Puzzle Strike Winter Series

Bank
Just a Scratch
Really Annoying
Safe Keeping
Repeated Jabs
Thinking Ahead
One True Style → Iron Defense → Dashing Strike
Mix Master
One-Two Punch
One of Each
Degenerate Trasher

Thoughts for :chibilum: vs :chibimidori:
The puzzle combines strongly favor Lum, as Midori gets his :ps2gems: for free; I don’t see either player doing much wounding; and the One-Two Punch and One of Each are great for consistency which favors the Midori. Overall, I think it’s Lum-favored.

Game 1:
Midori received the strongest aggro opening: turn 1 Purge to buy Crash Gem and turn 2 Dragon Form to buy Safe Keeping. Lum got a turn 1 combine, set up a basic combo with Thinking Ahead, Repeated Jabs and One True Style, and went mono-purple for the rest of the game. The combination of Jabs and heavy purple overwhelmed Midori’s defense despite Midori’s pigs for crash-spacing.

Counterpick: One True Style → Iron Defense
Solid on both sides; One True Style did a lot of work through multiple roles game 1, and isn’t particularly useful for Midori; meanwhile Midori needs extra Dragon-friendly defense.

Game 2:
Midori simply steamrolled Lum with One-Two Punch, Iron Defense and pigs for consistency. Acrata did buy a double crash gem, but still didn’t have the raw pile control to survive, lacked forks to multicrash and was in any event suffering :ps1gem: poisoning from using Safe Keeping to survive that long.

Counterpick: Iron Defense → Dashing Strike
Iron Defense definitely needed to go. Dashing Strike is a good defensive Lum option, but it’s also a 4-cost chip that Midori can use in this bank.

Game 3:
Acrata chose a first turn Really Annoying+:ps2gem: double buy over a combine. Zeromh drew a weak opening, with T1 Dragon Form and no Purges in the first two cycles, but Acrata fixed it somewhat by playing into Rigorous Training for Combine. That left the Midori’s economy weakened. Acrata barely stabilized in the face of a 4-crash by, 3 turns previously, dropping Panda’s Bargain for two purples and appending a Dashing Strike. But zeromh dropped Dragon Form at about the same time to buy a crash. By the time the Dragon pressure resumed, Acrata had the critical mass of washers and Dashing Strikes to overpower zeroth’s still fragile defense.

CP: Random bank. I don’t understand why.
It’s a Trap
Sale Prices
Improvisation
One-Two Punch
Ouch!
Self-Improvement
Punch, Punch, Kick
X-Copy
Degenerate Trasher
The Hammer

This would favor Midori, as there are few low-end chips to dodge Rigorous Training, and no defense for Lum; however Sale Prices lets Lum cheat that for combines if he’s willing to ditch Bargain. Midori has somewhat better access to the high end, but Lum can use it better. Overall, I think it’s slightly Lum-favored.

Game 4:
Acrata threw down a gauntlet with a turn 1 Ouch! buy. Zeromh got an economic draw and used it on a turn 2 Self-Improvement. Zeromh dropped Dragon Form after only a couple of turns and snowballed the economic opening into two DCGs. Acrata collected combines with Sale Prices, but with only a single :ps2gem: for passive money, couldn’t afford forks afterwards and quickly choked on the extra enders. Ultimately, the DCGs went unanswered.

CP: Switch to Valerie, probably for the pressure-relief of Chromatic Orb and the innate fork to support Ouch!

Game 5:
Acrata once again pursued an Ouch!-centric plan; however, this time Acrata was also aggressively thinning out :ps1gems: with Self-Improvement for the entire game. Zeromh’s first Dragon Form lasted for only two turns, used to establish a strong economic base, which was followed by combine and crash buys.

Acrata wasn’t prioritizing defensive minicrashes after Dragon Form dropped, then died suddenly the following cycle to severe arrow trouble. The first hand was all enders and the second all forks and the lone combine.

My biggest surprise of the set was nobody touching Mix Master in the first bank.

2 Likes

petE 3 - 0 zak

Banks more of a help for petE than zak in this series.

