Apologies for the long delay @rathyAro before this match was initiated. I’ve a serious concussion and will slowly be recovering over the coming months from it and the huge cognitive impairments its brought. I absolutely lack the working memory to play my best, but since the end of that isn’t in sight I think I just have to suck it up and get started . Or at least I want to begin this before the next round posts so I don’t screw up tournament structure too much. Since every day I get more mental clarity, it’s clearly in your best interest to 6-pool me dead by turn 4
Also, best luck and have fun!
This tournament issues some card erratas, the one relevant to this match being on Might of Leaf and Claw: → If there are at least 5 growth runes on this, your heroes and units get +3/+3 until your next upkeep
P1T1
StartingHand Workers
STARTING HAND
Older Brother
Bloom
Tenderfoot
Spark
Fruit Ninja
Tech card(s)
Get Paid - ($4)
Worker - ($3)
Play Tenderfoot - ($2)
Summon Calamandra - ($0)
Float ($0)
Discard 3, draw 5
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger: Tenderfoot (1/2)
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Calamandra L1 (2/3)
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 0
Disc: 3
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 5
Thoughts
Calamandra mirrors are scary because of the gravity and likelihood of each side potentially catching a profitable stealth kill on the other, but with the neutral starter I don’t really have much choice except to lean on a hero in the beginning. If he didn’t have an obvious dominant tech 2 gameplan, I’d actually opt out and lead with Argagarg here. Next turn in the face of a likely Calamandra I could max her, then patrol in technician behind the squad leader water elemental. I think that would be too dubious a value proposition for them to actually seek the kill, but it would move into a comfortable stand-down that let us both move safely to tech 2. Given the strength of their tech 2 plan, I don’t want that. I want building a tech 2 building to feel extremely uncomfortable and punishable, as something from which they must catch up, even if I have to wreck my hand size and/or have less favorable spell tech options to do it. That’s the world where I can maybe block them down until the per-card efficiency of my tech 2s will outpace the per-gold efficiency of theirs.
It stinks to draw bloom here taking it off the table next turn, because 5/6 size on Calamandra seems like a really relevant threshold. That’s the size where a rampant growth Calamandra on their end still needs to max herself to take the kill, meaning she can’t level afterwards to heal it all back and I can probably get a clean pick-off from there. That unfortunately may mean I need to stealth up and kill his very aggressively Which isn’t a terrible play, but also not one to which I want to be forced if it comes with other deficits attached. All that said, this hand is automatically in the top 50% of openers when I draw tenderfoot, so I register no complaints.
Sorry to spectators who may read my thoughts section. I know it’s an annoying amount to sort through, but that trend will probably continue or worsen while still concussed; it’s the easiest way for me to keep enough info in my head, recall old conclusions, recheck logic, etc.
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($5)
Worker - ($4)
Cast Wither on (your) Calamandra - ($2)
Level Calamandra to 3 - ($0)
Calamandra attacks and kills Calamandra, leveling to 5 and full-healing
Tenderfoot attacks your base, dealing 1 damage
Float ($0)
Discard 3, reshuffle, draw 5
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Calamandra L5 (4/5)
Tenderfoot (1/2)
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 4
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 6
Thoughts
AAAAARRRGH I called it last turn! I knew I’d be somehow sad about missing that bloom here. In this position (from his perspective) I’m ~56% to have bloom and pick up a spot concession. I’m ~28% to have wither without bloom, in which case I still pull a huge value trade-up (I spend effectively 6 gold on a max level Calamandra: fair price. He spent 4 gold and got nothing at all). And yeah there’s a slim ~17% shot that this actually works out for him. Building a tech 1 building instead here to “curve out” would be an embarrassing play; no tech 1 in the game can offer you a deal anywhere close to as good. I effectively just got a better-than-tech-1 a turn early. Reading into this I can construct a pretty clean idea what his next turn looks like (ironbark), since for this play to make sense on his end I think I have to put him on exactly {verdant tree, rich earth, forest’s favor, rampant growth, spore shambler}.
