I’ll GG it there, you have me in a chokehold now and I won’t be able to get out. WP @Nekoatl!
I thought it would be worth hitting a card when you whiffed the one drops T1 and I don’t think that was necessarily “going easy” (in my experience with black, hitting a hero-only P1 opening with a P2 Imp really hurts the T3/T4 and allows for early pressure, but then again perhaps I usually follow that up with Vandy). I probably should have patrolled Imp in elite, though, so Oni couldn’t continue pumping out pressure on T3/T4 (that’s how you made up for what otherwise would have been a rough early game). I underestimated how well you’d be able to dominante on board early and still make peace engine roughly on time with such a card deficit.
The other “big mistake” I see in hindsight was not patrolling Horror turn 3. If I keep Garth for my turn 4, I can LB again AND wake up a tech 2 unit (if you kill the Scav, if not I just wakeup a Cursed Ghoul). That probably overwhelms the board in my favor.
A well played and very interesting series indeed, I would gladly play this version of the matchup again in the future!
What would you like to do next? Try subbing a “worst hero as if it were a Black hero”? Try subbing Vandy back in and banning Garth? Or something else?
I agree patrolling Imp as Elite would have been a stronger play, but I still don’t think it would have been as much of an obstacle as your standard Elite Orpal answer to early Oni. I kind of got lucky having both Director and Magistrate in hand on T2, but I would have been happy with Oni being able to clear the board without taking -1/-1 runes regardless of what else I was able to do that turn.
I also agree patrolling the Horror would have been better, but if your board had started to spill out of control like that, you can bet I’d rush Judgment Day straight away to reset it, and I’d be quite happy to have the worker advantage and to have the looming threat of a Tech III postponed by 2 turns. Hard to say how well I’d be able to corral your hoard in the interim, but between Oni and the Magistrate, I imagine it would work out okay, especially since no infrastructure or setup is required to drop Judgment Day.
Agreed, that was quite fun, interesting, and exciting. GGs, WP! 3-3, I think this matchup is pretty close to balanced, though I kinda feel maybe Black still has a slight advantage. Do you agree?
If you don’t think Blue had an advantage with Vandy completely removed, I’m not sure how substituting in any other hero for her would bring us closer to an evenly balanced matchup, if that’s the goal.
I think if we swap in Vandy for Garth, the results will be much more similar to standard Black vs Blue, but if you don’t agree, we can try it and see.
I agree, it’s way closer to balanced than the stock matchup, but I would still favor black slightly if we were to continue playing games. The starter deck is just so good it feels like Deteriorate to 1g and some other nerf (making graveyard topple on 3 units instead of 4? Making StW only work if you’re sacrificing something too, like Doom Grasp? Maybe making Imp a 2/3 but allowing the opponent to choose the discarded card?) is what really needs to change, and not Vandy.
I don’t agree, I think the results are closer to this series than standard. I’m curious why you think it’d be closer to standard? The typical Vandy bully into Meta strategy (I’m very familiar with doing it ^_^) pivots on an impossible gambit the opponent can’t counteract, and that is Garth’s fetch. You can almost always utilize the threat of Meta to force Blue into either teching to handle units, or teching to handle Meta’d heroes (Free Speech and Tower are the only practical answers really). If they don’t respect the Meta’d heroes, they risk a double tech break that can’t be recovered from. If they don’t respect the units on board, they just get run over with card / econ advantage.
I don’t think Vandy + Orpal can execute that strategy effectively. Orpal can’t even break a building on his own, so you don’t have the same threat of double breaks! Additionally, you’re not getting a free Tech 2 unit when you do the Meta. You can deal much more easily with a Meta’d Vandy when Garth isn’t her dive buddy.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that black fares worse without Garth than it does without Vandy. I think we should at least try a couple games to see.
I’ll take a turn 1 tomorrow if you’re game to play back it at it XD
Given what we know now though, what nerfs would you suggest to Vandy that would scale to be more like this matchup and less like the standard matchup?
