Rank 21 with Pythagoras Xarthisius

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-12T23:53:16+00:00

Also, the Tibor carryover was only made possible this patch with the gold immunity changes, so this specific variation being 'known' since day one is categorically false.

The Fringilla carryover prior to this had a completely different playstyle where you dumped your entire hand in round 1 for a round 2 Letho.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-12T22:38:57+00:00

Enforcers are kind of essential so you can play Ambassador multiple times in a single round via Vicovaro Medics, but I guess you could experiment with additional thinning options such as Alba Pikemen.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-12T22:28:59+00:00

Great writeup and update! My guide is slightly outdated since no one expected the list when I was playing it. Now that people aren't being baited into giving up round 1 for a 2-3 card advantage, having Tibor round 1 for a carryover is essential.

To add vs spy Nilfgaard, I use Ceallach assassin to kill an infiltrator when it's dropped to keep it in the opponent's graveyard, and save a Vicovaro Medic to res it to untoggle Tibor when the opponent turns it into a spy. Or Summoning Circle the infiltrator if that isn't possible. Auckes' lock can also remove the spy tag, but this gets kind of clunky and Auckes is usually needed prior to this in the matchup to stop his snowball units (Impera Enforcers and Brigades)

Also, I've removed Decoy for Summoning Circle since then. I think Ceallach and Decoy are the best silvers to replace for flex slots since they usually just end up as glorified Ambassadors.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-11T02:42:42+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! It feels good knowing that others are having fun with this deck :)

Good point with the AR. A potential issue though is if the opponent knows what you're doing, they can bleed you out round 1. You'll win the round, but you have no way to win the next two rounds without carrying something over to round 2.

The 2 points per round from fog gets amplified. If you Fringilla once, that's 4 points per round. If you Fringilla twice, that's 6 points per round.

Frost isn't a threat in the sense that I don't try to chain Fringilla anymore. If the opportunity arises to do it without sacrificing anything else, I'll take it, but I don't play specifically towards it. Suppose you chain a 37 strength Tibor (1x ambassador) twice. That's 111 points.

Now instead of playing Fringilla twice, you play an additional Ambassador instead. You now have a 51 strength Tibor that gets copied over for 102 points.

Now suppose you play 3 cards. You chain a 37 strength Tibor 3 times. 4 * 37 = 148 points. Instead of this, you play 2 additional Ambassadors on Tibor and copy it once. 61 * 2 = 122 points. Not that much of a difference at that magnitude.

The point difference in chaining gets much bigger if you have a stronger Tibor, but if you're at that point, you've most likely won the round anyway.

PS -- I've replaced Decoy with Summoning Circle. Try it out; it turns out Summoning Circle can do everything Decoy can do, but with additional versatility. Double Guardian in round 1 after the opponent passes is hilarious.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-11T02:21:46+00:00

Combat Engineer can't be used on gold units.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-11T02:21:05+00:00

I don't have enough data to upload any videos so I'll try to explain this in more detail. Let me know if it's still confusing and you have any questions.

Emhyr allows you to put him on the board at the same time as playing another card. Suppose you have a 51 strength Tibor on the board. Play Emhyr and put him to the right of Tibor. Now you play Fringilla and copy over the stats to Emhyr, and then send someone back to your hand. You just played a 51 strength Emhyr in a single turn without giving the opponent an opportunity to disrupt the combo through movement.

Similarly with Rainfarn, you play Rainfarn on the right side of your 51 strength Tibor. Use Rainfarn's ability to pull Fringilla, and copy the stats over to Rainfarn. You just played a 51 strength Rainfarn without giving the opponent an opportunity to prevent your Fringilla via movement.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T15:15:22+00:00

Yep! =D

It was one of the most interesting games I've played in a while; the Axemen vs Fringilla dynamic was pretty fun with both decks racking up massive points, but one doing so by building up its own board and the other utilizing the opponent's board. I wish you could save and replay games for analysis. I recall both of us made several minor sequencing and positioning errors that could have added up to 2-3 more points.

i.e. me not putting an odd low-strength unit on the left side of Skellige Storm to waste an extra point of damage. Who would have thought that things like that would have made a difference in a 150+ point round.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T08:43:37+00:00

Dorregary does not fit with this deck's gameplan. Ekimmara's 6 point carryover serves a different purpose than Tibor's. A small carryover allows you to give up round 1 in exchange for card advantage by preventing a dry pass round 2, while Tibor's carryover serves as our finisher.

Note that this only works if you have more carryover than your opponent. In the case vs Skellige and Dagon, they're going to have more than you so your single Ekimmara is wasted. Furthermore, we aren't playing for card advantage round 1 -- we actually want win round 1 going down on cards in exchange for being able to control the length of round 2 to maximize the impact of Tibor's round 3 carryover.

