'it looked like a fun deck to try...' He also told me after that he forgot I still had light left, and that he'd probably have done something else if he had remembered.
MAJOFA
GAME 1: WIN monowater stall vs monogravity charger/guard/gpull (was predicting some sort of mono creature deck)
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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i8 5i9 5i9 5ia 5ia 5ia 5io 5io 5j2 5j2 5j2 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 7gk 7gk 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7gr 7i6 7i6 8ppAgain, that agonizing game 1... I looked at majofa's earlier decks in round 1, and he'd used a bunch of creature rushes, so I figured squid would stop that cold. I included the purifies because he'd also played a water/death poison deck last round, too. He ran a monogravity, and I won pretty easily. He told me he had gravity shields in the deck, but never got one. Had he drawn one, I suspect I'd still have decked him out, based on what I saw him using, but I can't be sure.
GAME 2: LOSS monotime pharaoh vs monotime gotp/eternity (was predicting graboid/EQ or darkness mono)
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4ss 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rg 5rj 5rj 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5ro 5ro 5s4 5s4 5se 5se 5se 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 5t2 7q0 7q0 7q0 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7ri 7ri 7ri 8psWhen I use monotime pharaoh, I like to use slightly more than 50% quanta because of how expensive pharaohs + eternity + nymphs are to run, and ideally I like to see at least 4 quanta to start; I think I had 2 this game. I also failed to predict majofa correctly, and it cost me one of my stronger decks. I had eternity early, and thought I had game because of that, but majofa played his eternity the turn after. I played a pharaoh one turn that I probably shouldn't have; I'd done it to force majofa to choose between replaying a ghost or using eternity, as he lacked the quanta for both. He used eternity. After that, we both sat there pressing spacebar for awhile, until majofa drew an hourglass. At that point I was doomed. Eventually I was able to burst several creatures and SoRs at once, but it was too little too late; my slow quanta start had delayed the burst for a few extra turns that I could not afford. Majofa pointed out later that he'd started with the same amount of quanta I did, which was true. However, his cards were also a lot cheaper, as he was running mostly ghosts from what I could see. He told me he had pharaohs and nymphs too but never drew them.
GAME 3: WIN earth/grav stall, WIN vs monowater stall (was predicting the immortal or NQ rush)
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4sm 55p 55p 55p 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 593 593 593 593 593 593 594 594 595 595 595 595 595 595 59c 59c 59c 778 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77f 77f 77f 8plI'd been planning for this game all match. I had noticed that majofa had used 'the immortal' a lot in round 1, so I purposely used the two obvious counters to it, shard of patience and eternity, in my first two matches, and hoped that majofa would fall into my trap. I also used gravity shields because I saw that majofa has six (!) nymph queens, and used that deck in round 1 a lot as well. He did use a stall, but he used a water one instead of earth/light. I got an early pulverizer and there was nothing majofa could do. It was a long and boring game.
Game 4: WIN dark/light healstall vs dark/light parasite/doll/holy flash (predicting immortal or dark or death)
(note: my deck was 1 card different from this. I am not sure anymore which card that was. When I was building the deck, I had exported the code to my notepad file, then realized I had only 9 upgrades, due to all of the adding and removing of cards as I was brainstorming. I then changed one of the cards to be upgraded and played the game. I PMed the correct deck to ddevans, but I forgot to put the deck code I actually used into my notes. I think I had one upgraded pillar or pendulum, but I'm not sure which one now. Whatever I sent to ddevans is what I used, which should be 1 card different from this in some way. If he or majofa tells me which card was different, I will edit this post to be correct)
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4sq 5l8 5l8 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uo 5uo 5up 5up 5up 5ur 5ur 5ur 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 606 7k2 7k2 7k2 7td 7td 7td 7td 7td 7td 8pqAt this point, majofa had death, dark, light, and earth. (he'd used one of those up as a dead card in a mono, but I don't know which) That meant he could still run 'the immortal', and he had several rushes available as well, such as the classic monodeath, monodark, and graboid rushes. I needed a deck that could combat all of those. With the resounding success of a monodark stall for me vs ten and for deuce vs me, I decided that was the best option here. Since I didn't know how big majofa might make 'the immortal' if I used it, I went all in and built a 60 card stall. I also realized that holy light would be fantastic against death or dark, two of the elements left for majofa, so I packed six of those as additional CC. When I saw majofa's death mark, I was very confident. He played a rather interesting voodoo doll/parasite deck, with holy flashes, to make it a darkness/light duo; he had no actual death cards in the deck. (he had observed the same thing, that I had both darkness and death remaining as well) He got a lot closer to killing me than I thought he would; I had to use a miracle, but that was in part because I drew 0 sanctuaries in the top half of my deck, so I had less healing than I otherwise might have. I'm not sure I played my CC correctly against him, but the matchup was heavily in my favour, so any mistakes I made didn't end up mattering in the end.
