Game 5- Ranked (Signifier, Rank 2301) v Pietrzak (Aquilifer, Rank 2240)
My opening hand is all spells and Barbarian Commander, which is fine given the map; his 11 speed nets me a font and lets me contest a second while my opponent is still limping toward his first font with a Firk Mimic. I've never played against the Mimic before, nor the Mindweaver he plays next; Barbarian Commander/Wild Chieftain together mean his Mimic looks pretty frightening. He adds, over the next few turns, the new Draksar Herald and a Draksar Lord. I bunch up on his font with my barbarians, but make a poor choice not to slap a Righteous Deflection on my Chieftain (the Champion has one at this point), and lose him in a single turn of attacks. I'm still holding on, dropping hammers to stun his threats, and am set up for a big round where I abuse his Soulsphere with Strip Armor...he hammers into my Commander, dropping him to 5 health, but I'm sitting on Impervious. Impervious will improve my War-Enchanted Groble, save my Commander for a turn, and let his enraged self deal brutal damage.
Then Peitrzak plays a Mind-Shredder and kills my Commander. Although I might have been able to fight back, since I'm sitting on two fonts and two Nora Mines, I concede at this point. I'm still not a fan of facing nearly all rares/exotics...I'm working on it though.
Game 6- Ranked (Signifier, 2301) versus laserbear (Signifier, 2316)
I'm up against moga, and he gets first go with an Assault Team. I draw Renegade, Wild Chieftain, double Righteous Deflection, Hammer Strike, and then Shrine Scry for a Barbarian Commander, which I play. We're on the Ironfist map with the pass, and I lead with the Commander and back him with the Renegade on the next turn. Turn 3 I contest the neutral southern font, move my Renegade toward the central, and drop a Nora Mine. My opponent hasn't played anything yet, so I expect a big rush now that he owns a font. His units are all 9 Speed, so I contest and claim the central font...with both of my units packing Righteous Deflections to neuter his Strike Team. His next two plays are a Hyaenid Spearman and a Moga Slinger, so I get to surprise him a second time when he shoots my Commander (he'd already revealed the RD on the Renegade) and his attacks again do nothing. He drops a nasty combination of Unstable Ground and Cyclops-Eye Belt, which hurts my Renegade badly. I walk into a Rock Trap I probably should have seen coming, which results in knockback, stun, and then more knockback and damage from an avalanche...it's a bad scene for the Commander when all is said and done.
With the Commander at 9 life, I move a Savage Wolf up to contest the font and then retrieve my Commander with a Conscript. What doesn't work here is that I try to fight an attrition war with a moga deck, which I should already know is not a workable solution. I bottle things up in the center of the pass for quite some time, using a WE Groble with heavy spell support. He holds the foes off for a long time, but eventually I'm facing Dirge, the Punisher he started with, a Voil Sorceror, and some excellent commons and uncommons (plus Moga Hunters, which is an Exotic but in this case didn't have any interesting upgrades).
If I'm honest, I don't really enjoy this style of Ironfist Stronghold play, at least not at present. I'm aware of this and try to fight that feeling going into the next two rounds, but my mind is pretty focused on the Savage Tundra deck I want to make (and the paper I need to write for class).
Game 7- Ranked (Signifier 2301) versus Djinnterre (Signifier, 2395)
In a stunning reversal, my draw is all creatures...and again, the Commander is present. We're on the original Sundered Lands map, so I lead with Commander. He has two Savage Wolves, a Shaman, and a Wild Chieftain available for support, but not on turn two. Djinn is sitting on a Boghopper Spitter, and drops a Boghopper Elite the next turn. My Commander dies but I'm able to get a WE Groble and Shaman out. The Shaman ends up facing the majority of his units (Moga Cannon, Boghopper Spitter, the Elite) and I buff him with Impervious on his last turn of life. The Groble, meanwhile, contests my opponent's font and hammers away at a Massive Anuran. The Anuran disengages after a turn and drops a Rock Trap, but he drops it directly between the two units...so I destealth it when I move to renengage and kill it the next turn. My Shaman dies, but I've dropped a Nora Mine in the font zone and my opponent chooses to use the only ranged unit capable of hurting a relic to shoot my Groble. I hope to capitalize on this.
