Charnel has a strong deck. I’ve felt the wrath of drakk before, and I have to be careful not to slip up and fall to it. Likewise, black starter, and garth give easy cheap board presence.
The only solution is to gas on the pressure, and do not give them room to breathe!
Time to take a page out of Charnel’s book and list my options for the turn.
Spend a gold to kill skeleton, midband grave and murder garth. Upside? This gives up gold, but puts me very ahead on board (charnel will kill tenderfoot with haunt) and makes it very hard for them to justify rushing tech 2. Downside? I’m not putting new things on my board. It also leaves me a little vulnerable to midband zane hit back, but that doesn’t seem good for them.
Kill skeleton with grave, and wait, either playing turtle, brother, flagbearer, or heroes’ hall+messenger. Downside? I’m threatening some amount of pressure, but much less. It allows them to tower, skeleton. Upside? I don’t give up gold or board.
Spend 2 gold to kill skeleton and grave without levelling up grave. Upside? I get to threaten grave levels later, while still taking the kill. Downside? I go down on cards against a potential imp, which makes it hard to pile on more. Also vulnerable to Zane. I think this is the worst line, probably.
I find myself really wishing I had either bloom or wither in this hand. Though actually wither is probably the same as having spark here. Bloom would be sick though.
Thinking it through… I think I’ll opt to get value from turtle and get hasty fencers. It puts a lot of potential pressure on the board, and charnel will need to build a tower to avoid dying probably, which puts strain on their economy.
I’m cutting it pretty thin with this board – one Nimble Fencer is enough to take out Garth – so hopefully Thieving Imp will slow down Bomber’s build-up a bit.
Teched cards: 2
T2: 2 x Bone Collector
Get paid + float - (7)
Worker - (6)
Thieving Imp, you discard card #4 of 5 - (3)
Garth summons a Skeleton - (2)
Pestering Haunt hits your Tech I to 4 HP
Expensive Tech I - (0)
Discard 3, reshuffle 8, draw 5
Skeleton 1/1+1A Thieving Imp 2/2
Garth L1 1/3 (1g, once per turn: summon a Skeleton)
Pestering Haunt 1/1 (unstoppable; attack capped at 1; can’t be sacrificed; can’t patrol)
Yep, here comes a full board clear. Leaves me a litttttle vulnerable to Zane, so we’re sticking grave in squad leader to help out. Technically I can also die to some kind of drakk thing (bloodlust? maxband? kidnapping?) but most of their options are quite expensive and prevent them from teching up, and I don’t see an easy full board clear for them, so I can pretty safely defend and tech up.
The Turtle needs to go down, no question, but that’s going to be difficult without leaving Grave to keep causing havoc: maxband Zane + Deteriorate takes all my gold after shoving to Grave to scavenger. Unfortunely, I have a bad board for recovering board, but I can, at, least, take out the Turtle with Deteriorate.
I’d like to tech in Bloodlust/Kidnapping for damage control, but I’d also like to bring Drakk out now to survive against Grave / Tenderfoot+Fencer in SQL, backed up by a Tower (2 + 3 + 2 gold with the Deteriorate, so I can still worker). That doesn’t leave me great ways to deal with what’s coming. Doom Grasp should be good for dealing with Grave, though. Lich’s Bargain is tempting to help stabilise, but a virtuoso engine could scale too quickly for it to help. Maybe I just be optimistic, and add a Tech II unit.
Teched cards: 2
T2: 2 x Bone Collector
T3: Crashbarrow, Doom Grasp
It was a tough decision to destroy tower or tech 1 here. Destroying tech 1 is a very strong option, but it leaves me with very little board, and they’ll have garth back to just wall up again while they wait, and I would be drawing only 2 cards out of 11. Not a lot of havoc I could wreak with that, I expect. So instead we kill the tower, representing a real gold cost, losing a fencer but making life easier next turn, and maintaining a three card hand.
Putting in more finesse things to really layer the pressure on. They certainly can tech up next turn… but it’s going to cost them.
