Hi @zhavier, rules changes below. I’ll start in a bit.
Green starter
Ironbark Treant: ability becomes “-1 ATK/+1 while patrolling” (rather than -2 ATK/+2 armor).
Rich Earth: gains “Arrives: Get a 0/1 wisp token. While you have 10 or more workers, this gains “tap: make a wisp”.
Balance
Midori: midband becomes “Your units with no printed abilities get +2/+1”.
Circle of Life: becomes “Sacrifice a Tech 0 or Tech I unit. If you do, put a unit one tech level higher with cost 4 or less into play from your Codex” (instead of a green unit with cost 5 or less).
Gemscout Owl: is 1/1 instead of 0/1. It still can’t attack.
Chameleon: costs 0 (instead of 2).
Blood
Rickety Mine: gains Haste, ability changes from coin flip to “When this arrives, put two Ore runes on it. Tap: gain 3 gold, remove an ore rune. When this runs out of Ore runes, trash it and deal 1 damage to you and your opponent’s base”.
Feral
Predator Tiger: is 4/5 instead of 4/4.
Strength
Bird’s Nest: ability changes to “Arrives or upkeep: Put a 1/1 Flying Bird Token into play (max 2 tokens in play at a time)”. Remains as a channeling spell.
Mythmaking: gains the ability “Your Legendary units ignore the ‘Legend Rule’”.
Tiger Cub
Playful Panda
Forest’s Favour
Verdant Tree
Thoughts
My rough plan is to open with Mines + Tiny Basilisks, to try and quickly deal with Calamandra and her Tigers. I don’t know whether I’ll need Drakk’s help, hopefully the Mines will help me afford it if I do.
Teched cards: 2
T2: Rickety Mine, Tiny Basilisk
Get paid - (5)
Worker
Tech I - (3)
Playful Panda, Wisp #2 arrives - (1)
Merfolk Prospector exhausts for gold - (2)
Discard 2, draw 1, reshuffle, draw 3
Wisp #1 0/1 Wisp #2 0/1
Playful Panda 2/2
Merfolk Prospector 1/1
Rich Earth (workers cost no gold; 10+ workers: exhaust to summon a Wisp)
Base HP: 20 Tech I HP: 5
Hand: 4
Ironbark Treant
Young Treant
Rampant Growth
Tiger Cub
Deck: 3
Rickety Mine
Tiny Basilisk
Verdant Tree
Discard: 0
Card-count check (opponent-viewable)
Expected: 10 + 2 teched = 12
3 on board
4 in hand
3 in deck
0 in discard
2 in workers
Total: 12
Worker, Midband Drakk + Rampant Growth, Wisps kills Wisps, Prospector trades with Calamandra here. +1g, -3c is a bad resource trade, but it’s likely zhavier’s planning something with Cal, so I can delay that. I have maxband Drakk on patrol for 4+1A, zhavier has Panda for 2, and could do midband Drakk + Rampant Growth himself, or maxband + hasted unit. That leaves me with my Wisps, him with maxband Drakk + Panda. Oh, just Drakk: I can stick mine in Elite with no likely penalty, and still kill Panda through any armour. Wisps vs. Drakk is not good, but then I have my Mine + Basilisk turn next, and I could hit Tech II first, even if zhavier plays both Mines.
Young Treant, try to get Mine or Basilisk. If not, I might be in trouble. Non-hasted Tiny Basilisk with Cal already out can be worked around in a few ways too, if zhavier’s teched in any units. I’d probably be playing a lot of cards, and I’d rather not go further down on hand size.
Maxband Drakk, Tiger Cub. Can’t trade with Calamandra, so no point. I could kill the Panda, but I could do that with Prospector without for free, and Cal probably kills Drakk if she’s left alive.
I think I’d rather go on the offensive here, zhavier can make far better use of his Mines than I can so I need to try to disrupt him.
Do I tech in the other Mine? What’s my plan for Tech II choice?
Blood: Crashbarrows are awkward if zhavier spams Wisps, but maybe the Tiny Basilisk will make him try something else. Maybe I go for Bugblatters instead.
Balance: our mutual counter / air-force pick. Our other picks have no non-ephemeral fliers or non-Drakk, non-ephemeral haste, so I’m not sure how good Mimics are here. Basilisks + Mimics would weaken Kidnapping, however. Would be interesting to test out the free Chameleons, too., and a feather Tiny Basilisk can be nice for shenanigans. I recall zhavier picking Balance against this deck before in normal games, too, so I need to keep that in mind: since I rely on Drakk’s haste heavily, he went for Mimics, and Basilisk limited my options to deal with them. Maybe having Tiny Basilisks helps with that, though, outside of Ferocity. Potent Basilisk could destroy Rich Earth, so likely to not see it come back for Wisp production.
