Phase 4 - Final Battle DEATH (Trials 2)

[Kael Hate]

Phase 4 - Final Battle

Please post Phase 4 results here. Thanks.

[MrBlonde]

Alright Coinich, here are my available times and since we have plenty of time i would like to pass on playing until after Tuesday (Monday is labor day, and Tuesday i have meetings all day) unless you want to play during that small time frame early Tuesday morning. I am PST.

Tuesday - 1230am-3am
Wednesday - 1230am-3am, 11am-530pm
Thursday - 1230am-3am, 11am-530pm
Friday - 1230am-3am, 11am-530pm
Saturday - 1230am-3am
Sunday - 1230am-3am

Good luck Coinich, you have the biggest card disadvantage but trust me i'm not underestimating you here. I will certainly put the time in to create my decks.

[coinich]

Alright, howsabout Thursday at 0715 EST.  Thats 515 PST right?

[jmdt]

Alright, howsabout Thursday at 0715 EST.  Thats 515 PST right?

7:15 EST is 4:15 PST

[coinich]

All the better then.

[MrBlonde]

Alright, howsabout Thursday at 0715 EST.  Thats 515 PST right?

Actually with the new rules we probably won't be playing til next week sometime.

[coinich]

oh ok

[coinich]

Congrats MrBlonde, you beat me even harder than last time!  And I even had far better decks.

Match 1:  Simple, I went for rush, trying to hope he'd be off balance enough to react to me from now on.  Obviously I didn't do a good job, handy win for MrBlonde.  Sadly, I don't remember the details for most of these; should've taken notes. 0-1

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52q 52q 52q 52q 542 542 542 542 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 710 710 710 710 710 71a 71a 71b 71b 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2
Match 2:  Didn't work.  My deck needed more depth; so I went to my Entropy/Death deck.  One of the best I've ever made, if I do say so myself.  Try it fully upgraded; worked wonderfully in testing.  Sadly, he still managed to stall me out while I stalled him out, and then he recovered faster.  Time was a good counter to my buff based deck.  I tried a version myself, but thought it too slow.  0-2

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4vl 4vl 4vl 4vo 4vo 4vo 52u 52u 52u 52u 542 542 542 542 542 542 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u7 6u7 710 710 710 710 713 713 713 713 713 713
Match 3:  Still didn't work.  Tried something unexpected; the same entropy deck.  I knew the deck could pull it off.  It did. 1-2

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4vl 4vl 4vl 4vo 4vo 4vo 52u 52u 52u 52u 542 542 542 542 542 542 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u2 6u7 6u7 710 710 710 710 713 713 713 713 713 713
Match 4:  Last trials, I used a deck until he could provide a good counter.  Not wanting him to figure one out I went back to my Arsenic deck, which worked so well in testing.  Not so well again; Adrenalines and Plagues don't play nicely together for me. 1-3

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52q 52q 52q 52q 542 542 542 542 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 710 710 710 710 710 71a 71a 71b 71b 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2
Match 5:  I needed to get serious, so I went out on a limb and tried my Nightstalker build, but tweaked to meet my limited upgrades.  Despite my reliance on creature based damage, his entropy deck couldn't react fast enough, and I managed to scrape out a win before his quinted Nymph made a difference. 2-3

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52u 52u 52u 52u 52u 52u 542 542 542 542 542 5uo 5uo 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 710 710 710 710 710 710 713 713 713 713 713 713 71a 71a 7ta
Match 6:  Go with what works.  Well, he brought out a CC light deck.  Surprised it took this long, honestly.  Saw the mark and realized it was a lost cause; a bad hand compounded the problem.  He had at least one Miracle in his hand, and I never had a chance. 2-4

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52u 52u 52u 52u 52u 52u 542 542 542 542 542 5uo 5uo 5up 5up 5uq 5uq 710 710 710 710 710 710 713 713 713 713 713 713 71a 71a 7ta
Match 7:  Needed to go out on a limb and risk all for victory, I figured I'd take the most surprising deck option I had left.  Flying Arsenics.  Good idea, until I drew 5 Animate Weapons and only one Arsenic.  He managed to once again stall out long enough to defeat my initial rush, and I simply never drew anything useful until the last turn or two.  Had to discard at one point.  Absolutely silly, though it was my fault for relying on such a risky 3 card combo. 2-5, trials to MrBlonde.

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52q 52q 52q 52q 542 542 542 542 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 710 710 710 710 710 71a 71a 71b 71b 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2
Overall strategic considerations:  Should've banned those SoDs.  I counted on my Butterfly Effects on covering for me, but it was not cost effective enough to break through.  The upgrade gap wasn't a big factor however; I upgraded the cards that could use it most, such as the Flesh Recluse and Antimatter.  His tower/pendulum advantage took a toll on me but I don't think it really tipped the scale in any battle; even if I had the same amount of upgraded cards and the same decks, he would've likely secured the most wins.  Generally his decks were more deep than what I had available; though I'd like to say my decks were far more diverse and frankly better than last time.  The strategic considerations were the true factor however.  MrBlonde blocked the Deadly Poison card, and therefore I went with creature spam.  Each time.  Creature damage allowed him to focus on stall CC decks with enough time to overwhelm my decks.  I might've countered via a bastardized Fire Stall duo, but even then I don't think I could've won effectively.  Perhaps a classic speed poison would've worked where my elaborate decks failed; surprisingly neither of us banned Purify.  That SoG ban would've helped me plenty too, possibly even turning a game or two.  Lesson learned.

