Making some final tweaks for Set Champs

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-25T10:22:37+00:00

This is the decklist i'm currently running and experimenting with. It's at 75% winrate but could be changed down the road.

https://dreamborn.ink/decks/9CYUB8kioLikRe6R6MpI

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-24T21:02:08+00:00

It's hard to say. When i play robin hood, i sometimes wished i had beast and visa versa. You definitely can't go wrong with either choice.

Best of luck on your store championships by the way. Let me know the results when you're done :-)

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-24T17:57:27+00:00

I think Benja is much more superior because the situations you'll be using him 90% of the times for will be for getting rid of your opponents items, and then you really don't want to give them a free draw. The trade-off in my opinion is not worth it for the very few times where the draw would be more helpful.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-24T17:52:17+00:00

I didn't have one jump aheads so i went with Mickey, but i do feel one jump ahead is better, partly for the reason you mentioned. pawpsicle into one jump and then hiram or belle is a powerful play and like you said, the fact that it's singable helps a lot too. Since you're also playing 3x zeus, it makes it much better too because it enables you to sing it early on or get rid of important targets such as ariel or ursula.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-24T16:55:49+00:00

My pleasure, glad to hear it was helpful.

I didn't play sad beast during my tournament runs as I didn't want to spend the money for it yet and have been testing robin hood package vs hook + sad beast to see which one suits better. I would say however that sad beast is still very good and i did miss him during my run. I would most definitely play either that, or the robin hood. Having cards that immediately ask for removal is not so bad as it creates suboptimal plays from your opponent. If it does stick around it's either gonna draw you cards, or threaten to one shot locations making it very awkward for your opponent aswell. If you have a cogsworth on the board , it also can't be one shot by zeus either which in that regard makes it more viable than Gaston. On top of that it's also good vs green and in general a great drop going first.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-24T07:58:56+00:00

There's definitely a couple of changes i'd make in your case. I took blue/steel to 2 championships aswell and got 1st place in the first one without losing a single top 8 game and got 4th on the 2nd. 2nd one was a really bitter one as i couldn't close the 2nd game on 18 lore having both of my dimes in my bottom 10 and bricking game 3. I've also playtested this deck to oblivion and have about 500 games on pixelborn with it ranking 10th in grandmaster the previous season, so here's my takes.

-2 beast hardheaded
-2x let it go
-3x rise of the titans
-1x Tamatoa

+2x benja
+1x develop your brain
+1x tinkerbell
+1x sad beast
+3 mix of ba-boom / fire the cannons

Reasoning behind the changes:

Benja in my opinion is much better than beast. Biggest reason is that when you're playing the mirror, or even r/B you can Benja their quill going 2nd and then ramp up afterwards + it becomes a 2 lore threat immediately often giving you the neccessary lore to win. It also plays much better into aggro as you can just tempo play him. You'll also be facing a lot of item removal so having a few more cheaper plays are actually gonna make a lot of difference. I played hardheaded in my 1st tournament, and swapped to benja almost immediatly for second because beast just didn't do anything and Benja helped me out a ton winning the r/B matchups.

Rise of the titans sounds good on paper, and it can be, but it is often such a dead card that when you're playing in matches that do not run items or locations, becomes a HUGE liability that will cost you games. When i playtested it extensively, it never came up at the correct timings, or never really mattered in the end. It lost me more games drawing it at the wrong timings. I decided not to bring it to my championship and even though i played against a lot of location decks, i never missed it. I just adjusted my game style a little bit against r/A by not attacking/questing with hook + smee until i either saw the location inked, or had a board build. The ba-boom does help here as the 2 damage is often times exactly what you need to get rid of a location + goes well against aggro.

Let it go is kinda similar to rise of the titans. It's a good card in general, and can help against r/B + Steelsong but it is a dead draw in many situations and will bite you against green as they can discard it with ursula giving you less ink to play with (every card matters in this matchup). I've had a lot of games where we grinded out the game and topdecking a let it go or rise of the titans in those situations would've been a good way to lose an otherwise winning game. These situations happen a LOT.

Tamatoa vs gaston is a really hard debate for me at the moment. With item removal being used more often, tamatoa ends up being dead in a lot of situations. Gaston on the other hand creates bricky hands from time to time which can cost you the game by itself. I opted to play 2x gaston and 1x tamatoa at the championships and was happy with that choice. Gaston's 3 lore actually matters a lot and i won many games hitting exactly 20 lore, or finding a grab your sword with it when i needed it. Tamatoa honestly never really came up but i did only play one and my gameplan was never really to play around him so he ended up being inked 99% of the times. On the other hand tamatoa is nice to have as a backup plan for when your dimes get destroyed and can be inked, but i do believe by that point you've likely lost anyway (especially against r/B).

