GG! Honestly, I thought I might be in serious trouble after your last turn, since I’d just teched all-in on having access to maxband Setsuki for at least one turn and you not only killed her (!) but also played a Chronofixer (!!) that I couldn’t afford to remove that turn (!!!). I can’t look at your thoughts right now, but I’m definitely looking forward to them - that game was explosive at the end, on both sides!
Turn-by-turn analysis/thoughts -- feel free to read and respond to however much you like.
Turn 1
Not much to say here; Mox is a fine opener, though it doesn’t apply much immediate pressure. Maybe this was the start of this game becoming so slow? If you checked my starting hand, I only played Smoker because I didn’t have either Aged Sensei or Savior Monk in that hand. The latter would have led to a very different game, I think…
Another fun plan! I got the expansions during the Sirlin Games sale, so I’m planning to try something similar against people IRL.
Turn 2
Am I right in thinking that part of the reason for Nullcraft was because of how much work Smoker had done in our first game? Regardless, while I can’t say for sure if this was a good or bad play, it was a second 1/1 in two turns. For my part, Savior Monk and Tower was obvious as a pseudo-anti-air combo.
Turn 3
Argonaut and a Tower of your own… Which I matched with Rambasa Twins and Sparring Partner… Yup, at this point we’ve both got one-way tickets to Stall City. 
It looks like you were planning to explode into action sooner than actually happened, though… If you really wanted to make sure you got Now! and Warp-Gate Disciple on the same turn, maybe teching one copy of Now! this turn and another copy alongside WGD would have been better? You admitted that Hyperion was a dead card when you teched it, and while I teched a Tech II card or two around that time in both our games, that was because I was fairly sure I wouldn’t draw it too early. That said, I agree with the choice to grab Hyperion over Tricycloid there if you were going to get one of them.
Not sure why you changed your plan to get both Assimilate and R&D at this point… The former would only help if I played an upgrade or building, and since later on you guessed I’d go for Ninjutsu – which only gives an invisible (and thus untargetable) building – it seems to me like this was a case of teching for the previous game instead of the current one. Meanwhile, the latter assumes you’ll have a max-level Geiger to use it, which is hard to predict that far in advance (especially with a max HP of 4).
You may have to explain how you tracked value this game, especially since (if I recall correctly from when I read through all this earlier) you added more to it later. I’ll say that I’ve never bothered tracking it over the course of an entire game, though that does seem like an interesting exercise… That’s one of the beautiful parts of this game: there’s so many different ways to play it. As I recall, in Sirlin’s podcast episode about Codex they talked about how one of their playtesters tried to maximize gold, cards spent, and a couple other things, whereas Leontes tried to keep his deck as thin as possible (which usually involved keeping as many units on the board as possible, since a unit in play wasn’t in his deck cycle) and Sirlin wanted to find the exact moment to switch from defense to all-out offense as a Red player. All of them did well, and none of them played alike, and that’s pretty neat! So while a lot of people (including myself…) will want to give you advice on how to play, don’t just copy how one of us plays – keep experimenting, try new things, and discover what style works best for you.
You were right that Grave was just there to be a good early game hero. I thought Smoker might make a reappearance later, but it wasn’t meant to be… Your analysis of why I went into Ninjutsu was pretty accurate, but the other reason was that I suspected you’d be going for Present this game and wanted to get Porcupines specifically to counter Hyperion (because I seriously hate dealing Hyperion).
Turn 4
Even more Big Units!
Not much to say here, since we both built up our defenses. In my case, I did it the way I did because I wanted to get back to a 5-card hand, and while I did regret the double-spar (since it ended up wasting $2 because of your Battle Suits – my Tower would have made it a trade either way) it worked out okay.
Rambasa was just so I could wall up without having to spend too many cards – it and Sparring Partner cost $6, but only 2 cards for 3 bodies is pretty good, and my Tower made it less appealing to attack them.
This is amusing in hindsight. 
Turn 5
So, this was a big turn because of surprise Battle Suits, but it might not have been as good for you as I’d originally thought. I’m curious why you summoned Prynn specifically to cast Temporal Research… Ironically, Geiger might have been better there so the free levels would get him to midband (4 HP, option to use his ability to dig for cards you want, cheaper to get to his maxband later). Also, while you did blow out what I had on the board pretty well, the two things you left untouched proved to be your undoing: my Tech II building and Sparring Partner. A 3/7 Porcupine pretty well stopped everything until you could find a way to remove it. The best way would probably have been Undo, but teching it then would have taken too long to get to your hand.
Turn 6
Now I’m convinced that summoning Geiger instead of Prynn would have worked better, since if he was on the board you could have used Temporal Distortion this turn to replace your nearly dead Argonaut with a fresh Gilded Glax. As it is, doing nothing but build a delayed Tech II gave away much of your momentum. Good call on switching your plan to include Rewind, by the way, though I’m still not sure why you’re planning to add Assimilate.
Last turn I’d considered building a Tech III as a bluff, but decided I’d rather save it for a rainy day instead of throw it away. Good thing, too, since I needed every bit of it for this turn’s play. Sparring Partner was MVP of this game! I was convinced that with Prynn out of the picture I’d be able to keep Setsuki alive at least one more turn (and I did end up drawing Fox’s Den Students, so that would have been game over right there if she had survived), but I missed the clever Purple play you could do…
Turn 7
This was a great play, and if we had been on more equal footing at this point I think it would have given you the lead. The double FDS clogging my deck would have been a problem if the game had lasted longer… The Chronofixer was a great choice too, since as disruptive as it was I couldn’t really afford to attack it if I could take out something bigger. Until I looked at your next hand, I hadn’t been certain if the game was truly mine at this point… But every card in that hand was dead, so the best you could have done would be something like summoning and maxing Vir just to try to stall and threaten Mech in a couple turns.
That was a very interesting game! Sorry for both the size of this post (there’s a reason it’s hidden) and for how long it took to write it. I think I’d like to focus on the Codex tournament games for now, but once that’s over I’d be happy to play another game with you – maybe trying something that I’m not as familiar with, like Blue or Purple.
@ascendingPrime against tech II ninjutsu, AKA ninjas and porcu, the best answer is immortals, since thhey survive swift strike anyway, hence always dealing their dmg back and can freely attack porcupines. Ofc u must watch out for vines (they can be removed only via EDITED: TD, since it’s cheaper than undo, still return the card to ur hand and u can free summon something else, even from past or future techs.
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