Game 1: :chibionimaru: :pscrash: :pschip: :chibipersephone:
Safe Keeping - Bang then Fizzle - Ebb or Flow - Money for Nothing - Sale Prices -
Blues are Good - Draw Three - Roundhouse - Xcopy - Master Puzzler
Nothing here for Perse, whereas BTF is good for Oni. petE had a faster econ start by WTTing into BTF and playing SP. There was a grab for Roundhouses, which split 3 - 2 for petE. Midgame Zak left himself at a risky 9 pile height with both his Crash gems in discard and lost to an Xcopied Crash.

Game 2: :chibionimaru: :pscrash: :pschip: :chibipersephone:
Random bank
Gem Esssence - Sneak Attack - Chips for Free - Improvisation - MixMaster -
One Two Punch - Stolen Purples - One of Each - Option Select - Roundhouse
Randoed bank still somewhat better for Oni. Both can use the red attacks, but Oni’s Riposte likely more potent in defence than Perse’s Always in Control. Gem Essence good for both players, but WTT means Oni doesn’t need to buy it. petE had a first cycle WTT to play Chips for Free, converting his Crash to an early Roundhouse. That early cycling boost helped to buy a couple more cantrips and reds. Zak used Gem Essence to thin, but lacked the pile control to handle Sneak Attack and Double Slash.

Game 3: :chibionimaru: :pscrash: :pschip: :chibigeiger:
Zak switched Perse for Geiger – though that leaves Oni in a good bank with strongs reds including Stolen Purples, which Geiger is less able to use than Perse. This game Zak got off to the faster start, thinning with Gem Essence while upgrading cash with Chips for Free. petE wasn’t able to use WTT until the 3rd cycle, but bought three Sneak Attacks and a couple of One of Eaches. Zak used Mixmaster to combine up to and crash a 4 gem, but still the pile control wasn’t enough to handle Double Slash along with chained Sneak Attacks.

3 Likes

I think this is one of those situations where the best counterpick is the mirror match.

1 Like

That winds down the Swiss portion. @Nopethebard, you had planned a single elim after, I believe? Should I set it up for top 4?

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Sounds good

That tiebreaker broke in a way that’s rather unfair to petE. It’s using win count against tied opponents, which petE got only one shot at while the other three tied players all faced each other.

What do you suggest? Plain win count?

Plain win count won’t break the tie. And I looked at alternative tiebreakers but they still leave petE as the bottom slot, since petE did not beat anyone in the top 5.

So, Challonge has “The Median-Bucholz” as a possibility: “In the Median-Buchholz System the best and worst scores of a player’s opponents are discarded, and the remaining scores summed.”

If we use that as the first tie-break, rather than Vs Tied Opponents, then @zeromh and @petE are tied for 4th/5th. In the 3rd tie recommended tie break (Pts Diff), @petE beats @zeromh, but only due to an unplayed match against @Nopethebard in round 3.

So, I’m going to propose that @zeromh and @petE play one more game set as a play-in for the 4th place spot in the finals.

Works for me!

That’s a kind suggestion – thanks @vengefulpickle and @Bucky, and to @zeromh for being OK with having an additional play-in. But really it’s fine with me to go along with the rules as they are, and to leave the top 4 tie break decision as is.

Ok, in that case, I’m going to proceed w/ the current top 4, and if we ever run something like this again, I’ll pay more attention to the tie-breakers.

And here’s the bracket: Puzzle Strike Winter Series - Finals - Challonge

1 Like

Bucky vs Acrata
2 - 3
:chibisetsuki: :psfist: :pschip: :chibilum:
:chibisetsuki: :pschip: :psfist: :chibilum:
:chibisetsuki: :pschip: :psfist: :chibilum:
:chibisetsuki: :psfist: :pschip: :chibilum:
:chibisetsuki: :pschip: :psfist: :chibimidori:

Bank:
It’s a Trap
Repeated Jabs
Thinking Ahead
One True Style (:bluearrow: Just a Scratch)
Combinatorics
Improvisation
Axe Kick
Combos are Hard
Custom Combo
Master Puzzler (:brownarrow: Dashing Strike :bluearrow: Sale Prices)

2 Likes

Zeromh vs Quaz
2 - 3
:chibimidori: :psfist: :pschip: :chibimenelker:
Midori’s dragon form predictably got me to 10 gem pile height quickly but all the answers got stuck in the bag so the game was a quick one.

