Mono Blue vs P1 mono black

We just played our first Blue vs Black match today, and we found ourselves in a similar predicament.

Granted, I as the Blue player didn’t have any particular strategy in mind, but the game ended on turn 2 after the black player leveled up Vandy and killed my everything. I’m sure I could have done things better but reading through this topic makes me feel really uncomfortable.

Really the tower and good draws vs bad draws for Black are about as good as you can hope for.

If a match-up devolves to early draws, and that’s for two of the stock decks that are actually in the same box (and which are supposedly balanced against one-another), this doesn’t speak great for the health of this game.

Theory crafting here, but I would try floating more gold early.

A gameplan of:
Turn 1: play 1 cost guy, patrol in scavenger, float 3 gold
Turn 2: build tech 1, play a 1-2 cost guy, patrol in Technician, float 6 gold.
Turn 3: develop an actual board, possibly including a tech 2 building.

You will, of course, take a bunch of base damage, but mono black has limited “reach,” so you. An safely go down to 10 health as long as you have a plan for stopping Metamorphosis.

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How would that fare against a rushdown plan with lich’s bargain?

I don’t even know how it would fare against basic tempo play for Black. I mean, yeah, Black might not be able to deal lethal to base against a no-hero slow-play, but they’ll definitely deny tech I (and therefore tech II) indefinitely at that point?

If I had a regular buddy to play against and more than an idle interest in mono-Blue… and way more free time. :’(

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You’d get to dump quite a few resources on the board in turn 3 though. Maybe open with just spells, leaving the tech 1 as a decoy until you can use heroes to stabilize. Build a heroes Hall?

I’m happy to play black PbF against anyone that thinks they have the answer. I mean that, as I really want to be proven wrong; I want to know how Blue P2 wins (shoot even Blue P1 struggles pretty hard in my experience).

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I can’t conceive of a solid blue response to Vandy + Skeletal Javaliner + Worker on P1T1.

Musketeer and/or Porkhand + block is the best I have and it’s a pretty sad attempt.

Black seems to have all the game at Tech 0 and blue seems to have no compensation at any higher tier.

Sure, open a thread and take your first 3 turns, assuming I play a Building Inspector in Scavenger Turn 1 and build my Tech 1 + patrol a Traffic Director in Technician Turn 2 (Floating 7 gold). If you decide not to kill the BI on turn 1, he patrols in Technician on turn 2, and the Traffic Director patrols as Squad Leader (and I only float 6 gold).

I’ll decide what to tech after I see what you do, to make the research better.

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@EricF Oh man, so I assume you’re suggesting you’ll pick the game up on P2T3 Blue, and make your turn 2 tech choices based on only my P1T1&2? This sounds like lots of fun!

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Just to be clear, I’ll be basing my T2 tech choices on what you do on your T3, to make it easier to discover “what blue should do.”

I will probably also cheat a little in determining my draws.

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If it were me, I would start with Vandy + Javaliner and then add Jandra + Tech 1 on turn 2.

Probably wouldn’t play more to the board in order to reduce the ability of Bigby + Judgement Day to wreck me. Would direct whatever damage possible to Tech 1 and the rest to the base.

from my experience judgment day is the last thing blue think about against black.
Blue needs his units more than black since black really just need the heroes and can afford to lose units

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In a normal game where both players are attempting to play in the first 2 turns, I would tend to agree.

In this context, P2 is going T1 pass T2 pass in order to hoard gold for a comeback attempt at T3+

The comeback attempts with the most potential are going to be the ones that can cause a large reduction in P1s force before P1 untaps. Rule those out by making them not cost effective and it gets harder for P2.

If P1 is able to get a tech 1 building kill on P1T3, that further narrows the comeback methods at P2’s disposal. That’s part of why I am partial to using Jandra on P1T2.

The experimental response is only against an opening of Vandy + 1 or more 1/1 guys, so @FrozenStorm should/must start with that turn 1.

Yep, I am also sticking to my “scripted” P1T2 Black play of HH + Tech 1, and Teching DP + One of Nether Drain, Bone Collector or Shadow Blade, based on the P2T1 play (the float 3 would be a little suspect, I think I’ll probably start out teching Nether Drain but won’t say for certain so EricF stays in the dark on that)

And since the prompt of this thread was Vandy Jav Haunt T1, I’m at least going to start our experiments with that.

I’ll be “playing the turn 3 draw” fairly, and workering from Graveyard, Summon Skeletons, Archery, Jandra, Imp and Rogue, as they are all fair game in my first cycle when I do this. Usually though, Rogue, SS, Graveyard and Archery are what I prioritize.

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Very interesting matchup !
What about keeping track of P1 Blackhand Scourge vs P2 Flagstone Dominion where P2 won ? :slight_smile:

I didn’t win many, but let’s contribute with mine !
P1 Vandy rushdown vs P2 Truth tech rush (win with crazy luck)

Some questionable advice from a newbz Blue player

Black starter is incredibly versatile and is your main threat in this matchup !
Deteriorate is of course awesome, but StW is surprisingly even more terrifying. Thieving Imp is not as hard to deal with as it is with Mono-Red or Mono-Green for example, and Graveyard is not as dangerous as it might look like.

Typical P1 Black gameplan is T1 Vandy + Javelineer + Haunt, followed by a hero-based gameplan around Metamorphosis and Dark Pact. Black is quite likely to delay Tech II there.

P2 Blue has many options, and after some games I came up to these conclusions (ok keep critical mind there, I’m not the best Codex player in the world)

  • Don’t waste too many gold on cards. Your opponent can heal his heroes by leveling up and remember a Reputable Newsman with a Tower is a higher threat for opponent’s Javelineer than a Brave Knight is. Keep gold to build a Tower (will be useful once Metamorphosis will be on anyway !), Tech buildings and to recruit lvl 1 heroes. (yeah feeding their xp bar is painful but you really need them to keep some cards in hand).

  • Don’t go too low on cards. Your strategy implies Tech II and Tech III units, and you need to cycle your deck as fast as possible.

  • We all love the Scribe, but yeah don’t forget about Overeager Cadet to build your Tech II as soon as possible. Even if you might not have Tech II cards in hand, Tech II is a threat which might act as a leer to save your Tower.

  • Play mostly units. Jail, Manufactured Truth, Eyes of the Chancellor, Boot Camp are awesome as P1 but very dangerous to use as P2. Ultimate spells aren’t your first choice option, use them to react to exceptional board states and with caution.

To sum up, I think that with this on mind you can win something like than 20% of your games as P2 Blue ! :smiley:

Did this game ever happen? And if so how did it go? If not then why not?

@ClanNatioy see here:

To sum it up: not going well for Blue. It would be really nice if one of the playtesters could weigh in and “show Frozen how it’s done.” To, y’know, show that it’s doable.

I was more of a Green/Black + this multi seems broken let’s try it player in playtesting so wouldn’t be much help with that.

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