However, he Infests his Anuran the turn before I kill it, and even with me taking half damage from everything he wields he manages to put my Groble into the red. At this point I forfeit, because I still really don't care about winning with this deck.
What Would Conan Do? He'd redeem himself.
Game 8! Ranked (Signifier 2301) versus Djinnterre (Signifier, 2395)
I lose the roll again, and Djinterre leads with a Salaman Dervish. My open is double Shieldman, double Wolf, Commander. I try something different and lead with a Wolf. My Wolves battle his Dervish while two Mud Elementals come toward the font. I back the surviving wolf with a Barbarian Commander, which helps him survive the attacks of the Mud Elementals (alongside Tough, of course).
My Commander and Wolves die without removing the Mud Elementals, mostly due to physical resistance and a well-timed application of lumbering to my wolf. I plug the hole with my WE Groble and try to support him, but he's simply facing too many attacks (including a pair of Boghopper Elites) to be effective, and I (mis?)spend my Nora bringing more units into the game to support him.
I'm no Conan, clearly. I simply didn't want to be playing this BG, and don't know how much that factored into the various losses I'd suffered. I also came back to this playtesting after almost a week off (and not playing Pox at all) so I don't think my strategic play was up to par.
Thoughts: I need ways to deal with Equipment, and I should probably include a single Repair, even though I only run three constructs. I also really need some sort of AoE, even just an Earthquake. Most importantly, though, I need to recover my desire to actually run howling barbarians, and play in a manner consistent with that. There are several runes I never chose to cast and could probably drop at least one of (Shamen, Conscripts, maybe even Shieldmen) which does set me up to add some of the necessary runes. The deck does run a lot of resilient, long-lasting warriors who hit particularly hard. However, I tended to fall back on just trying to force through a WE Groble, probably due to my last major Ironfist deck being the construct deck.
Showing posts with label Player versus Player. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Player versus Player. Show all posts
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Deck Construction: Full-Faction Forsaken Wastes 5 PVP and Conclusions
After those four battles I'm sitting on some more experience, particularly with the runes who were below the cusp at the last runthrough. I increased Speed on the lower speed Enchantress to 10. Bought Charm 2 for one of my Dark Seductresses, and Disease Immunity for the other. It's difficult to decide how to level the Shadestalkers, so I just put the points into buying up their exertion; I want to keep them cheap but I would like to, at least, see them putting out higher damage. I may go back and increase that later. The Ethereal Soldier gets Hex 2, and the Mute Stalker bought into Evasive 3. I can finally afford Speed 8 for my slower Wandering Zombie- just 13 more points for Speed 9! Finally, I bump the Utterdark Spectre's Speed to 10.
With all that xp spent, it's time to trot the BG into actually PvP. There's a lot working against me here, most specifically that I've played several games with a friend of mine and apparently that increased my rank. I expect to eat a day's worth of losses, but I'm only too happy to be surprised.
Game 9- PvP(Hastatus 1559, Level 1) Versus gaverion (Princeps 1378, Level 1)
I'm always surprised by maps that seem totally unfamiliar; apparently they change a lot of the maps in PvP, so the Ironfist Stronghold map with the narrow pass now has a font there to capture. I draw some Berserkers, Enchantresses, and the Lich King and think I have a decent chance of racing the font. Unfortunately, gaverion is able to drop a cheap Scorched Dwarf he uses to take the second font while his Deep Elf Priestess contests the font. Ultimately I'm not sure if I was supposed to run away with my Lich King or stick around, but his Priestess and a Deep Elf Masochist eventually run me off. By the time I lose the central font I've picked up the northern one with my Mute Stalker, and dropped an Eternal Lich. However, gaverion controls the central font and drops a Deep Elf Ritualist and Deep Elf Scout in rapid succession. Thanks to a beckon he takes the northern font away from me, and then I'm stuck trying to defend my Shrine with the Eternal Lich (sans phylactery, he took that away real fast) and a Skeletal Berserker. I'm facing two Priestesses, a Grimlic, a Ritualist, a Deep Elf Summoner, and a Scout until I kill it.