You make good points about Meta not being as dangerous without Garth, but even a 2-hero Meta with Vandy and Orpal can be devastating enough that Blue can never recover from it. If Vandy breaks the Tech II and Orpal breaks the add-on each turn, Blue is forced to rely on only tech 0, tech I, and spell cards… and working with only those tools against Black is hard enough without being locked into using only one hero at a time who has to cast Free Speech to even have a theoretical chance of dealing with the Invisible (possibly unstoppable by units) heroes. Bigby can only sustain that for 2 turns at most, at double cost, and bloating the deck with Jurisdiction, where Quince is already a particularly weak hero without Tech II-III support, and all the more so against Black. Even if Black never builds a tech II and just uses a Heroes’ Hall to setup Meta, that’s still comparable to early game Black vs. Blue with more gold available to both players, and since Black normally dominates the early game against Blue, I expect that would just be amplified, Blue would be starved of cards and not have the opportunity to play Free Speech, and Orpal’s midband and maxband abilities would just further help Black dominate until Blue’s base HP trickled within range of a killing blow. But, that all does require Black to use cards to clear the way for the heroes to attack, and I could be underestimating the difficulty of pulling that off after paying Meta’s cost. If so, there’s still Death & Decay as a potential win condition.
That said, it’s not so much a devastating ultimate that I think will be the deciding factor, but rather the increased early game pressure. Like, in these no-Vandy games, whenever Orpal was in play, I felt pressured to get rid of him before he wrecked me too badly, but I generally didn’t with Garth, and I think it comes down to Garth’s abilities not being very threatening without a Tech II building. Sure, he can pump out Skeletons and use them to draw cards or frustrate aggression, but next to Vandy’s sparkshot/fetch and Orpal’s rune distribution, Skeletons are comparatively easy to patrol against, at least without support from Skeletal Archery and/or Skeletal Lord.
I’m game for playing against Vandy & Orpal or nefred-Vandy & Orpal, as you prefer. For nerfs, I’d suggest first making Vandy’s level progression 1-4/5-7/8 and see how that affects the matchup.
In the Black starter, I think both Deteriorate and Haunt are worth $1, especially when compared to similar cards like Spark and Smoker. I think the rest is fine as-is.
Ah, now that you’ve clarified, I agree. Though it was kind of convenient that I misunderstood since linking to that thread somewhere in here seems like a good thing to do in any case.
STARTING HAND
Reputable Newsman
Arrest
Lawful Search
Building Inspector
Bluecoat Musketeer
WORKERS
Lawful Search
NextHand
Jail
Manufactured Truth
Traffic Director
Porkhand Magistrate
Spectral Aven
Discard
Building Inspector
Bluecoat Musketeer
Arrest
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($5)
Worker - ($4)
Reputable Newsman - ($2)
General Onimaru - ($0)
Float ($0)
Discard 3, draw 5
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger: Reputable Newsman (0/3) $2 blocked
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
L1 General Onimaru (2/3) Frenzy 1
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 0
Disc: 3
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 6
Thoughts
Lawful Search isn’t great against heroes with card draw/fetch. This is a rather nice card split for defending against Vandy; hopefully Onimaru can take advantage of it.
STARTING HAND
Spectral Aven
Manufactured Truth
Jail
Traffic Director
Porkhand Magistrate
WORKERS
Lawful Search
Jail
NextHand
Spectral Flagbearer
Spectral Flagbearer
Manufactured Truth
Building Inspector
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + Scavenger - ($7)
Worker - ($6)
Traffic Director - ($5)
Tech I - ($4)
Porkhand Magistrate - ($1)
Onimaru kills Javelineer
Float ($1)
Discard 2, reshuffle, draw 4
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Traffic Director (1/1A)
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician: Porkhand Magistrate (2/3)
Lookout:
In Play:
L1 General Onimaru (2/2) Frenzy 1
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Tech I HP: 5
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 4
Deck: 4
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 1
Workers: 7
Thoughts
Looks like he midbanded Vandy in case of Arrest; a wise precaution, but it works in my favor because he couldn’t afford a Heroes’ Hall. I have to patrol the Magistrate in case StW takes out the Director, which could lead to an inefficient trade in the worst case, but even so, it probably won’t be too bad. The only way this can go really wrong is if he teched and drew Shadow Blade (or draws it off of Dark Pact), but I don’t have a better option.
No sweat dude, I do that all the time too, especially in situations where I’m really unsure which path is the right one and I edit my turn to try three different lines before I submit.