Bone Collector
Bone Collector
Sacrifice the Weak
Thieving Imp
Skeleton Javelineer
Thoughts
I can tech up here if I really want to, but I think I’m better off getting down the Bone Collectors and Thieving Imp. That brings me down to a three-card hand, but puts Bomber on a two-card hand. Slowing down the card economy is great against Finesse II, because it stops a virtuoso engine getting out of control so easily, and Leaping Lizards are more about gold efficiency.
Thieving Imp goes in Squad Leader so Nimble Fencer can’t kill it; Grave can kill everything in Squad Leader anyway. The Bone Collectors are spread out to avoid sparkshot, because if they both go down I’m looking at a remaining cycle with few units cards. Also, I’d like one to survive for Graveyard going down, if I can.
Teched cards: 2
T2: 2 x Bone Collector
T3: Crashbarrow, Doom Grasp
T3: Crashbarrow, Kidnapping
Get paid - (8)
Worker - (7)
2 x Bone Collector - (3)
Thieving Imp, you discard card #3 of 3 - (0)
Discard 1, draw 3
Thieving Imp 2/2+1A Bone Collector #1 3/3 (attacks: gain a Skeleton) Bone Collector #2 3/3 (resist 0+1; attacks: gain a Skeleton)
Base HP: 18 Tech I HP: 5
Hand: 3
Pestering Haunt
Graveyard
Summon Skeletons
Deck: 3
Crashbarrow
Doom Grasp
Deteriorate
Discard: 3
Crashbarrow
Kidnapping
Sacrifice the Weak
Card-count check (opponent-viewable)
Expected: 10 + 6 teched = 16
3 on board
3 in hand
3 in deck
3 in discard
4 in workers
Gold: 0
Workers: 9
5 x start
T1: Jandra, the Negator
T2: Poisonblade Rogue
T3: Skeletal Archery
T4: Skeleton Javelineer
Damn, really? They hit the imp again?? That’s rough. I gotta go for a surplus here. I’m also skipping worker to maintain board, since both drakk and zane are options this for them. Most likely they’ll prefer to tech up though, but again, dangerous proposition (because I am keeping board). I am way behind on econ now though, which hurts a lot. Low on cards, low on gold, but high on board… I just hope I can draw into the right cards to take advantage.
Which… I haven’t this turn. Hm. Oh well, they don’t know that of course.
The worker skip is nice, but Bomber’s board is such that that won’t help me for long. I think I have to tech up here while I can, and before Rook can walk past and destroy my Tech I anyway. Ideally I’d like to not play Garth yet either, to ensure the Doom Grasp next turn, but I don’t think I can get away with that either when my only decent blocking card in hand is Summon Skeletons.
Keeping him out of patrol might be a mistake, but keeping him in is giving free levels to Rook, which isn’t much better. Either way, this patrol doesn’t reduce his already-strong board at all, I just have to hope Bomber’s low hand size stopped him from drawing into anything good.
Teched cards: 2
T2: 2 x Bone Collector
T3: Crashbarrow, Doom Grasp
T4: Crashbarrow, Kidnapping
T5: Bloodlust, Land Octopus
Get paid + scavenger - (10)
Garth Torken - (8)
Summon Skeletons, two Skeletons arrive - (5)
Garth summons a third Skeleton - (4)
Tech II Blood - (0) Skip worker!
Discard 2, draw 3, reshuffle 11, draw 1
It’s a little sad to worker turtle instead of playing it here, but I need workers pretty badly, mostly to get tech 3 online, and brick thief allowed me to break tech 2. Otherwise I would’ve workered brick thief.
This still keeps me very ahead on board, they skipped a worker so we’ve equalised on economy and I’ve got the surplus online and well defended. I actually think I’m in a really strong spot now!
Crashbarrow
Doom Grasp
Deteriorate
Sacrifice the Weak
Thoughts
OK, Skeleton + Doom Grasp lets me kill Grave or the Leaping Lizard, Deteriorate can take out the Nimble Fencer. That’s 6 gold, 4 left, Garth at level 3. I could Sacrifice the Weak to take out the Brick Thief, but I think I’m better off maxbanding Garth to get another patroller, probably a Gunpoint Taxman. I’m still facing Rook + Brick Thief + Lizard, so if Bryce can get one patroller down Brick Thief + Rook lets him destroy Tech II again. So maybe I Doom Grasp Rook instead of Grave?