Strength: I’d forgotten that Grapplers can throw air units, so I do have some anti-air outside of Balance. Potent Basilisks would block that, though. DeGrey is nice if zhavier commits to Wisps for Gigadon / hero auras. Barbarbarian is good if he doesn’t.
I think I have to go for Balance here, an air attack from zhavier is too much of a threat. Starting with Potent Basilisk and Wandering Mimic, after that I’ll see whether Dragons or Chameleons would be more useful.
Rickety Mine
Tiny Basilisk
Verdant Tree
Wandering Mimic
Thoughts
Mine, Tech up, Basilisk, Midori/Rook. Probably Rook, to make it harder for zhavier to destroy my Mine. If I use Rook, then Drakk can’t kill it after a Tech I unit kills the Basilisk, so I doubt he can pull it off: he’d need an Ironbark Treant, basically.
Not sure what else I want. Probably the other Mimic. Then maybe a Faerie Dragon? Even if zhavier’s units are untargetable, I could put a feather on my Tiny Basilisk.
WORKERS
Young Treant
Spore Shambler
Tiger Cub
Forest’s Favor
NextHand
Verdant Tree
Ironbark Treant
Discard
Rampant Growth
Wandering Mimic
Potent Basilisk
Playful Panda
Merfolk Prospector
Murkwood Allies
Circle of Life
Behind the Ferns
Tech 2 card(s)
Get Paid - ($8)
Worker
Tap Mine, Blows up - ($11)
Panda walks past Tiny B and hits Rook to 1
Drakk dies killing tiny B, your base to 18
Calamandra - ($9)
Merfolk trades with Rook, Cal to lvl 3
Murkwood Allies for frogs - ($4)
Tech 2 Balance - ($0)
OK, I have one more turn before zhavier can reshuffle into Tech II units. I obviously want to play the Basilisk, but I’m not sure what else to do here. Do I expect to manage at Tech II, or do I go for T-Rex? I wait another turn to see.
zhavier’s still playing Wisps after I went Balance. I’m guessing that’s either a Drakk play or a Behind the Ferns play. Combined with Drakk, 8 stealthy damage next turn is nothing to take lightly, but I’m not sure there’s much I can actually do about it. A Tower knocks it down to 6, but that’s still enough to destroy my Tech II. I’m drawing two non-II cards before reshuffle, so if I tech in Tech I cards / spells now then it might not affect me too much this coming turn.
Maybe I play two heroes now, while I can? That takes all of my non-Tower gold, but the Frogs can only kill one without further help from Drakk spells. Or zhavier just runs them into the Basilisk to let Cal kill someone, works out the same. Removing Rich Earth stops maxband Drakk bringing in a hasted unit to kill the other hero, I think.
Teching Circle of Life and Tiny Basilisk. I’m guessing zhavier will kill Drakk over Midori, so I might be able to sneak a Circle in. If not, Tiny Basilisks + Tech 0 units should hopefully slow him down, and I might be able to feather the former. Midori in scavenger so I can fuel Drakk + hasted unit, Drakk in technician so I have more chance for Basilisks / Circle.
Rampant Growth
Young Treant
Circle of Life
Tiger Cub
Technician draw: 1
Wandering Mimic
Thoughts
Yuck, didn’t account for Midori. That technician draw’s unfortunate, I have to choose between playing the Mimic and going to Tech III. There’s a chance that zhavier’s teched Feral Strike and drawn it, too, and he can bring in Drakk. I can play everything in hand and still have 2 gold for the drawn card, so maybe I play Young Treant first and see? Can’t play Tech III and Mimic then, the latter would be nice to block Midori.
Give up on Tech III, tech double Bloodlust to try and swing with Tiny Basilisks quickly. Young Treant, then I have gold left for two Balance II units if I draw a second. Drawing the Dragon would suck (1/5). If I do, I probably skip it, play Tiger Cub + Rook instead, so I’ve got 4 blockers in case of Feral Strike Crashbarrows. If I don’t, I guess we see.
