Casual : Fenrir vs Robinz - Flagstone Dominion vs [Future]/Necro/Balance

Codex Codex play-by-forum
21

Just noticed you haven’t updated your base health. It was 18 at the end of your T7, it’s 14 by the end of mine :wink:

What a crazy and exciting game…

(Edited because I forgot that my last stinger didn’t die from killing the mirror.)

P2T7

Tech StartingHand Workers

TECH
Xenostalker

STARTING HAND
Bone Collector
Time Spiral
Doom Grasp

WORKERS
Battle Suits
Forgotten Fighter
Neo Plexus
Hardened Mox
Plasmodium
Temporal Research
Time Spiral

NextHand

Fading Argonaut
Bone Collector
Xenostalker
Nullcraft

Discard

Promise of Payment
Tinkerer
Tiny Basilisk
Doom Grasp
Bone Collector
Xenostalker

Tech 1 card(s)
Get Paid - ($11)
pay for the Hive from last turn (a Vortoss always pays his debts, even if he’s in leage with a human dragon and someone who re-animates the dead) - ($5)
Worker - ($4)
4 stingers take out your tower, dying as they do so. Your base takes 2 damage.
Void Star destroys your Tech 3, taking no damage now. Another 2 damage to your base.
the remaining stinger kills the mirror illusion
regenerate the 4 dead stingers - ($0)
Tiny Basilisk trades with the Spectral Hound in Squad Leader

Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 4

[B]Board Info:[/B]
[B]In Patrol:[/B]

  • :psblueshield: [I]Squad Leader[/I]: max Garth (3/4+1A)
  • :psfist: [I]Elite[/I]:
  • :ps_: [I]Scavenger[/I]:
  • :pschip: [I]Technician[/I]: lv 1 Vir (2/3)
  • :target: [I]Lookout[/I]: Hive (0/6, flying, resist 1+1)
    [B]In Play:[/B]
  • Void Star (5/3, flying, overpower)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
    [B]Buildings:[/B]
  • :heart: Base HP: 20
  • :heart: Tech I HP: 5
  • :heart: Tech II HP: 5 (Future)
  • :heart: Heroes’ Hall HP: 4

[B]Economy Info:[/B]
[B]Cards:[/B]

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 0
  • Disc: 6
    [B]Gold:[/B]
  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 12
Thoughts

He’s certainly making life complicated, with that Free Speech (no Doom Grasp and no peeking for me this turn) and putting our steady streams of ground forces. I have a lot of options on my turn with all this air power, but I “think” I’ve found the best way. (Believe me, I’ve had several attempts and this is the one I like the most.)

Obviously Tech 3 has to go, again. The main choice is whether to additionally take out the Tower, or the Tech 2. The advantage of tech 2 is that he can’t then rebuild Tech 3 and threaten me with Gryphons again. But I should be able to keep on destroying Tech 3 for at least a few more turns, doing 2 damage to his base each time. Taking out the tower not only costs him more gold to replace, but also allows me to kill the mirror illusion which could have been a big threat next turn.

Of more concern is protecting my own Tech 2 from his ground forces - because if I get Xenostalker down next turn I should be cooking with gas (I’ve even teched a second one because I think it’s the key unit for the rest of the game, Omegacron followed by sacrificing a bunch of stingers is great, but not much good through a full patrol zone). I’m honestly not too scared by his Tech 2 options, they’re mostly just cheap moderately powerful stuff along with things to buff his illusions, but I’m not able to go after them by targeting anyway. And after killing one of his hounds AND the annoying “what-the-hell-will-it-be” mirror, he can’t do that any more next turn. (He only has 10 attack, so can kill Garth and Vir and do a couple more damage - but at least I have a functioning Tech 2 next turn.)

The big question (and I should have asked it last turn) is: has he teched/drawn Judgement Day? Would he spend 10 gold on summoning Bigby, levelling him up and casting that? (Why does Bigby get to even cast his ultimate when he didn’t start the turn on the board anyway? And why am I asking so many questions?) If he does and rebuilds Tech 3, to get the Gryphon out next turn, there could be trouble! It’s a risk I’m gonna take.

