LIGHT: johannhowitzer 3 - 1 jippy99

[johannhowitzer]

jippy fought well, but the decks were just outmatched in my favor.

Game 1:

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55q 55q 55q 55t 55t 55t 560 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 749 749 749 7jo 7jo 7jq 7ju 7ju 7ju 7juKnew the result of this when I saw his mark - blessed Pegasi ended up clashing with Gravity Shield, and when he tried to get one out without blessing, it fell to Gravity Pull.

Game 2:

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5f6 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fb 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5li 5ll 5ll 5ll 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7dn 7dn 7dn 7dn 7jo 7jo 7jo 7k5 7k5 7k5Life mark indicated he might be running Crusader Druids, which was in my favor - I had the luxury of stacking damage while being able to bum off his Staves if needed.  Rage Potion took out a Crusader, too.

Game 3:

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lb 5le 5le 5lf 5lf 5lf 5li 778 778 77j 77j 77j 77j 77j 78q 78q 78qTried a hybrid experiment deck here, and but for his vampirism, it might have worked.  Vader Sader shut me down hard and permanently.  Good draw, just poor deck for the task.

Game 4:

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4vc 4vc 500 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 6ts 6ts 6ts 6u7 6u7 6u7 6u7 7jq 7jq 7k2Close call thanks to only one early Antimatter, and Sky Blitz nearly took me out.  Nymph came out that same turn, though.  He did Miracle twice later on, making me think he might get me by deckout, but my dragons finally turned up and drove it home.

This completely mirrored my match with Dm1321.  Quick 2-0 lead, then the underdog bit back, then a close game for the finish!  Good games all, and good luck in phase 3, jippy. 

[jippy99]

I cant do anything good in PvP these days.  Regardless, the score doesnt say how good these matches were.  2 of my losses were by 1 turn.
Game 1:

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lb 5lb 5ld 5ld 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5li 5li 5li 5li 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7jr 7jr 7jr 7jrWas doing good with an early blessed peggy, and then gravity shield came, and it was all over.
Game 2:

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5c5 5c5 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5ld 5li 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7al 7am 7n2I had tons of healing, but it wasnt enough.  Lost by 1 turn.
Game 3:

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5ld 5ld 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5li 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ur 5ur 5ur 7n2 7tbIm not really sure what he went with, but the match wasnt even close.  I won by an EM.
Game 4:

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lb 5lb 5lf 5lf 5lf 5li 5li 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5op 5op 5op 5op 5op 7jr 7jr 7jr 7jr 7ju 7ju 7juVery close.  Entropy nymph killed me.  With Sky Blitzes resetting antimatter, he was on his toes the entire game.  Eventually, his dragons were too much.
Good games Johann, and good luck to you in phase 3.

[Ryan666]

Jippy stop beating yourself up or i'll be forced to beat you up.

[jippy99]

Jippy stop beating yourself up or i'll be forced to beat you up.

I didnt beat myself up here.  I lost good, fair and square matches that I didnt make the idiotic deck choice.

[johannhowitzer]

He means stop selling yourself short.  Have some confidence!

[jippy99]

He means stop selling yourself short.  Have some confidence!

Ok.  Im going to the final battle!

[johannhowitzer]

Looking at the points for each phase, you were probably right, we're both unlikely to get that far, but you did just fine in phase 2.  With everyone completing phase 1, and me behind by 6 points and you behind by 10, you'd have to get 100% of the vote in phase 3, and I'd have to get an additive 60% more than Ryan (if he gets 20%, I need 80%).  Votes are more likely to be an even field, with contenders like this.

Maybe you will get to the final battle, but either way, confidence means knowing who you are and what you're capable of.  You, sir, are capable of quite a lot.

[xdude]

Now that all the Challenger Battles are over, let me give the Final Challenger a few hints on my style of play, and analyze the decks and matchups.

Matchup 1 - Light/Gravity vs mono Light.

IMO mono Light is a terrible deck to use in Trials, as it it no way counters Light. Mono Gravity on the other side has the Gravity shield, which ended up bringing johann the win.

Matchup 2 - Light/Fire vs Light/Life.

Ugh, again... Light/Life in no way counters Light. Low damage output which gets stopped cold with ease, and could hardly break down 2-3 Miracles. Now that deck by johann could definitely be tweaked more, but it has nice potential. The infinite damage potential is good at breaking through defense, as it could be seen in this game.

Matchup 3 - Light/Darkness vs Light/Earth

johann's deck is IMO sill better, generally (yet... Angels??), but was a poor one in this matchup. Jippy's low-cost Daggers beat him down, and johann's low damage output made him lose the game.

Matchup 4 - Light/Air vs Light/Entropy.

Technically, both deck concepts were good. The Light-Air should've run on only AA's and Dragons though, and go for the OTK. This would've won it for Jippy. However, he had hardly any chance against a good Antimatter deck with Pegasi and ended up losing.

[johannhowitzer]

Hindsight always being 20/20, it is easy to say "should have."  Much harder going in and not knowing what your opponent is going to be using... seeing Ryan make such great use of Gravity Shield, and Dm make such use of Antimatter, the Dune Scorpion deck I designed was a good one in theory... they're small enough to hit through shield, and Antimatter doesn't stop application of poison.

Likewise, jippy didn't know I'd be running Antimatter on round 4, or he might have planned for it.  I kept changing up my decks, so he probably expected something totally different.

If there's one thing I was happy about in these trials despite taking third place, it was my ability to adapt my strategy to my opponent.  I prepared nine decks in advance for this, buying the upgrades for all but two of them (Rainbow Crusader and Mindgate Silence) in advance.  When beaten, I used what I'd learned about my opponent's play style to try something else.  On Ryan, I was never able to conquer his gravity pull, which was the single strongest counter to all my decks; against Dm it nearly worked, but a lucky loss kept me from the rubber; against jippy it worked very well.

Here are the two decks I didn't use:

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lf 5lf 5lf 5li 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u5 71a 7al 7n2 7n2 7n2 7tb

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lc 5lc 5le 5le 5lf 5lf 5lf 5mq 5mq 5mq 623 623 623 623 7jt 7jt 7k1 7k2 808 808 808 80k 80k 80k