Reflecting; I had developed far more tactically strong decks, and had I strategically set up better, with both deck choice and banning choice I could've won.  It would've been tough, but the option was there.  As it was, I had little chance of pulling it off.  While I could and did field 15-16 upgrades per deck, I really only had three unique decks on rotation compared to his what, 9?  Finally, it was very interesting playing style wise; I went for a far more aggressive approach and stumbled both to luck and his skill, and his passive approach throttled me almost every time.  A master position well won I say.

[MrBlonde]

MrBlonde defeats Coinich (5-2)

Well i had a monster 14 card upped advantage vs Coinich so he already had an uphill battle. Interestingly Coinich chose not to ban SoG. Here are the reasons i chose to ban the following cards.

SoG - Simple one for me. I abuse SoG's and i know how powerful they can be in matchups
Fractal - Obvious ban.
Poison - Because Fractal wasn't on the board i wasn't worried about Flesh Spiders. Now i figured i would just load up on CC (plagues, etc) and use stall + bonewalls.
Explosion + Steal - Taking out perm control allows me to stall. Only Pulvy and BE are left. Pulvy's are hard to run in a 50/50 and i was always taking CC so killing off BE wouldn't be a problem
Wings - This one was my one iffy pick. I just didn't want to have to deal with a Wings deck.

Basically when i found out Coinich was not going to ban SoG i pretty much knew i was going to make mostly stall type decks especially since my Recluse was banned. The other cards he banned were Perma, Animate Weapon, Nightfall, and Discord. I found those choices kind of interesting. In the previous trials my animate weapon deck failed and i never used nightfall or perma. Anyhow on to the matches.

Round 1 MrBlonde wins. (1-0)

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52g 52h 52h 52h 542 542 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 710 710 710 719 71a 71a 71b 71b 72i 72i 72i 72i 744 744 744 744 744 744 745 745 745 745 745 74b 74b 74bThis and my next deck were my favorite decks i created. They are fairly fast and deal damage quickly. I had chargers to go through shields (which i had to) but i never drew an oty. I forget what Coinich used for this matchup. Maybe flying adrenalined arsenics. He only was able to get one out and i killed it off with plague

Round 2 MrBlonde wins. (2-0)

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52g 52g 542 542 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 710 710 71d 71d 71d 71d 71d 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q3 7q3 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q4 7q8 7q8Because Coinich banned Discord i kind of was expecting an Entropy based deck. This was basically my deck to combat discord/antimatter. Lots of towers and everything low cost/low damage and rewindable back into my deck. Also if a discard does pop out it probably will give me gravity quanta for my scarabs (which ended up happening).

I was able to get out a 2nd round turtle shield and mummy rewinded (i made a mistake here and rewinded him immediately after placing him. I was supposed to wait that round and rewind him next round. That way i still get to create a scarab that round AND i get the 2 additional damage from the mummy the previous round). Coinich had chaos powered stalkers with a 2nd round discord. Discord didn't bother me too much since i had plenty of towers out and turtle shield worked beautifully and i rewinded a stalker back into his hand and started to eat his stalkers with my scarabs thanks to scrambled gravity quanta.

When i first decided to make a time based deck i've only really thought of using sundials and rewinds with recluses or poison. With my recluses gone i decided to see if i could get a mummy/pharoah deck working. When i fine-tuned this deck to what it is now i was quite surprised at how effective it is. This deck counters all of Coinich's decks pretty hard and i would have used this deck in round 8 if i had lost round 7.

Round 3 Coinich wins (2-1)

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52h 52h 542 542 542 542 542 542 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 719 719 71a 71a 71b 71b 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dk 7dl 7dl 7dm 7dm 7dm 7do 7dr 7dr 7drCoinich played entropy again and got out a 1st round Discord. It messed me up pretty badly. It really prevented me from doing much. I blew one discord up but was promptly replaced I killed off a bunch of his creatures with my CC but in the end i feably used a fire lance on him to damage him for 3 hp just so he wouldn't finish me with full health. 

Looking back at this i don't know why i had rage potions here. I should have had upped holy flashes.....  I guess at this point i wasn't absolutely positive that he was going to use creatures.

Round 4 MrBlonde wins (3-1)

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542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 718 718 718 718 718 718 719 719 71a 71a 778 778 77c 77c 77j 77j 77j 77j 77j 77j 77k 77k 77k 77k 77k 77kThis round was close. It basically came down to me getting an early arsenic out and two deadly poisons on him. I also EQ'd him pretty badly here. He had adrenalined flying arsenics again and i was fortunate enough to be able to get a bonewall up and kill one of them with plague. It still came down to me having to granite skin myself 2 times. Another heal for Coinich, 1 less granite or plague for me and i would have lost.