Tech II, then either Young Treant + Tiger Cub or Wandering Mimic. Latter is really vulnerable to Drakk hasted or Feral Strike Crashbarrows, since I’d only have a Wisp on ground patrol to stop Cal. Former lets Midori snipe something, and Feral Strike Crashbarrows still knock me back to Tech I. Drakk haste can’t get through. Depends on how likely I think Feral Strike is, I suppose. If it is, this isn’t worth the risk.
Suppose zhavier teched 2 copies of Feral Strike. That would give him a 19/33 chance of having one in hand. So that and Drakk are both scary here. I’ll go with option 1, starting with the Young Treant draw.
Teched cards: 2
T2: Rickety Mine, Tiny Basilisk
T3: Potent Basilisk, Wandering Mimic
T4: Faerie Dragon, Wandering Mimic
T5: Circle of Life, Tiny Basilisk
T6: 2 x Bloodlust
Get paid + scavenger - (10)
Young Treant, I draw - (8)
Playful Panda
Thoughts
Hmm, not ideal but probably better than playing Rook, I’ve fed zhavier enough levels as it is. I forgot about getting a Wisp from Rich Earth too, but I doubt I could have protected a Tech III anyway. Patrol slot for Mimic is tough, either SQL so Midori can’t kill it without a boost, or Elite so it + Tower trade with Midori even if he’s boosted by Rampant Growth, but then he can kill a ground patroller instead. I’ve got a good chance of drawing another Mimic to block him next turn, so maybe if he boosts I can just block him again, at least if more fliers don’t arrive. SQL it is.
OK, I finally have a big board to play with, at least. I think I want to at least play Faerie Dragon + Tiny Basilisk this turn, which leaves 4 gold for heroes. That’s enough for midband Drakk or midband Midori, if I can get levels from killing zhavier’s Midori. If I do that with Mimic and Panda, I could get Midori’s aura on all the rest of my starting board.
Suppose I do that, I then have a 4/3 Tiger Cub and two 2/2 Wisps. I could trade the Cub for the Mimic, or the Cub and a Wisp for the Basilisk. I can sort-of stall the Mimic by putting Tiny Basilisk in Squad Leader. Do I want the Dragon, then, or do I put down the Mimic instead to keep my ground defence strong? Oh, no, because I need the Dragon to let my Mimic survive killing Midori. Maybe I leave the Basilisk alone too, then: copying untargetable might be useful in case zhavier took Kidnapping, and I can stuff my patrol with the Midori-boosted units. It means the Tiger Cub gets the Lookout resist instead of my Dragon, but if the Dragon dies then the Tiny Basilisk and Mimics stop flying, so it doesn’t help zhavier. Kidnapping could be nasty, although I don’t think zhavier can make it trade unless he attacks with Mimic from the ground.
Picking patrol slots so everything does some damage, in case I’m facing low-health hasted units from Feral Strike or Drakk.
Teched cards: 0
T2: Rickety Mine, Tiny Basilisk
T3: Potent Basilisk, Wandering Mimic
T4: Faerie Dragon, Wandering Mimic
T5: Circle of Life, Tiny Basilisk
T6: 2 x Bloodlust
Get paid - (10)
Tiny Basilisk - (8)
Faerie Dragon, Tiny Basilisk takes to the air, our Mimics follow - (4)
Playful Panda runs into Midori for 1+1A damage
Master Midori - (2)
Wandering Mimic kills your Midori from the air, my Midori hits level 3
Midband Midori - (0)
Discard 1, draw 1, reshuffle, draw 2
Tiny Basilisk 3/1+1A (feather rune: 3/1, flying; deathtouch; can’t be blocked or attacked by Tech 0 units) Young Treant 1+0/2 (can’t attack) Wisp #1 2/2 (Midori: +2/+1) Wisp #2 2/2 (Midori: +2/+1) Tiger Cub 4/3 (resist 0+1; Midori: +2/+1)
Midori L5 3/4 (units with no printed abilities get +2/+1)
Faerie Dragon 4/2 (flying; feather runes apply effect)
Wandering Mimic 4/4 (copying flying and untargetable; copies flying, overpower, haste, sparkshot, untargetable, and stealth)
Base HP: 17 Tech I HP: 5 Tech II HP: 5 (Balance) Tower HP: 4
Hand: 3
Tiny Basilisk
Bloodlust
Circle of Life
Deck: 5
Potent Basilisk
Bloodlust
Rich Earth
Playful Panda
Wandering Mimic
Discard: 0
Card-count check (opponent-viewable)
Expected: 10 + 10 teched = 20
1 trashed
5 on board
3 in hand
5 in deck
0 in discard
6 in workers
Total: 20
Whoof, that’s a big chunk out of my board. But zhavier paid 8 gold to put two cheap, out-of-spec cards in his deck. Trade was 14g+3c to kill 16g+3c, and gain 2 free levels, so it was still a good short-term trade for him. However, I’m about to leave him with no board and a dead Drakk, with no haste to copy, so hopefully these next few turns should go well for me.
