It started off as a 4-0 - the best start I could've ever hoped for. And ended with a 0-5, my worst nightmare.
I have a lot of stuff to say, but can't find the words right now. I suppose I'll add in decks and match description before going into that. All I'll say is a big thank you to everyone who provided me with support in chat as the finals went on. You guys were a big help in keeping myself straight as the match wore on. I'm sorry I couldn't make that final leap, but I'm glad that in the end this finals became the craziest, most intense and best series I've ever played in EtG.
Bans: My bans this trials weren't smart at all. The basic idea was simple: no sanc/dials or shards meant pure stalls were almost impossible, and so domins would dominate. So my idea was to simply stop all of his domins and limit his rushing strategies, allowing a clear path to victory if he didn't also do the same. But one thing had slipped my mind: RoL/Hope. So when bans were revealed, I found just how much of a mistake banning dims over fractal had been. He still had AMs and RoL/Hope, two amazing domins along with countless rush options, ready to annihilate me.
Of course I must note that I first got to think properly about bans a few hours before deadline (insanely busy for the week before), and perhaps with a bit more time I'd have given the fractal ban option a bit more thought. But the fact was that I'd screwed up, and so I entered into the final knowing my chances were slim.
Screeny Album if you're interested. Have everything but that disaster of a game 7.
Game 1: Blitzkrieg vs RoL/Hope=WIN
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5og 5og 5op 5op 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mv 7mv 7mv 80b 80b 80b 80b 80k 80k 80k 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8prThe idea behind Blitzkrieg was simple: it was favored vs traditional Zap Chargetal, AM Duo and Catatitans, three of four decks most likely for deuce to lead with. The only hitch for Blitzkrieg was... RoL/Hope. And so when I entered and saw aether mark with 31 cards, my face fell. Luck favored me though, as deuce drew only one fractal in the top half of his deck. This led to him playing very conservatively with RoLs, which encouraged me to intentionally delay my turns by 20ish seconds so that I could bluff Tstorms. Whether he fell into the bluff or not, it all fell into place as his damage was very slow, while I continued chipping in with dragons. Two blitzes with a break for quanta in-between allowed me to pull through, with him one turn's worth of damage away from the win.
Game 2: Buckler Power vs RoL/Hope?=WIN
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61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 63a 63a 63a 63a 7dg 7dg 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dl 7dl 7dl 7dn 7dn 7dn 7f2 7f2 80f 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8poThe one win were I take full credit. Bucklers were a great idea that came up in testing, and here a turn 3 buckler meant deuce played only quanta and a lobo all game.
Of course I'm not exactly sure if it was RoL/Hope or Psiontal, but as it was 31 cards I suspect it was the former.
Game 3: Dark PUGons vs Chargetal=WIN
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5v1 5v1 61r 61r 61r 61r 61r 63a 63a 7t4 7t5 7t5 7t5 7t5 7t5 7tb 7tb 7tb 7um 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8ptDark PUGons has been in my mind for a long time, since I saw it used in TPvP back when I was a newbie. It was the first deck that I ran official tests on, and turned out it could outpace Chargetal, Catatitans and Grabbow with comfortable consistency. Of course it dies to AMs and RoL/Hope, but after two losses for RoL/Hope I didn't expect a domin here. What I wasn't expecting was to see my worst fear come true: Gravity Shield. Thankfully, I saw it before I played any dragons. So it was a matter of PUing his chargers when they came and sailing to victory. Of course a perfect player who played around gravity shield would win this every time, but I would have lost if deuce hadn't misplayed and played the shield too early. Oh well, all the better for me.
Game 4: MA Dims vs Pulvy Splash=WIN
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4su 61o 61o 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 63a 63a 63a 808 808 808 808 808 808 80e 80e 80e 80e 80f 80f 80f 80f 80f 80f 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8puSo, I was off to perfect start. 2 wins could be a fluke, but 3 wins was nothing to scoff at. So when I saw his earth towers and gravity mark, I knew the tides were turning. But it decided to hang back for a while, and we both started off with almost only quanta for the first few turns. After an intense chip-damage showdown of his one recluse vs my lobo, I had a series of perfect draws with Phasie into dim while his pulvies hid. The pulvy popped up on the turn before my dim expired, and by then I had done enough damage to comfortably win.
Game 5: DessiPUGons vs Psiontal = LOSS
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63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 7gk 7gk 7gk 7gt 7gt 7gt 7gt 7gt 7h3 7h3 7h3 7h3 7h3 7i6 80b 80b 80b 80b 81q 81q 81q 8ppYes, it had occurred to me: I was just one win away from getting a 5-0 against deuce22. Thankfully this did not derail me, and I tried to think through how I might ensure at least one win in the next five games. Gravity shield was fresh on my mind, and so I decided to bring out my only PUGons that passed through it. It was far from perfect, but it had a decent chance. I was happy to see the aether mark, but then the psions started showing up one by one while none of my 5 dragons did. At a point I used triple dessication to gain a turn, but it was no use. My first dragon came on the 13th card, one draw too late to win.