Thinks progress predictably. My proud moment is when his Grimlic drops three mirages and I base up a Plagued Skeletal Berserker, which kills them all with the infection damage. He removes my Lich and my Berserker in the same turn and, since I can't cast anything else for xp, I concede.
Game 10- PvP Versus Alazel (Princeps 1378, Level 1)
While Game 10 loads, my trades come in; I have a second Mute Stalker, a second Utterdark Spectre, and two Nether Wraiths (which are stealthing energy thieves with Hex). The game starts up and I'm facing Forglar Swamp. I draw both Liches, an Enchantress, an Animated Blade, and a Wandering Zombie, and lead with the Lich King again. I'm up against a lot of Firk, it looks like, including the Mind Shredder. I quail, because I've used the Mind Shredder to great effect but as of yet not faced off against one. Alazel also has a Soulsphere, meaning all of his units share damage. Since my only ranged attacker is a Lich King and Alazel is playing a Firk Sensorate (Resist Magic 3) this means I'm only doing about 4 damage to each of his other units, and a single damage to the Sensorate. Combined with his Boghopper Shaman, Three rounds in the Mind Shredder still has full health. Then he drops a Feeding Frenzy on my Lich King, who barely survives. The Frenzy has the other delightful effect of further spreading out the damage his units are taking- my Lich is doing his best but he's not even putting out a dent.
I render my Animated Blade incorporeal to escape from a poison trap and take one of his fonts away. The next turn starts up with both of us seizing a font from the other; his Firk Sensorate is outside a deployment zone, while my Lich goes down to the Mind Shredder. The Delay I dropped (I finally get to use it!) prevents me from having to deal with a Salaman Negamage. Unfortunately, he opts to drop Kartch, Finlord instead. I manage to fight it out and kill off his Boghopper Shaman, do serious damage to Kartch, and just as I'm about to tear into his Salaman Dervish...he drops another Soulsphere. Followed by a Marsh Gargantua.
I battle it out for the eastern shrine for a long time; I'm using a Mute Stalker, which negates the advantage of his Kartch. However, the Stalker's not fast enough to catch the Mind Shredder and attack, so I'm running in circles, storing one more ap each round, while my zombie tries to kill his other troops. Judicious use of various disease effects, meanwhile, is enough to break his second Soulsphere, though it does nothing to his titan. When he has my Stalker at one hitpoint, and poisoned, I make him insubstantial, as I'm facing no magical damage. That lets me hang onto the font for one more turn, but my attempt to throw Reanimate down on the Stalker meets a Backfire.
Eventually I'm staring at another Boghopper hero, I have no champs on the board except a devastated Skeletal Berserker, and I concede. I'm proud of my boys.
Game 11- PVP (Principales 1886, Level 1) Versus yewsef (Signifier 2398, Level 1)
The fact that yewsef's Shrine has over 80 hitpoints indicates I am going to be badly, badly hurt in this engagement. My opening hand only includes 1 champ, and it's the Skeletal Berserker. This is less than ideal, so I play aggressive and pump a mobilize into him so I can grab the central font on turn two. yewsef contests the font and I decide discretion is the better part of valor, fleeing back with my Berserker to grab the font closest to me. The opening hand has me in a bad way, so I'm looking at things as a workshop to play with strategy. I run my Vampyre up to the central font and he's hit with a Devolve and reduced to 11 hp. I Phase Shift, again facing absolutely no magic damage, and get two Skeletal Berserkers into the mix. After Phase Shift ends I slap Ghostly Visage on the Vampyre, now a few hp higher thanks to a very weak swing on a summoned snake. yewsef drops a Thorn Collection on my Berserkers, then Vortexes my insubstantial Vampyre, meaning he now has uncontested control of the central font. Yewsef does what I would have done, and moves one of his pieces to contest my font; but he overshoots and misses its control zone. He manages to plant a serpent in the font, though, meaning I'll be without 10 nora on my next turn.