While my play is obvious, the tech card choices are actually pretty hard. I can throw tech 1s into the deck knowing I’ll be delayed a turn in playing them? Here’s my enumeration:
Behind the ferns probably doesn’t have enough material on the table yet to give the needed punch. Preparatory ferns stinks because they just build a tower for a near-even gold trade, except their tower is granting bonus value. All the value comes in the threat: “you need to build a tower in advance because otherwise this big board of mine might crash in any time, but if you do that I can just decline to play ferns to go up value”. Board needs biggerer first.
Ferocity is for cracking hard block lineups. Most match-ups don’t offer those, especially not blood spam.
Murkwood allies is highly interesting, especially since its one of few things that can trade well with a crashbarrow later. The problem is that I can’t see myself using it immediately. I think it’s just a hair too expensive to use since I’m not winning this game without heroes’ hall or tech 2, and I can’t develop my tech alongside it next turn.
Feral strike tries its best, and for that we give it a gold star and tell it that its hard work belongs up on the refrigerator. But not in our Codex battle.
Spirit of the Panda would be dope, but I think comes out a touch too slowly for the match-up without an Argagarg start. In other games it could keep running the table, but its relevance sadly ends right about when we see a crashbarrow since it’s cleared away so easily.
Huntress is well-rounded. But I think its abilities are unlikely to be relevant, and I’ll almost certainly prefer to pay 4 for a 4/4 stealth to 2 for a 3/3.
Centaur is interesting into certain types of blocker lineups. Those aren’t relevant against blood, and again he struggles to keep up with the efficiency of paying 1 more for +1/0 and stealth without spending a card.
Giant panda is in theory cool against a crashbarrow in certain pairings (and triggers blooming ancient twice), but without such a pairing it just makes for an easy attack-in to the wisp and overpowering a target of their choice. His team is probably sending crashbarrows in multiples via Quince, so to block them with tons of little dorks I’d really need murkwood allies.
Nimble fencer seems like the option by process of elimination? I may well need it just to get Quince/Drakk off the board repeatedly in the late game. The fact I can’t play it on curve is even a little bit less of a detriment than for the others thanks to the best keyword in Codex.
Lucky for me it was wither instead of bloom. Playing hound without cala midband into sparkshot seems bad so going with huntress. There’s no downside to sac’ing quince with cala already at max so he’s defending. This patrol should require 2 cards from them to kill everything and I’d be happy with that trade.
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($6)
Worker - ($5)
Cast Bloom on Tenderfoot - ($3)
Tenderfoot attacks and kills Merfolk Prospector, taking 1 damage
Calamandra attacks and kills Quince, taking 1 damage. You gain 1 gold
Construct a tech 1 building - ($2)
Play Helpful Turtle - ($0)
Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 4
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Helpful Turtle (1/2 + 1 armor)
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Calamandra L5 (4/5, 1 damage)
Tenderfoot (1/2 + 1/1 rune, 1 damage)
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Tech I HP: 5
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 4
Deck: 0
Disc: 5
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 7
Thoughts
Seeing that turn makes me feel very stupid. I put him on a hand that could do exactly that play. It was face-up, given my assumptions. And I still predicted that he’d play ironbark treent with that hand, despite it being clearly inferior to the play he just made. It didn’t matter here (I’d have made the same play), but it really does hammer home that Codex is hard to play and there are just too many details for someone with a concussion to keep in head and I am much less intelligent than I was pre-concussion and I hate it
Uh anyway I can clear this all at okay value. Making a tiger isn’t an option here because on that line I can’t remove Quince. Sadly, he’d be able to copy the tiger at a cheaper rate and smash it back into my stuff for value It’s another really unfortunate draw because wither clears the board so much more efficiently; it stinks to have missed big twice now with a bad hand. But getting helpful turtle rolling isn’t terrible; every extra point of health he generates is a point that will have to be removed the hard way (no cheats like judgment day) later with crashbarrows, which extends the amount of time I have until blood takes over to construct something good in the late game.
