Definitely was a mistake to leave up the chumpy for denying you an gold.
The other mistakes were probably:
T1: Opening river, just not as good as grave much of the time.
T2: Sparking Prospector instead of trading TM for it. 1 base damage wasn’t worth the card unless I was somehow contriving to kill Arg (a steep order). Teching in double River spells (especially as one wasn’t two-step) was also pretty greedy (major problem I’m finding with this deck is that the starter cards don’t offer much variety and struggle to really put HP/Damage on the board at card cost as soon as it is T3/4 where Tech 1 or maxband heroes start showing up. 2/2s for 3 just don’t hold up. Most other starters at least offer some form of deck thinning with upgrades/buildings or some sort of card that tends to at least threaten to stick around a bit from the starter (null, mox, battlesuits, prospector, aven, savior monk, Jandra, pestering haunt, graveyard, javelineer etc).
Outside of Bloom or Wither there are no cards in the neutral starter that are sticky and stay out once anything bigger starts getting played. And almost everything else that exists is either bigger or better at sticking on the board than a bunch of (1/1 for 1 to 2/2 for 3)
The thing I’ve been trying to figure out is how the hell one actually casts and uses Harmony to any decent effect.
My ideas are somewhere in the range of:
Grave + River. Martial Mastery + Harmony. Probably Bloom as well.
Setsuki + River. Hidden Ninja + Harmony + Discord + Two Step. Sets maxband + Fox’s Den Students. Tech 2 Finesse for NF/Starlet/Tenderfoot base damage.
Drakk + River. Pillage + Charge + Harmony + Two Step Red Starters? + damage on death of units
Jaina + River. Pillage + Charge + Ember Sparks + Harmony + Discord/Two Step + Lobbers
I might swap to the white starter, but that also drops brick thief and tenderfoot which are both excellent additions to a Tech 2 Finesse Maestro plan for locking out enemy tech buildings frees up gold for dumping into Hidden Ninja/Max Sets/Fox’s Den Students.
So my typical Final set of cards for Finesse+Sets+River probably looks something like Tenderfoot, Brick Thief, (Bloom <–> Sparring Partner), (Morningstar Flagbearer, Fruit Ninja?), Nimble Fencer #1, Nimble Fencer #1, Maestro #1, Maestro #2, Hidden Ninja, Fox’s Den Students #1, Fox’s Den Students #2, Harmony?
2 Starter cards are basically never worker and two are optional, and 4 tech pairs accounted for of 5-6.
If I go for Tech 2 Ninjutsu it probably runs something like NF x1, Hidden Ninja x1, and then either Glorious Ninjas, Flying Fox, or Masked Raccoons as the ‘lockdown’ choices. Probably should have a two-step or two factored in here (works well with glorious ninja, flying fox, and masked raccoons). Might be possible to fit in Rambasa Twin for some more body production? I think that the white starter is probably better if I go for Ninjutsu as Snapback, Fox Viper, Aged Sensei, Sensei’s Advice, Safe Attacking, and possibly grappling hook are likely going to scale far better than tenderfoot+Brickthief+(bloom? lol)