The Vampyre tries to take my font back while a Shadestalker and Ethereal Soldier attempt to hold off the Centuar Regulator I've been fighting since the beginning of the game. The Shadestalker falls, but I pull a Skeletal Berserker out to help my soldier; the Centuar runs away to rejuvenate himself. My chicanery with Plague and Ethereal Soldier is fun, but doesn't actually accomplish anything in the vein of preventing my game loss. Still, things went far, far better than I expected, and I'm again proud of my boys.
Game 12- PvP Versus nickybaby (Principales 1851, Level 1)
This is the first split-faction warband I've gone up against. The shrine has more hp than mine so I'm a little concerned, but at least the first creature he drops isn't the end of the world. I draw Wandering Zombie, Mute Stalker, Animated Blade, Vampyre, and lead with the Vamp (I'm thinking about naming him Edward). Edward and my Mute Stalker go for the southern font, facing off against a Krikkinwing and a Drakon. Meanwhile an Ethereal Soldier goes for the northern font, boxing out against a Skithmaw. Edward's Shield of Darkness is Disarmed, but he's not in position to take any hits so that's okay. I eat the Krikkinwing thanks to a timely Mobilize, while the Ethereal Soldier removes the Skithmaw.
The battle for the southmost font devolves into his using dragon after dragon, and me using...Edward. It's just Eddie. I hold three fonts for much of the game, but eventually I relinquish my hold on the northern one to focus on a thrust to the south. The game drags on; I kill every dragon he throws at me, but he never runs out. Eventually we've both popped our avatars, but there's just so much space taken up by his big units that I can't get a swing in on his. Font control really decides the match; I hit a point where he uses Broodcall to take my closest font and I can't recover it in time before he burrows a Sand Dragon into the control area. Once that happens I have nowhere to deploy units- even though I got the fun Reanimate effect wherein the nearest area I control leaves my control at the same time Reanimate triggers, meaning I immediately contest it and get to swinging. I manage to beat back his assault on my shrine with a Berserker, a Mute Stalker, and the shrine himself. I still get surrounded though, and he pops a Strip Armor before piling three dragons onto my shrine.
This proved an excellent experiment, both in terms of getting me to think closely about deck building and getting me back into playing PvP at all. I went 0 and 4, but I also have 63 career ranked wins (most of which were back when you could play ranked games against your friends). By comparison, nickybaby had close to 550 career wins; close to the same number of losses too, granted, but that indicates participation at a much higher level of play. For a deck I put together yesterday using a combination of runes I've never played and runes I don't tend to like playing, I'm very satisfied with the results.
Since the trades went through, I have some runes to swap in and I'll toy with the overall bg composition. The major thing to house me in that last game was Granite Bracers, because so much of my fighting was reliant on Edward. When he's up against a creature who automatically blocks and ripostes the first attack each round, he's not only limited to hitting every other round (when he has enough ap for two attacks) but he's forced to hold his ap on the in-between rounds, because he's sure not to hit. I'll tweak the bg and return to it later, perhaps, to see how the new version plays.
Full-Faction Forsaken Wastes Deck (Stealth/Insubstantial Focus)
Final Single-Player Record: 7/8
Final PvP Record: 0/4
With all that xp spent, it's time to trot the BG into actually PvP. There's a lot working against me here, most specifically that I've played several games with a friend of mine and apparently that increased my rank. I expect to eat a day's worth of losses, but I'm only too happy to be surprised.