Speaking of the late game, blademaster seems pretty good when my board lead now makes it hard and slow to stop? I’m not actually sure what his team can do against a blademaster besides hope I’m already low enough on life he can direct burn me down. Brick thief makes that a little annoying and possible artisan mantis makes it a lot annoying, so I think that’s my “plan A” for how this plays out. I typically favor growth as my tech 2 spec, but I’m not going to offer a tech building my opponent can repeatedly kill to thwart the plan. Morever, if next turn is the tech 2 building then I have exactly 2 gold to spare with 2 guaranteed cards in hand of that cost, so it’s unlikely I could float anything. I’d want 1 float for growth tech 2 lines since blooming ancient → murkwood allies would be the best way to come out of the gates swinging, whereas a different spec can put up a solid combination for cheaper.
The only other decent line I see is eschewing tech 2 for a heroes’ hall and shoving everything into a stampede kill, but I don’t think that line should be skipping the turtle to move the add-on to this turn (healing is such a good way to turn the board dominance into value), and leaving the prospector or Quince alive is unthinkable. That would mean I’d make the heroes’ hall next turn, Arg could arrive and max the turn after, and the turn after that would be stampede? There’s enough time and spare gold in that sequence to get a bunch more units down, but I think turn 6 as the earliest threat just isn’t spooky enough to warrant any build deviation from opponent when turn 5 trivially lets them double crashbarrow to clear most off my board unless their tech 2 is broken. So I will only consider this line if opponent declines to build a tech 2 on their next turn.
Being open to both lines makes the tech situation a little bit hard. The scaling up strategy obviously wants tech 2 units added this and next turn, whereas the stampede push wants 2 stampede and 2 starlets. The stampede line is much less punished by missing the extra units since brick thief / fencers can sub in, whereas scaling doesn’t mind a starlet in the mix over a tech 2 with a healer down and double fencers in deck. So I think the overlap is just large enough I can afford to split the difference here and stay open.
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($7)
Scavenger - ($8)
Young Treant, draw 1 - ($6)
Calamandra - ($4)
Verdant Tree - ($2)
Worker - ($1)
Float ($1)
Discard 3, draw 3, reshuffle, draw 2
Board Info:
In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Young Treant (0/2+A)
Elite:
Scavenger: Mirror (0/1)
Technician: Calamandra (2/3, lvl 1)
Lookout:
In Play:
Verdant Tree (3)
Buildings:
Base HP: 19
Tech I HP: 5
Economy Info:
Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 4
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 1
Workers: 8
Thoughts
Drawing 6 cards and whiffing on my tech 1s is brutal. Even with two fencers I think my tech 1 should live here. The plan is to get the techician draw and play 2 huntresses while going to tech 2. If their draw is horrible verdant tree could live and I could have crashbarrow down next turn.
As best I can tell, Calamandra doesn’t have the armor that you’re claiming. I figure that’s more likely a copy-pasta error than anything else though? I only just noticed as I was finalizing details of my turn, but still want to make sure we’re on the same page.
STARTING HAND
Nimble Fencer
Spark
Timely Messenger
Wither
WORKERS
Fruit Ninja
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Older Brother
Wither
NextHand
Brick Thief
Bloom
Grounded Guide
Leaping Lizard
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($7)
Healing triggers
Worker - ($6)
Construct a finesse tech 2 building - ($2)
Play Nimble Fencer - ($0)
Nimble Fencer attacks Young Treant, dealing 2 damage
Helpful Turtle attacks and kills Young Treant
Tenderfoot attacks and kills Mirror. You gain 1 gold
Calamandra attacks and kills Calamandra, taking 2 damage. You draw 1
Float ($0)
Discard 2, reshuffle, draw 4
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Calamandra L5 (4/5, 2 damage)
Tenderfoot (1/2 + 1/1 rune)
Nimble Fencer (2/3)
Helpful Turtle (1/2)
Buildings:
Base HP: 20
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 5 (Finesse)
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 4
Deck: 5
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 8
Thoughts
The obvious play kills everything except the verdant tree. It’s totally safe to assume he teched 2 crashbarrows; they always tech 2 crashbarrows. So if I break the board leaving the verdant tree, he’s 80% to have crashbarrow in hand. I think if he draws both it’s actually good for me (he’d have to skip worker to play them both, and the 2nd only kills my tech building or 2 inconsequential units off board, and then he probably lacks them the turn after). Since I’d have no patrollers, he’d get Calamandra and Nimble fencer on the crackback with enough gold to develop a L3 Quince or a 2-gold play from hand. I should be able to clean that up, but cleaning up isn’t really good enough unless it puts something meaningful on the table since he’ll have copied crashbarrow the turn after.