Thieving Imp
Dark Pact
Graveyard
Summon Skeletons
Deteriorate
Events of Turn:
Upkeep:
Get Gold (6)
Tech 2 cards in (except turn 1)
All Teched Cards
Soul Stone, Bone Collector
Dark Pact, Bone Collector
Main:
Dark Pact draw 2
Bone Collector (4)
Thieving Imp, discard #1 of 4 (1)
Vandy kills SQL
Haunt pings your tech1 to 4hp
Worker (0)
Workers
Jandra, the Negator, Skeletal Archery, Poisonblade Rogue
Patrol as below
Discard 3 Draw 1 rs Draw 4
Tech 2 cards before my next turn
Board Info:
Buildings:
Base HP: 18
Tech1 HP: 5
In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite: Thieving Imp (2+1/2)
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout: Bone Collector (3/3)
In Play:
Pestering Haunt (1/1)
Vandy (3/3 lvl 3)
Economy Info:
Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 3
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 7
End of Turn Hand
Sacrifice the Weak
Bone Collector
Deteriorate
Skeleton Javelineer
Soul Stone
End of Turn Discard
My Thoughts
Vulnerable to Arrest here but not a ton to do about that, going to tech a Soul Stone but also another BC.
…
Got the BC on DP, solid, building the advantage…
Arrest would be pretty handy right about now, but no dice. Vandy’s maxband is a problem for Flagbearers, so I"ll burn it now, reluctantly. Playing early Quince because I need cannon fodder, and specing Truth to support Quince. Garrisons will have to wait.
Sacrifice the Weak
Bone Collector
Deteriorate
Skeleton Javelineer
Soul Stone
Events of Turn:
Upkeep:
Get Gold (7)
Tech 2 cards in (except turn 1)
All Teched Cards
Metamorphosis, Dark Pact
Soul Stone, Bone Collector
Dark Pact, Bone Collector
Main:
Deteriorate Flagbearer, you draw 1
Vandy kills Mirror
Haunt hits your tech 2 to 4hp
Bone Collector (5)
Worker (4)
Tech 2 Demonology (0)
Workers
Skeleton Javelineer, Jandra, the Negator, Skeletal Archery, Poisonblade Rogue
Patrol as below
Discard 2 Draw 4
Tech 2 cards before my next turn
Board Info:
Buildings:
Base HP: 18
Tech1 HP: 5
Tech2 HP: 5 DEMONZ
In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Bone Collector (3/3)
Pestering Haunt (1/1)
Vandy (4/5 lvl 5)
Economy Info:
Cards:
Hand: 4
Deck: 6
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 8
End of Turn Hand
Dark Pact
Graveyard
Summon Skeletons
Thieving Imp
End of Turn Discard
My Thoughts
Meta threat is way less menacing with no Garth to buff up… Still, that’s the “correct” play here IMO, so we’re gonna threaten it. I’m going to let him kill Haunt with Quince, as I don’t want BC arrested.
Very likely Meta incoming next turn, almost guaranteed, in fact. I could play Newsman to interfere, but I can’t keep the Newsman alive… however, I just need to force him to spend $1 and he won’t be able to summon Orpal and pay for Meta next turn… which means even if StW kills Newsman, he’s done his job. There’s still the problem of him being attacked, though… so I need some patrol that’s guaranteed to protect him… which means a 4 health hero needs to SQL. If he wants the kill, he has to come at with with either both Vandy and Bone Collector, or solo-meta Vandy… and a single Meta’d hero is manageable (though I suppose he could cast a 2nd to bring Orpal up to speed). If Vandy does fight Bigby, the damage will stick with her until she dies (if that ever happens). This is painfully inefficient, but I think I have to do it.
Bone Collector
Dark Pact
Metamorphosis
Deteriorate
Soul Stone
End of Turn Discard
My Thoughts
Hopefully we can pivot to T2 strength, since it seems the goal for Neko is prevent Meta. Teching Dozer and Shrine.
…
I suspect a Free Speech is imminent, almost would have been better to draw the StW + Meta if it isn’t though.
Patrol as below
Base HP: 20
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger: Reputable Newsman (0/3) $2 blocked
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 20
nice maxband fizzle