22

A single stinger can’t kill my mirror illusion. its a 1/2 thanks to macciatus

23

Balls, you’re right. I will need a major rethink in that case…

24

OK, this one should be legal, and tackles the Mirror problem at source :wink:

Your base should be at 16 after this one.

P2T7

Tech StartingHand Workers

TECH
Xenostalker

STARTING HAND
Bone Collector
Time Spiral
Doom Grasp

WORKERS
Battle Suits
Forgotten Fighter
Neo Plexus
Hardened Mox
Plasmodium
Temporal Research
Time Spiral

NextHand

Fading Argonaut
Bone Collector
Nullcraft
Xenostalker

Discard

Promise of Payment
Tinkerer
Tiny Basilisk
Doom Grasp
Bone Collector
Xenostalker

Tech 1 card(s)
Get Paid - ($11)
pay for the Hive from last turn (a Vortoss always pays his debts, even if he’s in league with a human dragon and someone who re-animates the dead) - ($5)
Worker - ($4)
Void Star breaks Tech 3, taking 1 damage from the tower. Your base takes 2 damage.
3 stingers kill Quince, Vir gains 2 levels. All 3 stingers die.
One of the 2 remaining stingers kills the skeleton, and also dies
Tiny Basilisk trades with Spectral Hound
regenerate the 4 dead stingers - ($0)

Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 4

[B]Board Info:[/B]
[B]In Patrol:[/B]

  • :psblueshield: [I]Squad Leader[/I]: max Garth (3/4)
  • :psfist: [I]Elite[/I]:
  • :ps_: [I]Scavenger[/I]:
  • :pschip: [I]Technician[/I]: lv 3 Vir (2/3)
  • :target: [I]Lookout[/I]: Hive (0/6, flying, resist 1+1)
    [B]In Play:[/B]
  • Void Star (5/2, flying, overpower)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
  • Stinger (1/1, flying)
    [B]Buildings:[/B]
  • :heart: Base HP: 20
  • :heart: Tech I HP: 5
  • :heart: Tech II HP: 5 (Future)
  • :heart: Heroes’ Hall HP: 4

[B]Economy Info:[/B]
[B]Cards:[/B]

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 0
  • Disc: 6
    [B]Gold:[/B]
  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 12
25

Fenrir, Turn 8

Upkeep

Tech

Liberty Griffin, Reteller of Truths

Hand at start of turn

Judgement Day, Macciatus, Community Service, Lawful Search

Get Paid ($10) + Float ($5) = ($15)!

Main Phase

Summon Bigby ($13)

Scribe attacks Garth dies, pings armour. Spectral Hound attacks Garth killing him. Bigby hits midband.

Macciatus Kills Vir, you Draw a card, Bibgy hits maxband.

My mirror illusion token, still a 1/2, hits your tech 2 for one damage.

I play Judgement day ($9) Everything except Bigby dies.

I play community service ($4) I get to look at your discard but I don’t really need to. I put Hive into play under my control. It comes with five stingers.

I play Macciatus from hand ($2)

I summon General Onimaru ($0)

Rebuild Tech III

Discard 1; Draw 3

**Board Info : **

20161220_143557.jpg2048×1152 594 KB

Patrol
:psblueshield: Squad Leader: General Onimaru (2/3 + :psblueshield:)
:psfist: Elite: Stinger (2/1 flying)
:ps_: Scavenger: Stinger (1/1 flying)
:pschip: Technician: Stinger (1/1 flying)
:target: Lookout: Bigby Hayes (3/4)

In Play
Stinger (1/1 flying)
Stinger (1/1 flying)
Hive (0/6 flying, resist 1)
Macciatus (3/3)

Buildings :
:heart: Base HP: 16
:heart: Tech I HP: 5
:heart: Tech II HP: 5
:heart: Tech III HP: 5
:heart: Tower HP: 4

**Economy Info : **
Cards :
Hand: 3
Deck 4
Discard 8

Hand at end of turn

Manufactured Truth, Spectral Roc, Tax Collector

Thoughts

Well, that was a turn. I was planning on playing Bigby, max banding him hitting the rest button and then playing Community Service to get Hive. But the last thing I was expecting was to be able to kill two heroes as well. Because I killed two patrolling heroes I was able to rebuild my board a little bit by playing Macciatus and Oni.