An alternative line leaves Calamandra in play so he has reduced odds of getting that crashbarrow (still 60%). Then I can leave blockers in front of Calamandra, and if he has the crashbarrow I get totally blown out, though without it makes for an interesting trade potentially in my favor when he has to stealth to kill Calamandra. 60% to get blown out is unacceptable sadly
I have a play to kill everything, but I don’t like it; it uses up a lot more resources than he did to make that board and doesn’t contribute anything on the margin that sticks to the board. Really it just takes this “he’s trying to get to tech 2” spot he’s in here and kicks it back a turn, but with a larger value deffict for me since he surely has at least 1 good tech 1 in hand now and can use Quince to copy a nimble fencer.
I do believe I’m required to kill the mirror here and give over the scavenger bonus, so those are probably the only real lines. If mirror stays alive then Quince is able to come in and copy a tech 1 he plays onto it, which feels like rather good value.
So I’m left wondering how to make the best board possible that cleans up a spectral hound, huntress, or L3 Quince and then sets up something tolerable on blocks. If he doesn’t have crashbarrow here I’m presumably just winning, so no need to plan for that eventuality. It’s definitely not another grounded guide; I’ve already got 1 and those sadly trade terribly against crashbarrows. I don’t like the look of cloud sprite since it probably only trades at deficit with a shoddy glider the turn after that. So: maestro, backstabber, leaping lizard. I think the useful observation is that maestro + virtuoso in hand is not actually very different from a lizard + virtuoso. The maestro will improve greatly once blademaster comes along, but until then I think I’ll just use the cheaper and more flexible blocking option. The ability to play a maxxed Arg, worker, and leaping lizard all in 1 turn really carries the card in this spot and so I don’t think I can afford to miss on it.
Edit: in retrospect a piece of what I said here makes no sense. A crashbarrow in this spot cannot kill 2 targets because I’ve cleverly arranged my patrollers so as to Fortnite-dance on its overpower ability. I knew this as I composed the play, but it’s just so hard for me to keep all the information in my head with a concussion that I lost it somewhere in typing out thoughts. Codex is hard, and even harder to simplify with neat abstracting heuristics
Technician draw
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($9)
Scavenger - ($10)
tap verdant tree for instant tech buildings
Tech II Blood - ($6)
Huntress - ($4)
Crashbarrow - ($1)
Worker - ($0)
Crashbarrow breaks your Tech II, your base to 18
Crashbarrow dies end of turn
Float ($0)
Discard 3, draw 3, reshuffle, draw 2
Board Info:
In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger: Huntress (3/3)
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Verdant Tree (3)
Buildings:
Base HP: 19
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 5 (Blood)
Economy Info:
Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 5
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 9
Thoughts
Missed crashbarrow on discard/draw but luckily got it on tech draw. tech 2 break because grounded guide would be huge here. they could skip a worker for feral strike but I can probably recover from that. if my tech 2 survives, I think quince and crashbarrow end this. Teching Kidnappings in case I never get to settle on tech 2. I think it will take two cards to break my tech 2 and verdant tree even with huntress off of sql so I might as well get the gold.