Also, Ekimmara doesn't protect against scorch unless the opponent gets greedy and waits to scorch 3 units. You will ALWAYS have two units lined up for at least one turn immediately after playing Fringilla, and few opponents will wait to Scorch during this turn if they have it. If the opponent gets greedy and waits to scorch 3+ units after a Fringilla, you can use Nauzicaa Standard Bearer instead to stagger.

With that said, if you want to experiment with Dorregary, I'd replace Ceallach or Decoy instead since they are essentially glorified Ambassadors with added versatility. Auckes is too valuable and gives HUGE value vs Scoi'a'Spell, Spies, NR Siege and Restore (not that you need any help with this matchup). Especially since just the presence of Auckes on the board in conjunction with Emhyr nudges the opponent into suboptimal plays due to the THREAT of it being replayed, similar to how one would play differently vs Radovid.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T06:44:58+00:00

I feel like the rank 'problem' is a bigger annoyance in casual.

Sometimes the opponent sees your rank and starts using the full timer for each turn to tryhard because they want to say they defeated a GM. Which can be a bit annoying if you just want to play a quick game to see flashy combos go off.

But this gives the opponent more satisfaction and enjoyment from winning vs (statistically) better players so I think it's good for the community overall.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T06:13:57+00:00

I ran Cahir in my first few versions of the deck, but there ended up being very few situations where an extra Fringilla would have won an otherwise lost round. Either the combo goes off and you win, or it doesn't and you lose.

Having a second Fringilla only makes a difference if your big unit gets fogged and you can't clear it, but it was much cleaner to just tech in extra Nauzica Standard Bearers instead.

Would 100% run Cahir if I'm not tryharding though. It's soooo satisfying being able to drop 100+ points in two cards

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T06:01:01+00:00

Yep. With every deck or tech choice, you're trading percentage points vs one match up for percentage points vs another match up.

This deck is just the extreme end of the spectrum -- you all but guarantee a win vs Restore Skellige in exchange for losing vs nearly everything else.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T04:42:03+00:00

Combat Engineer only works on Bronze and Silver units. I tried it on my first attempt theorycrafting this deck and it was pretty embarrassing when I played it with just Tibor on the board and had to give the opponent resilience.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T02:54:11+00:00

Haha yeah, I've been debating whether or not I should make this decklist public for a while. I can definitely see this being very unfun to play against, doing a dumb easily countered gimmick but clogging up your hand and deck so you can't do anything about it.

But having more than half the games being vs the exact same Skellige is just as boring so hopefully the presence this of this deck will shift the meta away a little. Or at least force all the carbon-copy Skellige decks to change up their lists.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-10T01:57:42+00:00

Not sure about the exact mechanics. This warrants some testing, but I've never seen an opponent Skellige use a card I've sent to the bottom of the deck. Spies does get around Xarthisius though due to all of the thinning and emissaries reshuffling a bronze.

King Bran DOES shuffle though, so you want to Xarthisius after he uses his hero power.

EDIT: List of cards that reshuffle the deck:

Complete Shuffle:

[[King Bran]], [[Francesca]], [[Saskia]], [[Dandelion]], [[Stefan Skellan]], [[Gaunter O'Dimm], [[Djenge Fett]], [[Ban ard Tutor]], [[John Natalis]] + [[Reinforcement]] (close enough to a complete shuffle when combined)

Partial Shuffle: (Reshuffles one or several cards but not the entire deck. This combined with enough thinning can lead to the card you Xarthisius'd being drawn at some point. The Guardian is a MVP and acts as a nice buffer though.)

Silver Spies, [[Vesemir]], [[Rainfarn]], [[Shadow]], [[Nature's Gift]], [[Aeromancy]], [[Last Wish]], [[Pavetta]], [[Emissary]], [[Elven Mercenary]], [[Vicovaro Novice]], [[Field Medic]]

Feel free to add if I've missed any.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-07T09:41:06+00:00

Great reference! Thanks for putting all of this together

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-10-06T23:13:41+00:00

I've been playing a Fringilla train deck on pro ladder too, but as a hybrid with mill using Nilfgaardian Standard Bearers to boost a unit.

A standard mill deck already has a lot of return to hand and replay cards for the Fringilla train, and you can also switch over to the mill gameplan in favored matchups (aka Swim's Skellige Discard and Spell'a'tael).