I’m down on cards and I still haven’t drawn my tech III but I’ve got a Roc in hand, I can keep Macciatus alive and I can use Bigby’s maxband to draw cards (at least until he gets Doom Grasped).

I can’t allow another reversal of fortune. From here on out we’re going all in on his base.

1 Like
26

Holy sh*t, that’s some insane spell combo you’ve got there. It did cross my mind that you might Judgement Day, but I forgot all about Community Service.

This is quite some epic game, although I suspect I’ve just lost it right there…

(Oh, and did you actually look at my discard? I had to reshuffle to draw from Vir’s death, so actually nothing was in my discard other than what was on my board before Judgement Day, and you shouldn’t know any of the cards that were previously in my discard and now in my hand/deck.)

2 Likes
27

Nah, I didn’t look, I knew there was a hive in there. That’s all that mattered.

1 Like
28

P2T8

Tech StartingHand Workers

TECH
Nebula
Nebula

STARTING HAND
Fading Argonaut
Xenostalker
Bone Collector
Nullcraft
Tinkerer

WORKERS
Battle Suits
Forgotten Fighter
Neo Plexus
Hardened Mox
Plasmodium
Temporal Research
Time Spiral
Tinkerer

NextHand

Xenostalker
Tiny Basilisk
Promise of Payment
Bone Collector

Discard

Void Star
Nullcraft
Fading Argonaut
Nebula
Nebula

Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($12)
Worker - ($11)
Xenostalker - ($7)
build Tech 3 - ($2)
play Bone Collector - ($0)

Float ($0)
Discard 2, draw 4

[B]Board Info:[/B]
[B]In Patrol:[/B]

  • :psblueshield: [I]Squad Leader[/I]: Bone Collector(3/3+1A)
  • :psfist: [I]Elite[/I]:
  • :ps_: [I]Scavenger[/I]:
  • :pschip: [I]Technician[/I]: Xenostalker (3/6, unstoppable, does stuff with lasers)
  • :target: [I]Lookout[/I]:
    [B]In Play:[/B]

[B]Buildings:[/B]

  • :heart: Base HP: 20
  • :heart: Tech I HP: 5
  • :heart: Tech II HP: 4 (Future)
  • :heart: Tech III HP: 5
  • :heart: Heroes’ Hall HP: 4

[B]Economy Info:[/B]
[B]Cards:[/B]

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 1
  • Disc: 5
    [B]Gold:[/B]
  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 13
Thoughts

Oh well, I thought I was well ahead, but that spell double-whammy from a previously unsummoned Bigby has probably just killed me.

But I’m not without hope. With any luck he doesn’t have a Liberty Gryphon in his 3-card hand. He can do a hell of a lot of damage, but next turn I can play Garth and Doom Grasp the Hive, which will send it back to MY discard pile and kill all those stingers of his. After that, and the Gryphon (oh, and Onimaru once levelled up a bit), he can’t do TOO much damage. (Except I’ve just realised that Newsman might make a re-appearance, and if he does I’m almost certain he’ll name 4…) So I’m going to have a rough couple of turns, but depending on my (and his) luck it’s not necessarily over.

[Blast, missed the Doom Grasp - was only a 20% chance. It won’t matter if he kills my Xenostalker, but he might just leave it, judging that with all those Stingers in patrol it can’t do too much damage.]

29

Fenrir, Turn 9

Upkeep

Tech nothing

Tech

Hand at start of turn

Manufactured Truth, Spectral Roc, Tax Collector

Get Paid ($10)

Main Phase

Worker a card ($9)

Worker

Tax Collector

Draw a card from Bigby’s max band.