Teched cards: 2
T2: 2 x Bone Collector
T3: Crashbarrow, Doom Grasp
T4: Crashbarrow, Kidnapping
T5: Bloodlust, Land Octopus
T6: Gunpoint Taxman, Kidnapping
Damn, shame I didn’t pull grounded guide. Pretty sure I could’ve double tech broken or aimed for lethal if I had it. Oh well, still a strong turn.
I decided to trade out Grave here, because I have no healing and he had no sword, and preventing my opponent from keeping anything on board will definitely benefit me in the long run, and keeps my virtuosos safer for when guide hits the table next turn. Really need to build my tech 3, so I will likely be workering bloom, since the 1 damage hopefully won’t matter much?
Rook will also be available to dump gold into next turn, so I have a lot lined up. Feeling good.
Crashbarrow
Thieving Imp
Bone Collector
Summon Skeletons
Technician draw: 1
Bloodlust
Thoughts
Bloodlust gives me options, here. Not particularly good ones, but it at least lets me get rid of that Maestro before Bryce has enough Virtuosos out to permanently lock down my Tech II. I’m better off bring out maxband Zane to do that, I think: 6 gold and one more gold, rather than 9 gold + 2 cards to bring out Drakk, Imp and Collector, then trade Drakk and Collector with River. I suppose I worker + Collector with the rest, although Thieving Imp for more card drain is tempting. Yeah, let’s keep the card drain going: I need all the chances at preventing the full Virtuoso engine that I can get.
Teched cards: 2
T2: 2 x Bone Collector
T3: Crashbarrow, Doom Grasp
T4: Crashbarrow, Kidnapping
T5: Bloodlust, Land Octopus
T6: Gunpoint Taxman, Kidnapping
T7: Bloodlust, Land Octopus
Get paid - (9)
Rebuild Tech II
Captain Zeno Zane - (7)
Maxband Zane, shoves Maestro to scavenger, hits to 4 - (2)
Zame kills Maestro, we both get 1 gold - (3)
Thieving Imp, you discard card #1 of 2 - (0) Skip worker!
Discard 4, draw 5
Thieving Imp 2/2+1A
Zane 4/1 (haste; kills scavenger or technician: share bonus)
Base HP: 14 Tech I HP: 3 Tech II HP: 5 (Blood)
Hand: 5
Kidnapping
Bone Collector
Land Octopus
Pestering Haunt
Graveyard
Deck: 0
Discard: 12
Kidnapping
Deteriorate
Doom Grasp
Crashbarrow
Sacrifice the Weak
Gunpoint Taxman
Bloodlust
Land Octopus
Bone Collector
Crashbarrow
Summon Skeletons
Bloodlust
Card-count check (opponent-viewable)
Expected: 10 + 12 teched = 22
1 on board
5 in hand
0 in deck
12 in discard
4 in workers
Gold: 0
Workers: 9
5 x start
T1: Jandra, the Negator
T2: Poisonblade Rogue
T3: Skeletal Archery
T4: Skeleton Javelineer
Argh! The Imp hit the guide! Now I don’t get a double tech break! Or maybe lethal even, I don’t know! (I didn’t bother calculating because the guide is gone.) Lame lame lame!
Well, I won’t kill the imp, in the hopes maybe they’ll patrol it so it doesn’t make it into their next cycle. So there!
Barring that… I’m actually still in a super strong position. Drawing a blademaster early is a little annoying, but there’s sitll one more in my deck so it’s ok. I should have lethal in the next two turns I think.
Wait a sec, no I didn’t. I made an error, good catch. Added a card to my hand that should be in my discard! I really do only have a hand of three.
(2 cards, discard 1 from imp, draw 1 from surplus, worker 1, that leaves me with 1 to discard and draw 3 from deck, with the hope to draw another next turn as long as my surplus lives)
Squad Leader: Grave Stormborne (2/3+A)
Elite:
Scavenger: Tenderfoot (1/2)
Technician:
Lookout:
Base HP: 20
Gunpoint Taxman 3/3 (anti-air; kills a patroller: steal 1 gold)