Round 5 Coinich wins (3-2)

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500 500 500 542 542 542 6ts 6ts 6ts 6ts 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 6u3 711 718 718 718 718 718 718 71a 71a 71b 71b 72i 72i 72i 72i 7dm 7n0 80h 80h 80hThis game i was pretty much 1 turn away from turning the corner and having Coinich almost unable to beat me. He used a darkness deck with nightfall and recluses. I was able to get out a quinted purple nymph and had 2 of his 3 recluses antimattered. If he wasn't able to get out recluse number 4 that turn i would have been able to start healing myself at a fairly quick rate of which i'm not sure he could have overcome.

Silly me here. In retrospect with Coinich not using any CC and only creatures i should have changed this deck around a little bit taking out the quints and perhaps just turning the supernovas, explosion and fog shield into holy flashes and pillars.

Round 6 MrBlonde wins (4-2)

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542 542 542 542 542 5l8 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5lc 5mq 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 718 718 718 718 718 718 719 719 71a 71a 71b 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 7jo 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2Here's my monster light stall deck. Coinich ended up with a poor draw here and it didn't help that i holy flashed the first 3 creatures that popped out. In the end though i had 3 miracles in hand, 3 sogs out and Coinich not having enough damage to do anything.

Round 7 MrBlonde wins (5-2)

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542 542 542 542 542 542 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 719 719 71a 71a 71b 71b 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 72i 7n0 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n6 7n6 7n6 7n6 7n6 7n8 7n8Final round i decided to use my UG, firefly deck. Coinich used his flying adrenalined arsenics again hoping for 3 times a charm. Unfortunately for him he started off a little slow (as did i) but i did pull all 4 of my SoG's fairly early and after i plagued his lone adrenalined arsenic not much else he could do as i slowly built up my army of 4 fireflies, 2 UG's and arsenic. I think he ended up with 5 animate weapons in his hand at one point. Bad draw for him, slow decent draw for me.

Also i built an deck just for Unit. Since he loves so much i wanted to make an deck and without animate weapon this really was the only viable deck left. I actually like this deck, it's just a tad slow.


Thanks again for the matchups Coinich. The upped card advantage was hard to deal with and many of the matchups could have gone the other way.

[MrBlonde]

Overall strategic considerations:  Should've banned those SoDs.  I counted on my Butterfly Effects on covering for me, but it was not cost effective enough to break through.  The upgrade gap wasn't a big factor however; I upgraded the cards that could use it most, such as the Flesh Recluse and Antimatter.  His tower/pendulum advantage took a toll on me but I don't think it really tipped the scale in any battle; even if I had the same amount of upgraded cards and the same decks, he would've likely secured the most wins.  Generally his decks were more deep than what I had available; though I'd like to say my decks were far more diverse and frankly better than last time.  The strategic considerations were the true factor however.  MrBlonde blocked the Deadly Poison card, and therefore I went with creature spam.  Each time.  Creature damage allowed him to focus on stall CC decks with enough time to overwhelm my decks.  I might've countered via a bastardized Fire Stall duo, but even then I don't think I could've won effectively.  Perhaps a classic speed poison would've worked where my elaborate decks failed; surprisingly neither of us banned Purify.  That SoG ban would've helped me plenty too, possibly even turning a game or two.  Lesson learned.

Reflecting; I had developed far more tactically strong decks, and had I strategically set up better, with both deck choice and banning choice I could've won.  It would've been tough, but the option was there.  As it was, I had little chance of pulling it off.  While I could and did field 15-16 upgrades per deck, I really only had three unique decks on rotation compared to his what, 9?  Finally, it was very interesting playing style wise; I went for a far more aggressive approach and stumbled both to luck and his skill, and his passive approach throttled me almost every time.  A master position well won I say.

I didn't ban purify because it basically forces you to use a water based deck and with my creature control i wasn't too worried about speed poison/purify decks. If you had banned my SoGs i certainly would have gone a much different direction. I would have used upped holy flashes more to use quanta-less heals and CC.

I created 10 different decks for this matchup. The 3 i didn't play were a stalker/momentum deck, a 40 card stall with lightnings, shields and a TU/dragon deck with lightnings/shields. I also noticed you forgot that i banned steals. Course if you used it i would have just made us restart and have you take the steals out or use another deck.

I loved the usage of your chaos powered stalkers and am quite happy you didn't use this deck more often.

[coinich]

Yeah, I completely forgot about the Steals, and I thought I had double checked.  Sorry.

[MrBlonde]

Yeah, I completely forgot about the Steals, and I thought I had double checked.  Sorry.

No worries. I would have just said, "oops, i banned those, lets restart and pick a new deck". And thanks for the kind words in your earlier post, playing you has been a pleasure. If i haven't evolved as a player since last trials i don't think i would have beat you. Going through War, Masters Tourney and other little PvP things has really helped me understand this game much better.

Hope to see you in War and fighting on the side of .