It’s a Liberty Griffin!

Summon Quince, he comes with a mirror illusion, max quince ($3)

Summon Liberty Griffin. Copy it with Mirror Illusion. ($0)

Four Stingers kill your bone collector.

Liberty Griffin, 6/6 thanks to macciatus, kills Xenostalker.

Liberty Griffin 2, the last stinger and Onimaru hit your base for a total of ten damage.

Discard 2; Draw 5

**Board Info : **

20161220_163803.jpg2048×1152 514 KB

Patrol
:psblueshield: Squad Leader:
:psfist: Elite:
:ps_: Scavenger:
:pschip: Technician: Hive (0/6 flying)
:target: Lookout: Macciatus (3/3)

In Play
Five stingers,
Liberty Griffin,
Liberty Griffin (copy),
Quince (1/5)
Bigby (3/4)
Onimaru (2/3)

Buildings :
:heart: Base HP: 16
:heart: Tech I HP: 5
:heart: Tech II HP: 5
:heart: Tech III HP: 5
:heart: Tower HP: 4

**Economy Info : **
Cards :
Hand: 4
Deck 11
Discard 0

Hand at end of turn

Free Speech, Arrest, Judgement Day x2

Thoughts

Ok, surely I win next turn? I drew Liberty Griffin in the last hand before shuffling but now that he’s here surely I can ten damage to his base next turn? Right? If all else fails I’ll just max Oni and play Judgement Day again to clear the path.

30

I suspect you can probably win next turn, but I couldn’t be bothered working it out. I’ve only really tried to make it as difficult as I could. It would be a shame not to play this game to the natural conclusion though :slight_smile:

P2T9

StartingHand Workers

STARTING HAND
Promise of Payment
Tiny Basilisk
Bone Collector
Xenostalker
Doom Grasp

WORKERS
Battle Suits
Forgotten Fighter
Neo Plexus
Hardened Mox
Plasmodium
Temporal Research
Time Spiral
Tinkerer

NextHand

Bone Collector
Promise of Payment
Xenostalker
Nullcraft

Tech 0 card(s)
Get Paid - ($13)
draw card from Technician’s death
summon Garth and make a skeleton - ($10)
Garth casts Doom Grasp to kill the skeleton and Quince. Garth gains 2 levels, and the mirror Gryphon dies - ($6)
summon Vir - ($4)
max Garth, putting a Void Star into play from my discard pile - ($0)
Vir casts Promise of Payment to put a Xenostalker in for free. It would be nice to live long enough to pay the debt.

Float ($0)
Discard 2, reshuffle, draw 4

[B]Board Info:[/B]
[B]In Patrol:[/B]

  • :psblueshield: [I]Squad Leader[/I]: Void Star (5/4+1A, flying, overpower)
  • :psfist: [I]Elite[/I]: Xenostalker (3+1/6+1A)
  • :ps_: [I]Scavenger[/I]: max Garth (3/4)
  • :pschip: [I]Technician[/I]: lv 1 Vir (2/3)
  • :target: [I]Lookout[/I]:
    [B]In Play:[/B]

[B]Buildings:[/B]

  • :heart: Base HP: 10
  • :heart: Tech I HP: 5
  • :heart: Tech II HP: 4 (Future)
  • :heart: Tech III HP: 5
  • :heart: Heroes’ Hall HP: 4

[B]Economy Info:[/B]
[B]Cards:[/B]

  • Hand: 4
  • Deck: 6
  • Disc: 0
    [B]Gold:[/B]
  • Gold: 0
  • Workers: 13
Thoughts

Realistically, the game is totally lost now. I’m just doing the best I can to block things up, hoping I luck into drawing a Nebula while still having a Tech 3 building intact, and that it will be in time to make a difference. Yeah, it’s not going to happen. He can probably even destory my base next turn, but I haven’t bothered working it out. By putting the VS in squad leader I force him to use all 5 stingers to get past that. Of course, if he has another illusion in hand then LG becomes unstoppable and that will pretty much be that, but we can hope.