Game 9- PvP(Hastatus 1559, Level 1) Versus gaverion (Princeps 1378, Level 1)
I'm always surprised by maps that seem totally unfamiliar; apparently they change a lot of the maps in PvP, so the Ironfist Stronghold map with the narrow pass now has a font there to capture. I draw some Berserkers, Enchantresses, and the Lich King and think I have a decent chance of racing the font. Unfortunately, gaverion is able to drop a cheap Scorched Dwarf he uses to take the second font while his Deep Elf Priestess contests the font. Ultimately I'm not sure if I was supposed to run away with my Lich King or stick around, but his Priestess and a Deep Elf Masochist eventually run me off. By the time I lose the central font I've picked up the northern one with my Mute Stalker, and dropped an Eternal Lich. However, gaverion controls the central font and drops a Deep Elf Ritualist and Deep Elf Scout in rapid succession. Thanks to a beckon he takes the northern font away from me, and then I'm stuck trying to defend my Shrine with the Eternal Lich (sans phylactery, he took that away real fast) and a Skeletal Berserker. I'm facing two Priestesses, a Grimlic, a Ritualist, a Deep Elf Summoner, and a Scout until I kill it.
Thinks progress predictably. My proud moment is when his Grimlic drops three mirages and I base up a Plagued Skeletal Berserker, which kills them all with the infection damage. He removes my Lich and my Berserker in the same turn and, since I can't cast anything else for xp, I concede.
Game 10- PvP Versus Alazel (Princeps 1378, Level 1)
While Game 10 loads, my trades come in; I have a second Mute Stalker, a second Utterdark Spectre, and two Nether Wraiths (which are stealthing energy thieves with Hex). The game starts up and I'm facing Forglar Swamp. I draw both Liches, an Enchantress, an Animated Blade, and a Wandering Zombie, and lead with the Lich King again. I'm up against a lot of Firk, it looks like, including the Mind Shredder. I quail, because I've used the Mind Shredder to great effect but as of yet not faced off against one. Alazel also has a Soulsphere, meaning all of his units share damage. Since my only ranged attacker is a Lich King and Alazel is playing a Firk Sensorate (Resist Magic 3) this means I'm only doing about 4 damage to each of his other units, and a single damage to the Sensorate. Combined with his Boghopper Shaman, Three rounds in the Mind Shredder still has full health. Then he drops a Feeding Frenzy on my Lich King, who barely survives. The Frenzy has the other delightful effect of further spreading out the damage his units are taking- my Lich is doing his best but he's not even putting out a dent.
I render my Animated Blade incorporeal to escape from a poison trap and take one of his fonts away. The next turn starts up with both of us seizing a font from the other; his Firk Sensorate is outside a deployment zone, while my Lich goes down to the Mind Shredder. The Delay I dropped (I finally get to use it!) prevents me from having to deal with a Salaman Negamage. Unfortunately, he opts to drop Kartch, Finlord instead. I manage to fight it out and kill off his Boghopper Shaman, do serious damage to Kartch, and just as I'm about to tear into his Salaman Dervish...he drops another Soulsphere. Followed by a Marsh Gargantua.
I battle it out for the eastern shrine for a long time; I'm using a Mute Stalker, which negates the advantage of his Kartch. However, the Stalker's not fast enough to catch the Mind Shredder and attack, so I'm running in circles, storing one more ap each round, while my zombie tries to kill his other troops. Judicious use of various disease effects, meanwhile, is enough to break his second Soulsphere, though it does nothing to his titan. When he has my Stalker at one hitpoint, and poisoned, I make him insubstantial, as I'm facing no magical damage. That lets me hang onto the font for one more turn, but my attempt to throw Reanimate down on the Stalker meets a Backfire.
Eventually I'm staring at another Boghopper hero, I have no champs on the board except a devastated Skeletal Berserker, and I concede. I'm proud of my boys.