STARTING HAND
Brick Thief
Bloom
Grounded Guide
Leaping Lizard
WORKERS
Fruit Ninja
Granfalloon Flagbearer
Older Brother
Wither
Leaping Lizard
NextHand
Leaping Lizard
Spark
Star-Crossed Starlet
Discard
Bloom
Grounded Guide
Maestro
Blademaster
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($8)
Healing triggers
Worker - ($7)
Cast Bloom on Nimble Fencer - ($5)
Nimble Fencer attacks and kills Huntress, taking 3 damage. You gain 1 gold
Tenderfoot attacks Verdant Tree, dealing 2 damage
Helpful Turtle attacks and kills Verdant Tree
Calamandra attacks your tech 2 building, dealing 4 damage
Play Brick Thief, gifting to my base and stealing from your tech 2 building to finish it off. Your base takes 2 damage - ($3)
Uh not that I’m out of danger or anything, but the decisions are just so few and obvious. Only half my hand is even playable! I can’t summon a 2nd hero, and couldn’t suicide Calamandra to circumvent that even if I wanted! He has 11 health of imperatives to kill, and with my 2 cast-able cards I conveniently have 11 damage. And they certainly are imperative, since otherwise he’s quite high odds to table maxed Quince with crashbarrow and its clone, infamous impossible-to-outvalue play.
The only choices this turn are:
Who gets the bloom counter? It needs to be nimble fencer. It keeps the most bodies alive; I can’t waste even a single point of damage to get everything dead, so Calamandra hitting the patroller isn’t an option. If the counter went elsewhere, I’d have to suicide 2 units into huntress.
Do I skip the worker for hand size? No. Blademaster is too much of a checkmate to delay, and even if I’m slow to draw him it will be good to have a tech 3 building so I don’t have to fear my tech 2 building getting cracked.
Where do I patrol the brick thief? This is the most involved. Patrolling is far better than not since his team lacks anything that can only target patrollers, no 2nd patroller doesn’t present any sparkshot value for possible max Drakk + 2nd huntress (he still does have another lower-tech card unaccounted for, which bothers me a lot. If I had to guess from the whiff on tech 1 units despite a more-than-half deck draw on turn 3, it may have been a presumptive kidnapping for the tiger Calamandra never summoned?), and he can’t access an overpower this turn without skipping a worker for max Drakk + centaur. Anything he accesses with haste is going to be kidnapped, a mirror copy of Nimble Fencer, or max Drakk + something presumably swole. In the first 2 cases the unit will trade away without me requiring an elite buff, in all 3 an additional armor is insufficient for his survival, and in the kidnapping case he pays an arm and a leg already to take the brick thief itself, so it really needs to be scavenger or technician. In all 3 instances where I get the death bonus, he leaves a hero on the table for me to kill! This means from my 12 gold next turn I can access worker + tech 3 for 6, max Arg for a mere 4, and have 2 remaining for the 5 different cards I might draw that all cost 1 or 2. That seems totally adequate in terms of budget, so I just need to draw those cards with my dwindling hand size. In technician he goes.
Which 2 cards do I tech? By the time I reshuffle I’m very likely to want 2x blademaster, a maestro to play them on the cheap, and the other grounded guide. If that were subject to change, it would probably be for a behind the ferns or stampede. Feral strike on tech 2 can be very powerful, but tossing out gigadons is too risky (via kidnapping) for how far ahead I feel and using it as a virtuoso toolbox is not really doable this far in when I have to put in almost all copies of the combo already to satisfy 2 techs per turn. Of this I’m most confident I’ll want the singleton maestro; he makes the cut even sans tech 3. I think grounded guide is the most likely to be left out for a spell because it’s the largest gold commitment and having both in play at once is typically an extremely win-more situation. So I’ll start now with the most likely 2 from that vision, and if I do wind up skipping the tech building next turn at least it’s only a single unplayable card on the reshuffle.