Midband Drakk + Tiny Basilisk + Bloodlust to clear zhavier’s board is losing 6g+3c to remove 12g+1c and gain 2g in free levels, so about +8g/-2c for me. I’m OK with that, but it does give zhavier hand size advantage.
Teched cards: 0
T2: Rickety Mine, Tiny Basilisk
T3: Potent Basilisk, Wandering Mimic
T4: Faerie Dragon, Wandering Mimic
T5: Circle of Life, Tiny Basilisk
T6: 2 x Bloodlust
Get paid - (10)
Drakk Ramhorn - (8)
Tiny Basilisk - (6)
Bloodlust on Tiny Basilisk and a Wisp - (4)
Tiny Basilisk trades with Potent Basilisk
Midband Drakk - (1)
Tiger Cub kills your Drakk, you draw, takes 1 damage, my base to 16, my Drakk to level 6 (maxband)
Wisps trade with Wandering Mimic
Discard 1, draw 3
Young Treant 0/2+1A (can’t attack) Drakk L6 3/4 (dies: 1 to your base; units have frenzy 1; first unit played from hand gets haste)
Tiger Cub 2/1 (Drakk: frenzy 1; 1 damage)
Base HP: 16 Tech I HP: 5 Tech II HP: 5 (Balance) Tower HP: 4
Hand: 3
Potent Basilisk
Bloodlust
Wandering Mimic
Deck: 2
Rich Earth
Playful Panda
Discard: 6
Tiny Basilisk
Faerie Dragon
Wandering Mimic
Bloodlust
Tiny Basilisk
Circle of Life
Card-count check (opponent-viewable)
Expected: 10 + 10 teched = 20
1 trashed
2 on board
3 in hand
2 in deck
6 in discard
6 in workers
Total: 20
Can I destroy Tech II this turn? I have 4 + 5 + 5 + 3 damage, more if I play Bloodlust. 8 health on defence, so in theory I can. Cub trades with Wisp, Basilisk kills Midori, Drakk kills Prospector, Mimic destroys Tech II. Alternatively, I only play one unit, and play Bloodlust + a hero. Then Midori/Rook kills Prospector, Mimic kills Midori, Cub with Midori aura destroys Tech II. Would I rather have 3/2 Basilisk + 4/4 Mimic + Drakk L6 3/3 + Midori L3 2/3 where Midori can patrol, or Drakk L6 3/2 + Midori L5 3/3 + 4/1 Mimic + 2/1 (4/2) Cub where Midori can’t patrol? The former, I should think.
Alternative play is to only play Midori/Bloodlust and a unit and build Tech III, but Balance vs. Balance allows for such quick comebacks that I think I break zhavier’s Tech II while I have the chance.
Teched cards: 0
T2: Rickety Mine, Tiny Basilisk
T3: Potent Basilisk, Wandering Mimic
T4: Faerie Dragon, Wandering Mimic
T5: Circle of Life, Tiny Basilisk
T6: 2 x Bloodlust
Get paid + float - (11)
Master Midori - (9)
Potent Basilisk, Drakk gives it haste - (5)
Wandering Mimic - (1)
Tiger Cub trades with Wisp
Potent Basilisk kills your Midori, you draw, takes 3 damage, my Midori hits level 3
Drakk kills Merfolk Prospector, you get a gold, takes 1 damage
Wandering Mimic destroys your Tech II, your base to 14
Discard 1, draw 2, reshuffle, draw 1
Young Treant 0/2+1A (can’t attack) Midori L3 2/3
Drakk L6 3/3 (dies: 1 to your base; units have frenzy 1; first unit played from hand gets haste; 1 damage)
Potent Basilisk 3/2 (haste; Drakk: frenzy 1; deathtouch; untargetable; 3 damage)
Wandering Mimic 4/4 (copying haste and untargetable; Drakk: frenzy 1; copies flying, overpower, haste, sparkshot, untargetable, and stealth)
Base HP: 16 Tech I HP: 5 Tech II HP: 5 (Balance) Tower HP: 4
while patrolling” (rather than -2 ATK/+2 armor).
Base HP: 20
Wisp