3rd Grandmaster Battle: Physsion 6 - 8 Afdarenty (Phase 2 Complete)

[Physsion]

Great games, Afda! Good luck for the rest!

Providing none of my decks were illegal, I move into the Piece phase with three of my Pawn decks remaining.


Phase 1

Floaty: Mono Vampires

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

Heaty: SoPa Squids

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5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5um 5v0 5v0 606 606 606 606 7hi 7hi 7hi 7hi 7tb 7tb 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 7um 8pp

Sassy: SoSac Dragons

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Soily: Grabbow

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Game 1: Floaty: Mono Vampires 1 - 0 Heaty: Blue Nymphbow
Afda predicted my deck here, but got a very poor quanta draw. He was still able to power enough CC to severely cripple my board, but the onslaughts of Vampires, Black Dragons and Nightmares whittled him down before he could get enough Gases to detonate.

Game 2: Sassy: SoSac Dragons 2 - 0 Soily: SoFree FFQ
I predicted a rush here, but the Life mark had me scared it was Adrenastaves. I'd built this deck to make a psychological play on Afda during the heat of such an intense battle - thinking he would expect Bone Walls from my Death mark and rush as fast as he could, I could chain SoSacs with Nightmares in between to crush his attempt at outpacing me. It worked nicely, and I started playing my shards with two SoFrees and a couple of FFQs on Afda's side of the board.

Game 3: Soily: Grabbow 2 - 1 Floaty: Sancstall
I was feeling pretty great at this point - I did expect Catatitans as his Sassy deck, but was definitely expecting a mono rush rather than a Sancstall from his Floaty pawn. Feeling like my Grabbow had pretty good chance against both decks, I brought it here, but my hopes were damaged a little when I saw his mark and deck size.
Knowing my deck could OTK (6 Elite Shriekers, 4 upgraded Gargoyles, Vampire Dagger and two Lightnings = 60 + 28 + 6 + 10 = 104 damage), I still felt pretty confident I could win this - I would simply keep my Graboids burrowed, hold my 4 Gargoyles, a Steal and my two Lightnings, and burst him down in between Sundial plays... but my heart sank when he played Reflective Shield. I could no longer OTK, since I could only do 94 in one turn without Lightnings - I played all my damage on the 2nd to last turn anyway, but Afda was able to recover with a Miracle and block my last attempt with a Sundial. Very nicely played.

Game 4: Floaty: Mono Vampires 3 - 1 Sassy: Catatitans
My deck choice here was the most difficult decision I've had to make for a while. If I brought my mono and faced the Sancstall Afda played last game, I would almost certainly lose, but if I brought my SoPa Squid deck and faced Afda's Sassy pawn, I had the chance of losing my only answer to his stall. Fortunately, I made the right call here, and my excessive healing and fast damage overwhelmed Afda's Titans.

Game 5: Heaty: SoPa Squids 4 - 1 Floaty: Sancstall
I relaxed a little here, knowing my SoPa gave me a huge advantage against Afda's stall - there were still a couple of panic moments, like Afda's OE very nearly killing one of my strong Squids before I could draw a Voodoo Doll and freeze it (and there's always a big element of uncertainty when you're playing through Fog!) but thankfully, I had enough damage to take the win here.


Phase 2

Knight: SoPa Dolls

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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5ib 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 5v0 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gk 7hi 7hi 7hi 7hi 7i6 7i6 7i6 7t9 7tb 7tb 8pt

Bishop: Mono Dragon Drains

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Rook: SoG Drains

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Queen: Dark Grabbow

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Game 6: Sassy Pawn: SoSac Dragons 4 - 2 Queen: Blue Nymphbow
The SoSac trick was only going to work once, so I used this simply to scout out one of his decks. My very poor quanta draw was punished with early Explosions - absolutely no chance.

Game 7: Heaty Pawn: SoPa Squids 5 - 2 Queen: Blue Nymphbow
Definitely unexpected. Another very poor quanta draw, but Afda didn't have the CC he needed. I put off freezing a Nymph for a turn so that I could instead play SoPa, allowing my Squid on the board to survive (where it would have otherwise been killed by an Unstable Gas detonation.)