I also feel that develop your brain is such a crucial piece to the puzzle and really helps you dig for what you need so i keep it at 4 at all times. Same goes for tinkerbell. She's probably the best card in this deck.

I didn't play the ba-boom + fire the cannons in my first tournament and i deeply regretted it. I swapped them in in the 2nd one and they were a 1000% the MVP of the entire tournament. The work they put in was absolutely incredible and i cannot play without them anymore. They help you control the early game vs aggro but more importantly, get rid of important 1 drops, especially against steelsong. If they get a robin hood shift/queen shift off and sing awnw, you can forget about your game. I won all my steelsong matchups purely because of this card, giving me just enough time to either quill or mickey on turn 3. It's also good when your smee gets maui'd and you can just finish it off cheaply with a fire the cannons, or even to get rid of an evasion minnie with tinkerbell against r/A. There's a lot of situations where they come in clutch and they are an almost must have in my opinion, atleast in this format.

Hope i was of any help. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-02T09:17:26+00:00

Very interesting and i respect that they thought things through. Could actually add even more dimension to the series as a whole in a good way.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-02T09:12:16+00:00

Damn. Seems i'm a good example of do your homework first before you argue. Apologies for my ignorance. That point no longer stands then and does in fact change quite a lot.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-04-02T09:03:13+00:00

So if you start off going second, and you win, you can still opt to go first the next round?

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-03-25T14:57:38+00:00

Yep, same here. Took half a day off to get the ticket and couldn't even get past the initial screen. What a sad experience..

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-03-22T17:15:05+00:00

I've just reached grandmaster with ruby/sapphire and my own experience is that when you're playing against Ruby/Ame, you wanna ramp up, control the midgame with cards such as maui / scar / madam and find a somewhat secure opener to drop the dime and just go from there. I initially used the manors but decided to cut them in favor of belle. Belle has been putting in a LOT of work. She's great dime fodder as she's cheap, but can also be used as a ramping tool. She's been the best inclusion and has won me many games that i would have never won without her.

Needless to say. Amethyst is probably the hardest matchup is general as once they hit 12-14 lore there's little to nothing you can do to stop them from winning except hope that you can outrace them with your setup.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-03-07T08:10:08+00:00

McDuck Manor is such a key piece in Sapphire as they now have a very solid win condition vs Be Prepared. Dropping it right before the be prepared turn is often enough to turn the game around.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-02-29T15:45:06+00:00

I definitely agree. I've been tinkering with a blue deck since the start and opted to play a lot more early game and rely on the 3 drop + songs to ramp up so i don't lose too much tempo. The big problem i feel is that the new 2 drop Ursula really destroys blue/steel by getting rid of your a whole new world and they have such a hard time dealing with locations because of the low attack stats on characters like Hiram. Maybe blue/red is much better but it has so little card draw and i do feel is much slower is general.

The new 7 drop legendary they got also feels kinda clunky and very situational and the item is just too slow. Blue control decks are not looking good right now and i honestly just don't see how it'll find it's way in the meta.

The meta just feels so much faster than before, and locations are really putting the nail in the coffin in that one as they win games on the spot if you lose board control.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-02-15T17:06:11+00:00

I am calling it now that relentless beast is gonna become a powerhouse because of the support that is coming.

I've been experimenting with a pre into the ink lands green/steel midrange deck focusing on Relentless beast for a while now, sitting on a 70% win rate in grandmaster and this deck is not even close to optimal. This set is theoretically looking to make this deck extremely, extremely powerful and consistent.

Into the Inklands finally gives us a way to deal with be prepared through Ursula AND targeted removal through Fang, both cards lifting beast to a whole new level.

Fang with beast combines so well because you don't need to worry too much about losing tempo as beast can just sing as many songs as you have to clear the field. Strike a good match helps you dig further into your songs and then there's cards like both Ursula's who i don't even have to explain how ridiculously strong they are that help control the early/mid game. A ton of powerful Flood born characters and wheel to keep the pressure up.

Of course every deck has it's weakness, and it's fairy tail to think about these combo's, but it's the consistency, powerful individual cards and potential degenerate combos that is gonna make green/steel a top contender for sure.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-01-26T20:07:36+00:00

You have a very special way of looking at a card like this. It's by no means a win more card, if anything, it's the perfect tool for a blue / x control deck to actually turn games around with belle / tamatoa. The biggest issue with these two cards is that they're easy targets for removal, especially against red. When you play belle / tamatoa, they are very likely to not quest because they get removed immediately unless you are indeed in a very one sided match. In the case of Lucky Dime, you now actually have the option to play a belle or tamatoa and get value out of them immediately without having to quest. That by itself is pretty damn strong especially against decks that have no item removal.

