Quite dissapointed. But I knew something was up when I saw Gl1tches ban choices
Shard of Gratitude
Eternity
Quintessence
Thorn Carapace
Firefly Queen
Pufferfish
Quint-I understand. Immortal Growing forest spirits are not cool. And would have completely ruined his counter.
Eternity and Thorn Carpace- a dead giveaway that he was going to use adrenalined, flying staves. I'm sure that KDZ could have packed a fire shield, and foiled him just as easily.
Pufferfish- For me it seems half a ban. The chance KDZ would use the unupped counterpart is very low, since it means going into two elements other than his own. The upped one doesn't seem so powerful that it is worthy of a ban (although if I am wrong here, someone correct me) as he had healing in every deck.
FFQ- No comments? Seems a bit of a wasted ban?
SoG- Staple really. Fair ban.
My main deck design revolved around the ability to /kill/ his creatures, and it had a fatal weakness in momentum'd quint'd spirits. I could pretty much guarantee he wouldn't pack momentum, but quint I was worried about. So instead of taking both and making it obvious I was going for CC, I got rid of quint. Next I got rid of Eternity and Thorn Carapace. The former was because my main deck was a deck-out deck, and eternity made that impossible, and the latter to throw him off. KDZ, if that card weren't banned, was likely to never play it anyway, but by banning it it looks like I'm going for an adrenaline rush. He took the bait and started bragging about fire shield. Next I banned pufferfish because of the water/life poison deck. KDZ has a water mark, and his favorite duo is water/life. As long as the only water/life deck he could build was spirits, I'd be okay. FFQ was /not/ a wasted ban, FFQ duos so well with life it's ridiculous. In fact, I have a sneaky suspicion he forgot it was banned and put it in a deck, meaning he couldn't play it and his deck was useless. Or he just played a flying stave deck. SoG I just don't like.
If you look at the cards I packed you'd see a pretty obvious picture. I was going to adrenaline rush. I got rid of eternity, thorn carapace, SoG, FFQ, and Pufferfish, all of which are used in decks that can cripple frog rushing. And, because last trial I used adrenaline to ram his creatures into my thorn, I banned quint, making him think I'd do that again. And, since it was obvious I was going to adrenaline rush, look what deck he packed first game? By was he surprised when I went for CC!
If you'll remember the actual banning cards thread, KDZ made a post laughing at my choices. I'd left his favorite deck untouched! But he'd demolished mine! Why, it was almost as if his opening deck was completely predictable but mine /had/ to be something unprecedented. And, my sneaky other ulterior motive to make sure KDZ was in fact better than me also benefited. By banning these cards, the temptation to go back to the old standby fail decks was there. But every time he did, I beat him. And, lo and behold, by the last three games he was rushing like a good boy.
(Just an FYI KDZ, you won game three. You had 11 HP, I had 7 HP, we both had ridiculous amounts of damage, but you went first.)
