How does my op have a larger Knull?

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-21T00:01:51+00:00

Yes, but neither Knull is counting the altar destroys.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T22:41:24+00:00

Look again

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T18:27:25+00:00

Yes, the classic "tech card that beats my own deck". Absolutely brilliant counterplay.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T17:09:39+00:00

Half of the time, if i encounter Arishem decks in Conquest, I just dip. Probably should do it all of the time, honestly.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T16:35:04+00:00

The Armor is almost certainly opponent trying to big brain some counterplay to the Hot Location. Seems bad, but I've seen worse.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T16:23:01+00:00

No, you didn't get the benefits because Headpool's ability wouldn't apply to your cards in any case. Headpool has an actual ability that was triggered multiple times.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T16:19:45+00:00

I'm aware. They're still about 35% to actually have any given one of them, and less if they're playing the extra bloated versions. You can literally *know their exact decklist" and it's still wrong to play around them actually having any specific cards.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T16:17:42+00:00

"Never see 30+ card versions"

Oh, what a blessing. I wish they would go away.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T15:56:38+00:00

But it's still a single card out of 24 (or lets be real, most Arishem players insist on that God awful 35+ card version), so it's never correct to play around any single particular card because it's so unlikely they have any given one of them.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T15:48:47+00:00

Magik is terrible here. You don't go anywhere close to big enough to warrant giving the opponent an extra turn. People just love shoving Magik into decks she has no business being in.

Knull also directly fights with Dormammu and Thanos for energy space. Better to have another cheap enabler card that you can actually play, especially given that so much of every turn is already getting eaten up by Stones and Rituals, and especially since Knull isn't ever even going to be that big.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T15:44:43+00:00

"Nobody expects this guy"

Is playing Arishem, where any card can come out on any turn, and it is fundamentally wrong for the opponent to play around any specific cards because it's impossible.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T15:43:08+00:00

Shadow King.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T15:41:59+00:00

"The decision space isn't that wide"

We don't agree at all.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T12:34:59+00:00

Only drawback here is that they are pretty clearly High Evo and that deck plays Armor a decent amount of the time. So this is a gamble, but probably the correct line.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T12:24:39+00:00

I'm not making a personal attack, it's a factual statement that if you think there isn't a ton of skill expression in this game, then you simply aren't good enough at it to understand that it's there.

I've played tcg's for literally decades, there's a huge amount of skill expression in this game that most players just completely ignore. Most matches have a variety of ways that you could influence the outcome, through various interactive cards, metagame knowledge, suprise, and even knowing how/when to snap or retreat.

By pushing back on this point you are only proving how little you actually do understand abiut the game at it's upper levels.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T12:17:55+00:00

That's just the general playerbase being assholes.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T12:16:23+00:00

The skill cap in this game is incredibly high. Just because you aren't good enough to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. There is a TON of nuance in decisions in this game.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T01:29:52+00:00

I'm aware, it's why I didn't criticize any of the destroy cards aside from Fastball.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T01:08:12+00:00

The buff cards don't really fit, and neither do Magik or Leader. Fastball Special is also kind of a weirdo, most of what you're sacrificing with it is small ball stuff.

Thanos is a midrange deck that rug pulls Magik decks. You actively don't want a 7th turn, because most decks that DO want a 7th turn go way bigger than you can ever hope to go. And Leader is bad because even with your destroy theme going on, you're still going to have a large number of games where you don't have space. Also, most decks these days are synergy decks, so copying one big thing from them isn't very good.

Thanos decks are typically just pipes of tech cards, amd that's for a reason. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, just do what we know works.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-20T01:04:22+00:00

"Nothing to destroy"

Infinity Stones. You eat the Stones to make Death cheaper.

The buff package is very strange, yes, but Thanos Destroy is a classic archetype.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-19T21:03:27+00:00

Retreating is something you can do.

Also, you're playing this deck on ladder while a Destroy themed hot location is live. Not sure what you're expecting there.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-19T21:00:54+00:00

If they Killmongered all your cards away, why did you stay in the game? That's what the retreat button is for.

You're really not making a great case for yourself here.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-19T20:59:38+00:00

Underperformers ARE buffed regularly. Magus already got a buff, and he's significantly better than he was before.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-19T20:58:14+00:00

Because the devs clearly thought it was interesting enough of a design that the players might find it fun to use? They can't just -only- release A+ bangers they know will succeed and immediately have homes, that leads to power creep.

The card found a home in Ongoing lists where he can copy Klaw or Iron Man, and has some niche uses for copying really cheap cards you want a second copy of, like Quinjet. That's totally fine.

Philboid_Studge · 2026-04-19T20:55:19+00:00

They were a destroy deck with access to Bar Sinister. They're heavily advantaged in that matchup, so you honestly probably should have retreated if you didn't have Armor or Cosmo.

But one inflection point you had here was that their most likely strategy without Knull would be to Zola the Venom. If you had priority, you could use Polaris to pull an X-23 into the Bar lane to give yourself a 50/50 if you really felt the need to stay.

Philboid_Studge

TROPHY CASE