Skirmish S4 - Dark Sphere

Okay folks! This was the last Skirmish of the season for me.

The only adjustment I did to my Oldhim deck from previous Skirmish was swapping out one copy of Pulverize for a red Macho Grande. I felt like there were times when my opponent would purposefully stop me from fetching Pulverize by maintaining a lower health difference, so having another card that I could fetch more easily could help in these situations.

Lets see how I did!

Round 1

My first round at DS was against the same opponent I played in the last round of my previous Skirmish, Shahmir Samee and Iyslander! I already did a fairly extensive breakdown of the matchup in the last Skirmish article, so I won't repeat it here. I did manage to get some practise against Shahmir's list between the two Skirmishes. However, I was not able to get in enough practise, or have enough time to re-adjust my deck to substantially increase my ability to win. I did manage to play a bit better, putting up more pressure in the early game. But, the final win went to Shahmir with your good ol' Fork Lightning turn.

I did have a line of play here which I could have tried to save Oldhim's life, but realised it too late. This line was to play Awakening, shuffle my deck to get a chance of having my one blue Steadfast on top, then used Crown of Seeds to draw into the Steadfast and used that to prevent damage.

It was no guarantee, of course, but it would have been a better line of play and I should have given it a go. Lessons for next time. Well played Shahmir!

Round 2

Round 2 was againts yet another famliar face and hero! Philippa Searle and Benji!

I have previously played against Philippa's Benji at the Canterbury Skirmish. I did a post on that Skirmish as well, so will not repeat it here. Again, this was a matchup I have had much practise with, and was quite confident. I was also fairly lucky to have been able to draw into my red attacks and Pummel this time around as well. Presenting disruptive and aggressive plays, I took the win.

Round 3

Ronud 3 was the most heart-racing game of the day for me. I was facing off against Arian Sultani and Prism. This was a particularly scary game for me because Arian defeated my Oldhim CC deck with a Prism CC deck in a ProQuest event of the last season. I also got defeated by Prisms multiple times in Blitz Armoury and Skirmish up until then.

I only hope that I have learnt enough from my defeats to eke out a victory this time around.

Turn 1, I was able to put down a Channel Lake Frigid. Whilst I thought it was a good turn, you will see how it actually helped Arian on his turn.

Prism came in with a Miraging Metamorph, followed by a Fractal Replication to double down on that damage.

A devastating combo if you ask me. And, because of Frigid, Arian pitched a yellow to give Miraging the go-again it needed to play Fractal. Oof!

Luckily, if Guardians were good at anything, its defending. I was able to block out this turn fairly well with Staunch Response and armour. I did in fact have a Pummel in hand, and saved it in my Arsenal for later.

With Channel still up, Prism wasn't able to do much on their subsequent turn, playing out a Shimmers of Silvers.

This was when I came back with a reckoning. My next three of turns were the disruptive packages. CnC and Pummel, Frost Fang and Pummel. Not expecting such plays, Prism did let a bit too much damage through, going from full health to 8 in just a couple turns. But, this was Arian I'm playing against. Arian immediately bounced back with another Miraging and Fractal combo, laying down some more auras to bump up the damage as well in the form of Pierce Reality. These plays left me with no choice but to block, else risking bringing my health down too low and becoming vulnerable to Prism going wide with aura attacks.

I too had some comebacks. I waited for turns where there were no big attacks to play my Tome of Harvest / Earthlore Bounty combo, regaining tempo as I drew into my red Guardian attacks, even managing to Arsenal one of them for my next turn when Seismic Surge pops.

It was very back and forth for the next couple rounds, really showing the full ability of both decks!

My saving grace came in the form of drawing into a fused Oaken Old, which helped me close out the game. It was a brilliant match. Besides my disruptive turns in the early game, I felt like I didn't have much control over the rest of the match, which made it quite exciting as I tried to figure out ways to win. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and quite proud to claim my first Prism victory!

Round 4

Moving up the bracket, I am to face another match I have played before, Saul McCarthy on Oldhim!

Again, I have played against Saul's deck before at Rule Zero's Skirmish, so will not repeat the breakdown of the matchup.

I did not draw well on my early turns here, mostly drawing into blue Ice and Earth cards in my first few turns. On top of that, I was going second. Saul's Oldhim was therefore able to set up big turns and played quite effectively in the early game. I had no choice but to just try and defend.

I did manage to come back with an Endless Winter myself, bringing Saul's Oldhim down to 11 health. But, that was not an attack that gave me tempo at all against Oldhim. Saul's Oldhim then came at me with a red Crush Confidence whilst I was on 8 health. I did have Awakening in hand, which made me wonder if I should just take the risk to try and gain tempo back, even though being on 1 health is really really bad. I decided that if I don't try and take tempo now, I probably won't be able to later, so I took the risk.

Even though I managed to pull a Pulverize, it was not enough. All Saul had to do was block out for a few turns and slowly set up a dominated attack to take the match. It was short-sighted of me to take the risk, but perhaps it was already lost at that point. Saul was definitely the more practised player and deserved the win.

Round 5

My final round of the day was against Mohammad Rafiq on Lexi. Mo and I go way back to our earliest days of Flesh and Blood, both of us rocking the same heroes as well. It was a clash destined to happen.

My early turns started out strong, with a fused Endless Winter followed by disruptive attacks with Pummel riding on their backs. Mo and I haven't played against each other in a while so Mo was not yet familiar with some of my lines of attack. However, Mo is a quick-witted player, immediately watching out for the Pummels in later turns to block out efficiently.

Lexi then came back with some high damage turn of her own. Since the attacks didn't disrupt my own turn, I thought it might be fine to just take the damage. However, my luck drew short when I once again started drawing all blue hands, therefore unable to keep up the pressure.

From that point, I was just trying to block out until I can set up my turns again. But, Mo's Lexi has the ability to output quite a lot of damage. My losing turn was when Lexi had two Rain Razors in hand to pump their attack. Since my Oldhim was quite short on the defense react side, and having taken quite a lot of damage, Lexi only had to play 1 Rain Razors to take the match after I declared blocks. Well played Mo! A legendary battle indeed.

Results and Lessons

There were definitely some lessons here. Having drew into full blue hands a couple times, I think I need to learn how to handle that particular situation better. I think this does come down to more practise, which I intend to do.

I came in at 14th out of 24 players, so I did fairly well considering how good the other players were!

The top 8 heroes were

• 2 Oldhims (woo)
• 1 Kano
• 1 Iyslander
• 2 Viserai
• 1 Dorinthea
• 1 Bravo

It was also a Wizards finals this time! With London's own Shahmir Samee and Luke Poulter duking it out. Shahmir did take the cake and won the Skirmish, congratulations Shahmir!

P.S. DS did raffle a playmat. The store has fully embraced the Duck Race as the mechanism to do raffles, so good news really.

Whilst my duck was nowhere to be seen for 90% of the race, it clearly decided in the last 10% of the race that its gotta take home that Iyslander playmat. I don't know what it did to itself. But, when my duck swam up in front of the other ducks and won the race, it was the only duck to be pink and spotted. Well, it did win me that playmat, thank duck.

End of the Skirmish, End of the Season

And that was it! The end of the Skirmish season for me.

I got to bond more with my local London players as we travelled to corners of South and South-East England, played at the same tournaments, cheering each other on and learning from our battles.

I got to build an Oldhim deck I really like. And, I can still see room for improvements in terms of learning how to play better.

All in all, it was a very fulfilling month!

Until the next Skirmish season folks! Maybe I'll be playing a new hero then 😂.