:chibimidori: :pschip: :psfist: :chibizane:
Switched to zane to try and use crash potato which is a severe threat to midori. Didn’t get to use it to steal a gem but was able to use it for some intense low pile height turtling. While I was staying as low as possible I was using ouch! to hinder midori who was having trouble getting additional purple due to dragon form. I took opportunity to add several puzzle chips while Midori was struggling to get more than brown and purple, this made max anarchy very strong. At the end I was using regular crash bombs, and then rebuying crashes, and midori got overwhelmed.

:chibimidori: :psfist: :pschip: :chibizane:
(counterpick improvisation for ouch)
Can’t remember too much about this game and the replay’s lost, tried to concede and hit the wrong button so poof went the replay…

:chibimidori: :pschip: :psfist: :chibizane:
(Counterpicked Stolen purple! for safe keeping)
This was the most unfair thing to do, as stolen purples is pretty much a death sentence to midori. The game ended after two successful stolen purples, the first stolen purple was on turn 2!!! Couldn’t hold onto dragon form.

:chibimidori: :pschip: :psfist: :chibizane:
(counterpicked secret move for stolen purples)
The craziest game of the series or maybe even ever. First my thought about the counterpick, didn’t really know why he didn’t choose iron defense, that seems like a midori chip more than secret move (although secret move certainly can be useful). Now onto the game.

There was lots of high risk plays, max anarchy hail mary’s, improvisation saves, and dragon form uncounterable crash potato’s! I’m saving the replay for posterity and may make a video about the game. In the end, midori got caught with incredible bad luck as max anarchy wiped out all his good chips and left him with none even though it was like only 10% likely (if that even) and I hit with just enough to end the game. The game really had lots of true puzzle strike spirit.

1 Like

I would love to see a video about that last game!

Good games!

Third game (from memory):
I ended up not using Improv at all. I was spending my time trying to get purples while in Dragon Form and keep the pressure on. There were good forks in Gem Essence and Axe Kick. I bought one GE and two AKs in order to have cycling and washers.

Zane successfully stole my crash despite my plan to keep it out of my discard. There was a turn where I had no crashes in hand and needed to crash to stay below 10. I played both AKs and GE to get Crash Potato in my hand, then used a spare action to get my Crash back and then play it, allowing me to stay in the game. It was tense and shouldn’t have worked :laughing:

I believe I kept up Dragon Form through all that, which was enough pressure eventually to win.

For the last game, I thought Iron Defense would be very powerful for Zane also. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I was imagining Zane with a million actions to get Crashes and then double crash.

Zak, the replay is the most recent Zane/Midori match under “zeromh”.

4 Likes

The thrilling play by play of our final match! Love it.

I kicked myself a bit over the decision not to crash the 3 gem towards the end. My idea in crashing 1 was to keep my pile high because I figured I’d need the larger hand. It may not have been the best move, on average.

What would’ve happened if I’d crashed the 3? My hand would’ve been smaller, so answering that question requires knowing whether draw order is always the same regardless of what moves I could have made. Based on what I know of random seeds in computer programs, this is probably true.

Assuming draw order stays the same, I still would’ve lost, and it’s actually because my hand would have been smaller.

If I’d crashed the 3, Zane still would’ve survived his next turn (his turn would play out exactly as it did). This would’ve resulted in twelve 1-gems in Midori’s pile. In the actual game, after Max Anarchy Midori had two combines and a crash, which is enough to go from twelve gems to nine. However, with Midori’s smaller hand size, that second combine wouldn’t be there. So that still would’ve been the end of it.

Fascinating stuff :smiley:

Especially since from your POV having the extra draw gives you a high chance of getting and playing your whole deck. Whiffing on the draws and 2nd crash was unlikely.