Crashbarrow
Young Treant
Forest’s Favor
Rampant Growth
Kidnapping
Discard
Verdant Tree
Huntress
Kidnapping
Ironbark Treant
Merfolk Prospector
Crashbarrow
Murkwood Allies
Land Octopus
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($9)
Scavenger - ($10)
Rebuild Tech II
Drakk - ($8)
Kidnapping on Brick Thief - ($2)
Brick Thief trades with your Fencer, your Tech II to 4, my base to 18
Huntress - ($0)
Skip worker
Float ($0)
Discard 3, draw 5
Board Info:
In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Huntress (3/3+A)
Elite:
Scavenger: Drakk (1/3, lvl 1)
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Buildings:
Base HP: 18
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 5 (Blood)
Economy Info:
Cards:
Hand: 5
Deck: 0
Disc: 8
Gold:
Gold: 0
Workers: 9
Thoughts
I didn’t consider brick thief, I wonder if they would have had the Tech 2 brake if I had patrolled in sql, ah well. Its an expensive kidnapping but I can’t risk giving a card. If they have feral strike or any 2 good cards, this will continue to be tough. a whiff should put me back in the game though.
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($12)
Healing triggers
Worker - ($11)
Construct a tech 3 building - ($6)
Summon Argagarg → summon Wisp - ($4)
Calamandra attacks and kills Huntress, taking 3 damage
Tenderfoot attacks Drakk, dealing 2 and taking 1 damage
Helpful Turtle attacks and kills Drakk, taking 1 damage. Argagarg levels to 3 and my base takes 1 damage
Level Argagarg to 5 → summon Water Elemental - ($2)
Play Leaping Lizard - ($1)
Float ($1)
Discard 1, draw 2, reshuffle, draw 1
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader: Leaping Lizard (3/5 + 1 armor)
Elite:
Scavenger: Argagarg L5 (1/5)
Technician: Wisp (0/1)
Lookout:
In Play:
Calamandra L5 (4/5, 3 damage)
Tenderfoot (1/2 + 1/1 rune, 1 damage)
Helpful Turtle (1/2, 1 damage)
Water Elemental (3/3)
Buildings:
Base HP: 18
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 4 (Finesse)
Tech III HP: 5
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 3
Deck: 8
Disc: 0
Gold:
Gold: 1
Workers: 10
Thoughts
Huh, I wonder if that was a 2nd huntress or if he just redrew it in the 2-card overdraw. It’s disconcerting to me that he has so many unknowns in his deck, but at least now I have confirmation on the kidnapping.
I’m again pretty limited on what I can realistically play, despite this time having an absolute gorm of cash. I can’t even spend this much on hand cards if I want to, which makes a discounted max Argagarg as attractive as I predicted it would be last turn. I’m going to play the exact turn I forecasted last turn (worker + tech 3 + 4-cost max Argagarg + 2 gold for worthwhile hand card(s)), but there was some thought given as to whether a surplus has the potential to be a better investment than tech 3. And… nope! My tech 3s are that game-ending here.
His thwarting my technician draw last turn does make it harder to find them though, which is why I changed course and subbed in a feral strike over the planned grounded guide. It does now represent tech 3s! You can argue that it won’t be good if he removes Calamandra, but it really comes down to when I draw it. My deck contents are so cheap and my draw size so small that it’s not at all inconceivable to re-play and re-max her before I see the card. And if the game somehow has enough back-and-forth turns left for stuff like that to come up, it’s definitely the ultimate I prefer over stampede, which doesn’t end games as well from closely-contested positions. Leaving the grounded guide in my codex even makes it a fine card with a broken tech 3 building, since it can fetch whichever 2 of 3 I’m missing in the {grounded guide, maestro, star-crossed starlet} set. Congrats feral strike, your fridge art for which I rewarded a head pat back on turn 2 now apparently constitutes a solid resumé.
