Weekly Tournament - July 26th - Speedbuilding: Potluck Rules - Unupgraded

[dragonsdemesne]

dragonsdemesne - 2
deuce22 - 0

GGs.  Desync in the 2nd, but he lost vs AI.

[hainkarga]

hainkarga 2 - 0  MegroN

[Regyptic]

Regyptic 2 - 0 dark ripper

ggs. Horrible RNG for dark ripper in the second game though.

[dawn to dusk]

5th
dawn to dusk 2 - 0 dark ripper

midway through the first game when DR forfeited due to sleep deprivation. gg nonetheless!

[dragonsdemesne]

dragonsdemesne - 2
spielkind - 0

GGs; got pretty lucky with my matchups here.

[hainkarga]

hainkarga 2 - 1 Regyptic

[Spielkind]

Spielkind 2 - 0 Regyptic

ggs, second game his game crushed at round 4 or so.

[dragonsdemesne]

final

dragonsdemesne - 2
hainkarga - 1

GGs.

Spoiler for Hidden:

vamp sader

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4sq 4sq 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ls 5ls 5ls 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 8pt

-round 1 game 1 vs odii WIN vs rustler monolife with light pillars (healing beat him out, he had only cock/rustlers for damage, he never drew mitosis)

31c death rush

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4sk 4sk 4t3 52g 52g 52g 52i 52i 52i 52i 52i 52i 52j 52j 52j 52j 52j 52j 52n 52n 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52r 52r 542 542 542 8pk

-not used; it would have sucked in this meta

31c monolife mitosis/bond

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4sn 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c8 5c8 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 8pn

-not used (after I realized the power of rustler, I think the rustler version blows this out of the water)

31c monodark rush

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4st 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uq 5uq 5ur 5ur 5ur 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5us 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5ut 5uv 5uv 5uv 5uv 5uv 5uv 606 606 606 8pt

-round 1 game 2 vs odii LOSS vs rustler/nymph/mitophoton hope
This deck was a mistake.  The only redeeming factor it has is that it's just about the only deck possible with creature control.  As it turned out, carapace was way better, and had other in-element support.


31c life/death poison rush

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4sn 4t4 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5bs 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 5c8 8pk

-not used; it's a neat idea, I think, but it would have sucked in this meta


The five decks above are the ones I built before beginning my match with Odii.  Odii used rustler in game 1. (which I somehow missed!)  In game 2, I suddenly realized I could be using Solar Shield, too... I get my act together for game 3 :p

solar vamp sader (-1 blessing -1 holy light +2 solar shield)

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4sq 4sq 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5ld 5ld 5lf 5lf 5lf 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ls 5ls 5ls 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 8pt

-after I figured out solar shield's power, I built this.  However, before using this, I then realized that with solar shield in my deck, I could probably use miracles, too.  So I made a fat stall with six solar shields and six miracles, listed later below

39 card carapace stall

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4sq 4sq 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c3 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5ls 5ls 5ls 8pn

-round 1 game 3 vs odii WIN vs vamp sader (carapace/bonds were just enough)
-round 2 game 1 vs deuce22 WIN vs vamp sader
-round 3 game 2 vs spielkind WIN vs fatter monolight 5x nymph/sader/solar/photonhope (bonds stalled until I got carapace, then it was over)
-round 4 game 1 vs hainkarga WIN vs fat vamp sader/nymph/solar/holy light (carapace won)
-round 4 game 2 vs hainkarga (added 1 morning star) LOSS vs mirror match (his deck smaller, but I never got rustler and he did)
-round 4 game 3 vs hainkarga (with the morning star) WIN vs mirror match (I got 2 rustlers and 5 quanta in top half, he got 1 rustler and less quanta)
This was the strongest deck in the meta, I believe.  It had the best CC card in the meta with thorn carapace, it had one of the two best quanta cards (rustler, the other being solar shield) and it had mitosis and bonds for the long game.  I couldn't figure out a counter to this, so I decided to just keep using it, and used it for my last four games.

40 card healstall vamp sader

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4sq 4sq 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5ld 5ld 5ld 5ld 5ld 5ld 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5li 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ls 5ls 5ls 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 5us 8pt

-round 2 game 2 vs deuce22 WIN vs monodark gargoyle/vamp earth pend (holy light and healing)
-round 3 game 1 vs spielkind WIN vs monolight 5x nymph/sader/solar/photonhope (my nymphs/miracles stalled forever, won by deckout)
This was the second best deck in the meta, I believe.  If it weren't for thorn carapace it would have been the best, but there's nothing this deck can do against carapace, and once i beat this deck with carapace twice, I realized this fact, and stopped using saders.

It's definitely life mark time, in honour of carapace.

edit: Just want to add that the rules resulted in there only being a few different decks, and I think that I won primarily because I had good quanta draws.  Every game except for two I had at least two quanta to start, and in those two, one I had a rustler and the other I had a solar shield. (the rustler game I think was the first with hainkarga, and the shield one was the game vs deuce's monodark)

[deuce22]

@dragons, monodark with DLs or deck with life pills and carapace beat your rustler deck.

[dragonsdemesne]

I disagree on the monodark; I had that matchup in reverse, and I lost using monodark.  I'd have had a better chance using earth quanta to boost the gargoyle toughness, though, but even then, I think it would be an uphill battle.  Odii got more rustlers than I drew drain lifes, and there was never any point killing all but one rustler, so I ended up waiting for mitophotons to drain.  The life pillar/carapace deck might well win in that matchup, though.  Even if true on both counts, I think those decks would struggle with the rest of the meta.

[ARTHANASIOS]

@dragons, monodark with DLs or deck with life pills and carapace beat your rustler deck.

 True (though you have to draw 1 Drain Life for every Rustler before the player starts a Rustlertosis and Thorn Carapace allow Rustler to survive for a turn before killed by poisoning, thus enabling it to use its Photosynthesis for a single turn), but this doesn't change the fact how powerful and versatile / duos were in this meta; Vaders coming in second. With absolute lack of any PC and spell mass CC, Thorns were the best shield, followed by Solar (Skull & BoneWall were good too, but they were out of Rustler comboes). Holy Light was essential for the Vader deck, serving as player healing, Crusader healing if severly poisoned and creature CC; the later made any creature-based Death or Darkness deck to tremble in case of Holy Lights, leaving only the permanents of these elements to be used and reducing the effectiveness of a card that could shine in this meta but it didn't (Soul Catcher). As a result, the only fully functional elements in this meta were and , having the single Nymph that was allowed (Light Nymph with a cost of 9 instead of 8 ), tons of healing (both towards player and creatures), tons of shields, creature-spamming (mitosis or cheap life hitters), buffs (Blessing), CC (Holy Light, Thorns), non-pillar quanta generation (Rustler, Solar, Light Nymph's ability) etc.

 That said, I think Mito-Virus with BoneWalls was a pretty fair deck in this meta. Too bad that Hain burned the Mito-Viruses down with early Holy Lights and I never drew a Bonewall.

[deuce22]

1. Any deck can beat any deck with the good RNG
2. 40-card deck supported by only 6 rustlers vs 30-card deck with 6 DLs and 12 creatures is not going to win very often, but RNG can certainly troll