The most annoying thing was that, having no deck, I couldn’t even use Vir to try to luck into finding a Nebula on top of my deck. Why the hell do you not get to reshuffle your discard in that case?

I’m clearly going to have to rethink this codex, because in 2 games I’ve discovered that it struggles not only against hasty stealthy swift-striking ninjas, but that it has no real answer to illusions. (Other than Unphase, which I was locked out of for too long - it would be far too slow to Tech it now, of course.) Still I would have most likely won were it not for Bigby’s spell combo - I must check through his notes after the game to see if that was what he was planning all along, because it was hard to detect any real plan until that point.

1 Like
31

Doesn’t seem worth posting a full turn for this. I arrest the Void Star then my flyers hit your base for 10.

Good game. Looking forward to reading back through the whole thing plus thoughts and such.

A couple of crazy reversals of fortune as we went into late game.

3 Likes
32

Yeah, I really had a hard time wondering what you were doing, as I built up what I thought was a huge advantage - then suddenly, turn 8, Bigby shows up and wins the game. So I’m looking forward to reading what you were up to (I was also very confused to never see either of Spectral Aven or Manufactured Truth throughout the whole game, 2 things I was pretty worried about early on).

Good game, thanks for playing.

2 Likes
33

Oh Bigby and Judgement Day was a total desperation play. I wasn’t ready at all with anti-air techs (I think I only teched one Roc) so I was left with no choice but to just go nuts and reset the board.

The actual thing I did that I think was smart was to build my tech III. I didn’t think I was likely to have a tech III unit in hand any time soon when I built it, I just built it purely as a distraction. I knew you’d use your void star to destroy it each turn so I could buy time to get back into the game.

Big flyers is something for which I’m never prepared…

2 Likes
34

@ARMed_Pirate (finally being able to read your post now)

Yeah, I agree that in hindsight Xenostalker would have been better. It was only several turns later (when I teched my second one, having not teched anything the previous turn) that I realised their value in popping illusions, as well as in generally weakening his wall of cheap patrollers.

I’m probably going to give up on this particular codex for a little while, since on the evidene of 2 games there’s so much it seems to be weak at. (If I do go back to it I’ll probably switch Balance, which I’ve barely used, for something with more targeting - perhaps Fire?) I’ve switched to Blood/Feral/Present for CAWS - I don’t really have a clue how to play it well, but there are so many aggressive options in there I think it’d be a pretty great one in the hands of a good player (ie. not me), and I think it’ll be fun to try.

I really do wanna make Future work at some point, because I really love all its Tech 2 options, but it’s probably beyond my Codex skills at this point. I probably need Past as well (for Seer) if I want to play with the time rune stuff - and at that point you feel “why not play monopurple”, and when you do that you realise that Present is just better at Tech 2…

Although Present Tech 2 doesn’t have fliers. Or big robots with lasers. Or Reavers…

35

I’ve just read through all your hidden bits now - and it’s pretty apparent that I was basically conned. You’re right, if I’d have just gone straight for your base I’d almost certainly have won.

My natural instinct, when in an advantageous position, is to try to keep control - I will devote more effort to shutting off possible counterplay than to going straight for the kill, because I’m worried about what the opponent might do if given a chance to do something exciting. Hence the repeated destruction of your Tech 3 instead of going for your base. (Had you been playing a different spec it might not have mattered, but LG is a monster, even when I’ve got fliers myself. But I now realise I over-reacted - unless you could play lots of other illusions along with it, I could surely have used stingers to kill the protecting illusions and then take out the Gryphon with VS. Trouble is that would have killed my VS, whereas tech buildings don’t get to shoot back!)

