*sigh*
It would appear the curse* has reared it's ugly head yet again.
I was really concerned about my battle with Essence. Water is one of the most versatile elements out there, no two decks are the same. Do I take jade shield and stop lances, or would that be pointless because he'll use speed poison? And I knew that Essence loved to experiment with weird decks, so I was really flying blind on this one.
I decided the only way to stop his deck was to stop him from playing cards entirely. Using an aflatoxin stall, I might be able to lock down his field. Jade shield would stop his lances, and save my life, and then I'd just cell myself and use EBs to heal. Of course, I realized I was risking that he wouldn't take permanent control, so I just had to hope he didn't take water/fire with deflags.
Guess what he took?
It didn't matter anyway, I forgot to pack my rustlers for aflatoxin fodder, and couldn't have healed at all anyway. His steam machines were too big to fail.
So the next game I knew I was in trouble. Essence was taking shards, which obnoxiously enough, are better at healing than the healing element. And that's when it hit me. Flying adrenaline staves. Since he was using upgraded shields, the only water shield he had wouldn't freeze my staves, and they'd still heal me. I threw in my nymphs and some frogs for damage, in case he had no shields, and then hoped he didn't take freeze+shockwave.
What he took was worse. Eternity + Ice shield.
With no way to deck him or damage him, I couldn't win. I conceded after the desynch.
Essence decided he was going to break my curse, so we fought a third game. Seeing as he was taking shards, I figured I needed cumulative damage to overcome his healing. Scorpions it was. With shields being such a joy, I knew I'd need adrenaline to unfreeze my scorpions and deal damage quickly, and I'd need blessings to get above the 2 damage reduction.
The game starts, he's playing earth to compliment Poseidons. Seeing as his earthquake was infinite, there was no point to playing one pillar at a time, and instead I tried rushing quanta. I didn't draw any scorpions until he had already beaten me.
*After KDZ lost to me in the trials, he vowed I wouldn't win a single fight in the next trials. Since the time of this curse, I haven't won I single battle in master PVP. Not a single match, a single battle. This includes the war, the trials, and any other battles I fought when representing life.