I’m still taken aback I’m the only one playing Demonz, and there’s a lot more Law than I typically expect. Other than those and Past though, the distribution seems more or less even with what usually shows up.
I think the starter deck distribution is quite different from what we’ve seen previously. Especially given that in the balance thread people were complaining that the red and green (and blue) starters are not viable…
I agree that all this change from the last few tournaments is healthy for the game, and great to see. But I can’t help wondering how much of it is top players deliberately experimenting, as opposed to playing the decks they think are most likely to win. (I don’t mean by this that people are deliberately choosing “bad” decks - but there might be some aspect of “this might work, and will at least be interesting, let’s give it a go” as opposed to “I want to win, so I’ll play PPA again”.)
@EricF Apologies, but I’ve an unexpected time crunch come up, so could you please drop me from the tournament from next round onwards
On your MoLaC point – having played the hasted version quite a bit now, think it’s warpedly strong against decks without upgrade removal. And feels a lot like playing Puzzle Strike Midori – you have a fairly mechanical route to an early win condition, needing bad draws to throw you off, and not the most fun games.
I’m kind of curious to see how the hasted version holds up against faster decks. My concern with the red starter is always how it does on defense. Have you played much against vandy or white decks that are trying to go fast?
I’m pretty sure @petE said that he found [Anarchy]/Strength/Growth did really well against mono-black, and that that was the reason why he did so well in CAWS (where there was a lot more black in the meta). I would guess that’s partly because Black has no upgrade removal, whereas white does, so I’m not sure about white…
It is already notable how many games in CAPS feature MoLaC against MoLaC. While these games are certainly exciting, I can see it getting boring soon. Is MoLaC completely replacing the Peace engine as the win condition of choice among strong players?
[Anarchy]/Strength/Growth is Black’s nemesis for many reasons:
no MoLaC removal (before Tech 3)
Rook a great answer to Vandy opening
early discard strategy (eg Imp, Shadow Blade) met by levelling Rook while rebuilding hand size. (Extreme example: had a RACE#3 game in which @PiHalbe hit me 3 times with Imp in the first 4 turns, and still worked out OK for me.)
no hero removal, so max Rook hard to deal with and is a great shield (Nether Drain and Plague Spitter are OK but slow)
not great against flying (Birds)
once MoLaC has been played, it’s no longer necessary to defend Tech1/2 buildings. At all! With hasted activation (eg Sharks) you’ll soon do fine with just your starter units + Birds + Arg etc. This makes big Demonology units like Dozers much less scary.
[Anarchy]/Strength/Growth vs other fast decks: two CAWS games vs @zhavier playing [Necro]/Blood/Truth were really close and went down to luck of the draw, with Free Speech being the star card. These two decks have in common that the broken things they do kick in ~ 1/2 - 1 turn earlier than the broken things other decks do.
I’ve always found the deck struggles against mono-Green or Balance-decks generally. Only played one game against mono-White so far, was taken apart by @FrozenStorm
I wonder how much of that is Black players failing to take advantage of Plague Spitter/Crypt Crawler against Strength, and sticking with the default Bone Collectors?
I still think the speed of MoLaC is a much more significant advantage, but we do need to see more experimenting with the bad stuff to find its niche uses where it’s good.