Game 6: Buckler Power vs Guardtal = LOSS
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61q 61q 61q 61q 61q 63a 63a 63a 63a 7dg 7dg 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dl 7dl 7dl 7dn 7dn 7dn 7f2 7f2 80f 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8poHere was one of my key mistakes, which I should have foreseen while testing. I was trying to get that one win somehow for the title, and so I thought that I would use this to beat AM or RoL/Hope and go on to live a happy life as a master. But my mistake in testing was to not consider all the fractal rushes deuce had available, and so I failed to see just where this deck might fall. The game had the potential to be close, but I started by drawing 2 fahrens and all 3 bucklers destroying all my chances.
Game 7: Blitzkrieg vs Guardtal = LOSS
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5op 5op 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 63a 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mt 7mv 7mv 7mv 7mv 81q 81q 81q 81q 80k 80k 80k 80b 80b 80b 80b 8prAnd this was where I lost. I put in a lot of thought before this game, trying out an air rush and a modified dark PUGons. But I chose none of them because of AMs. I thought that all three of my odd decks were PUGons, so deuce might choose to counter them all with AM. Of course chargetal was still on my mind, so in the end I chose the one that seemed to have the best chances vs both chargetal and AM. In hindsight I realize that this was a game where deuce using RoL/Hope or AM was pretty unlikely, so I should've ignored those and brought an anti-rush. But I brought in Blitzkrieg, conveniently believing it to be the best vs both AMs and Chargetal. And then I was faced by a fact I had conveniently forgotten: deuce had gravy shields. And thus I lost the game where I should've taken the mastership.
Game 8: Dims/Bolts vs Psiontal = LOSS
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4so 5f4 5f4 5f4 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 7dg 7dg 7dk 7dk 7dk 7f2 80e 80e 80e 80f 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 8poThe reason the last loss was so hard was that it made mindgating a nightmare. Previously I had a comfortable margin and solid leads to try and guess what deck deuce might bring. But now it could be anything, and thus I proceeded to go wrong both times. As I looked through my decks for this game, I found Dims/Bolts - a deck that might beat gravytal while still winning against AMs and RoL/Hope. I remembered my testing for chimera guardtal during phase 2, and knew that dims would still pose a significant hurdle to the guards. I thought I had found my silver bullet, as I expected lobo+dim to be enough to stop psiontal. But I started with only 2 aether pends while he soon rocketed upto 8 aether a turn. The psiontal would've been unstoppable even if I ever got enough quanta for dim+lobo, which I didn't and so it wasn't even close.
Game 9: Dark PUGons vs RoL/Hope=LOSS
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5v1 5v1 5ul 5ul 5ul 5ul 5ul 63a 63a 7t4 7um 7tb 7tb 7tb 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 81q 80b 80b 80b 80b 80b 8ptSo this was it. One last game, and whoever won would take the title. Unfortunately for me, the full range of deuce's options made this come down to a cointoss in mindgating. At first I thought that this was when deuce would finally return to his domins, as I had thought from the start that he'd use them at least once in the last games. So I improved Dims/Bolts to be more consistent, and told deuce I was ready. But in the few minutes deuce was attending to his kids, I thought about how deuce would just end up going the straightforward way and choose to end this with psiontal, since he might believe it to be unbeatable. Not wanting to lose shamefully with a repeat of game 8, I switched to the best rush I'd found just as deuce came back. We searched, and I jumped when I saw aether mark. But then I saw that he had 31 cards, and my hopes fell down... I still had a decent start, but nothing spectacular enough to pull it off. Perhaps one more turn for me would've been enough, but with the average draws for both I had no chance. Misplayed in the end by PUing a dragon over his psion, but it wouldn't matter in the end to decide who would be master.
So I've written down all there is to know about the match, but I'm still struggling to find the words to describe how I'm feeling. I'm both wistful and glad that I didn't get that one win after the crazy start to crown myself as master. But I am extremely happy that I managed to put up such a fight, even after being away from PvP for so long. This is the closest anyone has ever come to toppling deuce in a Trials final, and I honestly don't know if I want it to stay that way or if I want someone else to finally take that throne.
But the sad part is, that someone else probably won't be me. This time next year I will be sitting for the huge hassle of end-of-school public exams, while hopefully working towards a new life after a successful round of uni applications. So this was probably the very last Trials I'm gonna participate in, or oversee. It has truly been a wonderful ride, watching this event flourish just as I did, with small successes and many failures. But all journeys eventually end, and I'm glad that I part with Trials on such an amazing note.
Congratulations deuce, it seems your record will only continue to grow and grow. Your eternal glow as the paragon of Mastership and Aether has been what inspired me to come this close, and may it continue to inspire many others. And another thank you to everyone who supported me throughout the years and everyone who drove me to improve even further. See you in War.