I can see from the comments/likes that there are some experienced players following this (thanks guys, I for one am flattered) - so I might as well ask, is this approach of mine wrong (it certainly was in this game)? Am I better off just shooting for the base once I get overwhelming air superiority? (Although I’m pretty sure I know that the answer is, as it is to everything in Codex, “it depends” :wink: )

(There were several other things I did wrong, of course. It’s painfully apparent in hindsight that those Bone Collectors were a waste of space - they were supposed to be THE key card in the early game for this deck, but in the end I didn’t make a single skeleton with them! I chickened out because you set up your patrols in such a way that I could never seem to get advantage, or even break even, from doing so - and this despite knowing the truth of your remark that the attacker has the advantage in this game. That’s another part of the reason why I’m moving away from this deck - it’s designed to turtle in the early game, Lich’s Bargain would have been a huge part of that were it not for the Newsman blocking it, and as you say that’s just never going to work against a good opponent.)

36

Yeah, you made some mistakes. But that’s normal in Codex due to fog of war. Occasionally the opponent will out-yomi you in some way.

I’d say you played it pretty well, and shouldn’t lose confidence. Think about how close you were to winning! If you’d been just a bit more aggressive in the end-game, you’d have had it. If Fenrir had ever workered Arrest, you might have been able to hang on one more turn (though you’d still be on the back foot). If his draws had been unlucky at the end game, you’d have had it: in his Turn 7, he drew a 4-card hand from an 12-card deck, and happened to draw into Judgment Day and Community Service. Without both of those, you’d probably have won. Edit: He only had one Community Service and 2 Judgment Days; I’m calculating a 9/55 chance of drawing at least one of each, which is just under a 1/6 chance.
If you played this same match-up 10 times, I don’t think you have nearly enough evidence to say you’d lose more than you’d win.

I do wonder how much Balance was doing for you this game. (It doesn’t have to do anything. It might be just more useful in other match-ups.) But I wonder if there’s another spec that might complement your primary picks a bit better. (I honestly don’t know.)

I’m just happy because I really got to see Future shine.

Sirlin has talked about how much he loves Puzzle Strike, because it creates states where you’re close to losing and winning at the same time. I’ve been impressed at how often Codex hits this feeling.

1 Like
37

Hi !
It was a very fun and interesting game to watch to, thanks !
IMO (I’m not a good player), Mono-Blue is weak against hero-based strategies and Tech III units.
I’d not have chosen your gameplan :slight_smile:
As Lord of Shadow and Nebula are focused on the Invisibility of units (therefore extremely weak to Judgment Day and Eyes of the Chancellor, and anyway almost always considered as weak), you’d only have T-Rex as Tech III gameplan. Beting on heroes was the key IMO !
You were almost about winning the game with Garth, but yeah Mono-Blue is insanely strong against big units (menacing to mirror them, Law spells, etc.) and Bigby did the game.

IMO [Necro]/Future/Balance has potential, but associating Garth with Midori once Tech II is built has to be in your mind as P2 :slight_smile:
The midband on skeletons, Moment’s Peace to protect your Skeleton Archers and Nether Drain to trigger a lot of Garth’s maxbands to fetch even more long-range/flying (necromancer, void star, hive, fairy dragon)…

Or Garth + Vir on abusing Nether Drain ! Risky but fun maybe :stuck_out_tongue:

But just focus on basic hero bashing against Blue lol :wink:

2 Likes
38

Bone Collector is one of those cards that’s a good deal better as player 1 than player 2. In this game, you might have been better off with something like Glided Glaxx.

2 Likes
39

Gilded Glaxx resists to Judgment Day, but is very risky against Quince and his mirrors :thinking:

40

Just returning to this game, and feel even more of an idiot now - because on turn 7, if I paid for the extra 4 attack on Void Star, I could have hit your base for a total of 14! And then, no matter what nonsense you could have pulled off with your Tech 3 and mirrors, it’s highly likely I could have sneaked another 6 in at some point. So yeah, I was much too cautious - if you can do enough damage to the opponent’s base to bring it down to a level where you can threated to kill it next turn, then you should probably do it (unless the opponent is also threatening lethal damage). I think my lack of experience, and in particular endgame experience, really showed here.

1 Like