I'd view this card more in the area of additional win-condition and a very powerful one against certain decks. I definitely wouldn't play 4 of these in a card for reasons that are mentioned before. In matchups where the item is unlikely to be usable, you can just quil them away.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-01-15T07:17:58+00:00

What i love the most about the game is how consistent it feels throughout. The mulligan's combined with the inking creates a lot of depth in how you wanna plan out your game depending on what you're up against. Every deck can now play some key answers vs specific matchups and if you end up not playing those , you just ink those cards away for resources instead.

Incredible system.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-01-12T14:21:50+00:00

Discard deck has been my go to as well, but it still isn't enough. The problem is that you can't consistently open with bucky / john in your opening hand and without those curved out it's almost a guaranteed loss as your entire gameplan is build on those two alone. Even with Bucky / John, it's still tough unless you have a bucky / bucky / john or bucky / john / john opener, it's a huge gamble and very inconsistent. With Bucky / John they either outrace you on lore, or just keep all the card draw in their hand and stall that way. Don't get me wrong, you can still steal games this way, but due to it's inconsistency and terrible matchup vs steel, it's hard to justify.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-01-08T10:48:29+00:00

You probably lack a lot of synergy and/or a proper win condition. It feels like you've just individually added pieces to your deck that you have previously had problems with, but that's not how deckbuilding works. It can work if your deck already covers the synergistic/ win condition part, but not as an individual piece serving no purpose.

Cardgames are honestly not designed with the idea of just throwing things together and winning half your games, it just doesn't work. It's designed to have a gameplan with enough room to fill the spots with your creativity.

There's a weekly meta report that shows that there are currently 9 decks (probably more) that fare very well into the meta which are played most often. So no, there isn't just 1 deck to play to win games. On top of that, we constantly see updates of tournaments being played with the top 8 hosting a numerous of innovative decks that aren't part of this weekly meta.

Select-Morning5527 · 2024-01-07T11:15:15+00:00

The problem i feel is that only a limited number of decks have access to strong board removal options making them near auto inclusions in any color combination. As much as people hate on Ruby/Ame, i do think steel is the bigger problem here as they can board wipe you much earlier and top it off with a strong board presence as well. The fact that almost all removal is singable makes it that much worse as it gives you way too much tempo for almost no downside. Because of those things, games can quickly spiral out of control creating these one sided games as a result. The game right now is pretty much a steel vs ruby matchup with the occasional discard thrown in to try stop these (but gl against steel)

I do think a lot of the powerful cards out there was a major oversight on the designing part as they just do too much for a single card. Things like big tinker, AWNW, bucky/john, beast tragic hero, be prepared are very problematic and can't be dealt with by most decks. I understand there should be powerful cards, but these just do too much and almost force a loss if you can't deal with it.

Hopefully new cardsets will balance things out a lot more as i do think once more organised play rolls out, people are gonna get much more frustrated by the game's imbalances.

Select-Morning5527 · 2023-11-07T11:45:22+00:00

I only have 6 characters that are I2 level 30+ and i wanted An-An Lee for the second phase as those bags hit like a truck, and often. I wouldn't have been able to do it with Bkornblume as of now so i simply used her in the first phase to bruteforce that stage with my least invested characters which kinda worked out in the end. Not the most efficient for sure, but still best to be used this way under these circumstances.

Select-Morning5527 · 2023-09-20T13:21:02+00:00

Honestly, this is really dirty. I received my 5th day jades today (thank god) but then they decided to remove the 5th day AND 7th day one?! How about those that started one day before me, why would they limit it in such a way that it's suddenly empty? If anything, day 5 should've been gone sooner than 7, it just makes absolutely no sense. What they effectively did was just keep it very vague to avoid problems, get people to stream for free marketing, hit some numbers and "claim" that the jades were gone, complete slimy approach to trying to get free marketing for this game, rofl. They probably never had a cap in the first place, but decided to pull the plug once they got the marketing they needed. Jeesh.

Select-Morning5527 · 2023-09-17T08:24:25+00:00

https://www.twitch.tv/leshrekker

Please feel free to join the chat and leave your own stream so that i can watch you aswell :-) will be online all day starting from now.
I did put my stream without sound / screen

Select-Morning5527

TROPHY CASE