Lately I’ve been having trouble countering the following p1 strategy. Player 1 techs 2x detonate during turn 2. Turn 3, they summon Zane and trash a worker, then clear my line. Either next turn or the turn after another detonate comes out, followed by marauder soon after. I can’t seem to come back from being stuck at 6 or 7 workers. Anyone have any advice?
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What’s your 3 heroes?
I was playing [Growth]/Disease/Strength which is hard because it doesn’t have any haste or stealth. I’m open to changing though.
How are they clearing your line while spending 3 gold on a Detonate?
I recommend not spending gold on Rich Earth / Bloodburn / other speculative investments, and reviewing Card Ratings: the Starter Decks for some additional help.
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Red starter has lots of cheap hasty guys that swarm my green guys.
You’re playing Strength dude. You can get 4 health for 2 gold. Put it to good use.
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Do you have a link to a PBF game? Especially with Rook on your team, it should be impossible for the Red starter to summon enough attack power to kill off your turn 3 board (eg Rook + Playful Panda/Tiger + Ironbark in Elite is 10 hp + SQL armor, and red can barely generate that much attack over their first 3 turns, if planning to use Detonate and not skip workers themselves (eg Jaina + Dog, BRO + Bombaster and Jaina deals 1 through SQL armor, then turn 3 suicide damaged Jaina, and summon + suicide Zane to clear everything. Note that this line completely delays Tech 1, and goes down 1 card, while the green can play whatever Tech 1 stuff they draw, and sieze the initiative.
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No, this was 3 losses IRL. Sounds like my mistake has been summoning Arg early instead of Rook.
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The key to defending against Red (or other aggression) is to not let their attackers survive what they hit.
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Appropos, what would be best way to run a destroy worker build?
Circle of life Predator Tiger? Detonate Anarchy? Temporal Distortion Reaver?
I have yet to see Reaver actually get a shot off. Detonate, Detonate, marauder was pretty oppressive today. My opponent has been considering using black starter to try cycling 2x marauders with Graveyard.
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Double Reaver Sanatorium into Ready or Not/Max Anarchy.
I feel like if I ever get to activate a Sanatorium, I want to do something more impactful than putting Reavers in the future. Though I wonder if the forecasted Reavers remember that they have Haste and Ephemeral when they finally arrive?
Oh shoot, I didn’t realize Reavers had forecast. 
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I think they do. Sanatorium rulings say the units gain Haste and Ephemeral permanently.
wow good question
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As the second player in this matchup you should be either filling your patrol zone with cheap stuff via T1 Panda, Arg, Prospector, etc., or filling your patrol zone with card to kill stuff like Rook, Ironbark Treant, etc. Possibly Young Treant. Or some combination of the above. Something he’d probably hate to see would be T1 Playful Panda and Rook. Rook is a 3/5 in Squad Leader. Unless his T1 opening was “Dog and Ogre” he’s not breaking that with anything resembling efficiency. And even then, you’re probably okay with that if you can T2 summon Arg and Rampant Growth the Panda or Wisp or something to clear out whatever he played T2.
If he wants to spend 3 gold and 2 cards to kill Rook, and then spend 3 gold and a card later to kill a worker, he’s ceded so much board control that you should be wiping his board and possibly killing his tech buildings. Losing workers is annoying, but Green is surprisingly resilient to that - Merfolk Prospector is an extra worker if you can keep it on the table (which you may be able to if he yields board control), and Galina Glimmer is not a bad option either, since I’m assuming you’re looking at the Mythmaking/Galina/Boulder combo.
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I’ve been privately toying with the idea of running an anti-worker deck that uses all three cards: [Feral]/Future/Anarchy (using Green and Feral’s big dudes) or [Future]/Feral/Anarchy (using Mox and Plasmodium). Use early Calamandra to get Predator Tiger, use Zane to Detonate (maybe once early, once midgame?), and use Tech II Future to get the Reavers into play.
You’d think between Zane’s haste and Purple and Green’s defensive options you’d be able to keep a Reaver alive for a turn. Cal’s resist helps. Oh, and Chaos Mirror with Reaver can make it safe to attack the opponent’s threats.
Feral Strike can grab and/or play Reavers if you decide to go Anarchy for Tech II instead. As already mentioned, Sanatorium can also put them into play if you go Tech II Anarchy, and (assuming they do remember the ephemeral and haste, and assuming the ephemeral doesn’t kill them while in the future), it gets rid of the need to protect them at all.
Is it obvious that I just think Reavers are cool and I want them to actually reave?
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I tried this (without the Future part) and it was too slow to beat top tier opposition. Specifically, by the time you cheat out a tiger, the opponrny can kill it easily. This is normally ok, but it isn’t destroying workers (and you make it easier by forgoing Invisibility). Even if the tiger survives, you’re almost always better off attacking an actual thing rather than wasting the 4 damage on the enemy base.
Thanks, everyone! Opening with Rook + Playful Panda helped me go 2/0 today. Being able to punish Zane on turn 3 makes a huge difference.
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