Game 8: Floaty Pawn: Mono Vampires 5 - 3 Bishop: Sancstall
Noooo! I was about to start searching with my SoPa Squids deck, but I changed my mind at the very last second. Bad idea! Fog performing poorly meant things would have been close here, but my Dragons were bottomdecked.

Game 9: Heaty Pawn: SoPa Squids 5 - 4 Rook: EpiSoFree
As my last pawn, knowing Afda wouldn't bring his Sancstall, I knew I'd get a look at what he brought as his Rook - a 1-pend draw meant this one wasn't much more than a scouting game, either.

Game 10: Bishop: Mono Dragons/Siphons 5 - 5 Rook: EpiSoFree
And this is where it all went wrong - the mistake that is likely to cost me my title. I knew my Rook and Knight could easily beat his Sancstall, and so could my Queen if he didn't play Reflective - I decided this was a good time to use my Bishop, and pick up an easy win against what I considered the largest threat. Thinking I could simply drain his boosted Dragonflies before SoFrees appeared, I imagined this matchup would be heavily in my favour if I removed his Wyrms - but my starting hand had 5 Dragons in it, and I didn't draw a single Siphon.

Game 11: Knight: SoPa Dolls 6 - 5 Knight: Sancstall
Another big mistake here. I predicted Afda's stall, but I don't know why I used this instead of my Rook. Playing my SoPa Dolls gave me an easy win against the stall, but my strongest deck was destroyed as Bishop fodder the next game.

Game 12: Knight: SoPa Dolls 6 - 6 Bishop: Mono Dragons
Having my Squids removed meant this game was simply a damage test for Afda's mono rush.

Game 13: Queen: Dark Grabbow 6 - 7 Bishop: Mono Dragons
I think I had a chance here with a better draw, but even with an early Dagger, only one Nova meant my damage was far too slow.

Game 14: Rook: SoG Drains 6 - 8 Rook: EpiSoFree
Miscounted my quanta and threw a non-lethal drain onto a FFQ, but it wouldn't have made a difference.


That Bishop game really, really hurt. I don't want to be a bad sport at all, since Afda played very well (as always!) but it's hard not to be upset with games like that.

Good luck for the King phase! I don't think I can pull off another win from the same position as last year, but let's see what we can do.

[Afdarenty]

Pawn - Heaty
Game 1 (Loss) - Nova Nymphs vs Vampire Mono

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I'm fairly sure this is a good match up for me. Unfortunately, I had a one Pillar start only and didn't draw any of my Explosions in the top half of the deck. Though I had a good amount of CC, my slow draw meant Physs was able to push in a lot of damage with his Vampire Dagger - enough for him to win by a turn.


Pawn - Soily
Game 2 (Loss) - SoFr Queens vs SoSac

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This one started quite well for me. I had two Shockwaves for two early Gargoyles, and was ramping up damage quickly. Two SoSac left me dead in the Water, though - I didn't see them coming at all. Nicely played!


Pawn - Floaty
Game 3 (Win) - Sanc Stall vs Grabbow

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This was a crazy game. I had a fairly poor draw with only one Sanctuary for the first six or so turns, and only two for a while after that as well. This forced me into using a Miracle and some Sundials earlier than I'd like. I knew Physs would have a ton of burst from his Gargoyles so I played extremely cautiously - I managed to keep my health at 70 or above for the mid game, and over 95 late game with a mix of Sundials, Miracles and Holy Lights. In the final 5 turns I played my Reflective Shield and made sure I was at full health at all times, with a Sundial played for two of the final three turns. It was very very narrowly enough to avoid death.


Pawn - Sassy
Game 4 (Loss) - Titans vs Vampire Mono

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Simply far too much healing for Titans to cope with. Maybe I could have won with a perfect draw, but it would have been close. As it was, my draw was far from perfect, with a 5 Pendulum, 2 Catapult start.


Pawn - Floaty
Game 5 (Loss) - Sanc Stall vs SoP

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Another very difficult match up for me. Fog tried as hard as it could, but with only one Sundial I didn't have enough delay to take the match to the late game.