Game 11- PVP (Principales 1886, Level 1) Versus yewsef (Signifier 2398, Level 1)
The fact that yewsef's Shrine has over 80 hitpoints indicates I am going to be badly, badly hurt in this engagement. My opening hand only includes 1 champ, and it's the Skeletal Berserker. This is less than ideal, so I play aggressive and pump a mobilize into him so I can grab the central font on turn two. yewsef contests the font and I decide discretion is the better part of valor, fleeing back with my Berserker to grab the font closest to me. The opening hand has me in a bad way, so I'm looking at things as a workshop to play with strategy. I run my Vampyre up to the central font and he's hit with a Devolve and reduced to 11 hp. I Phase Shift, again facing absolutely no magic damage, and get two Skeletal Berserkers into the mix. After Phase Shift ends I slap Ghostly Visage on the Vampyre, now a few hp higher thanks to a very weak swing on a summoned snake. yewsef drops a Thorn Collection on my Berserkers, then Vortexes my insubstantial Vampyre, meaning he now has uncontested control of the central font. Yewsef does what I would have done, and moves one of his pieces to contest my font; but he overshoots and misses its control zone. He manages to plant a serpent in the font, though, meaning I'll be without 10 nora on my next turn.
The Vampyre tries to take my font back while a Shadestalker and Ethereal Soldier attempt to hold off the Centuar Regulator I've been fighting since the beginning of the game. The Shadestalker falls, but I pull a Skeletal Berserker out to help my soldier; the Centuar runs away to rejuvenate himself. My chicanery with Plague and Ethereal Soldier is fun, but doesn't actually accomplish anything in the vein of preventing my game loss. Still, things went far, far better than I expected, and I'm again proud of my boys.
Game 12- PvP Versus nickybaby (Principales 1851, Level 1)
This is the first split-faction warband I've gone up against. The shrine has more hp than mine so I'm a little concerned, but at least the first creature he drops isn't the end of the world. I draw Wandering Zombie, Mute Stalker, Animated Blade, Vampyre, and lead with the Vamp (I'm thinking about naming him Edward). Edward and my Mute Stalker go for the southern font, facing off against a Krikkinwing and a Drakon. Meanwhile an Ethereal Soldier goes for the northern font, boxing out against a Skithmaw. Edward's Shield of Darkness is Disarmed, but he's not in position to take any hits so that's okay. I eat the Krikkinwing thanks to a timely Mobilize, while the Ethereal Soldier removes the Skithmaw.
The battle for the southmost font devolves into his using dragon after dragon, and me using...Edward. It's just Eddie. I hold three fonts for much of the game, but eventually I relinquish my hold on the northern one to focus on a thrust to the south. The game drags on; I kill every dragon he throws at me, but he never runs out. Eventually we've both popped our avatars, but there's just so much space taken up by his big units that I can't get a swing in on his. Font control really decides the match; I hit a point where he uses Broodcall to take my closest font and I can't recover it in time before he burrows a Sand Dragon into the control area. Once that happens I have nowhere to deploy units- even though I got the fun Reanimate effect wherein the nearest area I control leaves my control at the same time Reanimate triggers, meaning I immediately contest it and get to swinging. I manage to beat back his assault on my shrine with a Berserker, a Mute Stalker, and the shrine himself. I still get surrounded though, and he pops a Strip Armor before piling three dragons onto my shrine.
This proved an excellent experiment, both in terms of getting me to think closely about deck building and getting me back into playing PvP at all. I went 0 and 4, but I also have 63 career ranked wins (most of which were back when you could play ranked games against your friends). By comparison, nickybaby had close to 550 career wins; close to the same number of losses too, granted, but that indicates participation at a much higher level of play. For a deck I put together yesterday using a combination of runes I've never played and runes I don't tend to like playing, I'm very satisfied with the results.
Since the trades went through, I have some runes to swap in and I'll toy with the overall bg composition. The major thing to house me in that last game was Granite Bracers, because so much of my fighting was reliant on Edward. When he's up against a creature who automatically blocks and ripostes the first attack each round, he's not only limited to hitting every other round (when he has enough ap for two attacks) but he's forced to hold his ap on the in-between rounds, because he's sure not to hit. I'll tweak the bg and return to it later, perhaps, to see how the new version plays.
Full-Faction Forsaken Wastes Deck (Stealth/Insubstantial Focus)
Final Single-Player Record: 7/8
Final PvP Record: 0/4
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