Lessons from Skirmish

Last week's Skirmish at R0 was a blast! It was 5 round Swiss, with a top 8 cut. Time limit for each round was a strict 30 minutes. So, playing Oldhim, it meant I better have played fast, as one of the win condition I could go for is milling out my opponent in time!

I played against heroes I have never played against before. I learnt an incredible amount about the different heroes. It was honestly such a pleasure to have been able to attend. Here's what I learnt (not in any particular order)!

Oldhim wants Crown of Seeds

I usually run Helm of Isen's Peak, but I heard that Crown of Seeds is quite powerful for Oldhim. I was fortunate enough that another player I knew had an unused Crown of Seeds, and I cheekily asked to borrow it for the Skirmish. Being the generous person that they are, they lent it to me.

What I originally envisioned with Crown of Seeds for Oldhim was that it allowed me to cycle through my deck quicker. This meant that I could pull out important cards like Pulse of Isenloft much quicker after pitching it. Whilst this is true, I later learnt that I wasn't using the Crown's full potential.

I lost my first game against Sebastien Lebaillif's Ira deck quite quickly due to inefficient defending. As we had a bit of time, I asked my opponent, Sebastien (who made top 8, woo!), to teach me how to use Crown of Seeds and how to play against Ira in general (more on this later). One thing I was failing to do was consistently readying something in Arsenal to use Crown of Seeds. I believe this is me not being used to Crown's effect and familiarity with the instant windows. I thought that preventing 1 damage isn't worth Arsenal-ing a card that blocks for 3. However, what I failed to realise is that I could have activated the ability during the instant window before I declared defending cards. Activating Crown during this window would still prevent 1 incoming damage in addition to letting me draw a card, which likely blocks for 3 anyway in my deck.

As we had some time to spare, I then did some quick practise with Sebastien and saw how potent Crown actually was in an Oldhim deck, raising the defence in addition to deck cycling. I have been hunting for a Crown of Seeds ever since.

Gotta go fast as Oldhim

I drew my second game against Liam Parkins' Ira deck, due to reaching time limit. In fact, if I recall correctly, Liam was about 2 cards away from being milled out! So I was close. I believe what would have helped me take the win here was just more practise with Oldhim, so that I can make decisions even faster on my turn and sped up my plays.

I also drew my fourth game against Michael Glover's Shiyana deck (another hero I have never played against before!). Same thing, I need to practise more to make decisions even faster, but I was definitely on my way to milling them out.

Shiyana is a very interesting hero though, being able to use the specialization of any hero and also shapeshifting into the opposing hero during the action phase. However, there were no Earth or Ice cards in Michael's deck to utilise Oldhim's defence reaction ability. So, there was no benefit to Shiyana shapeshifting into Oldhim.

Playing against Ira

I played 3 games against Ira in the Skirmish. The thing I was doing wrong when playing against Ira was blocking the first Kodachi attack. This made it easier for Ira to trigger Mask of Momentum, as I would run out of defending cards come the third attack in the chain link.

As Shahmir Samee quite right pointed out, the best thing to do sometimes is just to take 1 from that first Kodachi attack. I applied this lesson immediately in my second and final game, also against Ira decks by Liam Parkins and Jakob Tanner. I was doing a lot better in these games. I drew one for time and the other one was also very close as I also nearly milled out Jakob. But, got super unlucky not having a card that defended for enough damage. Definitely interested in practising more games against Ira!

Lessons well learnt!

I did a bit better than I expected at the Skirmish. But, even more importantly, I have learnt an enormous amount about how to play Oldhim and how to play him against some of the other heroes. I really look forward to putting these lessons to good use in my games!

Big thanks to Luke from R0 and Finbarr for organising the event. It was a success in my opinion and another great event at R0.