Queen
Game 6 (Win) vs SoSac Splash

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I had done a good amount of testing against the three decks Physs had left - this Queen deck had over 75% winrate against everything. This was the easiest match up - it was a smart move from Physs to scout out my deck a little, though. SoSac is not a good defence against Unstable Gas. I had two Explosions against a 3 pillar draw from Physs - combined with a Rewind, this meant he had no damage all game and left me plenty of time to win it.


Queen
Game 7 (Loss) vs SoP Squid

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This was a heart breaker - none of my other piece decks were designed to beat Physs' two remaining decks. I had a fairly fast start, but so did Physs and I only managed to draw a single CC card in the top 14 cards of my deck. I ended the game 20 damage short of the win - just one turn more with an unfrozen Nymph.


Knight
Game 8 (Win) vs Vamp Mono

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I was very tempted to use my Bishop on his Squid deck here - I knew that his Mono would beat my Queens and his SoP would beat my Stall. In the end I decided that trying to fight his Piece decks would be too difficult without my Bishop's ability, though, so took a chance on Physs playing Mono. Happily, he did. I had enough CC to keep his damage down, and Fog with a good number of Sancs. A Sundial chain closed out the game.


Rook
Game 9 (Win) vs SoP Squid

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5oj 5oj 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7an 7an 7an 7an 7an 7an 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7oe 7oe 8pn

This match up can be difficult, depending on draws. If I manage to play an Epi Damsel combo then I have enough quanta to play all my SoFr and ramp up out of control, but a good number of early Devourers can stop this from even starting. As it happened, Physs had a slow start with only one Darkness pend. This gave me plenty of time to generate Air quanta and play Shards of Freedom.


Knight
Game 10 (Win) vs Dark Mono (Bishop)

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Bishop meant my Wyrms were turned into Relics for this game. I was praying to draw a Queen early - Physs didn't see them in the previous game, so he couldn't prepare for them. Luckily for me, I had a Queen in my opening hand plus a Damsel + Epi. Physs had a poor draw on his side with no Siphons at all - this game really should have played out quite differently.


Knight
Game 11 (Loss) vs SoP Squid

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The second time Physs predicts my stall and counters with SoP this series. Simply a very difficult match up - in the end I was 3 turns from having enough Sundials left in my deck to stall him out, but it just wasn't enough. Needed to draw more Shockwaves early.


Bishop
Game 12 (Win) vs SoP Squid

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At this point, I only had two decks left. I knew that if I didn't use my Bishop Physs would know I'd be playing my Epi deck and would have a fairly easy time countering it. So I ended up using the Bishop's ability to swap his Squid for Relics, despite both my remaining decks having good match ups against that deck. I didn't have an excellent draw here - one Dragon all game and the rest was entirely Pillars/Pends/Damsels, but one Dragon is all the Dragons you need.


Bishop
Game 13 (Win) vs Grabbow

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I was fortunate that the Grabbow squared off against my Mono instead of my Epi deck. Vampire Dagger and Nightmare are extremely powerful cards in rush vs rush match ups, but I hoped my Shockwaves would be enough to turn the game around. As it happened, we both had quite slow draws. I only had one Dragon in my top 13 cards, whereas Physs only drew one Nova all game and I Shockwaved his first Gargoyle and Shrieker - a very early Vampire Dagger, though. In the end, I drew a second Dragon just in time to win it.


Rook
Game 14 (Win) vs SoG Stall

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5oj 5oj 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pa 5pu 5pu 5pu 5pu 7an 7an 7an 7an 7an 7an 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7oe 7oe 8pn

I had quite a slow start here, with no Damselflies, but this is a match up where that doesn't really matter. I played two SoFr before any creatures, then two Damsels + Epis into a Queen and a Wyrm. The Siphons from Physs didn't kill what they needed to, though I think surviving would have been a struggle for him either way.

[Zawadx]

All decks are legal. TrO Approved.

You have no time left to send in your choice of three elements (which may not include Darkness or Air) for the opponent's Rook deck.

Good luck with the rest of the battle!

[Zawadx]

All decks are legal. TrO Approved.

Good luck with the final phase!