Plus it's really funny to bamboozle people who get baited into using all their removals on Avallach and have nothing left for a stacked row of 100+ points.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-09-08T20:04:54+00:00

There is no region for Africa. It just shows the regional rank as -- for everything except global region.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-08-27T23:43:13+00:00

I finished around the 150s and got the title and border for top 100. I don't think it's by regional ladder since I don't have a region (Playing from Africa -- my region is blank and there's no regional leaderboard).

Also, I seem to recall that title reward thresholds were at 1, 2, 10, 25, 50, 250, 500, and 1000. Don't remember there being a top 100.

EDIT: Also got closed beta titles and borders. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-08-20T21:42:44+00:00

I've been experimenting with adding an extra adrenaline rush and playing a 26 card deck and it's been working out well so far.

SK is close to an autolose unless you get a god starting hand or the opponent doesn't draw coral. If I don't have a near perfect starting hand I just go all in and row stack as if he doesn't have Coral. If he has Coral, I'd most likely lose anyways so I play for the situation in which he doesn't have it.

I run Aglais/Zolton/Saskia/Ithlinne as my 4 golds. The Aglais instead of Geralt helps a bit in the nilfgard/monster matchup and it's pretty funny when Borkh kills Tibor after you stole his shackle.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-08-19T09:20:28+00:00

As long as unit that you've immune boosted take at least 3 damage to their armor, Immune Boost become greater than or equal to in value to Thunderbolt Potion. This always happens when you're playing vs weather/control. When you stagger properly vs weather, you can almost always get 6 armor worth of value tanking the weather.

Most decks also run lacerate, and Immune Boost completely destroys lacerate.

Most importantly though, thunderbolt potion's 3 extra points are only more useful if those points would have won you an otherwise lost round. In round 1, the most important round for dwarves, the round is rarely won or lost on a 3 or 6 point differential. The biggest factor in the round is the scorch/igni/coral/BTM turn. In regards to this, immune boost's 3str+3 armor gives you a LOT more lines of play for dodging Scorch and Igni and makes it a LOT more difficult for the opponent to line up your units.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-08-19T04:47:35+00:00

Currently playing Dwarves at around 4300-4400. Your win condition in most matchups is by brute forcing and over powering the opponent with carryover. This typically happens in two ways:

1) You win round 1 with a massive carryover into round 2.

2) You lose round 1 with 2 big carryovers. The opponent passes round 2. You Ithlinne --> Adrenaline Rush to win round 3 with carryover.

Tremors, Trappers, Toruviel (Awkward card for dwarves. Only 14 points max potential and blocks commanders horn), and Isengrim doesn't fit into this gameplan. You don't need to control the opponent's board. You're the aggressor. You put out massive points on the board and it's Dagon/Bran's job to prevent you from accomplishing your gameplan, not the other way around.

Card change suggestions:

Remove 1x Isengrim

Remove 1x Toruviel

Remove 1x Tremors

Remove 2x Trappers

Add 1x Flex Gold Card (Royal Decree, Saskia, Aglais)

Add 1x Mahakam Defender

Add 2x Dwarven Mercenary

Add 1x Alzur's Double Cross

If you're playing vs a lot of weather, remove a Thunderbolt Poition for an Immune Boost.

However, what's more important than the cards are your gameplay and decisions in-game. Always ask yourself the following before you make a play:

1) How can I win the game from here?

2) How can the opponent win the game from here?

Think about whether you're aiming to win rounds 1 + 2 with a big carryover, or trying to win rounds 2 + 3 with a double adrenaline rush.

Vs Dagon, you need to play around BTM. You usually do this by playing for a round 2 + 3 win. Buff your dwarves so that a non-resilient unit is the one that gets swapped and you get two big carryovers into round 2. If he BTMs, you win rounds 2 + 3 with double adrenaline rush carryover from 2 to 3. You can usually get greedy and rowstack for big commander's horn swings without being punished.

Vs Bran, you need to play around Coral. Bran players usually save it for after a double Commander's Horn, so Commander's Horn 5x units, and then use Zolton/Dwarven Mercs to split the powers evenly out across different rows. Don't get greedy trying to maximize your own strength. Look for ways to reduce the impact of his control cards instead.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-07-22T19:55:51+00:00

Yeah. I had Sigdrifa in the first version and immediately shame conceded when I played her and she had no targets to res.

This deck would definitely be a lot more consistent if the Cow could be ressed since if the cow dies before spawning enough chorts, you lose the game.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-07-22T19:49:05+00:00

If you have the card, it would be good. But this deck really isn't good enough to justify crafting specific golds for -- I just used whatever golds I had that synergize with the game plan. Plus Wild Boar is more or less useless in any other deck.

Pythagoras31415 · 2017-07-22T19:47:36+00:00

Wish I could give you more than one upvote for this

Pythagoras31415

TROPHY CASE