He finally gets to do the thing here that he built his team to do! I’ve stalled it long enough that it’s just not good enough anymore, but with a truly exceptional hand (which would have been difficult to engineer with the overdraw sizes) he could have better, actually-threatening versions of it. The most prominent is crashbarrow + shoddy glider, where he can pull double heroes for 4, run the glider in to kill Calamandra leveling Quince for 1, max Quince for 2, then drop a crashbarrow to swing with 2 of them for 10 total gold. That leaves him a max Quince and L3 Calamandra in play to my 6 power across 3 random bodies, so far from a terrible spot for me, but it’s about what he’d need to get back in this.
That said, I want to ensure with my patrollers that without glider(s) he can’t kill Calamandra here, period (unlikely 2nd kidnapping is offline when Drakk just died, and Quince has no haste thing to copy save what he can play, so the search space isn’t too big on this one). With feral strike being such a live card, that’s just prudence. The only possible hasters are double crashbarrows, so that’s 11 points of health I’ll need to patrol to avoid Calamandra getting hit for 2. But with an overpower value of 1, I may as well throw in the wisp anyway and make it 12 since it’s preferrable to losing MVP helpful turtle. My most desired-to-be-killed thing is actually Argagarg so I can re-summon for bodies, but the problem is that I give over 2 gold if I let her be attacked 1st: she doesn’t kill the crashbarrow in retaliation, so it can swing first and save him money on maxing Quince. Sadly this means I have to put the lizard I favor keeping in front.
This looks pretty bad for me, the only saving grace is that they’re only on 3 cards, but it won’t take much to break both my buildings. I didn’t opt for quince + crashbarrow because the forced overpower would give them a card and killing arg doesn’t feel that impactful anyway. I now realize the value of shoddy glider, but a bit too late.
Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid + float - ($11)
Healing triggers
Play Grounded Guide - ($6)
Summon River - ($4)
Tenderfoot attacks and kills Calamandra, taking 2 Calamandra damage and 1 tower retaliation. River levels to 3
Water Elemental attacks your base, dealing 4 damage and taking 1 tower retaliation (14 life)
Calamandra attacks your base, dealing 4 damage and taking 1 tower retaliation (10 life)
Helpful Turtle attacks your base, dealing 2 damage and taking 1 tower retaliation (8 life)
Play Nimble Fencer - ($2)
Nimble Fencer attacks your base, dealing 4 damage and taking 1 tower retaliation (4 life)
Play Timely Messenger - ($1)
Argagarg gives her +1/+1a blessing to Timely Messenger
Timely Messenger attacks your base, dealing 3 damage and losing armor to tower (1 life)
Wisp sacrificially fells the dragon, dying to tower retaliation to break your base
Board Info: In Patrol:
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger:
Technician:
Lookout:
In Play:
Calamandra L5 (4/5, 3 damage)
Argagarg L5 (1/5)
River L3 (2/4)
Grounded Guide (4/4)
Nimble Fencer (2/3 + 2/1, 1 damage)
Tenderfoot (1/2 + 1/1 rune + 2/1, 3 damage)
Water Elemental (3/3 + 1/0, 1 damage)
Helpful Turtle (1/2 + 1/0, 1 damage)
Timely Messenger (1/1 + 1/0)
Buildings:
Base HP: 18
Tech I HP: 5
Tech II HP: 4 (Finesse)
Tech III HP: 5
Economy Info: Cards:
Hand: 0
Deck: 8
Disc: 1
Gold:
Gold: 1
Workers: 10
Thoughts
Rawr!
Understandable he didn’t try to copy that crashbarrow. The 1st trades badly (1 card each and 3 vs 1 gold), but depressingly killing a maxed Arg and wisp with scavenger and technician bonuses somehow feels like an even worse deal.
. Or at least I want to begin this before the next round posts so I don’t screw up tournament structure too much. Since every day I get more mental clarity, it’s clearly in your best interest to 6-pool me dead by turn 4 
→ If there are at least 5 growth runes on this, your heroes and units get +3/+3 until your next upkeep
Squad Leader:
Elite:
Scavenger: Tenderfoot (1/2)
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 20
